text: Career and later life In October 1403, on high recommendations from Salutati and Leonardo Bruni ("Leonardo Aretino"), he entered the service of Cardinal Landolfo Maramaldo, Bishop of Bari, as his secretary, and a few months later he was invited to join the Chancery of Apostolic Briefs in the Roman Curia of Pope Boniface IX, thus embarking on 11 turbulent years during which he served under four successive popes (1404–1415), first as scriptor (writer of official documents), soon moving up to abbreviator, then scriptor penitentiarius, and scriptor apostolicus. Under Martin V he reached the top rank of his office, as Apostolicus Secretarius, papal secretary. As such he functioned as a personal attendant (amanuensis) of the Pope, writing letters at his behest and taking dictation, with no formal registration of the briefs, but merely preserving copies. He was esteemed for his excellent Latin, his extraordinarily beautiful book hand, and as occasional liaison with Florence, which involved him in legal and diplomatic work.
  Throughout his long career of 50 years, Poggio served a total of seven popes: Boniface IX (1389–1404), Innocent VII (1404–1406), Gregory XII (1406–1415), Antipope John XXIII (1410–1415), Martin V (1417–1431), Eugenius IV (1431–1447), and Nicholas V (1447−1455). While he held his office in the Curia through that momentous period, which saw the Councils of Constance (1414–1418), in the train of Pope John XXIII, and of Basel (1431–1449), and the final restoration of the papacy under Nicholas V (1447), he was never attracted to the ecclesiastical life (and the lure of its potential riches). In spite of his meager salary in the Curia, he remained a layman to the end of his life.