Senators or courtiers: negotiating models for the College of Cardinals under Julius II & Leo X (original) (raw)
Related papers
Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century
Church History and Religious Culture, 2011
Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century [Brill's Studies in Intellectual History ]. Brill, Leiden/Boston , xxiv + pp. ISBN . ; US . Carol Richardson has produced a monumental study that reveals the motives, process, and mechanics of the papacy's fifteenth-century reclamation of the City of the Apostles. The end of the Schism (-) and the return to Rome of Pope Martin V in initiated a period of urban growth spearheaded by popes and actively pursued by cardinals through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The subtext of this volume comprises a study of papalcardinal relations, for Richardson argues that through the period under discussion cardinals moved from being the pope's manipulators to being his instruments. This partnership provides the foundation for Richardson's study, which focuses almost equally on cardinals and popes and emphasizes the importance of this relationship for peace and prosperity in Rome. Although the cardinals were more numerous, their wealth and potential often depended on papal patronage, while many cardinals followed papal models and encouragement. While cardinalatial and papal patronage and lifestyle occupy the majority of the volume, Richardson also sets out to distinguish what a cardinal was and review contemporary debates on role, theory, and practice. A tremendous cache of information builds up examples that establish theoretical behavioural norms, but sadly avoids discussing divergent streams of practice within the College (e.g., based on geographic origin, monastic affiliation, social origin, papal nipoti). Theorizing from scattered evidence as Richardson does requires a huge amount of research and an almost universal knowledge of primary and secondary texts, as well as what physical evidence remains in Rome. Among others the published work of D.S. Chambers, Meredith Gill, Arnold Esch, and Richardson's own work publications take centre stage as a foundation from which the author reveals the fifteenth-century cardinals' ecclesiastical and secular patronage within Rome and its environs. Richardson deftly presents the chief and best-known examples, returning to certain cardinals several times throughout the volume in order to exploit fully the potential of individual cardinals to serve as cases of common practice, intent, or necessity. While the volume presents examples from all the pontificates from to , Richardson's expert knowledge of the Piccolomini family shines brightest. Sadly, amongst the wealth of examples from the other decades there is little attention paid to the pontificate of Alexander VI (r. -) or the Spanish cardinals resident in Rome.
Royal Studies Journal, 2017
Few French cardinals left important traces in the form of architectural patronage in Rome during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period characterised by the alternation of times of strong tension between the French kings and the Papacy, and phases of political harmony. French cardinals’ relations with Rome reflected such a changeable contingent political situation: their position was extremely delicate because they owed obedience to the pope, as princes of the church, and to their king, as French nobles and bishops. Generally, their engagement was projected more towards France, typically in the areas of family influence, than towards Rome. Nevertheless, some French cardinals, such as Guillaume d’Estouteville, Jean Jouffroy, Jean de Bilhères, and Jean Du Bellay, were well-established in Rome, participating in cultural life and artistic production. Analysing their architectural patronage helps to evaluate if they were agents of the King of France aiming to promote, in part by supporting art and architecture, royal policy at the papal court, or if they were driven by personal ambitions. Comparing these men with the patronage of Thomas Leroy—not a cardinal, but a Breton-prelate established in Rome where he undertook a brilliant career in the Curia—permits us to place the conduct of cardinals in a more general context, and to verify if it was different from that of other French resident prelates. Royal Studies Journal, 4(2), pp.38–63. DOI: http://doi.org/10.21039/rsj.v4i2.136
Princely Patronage on Display: The Case of Cardinal Pietro Riario and Pope Sixtus IV, 1471-1474
Royal Studies Journal, 2019
Following on from the translation of Nikolaus of Modruš’ funeral oration for Cardinal Pietro Riario in issue 5.2 (December 2018), which explored his developing posthumous reputation, this study examines the role of Pope Sixtus IV’s nephew as a representative of the pontificate. Less constrained than the pope by behavioral restrictions, cardinal-nephews could mix ecclesiastical and secular activities, welcoming and hosting visiting ambassadors and princes. The cardinal-nephew’s blood ties emphasised his elite position in his uncle’s pontificate, while his wealth, derived from lucrative benefices bestowed by his patron the pope, allowed a magnificent display that projected messages about power based on liberality. This practice shows a sort of resource-sharing that benefitted both the pope and his nephew, while performing necessary ceremonial, political, and social functions. Via these events observers could identify important members of the papal court and thus the pope’s relatives were able to establish alliances that benefitted both clerical and lay papal kin. Using Nikolaus of Modruš’ funeral oration, ambassadorial letters, contemporary chronicles, and household inventories, the cardinal’s household emerges as an important vehicle for the display of dignity and the development of diplomatic relationships. Read together with the translation of Nikolaus of Modruš’ funeral oration, this essay presents Pietro Riario as a front-runner in the use of elite households as a conduit for patronage systems that extended papal reach across and beyond the city of Rome, at the onset of a period of change characterized as a papal monarchy.
C. D'ALBERTO, The Middle Ages as the “global time” of the Papacy: An examination of the papal image
IEM Instituto de Estudos Medievais (NOVA FCSH), 2022
We are currently facing an extraordinary situation: two Popes coexist, one of whom is emeritus, after having abdicated in 2013 (more than seven hundred years after the most famous of medieval abdications, that of Celestine V in 1294), and the other still holds office. We have also recently experienced the canonization of three Popes and the promulgation of two jubilees (2000 and 2015). This rare situation has stimulated the artistic community that focuses on the figure of the Pope, who is undoubtedly the most important political personality and religious authority that the Middle Ages have handed down to contemporary times. In this regard, worthy of mention is the television series The Young Pope, written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino (2016), which highlights the attenuation of the papal identity. The pope is presented there as having difficulty in appearing in public and having his image reproduced, “because his image does not exist”. The Italian director was inspired by a long-standing problem: the representation of the Pope, especially since Innocent III (1198-1216), has constituted a particular iconographic question owing to a semantic complexity determined by ecclesiological implications. From the images on the apses of Roman basilicas to modern portraits, taking in the medieval bust of Boniface VIII, the effigies of the French popes of Avignon and schismatic popes, we focus on the medieval tradition that hides behind the papal politics through images of real and imaginary Popes from both modern and contemporary times. At the same time, we discuss the representation of the Church as a personification or symbol before considering the representation of the Church as a Pope. Finally, we conclude with the birth and figurative affirmation, starting from 1417, of a third iconographic subject: the Council that determined the end of the apical Pope/Church dualism.