Bernard II, Count of Besalú III, whose precise relationship with the previous counts of Besalú has not been discovered. Having taken the cross to join the First Crusade after the Council of Clermont (1095), Bernard was nonetheless counselled by Pope Urban II to instead remain in Spain and fight the "Reconquista". In a letter that must be dated between January 1096 and July 1099, Urban wrote to Bernard, his brother Wifred, Hugh II of Empúries, Giselbert II of Roussillon, and their followers, urging the recovery of the city of Tarragona and its vacant archdiocese. In 1097 Bernard ceded the lordship of Olot to Ripoll. In
Pope Pius II was not an eminent scholar. His Latin was fluent, but he knew little Greek. Still, his writings have many good qualities. Pope Pius II inaugurated an unusual urban project, perhaps the first city planning exercise in modern Europe. He refurbished his home town of Corsignano (province of Siena, Tuscany) and renamed it Pienza, after himself. A cathedral and palaces were built in the best style of the day to decorate the city. They survive to this day. Pope Pius II Pope Pius II (, ), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini (; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464) was Pope