PAUL II. (Pietro Barbo), pope from Aug. 3o, 1464, to July 26, 1471, was born at Venice in 1417. He was made cardinal-priest of Sta. Cecilia, then of St. Marco by Nicholas V., was a favourite of Calixtus III. and was unanimously and unexpectedly elected the successor of Pius II. He immediately declared that election "capitulations," which cardinals had long been in the habit of affirming as rules of conduct for future popes, could affect a new pope only as counsels, not as binding obligations. He opposed the domineering policy of the Venetian government in Italian affairs. His repeated condemnations of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges resulted in strained relations with Louis XI. of France. He pro nounced excommunication and deposition against King George Podiebrad on Dec. 23, 1466, for refusal to enforce the Basel agree ment against the Utraquists, and prevailed on Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, to declare war against him on March 31, 1468. Matthias was not particularly successful but George Podiebrad died on March 22, 1471. The pope carried on fruitless negotiations (1469) with the emperor Frederick III. for a crusade against the Turks.
Paul endeavoured to make drastic reforms in the curia, and abolished the college of abbreviators (1466). He suppressed the Roman academy, but on religious grounds. On the other hand he was friendly to Christian scholars; he restored many ancient monuments; made a magnificent collection of antiquities and works of art; built the Palazzo di St. Marco, now the Palazzo di Venezia; and probably first introduced printing into Rome. He began in 1469 a revision of the Roman statutes of 1363—a work which was not completed until 149o. Paul established the special tax called the quindennium in 147o, and by bull of the same year (April 19) announced the jubilee for every twenty-five years. He began negotiations with Ivan III. for the union of the Russian Church with the Roman see. He died on July 26, 1471, and was succeeded by Sixtus IV.
The principal contemporary lives of Paul II., including that by Platina, are in L. Muratori, Rerum ital. scriptores, iii. pt. 2, and in Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici (1464-1471). There is an excellent article by C. Benrath in Hauck's Realencyklopddie.