Papal Rome Research Articles

From sodomy to homosexuality: the role of criminal law in Filippo Maria Renazzi’s Rome between the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic Era

ABSTRACT Throughout the nineteenth century, significant transformations took place in the understanding of Western homosexuality, shifting from the domain of criminal law to that of medical science. This article explores the role of European legal thought in laying the groundwork for such changes, particularly starting from the mid-eighteenth century. Examining the contributions of the Roman jurist Filippo Maria Renazzi (1745–1808), this research emphasizes his role among the thinkers who lived through the transition from the European ius commune tradition to the era of criminal codes. Renazzi, a conservative university professor in papal Rome, not unfamiliar with Enlightenment discussions, penned a successful criminal treatise in Latin between 1773 and 1786. His expertise was also in demand during the subsequent development of the criminal code for the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. By focusing on the figure of Renazzi, still not extensively studied, this article attempts to shed light on the transition towards the general decriminalization of non-reproductive carnal offenses, including sodomy. In the new penal code project, only acts committed against the will of others and public order remained generically condemned. This underscored the indifference of criminal law towards penalizing behavior that medicine would subsequently come to recognize as an inherent identity.

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ КОНЦЕПТА ЗЛА В ФИЛЬМЕ «ЛЮТЕР»

This article delves into the persona of the German reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) as portrayed in the eponymous German-US production of 2003. The creators, including director Eric Till and screenwriters Camille Thomasson and Bart Gavigan, alongside the stellar cast, aimed to present Luther in his most humanistic light. However, in pursuit of attempting to craft a “man-centric film,” they compromised historical accuracy. Nonetheless, even in this watered-down version, two issues surface: a political struggle (both against Papal Rome and among his peers) and a psychological one, centered on Luther’s autonomous manifestation of auratic evil within his psyche. While a degree of historical authenticity resonates concerning the political power play (between German religious-political Protestantism led by Luther and the Roman Catholic Church under the Pope), the psychological dimension extends to the religious-state realm. Luther, though, is depicted one-dimensionally: as an entirely positive and progressive figure concerned solely with the moral and ideological renewal of the church institution (despite actually acting in the interests of Elector Frederick the Wise); also, there is a complete absence of critical scrutiny regarding certain chauvinistic aspects of Luther’s beliefs in the film. The article authors endeavor to elucidate the validity of the cinematic concept, prompting a critical appraisal of critiques on the film Luther and scholarly works on Luther the reformer’s historical import. This scrutiny exposes the incongruity between the cinematic personalities and their historical counterparts, necessitating an in-depth analysis of the film’s dramaturgy. In conclusion, the authors articulate the presence of evil as a concept in the actions of Luther and his milieu.

Tra «incivilimento» e «riordino»: le ambizioni di un grande teatro d’opera per Roma capitale (1789-1960)


 
 
 During the nineteenth century the theatre building - and in particular the opera house - imposed itself as tangible proof of the civic progress of Western societies. As Mazzini theorised the “civilization of the multitudes” through the arts, the theatre became the place where this yearning could be pursued. The momentum of Italian theatre construction was impressive during the nineteenth century, both in the major centres and in the small provincial towns. Rome, from this point of view, represents a significant exception. Until the end of the 19th century, the city, although equipped with important venues of the old regime, did not have an opera house conceived in contemporary terms. To fill the gap, for about a century and a half, designers from different backgrounds will work to equip the capital with an opera house worthy of its aspirations. Drawing on rare or little-known sources, produced among others by architects Pietro Sangiorgi, Antonio Lovatti, and Marcello Piacentini, the contribution reflects on the positioning of a large opera house in the urban layout of the capital. From the papal Rome and the liberal age, to the fascist period, the longed opera house tries to give new, contemporary meanings to a building that will come to stand out for its fascinating outdatedness.
 
 

The Daily Life of Nuns in Seventeenth-century Papal Rome: Prayers, Supernatural Events, Everyday Concerns and Violence

The paper aims to examine the daily life of Italian Catholic nuns in Baroque Rome. During the seventeenth century, several important nunneries were founded in the Papal City. Many were established especially for women from the most important or wealthy families. Almost all of these religious communities were compelled to observe the strict enclosure. The nuns' daily life alternated between prayer, work, and visits (more or less intrusive) by aristocratic noblewomen, princesses and foreign queens; but the nunneries were also witness to events perceived as being supernatural, such as spiritual fights with the devil, along with more or less severe penances and self-flagellation. More than a few were the sisters whose holiness and excellence were celebrated by contemporary chroniclers. Nevertheless, the repetitive nature of the life in a restricted space could cause concerns, troubles, escape attempts which occasionally exploded with brutal consequences, such as brawls and even murders. This was specially linked to those nuns who were forced to profess religious vows but also to rival and opposing factions existing inside the nunneries. However, such inconveniences were carefully hidden by the ecclesiastical authorities so as not to alter the image of Roman monasteries as terrestrial paradises, in opposition to Protestants who had abolished monasticism. The paper reconstructs such a scenario looking through various documentary sources: from monastic chronicles to city chronicles; and to reports written by those who were in charge of controlling nuns, especially cardinals and Roman Curia.

James A. Palmer. The Virtues of Economy: Governance, Power, and Piety in Late Medieval Rome.

The world of fourteenth-century Rome is little known. In part, this is due to a dearth of evidence, but, as James A. Palmer emphasizes in his introduction to The Virtues of Economy: Governance, Power, and Piety in Late Medieval Rome, historians’ choices and priorities have also contributed to the lacuna. Historians of religion, politics, and culture have focused on papal Rome and used the papacy’s Avignon sojourn as a reason to ignore the city in its absence. Social historians have prioritized other Italian communes that are seen as less exceptional. Palmer argues that Rome’s exceptionality has been overemphasized and that in many ways it was a typical fourteenth-century Italian commune. He introduces a wide array of characters—barons, merchants, prostitutes, widows, guildsmen—and shows how they interwove spiritual and temporal concerns in their daily lives and in their plans for death. One of the many strengths of Palmer’s book is that he refuses to simplify these characters or to pigeonhole them into static roles. Similarly, his Rome resists easy categorization. It is not papal or baronial, religious or commercial, a city of natives or a city of immigrants; it is simultaneously all these cities and more.

"Mutation in Dominion" or Revolution? The American Revolution as Seen from Papal Rome

This article explores the way in which the papacy and public opinion in the Papal States interpreted the American Revolution. It also considers how those interpretations evolved between the beginning of the AngloAmerican crisis and the invasion of the Papal States by the French revolutionary armies in 1798. The article shows that papal officials were not worried that the American Revolution might become the beginning of a broader wave of revolutions—of an "Age of Revolution," as historians call it today. They understood the events in America as little more than a "mutation in dominion" and an opportunity for the Holy See to obtain protections for North American Catholics' freedom of worship. Holy See views of the events in America, however, started to evolve after the outbreak of the French Revolution, which introduced a new notion of "revolution" and turned what had been papal pragmatism and flexibility into firm conservatism. By reconstructing this process, the article undermines traditional views of the eighteenth-century papacy as inherently opposed to all kinds of social and political change and as a naturally counterrevolutionary actor. It also calls into question the notion that the American Revolution marked the beginning of the "Age of Revolution."

Die Papsturkunde als Produkt unterschiedlicher Rechtsvorstellungen am Beispiel der päpstlichen Beziehungen zum Erzbistum Toledo Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts

This article deals with the question, how and why the archbishopric of Toledo could achieve the restoration of its old status as seat of the primas over the whole Iberian Peninsula in 1088 from Pope Urban II. Only 20 years before the African Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 the Toledan primacy had been set up by the Visigothic kings. In those times the Roman Papacy played no special role in Visigothic ecclesiastical affairs. But at the end of the 11th century the papacy claimed to be the leader of the whole Christian church, so why did Urban II affirm the claims for primacy of Toledo that should turn Archbishop Bernard of Toledo into a rival of the papal claims for primacy on the Iberian Peninsula? In the opinion of the author two different traditions of canon law clashed in 1088, when archbishop Bernard tried to come to terms with Pope Urban II in the question of the Toledan primacy: on the one hand the Collectio Hispana, containing old visigothic ecclesiastical law, and on the other hand the Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae from the 9th century.

Der Judaskuss der Malerei: Caravaggios Dubliner Gefangennahme Christi in neuer Deutung

Abstract How do you conceal politically critical thinking in papal Rome around 1600? Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ isn’t quite what it seems once its subversive meaning is deciphered. The painter places himself among the traitors by holding the lantern, or rather the brush. This self-portrait, I will argue, shows his critical position toward the potential of painting itself. My essay thus proposes a new reading: In the light of a new pictorial source as well as new textual material, Caravaggio appears as an artist highly sceptical of the Catholic cult of images, indeed as a painter who delivers something of a self-referential accusation of painting.

Dubrovnik’s ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’

Probably the most important rhetorical strategy of the Dubrovnik Republic, traditionally used in dealing with Christian rulers in order to defend its state interests, was the one that supported the image of Dubrovnik as a ‘wall of Christianity’. Such a rhetorical argument was not chosen by chance. It was continuously present in diplomatic documents from the Middle Ages onwards and throughout the early modern period. It is particularly represented in the framework of diplomatic communication with Papal Rome. Papal Rome was still seriously interested in supporting the existence of the Dubrovnik Republic during the 17th century. In an effort to gain the addressee’s attention and achieve an effective outcome, Dubrovnik’s diplomatic rhetoric still used different variations of the same basic discourse, which was not just a mere phrase, but also a certain reflection of real circumstances. The image of existence on the very border of Christendom, which highlighted the necessity of taking the republic‘ s needs into account, took on an additional dramatic note during the Candian War (1645–1669). Emphasizing the fragile position of the small republic located between the opposing Venetians and the Ottomans, the Dubrovnik Senate did not fail to point out the exceptional need to preserve Dubrovnik’s neutrality. Highlighting of the geostrategic importance of Dubrovnik and, accordingly, the necessity of maintaining it was particularly evident in the period after the earthquake of 1667.

Robert Sanderson (1587–1663)

Over the course of the reigns of the last two Tudors and first three Stuarts – just in excess of a century – the national established Church of England was disestablished twice and re-established twice. Following the return to Rome under Mary, Elizabeth's settlement re-established the English Church under the royal supremacy, set down church doctrine and liturgy, embarked on a reform of canon law and so consolidated an ecclesial polity which many today see as an Anglican via media between papal Rome and Calvinist Geneva. However, as a compromise, the settlement contained in itself seeds of discord: it outlawed Roman reconciliation and recusancy; it extended lay and clerical discipline by the use of ecclesiastical commissioners; and it drove Puritans to agitate for reform on Presbyterian lines. While James I continued Elizabeth's policy, disappointing both Puritans and Papists, Charles I married a Roman Catholic, sought to impose a prayer book on Calvinist Scotland, asserted divine-right monarchy, engaged in an 11-year personal rule without Parliament and favoured Arminian clergy. With these and other disputes between Crown and Parliament, civil war ensued, a directory of worship replaced the prayer book, episcopacy and monarchy were abolished and a Puritan-style republic was instituted. The republic failed, and in 1660 monarchy was restored, the Church of England was re-established and a limited form of religious toleration was introduced under the Clarendon Code. In all these upheavals, understandings of the nature, source and authority of human law, civil and ecclesiastical, were the subject of claim and counter-claim. Enter Robert Sanderson: a life begun under Elizabeth and ended under Charles II, a protagonist who felt the burdens and benefits of the age, Professor of Divinity at Oxford and later Bishop of Lincoln, and a clerical-jurist who thought deeply on the nature of human law and its place in a cosmic legal order – so much so, he may be compared with three of his great contemporaries: the lawyer Matthew Hale (1609–1676), the cleric Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1678).

In ruguardo di buon governo et della preservatione di questo stato: Dubrovačka Republika i kužne epidemije – slučaj iz sredine 17. stoljeća

This paper follows the diplomatic communication of Dubrovnik Republic with papal Rome, the Kingdom of Naples, Venice and its eastern Adriatic officials, regarding the appearance of plague cases in central and southern parts of Italy, but also on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, starting from 1656 to 1660. Although the Republic was spared in that period, already in 1656 the current difficult epidemiological situation of Rome and Naples had its direct repercussions on Dubrovnik Republic. Namely, the health supervisors of the most important papal port, Ancona, whether due to extreme precautionary measures or some other reason, suspended trade with the Republic due to the entry to Dubrovnik of five ships directed from the plague Naples. That news was also sent to Venice, so Dubrovnik government should have made a diplomatic effort to reject any doubts regarding the commone health in the Republic, then to re-establish undisturbed trade with these two very important Adriatic ports. Since the news of the plague in Rome and Naples did not abate, through the constant correspondence with its agents, Republic followed with a great interest the news regarding the spread of the current infection, primarily because of the prompt reaction, in order to protect the commone health, also its economic interests. The mentioned epidemic with all its potential dangers, as well as the accompanying blockade, happened during the Candian War, which kept the Dubrovnik government extremely vigilant, trying to prevent, among other things, any lack of food supplies due to the war-blocked usual supply routes. During the Candian War, especially in periods of plague epidemics - as well as in the specific cases followed by this paper - a motif of good and responsible government is omnipresent within diplomatic mail, otherwise existing in Dubrovnik’s public and political discourse since the humanism. Responsible governance presupposed the provision of optimal conditions for survival. As the basic postulate of every rule, including this one in Dubrovnik, responsible government justified the very fact of the acquired legitimacy of power, which came from God himself. Unlike other imagological motives, such as the most common one that referred to the Republic as a “wall of Christianity”, used so often tendentiously to gain support for certain own initiatives, or to justify various forms of “politically incorrect” behavior, this one that referred to the Dubrovnik sanitar experience had a real base in the strict practice of the health policy that Dubrovnik Republic tryed to implement for ages. As a strong argument Dubrovnik government referred to the only recent case, that one from the summer of 1647, when the territory of the Republic was directly endangered by the plague. This case Republic was presented as a bright example of successful dealing with such a serious threat. Such a confident performance of the Dubrovnik government represents a rare moment within its most often servile diplomatic discourse. This approach was simply necessary, both to confirm the integrity of Dubrovnik’s sanitary policy and to prevent negative economic effects, as any discreditation prevented Dubrovnik ships to access foreign ports. Rumors of the plague tended to spread as a fake news for several reasons: to prevent incursions from neighboring, hostile territory, such was a case from the summer of 1659, followed by this paper, when the Ottomans spread rumors about plague in Ottoman Albania trying to prevent looting incursions of Venetian land and naval troops. In this regard, the paper follows the cases when Dubrovnik ships had difficulty in accessing, primarily Ancona, under false accusations regarding the health of their crews, which can be justified in part as a result of great caution against any potential infection, but such actions also can be interpreted as reaction of the Italian trading milieu to the serious competitiveness of the neutral Dubrovnik flag during the Candian War. Other cases followed by this paper are reflecting two levels of active engagement against epidemics. The most direct one presupposed a strict series of precautionary measures as well as the even stricter quarantine ones practiced by the Dubrovnik Republic. Its equally active role was within a network that supported a sense of collective responsibility. It presupposed the transmission of any information regarding the spread of the disease in a particular area, for the sake of broader, joint coordination in order to prevent the inconceivable consequences that any epidemic could leave behind, as any plague epidemic didn`t stopped at the certain state borders.

The cistern-system of early modern Venice: technology, politics and culture in a hydraulic society

At a time when European cities depended on three sources of fresh water for their domestic and industrial needs—rivers, spring-fed aqueducts and groundwater wells—early modern Venice added a fourth possibility: a dense network of cisterns for capturing, filtering and storing rainwater. Venice was not unique in relying on rainwater cisterns; but nowhere in Italy (indeed in Europe) was the approach so systematic and widespread, the city concerned so populous, the technology so sophisticated and the management so carefully regulated as in the lagoon city. To explore Venice’s cistern-system, a range of primary sources (medical treatises, travellers’ accounts, archival records) and the contributions of architectural, medical and social historians, and archaeologists are analysed. The article examines the system’s functioning and management, including the role of the city’s acquaroli or watermen; the maintenance of freshwater quality throughout the city, in the context of broader sanitation measures; and the place of the “wells” and fresh water in daily life in Venice. As a means of teasing out the myriad links between nature, technology and society in early modern Italy, the article concludes with a brief comparison of the politics of water supply management in the very different urban realities of (republican) Venice, (viceregal) Naples and (papal) Rome.

Papal Rome in Lockdown: Proximities, Temporalities, and Emotions during the Im/mobility of the Conclave

Papal Rome in Lockdown: Proximities, Temporalities, and Emotions during the Im/mobility of the Conclave

A Partly Vacated Historicism: Artifacts, Architecture, and Time in Nineteenth-Century Papal Rome

A Partly Vacated Historicism: Artifacts, Architecture, and Time in Nineteenth-Century Papal Rome

La doctrina de la potestas omninsular

Before Europeans were «shocked» by the sheer extent of American space opened up by discovery and conquest, the New World was thought —assembled and deconstructed— within the constricting frames of medieval thought. The first functional image that made it possible to «mentally compose» these new spaces was insularity. This image was perfectly suited to the traditional matrix of legal doctrine upheld by the roman papacy that will result in the so-called Alexandrian Bulls of Partition of 1493. The potestas omninsular —developed throughout the Late Middle Ages in Western Europe— constitutes the legal basis that gives meaning to this donation.

Architecture in the Roman periodical press, 1770–1848

Papal Rome rarely figures in scholarship on the print culture revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and there has been limited scholarship on the place of architecture in that culture. But even if the situation in Rome does not much conform to the usual print culture master narratives, wherein a growing bourgeoisie uses print to advance its claims in the cultural and political public sphere, art and architectural journalism in Rome nonetheless presents a rich and complex picture of a particular modernity; one at times seemingly in advance of Paris or London, at other times imitating them, but in the process always making something original, and something indisputably modern, of the literary and public possibilities of periodical publication on architecture and planning. Beginning, then, from the premise that European modernity developed differently in different contexts, this overview aims to stimulate reflection on the peculiar Roman case by examining how Roman journalism on architecture — not just the journals and the journalists, but also the publics they targeted and thus helped to constitute — evolved over the seven decades from the eve of the French Revolution to the eruption of the Roman revolution of 1848–1849.

West and East – Europe's Dual Experience

West and East – Europe’s Dual Experience1 Tomáš Halík The spirit of the West When we speak of East and West in relation to Europe the terms usually have a cultural and political, rather than a geographical sense. The cultural differences between Christianity in the two areas stem from the difference between Greek and Latin thinking. The mutual alienation of the two branches of European Christianity resulted from the schism between the Byzantine and Latin patriarchates. It was particularly after that schism that the initial cultural diversity of western Christianity gave way to ‘Romanisation’and the dominance of papal Rome. The western cultural mentality was then formed fundamentally by a series of historical events and spiritual currents: conflicts between the papacy and the empire, the mediaeval ‘papal revolution’, the separation of secular and spiritual spheres, the emergence and gradual emancipation of secular culture, the humanism of the Renaissance, the Reformation, Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the ideals of democracy, human rights and civil liberties. Those major cultural transformations had a minimal effect on Eastern Europe (particularly after the centre of orthodox Christianity moved to Russia after the fall of Constantinople). Nationalism and the nation states came into existence on the ruins of mediaeval Christianitas. Europe’s West is also the cradle of scientific and technical progress, capitalism and the industrial revolution. Marxism and the socialist movement were a reaction to the social consequences of the industrial revolution. As a reaction to the major crisis of capitalism in the 1930s there was an upsurge of three revolutionary counter-cultural movements, which represented three forms of radical rejection of the western culture of Christianity, humanism and liberal democracy: German Nazism, Italian Fascism and Russian Communism. All three drew sustenance from mythological sources: Nazism from Germanic cults of land and blood, Fascism from Ancient Rome, and Bolshevism from Russian Messianism. The two world wars that started in western Europe weakened Europe’s standing in the world. In the subsequent Cold War, Europe was divided politically into the East (which now denoted the countries under the Soviet Studies • volume 109 • number 433 11 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 11 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 11 27/02/2020 13:59 27/02/2020 13:59 diktat) and the West, under the influence of the United States. Thus the terms West and East acquired a new meaning. Does this division into West and East still hold good today? The integration of Europe after the fall of Communism After the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War, marked by the entry of several post-Communist countries into the EU and NATO, the process of European integration accelerated. Politicians spoke about ‘a common European home’and John Paul II about ‘Europe breathing with both its lungs’. It would now seem that those visions were a reflection of overoptimism . After 1989 the process of European integration relied excessively on economic and administrative aspects and neglected the cultural, moral and spiritual component: nurturing European awareness. The difficulty of defining a European identity became evident particularly during the attempts to frame a basic constitutional document for the EU. It is very difficult to find a compromise between two concepts: a conservative one based on nostalgia for ‘a Christian Europe’, and a secular liberal one that avoids linking the European idea with Christianity. Clearly on both sides there are prejudices, ‘enemy images’ and fears of the possible destructive consequences if the other side were to totally dominate public space. The continuation of the European integration process is encountering major difficulties. The West underestimates the dangers from Putin’s Russia, which is waging intensive hybrid warfare helped by a propaganda campaign of disinformation, aimed chiefly at the post-Communist countries.The European Union is weakened by the departure of Great Britain. The integration process is torpedoed by nationalists and populists – often financed by Russia– who are enjoying success on both side of the former ‘Iron Curtain’, particularly in the post-Communist countries such as Hungary and Poland, where they are gradually destroying liberal democracy, which did not manage to put down deep roots in the previous decades. The crisis of European integration is related, of course, to the crisis of a broader process...

Pyotr Chaadaev’s Journey to Italy. Part Two: Rome - Venice (1825)

The article continues the study of the circumstances of the journey of the Russian philosopher Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev (1793-1856) in Italy in 1824-1825. This time we examine the stay of Chaadaev in Rome (March -April 1825) and Venice (late May - early June 1825). A special attention is paid to Chaadaev’s intensive communication during the Holy week in papal Rome with two outstanding Russian intellectuals: the major theorist of Russian liberalism, historian and economist Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenev (1789-1871) and the hero of the anti-Napoleonic wars, future prominent Decembrist Mikhail Fotievich Mitkov (1791-1849). The author believes that the personal experiences of Rome and meaningful creative debate with also prone to philosophizing Turgenev and Mitkov helped Chaadaev to develop main theoretical positions regarding the fate of the Catholic world. The author investigates the influence of “Roman meetings” with talented Russian artists and sculptors - Sylvester Shchedrin, Fyodor Bruni, Samuel Galberg. Based on the analysis of new sources, the author disputes the established conclusions in the literature about the circumstances of Chaadaev’s stay in Venice. The article also analyzes the circumstances of Chaadayev’s return to Russia in 1826, in the midst of the investigation of the “Decembrist conspiracy,” as well as the dramatic fate of Mitkov and Turgenev, his friends during the “Roman walks.” The article concludes that in Russian philosophy and culture Pyotr Chaadaev was the founder of research into the fruitful “Coliseum topic” on the ratio between the ancient and Christian traditions in European culture.

Engineering the Eternal City: Infrastructure, Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome. By Pamela O. Long (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2018) 369 pp. $45.00

Between 1560 and 1590, the tumbledown flood-prone Rome of ancient ruins, clogged streets, and water shortages was re-imagined and re-engineered into a city much closer to what it is today. Through the initiatives of four popes, including the great builder Sixtus V, and a host of architect/engineers, noted artists, simple artisans, map makers, cardinals, civic officials, and private citizens, the city enjoyed a remarkable imaginative moment. One of the surprising and previously unknown (at least to me) stories that Long uncovers was a proposal from Sixtus V to rebuild the Colosseum by turning it into a woolen-cloth factory, complete with housing for poor workers. This was just one of the revitalizing projects, many of which succeeded. The repairs on two ancient aqueducts made possible the famous fountains of Rome and an abundant water supply for the parched inhabitants, especially those who could not afford water delivered by water carriers. Large-scale engineering kept the city in a flurry of activity: Masons repaired the ancient walls, built new palaces and churches; sewers were cleared; streets were redesigned, straightened, widened, and paved; popes had obelisks transported from their ancient sites to more propitious ones that celebrated the universal church; and physicians attempted to evaluate the healthfulness of Tiber water. Cartographers and lithographers relied on surveys to represent these renovations and to imagine new ones, fulfilling a growing demand for images of the ancient and modern city. “Reenvisioning Rome on paper and remaking Rome as a physical entity,” as Long puts it, “went hand in hand” (162).Long’s approach reveals much about urban history because she works outside the usual disciplinary boundaries. The history of the engineering in the Renaissance does not fit into the history of science or architecture or urban planning. Although huge engineering projects were undertaken in the period, there were no engineers, engineering guilds, or engineering courses in the universities and no concept of an autonomous profession that adhered to commonly accepted principles and technologies. Long has become well-known among scholars of the Renaissance for identifying vital intellectual and practical endeavours that occurred without the support of any ostensible institutional structures and that do not fit well within the concerns of the modern disciplines. She calls these “‘trading zones’—arenas in which substantive communication occurred between university-educated people and those trained in artisanal workshops or in other practical/technical venues” (4).1 Expertise was unlicensed, even untutored, the result of discussions, arguments, and provisional planning among practitioners from a variety of backgrounds.These debates and interactions among artisans and the learned produced the crucial foundation for the empirical sciences that evolved in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The refurbished infrastructure of sixteenth-century Rome exemplified a process of creative inquiry dependent more on interpersonal interactions than on freedom of publication and conscience. There is no little irony in the fact that papal Rome silenced Galileo, but that same Rome produced one of the most vital trading zones, anticipating the melding of theory and practice characteristic of modern science. Long’s thesis in this book and her previous works forces scholars to rethink the very origins of science as an endeavor that first thrived outside of the universities, academies, and scientific societies.To make her case about the power of interpersonal interactions, Long’s brilliant research allows her to populate her book with fascinating stories about friends and rivals. One of the great debates of the period involved the location of the ancient Roman forum, known from literature but lost among the ruins. Trained as a painter, Pirro Ligorio became an expert on Roman antiquities by training his eye to see what others missed. Ligorio joined forces with Benedetto Egio, a priest and humanist who knew the Latin sources. Their rival was Bartolomeo Marliani, the author of a popular guidebook to Rome. The fierce mutual antagonism between the two camps expressed in printed texts and maps became a virtual primer on method, an example of the vigorous engineering culture of late sixteenth-century Rome.

English News in Papal Rome: Cross-Confessional Information Exchange in Reformation Europe

Abstract This essay argues that confessional differences had a direct impact on the circulation of news in early modern Europe. By examining how the Roman curia struggled to gather information about England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, it demonstrates how the Reformation both shaped and limited the information-gathering channels available to the papacy. The article begins by examining the various means by which the curia sought to collect news about English affairs, including via apostolic nuncios, Jesuits, and lay intelligencers, although fears of misinformation and imposters were always present. It then investigates the death of Elizabeth in 1603 as a case study to explore how quickly, and by what means, the Roman curia was able to verify news of a major event in a Protestant land.