Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland nebst ergänzenden Aktenstücken: Die Kölner Nuntiatur, Vol. 4: Nuntius Atilio Amalteo, Part 2:1607 Oktober-1610 Oktober (review)

Abstract

In 1584 following the War of Cologne, which saw the defeat of the attempt of Prince-Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg to secularize this crucial Rhenish ecclesiastical territory, Pope Gregory XIII established a nunciature in Cologne. Like Lucerne (1579) and Graz (1580), Cologne was considered one of the "small" nunciatures, whose principal concern was church reform, as opposed to the older nunciatures in Vienna, Paris, and Madrid, where high politics was more at issue. The nunicature at Cologne was responsible for the three archbishoprics of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, as well as a number of other bishoprics in the north and west including Liège, the apostolic vicariate of the north, and until the establishment of the nunciature at Brussels in 1596, the Netherlands and even England. It continued to exist until the French Revolution, but its importance diminished substantially after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Now that these two hefty tomes have seen the light of day, the Görres-Gesellschaft has successfully sponsored the publication of the Nuntiaturberichte from Cologne for the years 1584-1596, 1606-1614, and 1621-1634. There seems to be nothing further in the pipeline at the moment. The two tomes under review constitute part two of the volume devoted to the nunciature of Atilio Amalteo. (Each nuncio is given his own volume which is first broken down into parts and then when necessary into sections or Halbbände.) The first part of the volume for Amalteo covered the period from September, 1606, to September, 1607; it was edited by Klaus Wittstadt and appeared in 1975 (reviewed ante, LXIII [April, 1977], 320-321).