Gregory XV Research Articles

Internuncio Antonio Francesco Cirioli's correspondence with the Secretary of State on the eve of the General Sejm held in Warsaw in 1623

From the mid-16th century onwards, the Apostolic Nunciature in Poland was pro-parliamentary, anti-Turkish and counter-reformative. It should not come as a surprise that the preliminary instruction issued to nuncio Giovanni Battista Lacellotti to stay especially alert and secure the interest of the Catholic Church in Poland as well as care for Christian affairs during parliamentary sessions acquired particular significance. In early November 1622, by the appointment of cardinal Cosimo de Torres, under Gregory's XV papal brief of 3 December 1622, Antonio Francesco Cirioli became internuncio. A Bolognese by origin, Cirioli was and a Doctor of Laws and from 1621 an auditor of Cosimo de Torres's nunciature (to date completely absent from the literature of the subject). The office of the internuncio in Warsaw, to which he was appointed following his 13-month service as an auditor, was held by Cirioli for as many as twenty-three weeks, i.e. from 19 November 1622 to 29 April 1623.

Framing Sainthood in 1622: Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier

Abstract Pope Gregory XV raised five holy persons to official sanctity in a grand ceremony in Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome on 12 March 1622. Three of the new saints were sixteenth-century Spanish contemporaries: the Discalced Carmelite Teresa of Ávila and the Jesuits Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. The saints were celebrated according to personas that were rooted in the framework of sanctity inherent to the processes for official holiness, that is, the official character of their deeds, virtues, and miracles. Setting aside miracles, this paper centers on Teresa’s deeds and virtues, which have been less well understood than those of her Jesuit counterparts. The nature of her holy image emerges from a highly selective comparison with the Jesuits’ deeds and virtues as presented in word and image in Rome in March 1622. On the basis of written and visual documents tied to Teresa’s processes and the canonization ceremony, I reinterpret two aspects of her image as promulgated in 1622: the way in which her active and contemplative lives were inextricably linked to her reform of the Carmelite Order; and the role and character of her virtues.

The Polish-Turkish war of 1620–1621: Myths and istorical reality

The subject of the investigation is created by historiography, prospects of the Polish-Turkish war in its diversity of existing concepts; the major event in it turns out to be the Battle of Khotyn. The topic of the article is the study of existing myths, generated by worldviews of the authors, traditional heredity of theoretic-methodological principles of knowledge of the historical process, which used their own sympathies and antipathies, the dominant ideology in society, which distorted the reality of the causes of the war and its course. The aim of the research is, on the basis of the analysis of the sources and scientific achievements of scientists, to determine the main myths of the Polish-Turkish War, the content of each and to argument their unreliability. The methodological principles of the research are first principles of historism, objectivity, and systematicity; theoretical findings of neo-positivism, the school of «The Annals» and the «new political history». Problematic-chronological, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-systemic methods, as well as methods of rational reconstruction of the text and historical-cultural attribution are used. Results. It is established the mythologization of the «triumph of Polish weapons» near Khotyn that began with the sacralization of this event in the breve of Pope Gregory XV in 1621 and 1623. The 10th of October (the next after the conclusion of the Treaty of Khotyn, when the Turkish army left its positions) was announced by them as a holiday in honor of Mary the Mother of God and the patron saints of Poland as a sign of victory. Thus, the spiritual matrix of its perception by Polish society and researchers was laid for centuries. In Ukrainian historiography, the cult of majesty of Khotyn began to form in the mid-50s of the 20th century. In Polish and Ukrainian historiographies, in spite of historical reality, the leading myths were about Porto as a brutal aggressor, who sought to «enslave» Poland and Ukraine, reach the Baltics, unite with Protestants, and defeat Austria. Simultaneously, the myth about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a peaceful state, devoid of imperial plans to defeat Turkey and establish protection over the Danube principalities was also formed. In its turn it formed the basis for the emergence of the myth about the beginning of war not by the Polish army’s intervention in Porto in the autumn of 1620 (Tsetsor campaign) and its defeat, but by the Turkish army’s counterattack in the summer of 1621. The mythology of reticence or negative assessment of Borodavka’s activity, which played a decisive role in the formation of a powerful Cossack (Ukrainian) army, providing it with proper weapons, provant and food, and timely arrival in Khotyn, is wrong. Most Polish historians, contrary to the truth, continue to hide the key role of the Cossacks in the Battle of Khotyn, putting the Polish-Lithuanian army in the forefront. Last, perhaps most common, myth about the brilliant victory of the Commonwealth army over the Turkish invaders is as unsubstantiated as the previous ones.Conclusions. The abovementioned myths, created during the XIX–XX centuries, in Ukrainian and Polish historiographies, significantly distort the historical reality of the causes of the Polish-Turkish war, its initiator, the date of the beginning, the consequences of the Battle of Khotyn and its historical significance. Their disproof will contribute to the reconstruction of a more truthful (adequate reality) of this significant event in Central and Eastern Europe.

Marketing and Self-Promotion in Early Modern Painting: The Case of Guercino

This article focuses on Guercino’s Return of the Prodigal Son, commissioned in the name of Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi and on his marketing choices. This is a case study in terms of self-promotion tactics employed by an ambitious artist. My argument is that one finds in the painting a secondary and more sophisticated level of interpretation, which relates to the relationship between the painter and his patron. To the most traditional iconography of the scene, Guercino added musicians and spectators, thus positioning the entire composition in the theatre. One of the musicians is depicted in a way that casts him as a representative of the painter. The patron understood Guercino’s intentions and commissioned what became Guercino’s most important artworks. It was Guercino’s ability of shifting the attention of a given iconography and deliver current political meaning that is discernible in his Roman works commissioned by the same Cardinal Ludovisi who was elected Pope Gregory XV.

An axiomatic analysis of the papal conclave

In the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is elected by the (cardinal) electors through “scrutiny,” where each elector casts an anonymous nomination. Using historical documents, we argue that a guiding principle for the church has been the protection of electors from the temptation to defy God through dishonest nomination. Based on axiomatic analysis involving this principle, we recommend that the church overturn the changes of Pope Pius XII to reinstate the scrutiny of Pope Gregory XV, and argue that randomization in the case of deadlock merits consideration.

Per una nuova lettura di Adone XX 250-376

This essay proposes a close reading of Canto XX of Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone, focusing in particular on lines 250-376 in ottava rima. Here the author depicts a quintain, or Saracen joust, a test of skill in which knights must strike a pivoting wooden dummy. The episode is distinctly encomiastic in nature, for the contestants include members of the most important Roman families, as well as Pope Gregory XV’s nephew, Sergio Carafa and the Piedmontese princes. The article shows how Marino surprisingly goes to great lengths in his praise to depict the precise workings of such tournaments, which were a key feature of courtly festivities. The realism that pervades the quintain scene in Adone, both in terms of its specific terminology and its description of tournament rules, is not ascribable to the epic canon, but instead reflects the heightened awareness of courtly events that marked the early 17th century. It can thus be inferred that the weight that Marino gives to the ‘upper’ realm of the panegyric and the ‘lower’ domain of courtly festivities is much more balanced than once believed.

Joshua Stopping the Sun and Ignatius of Loyola at Il Gesù in Rome

In 1672, the Jesuit superior general Gian Paolo Oliva commissioned from Baciccio a lavish cycle of ceiling frescoes for Rome’s Il Gesù after earmarking the tribune vault for Giacomo Cortese to decorate with a representation of Joshua Stopping the Sun. Oliva also planned to translate Ignatius of Loyola’s remains to the high altar. Pope Gregory xv had explicitly likened Ignatius to the Old Testament general Joshua during the Jesuit founder’s canonization in 1622, and it may be inferred that Oliva intended to promote a hagiographic connection between the two figures through the prominent juxtaposition of Cortese’s fresco with the saint’s relics. However, the Ignatius-Joshua connection remained uncelebrated: the plan to translate the relics did not come to fruition, Cortese passed away in 1676, and the apse vault was eventually decorated by Baciccio with the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Cortese’s demise has heretofore been considered the decisive factor leading to the change in subject of the tribune fresco, but the clandestine correspondence of Lazzero Sorba, S.J., indicates another important factor was at play. These documents evidence an unusually strained relationship between the Society and Pope Innocent xi Odescalchi, elected in 1676. They suggest that the Society’s discomfiture vis-à-vis Innocent xi influenced its decision to replace the self-aggrandizing Joshua Stopping the Sun with the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.

The Sculptural Iconography of Feminine Jouissance: Lacan’s Reading of Bernini’s Saint Teresa in Ecstasy

A swoon so sweet Should have eternal guise; But since suffering does not rise To Heavenly Portal Bernini in this stone made it immortal. Pietro Filippo Bernini, on his father's Saint Teresa ECSTASY IN THE CHAPEL Amongst innumerable architectural splendors of Rome, church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, in Sallustiano area of city, is an unusually modest example of early 17th century Baroque design. Situated on a street corner, and hemmed in by adjacent buildings at back and to right, anyone approaching edifice from Piazza di San Bernardo will be less than impressed by how whole of its left side is but a plain terracotta rendered wall, with no artistic features other than a rectangular stained glass window above a small oriel. For church's travertine facade, Giovanni Battista Soria took inspiration from Carlo Maderno's design for facade of nearby church of Santa Susanna, yet it does not incorporate latter's rich decorations and is far more restrained in its use of figurative sculpture. And so nothing in this rather unassuming exterior can prepare visitors for sumptuous spectacle inside. From resplendent cantoria on counter-facade to frescoed dome, from lavish nave to eight ornate side-chapels, each and every part of small church bathes in glory of Baroque prodigality. Even nave's monumental Corinthian pilasters of coloured marble, with their gilded capitals in support of a richly exaggerated entablature, exude a sensation of grandeur, and contribute integrally to overwhelming visual extravaganza. For all its aggregate magnificence, many people would probably not be drawn to church were it not for one particular sculpture, Saint Teresa in Ecstasy by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), which Simon Schama has dubbed the most astounding peepshow in (78). Released from a single slab of white Carrara marble, sculpture is centerpiece of large funerary chapel to left of church's transept. The chapel was commissioned in January 1647 by wealthy Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro (1579-1653) for staggering amount of some 12,000 silver papal scudi, in honour of his esteemed family members and of his admired Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Spanish mystic who had been canonized by Pope Gregory XV twenty-five years earlier. (1) It took Bernini and his associates five years to complete work, but when it was finally unveiled in Summer of 1652 Roman public opinion echoed Cornaro's own view that highly theatrical combination of sculpture, painting and architecture had resulted in a timeless masterpiece--a bel composto of sublime beauty. (2) The widespread acclaim could probably have been predicted, because it is hard to believe that Bernini would have been prepared to take serious artistic risks in conceiving chapel, in which case he would not only have been in danger of offending his generous patron, but also of undermining his own stellar reputation within ecclesiastical hierarchy, both within Vatican and further afield, and any additional commissions that may have stemmed from it. For almost four centuries, a plethora of historians, art critics, novelists, philosophers, men and women of God, and members of general public have stood in front of Cornaro chapel, either endorsing initial response to work, or expressing anger and dismay at what they consider to be a shameless sacrilegious depiction of Saint Teresa's vision, or dismissing Bernini's sculpture as a typical example of deplorable excesses of Baroque art-a corruption of aesthetic principles, animated by hubris, and executed in bad taste. Shortly after unveiling of Bernini's equestrian statue The Vision of Constantine in 1670, an anonymous pamphlet started to circulate in which author denounced both artist's recent work and some of his earlier sculptures. …

Imperator et Pontifex: Forschungen zum Verhältnis von Kaiserhof und römischer Kurie im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung (1555–1648) by Alexander Koller (review)

Imperator et Pontifex: Forschungen zum Verhaltnis von Kaiserhof und romischer Kurie im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung (1555-1648). By Alexander Koller. [Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., Band 13.] (Munster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2012. Pp. x, 494. euro69,00 paperback. ISBN 978-3-402-13994-3.)Alexander Koller, the longtime acting director of the German Historical Institute in Rome, has become the leading scholar of papal-imperial relations during the early-modern period, more specifically between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). This valuable volume is made up of twenty-four of his articles or lectures, some of which have been published in relatively obscure periodicals and are now made available to a wider readership. They show the importance of the papacy with its twofold nature as both a religious and a secular institution for the international relations of the period as well as for the Catholic Reform and the Counter-Reformation even as its influence diminished toward the end of the period. Koller draws on a wide variety of sources but especially on the nunciature reports and above all on the Hauptinstruktionen (or Le istruzioni generali) published in outstanding editions since 1995 for the papacies of Clement VIII (1592-1605), Paul V (1605-21), and Gregory XV (1621-23). These are the detailed instructions drawn up for a nuncio at the start of his tenure describing the policies and procedures that he was to follow. Those for Urban VIII (162344) are now in preparation. But to acquire a complete picture of papal policy one must also consult the regular nunciature reports, for it is there that one sees the application of general principles to particular situations. Koller's articles and lectures are organized into three parts: Emperor and Pope, Rome and the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, and The Papal Nuncios in the Empire.Space permits the mention of only several of the author's articles. In the first part, in Was the Pope a Militant, Warmongering Catholic Monarch?, Koller asks whether the pope encouraged military means to defeat the Protestants and so contributed to a religious fundamentalism. Koller contends that this was not the case certainly after the start of the papacy of Clement VIII in 1592, except for the brief, if significant, pontificate of Gregory XV from 1621-23. Over the objections of Spain, Clement absolved Henry IV of France, quietly accepted the Edict of Nantes, and mediated the Peace of Vervins between Spain and France in 1598. One might add that he was more concerned with the advance of the Turks during the Long Turkish War (1593-1606). Both Paul V and Urban VIII (1623-44) were slow to respond to the cries for financial assistance from the German Catholic princes. …

Die Konklavereform Gregors XV. (1621/22). Wertekonflikte, symbolische Inszenierung und Verfahrenswandel im posttridentinischen Papsttum (review)

Die Konklavereform Gregors XV. (1621/22). Wertekonflikte, symbolische Inszenierung und Verfahrenswandel im posttridentinischen Papsttum. By Gunther Was silo wsky. [Papste und Papsttum, Band 38.] (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann. 2010. Pp. x, 406. euro112,00. ISBN 978-3-777-21003-2.) Since the early-fifteenth century the call had been heard for in head and members in the Church. This valuable, clearly written volume calls our attention to a reform in the head that has been nearly completely overlooked in the literature of early-modern Catholic Reform. Pope Gregory XV, shortly after his election, issued on December 17, 1621, the bull Aeterni Patris Filius that was followed by a Caeremoniale in electione Summi Romani Pontificis observandum the next April 22. The two documents represented a complete reform of the procedure and ceremony for the election of a pope, brought to completion a long campaign for this reform, and led to the first truly secret and so (as the author argues) truly free papal election - that of Pope Urban VIII in 1623. The papal action represented a triumph of an ethic of conscience and commitment to the common good over one characterized by pietas or loyalty to one's family, patron, or place of origin that was widely accepted in early-modern Rome, where cardinals often voted in gratitude for past benefits or in anticipation of future ones. To support his argument, the author draws heavily on a rarely used source - the diaries of the papal masters of ceremonies now found in copies in the Archivio dei Maestri delle Cerimonie Pontifice (sic) as well as in other Roman archives. The author observes at the start how little research has been devoted to the procedure and ceremonies of a papal election as opposed to its politics. A sixteenth-century author, the Augustinian hermit Onofrio Panvinio, wrote in an unpublished manuscript of eighteen different methods that had been employed to choose a pope starting with Je sus' s installation of Peter. Crucial in the development was the determination of Pope Alexander III in 1 179 that the cardinals alone would elect a pope - so defining their basic function - and that a two-thirds majority would be necessary. But nothing was prescribed about the method of election. The conclave was introduced in 1274, and oral and written scrutinies were conducted, but they were not secret. Gradually there evolved a procedure that became a method of election first employed in the election of Leo X in 1513, election by adoration. One group or faction of cardinals, after negotiations, would gather around a candidate even in the middle of the night, recognize him as pope, and kiss him in the hope of attracting two-thirds of their number to join them. No one wanted to be the last to jump on the bandwagon of the winner lest he lose any chance for advancement. …

Cross, Sword and Conflicts: A Study of the Political Meanings of the Struggle between the Padroado Real and the Propaganda Fide

Geographical explorations and the subsequent intensification of external commerce made many political actors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD drag in religion and its various institutions as pliable devices for strengthening their claims of monopoly and control over the political and commercial life of the newly discovered regions. In the midst of these developments, the pre-colonial struggles for appropriating surplus from the European possessions in Asia were at times in the form of struggles between different religious institutions and administrative machineries within the same belief system professed by the various European powers. These conflicts often arose when some of the religious institutions, which were devised at different points of time in history to transmit various types of spiritual experiences to the believers, were appropriated by power-mongers for realizing their political and economic agenda. One of the religious institutions that were often utilized for political purposes during the early modern period was the church administrative system of patronage or the Patronato that the Spaniards introduced in America and the Padroado Real that the Portuguese set up in Asia. As per the right of patronage that the Pope conceded in AD 1455, the Portuguese Crown became the sole authority that could send missionaries to the lands controlled by the Lusitanians, which eventually created a certain type of monopoly for them in matters of Christianity in areas under their influence and kept missionaries of other nationalities out of Asian and Brazilian soil. When the religious issues in Asia began to get increasingly embroiled in the politics of the times, thanks to the dominance of Lusitanian interests in the Padroado system, Pope Gregory XV devised the Propaganda Fide in AD 1622 as an alternative church administrative system for Asia, which in fact was meant to provide opportunities basically for non-Portuguese people, both Indians and Europeans, for missionary work in Asia. However, this led to a chain of conflicts between the ecclesiastical administrative institutions of the Padroado Real and those of the Propaganda Fide, in Asia in general and India in particular, where the core issues of contestation began to revolve around matters of politics and the exercise of power. The central purpose of this article is to examine the nuanced nature of the conflicts that arose between the church administrative systems of the Padroado and the Propaganda at different points in time and also to see how the religious conflicts were appropriated and politicized by the various European colonial powers to further their politico-economic agenda in India.

Bernini's bust of Pope Gregory XV: the reception of a magic portrait cult

Bernini's bust of Pope Gregory XV: the reception of a magic portrait cult

Eccentric Europe and propaganda of faith. Considerations about Sacra Congregatio de propaganda fide and its influence on the European identity of Lithuania in XVII–XVIII centuries

The main thesis about common European identity is based on the maintaining of R. Brague that identities are formed on the borders. The main power for forming self consciousness of local people as Europeans was propaganda. Propaganda is considered as systemic, rational, long-term persuasions of thinking and self evaluation of people. Propaganda seeks to construct the discourse or propaganda subject and legitimate its suggestion and behavior. The Vatican institution of propaganda was formed by popes Gregory XIII and Gregory XV. Finally Congregatio de propaganda fide was established in 1622. The firsts principles of propaganda idea were directly related to the Renaissance Studia humanitatis. P. Neri and his Congregatio oratorium continued Florence’s Christian humanism and ecstatic rhetoric of G. Sovanarola. Neri also continued some ideas of L. Valla about rhetoric manifestation of the truth. Gregory XIII supported movement and ideas of Neri. From the other side he was a patron of Society of Jesus and he established first propaganda commission for the providing of Catholic faith on the borders of European world. Gregory XIII initiated propaganda through spreading of Jesuit’s and other Christian order’s missions, colleges, universities. The propaganda and Jesuits influence on Grand Duck of Lithuania is compared with Jesuits activities in the North America. Lithuanians were very pagans in the rural spheres in this time. The protestant movement was influenced in the cities. The Vatican Episcope’s power was not popular between Lithuanian noblemen and the influence of Protestant Livonia was significance. From the civilization point of view Russian or Eurasian pressing was felt all time and many of Grand Duke of Lithuania lands were Slavs. The article seeks to show how did Jesuits form the network of education, how they competed with other Catholic orders, how they make new discipline and communities of local people. Jesuits became very important power for forming European subject on the borders of Europe in the XVII and XVIII centuries. They created new religious, scientific, political, national discourses and educational networks necessary for interpellation of subject of European civilization. Thought Russian Imperia tried to build new identities and world feeling, new educational system and propaganda after occupation of Lithuania in 1795 the European identity of Lithuanians survived on the archeological level, history of education and myths.

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

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...

Clément VIII et la fondation de la Congrégation pour la Propagation de la Foi en 1599

The Bull concerning the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda fide was published June 22, 1622. Yet experts in the area indicate the date of January 6, 1622 as the date of the founding, because that is the date the first general congregation was held, under Gregory XV. In following that judgement, which appears correct to me, one must recognize that the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda fide had been founded, under that name, August 10, 1599, for that was the day the first general congregation was held in the presence of Clement VIII, so that January 6, 1622 should be considered as the date of its reorganization. In this article, we find, for the first time, the names of the cardinal members of the Congregation founded by Clément VIII, as well as the proceedings of the general congregations they held.

Between Islam and Catholicism: Bosnian Franciscan Missionaries in Turkish Hungary, 1584-1716

The work of the Bosnian Franciscan missionaries represents a peculiar episode in the history of Catholic renewal in Central Europe. By studying these developments, we may become acquainted with the manner in which the various denominations and nationalities coexisted in the Carpathian basin. In the following, I shall examine the work of the Bosnian missionaries on the basis of documents preserved in the Rome archives of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of Faith (de Propaganda Fide), a body of cardinals founded by Pope Gregory XV in 1622 to direct Catholic missions throughout the world. Until recently most of the documents used in this study were unknown; they are soon to be published.1 After the battle of Mohacs (1526) and the fall of Buda (1541), the middle third of the medieval kingdom of Hungary was occupied by the Turks. Large numbers of southern Slavs moved into the Turkish-occupied areas of Hungary. While many of these people were Catholics, overall the Catholic Church in Hungary was significantly weakened by the effects of the Reformation. The Catholic bishops were appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor acting as the king of Hungary. The Emperor was the main enemy of the Turkish Sultan, and thus the Hungarian bishops were refused access to the Turkish territories. After the Reformation and the Turkish conquest the fate of the Catholic Church became increasingly uncertain in Turkish Hungary. For this reason, the arrival of Bosnian Franciscan friars from the Balkans had a great effect upon the lives of Hungarian, Croatian, Romanian, and Bosnian Catholics living in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Compared with other Catholic priests working in the Turkish sovereign area, the Bosnian Franciscans established a far more intimate relationship with the Ottoman authorities. This special relationship, where it led the Bosnians to persecute their rivals within the Catholic Church using Turkish military force, rightly outraged the Ragusan, Italian, and Hungarian priests who were the potential victims. Still, it did provide the Franciscans with far greater room for manoeuvre in their missionary work.2 Franciscan friars appeared in Bosnia at the end of the thirteenth century. They were given the task of challenging the Bogomil heretic church. The Pope declared the whole of Bosnian Kingdom to be a missionary territory and appointed the Franciscans as local inquisitors. Friars arrived in Bosnia from many different countries: English, German, Italian, and Aragonese Franciscans converted the Bosnian heretics, and here too the famous inquisitor, Saint Jacob of Marche, worked. During the golden age of the order in Bosnia in the middle of the fifteenth century, Franciscan friars were living in about sixty monasteries throughout the country. Owing to the popularity of the Bogomil heresy, the number of Catholic secular priests in the country was very small. Thus, contrary to the traditional ecclesiastical model, according to their papal privileges the Franciscans in Bosnia also worked as parish priests. From the sixteenth century on, they continued to occupy the parishes also in Turkish Hungary.3 The Bosnian Franciscans and the Turkish Occupation The end of the golden age of the Bosnian kingdom and the Franciscan order in Bosnia came with the occupation of the country by the Ottomans, which was completed by 1463. The Turkish occupation divided the Franciscan order in Bosnia into two parts. One part fell under Turkish rule (its territory grew constantly with the advance of the Turks), while the other part remained part of the Christian world. Following the incorporation of Bosnia into the Sultan's empire, local Franciscans stayed on rather than fleeing. The Turkish administration tolerated and even assisted the Bosnian Franciscans because it needed them in order to keep the peace and to control the tax-paying Catholic populations and prevent their emigration. …

Die prontezza des Kardinalnepoten und Guercinos Aurora und Fama. Das Casino Ludovisi in Rom

The writer considers Guercino's Aurora and Fama wall and ceiling paintings in the Casino Ludovisi, Rome, in the light of the political concerns of Pope Gregory XV and his nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi. The villa in Rome served Ludovico as a place in which to demonstrate and promote his political and dynastic ideas, and these ideas form the basis of an understanding of the building's interior decorations. The Sala della Fama, with decorations by Guercino, represents the focus and highpoint of the furnishings. The writer focuses in particular on Guercino's visual response to the notion of prontezza, the fight against time through the seizing of the right moment, a key element of Ludovico's political philosophy.

Korespondencja intemuncjusza Antonio Francesco Cirioli z Sekretariatem Stanu w przededniu sejmu zwyczajnego w Warszawie w 1632 roku (cz. II)

W artykule zamieszczono edycję listów od 26 XI do 24 I 1623 r.

Kurie und Politik. Stand und Perspektiven der Nuntiaturberichtsforschung ed. by Alexander Koller

Kurie und Politik. Stand und Perspektiven der Nuntiaturbericlitsforscining. Edited by Alexander Koller. [Bibliothek des Deutschen Ifistorischen Instituts in Rom, Band 87.] (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 1998. Pp. xii, 532. DM 152.00.) This valuable volume grew out of a colloquium sponsored by the German Historical Institute in Rome from October 9 to 12, 1996, to evaluate and chart the course for the continuing publication of papal nunciature reports and to find ways for their wider use by scholars. It suggests new directions for use of the reports in light of changing historical interests and financial constraints, and it provides an overview of research into early modern papal foreign policy and diplomacy including efforts at church reform. As Wolfgang Reinhard emphasizes in his contribution, the history of papal diplomacy must be seen from a truly European perspective and its study to be a common European venture. The composition of the volume, with twenty-two contributions from scholars of seven nations, as well as the now established co-operation among historical institutes shows that this approach has taken hold. A highlight of the volume is the bibliography compiled by Alexander Koller and Peter Schmidt of 1131 items published since 1890, 206 of them documentary collections nearly all of which are nunciature reports. The various institutes continue to publish the nunciature reports. The newly founded Polish Historical Institute in Rome has published ten volumes in the 1990's, with one in preparation, and the revived Czech Historical Institute in Rome is preparing its first volume. The exceptions are Spain and Portugal, for which very few volumes have ever been published. Besides Europeanization Reinhard enumerates a number of new approaches to the study of the nunciature reports that take it beyond the publication of documents. Among his many suggestions are their evaluation from the perspective of bureaucratic history, prosopographical studies of the nuncios and their staffs, anthropological and semantic analyses of the reports, and studies of the papal role in Catholic confessionalization. After noting an upswing of interest in diplomatic history that bodes well for the future of the nunciature reports, Schmidt analyzes the publications in the bibliography from a number of formal perspectives, He writes, for example, that 28.7% deal with the second half of the sixteenth century, 21% with the period from 1600 to 1650 including the Thirty Years'War, and only 9.1 % with the first half of the sixteenth century or the Reformation. An important moment in the Europeanization of the study of papal diplomacy was the publication of Instructiones pontificum Romanoruln. Die Hauptinstruktionen Clemens'VII. fur die Nuntien und Legaten all den europaischen Furstenbofen 1592-1605, edited by Klaus jaitner (2 vols.: Tubingen, 1984). Up until this time the publication of nunciature reports was usually undertaken with the purpose of gathering information about the country where the nuncio resided. The publication of the principal instructions of a pontificate shifted attention to the policy of the papacy itself while at the same time avoiding the expense of publishing the weekly nunciature reports, Jaitner has followed this up with a similar publication for the brief but critical pontificate of Gregory XV (1997), In his contribution to this volume he shows that in contrast to the bureaucratic conflicts of Clement VIII's pontificate, under Gregory XV the pope, the cardinal-nepot, Ludovico Ludovisi. and the secretary of state., Giovanni Battista Agucchi all worked together in harmony. Soon to be published is a third volume of this type for the pontificate of Paul V (1605-1621) edited by Silvano Giordano, who summarizes in his contribution the main lines of Paul Is efforts to implement the decrees of Trent. To be sure, in the flauptinstruktionen one misses the details of the application of policy to individual circumstances as well as many other details that one finds in the nunciature reports. …

America Pontificia, III. Documenti pontifici nell'Archivio Segreto Vaticano riguardanti l'evangelizzazione dell'America: 1592-1644 ed. by Josef Metzler

America Pontificia, III. Documenti pontifici nell'Archivio Segreto Vaticano riguardanti levangelizzazione dell'America: 1592-1644. Edited by Josef Metzler, with the collaboration of Giuseppina Roselli. [Collectanea Archivi Vaticani, 38; Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche, Atti e Documenti, 5.] (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.1995. Pp. 861.) The first two volumes of this series, America Pontificia, embracing the years 1493-1592, contain a valuable collection of papal documents relating to the evangelization of the New World. Drawn from the Secret Vatican Archive, they are published in their Latin original and were reviewed by Stafford Poole, C.M., ante, LXXVIII (October,1992), 601-606 (see also LXIX [July, 1993],602-603). This third volume, embracing the years 1592-1644, is structured differently, however, as it comprises summaries in Italian of 1409 documents that are of lesser value, as a survey will show. Only those of special importance are left in their Latin original.The fonts which this volume touches are likewise found in the Secret Vatican Archive and are representative of the various registers of bulls (the Vatican and Lateran Registers) in that Archive. Other documentation is drawn from the Archive of the Camera Apostolica and the Consistorial Archive concerning the appointment of archbishops and bishops, the erection of dioceses, and other pertinent activities. As the Church moved into the seventeenth century, papal interest in the evangelization of America moved forward despite the theological and political problems that plagued Europe during that period. Weighty American issues stemmed from the patronato and padroado systems enjoyed by the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns and, in lesser degree, from tensions among the missionaries themselves concerning popular piety, new schools, seminaries, universities, and the progress and problems of religious life. The Papacy, however, always looked upon the American Church as an integral part of the universal Church and not just as an appendage. To demonstrate Rome's concern about the overseas Church, the editor reviews some of the problems that the four popes under consideration encountered, namely, Clement VIII (1592-1605), Paul V (1605-1621), Gregory XV (1621-1623), and Urban VIII (1623-1644), the reign of Leo XI (April 1-27, 1605) having been too short for comment. Clement VIII's thorniest obstacle was the opposition of the Iberian monarchs who guarded the evangelization of their New World domains against interference from the Holy See by virtue of the patronage that had been granted their predecessors by previous popes. Like Pius V and Gregory XIII before him, he futilely endeavored to set up the Roman Office of the Propagation of the Faith, aspiring thereby to separate, in this complex problem, the Church's evangelization program from the Crowns' political policies. His efforts came to naught, but missionary activity, thanks to the religious orders, made advances. Under Paul V evangelization proceeded apace, the Carmelites and the Capuchins, together with other Orders, doing outstanding work. …