Pope Pius II, after allying himself with Ferdinand, the Aragonese claimant to the throne of Naples, convenes a congress of the representatives of Christian princes at Mantua for joint action against the Turks.

He had on September 26, 1459, called for a new crusade against the Ottomans, and on January 14, 1460, proclaims the official crusade: it is to last for three years.

Alberti has meanwhile been commissioned by Ludovico II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, to redesign the exterior of the church of San Sebastian here.

The plan, which is considered one of the earliest and most significant examples of Renaissance centrally planned churches, is in the shape of a Greek cross, with three identical arms centering apses, under a central cross-vaulted space without any interior partitions.

The Pope, making his return from the disappointing Council of Mantua, has spent a considerable time taking the waters for his gout in his native district of Siena, where he has been joined by his erstwhile host in Mantua, Ludovico Gonzaga.

In the tumultuous atmosphere of the revolt against Ferrante, the Aragonese King of Naples by the local lords who support the claims of the House of Anjou, which breaks out anew in 1460, Francesco Sforza has induced the Pope to support Ferrante in the Neapolitan War of 1460-61.

The strife in the Kingdom of Naples is reflected in Rome, where, in the absence of the Pope, two bands of youthful thugs compete for territory.

The Conservatori are inactive and the disturbances grow so great by the end of March that the Governor is forced to vacate the Lateran Palace and call on Pius for military support.

The perennial anti-Papal party in Rome, at this time headed by the Savelli, the Colonna and the Anguillara, have made overtures to the condottiero Jacopo Piccinino, son of the late Niccolò Piccinino, who is fighting for René d'Anjou.

Violence erupts in Rome over the rescue from the law of an abductor of a young woman, by a gang headed by the brothers Tiburzio and Valeriano di Maso, whose father, brother-in-law to Stefano Porcari, had been executed for his complicity in Porcaro's plot against Nicholas V in 1453.

The brothers, announcing that they are "throwing off the yoke of the priests" according to Stefano Infessura, and restoring the Roman Republic, barricade themselves in the Pantheon, and then, driven from stronghold to stronghold, fortify themselves in Palazzo Capranica.

Jacopo Piccinino is plundering in the Sabine Hills and is threatening Rome, according to an informant who identifies as Piccinino's supporters the Prince of Taranto, Everso di Anguillara, Jacopo Savelli and the Colonna, and that Tiburzio's gang will open the gates of Rome to the condottiero.

Pius finally leaves Siena; he gathers together at Orvieto representatives of the contending houses of Aragon and Anjou preparatory to making peace, collects five hundred horseman at Viterbo and sets out for Rome where he arrives on October 6, to public expressions of joy and relief.

In mid-October, with rumors rife of an assault on the city by Piccinino, Tiburzio makes an attempt to rescue a captured ally, calling fruitlessly on the city to rise up, and is captured with some of his comrades as they attempt to flee to Palombara.

On the scaffold he acknowledges that he had intended, with the aid of the Ghibelline barons and Piccinino, to overthrow the papal government, made bold by the predictions of a fortuneteller.

He is hanged on the Campidoglio on October 31, 1460.

Leon Battista Alberti had begun his design for the Church of Sant' Andrea in Mantua, commissioned by Ludovico III Gonzaga, in 1462, employing his characteristic classical correctness, use of monumental mass, and emphasis on geometric relationships.

The building, however, will be finished only three hundred and twenty-eight years later.

Though later changes and expansions will alter Alberti's design, the church is still considered to be one of Alberti's most complete works.

He dies on April 25, 1472.

Eberhard I of Württemburg, whose motto is attempto ("I dare"), founds the University of Tübingen in 1477; its first rector is the Swabian historian and humanist Johannes Nauclerus.

Eberhard, a civic and ecclesiastic reformer who has become absorbed in the Renaissance revival of learning during his travels to Italy, also orders the expulsion of all Jews living in Württemberg.

He invites the Brethren of the Common Life and the community of devotio moderna to his country and founds collegiate churches in Urach, Dettingen an der Erms, Herrenberg, Einsiedel near Tübingen and Tachenhausen.

He takes interest in reforms of the church and monasteries.

Despite not being able to speak Latin, he holds education in high esteem and has a great number of Latin texts translated into German.

Parts of his large library have been preserved.

Born at Urach, Eberhard is the son of Ludwig I, Count of Württemberg-Urach, and his wife Mechthild of the Palatinate, born as countess palatine by the Rhine.

As Count Eberhard V, he officially took charge of the government of Württemberg-Urach when he was still underage.

Württemberg has been divided since 1442.

At first he had a legal guardian, a respected nobleman who had mentored his father as a youth, Rudolph von Ehingen of Kilchberg.

A fencing manual had been created for Eberhard in 1467 by Hans Talhoffer.

The manuscript is currently held by the Bavarian State Library.

The following year, in 1468, he had traveled to Jerusalem and became a knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

To commemorate this he chose the palm as his symbol.

In Urach on April 12 (or July 4), 1474, he had married a prestigious bride, Barbara, daughter of Ludovico III Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua.

The only daughter out of this marriage, Barbara, was born in Urach on August 2, 1475 and died on October 15 of that year.