The Ceremonial Possession of a City: Ambassadors and their Carriages in Early Modern Rome,

John M Hunt

doi:10.21039/rsj.v3i2.103

Abstract

The carriage in early modern Rome assumed a powerful role in displaying pretentions to power for the city’s aristocracy and clergy. Early modern ambassadors—as representatives of their states—recognized the potential of carriages as a means of displaying their states’ claims to spatial and ceremonial authority in the streets of the papal capital. Ambassadors invested a good deal of their own revenues in purchasing expensive carriages, outfitting them with lavish decorations, and maintaining a retinue to follow them throughout the city. As they made their way through Rome in their carriages, ambassadors projected their state’s power by laying claim to the city’s ceremonial space. As such, the carriages became fraught with political tensions, often leading to violent confrontations between rival ambassadors and their retinues. This paper will argue that ambassadors used carriages as a ceremonial means of possessing the city’s space for their respective states.

Highlights

The carriage in early modern Rome assumed a powerful role in displaying pretentions to power for the city’s aristocracy and clergy
Ambassadors invested huge sums in purchasing expensive carriages, outfitting them with lavish decorations, and maintaining a retinue to follow them throughout the city
As they made their way through Rome in their carriages, ambassadors performed their state’s authority by laying claim to the city’s space

Summary

The Culture of the Carriage

The carriage, a Hungarian invention, first made its way to Rome through Ippolito d’Este, archbishop of Esztergom and later cardinal, in the early sixteenth century. Pesaro hastily departed Rome soon after the incident, almost causing a rupture between the papacy and the Most Serene Republic He returned several weeks later, but slighted the pope by refusing to meet him upon his entry, an affront that no Venetian ambassador had contemplated even during the Interdict Crisis of 1606.60 Pesaro’s response strikingly shows the tight connection between the ambassador’s carriage and state honour. No space was neutral in early modern Rome, especially in the first half of the seventeenth century when much of Europe was embroiled in the Thirty Years War. ambassadors targeted the carriages of rivals as the Spanish assault on the carriage of the Portuguese bishop demonstrates.

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