I Religiosi a Corte: Teologia, politica e diplomazia in Antico regime ed. by Flavio Rurale

Abstract

118BOOK REVIEWS out, the inquisitions in the Venetian state were not so mild or inactive in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as historians have believed. This excellent study includes documents. Paul E Grendler University ofToronto (Emeritus) I Religiosi a Corte: Teología, política e diplomazia in Antico regime. (Atti del seminario di studi Georgetown University a Villa "Le Balze," Fiesole, 20 ottobre 1995.) Edited by Flavio Rurale. [Europa delle Corti; Biblioteca del Cinquecento, 85.] (Rome: Bulzoni Editore. 1998. Pp. 353. Lire 48.000 paperback .) This volume is a collection of nine essays presented in October, 1995, at a conference in Fiesole, Italy. The essays focus on the "varied and complex social and political relations and transversal alliances" that characterize ecclesiastics at the courts of Catholic Europe in the ancien régime,with emphasis on Spain. The essays reveal an intermingling of theology and politics, evident in both theory and practice: in the theoretical realm in the sacralization of the king and the divine origin of his sovereignty, eventually leading to politics emancipated from theology in Hobbes and Spinoza; and in the daily practice of government where the civil Catholic authority "functioned alongside the priestly power of bishopjudges , inquisitors, theologians, and confessors" (p. 14). In the introduction, Rurale,who has published extensively on the theme, provides an insightful, well-referenced essay defining the roles of the "the religious at court." m these courts of the princes, the roles of the Religious (clerics of Regular Orders) and secular administrators intermingled, and their legitimacy and power depended on the ability of each group to gam close proximity to the princes—the major patrons of the orders—and their favorites. Further, Rurale shows how the blurring of the categories of clergy and laity—owing to shared mentalities, values, and lifestyles of nobles and prelates at court—render the designation "Church and State" inadequate and outmoded in describing political strategies and motivations during the period. Neither the Church and its orders, nor the state and its bureaucracy, represented monolithic centers of power; instead, both exhibited a plurality of jurisdictions , disagreements, and factions. Conflict and compromise characterized relations between and among various groups such as the Roman Curia and the bishops, the bishops and the Regulars, and the old and new orders. This reduces to cliché the tendency to associate papal interests with strategies of a single religious order. For example, the presumed homogeneity in the intervention of the Regulars—usually the case of the Jesuits—as though they were a unified troupe of the Pope after the Tridentine censure, fails to take into account the often-conflicting ideas and motivations of the Curia, superiors (Case Generalizie ), sovereigns, and individuals at court. BOOK REVIEWS119 The essays in this volume describe the relations, intrigues, and conflicts in selected cases of heretofore "neglected places of power and protagonists of political action." For example, Gianvittorio Signorotto shows in his essay that in the seventeenth century Regulars—usually Capuchins chosen for their poverty, religious devotion, and impartiality—served as legates representing the political interests of the patriciate of Milan at the court of Spain. Further, these religious effectively sought relief from the disastrous effects of war, pestilence, and famine on the populace; and the presence of these legates at court served to assuage the concerns of the monarchy, notably in the case of Philip TV, who viewed the crises in his realm as a sign of God's disapproval. Other topics covered in the essays include the Neapolitan court in the midsixteenth century (Carlos José Hernando Sánchez); transformation and crisis in the Company ofJesus during the last thirty years of the sixteenth century (José Martínez MiMn); the role of Diego de Chaves, confessor of Philip II (Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales); the adept influence of Luis de Aliaga III,the Inquisitor General and confessor of Philip III (Bernardo J. García Garcia); the missions and politics of Regular Orders in the Antilles during the seventeenth century (Giovanni Pizzorusso); and the Jesuits in French North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Matteo Sanfilippo). Finally,this volume abounds with references and notes,and it concludes with a helpful index of names. The sound scholarship in these essays...