Background
George Martinuzzi was born in 1482, in Kamičac, a castle in the vicinity of Šibenik (today Skradin, Croatia), the son of Gregory Utiešenović, a Croatian gentleman. His mother was a Martinuzzi, a Venetian patrician family.
George Martinuzzi was born in 1482, in Kamičac, a castle in the vicinity of Šibenik (today Skradin, Croatia), the son of Gregory Utiešenović, a Croatian gentleman. His mother was a Martinuzzi, a Venetian patrician family.
At the age of eight, George came to the court of Duke John Corvinus, in whose service he remained at the Castle Hunyad 15 years under hard conditions. Then he entered the service of the Zapolya family, he saw something of warfare under John Zapolya but, tiring of a military life, he entered the Paulician Order in his 28th year. A skilled diplomat, he later became the close adviser to King John of Hungary in his struggle against the rival claims of Ferdinand of Austria to the Hungarian throne.
Martinuzzi was in 1534 consecrated bishop of Nagyvárad in Transylvania. In 1538 he concluded with Ferdinand the Treaty of Nagyvárad, which left John with the royal title and most of Hungary and Ferdinand as successor to the Hungarian crown.
On his deathbed, however, John repudiated the treaty. The Turks recognized John Sigismund, the infant son of John, as king, but occupied Buda, the capital of Hungary; Martinuzzi, as guardian and regent, managed to retain Transylvania as an independent principality under Turkish suzerainty. Fighting off the intrigues of Isabella, the mother of John Sigismund, Martinuzzi returned to the original plan of unification of Hungary under the Austrian Habsburg dynasty in order to resist Turkish expansion. He finally concluded the agreement with Ferdinand in 1551, by which he continued to be governor of Transylvania and was rewarded with the archbishopric of Esztergom (Gran) and a cardinal’s hat. To forestall attack by the Turks, Martinuzzi resumed payment of tribute to the Porte in December 1551. Ferdinand, however, suspected the cardinal’s loyalty and had him killed on December 16, 1551.
George Martinuzzi was a member of the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit.
