Antonio Pancera (dec 31, 1402 – jun 30, 1408)

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Born at Portogruaro around 1360 to a lower-middle class family, he studied law at the University of Padua, and worked in the papal administration. From 1393 he was bishop of Concordia, and in 1402 Patriarch of Aquileia.[2] The following year he was able to obtain the palatine title of the castle of Zoppola. This caused a crisis with the other Friulian nobles, after which Panciera followed a pro-Venetian policy. The new patriarch’s concern was the nobility’s division into philo-imperial and philo-Venetian parties, as well as pressures of foreign powers and a heavy financial situation that had a great impact on the whole of his ruling activity. He was also involved in the tragedy of the schism that opposed the church of Roman observance to the church of Avignon observance, which brought also the cities of Friuli and the entire patriarchate one against the other. leading the people of Cividale del Friuli to ask his removal to Pope Gregory XII. On 31 June 1408 he was therefore replaced as patriarch by Antonio di Ponte, but, with the support of some cardinals who opposed Gregory, he obtained his reinstatement at the Council of Basel.

In 1411 he was elected cardinal by John XXIII in order to free the Aquileian throne to Louis of Teck, a nobleman whose German allegiances were useful for the antipope. Pancieri remained in Friuli, but in 1412 he was forced to flee. In 1414 he took part in the Council of Constance, being among the accusators of Gregory XII. In 1417 he participated in the election of Pope Martin V, who made him administrator of Satriano and then of Frascati (1420). Later Panciera became abbot of Concordia, but never moved there.

He died in 1431 and was buried in the Vatican grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica.

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