Pope Eugene IV

Gabriele Condulmer was born in Venice in 1383, nephew to Pope Gregory XII. Elected pope on 11 March 1431, he inherited immediate conflict with the Colonna, kin of his predecessor Martin V, and spent years battling the Conciliar movement's challenge to papal authority. In 1434 he issued "Creator Omnium," blocking Portugal's conquest of the Canary Islands and its forced conversions there; he excommunicated slavers who had enslaved newly baptized Christians. Early in his reign he worked against rising anti-Semitism, issuing decrees that protected Jewish rights and forbade forced baptism. Then in 1442 came "Dudum ad nostram audientiam" - the bull that would later authorize the ghetto system across Europe. By 1443 he'd stepped back entirely, taking no side in the Castile-Portugal territorial wars over Africa. He died in Rome on 23 February 1447, the last pope to carry the name Eugene.