Le istruzioni generali di Paolo V ai diplomatici pontifici 1605-1621 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Le istruzioni generali di Paolo V ai diplomatici pontifici 1605–1621 Robert Bireley Le istruzioni generali di Paolo V ai diplomatici pontifici 1605–1621. Edited by Silvano Giordano, O.C.D. 3 vols. [Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma.] (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 2003. Pp. 1684, numbered consecutively.) Without exaggeration one can say that these three volumes constitute a work of monumental scholarship that historians of the papacy and indeed of Catholic Europe in the early seventeenth century will have to consult. Historians of diplomacy and diplomatic practice will also find much of value here. The volumes represent the latest installment of the ambitious project, originally undertaken by the various historical institutes in Rome but now carried by the German Historical Institute there, to publish the general instructions for all the diplomatic missions of each of the early modern pontificates. The instructions for the pontificates of Clement VIII (1592–1605) and Gregory XV (1621–1623) were published in 1984 and 1997, respectively, both edited by Klaus Jaitner. Giordano's work here maintains the same high scholarly standards. All the documents themselves with one exception are in Italian, but in this case the lengthy introduction and rich commentary and notes are in Italian rather than in German. Altogether during this relatively lengthy pontificate diplomats undertook eighty missions, ordinary ones as in the case of permanent nuncios to the European courts or extraordinary ones as in the case of legates to a meeting of the imperial diet. For these missions fifty-nine instructions survive and are published here. In addition, eleven final reports at the conclusion of a mission are found here, some of which functioned as instructions for the new nuncio, and in an appendix eight additional documents that illustrate papal policy or diplomatic procedure. Some of these instructions run to more than thirty pages and reveal much about seventeenth-century diplomatic practice. For each of the documents the editor provides the archival sources as well as instances of previous publication. As some scholars have noted, these instructions reveal the general lines of papal policy. To understand it in detail, however, one needs to follow the policy's implementation in the correspondence between the diplomats in the field and the secretariat of state. Giordano provides for each diplomatic mission, even for those for which no general instruction survives, the location of all the [End Page 536] remaining correspondence of the mission, often scattered over many archives, as well as the instances of publication, so that these volumes serve as a virtual register of the diplomatic correspondence during the pontificate of the Borghese pope. The first volume includes a biographical study of Paul V that runs to one hundred pages and outlines his policy on the pontificate's major issues. The well-known cardinal-nephew, Scipione Borghese, merits fourteen pages, and biographical sketches of sixty-eight papal diplomats and twenty-eight functionaries of the secretariat of state along with tables comparing their ages, date of appointment, ecclesiastical rank, and geographical and social origins provide rich materials for the social history of the papal bureaucracy. Giordano confirms the findings of other scholars that Paul V maintained close personal control over policy. Although the correspondence of the secretariat was conducted in his name, the cardinal nephew played only a minor role in its business at least after 1609, and the veteran bureaucrats first Lanfranco Margotti and then Francesco Cennini carried on most of the business. A number of themes stand out throughout the instructions: promote peace among the Catholic powers, especially Spain and France, and in North Italy and the Valtelline; uphold ecclesiastical jurisdiction as in the dispute over the Venetian Interdict; take a hard line against the Protestants especially regarding juridical concessions but avoid provocation and war when at all possible; warn and gather support against the Turks; urge the implementation of the decrees of the Council of Trent and further church reform; end disputes between religious orders as in the controversy over grace between the Jesuits and Dominicans; advocate for the appointment of good bishops; attempt to acquire some control over the church in the Iberian colonies. The pope sought to mobilize Catholic forces at the time of...