Francesco Gonzaga (1444–1483)  Francesco Gonzaga (15 March 1444, Mantua, Italy – 21 October 1483, Bologna, Italy ) was an Italian bishop and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church during the reigns of Popes Pius II, Paul II and Sixtus IV. Born in Mantua on 15 March 1444, Francesco Gonzaga was the second son of Ludovico III Gonzaga, the second Marquis of Mantua, and his wife Barbara of Brandenburg. His mother was the daughter of John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, and the niece of Emperor Sigismund of the Holy Roman Empire. His first education was in the "Ca' Giocosa" under Iacopo da San Cassiano, Ognibene da Lonigo, and Bartolomeo Platina. After completing his studies at Padua, Francesco went to the University of Pisa. After he graduated, he was appointed by Pope Nicholas V to the offices of prothonotary apostolic in February 1454 and later of the Procurator of the Church for Mantua. Although he had chosen an ecclesiastical career, he led a mostly secular life. In 1477, when he had already been a Cardinal for eleven years, a certain Barbara bore him an illegitimate son, Francesco ( † 1511 ), nicknamed ""il Cardinalino" [ The Little Cardinal ]". At the request of his cousin, Albert III, the Elector of Brandenburg, Francesco was elevated, on 18 December 1461, at the age of seventeen to the rank of Cardinal by Pope Pius II after the Pope had been in Mantua for eight months for the council held in that city. The meeting between the father, Ludovico III, the "Marchese di Mantova", and the son, the new "Cardinale di Mantova", coming to his hometown for the consecration as a cardinal, was immortalized in one of the most famous paintings of the Italian Renaissance – the frescoes of Andrea Mantegna's "Camera degli Sposi" ( Italian, "Chamber of the Bride" ). Francesco was the first of the ten members of the House of Gonzaga to be given the red biretta of the cardinal and he was assigned to , a church near the Via Sacra in Rome. Appointed as the 39th Prince-Bishop of Bressanone ( now Brixen ) on 12 August 1464, the Cardinal of Mantua participated in the conclave that elected in the same year Pope Paul II, whom he personally hosted a splendid banquet on 16 September to commemorate the occasion of taking possession of the Throne of St. Peter by the new Pope.