Spain in Italy: politics, society, and religion 1500-1700 (The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World)

SPAIN IN ITALY

THE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN IBERIAN WORLD EDITORS

Larry J. Simon (Western Michigan University) Gerard Wiegers (Radboud University Nijmegen) Arie Schippers (University of Amsterdam) Donna M. Rogers (Dalhousie University) Isidro J. Rivera (University of Kansas) VOLUME 32

SPAIN IN ITALY Politics, Society, and Religion 1500-1700 EDITED BY

THOMAS JAMES DANDELET JOHN A. MARINO

IN COOPERATION WITH THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

Cover illustration: ‘The flight of the camp-followers: a mercenary tries to lead the ladies through a breach in the wall.’ Detail of a tapestry illustrating the Battle of Pavia in 1525, Barent (Bernard) van Orley (c.1492-1542). © Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy; Photo © Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISSN 1569-1934 ISBN-13: 978-90-04-15429-2 ISBN-10: 90-04-15429-9 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Maps and Illustrations .............................................................. Contributors ................................................................................ Acknowledgements ....................................................................

ix xi xiii

Introduction ................................................................................ Thomas James Dandelet and John A. Marino

1

PART ONE

STATES UNDER SPANISH RULE Chapter One. Integration and Conflict in Spanish Sicily .... Francesco Benigno

23

Chapter Two. The Kingdom of Sardinia: A Province in Balance between Catalonia, Castile, and Italy .................. Francesco Manconi

45

Chapter Three. The Kingdom of Naples in the Spanish Imperial System .................................................................... Aurelio Musi

73

Chapter Four. The State of Milan and the Spanish Monarchy .............................................................................. Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño

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PART TWO

SPANISH INFLUENCE IN THE ITALIAN STATES Chapter Five. Naples and Florence in Charles V’s Italy: Family, Court, and Government in the Toledo-Medici Alliance .................................................................................. Carlos José Hernando Sánchez

135

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contents

Chapter Six. Paying for the New St. Peter’s: Contributions to the Construction of the New Basilica from Spanish Lands, 1506–1620 .................................................................. Thomas James Dandelet Chapter Seven. “Pignatte di vetro”: Being a Republic in Philip II’s Empire .................................................................. Arturo Pacini Chapter Eight. The Venetian Territorial State: Constructing Boundaries in the Shadow of Spain .................................... John Jeffries Martin

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PART THREE

SOCIETY, ADMINISTRATION, AND ECONOMY Chapter Nine. Noble Presence and Stratification in the Territories of Spanish Italy .................................................. Giovanni Muto

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Chapter Ten. The Profession of Arms and the Nobility in Spanish Italy: Some Considerations .................................... Claudio Donati

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Chapter Eleven. Evolving the History of Women in Early Modern Italy: Subordination and Agency .......................... Elizabeth S. Cohen

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Chapter Twelve. Government/Administration: The Italian Kingdoms within the Spanish Monarchy ............................ Mireille Peytavin

355

Chapter Thirteen. A Declining Economy: Central and Northern Italy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries .............................................................................. Paolo Malanima

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contents Chapter Fourteen. The Rural World in Italy under Spanish Rule .......................................................................... John A. Marino

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PART FOUR

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH Chapter Fifteen. Exchanges Between Italy and Spain: Culture and Religion ............................................................ James S. Amelang

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Chapter Sixteen. Reform of the Church and Heresy in the Age of Charles V: Reflections of Spain in Italy ................ Massimo Firpo

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Chapter Seventeen. Male Religious Orders in Sixteenth-Century Italy .......................................................... Flavio Rurale

481

Chapter Eighteen. The Crown and the Church in Spanish Italy in the Reigns of Philip II and Philip III .................. Agostino Borromeo

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Chapter Nineteen. The Politics of Counter-Reformation Iconography and a Quest for the Spanishness of Neapolitan Art ...................................................................... Sebastian Schütze Index of Proper Names ............................................................

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MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Introduction: Map of Italy in 1559 ........................................ 8.1 Venetian Stato da terra (Archivio di Stato, Venice) .... 8.2 Territorio di Bergamo (University of Kansas Spencer Collection) ...................................................................... 13.1 Population in Italy Central North and Tuscany 1300–1750 .................................................................... 13.2 Population and output per worker in agriculture, Italy Central North 1400–1800 .................................. 13.3 Price index in Central-Northern Italy (1450–1861) (1450–60 = 1) .............................................................. 13.4 Building wage rates in Florence and Genoa (1450–1800) (1520–30 = 100) .................................... 13.5 Rural wage rates in Italy Central North (1450–1800) (1520–30 = 100) .......................................................... 13.6 GDP in Italy Central North (1400–1800) (Italian 1860–70 lire) .................................................... 13.7 Per capita agricultural product and per capita GDP in Italy Central North 1400–1800 (Italian 1860–70 lire) ................................................................ (Illustrations 19.1–19.10 can be found between pages 562 and 563) 19.1 Titian, Gloria, Museo del Prado, Madrid 19.2 Peter Paul Rubens, St. Francis Seraphicus Atlas, supporting the Immaculate Conception, engraved by Paulus Pontius 19.3 Pedro Villafranca, Mariana d’Austria transferring the regency to Charles II, engraving 19.4 Bernardo Cavallino, Immaculate Conception, Brera, Milan 19.5 Gesù Nuovo, Naples 19.6 Jusepe de Ribera, Immaculate Conception, Las Augustinas de Monterrey, Salamanca 19.7 Massimo Stanzione, Madonna of the Rosary, Cappella Cacace, S. Lorenzo Maggiore, Naples 19.8 Luca Giordano, St. Peter of Alcantara confessing St. Teresa of Avila, S. Teresa a Chiaia, Naples

19 228 240 388 393 394 395 396 398

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x 19.9

maps and illustrations

Luca Giordano, Holy Family with symbols of the passion, S. Giuseppe delle Scalze a Pontecorvo, Naples (in deposit at the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte) 19.10 Jusepe de Ribera, St. Mary Egyptiaca, Musée Fabre, Montpellier

CONTRIBUTORS

Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid James Amelang, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Francesco Benigno, Università di Teramo Agostino Borromeo, Università di Roma “La Sapienza” Elizabeth S. Cohen, York University, Toronto Thomas James Dandelet, University of California, Berkeley Claudio Donati, Università degli studi di Milano Massimo Firpo, Università di Torino Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, Universidad de Valladolid Paolo Malanima, Istituto di Studi sulle Società del Mediterraneo del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Francesco Manconi, Università di Sassari John A. Marino, University of California, San Diego John Jeffries Martin, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas Aurelio Musi, Università di Salerno Giovanni Muto, Università di Napoli “Federico II” Arturo Pacini, Università di Pisa Mireille Peytavin, Université de Toulouse II Le Mirail Flavio Rurale, Università di Udine Sebastian Schütze, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The American Academy in Rome sponsored a conference on “Politics and Society in Spanish Italy,” December 12–14, 2003, to commemorate the Spanish victory 500 years earlier in December 1503 that led to the establishment of a Spanish viceroyalty in Naples and Spanish dominance and cultural influence among the states of early modern Italy for two centuries. Not unlike the Quincentennial of 1492, our remembrance of the Spanish Conquest of Italy captured both positive and negative aspects—war and peace, collaboration and resistance, productivity and exploitation—of what was part of a complex exchange of people, goods, and ideas between Italy and Iberia that influenced both societies and cultures to their core. Since the last quarter of the twentieth century, the study of the Spanish in Italy between 1500 and 1700 has gained new attention and this collection of essays provides the first comprehensive overview in English of this ongoing research. The Conference Organizing Committee (Thomas James Dandelet, John A. Marino, Giovanni Muto, Ingrid D. Rowland, and Maria Antonietta Visceglia) would like to thank the American Academy in Rome and its Staff for their support and service, especially for the pleasure of enjoying the incomparable venue of the Villa Aurelia. Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Lester K. Little, Ingrid D. Rowland, Anne Coulson, and Elizabeth Gray Kogen provided the logistics to make for a memorable conference. Giorgio Valente provided graphic design for the conference and recommended conference viewing of the Ermanno Olmi film, Il mestiere delle armi (2001). Generous financial support for the conference and preparation of the manuscript was provided by the American Academy in Rome; Dipartimento di Discipline Storiche “Ettore Lepore,” Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II; Department of History, University of California, Berkeley; Department of History, University of California, San Diego; Grupo Santander; Sanpaolo IMI; Samuel H. Kress Foundation; U.S. Department of Education; Hon. Richard N. Gardner; and Mrs. Meri Jaye. In addition to the contributors of essays, thanks for comments, questions, and the lively discussion facilitated by the other participants,

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acknowledgements

who included Giuseppe Galasso, Richard Kagan, Renata Ago, Antonio Calabria, Ingrid D. Rowland, and Maria Antonietta Visceglia. Translation of essays into English was an important part of making the scholarly contributions of participants available to an Englishspeaking audience. Thanks to Lydia G. Cochrane for translation of the one French and eight Italian essays; Ann Katherine Isaacs for translation of Arturo Pacini’s Italian essay; Karina Xavier for translation of Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño’s Spanish essay; Patricia Rosas and Laura F. Temes for translation of the Carlos José Hernando Sánchez essay from Spanish; Karina Xavier, Patricia Rosas, and Muriel Vasconcellos for translation of original quotations from Spanish; and Eliot Wirshbo for assistance with Latin translations. Thanks to Sjahari Pullom for compiling the index.

INTRODUCTION Thomas James Dandelet and John A. Marino

On December 28–29, 1503, “the Great Captain,” Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, scored a definitive military victory for Ferdinand the Catholic against the French in the battle for the Kingdom of Naples at the Garigliano River. He had developed the strategic advantage of the Spanish tercios—light cavalry, infantry pikemen, and arquebusarmed infantry in a combined force—with his victory at Cerignola in the Tavoliere di Puglia eight months earlier on April 28. From there his Spanish forces marched to Naples, entered the city in triumph on May 16 to the jubilant reception of its noble citizenry, and departed again on June 18 for Gaeta and the final assault against the French at Garigliano. In Naples news of that victory touched off three days of continuous celebration, fireworks, and religious ceremonies of thanksgiving with Gonzalo de Córdoba returning quietly on January 14, 1504, to become the first Spanish viceroy of the newly conquered Kingdom of Naples.1 With the Spanish conquest of southern Italy complete, together with the long-standing rule of Sicily from 1282 and Sardinia from 1297 through his Aragonese kingdom, Ferdinand the Catholic had taken a major step towards the eventual Spanish pacification and domination of much of Italy. Five aspects of the Spanish domination of Italy that changed the political landscape had been established before 1504. First, Italy had become an integral part of Aragonese ambitions for Catalan mercantile expansion and a Western Mediterranean “empire.” Sicily, Sardinia, and Naples were essential pieces of Aragon’s European puzzle, and partnering with Genoese financiers was common practice for all three of the Iberian powers—Aragon, Castile, and Portugal—in their designs on North and West Africa, and beyond. Second, the 1442 conquest of Naples by Alfonso V of Aragon (1435–1458)

1 Guido D’Agostino, “Il governo Spagnolo nell’Italia meridionale (Napoli dal 1503 al 1580), in Storia di Napoli, vol. 5, pt. 1 (Naples: Società Editrice Storia di Napoli, 1967–1978), p. 3.

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had made the Aragonese dynasty one of the major powers within Italy. As a signatory of the Peace of Lodi in 1454, Aragonese Naples became one of Italy’s five great powers guaranteeing protection from foreign invasion, while giving lip service to the uneasy peninsular peace. Alfonso and his son Ferrante I (1458–1494) used Naples as a springboard for further intervention in Italian affairs. Third, patronage promoted Iberian families such as the Borgia, rewarded them for service, and also fostered the development of a pro-Aragonese party among the native elite in the Italian states as it provided outlets for military service and links to advancement. Alonso de Borja, a fellow Catalan, had entered Alfonso’s service in 1417, received promotions in Italy after 1432, and eventually became pope as Calixtus III (1455–1458); while Rodrigo Borgia, Calixtus III’s cardinal-nephew and head of the papal chancellery for thirtyfive years after 1457, was elected pope as Alexander VI (1492–1503). Fourth, intermarriage was the glue binding such Iberian and Italian noble families together in their service to the crown. Just as the Catholic Kings and the Habsburgs employed marriage as state policy, so too did the great noble families of Italy and Iberia seize upon the advantages of family alliances with one another. Fifth, Aragonese ascendancy not only solidified a pro-Aragonese party, but also that of a pro-Angevin (and later French) opposition. Ferrante’s succession in Naples was convulsed by two baronial revolts (1458–1462 and 1485–1486); and, when Rodrigo Borgia won the papacy over his long-time rival, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who had been cardinal-nephew of Sixtus IV (1471–1484) and the power behind the throne of Innocent VIII (1471–1484), the future Pope Julius II (1503–1513) fled to the French court in 1494 and advised the French king Charles VIII to invade Italy. These were all themes that the grandson of the Catholic Kings, Charles V, expanded upon decisively in Italy a generation later with a series of major military and political victories: the defeat of the French at Pavia in 1525, the subjugation of the papacy after the Sack of Rome in 1527, his coronation as emperor at Bologna in 1530, the claiming of Milan after the devolution of Sforza rule in 1535, and the marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo (the daughter of the viceroy of Naples) in 1539. By 1540, in short, Charles V had established the Spanish Habsburgs as the major force dominating Italian affairs for the next century and a half.

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For historians of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italy, these centuries have often been the “forgotten” centuries and a period of “decadence.” This mistaken view was shaped largely by a flawed historiography that anachronistically stressed the weakness and the negative or regressive impact of Spanish rule in Italy.2 The reasons for this are many and stretch back to the beginnings of Spanish rule. They start, perhaps, with Francesco Guiccardini, Paolo Giovio, and other sixteenth-century humanist historians whose rhetoric lamented the calamity of the Italian Wars and the “loss of liberty.” Later, anti-Spanish revolt and resistance during their two-century rule combined with anti-Spanish rejection and revulsion before and after their departure in the early eighteenth century to produce an Italian version of the “black legend” even before the fervor of nationalism. Spain was blamed for most of Italy’s woes, a sentiment that was in large part embraced by the nationalist historians formed during the nineteenth-century Risorgimento. Finally, strong anti-fascist reaction in post-World War II Italy led to limited contacts with Spain and limited interest in scholarship on the Spanish imperial period in Italian history until after Franco’s death in 1975. Since the 1970s, extensive new archival research, increased contact between Spain and Italy, and the de-centering of the teleology of the nation-state, have led to a rethinking of traditional interpretations of the relationship between the early modern Italian regional states and their political center in Spain.3 The political realities and cooperation of the European Union likewise have fostered a new emphasis on finding a common past in Europe by studying the crossfertilization between the various European states in the early modern period. As one key example, Benedetto Croce’s dismissive assessment of “decadent” baroque culture has been superceded by a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the reciprocal nature of SpanishItalian relations and the rich cultural production that was the product of the far-reaching exchanges between the two peninsulas throughout the early modern period. It is this view and direction in the broader historiography that guides the essays in this volume.

2 Aurelio Musi, ed., Alle origini di una nazione. Antispagnolismo e identità italiana (Milan: Angelo Gueri e Associati, 2003). 3 Aurelio Musi, ed. Nel sistema imperiale. L’Italia Spagnola (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994), p. 5.

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The Spanish were not in Italy by accident, but design. The key political reality of Spanish imperial domination in Italy—formal (Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, and Milan), informal (Rome, Genoa, Tuscany, Savoy, and the minor states), and more neutral or independent (Venice)—introduces the investigation in this volume into the methods and mechanisms of control and collaboration, cooperation and cooptation, assimilation and resistance. The current, dominant paradigm, aggregation and conquest, is the subtitle of the collection of papers from a similar conference on the Spanish and Naples at the Spanish Academy in Rome in June 2003.4 The connections between topics and problems in cultural and social history in this volume follow from political theory and practice. This approach draws our attention away from local and microhistorical themes to an international context and macrohistorical perspective that do not assume the inevitable, predetermined triumphalism of nationalism, republicanism, or capitalism. It suggests an alternative path to the modern state and the modern economy that takes into account the strong legacy of various forms of imperial influence while also privileging the experiences and expectations of individual participants. It also looks back to imperial Rome and rethinks models and debates about the best form of government, universal citizenship, rights and responsibilities under the law, and the role of religion in politics and society. By restoring the contingency of events and decision-making, as well as the distinct voices of individual Spaniards and Italians from a wide geographical and social range, we hope to see both Spain and Italy more clearly. One such voice was that of Michele Suriano, the Venetian ambassador to Spain, who, in 1559, reported in his relazione to the Venetian Senate on the wider Spanish territories beyond Iberia. On “the lands which His Catholic Majesty has in Italy—Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and part of Tuscany” [the Tuscan garrisons]—he limits himself to military preparedness, the morale of subjects, and state finances.5 Suriano’s descriptions move beyond caricatures of ancient 4 Giuseppe Galasso and Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, eds., El reino de Nápoles y la monarquía España. Entre agregación y conquista (1485–1535) (Madrid: Real Academia de España en Roma, 2004). 5 Eugenio Albéri, ed., Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato, 15 vols. (Florence: Società editrice fiorentina, 1839–63), ser. 1, vol. 3, pp. 333–378 partially translated in James C. Davis, ed., Pursuit of Power. Venetian Ambassadors’ Reports on Turkey, France, and Spain in the Age of Philip II, 1560–1600 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), pp. 35–69, esp. pp. 45–48.

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ills within each state to the problem of foreign rule. He finds Milan “a state which is fatal not only to whoever controls her, but to anyone who seeks to control her, to Italy and to all Christendom. I say this because she is the origin of so many wars, which consume the wealth of kingdoms, the blood of their subjects, and energies which should be spent on worthier efforts for the general welfare.” On Naples, Suriano advises that debilitating taxation and consequent poverty have left the kingdom in desperate straits with three main defects: the billeting of Spanish troops, favoritism to pro-Spanish subjects, and unequal justice not granting the nobility their rightful honor. “I can only repeat what the Neapolitans themselves always say: every government sickens them and every state displeases them.” For Sicily, Suriano claims that the Sicilians are hopelessly divided into factions, especially between nobles and commoners. Despite the best efforts of the Spanish viceroys, these divisions have not been resolved; and only the fortress in Palermo is able to keep the peace. “An ancient hatred is like a poisonous disease spread throughout the whole body; if medicines or plasters soothe one affected part, the disease breaks out in another where it was least expected.” In 1559, the year of Suriano’s report, Philip II created the Council of Italy, which comprised these three Spanish states in Italy. They, together with Sardinia (formally a part of the Kingdom of Aragon), were governed under direct Spanish rule and are examined in Part One. Four essays on each of the Spanish kingdoms in Italy summarize the history of Spanish rule and the structure of Spanish administration within the particular jurisdictional tradition of each state. In Francesco Benigno’s essay on Spanish Sicily, the reciprocal nature of integration (constants and limits) and conflict (contrasts and tensions) defines the two-century trajectory of Spanish rule. He examines three problems: the specific character of Sicily within the Castilian monarchy; the causes and modes of Sicilian integration under the Spanish Habsburgs; and the causes of its conflict and rebellion in the revolts of 1647–48 and 1674–8. Benigno rejects the traditional explanation of a “pact” or “contract” by the Sicilian elites, and instead proposes a process of erosion of the relationship between the Sicilian nobility and the Spanish Habsburg monarchy as a result of changes within Spanish and Sicilian society (urbanization, the growth of court society, increased bureaucracy) and changes in the political relationship between the center and periphery. Francesco Manconi emphasizes that Sardinia, in the words of his essay title, was “a province in balance between Catalonia, Castile, and Italy.” He traces Sardinia in

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three periods: Catalan commercial interests in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; Sardinia in the Spanish Habsburg imperial system during the sixteenth century; and strong Castilian imprint in the seventeenth century. Manconi emphasizes the deep influence of Spanish culture on Sardinian society and culture. Aurelio Musi situates the kingdom of Naples in the Spanish imperial system in terms of the changing parameters of political-institutional history and statesocial stratification relations. Musi sees Naples, as well as all Italy under Spanish rule or influence, then, from varying perspectives— from relations between the various Italian states and the guiding region of Castile, as a part of Spain’s larger political policies and objectives, and only then in terms of the internal and external concerns of the Italian states themselves. Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño traces the fight for Lombardy and the conquest of Milan from the failed policies of its last Sforza rulers, its devolution to Charles V, and its place within the Spanish Monarchy to the end of Spanish rule and the War of the Spanish Succession. He pays special attention to the question of loyalty, the venality of offices, and the oscillating policy toward inclusion or exclusion of native Milanese within the duchy’s Spanish government. For Spanish Milan, Álvarez-Ossorio pinpoints the debate over a “Greater Lombardy” as the central question confronting the relationship between center and periphery in the state. When Spanish power was at its peak in Italy and elsewhere in the years 1579, 1580, and 1581, king Philip II of Spain wrote a series of letters to his viceroy in Sicily, the Roman nobleman, Marcantonio Colonna, instructing him to send various forms of financial and food aid to Genoa and Savoy. In a letter from 1579 he ordered Colonna to provide grain relief to Genoa during a year of bad harvests; in a letter from 1580 he ordered the viceroy to pay 5,000 escudos that he had promised to various monasteries in Genoa for poor relief; in another letter from 1580 Colonna was ordered to pay the duke of Savoy 30,000 scudos to settle a debt the king owed; and in 1581 the viceroy was ordered to allow the duke of Savoy to buy 2,000 salmas of grain from Sicily for the provisioning of fortresses in his duchy.6

6 Biblioteca Santa Scholastica, Archivio Colonna, Personnaggi Illustri, Busta AE, letter 812, 1579; Busta AH, letters 1472 and 1478, 1580; Busta AH, letter 214, 1581.

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These short vignettes from the late sixteenth century serve to illustrate a number of points that are central to the theme of Spain in Italy and the relationship between the various Italian states that is explored in Part Two. First, the formal territories of the Spanish empire in Italy—Naples, Sicily and Milan—were closely linked to the informal territories or client states of the empire, that is, with the duchies of Savoy, Urbino, Mantua, Modena, Ferrara, Parma, Florence, the Papal State, and the Republic of Genoa. For all practical purposes, the informal and formal territories formed a unified and tightly integrated part of the Spanish imperial system. This was a mentality partially reflected by Charles V in his famous political testament to his son Philip II, where he advised special attention and care towards the Papal State which he viewed as being like a continuous and unified part of his states of Milan and Naples. Second, the formal territories provided important sources of grain, financial support, and employment for the informal territories as the cases of Savoy and Genoa illustrate. The kings of Spain, in short, used resources from their formal Italian states as sources of patronage to win over and hold the client states. Together with money and grain, they also gave military commissions and administrative positions in the formal states to a wide range of people from the client states. Thirdly, the Spanish imperial system served to bring together families and territories from different parts of Italy in a mutually beneficial alliance that was more pervasive, peaceful, and long-lasting than any political system in Italy since the time of the Roman Empire. The pax hispanica in Italy was not only the result of military pacification, but also in large measure a product of this reciprocal exchange under Spanish imperial rule; and it was the willing participation in it by many of Italy’s leading noble families, above all else, that made it possible. At the same time, this “peace” was under constant pressure within Italy, as French power, Protestant threats, and excessive insistence on consensus or consent resuscitated earlier Italian patterns of shifting alliances, political instability, and social unrest. All of these challenges kept the Spanish monarchs and their ambassadors and ministers in Italy ever vigilant and concerned.7 The example of Marcantonio Colonna serves well to illustrate a number of the positive aspects of these points. As the head of one 7 Michael J. Levin, Agents of Empire: Spanish Ambassadors in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).

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of the oldest and most important papal families of Rome, he also held the title of Constable of Naples which brought with it both lands and revenues in Naples. His seven years as viceroy of Sicily added Sicilian lands to his family holdings. As the son of Giovanna D’Aragona, a cousin of king Ferdinand of Spain, Marcantonio Colonna shared blood ties with the Spanish monarchs and was addressed as cousin by Philip II, a term also used by the king when addressing the dukes of Savoy. One of Marcantonio’s daughters, Victoria, was married to a Spanish nobleman, and his grandchildren intermarried with the Borromeo family of Milan and the Doria of Genoa. The case of Colonna could be repeated many times over using different families from around Italy as examples. Under Philip II, for example, Giovanni Andrea Doria held the Neapolitan office of Protonotary and was prince of Melfi, the largest feudal “state” in the kingdom. Both office and title were first conferred on his great-uncle Andrea Doria for service of the Genoese fleet to Charles V and they were held by the Doria through the eighteenth century. By the middle of the seventeenth century, both the Colonna and Doria princes were granted the highest possible noble rank in the Spanish empire, that of grandee of Spain. The very intentional strategy of forming strong political ties through dynastic alliances was one of the most successful and long-lasting political practices of the Spanish monarchs. Indeed, the kings kept a close watch on Italian noble marriages in both their formal and informal states, and they expected to be consulted and given the right of final approval for marriages involving nobles who served them in various capacities. They also encouraged marriages between Italian and Spanish noble families to strengthen personal ties between the two peninsulas. The marriage between Cosimo de Medici and Eleonora of Toledo that brought together the powerful Toledo family of Spain and Naples with the ruling family of the duchy of Florence is a prime example of this practice. The richly illustrated essay in Part Two by Carlos José Hernando Sánchez on the marriage alliance between the Toledo and Medici families reveals the complicated interactions, negotiations, and considerations that marked Spanish-Italian dynastic unions. At the same time, his chapter also underlines how dynastic alliances bound together the formal Spanish state of Naples and the client state of Florence in the Spanish system in Italy. This is an important and expansive theme that this volume only begins to address.

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Benigno, Manconi, Musi, and Álvarez-Ossorio, as already mentioned, emphasize the patronage and participation of native Sicilians, Sardinians, Neapolitans, and Milanese in Spanish government in their respective states; and in Part Three, Giovanni Muto for Naples and Claudio Donati for Lombardy also explore some of these familial connections. The Spanish state archives in Simancas in Secretarías Provinciales, Nápoles, for example, provide extensive materials for such a study on titles and offices in Naples.8 The Venetian ambassador Suriano, as already noted, reported that “the benefits and honors of the kingdom” were the second difficulty or defect in the Spanish government of Naples. Such patronage “should be distributed among the native subjects, [but] are generally given to the Spaniards and to ‘janissaries,’ as they call those of mixed blood, the children of the native subjects and Spaniards. Therefore, the Neapolitans cannot hope to hold any offices in their own country or at the court of their king, and yet such things count with these people more than with any other on earth.”9 Like many themes here, patronage and family alliances are open to variant positive or negative interpretations, and both deserve much further attention. Patronage ties, for example, were clearly part of the Spanish policy of divide and conquer, to establish vertical bonds of dependence directly to the monarchy, and conversely, to short-circuit horizontal bonds of solidarity within and between social groups. On the other hand, Spanish marriage brokering among Italian nobles served to break down old animosities and build alliances among previously bitter opponents such as the Doria and Colonna. Much fresh archival material exists for deeper study on these themes, especially where the minor, client states are concerned. Simancas, most especially, holds the detailed correspondence between the Spanish monarchs, Spanish ambassadors, Italian dukes, princes, ecclesiastics, and a variety of Spanish and Italian agents. Much of this material, particularly for Modena, Mantua, Savoy, Urbino, Ferrara, and Parma has yet to be incorporated into the broader theme of the Spanish in Italy. Yet, it promises to deepen our understanding of the thick ties that bound Italy and Spain, and the methodical and largely successful monarchical practice and local nobility’s advancement 8 Gaetana Intorcia, Magistrature del Regno di Napoli. Analisi prosopografica secoli XVI–XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1987). 9 Albéri, translated in Davis, ed., Pursuit of Power, p. 47.

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strategy of building alliances between the Italian nobility and Spanish nobility at all levels, especially in the age of Philip II. A few examples from relevant sources in Simancas for the minor Spanish states serve to illustrate this point. A letter of Philip II from 1559, for example, demonstrates that from the earliest years of his reign Philip II sought to play marriage broker for the duke of Mantua, who he proposed should marry a daughter of the Hapsburg emperor. In that same year, he proposed that the Farnese prince of Parma should also marry a daughter of the emperor and not the sister of the duke of Ferrara. Shortly thereafter, in 1560, he proposed that the daughter of the duke of Urbino should marry Count Federico Borromeo. In 1584, finally, the king arranged the marriage of one of his own daughters, Catalina Micaela, to Carlo Manuel I, the duke of Savoy.10 Just as marriage ties created bonds of kinship between families that were part of the Spanish world, so too did the traditional ritual bonds of baptism. Spanish noblemen and noblewomen frequently acted as godparents to the children of Italian nobles and vice versa. In 1570, for example, the king himself, acted as godfather to the new son of Vespasiano Gonzaga and Ana de Aragon, albeit through his representative and proxy, Francisco Ibarra. This was again the case with the new son of the duke of Mantua in 1586.11 For the Gonzaga, like many other Italian noble families of the sixteenth century, deep connections to the Spanish Empire also meant thicker connections with other families in the Spanish imperial orbit and an increase in titles and lands. This was perhaps as much, if not more, the case for noblemen in the client states than for Italians in the formal states. An apparent paradox at first sight, Spanish patronage to Italian nobles in the informal empire was a reality perceived by astute contemporary observers such as Tomaso Contarini, the Venetian ambassador to Spain in the early 1590’s. According to Contarini, the king especially obligated to himself the minor princes in Italy “with fat stipends and honors” because they were the most susceptible to bribes from other powers.12 10

Ricardo Magdaleno, Catalogo XXVII del Archivo de Simancas, Estados Pequeños de Italia (Valladolid, 1978), pp. 51, 53, 83. 11 Ibid., pp. 69 and 83. 12 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV), Barb.Lat. 5370, ff. 99–114. “Sommario delle cose dette dall’Ecc.mo Sig.r Tomaso Contarini ritornato dall’Amb.re di Spagna nella sua relatione, 1593.”

introduction

11

While there were certainly many similarities between the formal and informal Spanish states in Italy, a number of strong political realities forced the Spanish monarchs to treat the client states differently. In short, the client states did enjoy formal sovereignty, and they subsequently had no Spanish governors, viceroys, judges, inquisitors, or soldiers directly shaping their internal affairs. This was no small difference, and Spanish royal favors were subsequently all the more important in exerting political influence. Thus, loyal Italian nobles such as the dukes of Urbino were rewarded with membership in the Order of the Golden Fleece and hundreds of other Italian nobles were inducted into one of the Spanish military orders controlled by the monarchy. The habit of seeing Spain as a source of patronage and social advancement was especially pronounced in the Papal State. Roman noble families and churchmen, who resided so close to the Kingdom of Naples, were anxious to seek lands, titles, and ecclesiastical benefices in Naples from the Spanish king. The popes were also well aware of the financial benefits of a close alliance with the Spanish kings, and they too increasingly depended upon Spanish revenues and military forces to shore up their own weak economy and state in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The growing dependence of the papacy on Spanish financial contributions, as illustrated in the case of the building of new St. Peter’s described by Thomas Dandelet, is a prime example of this economic relationship. Philip II and his successors saw themselves as heirs to the imperial tradition of ancient Rome. The Spanish monarchs forged a special relationship with the papacy that exchanged Spanish military and financial support of Rome for local privileges and power in Spain over ecclesiastical institutions. With this political and economic arrangement came a large and effective colony of Spaniards of every social class to Rome. At the same time, the model of integration and conflict holds true for the client states as much as for the formal Spanish territories in Italy. For Rome, an anti-Spanish pope such as Paul IV, the splintering of the Holy League after Lepanto, Clement VIII’s reconciliation of Henry IV of France to the Church, and the election of Urban VIII by a pro-French faction of cardinals in 1623 all indicate the contested limits of the Spanish influence in Rome.13 13 Thomas Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500 –1700, (New Haven: Yale University Press), 2001.

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In the case of Genoa, likewise, extensive commercial and financial relations with Spain certainly had a large impact on that republic. As Arturo Pacini’s essay here reveals, shipowners and the merchant class of Genoa had forged strong bonds with the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth century, and they had amassed large fortunes financing the Spanish kings. But that also made them the objects of internal criticisms and resentment, and it also left them and Genoa vulnerable to Spanish royal bankruptcies, a factor that played into the revolt of 1575 and their expulsion from the city. Pacini highlights the problem of trying to remain an independent republic within the Spanish imperial orbit, a problem that bred a lively political discourse in Genoa over its traditional status as a city republic in the face of local oligarchic and Spanish imperial pressures. Thus, close ties to the Spanish Empire could bring with it ambivalent and threatening political consequences, a fact of early modern Italian life perhaps best understood by the Republic of Venice. The most independent of the Italian states, Venice nonetheless also had substantial commercial and military relations with the Spanish, and in the age of Philip II the two powers enjoyed a relationship characterized by general cooperation. Yet, political tensions certainly existed. The perceived threat of Spanish expansionist tendencies was always present, and it boiled up on the borderlands between Spanish possessions in the north and the Veneto, as John Martin’s essay here details. And, of course, these tensions flared most dangerously during the Interdict crisis of the early seventeenth century that fed deep anti-Spanish sentiment in Venice. As supporters of the papacy in that crisis over ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the Spanish monarchy demonstrated that its influence in the Italian states did not end with the realms of patronage and politics. The long-term social and economic impact of the Spanish presence throughout Italy extended far beyond individual projects or cases of patronage. Indeed, it has long been a topic associated with the economic and demographic conjuncture of the recovery after the Italian Wars at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the so-called “Indian summer” of the Italian economy, and its stall, crisis, and relative decline from the early seventeenth century. At the same time, it has been established since the time of Benedetto Croce that the period of the Spanish domination left a lasting mark on the Italian language. But just how the thousands of Spaniards living in Italy shaped the broader contours of Italian society is a topic that still

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merits much further study. We still lack, for example, any comprehensive study of Spanish communities or settlements in Italy. Again, the detailed correspondence of Spanish ambassadors, agents, churchmen, pilgrims, merchants, and artists, among others, provides a solid archival base upon which to build such a study together with the thousands of wills left in Italian archives by the Spaniards who lived and often died there. In Part Three Giovanni Muto provides a nuanced introduction to settlement patterns and society in the three formal Spanish states within the Council of Italy. A detailed comparison of social structure and stratification in Milan, Naples, and Sicily explores both the theoretical rationale and the practical strategies forwarded and employed by the local elites with regard to the problem of maintaining stability. Claudia Donati examines the relationship between the profession of arms and nobility in Spanish Italy by focusing on those nobles who owed their status to service, especially military service, to a prince. Donati traces the transformations and changing character of nobility in Italy in the sixteenth century from the success and failure of Charles V’s imperial project through Philip’s consolidation of power under the Spanish Habsburgs as political elites legitimated themselves through the closure (serrata) of membership, and in the seventeenth century with increasing numbers of nobles seeking military service as Spanish power in Italy entered a period of crisis, defensiveness, and stagnation. Here Donati has opened up a long neglected line of inquiry on the nobility of the sword that deviates from the more studied topics of the togati (the lawyer class whose non-noble members would become the nobility of the robe) and their role in administration, magistracies, and the law. Elizabeth Cohen turns to the importance of gender and the role of women in early modern Italy by exploring the category of “woman” in terms of the models of subordination and agency. She focuses on the social role of women in the four areas of religion, labor, marriage, and maternity, as well as topics such as the body, intellectual and cultural life, and politics. Cohen argues that the examination of the particular contexts of social class, time, and space should break up the limiting concept of universal “woman” and enhance our understanding of change and causality in a more dynamic gendered history. Mireille Peytavin explains the administrative structure of Spanish rule in Sicily, Naples, and Milan, a topic which emphasizes the

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linkage between social elites and governmental practice, centralization from Spain and local compliance or resistance, bureaucratic modernization and its uncertain effects. She emphasizes three central points: the continuity and permanence of long-standing local administrative structures and practices, the attempt to introduce the Spanish institutions of an extra-territorial council (the Council of Italy) and the general state visit to Italy, and the absence of a resident monarch which increased the role of a small number of key ministers in each state. Peytavin demonstrates how Spanish rule in Italy worked through exchange circuits, a consolidation of connections up the chain of command from local administrators, councils, and offices in the regional capitals, viceroys and governors, the Council of Italy, the councils in Spain, and eventually the king himself. The major indirect contribution to the economies of the Italian states was almost certainly the military protection provided by the Spanish alliance that effectively constituted a military subsidy. Antonio Calabria’s study of the finances of Spanish Naples shows, however, that this protection did not come without a heavy price and evenheavier long-term burden weighing down the public debt. Calabria demonstrates that more than three-quarters of Neapolitan state expenses went to military expenses—one-half to direct military and fortress defense with about one-third to debt service (primarily accrued from war financing) in 1550, 1563, and 1574, but dramatically shifted thereafter to about one-third to one-fourth for military expenditures and one-half to the public debt in 1583, 1600, 1605, 1616, and 1626.14 Such calculations must be understood, moreover, in light of the inflation of the second half of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen14 Antonio Calabria, The Cost of Empire: The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 78–89 gives expenditures as follows:

1550 1563 1574 1583 1600 1605 1616 1626

military

fortresses

public debt

total

45% 37% 44% 29% 28% 21% 21% 23%

6% 7% 7% 7% 6% 4% 5% 4%

31% 38% 34% 42% 45% 50% 53% 56% MEAN

82% 82% 85% 78% 79% 75% 79% 83% 80.4%

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tury with a more than tripling of state expenses in Naples from 1.35 million ducats in 1550 to 4.72 million ducats in 1626, and rising almost two-thirds again to 7.8 million ducats by 1638. Whatever the Venetian ambassador Suriano said about the fiscal squeeze in Naples in 1559 only paled in comparison to the extreme and disastrous fiscal policies imposed on the Italian South in the seventeenth century to sustain Spanish imperial enterprise elsewhere. Examples from the client states such as Rome, however, reveal that these territories enjoyed a more concrete peace dividend from the pax hispanica after 1559 since their human and financial resources could not be directly taxed by the Spanish monarchy. But peace in Italy did not mean peace in the Spanish empire, with war against the Dutch rebels in Flanders, against the Turks at Lepanto or Vienna, or later against France after the Spanish defeat at Casale Monferrat. Similarly, fiscal policy and the exigencies of war and peace not withstanding, Paolo Malanima paints a picture of general economic decline in central and northern Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which he attributes more to deep structural problems— the Italian trend—than to any specific Spanish policies or influence. John Marino’s essay on the rural world still finds the seventeenthcentury crisis determinative for economic decline in southern Italy and for proto-industrial restructuring in Lombardy. The impact of Spanish policies on the economic production in the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial sectors appear to be linked to the larger conjuncture of the Mediterranean and relative decline vis-à-vis Italy’s previous precocious development. In the context of the relationship between political and social-economic realities, Antonio Calabria’s provocative comment at the conference raised the counter-factual question of imagining a hypothetical Turkish conquest of Italy. He emphasized that it is not whether a Turkish Italy would have been better or worse governed, but rather that it would have precipitated a long and expensive intervention, drawn-out wars with high costs in men and material, and destructive struggles devastating cities and countryside as the Christian states attempted to dislodge the Turks from Italy. The reality of the Spanish conquest of Italy not only defended Italy against the Ottoman advance, but directed its social and economic resources to the political/religious questions in northern Europe, to Flanders during the Dutch Revolt in the late sixteenth century, and to Germany during the Thirty Years’ War in the seventeenth. The crucial point is that religion was

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indivisible from politics, society, and economy in early modern Europe. Politics and patronage, as much as social structure and fiscal policy, then, extended into the realm of religious practices, belief, and institutions in Rome and beyond. This central issue emerges in the essays in Part Four. In James Amelang’s overview of the subject of culture and religion, it becomes clear that not only from well-known figures such as Juan de Valdes and Ignatius Loyola but also from innumerable contacts and conflicts, Spanish religious figures loomed large in Italian Catholicism up and down the peninsula. Amelang identifies the theme of religion, like many others in this volume, as ripe for more expansive attention and research by historians, and that the potential yield is rich.15 Massimo Firpo provides more detail on these cultural and religious connections and suggests possible lines of further inquiry with regard to Church reform and heresy at the time of Charles V. Firpo emphasizes the complex religious culture in Spain in the fifty years before Trent with its strands of prophetic, reformist, and heretical activism and the resonances and resistance it found and reinforced in Italy. Firpo concludes with a call for rethinking the Jesuit founding and success, which Flavio Rurale develops in the wider context of the role of male religious orders in sixteenth-century Italy. Rurale argues that the traditional emphasis on the role of male religious orders as papal servants does not take into account their success in princely courts nor their long-term importance in hard times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His goal is to show how closely connected were the pastoral/educational realm of the male religious orders and the political/patronage world in which they moved with equal ease. The essay that follows by Agostino Borromeo details some of the central political issues and debates that marked papal-Spanish relations during the reigns of Philip II and Philip III. Borromeo aims at explaining the ecclesiastical policy of the Spanish Hapsburgs in their Italian domains, and here too, as in the opening essays in Part One on the political character of these domains, the dominant model of “conflict with collaboration” is the operative paradigm. Sebastian Schütze’s essay on the Immaculate Conception as a Spanish religious cause that had

15 See also James S. Amelang, “Mourning Becomes Eclectic: Ritual Lament and the Problem of Continuity,” Past and Present 187 (May 2005): 3–31 for an historical anthropological approach to popular religion across the Mediterranean.

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wide-ranging artistic, architectural, and ritual implications for Italian Catholicism proves the point of the widespread Spanish-Italian exchange. Although this essay is limited to the Neapolitan context, it points to a rich vein of material that certainly has parallels in churches from Sicily to Milan and many points in between. The popularity of devotion to the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception in the Iberian and Italian worlds, along with the cult of the saints and the impact of the foreign missions,16 still today reveals the longevity of Spanish/Italian religious syncretism, an early modern phenomenon with enduring appeal within the Catholic Church. An even more overt sign of Spanish religious devotion and tastes in Italy could be found in Spanish churches dedicated to their patron saint, Santiago. From Palermo to Rome, and various other Italian cities as well, the Spaniards built “national” churches that served as centers for their expatriate communities in Italy. These churches, and their affiliated institutions—confraternities, hospitals, and hospices—all deserve further study and reinforce the linkage among politics, society, and religion in the broader theme of the Spanish in Italy. The essays in the volume that follow provide a new and welcome level of clarity and depth to the theme of the Spanish in Italy, but they also open up new horizons and questions on themes new and old. What were the long-term political repercussions of the conflict between republican government and that of universal monarchy and the Spanish imperium? How can we better understand the dissonance between the ideal or theory of good government and effective bureaucracy and the realities of political practice? What was the impact of Spanish royal patronage on Italian social relations both as a source of divisiveness and unity between and within social groups? What precise role did Spanish policy play in both the midsixteenth-century economic recovery and seventeenth-century decline? How did Spanish religious personalities and preoccupations affect Italian religious institutions, and what role did Spanish influence have in the realms of learning and intellectual inquiry, religious and secular state censorship, and the definition of religious orthodoxy and

16 See, for example, Jean-Michel Sallmann, Naples et ses saints à l’âge baroque (1540 –1750) (Paris: PUF, 1994); and Adriano Prosperi, America e Apocalisse e altri saggi (Pisa and Rome: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1999).

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religious practice? Finally, how, more precisely, did the formal and informal territories of the Spanish Habsburgs in Italy stand together and apart as parts of the Spanish imperial system. Hopefully, these questions, among others, will inspire a new generation of historians to continue to fill in the remaining gaps in our knowledge and to integrate the theme of the Spanish in Italy into a broader synthesis of late Renaissance and early modern Italy over the long term.

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Spanish Rule Venetian Territory Papal States

H O LY ROMAN EMPIRE

SWITZERLAND

Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire

Trent

DUCHY OF MILAN

DUCHY OF SAVOY

Milan

Turin MARQUISATE OF MONTFERRAT

C

DUCHY OF PARMA

LI

MARQUISATE OF SALUZZO

RE

PU

Monaco

B

GE N OF OA Genoa

Venice

DUCH Y OF MANTU A

R DUCHY OF FERRARA

EP

DUCHY OF MODENA

Oneglia PRINCIPATE OF MASSA REPUBLIC OF LUCCA

Florence

U

B

L

IC

REPUBLIC OF SAN MARINO

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

O

F

V

DUCHY OF FLORENCE

E

Siena

CORSICA (Genoa)

AD

STATO DEI PRESIDI (Tuscan Garrisons) DUCHY OF PIOMBINO

PA PA L S T AT E S

N

IC

RI

E

AT

REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA (DUBROVNIK)

IC

Rome

SE

A

Pontecorvo (Papal States) Benevento (Papal States) Naples

KINGDOM OF NAPLES

KINGDOM OF SARDINIA Cagliari

TYRRHENIAN SEA

Palermo

KINGDOM OF S I C I LY

AFRICA

Italy, 1559 50 50

Map of Italy, 1559

100 Miles 100

150 Kilometers

PART ONE

STATES UNDER SPANISH RULE

CHAPTER ONE

INTEGRATION AND CONFLICT IN SPANISH SICILY* Francesco Benigno

In the pages that follow I shall reflect on the two-hundred-year experience of Spanish Sicily, focusing on integration and conflict. It is perhaps useful to state at the outset that integration and conflict should not be conceived as radically opposed categories. It is true that an entire tradition of historical scholarship has worked in a proto-nationalistic vein, stressing the opposition between center and periphery—that is, focusing on instances of resistance that led to socalled “peripherical revolutions”1—but during the last fifteen years in particular, historiography has instead insisted on consensus and on elements of permeability and exchange. To speak of integration, however, implies affirming something more than consensus and different from it; it signifies pinpointing the constants that define Sicily’s participation in the construction of the new Castilian monarchy of Charles V (1516–1556), Philip II (1556–1598), and their heirs. Moreover, it also (and to the contrary) involves noting what was specific to that participation and pointing out its limitations. If the term “integration” requires definition, so does the term “conflict.” Here conflict is not intended to refer solely to open rebellion, but rather to the entire complex of contrasts and tensions within Sicilian society that, admittedly, went so far in some cases as to lead portions of that society to take the extreme option of insurrection and, ultimately, of calling for help from the Most Christian King of France, the only sovereign in the panorama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries powerful enough to hope to undermine the Catholic monarchy of Spain. Obviously, a theme this broad requires a somewhat schematic approach; moreover, the long time span of two centuries makes it * Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 For revision of this concept, see Jean-Frédéric Schaub, “La crise hispanique de 1640. Le modéle des ‘révolutions périphériques’ en question (note critique),” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 1 ( January-February 1994): 219–39.

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impossible to take into account nuances inherent in each particular set of circumstances. Nevertheless, this parachutist’s view—if I may be permitted the well-known image—has its utility: it permits us to see the woods as a whole, and to discern contours and forms that might escape the mushroom-hunter. The first objective of this essay is thus to define the specific characteristics of the participation of the Kingdom of Sicily (Regnum Siciliae) in the Castilian monarchy. The second aim is to attempt to explain the causes of Sicily’s long season of consensus with the policies of the Spanish Habsburgs, a task that of course involves delineating the principal modes of integration. The third objective is to isolate the causes of the upsurge of the widespread conflict during the course of the seventeenth century, and then to discern what induced Sicilians to rebel on two occasions, first in 1647–48 coincident with the revolt of Naples (the famous revolt of Masaniello), then in the revolt of Messina in 1674–78. In pursuing these aims I shall seek to demonstrate that the conventional thesis of the so-called “pact” or “contract” subscribed to by the Sicilian elites (terms coined, however, to refer to the elites of Naples) are overly schematic and, in substance, misleading.2 This point of view makes metaphorical use of a contractual framework to insist on the aristocracy’s voluntary renunciation of an active political role and its supine acceptance of higher taxation in exchange for social predominance and fiscal immunity. Without doubt, this thesis relies on some verifiable processes—for example, the feudal nobility did lose some autonomous capability to use force—but it renders them static and imprisons them within a rather mechanical scheme. Seen from the Sicilian point of view, this thesis tends to squeeze the governing class of the island into a homogeneous, politically united role that it never had;3 above all, it tends to obscure significant variations in political orientation through time.

2 Rosario Villari, The Revolt of Naples, trans James Newell (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), orig. ed., La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli: Le origini (1585–1647) (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1967); Giuseppe Galasso, Intervista sulla storia di Napoli, ed. Percy Allum (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1978), 46; Galasso, Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello: Politica, cultura, società, 2 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1982), 1:i–ii. 3 In this connection, see Francesco Benigno, “Mito e realtà del baronaggio: L’identità politica dell’aristocrazia siciliana in età spagnola,” in Francesco Benigno e Claudio Torrisi, eds, Elites e potere in Sicilia: Dal Medioevo ad oggi (Catanzaro: Meridiana, 1995), 63–78.

integration and conflict in spanish sicily

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It seems more productive to pinpoint, within the evolution of the system of integration, the fundamental process that led to a noticeable change in political relations between the Sicilian aristocracy and the Spanish Habsburg monarchy. This occurred after the introduction, first, of the valimiento, the system of placing the royal power into the hands of one chief minister, the valido or “court favorite,” then of what was called the “war government” or the “extraordinary government.”4 Rather than considering these processes as resulting from an exchange or a pact, it seems to me more productive to try to read them, on the one hand, as emerging out of long-term transformations involving both Spanish society and Sicilian society (urbanization, the aristocrats’ shift to being courtiers, the growing bureaucracy), and, on the other hand, as direct effects of changes in the political system regarding the center and the peripheral territories.5

1. The Kingdom of Sicily in the Castilian Monarchy This means that I shall give special consideration to the institutional channels, notably the restructuring of the political-administrative apparatus during the course of the sixteenth century, culminating in the reform of the courts in 1569,6 which embodied the mechanisms for the integration of Sicily into the “composite monarchy” of the Spanish Habsburgs.7

4 “Governo di guerra”; “governo straordinario.” I am alluding here to Richard Bonney, Political Change in France Under Richelieu and Mazarin, 1624–1661 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Bonney, The Limits of Absolutism in Ancien Régime France (Aldershot, Hampshire, Brookfield VT: Variorum, 1995). 5 For shifts of perspective in the relations between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Crown in Sicilian historiography, see Domenico Ligresti, “Per un’interpretazione del Seicento siciliano,” in Gianvittorio Signorotto, ed, L’Italia degli Austrias: Monarchia cattolica e domini italiani nei secoli XVI e XVII (Mantova: Centro Federico Odorici, 1999), vols. 17–18 of Cheiron, 81–105. See also the summary in Pietro Corrao, “La Sicilia provincia,” in Francesco Benigno and Claudio Torrisi, eds, Rappresentazioni e immagini della Sicilia tra storia e storiografia (Caltanissetta and Rome: Salvatore Sciascia, 2003), 41–58. 6 See Vittorio Sciuti Russi, Astrea in Sicilia: Il ministero togato nella società siciliana dei secoli XVI e XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1983.) 7 I use the term “Monarchy” in the sense given to it by Gregorio López Madera: “The most powerful Kingdom with the most provinces and Kingdoms subjected to it is called Monarchy” (“Llamáuase por excelencia Monarchía, el reyno más poderoso y que más reynos y provincias tuviese subjetas”). Gregorio López Madera, Excelencias de la Monarquía y reino de España (1625) (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Politicos y

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A rapid examination of the role of the viceroy and the few other Spanish functionaries present on the island, on the one hand, and of Sicilian functionaries in Madrid, on the other hand, illustrates the weakness of the official structures through which (in theory) political integration was accomplished. Officially, the number of Spanish functionaries present on the Island was limited to the viceroy, his consultore (first councilor of the kingdom, appointed directly by the king), and a variable but restricted number of other ministers.8 The privilege of naturaleza—the right of “native” Sicilians to hold many positions—of course hindered the proliferation of Castilian political personnel in the public administration. Several means were used to overcome this obstacle. The simplest of these was for a Spaniard to be naturalized as a Sicilian, earning citizenship by residence in a Sicilian city for a certain period or per ductionem uxoris, by taking a Sicilian wife. This escamotage was much used, in Palermo in particular, which was generally known as an “open” city, in a strategy that it adopted to enhance its incomplete or challenged status as a capital city. On other occasions various expedients were used to circumvent the privilege that reserved posts to native Sicilians.9 Francesco Fortunato observed early on that “for some time now, this has been allowed to happen, and indeed not too long ago, the King appointed a Genoese to a judgeship on the High Court, a promotion that caused consternation for the Deputation of the Kingdom serving under the Viceroy.”10 It should be recalled, in this connection, that “it is in the nature of things that no nation in the world appoints foreigners to its offices”—that is, for reasons of governance nearly

Constitucionales, 1999), 26. See also, J. H. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies,” Past and Present 137 (1992): 48–71. 8 On the post of consultore, see Adelaide Baviera Albanese, “L’ufficio del Consultore del viceré nel quadro delle riforme dell’amministrazione giudiziaria del secolo XVI in Sicilia,” Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato, XX (1960): 149–95. 9 On the use of such maneuvers, see Francesco Benigno, “Considerazioni sulla storiografia municipale in età spagnola,” in Il libro e la piazza. Le storie locali dei Regni di Napoli e Sicilia in età moderna, Atti del convegno, Maratea, 6–7 June 2003, ed. A. Lerra (Manduria, Bari, and Rome: Piero Lacaita, 2004), 51–68. 10 “De algun tiempo a esta parte se ha alargado la mano en esto, antes se ha visto Juez de la Gran Corte genoves en encomienda y par provision de Rey, en esta ultima promoció de que se agravió la Diputacion del Reyno delante el Virrey.” Below: “Qualquier nación del mundo tiene por naturaleza de no darse los oficios á estrangeros”; “en señal de confiança”; “vasallos conquistados.” See Adelaide Baviera Albanese, ed., “Los avertimientos del doctor Fortunato sobre el govierno de Sicilia (1591),” in Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia, ser. 4, vol. XV (1976): 57–64.

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all the kings in the world have granted this right, “as a sign of trust,” even to conquered vassals. For example, when Portugal became a Spanish dependency, Philip II promised the Portuguese that he would respect all their fueros y privilegios [laws and privileges], among these, the reservation of castles to the native-born. In Sicily, on the other hand, as Fortunato notes, castles could be given to foreigners. Another way to avoid the problem was to create posts for extraordinary councilors, a system that was used not only in the case of the “Great Sicilian,” Carlo d’Aragona y Tagliavia, the duke of Terranova, but also for such Spaniards as the alcado mayor of Castile, don Pedro Gonzáles de Mendoza, don Ottavio de Aragón, and don Nofre Escrivá. These were practices that invariably aroused the opposition of the Deputation of the Kingdom, prompting such protest that Philip II declared that the extraordinary councillors not take part in adjudicating cases involving the property and income of the royal patrimony or the Sacro Consiglio, comprised of the greater and more important officials of the kingdom.11 Given that they were subject to such limitations, institutional means for integration were inevitably modest in scope. The overall picture is more complex than this, however, and it cannot be restricted to the political and administrative infrastructure alone. Above all, we need also to consider the military sector, although its weakness in Sicily seems clear, especially after the end of the great war operations in the Mediterranean against the Turks. Sicily, as is known, had played a relatively large role in military action in the 1530s and 40s, the years of the capture of Tunis and Goletta. Later, beginning with the vice-regency of Juan de Vega, came the erection of a defensive system of watch towers and fortresses, backed by the kingdom’s galleys. As late as the 1570s, Sicily was the logistic base for the operations at Lepanto. Nonetheless, as early as the end of the century, and in spite of later attempts on the part of viceroy Osuna to build up Sicily’s military role, a progressive decline in the importance of the Mediterranean front and the consequent tendency to down-size the Castilian military presence on the island—a loss that was partially overcome, though with an exclusively defensive aim, by the

11 Pietro Celestre, “Idea del govierno del reyno de Sicilia,” in Vittorio Sciuti Russi, ed., Il governo della Sicilia in due relazioni del primo Seicento (Naples: Jovene, 1990), 48.

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constitution of citizen militias—became an undisputed fact.12 Once the fear of a Turkish military conquest had abated, the real problem in the seventeenth century became the raids of Barbary pirates, who sacked coastal towns and threatened to reduce their unprotected populations to slavery. One sign of this shift was the cutback in the galley fleet, which went from some twenty vessels in the time of Marcantonio Colonna’s vice-regency to nine in Osuna’s day, and later, ultimately to a squadron of six vessels. Pietro Celestre perceptively comments: “It seems they are going to shrink, not grow.”13 The infantry troops stationed in Sicily were also reduced substantially to one Spanish tercio, that is, to between fifteen and eighteen infantry companies, plus five companies of lancers of sixty horses each. Ecclesiastical structures, both secular and regular, require examination as well. A characteristic of the Sicilian scene was the presence of the important institution of the Regia Monarchia. This was the sovereign’s enviable power, as papal legate, to have a free hand in filling vacant seats in the churches that lay in the royal patronage. This power enabled him to confer a conspicuous number of ecclesiastical posts to Castilian (or at least Spanish) personnel. Even if the titular holders of such posts and benefices did not necessarily reside in Sicily, this was yet another fundamental channel of integration. It was of course reinforced by the presence on the island of the Spanish Inquisition, another means for inserting Spanish personnel into important nerve-points of Sicilian society. Historians have often interpreted the privilege of the Regia Monarchia (also known as the Legazia Apostolica)14 as an instrument of monarchic absolutism, a weapon in the hands of the monarch to counter papal claims to a right to interfere in religious life and in the Church in Sicily. Often the Spanish Inquisition, of which the Sicilian Inquisition was a dependency, has been seen in the same way.15 However, the Sicilian experience was one of a continuous

12 Domenico Ligresti, “L’organizzazione militare del Regno di Sicilia (1575–1635),” Rivista storica italiana, vol. 105, no. 3 (1993): 647–79. 13 “Parece que ayan de menguar que no crecer.” Celestre, “Idea del govierno del reyno de Sicilia,” 11. 14 Gaetano Catalano, Studi sulla Legazia Apostolica di Sicilia (Reggio Calabria: Parallelo 38, 1973); Salvatore Fodale, L’Apostolica legazia e altri studi su Stato e Chiesa (Messina: Sicania, 1991). 15 Vittorio Sciuti Russi, Introduction to Henry Charles Lea, L’inquisizione spagnola nel Regno di Sicilia (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1995), Italian translation

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jurisdictional friction between those two institutions in a series of conflicts in which both the regular and secular clergy were intensely involved. Rather than reinforcing the absolute power of sovereignty, the presence of institutions directly controlled from Madrid, as were the Regia Monarchy and the Inquisition, seems to have created other channels connecting the center and the periphery that consolidated relations based in politics, family, friendship, or kinship. One aspect of these connections or channels that should be stressed is that they were not hierarchically disposed even though they depended, in whole or in part, on the Crown. The system for the political integration of Sicily into the Spanish Habsburg monarchy thus seems to have been arranged, in the sixteenth century, by means of distinct, more or less parallel, and occasionally conflicting, channels.16 In confirmation of this, the frequent jurisdictional disputes among the various institutions were, for the most part, not resolved on the basis of a pre-established hierarchy; they were settled by political considerations—that is, in essence, by an institution’s ability to better represent and guarantee the objectives of the monarchy. In other words, in any given context, the institution that prevailed (which was not necessarily the one with the greatest formal prominence) was the one that found a better way to interpret the Crown’s requirements for loyalty and service. This occurred not because of any institutional virtue, but rather by the actions of the men (the groups, factions, or clientele systems) who formed that institution at a given moment. From this point of view, the office of the viceroy, leaving aside some viceroys’ talent for dominating the scene, was not thought of as the undisputed channel for an executive chain of command, but rather as just one important charge in a jurisdictional universe that included other, concurrent offices. Moreover, the stability of that charge (a three-year mandate, rotation within a cursus honorum) went

of Lea, The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies: Sicily-Naples-Sardinia-Milan-The CanariesMexico-Peru-New Granada (New York and London: Macmillan, 1908; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003, 1922); Francesco Renda, L’inquisizione in Sicilia: I fatti, le persone (Palermo: Sellerio, 1997). 16 See H. G. Koenigsberger, The Government of Sicily Under Philip II of Spain: A Study in the Practice of Empire (London and New York: Staples Press, 1951), in many ways a pioneering work. Available in an emended edition as The Practice of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969).

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in tandem with its limitations. It has often been noted that the position of consultore, the other muy preminente office that was almost always filled by a Spaniard (“So that [he] not be influenced by kinship or similar things, it is ordered that he be a foreigner,” that is, the officeholder had to be someone predisposed “to counsel the viceroys on all occasions.”), was in reality an instrument of parallel control. In substance its function was not overly different from the control over the governor in French pays d’Etat provided by the intendent in the age of Louis XIII and Richelieu. This remains true even without consideration of the system of official “visits.”17 Because the visitorsgeneral were functionaries chosen by royal appointment, they had a particular relationship with the viceroy. It is significant that in the ceremony in which he received his patent, a visitor-general was given an elaborately decorated armchair identical to the viceroy’s.18 Moreover, even if his visit did not, by definition, directly concern the viceroy’s operations, the viceroy’s entourage regarded it with understandable diffidence. There is abundant evidence of visitors who complained of the viceregal secretariat’s failure to cooperate with their inquiries. In a certain sense, there is a curious parallel between the stabilization of the role of the viceroy, flanked by the junta of the presidents and the consultore, and the stabilization of the role of Parliament (and of the Deputation of the Kingdom, its executive committee). This stabilization represented one aspect of the formal respect owed to the constitutions of the Kingdom of Sicily, but it was also a way to seek an efficacious connection with Sicilian society, especially in the aim of locating resources. This opens a question much debated in Sicilian historiography: that of the historical significance of the long duration of the Sicilian Parliament, a body that met with no consistent attempt, during the Spanish period, to suspend its sessions or abrogate its functions. This long continuance can be explained by the fact that, overall, the

17 “Para que no pueda tener passion de parentesco o cosa semejante esta mandado que sea estrangero”; “para aconsejar a los virreies en todas las occasiones”: Celestre, “Idea del governo,” 43. For the official “visits,” see Mireille Peytavin, Visite et gouvernement dans le Royaume de Naples XVI–XVII e siècles (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2003). The first part of this work presents a thorough analysis of the role of these investigatory visits in the Spanish crown lands in Italy. 18 “Ceremoniale dell’illustrissimo senato palermitano,” in Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia, ser, 4, Cronache e scritti Varii, vol. III, fasc. 1 (Palermo, 1895), p. 118.

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Parliament functioned efficiently as an instrument of integration.19 Although every session presented the governing forces with problems (first among them, maneuvering among a constant flood of petitions for special favors), all in all Parliament responded positively to everincreasing requests for donativi, its supposedly voluntary monetary aids to the king.

2. The Causes of Integration What really assured the long-term political integration of Sicily into the Spanish Habsburg monarchy was the kinship connections between Sicilian families (aristocratic families in particular) and the Aragonese and Catalonian nobility and, with increasing frequency, the Castilian nobility. Such links provided a substantial continuity of family and cultural traditions. According to Pedro de Cisneros, the ill-fated secretary to viceroy Marcantonio Colonna imprisoned for fraud and extorsion, writing in his Relación de las cosas del reyno de Sicilia,20 the most prominent figures in the Sicilian nobility should henceforth be considered as completely hispanized: these included the prince of Butera, the holder of the highest title in the kingdom and a member of the house of Santa Pau, who boasted of his family’s origins in Catalonia; the prince of Castelvetrano and duke of Terranova, who traced his lineage in part from the famous Blasco de Alagon who arrived in Sicily in 1282 with Pedro de Aragón, the king, and who was, according to Cisneros, related to the royal house of Aragón. Francesco Moncada, the prince of Paterno, lord of Aderno and Caltanisetta and count of Golisano, is given as a great-grandson of Juan de Vega on his mother’s side; Juan de Zúñiga, the prince of Pietraperzia was Comendadador mayor de Castilla; Pietro de Luna (a family considered

19 It is interesting to note the obviously different situation of the Parliament in the Kingdom of Naples. For useful particulars, see Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, “El parlamento del Reino de Napoles bajo Carlos V: Formas de representación, facciones aristocraticas y poder virreinal,” in Laura Casella, ed., Rappresentanze e territori: Parlamento friulano e istituzioni rappresentative territoriali nell’Europa moderna (Udine: Forum, 2003), 330–87. 20 Pedro de Cisneros, Relación de las cosas del reyno de Sicilia, ed. Vittorio Sciuti Russi (Naples: Jovene, 1990), 4–10. On the traditions, actual and presumed, of the Sicilian nobility, see E. Igor Mineo, Nobiltà di stato: Famiglie e identità aristocratiche nel tardo Medioevo: La Sicilia (Rome: Donzelli, 2001).

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to have come from Aragon), the duke of Bivona, marquis of Giarrantana, was descended on his mother’s side from the duke of Medinaceli; Fernando de Téllez de Silva, the marquis of Favara, a Portuguese family. It would be mistaken to think of these connections, cemented by marriage, as private ties. They were also political alliances that influenced choices and determined options regarding public life. Moreover, it was thanks to what we can call a long familiarity with the political landscape of the Iberian peninsula that the great Sicilian families had relatives, agents, friends, and allies at court. Representation at court of the Kingdom of Sicily was thus far from being limited to the presence of a regent in the Council of Italy and a secretary or a court chaplain or two. An examination of private correspondence with persons sent to court shows us a complex universe of close but informal contacts that conveyed political relations of notable importance.21 Then of course there are the cities. Big cities were endowed with political traditions and invested with privileges. These cities attempted to tailor an intermediary space for themselves. Here the presence of a “special” case like that of Messina, one of the most privileged cities of the monarchy, should be stressed, not only in its own right, but also for the example it provides in contrast to other urban centers. One of the main characteristics of Messina’s “liberty,” which all the other cities of Sicily tended, in different ways, to imitate, was the presence and activities of its agents and representatives at court.22 Once again, the center responded positively. The open model of integration not only left room for rival models, but even tended to encourage them. Palermo, the contested capital city, reacted to Messina’s attack by focusing on its role as a court city, hence a natural place of residence of Sicilian noble families as well as the new noble families who were rising in society thanks to the wealth they had accumu-

21 See the correspondence of Vincenzo Paternò di Raddusa, Lettere di Spagna ed altri luoghi, ed. Simona Giurato (Catania, 2001). 22 In this connection, see the highly instructive Giuliana di scritture dal sec. XV al XVIII dell’Archivio Senatorio di Messina, compilata da D. Rainero Bellone, trascritta e continuata sino al 1893 da D. Salesio Mannamo, R. Mastro Notaro del Senato, per suo uso personale, vol. 2 of Carmelo E. Tavilla, Per la storia delle istituzioni municipali a Messina tra Medioevo ed età moderna, 2 vols. (Messina: Società Messinese di Storia Patria, 1983).

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lated in commerce and the liberal professions.23 In Palermo such individuals used the court to establish contact with the centers of political decision in Sicily, which were also the summits of political, judicial, and ecclesiastical power. Palermo welcomed them and welcomed the transformations they introduced (as was true in Naples)24 when they built their city houses or palaces there, but also when they founded monasteries and charitable institutions.25 The multifaceted world of connections and channels of integration also includes a shared cultural koiné. Common themes are everywhere: in the baroque restructuring of the realm of the sacred; in a widespread fondness for Spanish reed spear tournament and bullfights ( juegos de cañas and toros), for preaching, and for the theater; in a passion for the new style of urban decoration borrowed from Rome,26 and, conversely, even for criticism of the court and an exaltation of country living (alabanza de aldea). From that viewpoint the vice-regal court represented a fundamental pivot point: it was a center of transmission for the new cultural initiatives, the fashions, and the new directions taken by a governing class that—from Madrid to Palermo— coordinated, refined, and continually modified its tastes.

3. Integration and Division to 1620 These basic processes and this convergence made possible by a mechanism of supple integration were subject to phases of acceleration dictated by politics. The first of these arose out of the side effects of the introduction of the system of valimiento.27 In a first phase, valimiento brought increased access to royal favor and protection (patronage); the auctioning off of titles and offices that granted the holder

23 Valentina Vigiano, L’esercizio della politica: La città di Palermo nel Cinquecento (Rome: Viella, 2004). 24 Gérard Labrot, Baroni in città: Residenze e comportamenti dell’aristocrazia napoletana 1530 –1734, trans. Renato Ruotolo (Naples: Società Editrice Napoletana, 1979). 25 Sara Cabibbo and Marilena Modica, La santa dei Tomasi: Storia di suor Maria Crocifissa della Conzezione (1654–99) (Turin: Einaudi, 1989). 26 Gérard Labrot, Roma “caput mundi”: L’immagine barocca della città santa 1534–1677 (Naples: Electa Napoli, 1997), Italian translation of L’image de Rome: Une arme pour la Contre-Réforme, 1534 –1677 (Seyssel [Paris]: Champ Vallon; distribution, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1987). 27 For further development of the theme of the valimiento, see Francesco Benigno, L’ombra del Re: Ministri e lotta politica nella Spagna del Seicento (Venice: Marsillio, 1992).

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noble status, a willingness to alienate portions of the royal patrimony to the advantage of both the old and new nobility, and the creation of institutional protection for indebted feudal holdings. These processes continued on into the age of Philip III (1598–1621), together with a notable increase in matrimonial ties between the Sicilian nobility and the Castilian aristocracy.28 Taken as a whole, these developments accelerated preexistent tendencies toward the forced promotion to nobility of the elites; they also redefined the relationship between city and country, leading to profound changes in territorial equilibrium. It is with the duke of Osuna’s arrival in Sicily as viceroy (1611–1616) that we can begin to see clearly to how great an extent these options tended to become divisive, hence to produce conflict.29 Osuna’s attack on the privileged status of Messina set up opposing forces that were to persist throughout the seventeenth century. This was no longer a simple clash between two privileged cities, Messina and Palermo, in competition for the title of capital city; on a deeper level, it reflected two differing conceptions of the role of Sicilian participation in the Monarchy. One portion of Sicilian society resisted in the face of the viceroy’s first attempt to break down certain privileged arrangements (guaranteeing others, and with them in essence reinforcing the strategic importance of the power block of grain interests concentrated in Palermo around the viceroy). It is interesting to note that this resistance, which was aimed at both the conservation of interests and the defense of traditional ideas regarding the limits of viceregal action and the nature of relations between the Crown and the Kingdom, met with an attentive hearing from some members of the Council of Italy and the court. This means that divisions existing at court and in Sicily began to converge. Obviously, this was not the first time that correlations of the sort had ever occurred. During the course of the sixteenth century there had been important alliances between factions at court

28 Francesco Benigno, “Aristocrazia e Stato in Sicilia nell’epoca di Filippo III,” in Maria Antonietta Visceglia, ed., Signori, patrizi, cavalieri nell’età moderna (Rome: Laterza, 1992), 76–93. 29 See Vittorio Sciuti Russi, ed., Il parlamento del 1612: Atti e documenti, Quaderno no. 14 (Catania: Università di Catania, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Antropologiche, Geographiche, 1985); Francesco Benigno, “Messina e il duca di Osuna: Un conflitto politico nella Sicilia del Seicento,” in Domenico Ligresti, ed., Il governo della città: Patriziati e politica nella Sicilia moderna (Catania: C. U. E. C. M., 1990), 173–208.

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and groups of Sicilian families. Often these alignments arose thanks to a viceroy: Garcia de Toledo (1565–1568), for example, relied on the support of the largest Sicilian political block (the Aragona and Tagliavia families);30 Marcantonio Colonna (1577–1584) attempted to create a “party” of his own. It is significant that the principal attacks on Colonna came from the Inquisition, another supposed channel of integration. This is indicative of just how interconnected court politics and political interests in the periphery had already become.31 In light of the modifications produced by the introduction of the valimiento, alignments of the sort began to take on a different character, one that was not yet a threat to the system of integration, but that certainly accelerated the processes of creating divisions and oppositions within Sicilian society. Growing fiscal pressures due to the increased cost of the state infrastructure and, soon, to war expenditures, add to this picture. These pressures created a competition for honors, a race for population growth between the older centers and newly founded ones,32 and rivalries for preeminence and a spirit of conflict in the sphere of the sacred.33

4. Increased Conflict under the Olivares regime (1621–1643) Later, with the full affirmation of the valimiento,34 and even more with the advent in the 1620s of a phase of war and even greater fiscal 30 See Giuseppe Giarrizzo, “La Sicilia dal Cinquecento all’Unità d’Italia,” in Vincenzo D’Alessandro and Giuseppe Giarizzo La Sicilia dal Vespro all’Unità d’Italia, Storia d’Italia, vol. 16 (Turin: UTET, 1989), 99–785. But see also Francesco Benigno, “La Sicilia nell’età di Filippo II: Considerazioni sui rapporti fra centro e periferia nella monarchia cattolica,” in Ernest Belenguer Cebrià, ed., Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, 4 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), 4:439–51. 31 There is now a painstaking political biography of Colonna: Nicoletta Bazzano, Marco Antonio Colonna (Rome: Salerno, 2003). 32 On this point, however, see Francesco Benigno, “Assetti territoriali e ruralizzazione in Sicilia,” in Benigno, Ultra pharum: Famiglie, commerci e territori nel Meridione moderno (Corigliano Calabro [Cosenza]: Meridiana, 2001), 43–56. 33 See Lina Scalisi, Ai piedi dell’altare: Politica e conflitto religioso nella Sicilia d’età moderna (Corigliano Calabro and Rome: Meridiana, 2001); Scalisi, Il controllo del sacro: Poteri e istituzioni concorrenti nella Palermo del Cinque e Seicento (Rome: Edizioni Viella, 2004). 34 Francesco Benigno, “Tensiones sociales y diálectica política en Sicilia: De Felipe II á Felipe III,” in Congreso Internacional, Las sociedades ibéricas y el mar a finales del siglo

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pressures, the nature of the political ties between the center and the periphery changed. The first thing to note is that the consolidation of the Olivares regime (1621–1643) brought no serious attempt to curtail Messina’s system of privileges. In spite of the attacks periodically launched by some of the viceroys, who were often persons linked to various groups opposed to Olivares, the Council of Italy made no move to change the status quo, either regarding Messina’s controversial economic privileges or the no less controversial theoretical parity between Messina a Palermo as the residence of the viceroy. To be sure, the project conceived in Messina to divide the Kingdom did not pass in the Council,35 but that does not mean that the city’s demands and interests were not on the table. The basic tendency of the Olivares regime in Sicily was thus not to push for a reduction of the regime of exemptions and privileges. It was instead to seek to enlarge Sicily’s participation in financing the monarchy’s war effort by all available means. To this end, some viceroys tried to break down various aspects of the system of immunities and to increase receipts from the towns. The principal political problem facing the regime was thus to make use of viceroys who, by and large, were men from a noble group not well integrated into the Olivares regime’s system of power. The result was a climate of mistrust, if not open and reciprocal diffidence, which can be observed in the 1620s but was even more evident in the 1630s. The letters of Francisco De Mello, Olivares’s right-hand man, who served briefly as viceroy of Sicily (1639–1641) on the eve of the tumultuous 1640s, gives impressive testimony to this tense climate.36 With the increase in fiscal pressure and the outbreak of the Portuguese and Catalan crises, the regime grew even more concerned about the Sicilian aristocracy. This preoccupation was reinforced by instances of resistance that appeared in the ecclesiastical sphere, in

XVI, 6 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la conmemoración de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, Lisbon: Pabellón de España Expo Lisboa ‘98, 1998), 3:445–66. 35 See Luis Antonio Ribot García, La revuelta antiespañola de Mesina: Causas y antecedentes (1591–1674) (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, 1982); Francesco Benigno, “La questione della capitale. Lotta politica e rappresentanza degli interessi nella Sicilia del Seicento,” Società e storia 47 (1990): 27–64. 36 The letters of Francisco De Mello are conserved in the Archivo General de Simancas, Estado, Legajo 3483.

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Parliament, and more sharply expressed in tract literature. Some theologians returned to the theme of the limits to sovereign power;37 another example of this resistance is in the broad hearing for theses such as those of Antonino Diana, traces of which can be found in a significant text of the revolt in Naples of 1647–48 known as Il cittadino fedele.38 In general, the fiscal pressure imposed by the Olivares regime introduced into Sicilian society a veritable competition to take advantage of the regime’s willingness to concede, sell, and privatize property and create new privileges and monopolies. Jurisdictional conflicts merged with a tangled web of economic and territorial tensions and with unrest in the sphere of the sacred.39 Something like a telluric wave shook social equilibrium. No individual, no institution, felt totally secure in the relative position guaranteed by its status.

5. The Causes of Conflict This gave new prominence to earlier traditions concerning the political conditions of Sicily’s participation in the Spanish monarchy.40 Pietro Corsetto’s thoughts on the integration of Sicily into the Monarchy are pertinent here.41 In a text that he prepared for the arrival of Emanuele Filiberto as viceroy of Sicily, Corsetto remarks about Sicily’s integration into the Monarchy that its institutions were “Italian,” not “barbarous,” which meant that it reacted better to a contractual approach rather than to absolutist force. He cites Aristotle as stating that in the case of barbarians “Dominion by one person alone is just and legitimate.” He comments, “With all this, such

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See Santo Burgio, Teologia barocca: Il probabilismo in Sicilia nell’epoca di Filippo IV (Catania: Società di Storia Patria per la Sicilia Orientale, 1998). 38 See Rosario Villari, ed., Per il re o per la patria: La fedeltà nel Seicento: con “Il Cittadino Fedele” e altri scritti politici (Rome: Laterza, 1994). 39 Giovanna Fiume, Il santo moro: I processi di canonizzazione di Benedetto da Palermo (1594–1807) (Milan: F. Angeli, 2002); Sara Cabibbo, Santa Rosalia tra terra e cielo: Storia, rituali, linguaggi di un culto barocco (Palermo: Sellerio, 2003). 40 Pietro Corrao, Governare un regno: Potere, società e istituzioni in Sicilia fra Trecento e Quattrocento (Naples: Liguori, 1991). See also Simona Giurato, La Sicilia di Ferdinando il Cattolico: Tradizioni politiche e conflitto tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento (1468–1523) (Soveria Mannelli [Catanzaro]: Rubbettino, 2003). 41 Pietro Corsetto, “Instrucción para el principe Filiberto quando fue al virreynato de Sicilia,” in Vittorio Sciuti Russi, ed., Il governo della Sicilia in due relazioni del primo Seicento (Naples: Jovene, 1984).

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repressive and high-handed governance would seem to be tyranny, even if it were appropriate and according to the nature and customs of the people and for their own benefit.” Moreover, Corsetto adds: It is untrue, as some claim, that Italian subjects must be governed with tyranny, because this proposition is a greater offense to the one who governs than to those who are governed: the fact that a leader is considered a tyrant is very detrimental to the public good and to the service of the king himself. . . . Surely the Italians, because they are not of a servile and abject nature, are not like the barbarians of which Aristotle speaks, who must be controlled with a heavy hand as a master would a slave, or as a commander would who has placed himself above the law.

Sicilians in particular, “who are Italians,” do not need to be governed despotically “for certain reasons, they have merited that their kings treat them as if they were the monarchs’ own children. . . . The Sicilians should be treated as one’s children and not as slaves; justice should be administered according to their laws, under which they delivered themselves voluntarily to the Crown of Aragon.” As Aristotle says, “beware the hatred that is turned against those who would impose themselves excessively on their subjects.”42 This is a theme that Francesco Fortunato had already developed. The king of Spain, Corsetto declares, is “royal monarch” in the states of Spain, Flanders, Naples, Sicily, and Milan, “such monarchs either govern themselves directly, as those of Castile, or through their officers.” He is “lord monarch” in the West Indies, where the king has dominion “not only in universal but even more in particular.”

42 Ibid., 66–70: “Señorio”; “justo y legítimo”; “con todo eso pareceria tiranide en el modo de mandar heril y apretado, aunque fuese muy a propósito y conforme a la naturaleza y costumbres de la gente, y a provecho y beneficio suyo el governarse deste modo”; “es falsa la proposicion de algun que los subditos de Italia se deben gobernar tiranicamente, porque, oltre que esta proposicion ofende mas a quien gobierna que a los que son gobernados, por llamarle tirano, es tambien muy perjuizial al bien publico y al servicio del mismo Rey”; “los italianos sin duda ninguna no son de temple y condición de los Bárbaros de los quales habla Aristótiles, porque no son de naturaleza servil y abyeta, que para su conservación hubiessen de ser governados con un mando señoril”; “un dominio señoril el qual se exercita entre el dueño y el esclavo, o por un mando y govierno de cabeça no arrimado a las leyes”; “por particulares razones, por las quales han merecido con sus reyes que los traten como a hijos”; “deven los sicilianos tratarse como hijos, y no como esclavos, administrarles justicia conforme a sus leyes con las quales se dieron a la corona de Aragón voluntariamente”; “temer el odio en que caen los que demasiadamente gravan los subditos.”

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In practice, the Indies are all of the royal patrimony, “in which no one possesses anything unless recognized by the King.”43 Corsetto also complains of the hardships of the titled nobility: “These titled nobles are burdened with debt and sued by creditors, and so they are not a hindrance to the government, as a person who wrote to warn Marco Antonio Colonna noted.” In reality, the famous Avvertimenti of Scipio di Castro do not present this viewpoint,44 but Corsetto attacks the Deputation of the Estates and declares that since the duke of Maqueda’s time (1598–1600) that body has been corrupted and that “those who wish to avoid paying their creditors put all their assets, even property that are not grain fields, in the hands of the Deputation, commit a thousand frauds in the leases, and take for themselves so much of the last scraps that nothing remains for the creditors.”45 Above all, however, Corsetto remarks on the scarcity of posts for the nobility in Sicily: “His Majesty has little scope to employ the titled in matters relating to his service.” Thus it was advisable to give nobles the few posts that were available—for example, as pretore (the highest judicial post in Palermo, by appointment by the viceroy) or stratigoto (or straticó, a direct representative of the king, president of Messina’s court of law). This line of thought was vigorously reiterated in the 1640s by Luigi Moncada (viceroy, 1635–39), prince of Paternò, who records in a series of memoranda that “the conservation of extended monarchies, with such separated members, consists of unifying the distant regions and customs through bonds of friendship, kinship ties, and mutual interest.” He further states:

43 Ibid.: ”Monarca real”; “Los quales gobierna ò por si, imediatamente, como los de Castilla ò por sus lugartenientes”; “monarca señoril”; “no solo en universal mas aun en particular”; “sin que nadie tenga en ellas cosa que la reconozca del Rey.” 44 Avvertimenti di Don Scipio di Castro a Marco Antonio Colonna quando andò vicerè di Sicilia, A. Saitta, ed. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1950). 45 Corsetto, “Instrucción,” pp. 73–77: “Los dichos titulados están cargados de deudas y casi todos tienen pleyto de acreedores, y por esto non dan embarazo al gobierno como lo apuntò una persona que escrivio algunos advertimientos al señor Marco Antonio Colonna . . . Los que no quieren pagar a sus acreedores ponen en deputación qualesquiera bienes rayzes aunque no sean seminatorios, cometen mil fraudes en los arrendamientos, sacan por ellos mismos los alimentos tan pingues que no queda nada para los acreedores.” In the following paragraph, Ibid.: “Su Magestad no tiene mucho en que emplear los titulados en cosas de su servicio.”

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francesco benigno Such rich bonds of kinship must break when the damages done by family ties are made visible in each and every nation. The governments of Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragon are the means and the merit to the Spanish to achieve the greatest positions that we seek. The Italian posts cannot be a desirable reward and final goal of their rise; there their hopes would end where others begin. . . . What pestilence, Lord, does the Italian sky instill in the hearts of those born in other provinces, the need to undermine more than elsewhere the integrity of justice and the intention of those men? What merit or privilege does nature give to those born in other provinces that their rectitude is believed more incorrupt than ours? 46

It is worth recalling that Luigi Moncada was later involved in the pro-French conspiracy of 1648–49,47 when it became clear that underlying the urban populace’s revolt to protest social conditions that had become intolerable there was a subterranean but decisive disquietude among the aristocratic governing class. In Sicily as elsewhere the fall of Olivares in 1643 did not in fact produce the soothing effects that Philip IV had hoped for, or, at best, did so only temporarily. After a first phase of recuperation and reassurance, promoted by the acts of Juan Alfonso Enriquez de Cabrera, the Admiral of Castile, viceroy of Sicily (1648–1651),48 it was clear to everyone that Olivares’s dismissal did not signify a complete realignment of factions within the court, and that Luís de Haro provided physical continuity for the ongoing power of groups formerly aligned with Olivares that his opposition would have liked to

46 British Museum Library, Ms. Add. 28466: “La conservaçion de las Monarquias dilatadas y de miembros tan separados consiste de unir las disttanzas regiones y costumbres con vinculo de amistad de adherencia de parentesco y de iguales intereses”; “Tan rica cadena de amorosa union es preciso que se rompa quando se pongan a la vista de unas y otras naçiones los daños del parentesco. Valencia, Cataluña y Aragon estos goviernos son, medios y merito a los espanoles para lograr los puestos mas grandes de que nos arojan. No los pueden apetexer los italianos como premio y ultimo fin de sus ascensos, allì acavarian sus experanzas donde las otras empiezan”; “Que pestilencia comunica Señor en los corazones el çielo italiano para que aya de prebaricar mas que en otra partes la entereza de justiçia y la intencion de aquellos hombres, que razon de merito o qual privilegio dio la naturaleza, a los naçidos en otras provincias para que se fie de ellos mas yncorrupta la rectitud que en nosotros?” 47 There is interesting material on this conspiracy in Rosanna Zaffuto Rovello, Caltanissetta Fertilissima Civitas 1516–1650: Storia di Caltanissetta parte 2 (CaltanissettaRome: Salvatore Sciascia, 2002), 337–60. 48 See Francesco Benigno, “Il dilemma della fedeltà, L’Almirante di Castiglia e il governo della Sicilia,” Trimestre: Storia, politica, società XXXVII (2002): 81–102.

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have seen thrust to the sidelines with his fall. At the same time, the demands of war made it impossible to reduce fiscal pressure or prevent the adoption of systems of “executive” tax-collection put into effect in the Olivares period that had elicited strong resistance. As a result, divisions within Sicilian society were even further accentuated, and there was a tendency among some members of the aristocracy not to exercise their own right (and duty) to exert social control, thus, in essence, giving free rein to popular resentment of a tax system that was more and more obviously iniquitous. The outbreak of the revolt of 1647 signaled the first major break in the system of integration as it had evolved in Spanish Sicily. A discontented aristocracy imbued with a frondeur spirit found an echo in the determination of the urban corporations to renegotiate the terms of the taxation of urban resources. A return to normality included the punishment of certain popular leaders, to be sure, but the social compromise that was arrived at increased rather than diminished the power of the Palermo guilds.49 While the governing class in Messina managed to pursue its policy of reinforcing the image of a loyal city, with the transparent intention of maximizing the advantages to be gained, between 1648 and 1649 a series of plots revealed the pro-French sentiments of some members of the Sicilian aristocracy,50 among them, the count of Mazzarino, prince of Butera (the highest title of the kingdom); his brother-in-law, the count of Racalmuto; and cadets of the best aristocratic houses, members of the Ventimiglia, Requesens, Afflitto, Filangeri, and Gaetani families.

Conflict in the second half of the seventeenth century After a phase of readjustment in the 1650s and the early 1660s, years in part distinguished by an overall reduction in fiscal pressures, 49 Anna Siciliano, “Sulla rivolta di Palermo nel 1647,” Archivio Storico Sciliano, vols. LXI–LXII (Palermo, 1938–1939): 183–303; H. G. Koenigsberger, “The Revolt of Palermo in 1647,” The Cambridge Historical Journal 8, no. 3 (1946): 129–41; republished, with minor changes, in Koenigsberger, Estates and Revolutions: Essays in Early Modern European History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), 253–77. 50 It is interesting to note the changes that the War of the Spanish Succession brought to divisions within the Sicilian aristocracy. On this topic, see Francesca Gallo, L’alba dei gattopardi: La formazione della classe dirigente nella Sicilia austriaca (1719–1734) (Catanzaro: Meridiana, 1996).

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but above all by efforts to raise funds by means of extraordinary taxes, the new political situation at the death of Philip IV and the regency of Mariana de Austria once more brought to the forefront the problem of the political role of Messina and the representation of that city’s interests. Two competing groups emerged out of the city’s governing class: the first, in the minority, was intent on defending the city’s privileges; the other, the majority, was disposed to make moderate sacrifices in exchange for a greater attention on the part of the Crown to Messina’s strategic interests. The latter group, which had championed Messina’s loyalty to the Crown during the events of 1647–48, but who had supported Don Juan of Austria, the Admiral of Castile, on that occasion and had continued to cultivate relations with Philip IV’s illegitimate son for some time after then, found itself out of favor and without efficacious connections at a court dominated first by Father Nithard and later by Fernando Valenzuela. Mariana, queen and regent, refused to grant Messina’s representatives the customary qualification as ambassadors, which amounted to something like a declaration of her rejection of the city’s representation. This move was followed by sending Luis De Hoyo to Messina in the post of straticó with the charge of creating a pro-government party in that city. This occurred just as pro-autonomy sentiment was gaining ground in that city, since the group that had backed Don Juan could no longer guarantee fruitful political integration.51 It is interesting to note that the revolt of Messina of 1674–78 arose in part out of the usual intertwining of political struggle in the periphery and at the center of the Spanish monarchy, but also out of the court’s refusal—essentially for political reasons, notably the fear of the growing popularity of Don Juan of Austria among the ranks of the Sicilian nobility—to retain the prevailing system of integration. As a consequence, Spanish dominion over Sicily was for a time perceived as threatened, thanks to diversionary actions on the part of the French fleet. The result was the liqudation of the anomalous status of Messina—something that the supposedly centralizing regime of Olivares had never dreamed of putting into act and had

51 For more on this topic, see Francesco Benigno, “Lotta politica e sbocco rivoluzionario: Riflessioni sul caso di Messina (1674–78),” Storica 13 (1999): 7–56. For the overall interpretation underlying this thesis, see Benigno, Specchi della rivoluzione: Conflitto e identità politica nell’Europa moderna (Rome: Donzelli, 1999).

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not attempted to do, essentially for political reasons having to do with mistrust of a Sicilian aristocracy that was for the most part Palermitan of birth or adoption. This change was realized, still for political reasons, by the regime of the regency of Mariana de Austria (1665–1676), a regime generally considered little inclined to impose its own will at sword’s point and just as generally held to be disposed to compromise or even to a restauración de fueros—a reinstatement of local privileges.

6. Conclusion: Call for a new Approach As it should be clear even from this necessarily summary description of the complex system of political integration that governed relations between Sicily and the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth century and its evolution in the seventeenth century, the conventional thesis of the so-called “pact” or “historical compromise” subscribed to by the elites—something like a contract stipulating the safeguard of their social preeminence in exchange for a renunciation of political hegemony—is essentially misleading. Rather than continuing in that vein, we need a new line of research that will investigate the modalities of integration by analyzing cultural models and their circulation and diffusion. Only then will we have a more fully articulated vision of Sicily’s participation in the composite Habsburg Monarchy. The essential problems, in Sicily as in Naples,52 were still those of political participation. The old system of parallel or competing channels of integration was thrown into crises by the need for a greater and more functional executive power, required by the system of the valimiento in times of war. But, as Olivares had clearly seen, this change in traditional arrangements would have required a greater, not a lesser, circulation of the elites within the combined monarchy

52 Aurelio Musi is of a different opinion. He credits the existence of a “Neapolitan road to the modern state” and, by implication, that of some sort of irremediably different “Sicilian road.” See Aurelio Musi, Mezzogiorno spagnolo: La via Napoletana allo stato moderno (Naples: Guida, 1991), and Musi, “Il compromesso tra la monarchia spagnola e la feudalità nella via napoletana allo stato moderno,” in Francesco Benigno and Claudio Torrisi, eds., Città e feudo nella Sicilia moderna (Caltanissetta and Rome: Salvatore Sciascia, 1995), 261–77.

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of the Spanish Habsburgs and a better-equilibrated system for the rotation of honors and for reciprocity among interests. This did not occur, and the consequence of the rampant expansion of Spanish fiscal policy, combined with a nearly total absence of political representation and conflict among various sectors of Sicilian society led—as it did in other parts of Europe during the same period, and for not too dissimilar reasons—to open revolt.

CHAPTER TWO

THE KINGDOM OF SARDINIA: A PROVINCE IN BALANCE BETWEEN CATALONIA, CASTILE, AND ITALY* Francesco Manconi

The Catalan Era: A Time of Wars and Commerce Sardinia is the region in Italy that can boast of having, if not the oldest, certainly the most longstanding political and cultural ties with Spain. But it is with Catalonia, and only with Catalonia, that the island achieved a reciprocal penetration that in principle was only institutional, but that with time became economic and cultural as well. In the late thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, the Catalans, in the phase of their mercantile expansion along the “diagonal of the islands,” reached the western coast of Sardinia. The merchants of Barcelona were aiming at some of the basic resources of the island, in particular silver from the mines of Iglesias, salt from the southern lagoons, coral from the west coast, and agricultural and pastoral products such as grain, hides, and cheeses.1 The increasingly close relations between Sardinians and Catalans reached a juridical and institutional peak in 1297, when Pope Boniface VIII, making use of his right to dominium eminens, conceded the island as a fief to the king of Aragon, James II. The pope’s intention was to remove Sardinia from the sphere of influence exerted by the ruling families from Liguria and Tuscany, often in fierce competition among themselves, whose dominion was almost unopposed yet at the same time out of the control of the Communes to which they belonged. The king of Aragon’s military conquest, supported at first by the giudice who ruled the district of Arboréa, the king’s most powerful Sardinian vassal, was far from easy. In the fourteenth and fifteenth

* Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 Ciro Manca, Aspetti dell’espansione economica catalano-aragonese nel Mediterraneo occidentale: Il commercio internazionale del sale (Milan: Giuffrè, 1965); Mario Del Treppo, I mercanti catalani e l’espansione della Corona d’Aragona nel secolo XV (Naples: Arte Tipografica

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centuries the island was the site of widespread guerilla warfare among a number of mercantile and lordly powers—Genoese, Pisan, and Sardinian-Catalan—all of whom were at one time or another allied with, then adversaries of the king of Aragon. Complex re-combinations of power and swift changes of front and alliance created a time of political instability and social crises unequaled in Sardinian history. The weakness of the royal authority in the face of the overwhelming power of lords of Italian and Hispanic origin limited Catalan domination to a few commercial ports on the western coast that the Crown strategically populated only with Catalan citizens. In order to maintain its control over the territory, the crown of Aragon radically restructured its political and military organization. It imposed schemes of domination typical of feudalism,2 in contrast to the liberal tradition (pointed out years ago by Jaume Vicens Vives and Mario Del Treppo) of Catalan mercantile expansionism. An economic and social framework conditioned by war resulted in an abnormal increase in public works within the economy. The civic councils and the feudal lords were charged with regulating production and exchange, in particular in the sectors of grain production and coral fishery.3 The importance of the ports of Cagliari for the grain trade and Alghero for the coral trade led to the concession of special privileges to those two cities. A municipal regime was set up based on a series of immunities, exemptions, and economic and juridical benefits that favored the Catalan newcomers, with the result that the cities became the physical site for commercial and provisioning privileges in the centuries that followed. Other laws provided for the reorganization of municipal governments, following the model of Barcelona,

Napoli, 1972); Claude Carrère, Barcelone centre économique à l’époque des difficultés 1380 –1462 (Paris and the Hague: Mouton, 1967). 2 Rafael Conde y Delgado de Molina, “La Sardegna aragonese,” in Storia dei sardi e della Sardegna, gen. ed. Massimo Guidetti, vol. 2, Il Medioevo, dai giudicati agli aragonesi (Milan: Jaca Book, 1987), 2: 251–78. 3 Ciro Manca, Fonti e orientamenti per la storia economica della Sardegna aragonese (Padua: CEDAM, 1967); Francesco Manconi, “Traffici commerciali e integrazione culturale nel Mediterraneo occidentale fra Quattro e Cinquecento,” Studi Storici 4 (1995): 1055ff.; Manconi, “La pesca e il commercio del corallo nei paesi della Corona d’Aragona al tempo di Alfonso il Magnanimo,” in XVI Congresso internazionale di Storia della Corona d’Aragona: Atti, Naples, 1997, 2 vols. (Naples: Paparo, 2000), 2:1133–1145; Manconi, “L’Alguer, un puerto catalán en la ruta de Oriente,” in XVII Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón, Actes, Barcelona, Poblet, and Lleida, 7–12 September 2000, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Publicacions Universitat de Barcelona, 2003), 1: 435–40.

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and sanctioned the perpetual union of Cagliari and Alghero with the Aragonese Crown. This was the most important political innovation of the time, because it was introduced into a largely un-urbanized society, thus modifying both internal social organization within those cities and relations between the city and the countryside.4 Within the Kingdom of Sardinia the political crisis was determined by the weakness of the royal power in face of the hegemony of the lords of the land, some of whom were in league with the Italian lords while others descended from the Catalan nobility that had arrived on the island in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The crisis was destined to last for a long time, first because of the total absence of the king, but also because feudal anarchy could be contained only at the cost of continual and lacerating confrontations between the viceroy and the noble factions.

The Reconstruction of the Kingdom of Sardinia Under Ferdinand II The ascension to the throne of Ferdinand the Catholic marked a deep break in the history of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The launching of an organic project for the economic and political reorganization of the Crown of Aragon permitted Sardinia as well to enter into a beneficial cycle of modernization. In the island kingdom the primary objectives of the redreç initiated by Ferdinand were a rationalization of administrative and financial structures, the limitation of lordly and territorial powers, the extension of the crown lands (realengo), and the direct exploitation of royal revenues, which for too long a time had been prey to the appetites of private contractors and prone to bureaucratic and lordly abuses. In the late Middle Ages the feudal system and municipal government, the cornerstone of institutions of the Kingdom of Sardinia, had made up for an evanescent royal authority, at first represented

4 José Maria Font i Rius, “Orígenes del régimen municipal de Cataluña,” Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, year 17 (1946): 432ff.; Josep Maria Torras i Ribé, Els municipis catalans de l’antic règim (1453–1808). Procediments electorals, òrgans de poder i grups dominants (Barcelona: Curial, 1983); Raffaele Di Tucci, Il Libro verde della Città di Cagliari (Cagliari: Società Editoriale Italiana, 1925); Francesco Manconi, introduction to I libri dei privilegi della Città di Alghero, vol. 1, Libre vell (Cagliari: AM&D, 1997).

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by two governors-general. Later in the fifteenth century a viceroy was invested with military and administrative responsibilities and, to some extent, with political ones. The administration of the royal patrimony was entrusted to a royal procurator. A large measure of autonomy in his functions enabled this royal minister to lay down guidelines for fiscal policy and for the management of the royal patrimony, tasks that also involved determining contracts for the collection of taxes, granting fiefs and conceding emphyteusis contracts, and exacting loans and rents. The royal procurator’s office was of fundamental importance when the monarchy moved to recuperate parts of its patrimony that had passed into the hands of the great noble houses. The reforms put into place under Ferdinand also included the establishment, in 1480, of the office of maestro racional—a chief supervisor of fiscal administration in the Kingdom—autonomous of its analogue in Barcelona and, in 1497, the creation of the office of the receptor del reservado to receive revenues from the royal domains. A decade earlier, in 1487, the office of the regente of the real cancillería was established as a ministry directly under the vice-chancellor of Aragon charged with assisting the viceroy in the governance of the Kingdom.5 These political and administrative reforms followed the institutional model provided by the kingdoms of the Catalan-Aragonese Crown. Nonetheless, some reforms were put into effect so slowly that the new institutions took on characteristics that differed from their model. One case in point is the Corts (parliament), which had certain unique political aspects. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Corts gained notable institutional and political importance in the mainland kingdoms of the Aragonese; in Sardinia, however, they met only twice, on the occasion of fortuitous visits of Peter the Ceremonious and Alfonso the Magnanimous. For all intents and purposes, there was no parliamentary tradition in Sardinia in the fifteenth century; the Sardinian Parliament gained ground only in the age of Ferdinand the Catholic, just at the time—paradoxically—that the institution was beginning to show signs of political weakness elsewhere.

5 Antonio Marongiu, “Il reggente la reale Cancelleria, primo ministro del governo viceregio 1487–1847,” in his Saggi di storia giuridica e politica sarda (Padua: CEDAM, 1975),185–201.

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The Crown of Aragon’s comprehensive reorganization included the creation of the Supreme Council of Aragon in 1494 and reform of the municipal governments, including filling posts by drawing names out of a sack (insaculació) and selecting council members (consellers) by drawing lots.6 The reform of Sardinian institutions had an important place in that project, which was intended to give a new political and economic equilibrium to the confederation of kingdoms and to revitalize economic relations in the Mediterranean. In the plans of the Catholic king, the role that Sardinia was expected to play was far from marginal, given that two basic resources of grain and coral figured in its economy. This was the reason for the renewal of mercantile exchanges between Sardinian ports and ports on the east coast of Spain, Valencia in particular, whose economy had benefited from economic reversals in Barcelona after the Catalan civil war (1462–1472).7 Other commercial markets, Cagliari and Alghero, for example, were also able to grasp the opportunities offered by the revitalization of exchanges and the sizable migration of merchants, craftsmen, and minor nobility fleeing from the disasters of the civil war.8 Merchants of Catalan origin who had settled in Sardinia managed to monopolize the market on the island, controlling not only the importation of manufactured goods and merchandise of various sorts, but also the commerce in coral and the system of grain exportation (tretas). At the death of Ferdinand the Catholic the institutional and economic modernization of Sardinia was close to completion. The reform of the bureaucracy and the municipal governments, the balance between crown lands (realengo) and feudal lands, the enlargement of

6 Jaume Vicens Vives, Ferran II i la Ciutat de Barcelona (1479–1516) (Barcelona: Emporium, 1937); Vicens Vives, “La Corona de Aragón y el ámbito del Mediterráneo occidental durante la época de Carlos V,” in Obra dispersa de Jaume Vicens i Vives, ed. Miquel Batllori and Emili Giralt, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Editorial Vicens-Vives, 1967), 248. On municipal reform, see Torras i Ribé, Els municipis catalans. 7 On Valencia, aside from the works of Mario Del Treppo and Claude Carrère cited in note 1, see Emilia Salvador, La economía valenciana en el siglo XVI (comercio de importación) (Valencia: Universidad, Departamento de Historia Moderna, 1972); Salvador, “Aproximación al tráfico marítimo entre la isla de Cerdeña y la ciudad de Valencia en el signo XVI,” in XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona: La Corona d’Aragona in Italia (secc. XIII–XVIII), Sassari and Alghero, 19–24 May 1990, 5 vols. (Sassari: Delfino, 1995), 2:769–87. 8 Jaume Vicens Vives, “Cataluña a mediados del siglo XV,” in his Obra dispersa, 181–82.

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the jurisdictional sphere of the king, and the revision of the fiscal system were important innovations, and they continued to be fixed points in the organization of the Kingdom of Sardinia for two centuries to come.9 The Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia also began to function once more under Ferdinand II, following the Catalan practice of meeting in corts. It was an institution unfamiliar to the political culture of the Kingdom of Sardinia, but with time it became the locus of periodic understandings between the monarch and the privileged classes. Conceived of as an instrument for political mediation, the Sardinian Parliament was only rarely able to make full use of the contractual parliamentary procedures (pactisme) that aimed at defending or preserving “liberties” (that is, the laws, privileges, and constitutions, and the common law) of the Kingdom. It was to be simply the proper place for formulating the particularistic demands of the elites who were represented in its ranks. Its dialectical relation with the Crown usually went no farther than reciprocal satisfaction: the king’s fiscal contributions were met, in exchange for which privileges, collective and personal, were granted and the special interests of the municipalities and the lords were reinforced.

Within the Imperial System of the Spanish Habsburgs During the sixteenth century new social forces arose within the government of the Sardinian cities. New men gradually preempted the areas of power of the old Catalan dynasties, establishing themselves as an urban governing class. At the same time, they maintained extensive land-holdings in country areas, which meant that they controlled the agricultural and pastoral production that continued to provide the bulk of resources in the region’s economy. It was members of the minor landed nobility and the royal and feudal bureaucracy who managed to grasp notable opportunities for social advancement and personal enrichment in their management of delegated power. As administrators of fiefs and holders of contracts for collecting taxes, royal officials in peripheral areas invested the pro9 Bruno Anatra, “Istituzioni e società nella Sardegna spagnola: Medioevo persistente o modernizzazione zoppa?” in Nel sistema imperiale. L’Italia spagnola, International conference, Raito di Vietri sul Mare, 4–5 June 1993, ed. Aurelio Musi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994), 166.

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ceeds of their speculative activities in buying and selling agro-pastoral products and in the municipalities’ public debt; they acquired lowcost real estate from the ancient Catalan noble families who were gradually abandoning the island; they accumulated grants (mercedes) and modest public offices. When such “new men” had improved their economic status and acquired social prestige, they found it an easy task to insert themselves into the closed society of the municipal governments, where posts were traditionally reserved for the merchant oligarchies. The new governing classes of the first half of the sixteenth century set themselves three basic objectives: to govern the municipalities, to conserve the cities’ privileges in the aim of managing their commerce and controlling the peasant economy, and to acquire military privileges in order to reach equal status with the nobility of the sword, the descendants of the old Catalan and Valencian families. It is in the light of these premises that the urban patriciate reached an agreement with the new Habsburg monarchy. At his accession to his various Spanish thrones, Charles of Ghent obtained the unhesitating approval of the Sardinian elites. The dynastic changes were accepted unconditionally by the Kingdom of Sardinia during the Cortes of Saragossa of 1518, which were attended by syndics representing the Sardinian cities, and also during the Sardinian Parliament presided over by the viceroy, Angel de Vilanova, held the following year in Cagliari. This was a sign of the absence of a true contractual tradition in the Sardinian Parliament. In particular, however, the Parliament’s acquiescence to rules and innovations imposed from above is symptomatic of the reduced contractual power of the Sardinian parliaments; it foreshadowed an institutionalized absenteeism of the sovereign, whose surrogate in Parliament was, from that time on, the viceroy.10 Still, in the early sixteenth century, as it became customary to convene the parliaments roughly every ten years to vote the donativo— that is, Sardinia’s fiscal contribution to the crown—the Sardinian elites were given an opportunity to consolidate their “national” sentiments and identify themselves increasingly with the ancient 10 Francesco Manconi, “El reino de Cerdeña de Fernando II a Carlos V: El largo camino hacia la modernidad,” in De la unión de coronas al Imperio de Carlos V, ed. Ernest Belenguer Cebrià, 3 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001), 2:44–45.

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constitutional order of the kingdoms under the Catalan-Aragonese Crown. In a historical period in which geographical and political horizons were broadening with extraordinary rapidity, Sardinians remained, in substance, aligned with the Catalan positions of conserving the historical and political unity of the Crown of Aragon and its juridical and administrative autonomy.11 The lack of “imperial awareness” present in Catalan political circles under Charles V was also true of Sardinians.12 For example, the obligation of military service met with significant resistance when it was imposed with no real economic or honorific reward, and the official representatives of the emperor—the viceroy Antón Folch de Cardona (1534– 1545) and his successor Álvaro de Madrigal (1556–1569)—found it extremely difficult to impose viceregal preeminence in the governance of the kingdom. These were shoals on which Sardinian loyalty to the imperial cause seems to have vacillated:13 and unpleasant occurrences were even more keenly felt during the regency of Princess Juana, when economic difficulties and problems of government were heightened by the centralization of royal largesse in the imperial court.14 The halting communication between the centers of decision in Northern Europe and the Hispanic kingdoms during the transition years also led to administrative malfunctions in Sardinia that increased political uncertainty and led to a number of disappointed expectations. We can read the signs of the imperial court’s weak perception of the problems of peripheral areas and of a disconnect between it and the Spanish court in government measures regarding the Mediterranean kingdoms. The instructions sent from Brussels in 1554 to the regent, Juana, imposed a dual line of conduct for the administration of the islands: the Balearic Islands were to adopt the legal system that governed the kingdoms of the mainland; whereas “because it is near Italy,” Sardinia was to follow Sicily “in matters of govern-

11

Manconi, “El reino de Cerdeña de Fernando II a Carlos V,” 46–48. Joan Pau Rubiés i Mirabet, “La qüestió imperial en el pensament polític de la Catalunya moderna: Història d’una absència,” Manuscrits, 17 (1999): 207–35. 13 Francesco Manconi, Il governo del regno di Sardegna al tempo dell’ imperatore Carlo V (Sassari: Magnum Edizioni—Libreria Koiné, 2002). 14 M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado, The changing face of empire: Charles V, Philip II, and Habsburg authority, 1551–1559 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988) in Spanish translation as Un imperio en transición: Carlos V, Felipe II y su mundo, 1551–1559 (Barcelona: Editorial Critica, 1992). 12

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ance and justice.”15 These instructions seem to indicate that the Sicilian rather than the Catalan model should be applied to Sardinia. This ran counter to centuries-long tradition, however, as confirmed only a few years earlier by a viceroy in Sardinia who enjoyed close connections to the imperial entourage. As Anton Folch de Cardona wrote to Charles V in 1547, “Not only is this island not part of the Italian realm, but for many reasons, it is not even Italian, primarily because the supreme pontiffs granted it to the Kings of Aragon as a fiefdom and also because the inhabitants are not subject to its laws and its constitution but rather to those of Catalonia and Aragon.”16 It is not clear why the court in Brussels should have ignored the juridical and political tradition of Sardinia, particularly because the different status of the two islands seems reflected in the formal cession of Sicily to Charles’s heir, Prince Philip. This suggests that something remained of the old hypothesis of placing both kingdoms—Sicily and Sardinia—under the rule of the prince in order to establish a strategic connection between the two western Mediterranean islands to support defensive measures against the Turks. What is certain is that soon after, when the Council of Italy was constituted in 1555, those ideas fell into disfavor and Sardinia was not detached from the Aragonese crown. This may have been a small comfort to the Catalans, who were irritated by the formation of the Council;17 or, it may have been simply a last-minute afterthought before the provisions for the administrative rationalization of the crown’s Mediterranean holdings were put into effect.18 No questions were raised, on the other hand, regarding the Sardinians’ willingness to accept unconditional adherence to the 15 “Por estar en la parte de Italia”; “guiar en cosas de governación y justicia”: Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (henceforth cited as ACA), Real Cancillería, reg. 3991, fols. 66v-69v, instructions to Princess Juana, 15 April 1554. 16 “Esta ysla no solamente no es del dominio de Ytalia sino que no es Ytalia por muchas causas y la principal porque fue ganada por los reyes de Aragón que fueron los que obtubieron de los sumos pontífices gracia de la infeudación como porque los naturales no están a sus leyes y constituciones sino a las de Cataluña y Aragón”: Archivo General Simancas, Estado, 300/27, Viceroy Antón Folch de Cardona to the emperor, 7 September 1547. 17 Jon Arrieta Alberdi, El Consejo Supremo de la Corona de Aragón (1494 –1707) (Saragossa: Istitución “Fernando el Católico,” 1994);149–50; Ernest Belenguer Cebrià, El imperio hispánico (1479–1665) (Barcelona: Grijalbo Mondadori, 1995), 254. 18 J. H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963), in Spanish translation as La rebelión de los catalanes (1598–1640). 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1982), 27.

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destinies of the Habsburg monarchy. In 1556 the emperor’s abdication prompted a serious institutional crisis when the Aragonese and the Catalans refused to recognize the new sovereign unless Philip II agreed to swear the expected constitutional oath.19 The only subjects of the crown of Aragon (along with the population of Majorca) who recognized the new, far-away king and swore loyalty to him before the viceroy, thus definitively accepting royal absenteeism, were in fact the Sardinians.20 There is no proof that Philip II exhibited any particular fondness for Sardinia as a result of their swearing absolute loyalty to him in 1556. Still, the records show that on a variety of occasions he paid particular attention to the island in recognition of its conformidad (literally, “conformity,” in the sense of acquiescence) to the Catalan-Aragonese tradition. On several occasions Philip guaranteed the indissolubility of the island kingdom from the Aragonese crown and prevented Sardinia from being ceded in exchange for other dominions.21 The sovereign’s attitude seems to reflect a multiple recognition: of dynastic continuity between the houses of Trastámara and Habsburg; of the institutional unity of Catalonia and Aragon; and of the political and juridical identity of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The fact that Sardinians saw themselves in the Catalan-Aragonese “nation” is a self-identity based on collective sentiment as well as on juridical privileges. The monarchy could not possibly neglect taking that fact into account. It is not by chance that the instructions given to the new viceroy of Sardinia by Philip II in 1570 contain a reminder to govern in observance of “the order and the form that has been customary of the viceroys of the past, which is moreover in conformity with the style and custom in Catalonia.”22 19 Jordi Buyreu Juan, “De Carlos V a Felipe II: La problemática de las abdicaciones y la cuestión virreynal en la Corona de Aragón,” in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, ed. Ernest Belenguer Cebrià, 4 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), 3:344–45 and 357–58. 20 ACA, Real Cancillería, reg. 4011, fol. 148r. 21 Francesco Manconi, “‘De non poderse desmembrar de La Corona de Aragón’: Sardenya i Països catalans, un vincle de quatre segles,” Pedralbes, Revista d’història moderna (Universitat de Barcelona), 18 (1998): 179–194; Manconi, “L’identità catalana della Sardegna,” Cooperazione mediterranea: Cultura economia società, no. 1/2 (Cagliari; 2003): 105–112. 22 “La orden y la forma que se ha acostumbrado por los Virreyes pasados, que en lo demás es conforme al estilo y a lo que se usa en Catalunya”: Archivo Histórico Nacional (henceforth cited as AHN), Consejos suprimidos, libro 2554, instructions to the viceroy Antonio Coloma count of Elda (20 February 1570), fols. 70–88.

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The principle of conformidad is mentioned repeatedly and permeates the institutions, the common law, the language, the customs, and the culture of both nobles and commoners. This did not prevent the introduction of a few corrective measures in the institutional organization of the kingdom when the system of territorial Councils was developed. Between 1560 and 1564 the process of modernization of Sardinian institutions, begun in the age of Ferdinand the Catholic, concluded with the establishment, first of a Treasury of the Kingdom independent from the Tresoreria General of Aragon, and then, immediately after, of the Sardininan tribunal of the Audiencia.23 This second reform occurred within the framework of a broader process of restructuring the territorial audiencias in the interest of providing a better administration of justice.24 The Sardinian Audiencia, which was modeled on its Catalan counterpart,25 was to fulfill functions that went beyond the intermediate level of jurisdictional functions. The Audiencia—a collegial body composed largely of jurists (letrados) and headed by a regente real cancillería—took its place beside the viceroy in the political and juridical governance of the Kingdom. The administrative rationalization imposed by the Audiencia is particularly evident in the management of taxation and of the royal land-holdings, in the supervision of relations with the holders of local oficios, and, in the judicial sector, in regulating the many jurisdictions. At the same time, bringing Sardinia within the council system encouraged its definitive insertion within the political and administrative structure of the monarchy and imposed the primacy of the royal power over a particularism of municipalities and lords that was strong in Sardinian society. In substance, the elites ended up accepting the rules of the centralist government, imposed with bureaucratic firmness before the establishment of absolutism under Philip II.26

23 Francesco Manconi, “Come governare un regno: Centro madrileno e periferia sarda nell’età di Filippo II,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Filippo II, ed. Bruno Anatra and Francesco Manconi (Cagliari: AM&D, 1999), 290. 24 Pedro Molas Ribalta, Consejos y Audiencias en el reinado de Felipe II (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1984); Teresa Canet Aparisi, La audiencia valenciana en la época foral moderna (Valencia: Ediciones Alfons el Magnànim, Istitució Valenciana d’Estudis i Investigació, 1986); Canet Aparisi, “Los tribunales supremos de justicia: Audiencias y chancillerías reales,” in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, 3:565–98. 25 Francisco Vico, Historia general de la isla y reyno de Sardeña, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1639), 1:74; 2d. ed., 7 vols. (Cagliari: Centro di Studi Filologici Sardi—CUEC Editrice, 2004). 26 Manconi, “Come governare un regno,” 283–302.

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During the latter half of the sixteenth century, the state, in its various articulations, definitively imposed its beneficent presence on Sardinian society. The problem of how to involve the Sardinian upper classes in the management of public affairs remained unresolved, however. In order to become fully synchronized with the Kingdom of Sardinia, Madrid would have had to select royal ministers without discriminating against local figures, as had been the case in the Catalonian-Aragonese age. For some time during the sixteenth century the chronic lack of Sardinian letrados forced the monarchy to fill even the lesser plazas [“posts”] with functionaries from other kingdoms. During the reign of Charles V recruitment of ministers who were Sardinian naturales [“natives”] was limited to a very few prominent persons promoted in recognition of personal merit rather than thanks to a conscious aim of cooption. This is the first difference between Sardinia and Catalonia or Sicily, where all of the middle- and lower-level plazas were reserved for naturales. A second anomaly regards the choice of the viceroy, who in the kingdoms of Sardinia and Majorca was chosen exclusively from among the Catalan and Valencian aristocracy.27 The reasons for this are clear: granting the most important posts to high-ranking nobles of the Aragonese Crown met the need to strengthen the ties between the monarchy and the noble houses of Catalonia and Valencia who had demonstrated their loyalty to the crown, and, at the same time, to make sure that the Kingdom of Sardinia had a qualified, royal representative who respected the Catalan-Aragonese model of conformidad. Moreover, the viceroys of Sardinia were often related to members of the local nobility; at times they themselves held fiefs and other possessions on the island, hence they were able to reach understandings with the local power networks in the interest of consolidating the mechanisms of government and controlling social order in the Kingdom of Sardinia. When administrative rationalization of the bureaucracy and the council system of Philip II had been completed, even in peripheral areas such as Sardinia, it became indispensable to call on the local elites to give stability and continuity to the corps of functionaries.

27 Josep Juan Vidal, “Mallorca y Cerdeña en tiempos de Felipe II. ¿Reinos de segundo orden?” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Filippo II, 261ff.; Manconi, “Come governare un regno,” 288–89.

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Thus increasing numbers of Sardinian naturales held public office. This broader distribution occurred gradually, involving increasingly high levels of juridical competence, and with careful regulation of the process according to criteria imposed by the centralization of largesse ( gracia) and respecting a delicate balance among the power groups already present in Sardinian society. Another noteworthy social innovation is the change-over within the nobility that occurred during the course of the first half of the sixteenth century, after the diaspora of the ancient Catalan feudal families. Within the aristocratic “establishment,” which up to that time had been nearly closed and immobile, large gaps opened up that were promptly filled by figures from the emergent social levels. The resulting broad social readjustment offered Philip II the opportunity to limit the jurisdictional power of the ancient baronage and promote representatives of the feudal bureaucracy, the country gentry (hidalguía), and the merchant class who were disposed to serve the cause of the Habsburg monarchy. Such social promotions were numerous, to the point that 70 percent of the grants of nobility given in Sardinia during the sixteenth century were the work of Philip II.28 This phenomenon runs counter to what was typical of other Spanish provinces, Catalonia, for example, and Italian states such as Milan.29 Scrutiny of the registers of the real cancillería for the latter half of the sixteenth century shows that the concession of mercedes regarded not only the military, but a wide range of social categories: royal functionaries, ecclesiastics, and bourgeois of various levels. By the use of massive gratification of the elites (in a search of consensus that was unknown in the time of the emperor), Philip II pursued the objective of absolute internal political stability. Sardinians’ increasing identification with the values and the interests of the Habsburg monarchy was effected through the army, the Church, and the university, institutions that were an important force for bringing people together and that imposed the collective values of the Catholic monarchy. This was a major moment of cultural and political change in the Kingdom of Sardinia. 28 Bruno Anatra, “Economia sarda e commercio mediterraneo nel basso medioevo e nell’età moderna,” in Storia dei sardi e della Sardegna, vol. 3, Bruno Anatra, Antonello Mattone, and Raimondo Turtas, L’età moderna, dagli Aragonesi alla fine del dominio spagnolo (Milan: Jaca Book, 1989), 190–91. 29 Claudio Donati, L’idea di nobiltà in Italia, secoli XIV–XVIII (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 1988), 280.

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War against the Turks and the defense of the island offered opportunities of prime importance for promoting Sardinia’s allegiance to the monarchic cause. The topic of the defense of Sardinia in the era of Philip II—that is, shoring up the fortifications of the various cities, creating a system of coastal towers all around the island, maintaining a territorial militia to guard the coasts, stationing Spanish and Italian soldiers in Sardinia—were determinant factors in a process of increasing involvement in an all-Mediterranean war against a common enemy. A full treatment of a topic as complex as this one, and which has seen an increase in interesting and profitable studies in recent years, falls outside the limits of this discussion.30 It will suffice to note that the operations of the viceroy and the commanders and military architects who operated in Sardinia in the service of the Spanish monarchy to improve the defenses of a land held to be of fundamental strategic importance in the western Mediterranean, apart from military effects, was also a decisive factor in involving the Sardinian elites (and not only the elites) in the political cause of the House of Austria. In the age of Philip II this took place with a certain continuity and breadth, to the point of offering constant opportunities for social promotion to emergent levels of society. In the age of Charles V, on the other hand, mobilization of the nobles had been episodic and contained. Above all, it was the emperor’s African expeditions that represented, for certain nobles, prestigious and amply rewarded opportunities, so much so that an army career had changed the fortunes of a number of second-rank lords who rose to prominence in Sardinian society.31 Further opportunities for unprecedented social reorganization and cultural and moral growth were offered by the reform of the Roman Catholic Church.32 Philip II used the power to control ecclesiastical

30 See Alicia Cámara, Fortificación y ciudad en los reinos de Felipe II (Madrid: Nerea, 1998); Giuseppe Mele, Torri e cannoni. La difesa costiera in Sardegna in età moderna (Sassari: EDES, 2000); Marino Viganò, “El reino de Cerdeña: ‘La fortifficaçio dela present Çiutat y Castellij Caller’: Arquitectura militar de Carlos V a Felipe II (1523–1572),” in Las fortificaciones de Carlos V, ed. Carlos José Hernando Sánchez (Madrid: Ediciones de Umbral, 2000). 31 Francesco Manconi, Il governo del regno di Sardegna, 7–11. 32 The obligatory reference here is to the studies of Raimondo Turtas: see Turtas, “La Chiesa durante il periodo spagnolo,” in Storia dei sardi e della Sardegna, vol.3, L’età moderna, 253–97; Turtas, “La politica ecclesiastica di Filippo II in Sardegna,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Filippo II, 467–84; and, in particular, Turtas, Storia della Chiesa in Sardegna: Dalle origini al Duemila (Rome: Città Nuova, 1999).

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and religious life that the Spanish royalist tradition attributed to the crown to impose certain innovations. The assimilation of the decrees of the Council of Trent into the legislation of the kingdoms permitted, in Sardinia as elsewhere, a careful selection of bishops, vigilance concerning reform of the clergy, and a programmatic agreement with the ecclesiastical hierarchies and the new religious congregations. The regeneration of the Church appeared to Sardinian society as a salutary lashing. Philip II imposed a policy on the Cisnerian model to supervise morality of the secular clergy, and he resolutely supported the Society of Jesus, sent to Sardinia to put into effect a specific program of scholastic reform and cultural renewal. The application of the Tridentine dispositions made it clamorously evident that Sardinia had enormous problems, ranging from an unsatisfactory pastoral involvement of bishops in their diocese to the lack of cure of souls in the villages and the absolute cultural and moral inadequacy of the rural clergy. Cutting judgments on the Sardinians’ backwardness, on the ignorance of its clergy and its unspeakable conduct, and on the heterodoxy of the religious practices of the faithful were provided by such prelates and men of culture as Antonio Parragues de Castillejo, the archbishop of Cagliari, and Sigismondo Arquer, both of whom happened to be active in Sardinia.33 Renewal of the Church was thus a process that operated by a number of means, including a meticulous selection of bishops. This was a measure supported by Philip II that had particularly beneficial results in Sardinia because the dioceses, which were the principal forces for reform, could at last count on prelates who resided in their sees and were men distinguished for their culture and their firmness in putting into effect the dictates of the Council of Trent. Another reform of capital importance was the training of priests and the establishment of seminaries in the principal cities and of grammar schools in all the dioceses. Lay confraternities ( gremios), which were drawn from a Spanish cultural matrix, infused popular religiosity with a new spirit and contributed much to helping the Church’s actions reach into all the crannies of society. Newly revived ritual, devotional processions, and new means of oral communication (theater,

33 Sigismondo Arquer, Sardiniae brevis historia et descriptio (Turin, 1788),11, mod. ed. Cenza Thermes (Cagliari: Gianni Trois, 1987); Epistolario di Antonio Parragues de Castillejo, ed. Palmira Onnis Giacobbe (Milan: Giuffrè, 1958), 131.

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religious chants, and popular poetry) encouraged a cultural “recycling” of an archaic society that, although not afflicted with heretical beliefs of a theological nature, was imbued with deeply ingrained practices of a pagan cast that were the inheritance of a hegemonic popular culture. Philip II was not to play the role of “hammer of heretics” in Sardinia, but he was an unequaled reformer. The royalist orientation of his ecclesiastical policy can be appreciated in its full breadth and programmatic efficiency when we observe the extraordinary progress that cultural organization—in particular, that of “high” culture—achieved in Sardinia in the hundred years that spanned the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Another aspect of the profound regeneration of Sardinian society regards the urban cultural and professional world. Social groups of bourgeois extraction were expanding rapidly, and the increasing number of young men who graduated from the Italian and Spanish universities is evidence of how strongly the need for access to university studies was felt on the island. The Jesuit “colleges” established in Sassari in 1562 and in Cagliari in 1564 arose out of a convergence between those cities’ demands and the royal will. Legacies from Alejo Fontana, a Sassari letrado in the service of Charles V in the imperial court, of Archbishop Alepus of Sassari, and, at a later date of Gaspar Vico (1606) and the Bishop Canopolo (in 1611) enabled the Jesuits to transform their college in Sassari into a university of pontifical law in 1612. That institution’s promotion to the status of royal university in 1632 occurred with the establishment of faculties of Civil and Canon Law and Medicine, after an intermediate stage (in 1617) of royal recognition of academic titles in Philosophy and Theology. Cagliari, which had long been in competition with its rival city Sassari, had already obtained full title as a royal university in 1626.34

34 Miquel Batllori, “La Universitat de Sàsser i els col-legis de Sardenya. Estudi d’història institucional i econòmica,” in Batllori, Catalunya a l’època moderna. Recerques d’història cultural i religiosa, ed. Josep M. Benítez i Riera (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1971), 83–162; Raimondo Turtas, La nascita dell’Università in Sardegna: La politica culturale dei sovrani spagnoli nella formazione degli Atenei di Sassari e di Cagliari (1543–1632) (Sassari: Dipartimento di Storia, Università degli Studi, 1988).

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The 1600s: A Castilian Century It is clear that this rapid development of the two universities was the result of combined forces. The city administrations were particularly active in promoting consensus regarding the Jesuits’ teaching activities, which represented an opportunity for cultural growth for young people of wealth and for moral progress for all of society. It seemed to many in the middle class that university education offered the high road to success. Acceding to positions of political and bureaucratic power in the Kingdom of Sardinia was no longer a privilege reserved to foreigners. Such a climate of consensus easily explains the rapid absorption of Castilian culture on the part of city people, who were increasingly aware that their road to social promotion lay through the culture and the language of the empire. In their pedagogical pragmatism, the Jesuit fathers were willing to respect the linguistic pluralism of the Sardinians, but the use of Castilian was imposed by the king, on the explicit demand of the governors of Sassari. “It seems that with the Castilian language,” the official Jesuit visitor to the Sardinian colleges wrote to his Superior General in 1583: “the king is more honored, and the principal persons of the land strive to speak it, especially because the dialect of Sassari has many barbarisms and they esteem it less than common Sardinian that is spoken throughout the island. They say that if our men preached in another language than Castilian, they would not be heard so willingly, and in fact the officials would be offended, and it may be that our men are more easily inclined to Castilian as being more elegant and more highly prized.”35 Sardinians showed an equal pro-Castilian zeal in 1603 when, in order to lend strength to a request to found the University of Cagliari, they mentioned a presumed decree of Philip II prohibiting subjects of the monarchy from studying in the Italian universities.36

35 “Pare che con la lingua castigliana venghi più honorato il re et i principali della terra si sforzano di parlarla massime che la sassarese ha molta barbarie e la stimano meno che la commune sarda, la quale corre per l’isola. Dicevano che se i nostri predicassero in altra lingua che nella castigliana non sarìano uditi così volentieri anzi s’offenderìan gli offitiali et può essere che i nostri si siano inclinati più facilmente alla castigliana come più elegante et pregiata”: Raimondo Turtas, Scuola e Università in Sardegna tra ’500 e ’600 (Sassari: Centro interdisciplinare per la Storia dell’Università di Sassari, 1995), 180. 36 In the royal pragmatic of 1559 regulating such questions there is no explicit

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Acceptance of the Castilian way was by that time a well-defined historical course with no turning back. Urban circles demonstrated their pro-Spanish cultural orientation on many occasions. In 1616 the secretario of the city of Sassari, Juan Gavino Gillo y Marignacio, justified the use of Castilian in a poetic composition he had had printed by stating: “In order that it could be diffused in all the kingdoms of His Majesty, since today the Castilian language is so diffused. This is because language always follows power and command.”37 Was Gillo y Marignacio familiar with Nebrija? It is possible, as it is possible (on a more pedestrian level) that he was following the dictates of the administrators of his city. In the early seventeenth century the language of the elites and the bureaucracy—the written language, that is—was Castilian, although it was a Castilian strongly influenced by the local Catalan idiom. Confirmation comes from book production, which was for the most part addressed to a cultivated public by then “Castilianized.” The two print shops of Cagliari and Sassari (founded, respectively, in 1566 and 1616) printed, for the most part in Castilian, juridical texts, synodal acts, grammar books for students, and liturgical and theological works, which accounted for 77 percent of print production in the first half of the seventeenth century and 87 percent in the latter half.38 In contrast, there was a striking decline in the number of works published in Latin and in Catalan; Italian, which had been used at least until the mid-sixteenth century, disappeared completely. Obviously, the process of bringing Sardinian culture in line with the Castilian model was neither easy nor linear. Rather, it encountered political and institutional resistance, given a deep-rooted respect of the Catalan juridical tradition that was both anthropological (based

prohibition, as demonstrated, what is more, by the consistent presence of Sardinian students in the universities of Pisa and Bologna. In the period from 1543 to 1599, 148 young Sardinians took degrees in Pisa: see Raimondo Turtas, “La formazione delle Università di Cagliari e di Sassari,” in Turtas, Studiare, istruire, governare. La formazione dei letrados nella Sardegna spagnola (Sassari: EDES, 2001), 71. 37 “Para que corra por todos los Reynos de su Magestad, como ahora corre el lenguaje Castellano. Porque siempre la lengua siguió el Imperio, y el mando”: Joan Gavino Gillo y Marignacio, El triumpho y martyrio esclarecido de los Illustríssimos SS. Mártyres Gavino, Proto, y Ianuario (Sassari, 1616), p. A3. 38 Bruno Anatra, “Editoria e pubblico in Sardegna tra Cinque e Seicento,” in Oralità e scrittura nel sistema letterario, Atti del convegno, Cagliari, 14–16 April 1980, ed. Giovanna Cerina, Cristina Lavinio, and Luisa Mulas (Rome: Bulzoni, 1982), 233–43.

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on the widespread use of Sardinian in the villages and the influence of Catalan on many local dialects) and cultural (thanks to the persistence of aesthetic tastes and popular and religious traditions imported from Catalonia).39 It is a fact, however, that in the seventeenth century the social and cultural equilibrium in Sardinia changed substantially. The increasingly direct and invasive intervention of the state is reflected in the growing importance of bureaucrats and merchants. The new course of politics was primed by the gradual involvement of Sardinian naturales in the civic and ecclesiastical responsibilities of the Kingdom, a move that led to middle class control of vital portions of the political arena. This was a collective development, one symbolized by the career of the Sassari letrado Francisco Ángel Vico y Artea. A man of modest social origin, Vico studied law in Pisa in the 1580s and ’90s, and in the following twenty years he rose up through every rung of the bureaucratic ladder in the Kingdom to arrive at the post of regente of the Council of Aragon. In Madrid he operated in the shadow of the Count-Duke Olivares, acting as exclusive fiduciary of the monarchy for government affairs of Sardinia, in which role he worked to engage the cooperation of the Sardinian aristocracy in the military policy of the Count-Duke, Philip IV’s valido (court favorite).40 In Sardinia the political program of the Union of Arms met with nearly unanimous approval among the privileged classes who sat in Parliament. This was quite unlike the conflict that arose in the Catalan Corts in 1626 or the more attenuated resistance of the Cortes of Aragon and Valencia.41 In Sardinia Olivares’s program translated,

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I catalani in Sardegna, ed. Jordi Carbonell and Francesco Manconi (Milan: Silvana, 1984), also published as Els Catalans a Sardenya (Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1987). 40 Francesco Manconi, “Un letrado sassarese al servizio della Monarchia ispanica. Appunti per una biografia di Francisco Ángel Vico y Artea,” in convegno internazionale di studi storici, Sardegna, Spagna e Mediterraneo dai Re Cattolici al Secolo d’Oro, Mandas, 25–27 September 2003, ed. Bruno Anatra and Giovanni Murgia (Rome: Carocci, 2004), 291–333. 41 John H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963); Dámaso de Lario-Ramirez, El Comte-Duc d’Olivares i el Regne de València (Valencia: Climent, 1986); Enrique Solano Camón, Poder monárquico y estado pactista 1625–1652: Los aragoneses ante la Unión de Armas (Sarragosa: Institución Fernando El Católico, 1987); Xavier Gil, “Olivares y Aragón,” in La España del Conde Duque de Olivares, International conference, Toro, 15–18 September 1987, ed. John H. Elliott and Ángel García Sanz, (Valladolid: Secretariado de Publicaciones, Universidad de Valladolid, 1990), 577–602; Antoni Simon i Tarrés, Els orígens ideològics de la Revolució Catalana de 1640 (Barcelona: Abadia de Monserrat, 1999).

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in substance, into sizable deliveries of grain, horses, and men, but also money for the armies that were fighting on various fronts. The documents of the Council of Aragon and the chronicles of the time present a fragmentary but significant picture of the enormous efforts made, within the Kingdom in the years between 1626 and 1643, to support the wars of the monarchy. Tercios of Sardinian infantrymen were conscripted by the Castelví faction in 1628 and 1637 for the wars of Monferrato and Flanders. Between 1643 and 1647–48 the leading noble houses (headed by the marquis of Villasor and the marquis of Laconi) competed to send contingents of Sardinians to put down rebellions in Catalonia, Naples, and Sicily. In 1649, new units of Sardinian cavalry were recruited by the Castelví and the Alagón families for the War of Catalonia. Contributions in the form of grain and other foodstuffs destined for the armies of Italy and Catalonia weighed equally heavily on the Sardinian economy.42 Sardinian participation in Spain’s war efforts confirms the gap between the political positions of the Sardinian elites and those of their Catalan counterparts. Centuries of cultural, social, and juridical conformidad dissolved in the face of pressures on the part of the Habsburg monarchy for centralization and validation. Fidelidad and servicio in exchange for mercedes honrosas and material benefits: this was in substance the relationship that came to be established between the provincial aristocracy and the monarchy in the age of Philip II, but that relationship changed noticeably and diminished in importance in the age of the Count-Duke because the Sardinian nobility was obliged to align itself clearly with the Castilian cause. The umbilical cord to the old Catalan motherland was broken, in contrast to ties of family origin. It does not seem that the principal noble houses— the Castelvi and the Alagón in particular—were conscious of betraying their ancient “national” connections when they celebrated their loyalty to the monarchy. Unconditional adhesion to the Union of Arms was more a signal of social inferiority than it was a conscious choice of allegiance or a political dissociation from “national” Catalan values. Growing social unrest also pushed the Sardinian aristocracy into the military career: for some time, the economic base of many

42 Jorge Aleo, Storia cronologica e veridica dell’isola e regno di Sardegna dall’anno 1637 all’anno 1672, ed. Francesco Manconi (Nuoro: Ilisso, 1998), passim; Manconi, “Un letrado sassarese al servizio della Monarchia ispanica,” passim.

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noble houses had been dwindling, and privileges of status had been weakened by the irruption of new men onto the social scene. The range of aristocratic power within the apparatus of the state was shrinking, and few families retained their hereditary public posts, which paid barely dignified stipends. All in all, noble domination seemed to be marking time. For this reason, the Sardinian aristocracy counted on royal patronage ( patronazgo real ) in order to regain ground in governmental institutions, and that required a relationship of unconditional fidelidad. The most significant change in the first half or the seventeenth century was the Sardinian nobility’s pro-Castilian policies, together with the rise of a new social block made up of the middle classes. Ecclesiastics, bureaucrats, and merchants strove to gain an evergreater place in politics and the economy. They were in a position to use their full contractual weight to persuade the monarchy and to pursue a program of increasing demands for civil and military employment and access to the high ecclesiastical dignities of the Kingdom, but also a program that aimed higher, at a reconsideration of the distribution of wealth and privilege. The nobility played its cards in a moment when the monarchy was at its weakest. Growing financial difficulties placed the economy of the Kingdom at the mercy of speculators. In the 1620s, 30s, and 40s, Sardinian and Genoese merchants (hombres de negocio) garnered advantageous loan contracts (asientos) in the sectors of grain cultivation and fishing that guaranteed the Sardinian hacienda (treasury) sizable pre-payments of capital.43 They earned high profits from such ventures, which they invested in equally profitable enterprises such as land acquisition, fisheries, tuna fishing equipment, salt works, and real estate of all sorts that had formerly been in the royal patrimony. Nor did they scorn the acquisition of public offices as functionaries or clerks in both the cities and rural areas—vegueratos, officialías; escrivanías, and other minor posts. Rapid enrichment even opened the door to nobility in Madrid to some merchant dynasties. These were days in which knighthoods and noble patents—caballeratos and

43 Anatra, Economia sarda; Gianfranco Tore, “Ceti sociali, finanze e ‘buon governo’ nella Sardegna spagnola (1620–1642),” in XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona: La Corona d’Aragona in Italia (secc. XIII–XVIII), 5 vols. in 6 pts., vol. 4, pt. 3, Sopravvivenza ed estensione della Corona d’Aragona sotto la monarchia spagnola (secc. XVI–XVIII), ed. M. G. Meloni and O. Schena (Sassari: Carlo Delfino, 1997), 477–96.

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noblezas—could be bought in Sardinia for a modest price,44 and Madrid was increasingly willing to satisfy the appetites of members of the middle classes (feudal administrators, soldiers in the militia, civic council members, etc.) so that they could boast of their trappings of military orders, noble titles, and cavalry commissions.45 Sardinia fell into economic crisis around the mid-seventeenth century. Various natural calamities (swarms of grasshoppers, bubonic plague, frequent famines), added to the financial disruptions prompted by monetary disorder (over-circulation of currency and excessive devaluations) led to an economic and demographic decline unprecedented in modern Sardinian history. It was in those perilous times that the monarchy once again called on Sardinian support to quell the Catalan revolt: not in contributions of manpower, given the “notorious lack of people” after the plague, but of wheat, barley, legumes, horses, and even money. The aid sent to Catalonia came from extraordinary “donations” graciously conceded by private persons, given that the royal patrimony “does not have the possibility, given its short funds, to pay for such great quantities as are required for this assistance.”46 These were modest sums, out of all comparison with the taxes extracted from Castile, but they were nonetheless sizable amounts for a Sardinia tormented by the agrarian crisis and in a financial situation close to bankruptcy. After the great wave of plague of 1652–57 (an epidemic that moved east from the coast of Spain to Sardinia and from there to Naples, then north through Italy as far as Genoa), the depopulation of rural areas and economic prostration made for increased social disorder.47 In the marginal world of the Sardinian countryside, bands of outlaws boldly countered all of the vice-regal militia’s attempts to get the better of them. Conflicts between noble factions (with the

44

AHN, Consejos suprimidos, leg. 18.825; ACA, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1090. In an extraordinary session of the Cortes in 1626, the titles granted were only slightly fewer than all the titles of nobility granted by the Spanish Habsburgs during the sixteenth century: see Gianfranco Tore, Il regno di Sardegna nell’età di Filippo IV: Centralismo monarchico, guerra e consenso sociale (1621–30) (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1996), 176–77. 46 “La notoria falta de gente”; “no da disposición por su cortedad para pagar las cantidades tan grandes que son menester para estas asistencias”: ACA, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1102, consulta of the Consiglio d’Aragona, 20 March 1655. 47 Francesco Manconi, Castigo de Dios: La grande peste barocca nella Sardegna di Filippo IV (Rome: Donzelli, 1994). 45

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Castelví and the Alagón still at their head) added to the climate of violence. The Sardinian nobility’s internecine quarrels undermined an increasingly precarious social order, and banditry, contraband trade in wheat, and counterfeiting flourished, precisely under the protection of the feudal lords. Establishing a connection between these facts and the economic ruin of many nobles would be hazardous, but it is certain that in the rural areas the bandits were unbothered by the forces of law in feudal jurisdictions, where they repaid the favor by acting as a private militia for the lordly houses. As in Catalonia, banditry in seventeenth-century Sardinia sprang from economic and social causes, but its roots lay in discontent among the nobility and a growing sentiment of rebellion among lords who were primarily interested in the conservation of their revenues, their prerogatives, and their caste privileges.48 Deteriorating relations between the monarchy and the provincial elites were echoed in parliamentary debate. By the mid-seventeenth century, contractualism was in crisis in the crown kingdoms, with the exception of Aragon. In Sardinia it was singularly alive. During the regency of Mariana de Austria the many signs of weakness of the monarchy and widespread economic troubles led to a radicalization of the parliamentary opposition. In the parliament of the count of Lemos (1656) the privileged classes and the bureaucracy, profiting from the discredit that surrounded the institution of the viceroy and the functional breakdowns brought on by the plague, placed at the top of their list a demand for an exclusive right for Sardinians to hold public office in the Kingdom. This request was presented directly to Madrid as a condición—that is, as a demand on which concession of the donativo depended. The extra-legal negotiations ended in a compromise that both parties found satisfying but that left unsolved the question of exclusive right to the plazas of the Kingdom. In 1666 the problem was brought up again, in the same terms, by a “party” in Parliament that combined with the demands of the clergy and the letrados, headed—as before—by don Pedro Vico, the archbishop of Cagliari. Vico exploited the fortuitous circumstance of

48 Xavier Torres i Sans, Els bandolers (s. XVI–XVII) (Vic: Eumo, 1991); Torres i Sans, “El bandolerismo mediterráneo: Una visión comparativa (siglos XVI–XVII),” in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, vol. 2, Los grupos sociales, pp. 397–423.

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the prima voce designation of the military section (stamento) in Parliament headed by the marquis of Laconi, Agustín de Castelví, to combine the clergy’s interests with those of the nobles of the Castelví faction. Don Agustín was an aristocrat with little inclination for politics, who had distinguished himself in his younger years for having combined a fierce spirit of rebellion aimed at the viceroy with a disciplined military career in the service of the king in the tercios raised and armed by his family.49 His designation as spokesman for the nobility tipped the balance in Parliament in favor of his house, hence against the rival Alagón family. The break-up of the noble stamento in Parliament lent a certain ideological coloring to the historical rivalry between the two factions: the Alagón were more loyalist because they had connections with the viceregal house of Camarasa; the Castelví were more frondeur, and the head of the family, don Agustín, was held in Madrid to be “defiant and restless” (bullicioso y inquieto). The maximalist requests of the frondeur segment of parliament (which was in the majority) was met by resolute intransigence on the part of the Council of Aragon, a situation that gave the viceroy, the marquis of Camarasa, little margin for negotiation. When attempts to reach an understanding in Parliament had failed and the viceroy had been eliminated from the game, the three parliamentary stamenti forwarded their demands directly to Madrid, through their spokesman don Agustín de Castelví, with the hidden support of archbishop Pedro Vico and the royal procurator for Sardinia, Jaime Artal de Castelví, men at the summit of the opposition ranks and who intended to reassert their traditional privileges and consolidate the positions of power that they had acquired in the royal bureaucracy and the Church. The condiciones that the Castelví faction put to the Council of Aragon were, in essence, four: global reconfirmation of the ancient privileges of the Kingdom, including privileges that had fallen into disuse; the suppression of the sala criminal of the Audiencia, a change that would involve a readjustment of royal jurisdiction to the advantage of feudal jurisdiction; enlargement of the exemption for grain exports from the island; exclusive right of naturales to hold all oficios— high ecclesiastical offices, military and bureaucratic posts (plazas de

49 Francesco Manconi, “Don Agustín de Castelví, ‘padre della patria’ sarda o nobile-bandolero?” in Banditismi mediterranei (secoli XVI–XVII), ed. Francesco Manconi (Rome: Carocci, 2003), 107–46.

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paz y de guerra), and magistracies (plazas de toga), including the regency of the Royal Chancellery (regencia de la real cancillería). The latter was certainly the most strongly felt demand, even though few plazas were now held by foreigners, and these were limited to the highest offices. The vice chancellor of Aragon, don Cristóbal Crespí di Valldaura, was against any openness on the political level, however. He declared that the administration of an island cannot be given over exclusively to local ministers: “It is not proper if the Islands are governed in everything by their own naturales, because even the greatest confidence and great obligations can with time decline. . . . In case of the viceroy’s death they might request in his name, if they hold all power, to hold powers of decision regarding their liberty, and they might let in the enemies of their Prince while at the same time continuing to profess the loyalty to which they are obligated. And it is in no way proper that the Provinces be given similar powers of decision and danger.”50 Crespí de Valldaura’s thought process is clear: the government could not risk having the court eliminated from management of the bureaucracy and from control of the ecclesiastical organization of the kingdom. The assimilation of the Sardinians, which had included the gradual attribution of almost all the middlelevel plazas to Sardinian naturales was one thing;51 renouncing all governance of the Kingdom was quite another matter. The high court’s intransigent position was justified by the painful experience of the centrifugal pull that the monarchy had just experienced. After the secessions and the revolts of the preceding years, not even a kingdom like Sardinia, which had always displayed an unquestioned loyalty, could be freed from the control of the central organs of government. 50 “No combiene se goviernen las Islas en todo por sus proprios naturales pues aunque sean de gran confianza y de grandes obligaçiones pueden con il tiempo descaezer . . . si muere el Virrey viene a quedar en su mano, si tienen todos los puestos, el arbitrio de su libertad y de admitir a los enemigos de su Príncipe y perseverar en la fidelidad a que están obligados. Y nunca combiene que se dejen las Provincias a semejante arbitrio y peligro”: ACA, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1134, Relaçión de los suzessos de Zerdeña desde el prinçipio de las Cortes que zelebró el Marqués de Camarasa hasta su muerte. Now also in Raccolta di documenti editi e inediti per la Storia della Sardegna, vol. 1, Documenti sulla crisi politica del Regno di Sardegna al tempo del viceré marchese di Camarasa, ed. Marina Romero Frías (Sassari: Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, 2003), 11–23. 51 Nevertheless, even a plaza of the highest rank, such as the post of archbishop of Cagliari, which was traditionally reserved to a Spanish prelate, was at the time occupied by a Sardinian, the same don Pedro Vico who manipulated the strings of the opposition “party” in Parliament.

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The controversy between Cagliari and Madrid in 1666–68 soon developed into a political crisis of unprecedented scope. The Sardinians’ refusal to concede the donativo led to an early closing of Parliament, an unusual act that seemed to many exaggeratedly authoritarian but should actually be read as a proof of weakness on the part of the monarchy.52 The crisis was a consequence of the power void under Charles II, but it was also further proof that recourse to the parliamentary method was anachronistic and totally inadequate to the governance of a profoundly changed political society. The privileged classes of the Sardinian kingdom seemed incapable of moving beyond a rear-action battle that consisted of demands for oficios and plazas and control of individual, corporate, and constitutional interests. A political horizon as short-sighted as this had little in common with the demands for “liberty” in the provinces or with the exercise of the right to resist a power that violates the pacts between subjects and the monarchy. The outcome of the Sardinian crisis reflects the ambiguous ideological nature of the parliamentary rebellion. Neither the dissident nobles nor ambitious members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy intended to radicalize the conflict with the court, on which they were dependent for their social prestige and their economic resources. Thanks to internal fractures among their number, they were unable to express, fully and with one voice, the “embryonic community awareness” that has been seen as typical of the protagonists of European revolts in the Modern era.53 Even in the most critical phases of the crisis, there was no hope of a break-through when the man dictating the strategy of political dissent was Archbishop Pedro Vico, the son of a regente of the Council of Aragon, a man who, in the age of the CountDuke had been the leading defender of absolutist interests. More than anything else, it was Madrid’s political short-sightedness that attributed to the Sardinians demands for administrative self-government that would lead to secession.

52

On the events of the Camarasa crisis, see A. Llorente, “Cortes y sublevación en Cerdeña bajo la dominación española,” Revista de España, year 1 (1868): 270ff.; Bruno Anatra, “Dall’unificazione aragonese ai Savoia,” in Storia d’Italia, gen. ed. Giuseppe Galasso, vol. 10, La Sardegna medioevale e moderna, ed. John Day, Bruno Anatra and Lucetta Scaraffia (Turin: UTET, 1984), 625ff. 53 J. H. Elliott, Spain and Its World, 1500–1700; Selected Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), in Italian translation as La Spagna e il suo mondo (1500–1700) (Turin: Einaudi, 1996), 151ff.

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If there was any real danger, it lay in the rebellious spirit of the dissident nobility. What precipitated events was the assassination of Agustín de Castelví, marquis of Laconi (a crime that was private in nature, but that was presented to public opinion as political). The House of Castelví took immediate revenge, arranging for the assassination of Viceroy Camarasa only a few days later. It was at that point that the evanescent figure of the opposition “party” revealed its wholly elitist and particularist nature far removed from generalized political horizons. The noble conspirators were almost completely isolated within Sardinian society: only in the rural world, among their own kin and their mercenary bandits did the seditious nobles find consensus and an interested complicity. When an extremely harsh repression began to take shape under a new Neapolitan viceroy sent by the court and he moved to decapitate (and not just in a figurative sense) the leading Sardinian aristocrats connected with the Castelví faction, the privileged classes realigned themselves immediately with Madrid’s positions. It is not by chance that the viceroy easily put an end to the parliamentary contractualism in which the king’s donativo was negotiated with the leaders of the stamenti. Nor is it without significance that the dissident party’s return to the fold was conditional on a reaffirmation of the values of fidelidad, obedience, and assistance to the monarchy. This is why—odd as it might seem—petitions to the queen from the regente of the Council of Aragon, Jorge de Castelví, who had been dismissed from his post for sedition and rebellion because he had given support to his cousin, don Agustín, made use of the same arguments—loyalty, obedience, service—that were used by the loyalist Alagón in his petition for noble promotion (grandeza) for services rendered to the monarchy.54 The contradiction is only apparent, because the Sardinian nobles (and they were not alone) shared ideological attitudes toward the monarchy, as a document in the British Library regarding the early 1670s clearly illustrates: “So heavy was the yoke of taxes and contributions imposed by the monarchy that displeasure has been expressed in every region, whether by treason 54 On Jorge de Castelví, see Biblioteca Nacional Madrid, Manuscritos, mss 1506 and ACA, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1134, both of which are in Raccolta di documenti editi e inediti, vol. 1, documents nos. 29 and 41. On Alagón, see Memorial de la Casa de Alagón Marqués de Villasor en Sardeña, compuesto por D. Joseph Pellicer de Osau y Tobar Cavallero de la Orden de Santiago gentilhombre de la boca de Su Mag.d y su Cronista Mayor por la Corona de Aragón (n.d., n.p.).

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as in Catalonia and Portugal, or rebellions and riots in other provinces. Only Sardinia has been reliable, faithfully rendering their due, as everyone knows so well [. . .] without negotiating or imposing conditions as other provinces have done, but rather contributing their service unconditionally.”55 The scarcity of historical studies on the age of Charles II does not permit more detailed analyses. Still, the thread of the Sardinians’ “innate loyalty” did not seem to snap either in such internal political crises as the assassination of Camarasa or in face of the great international events of the early eighteenth century. During the War of Spanish Succession, a sizable portion of the Sardinian nobility backed the Austrian cause, to the point that in 1708, when Sardinia was occupied by forces allied against Philip V, Feliu de la Penya celebrated the “reintegration of the Sardinians in their Catalan homeland.”56 In doing so, Feliu de la Penya was not only displaying an overflowing “national” pride; he also was affirming that in that breaking-point the long-established political tie between Sardinia and Catalonia necessarily must coincide with Sardinian loyalty to the House of Austria. Moreover, the cession of the Kingdom of Sardinia to the House of Savoy did not completely end Spanish influence on the island. The eighteenth century in Sardinia was characterized by a titanic effort on the part of the Savoy government to reinvent its historical Spanish heritage. The process of assimilation to Piedmont was by no means either easy or linear, which further demonstrates that Spanish conformidad, rather than existing on the superficial level of institutions, was deeply rooted in Sardinian culture. 55 “Aviendo sido tan prolixo el yugo de las imposiciones y contribuciones que han ocasionado los trabajos de la monarquía, no ha avido parte en ella que no haya manifestado sentimientos, ya traiciones en Catalanes y Portugueses, ya motines y conmociones en otras provincias. Sola Sardeña ha sido la constante y la que rendidamente ha servido con las cantidades que son notorias al mundo . . . sin llegar a pactar y condicionar sus servicios con las mercedes, como otras [provincias] han hecho, sino absolutamente”: British Library, Add. 13.997, fols. 463–65, cited in Xavier Gil Pujol, “Una cultura cortesana provincial: Patria, comunicación y lenguaje en la Monarquía Hispánica de los Austrias,” in Monarquía, Imperio y pueblos en la España moderna, Acts of the IV Reunión Científica de la Asociación Española de Historia Moderna, Alicante, 27–30 May 1996, ed. Pedro Fernández Albaladejo (Alicante: Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo; Universidad de Alicante, 1997), 255. 56 “Reintegració dels sards dins la seva pàtria catalana”: Pierre Vilar, “Introducció: El ‘fet català’ ”, in Història de Catalunya, ed. Joaquim Nadal i Farreras and Philippe Wolff (Barcelona: Oikos-Tau, 1983), 28.

CHAPTER THREE

THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES IN THE SPANISH IMPERIAL SYSTEM* Aurelio Musi

1. The Periodization of Political-Institutional History One of the most important recent acquisitions to historiography has been new ways of thinking about the Kingdom of Naples within the Spanish imperial system. I have already discussed the topic on several occasions, and I shall return to it below. It is useful to keep it in mind, as we attempt to discern what is distinctive about the models of the state, of power, and of government that pertained in Naples and to devise a periodization for them that is more attentive to the system of relations within the empire. What I mean to say is that even for the study of internal politics and institutional profiles it is useful to adopt a definition of “Spanish Italy” that is broader and extends to the longer term than I had occasion to do when I spoke on international relations at a conference in Chicago on the origins of the state.1 “Spanish Italy” refers to a complex of political structures whose evolution was directly or indirectly marked by the destiny of Spain and its imperial system. This means that the three terms, “Italy,” “Spain,” and “imperial system” become inseparable. This triad can be seen in four different but closely interconnected perspectives: relations within the Spanish imperial system as a whole; the relationship among the various parts of the Spanish imperial system and between them and Spain—or, better, between them and the guiding region, Castile; Italy within Spain’s politics of power; and the internal and external policies of the Italian states.

* Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 Aurelio Musi, “Stato e relazioni internazionali nell’Italia spagnola,” in Origini dello Stato: Processi di formazione statale in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna, ed. Giorgio Chittolini, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994), 133ff.

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Keeping these preliminary thoughts in mind, we can hypothesize six phases in the political and institutional history of the Kingdom of Naples under Spanish domination. A first phase, from 1503 to 1516, was one of notable fluidity in which policies oscillated between attempts to achieve greater centralization (I am referring to the years of the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, viceroy 1503–1507) and a more stringent application of the “pactist” policies of Ferdinand the Catholic.2 After the government of the war emergency, in which the Great Captain had distinguished himself, Ferdinand disembarked in Naples at the Molo Grande on 1 November 1506, where he received a solemn and elaborate reception. What political aims did the Spanish sovereign intend to pursue in Naples and its territory? Ferdinand was the initiator of Spain’s “new monarchy,” a model of political and administrative development that followed a basically patrimonial conception of the state. This model, rather than fusing the various territories into one domain, worked to construct unity in diversity and to respect the autonomy and traditional law system of each territory. No attempt was made to realize a closer harmony between Castile and the Crown of Aragon or to unify their administrations or law systems. Rather, the dualism of the two crowns was reasserted and perpetuated, and if the sixteenth-century kings of Spain were in fact capable of behaving in many ways as absolute sovereigns in the Castilian sphere, they continued to act as constitutional sovereigns in the territories of the Crown of Aragon. This is an indispensable preface to what follows, because it demonstrates that the integration of the Kingdom of Naples into the Castilian-Aragonese imperial system was coherent with Ferdinand’s overall political concept. It would be a mistake to back-date absolutist designs that only several decades later became practicable in the Mezzogiorno of Italy. During the early years of the sixteenth century, what is more, Ferdinand’s program was obliged to take into account a number of situations within the Kingdom of Naples that affected the formulation of policy underlying the exercise of government. In particular, policy was conditioned by the constitutional history of the Kingdom; the relation between center and periphery, which shaped the logic

2 See Aurelio Musi, L’Italia dei viceré: Integrazione e resistenza nel sistema imperiale spagnolo (Cava de’ Tirreni: Avagliano, 2000).

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of power in the capital city; and the potentially autonomist and independent spirit of the feudal class. Recent conquest had joined two historical entities of very different scale: the imbalance of power between a vast empire stretching out in the Mediterranean and an area that was part of a more complex political reality is obvious. But recent conquest and the integration of the Mezzogiorno of Italy into Spain was grafted onto an ancient constitutional history and on the reality—less ancient but just as solid—of the national state constructed in the eleventh and twelfth century after the Normans, and in the fifteenth century by the Aragonese king Alfonso il Magnanimo. The earliest statutes went back to the age of territorial unification under Norman rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but it was the sovereigns of the House of Aragon—Alfonso I the Magnanimous (1443–1458); Ferdinand I, called Ferrante (1458–1494); Alfonso II (1494–1495); Ferrante II, called Ferrandino (1495–1496); and Federico (1496–1504)—who launched a program of modernization of the power structure aimed at reconciling the new demands of the central power with local conditions in places where that power had to operate. The Aragonese administrative reforms—the Vicaria, the Sacro Regio Consiglio, fiscal policies—produced the genesis of an absolutist tendency in the structure of the Neapolitan state. In using terms such as “genesis” and “tendency” I am alluding to the formal, institutional level of a process. The contents of that process are a good deal less linear because they had to take local conditions into account: the daily practice of government was marked by difficult relations between state and society and by a demand, from time to time, to establish privileged relations with various subjects. Thus Ferrante backed the statutory legislation of the communes against feudal abuses, put down the two conspiracies of 1459–64 and 1484–85, and reduced the political influence of the barons, but Alfonso conceded merum et mixtum imperium to the barons, thus opening the way for them to regain the power that they would again hold under the French occupation (February– March 1495) and Federico. Ferdinand the Catholic thus found himself confronted with a tradition of government in which elements of a more than incipient modernity combined with general local conditions that could hardly be called modern. As for the role of the city of Naples, once again we must return to the Aragonese and to the age of Catalan mercantile expansion, when Naples played a triple role as a strategic

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port, a political and administrative capital, and a center of intellectual life. A unique way of organizing power in Naples originated in that same era. It included the predominance of the urban patriciate and the political weight of its representative institutions, in particular the six seggi (five noble wards or “seats” and one commoner or “popular” one), and the primacy of the capital city over the Kingdom (a primacy that went hand in hand with the logic of urban growth and the capital city’s growing sense of identity). The third conditioning factor was the independent spirit of the feudal class, which protested vehemently as soon as its system of privileges was threatened. The actions of Ferdinand the Catholic, which were inspired by his patrimonial conception of the state and by an attentive observation of general conditions in the Kingdom of Naples, tended to crystallize relations of force and put into place a policy of counterweights. He recognized the privileges of the capital city and the other cities of the royal domain but he initiated a conciliatory polity toward the feudal class, the social position of which he fully maintained, and he readmitted into the feudal “states” lords who had sided with France in its war with Spain. His plan was to keep a balance, avoiding dangerous accumulations of power that might have altered the existing basic relationships among social groups and forces and might thus have compromised the Crown’s political program, making it impossible for the central power to govern efficaciously. The fortyseven capitoli that Ferdinand the Catholic granted during the general Parliament of the Kingdom in January 1507 recognized the city of Naples’s exemption from the donativo (parliament’s monetary aid that was less a donation than a form of direct taxation) and all of the city’s privileges. A few days later, the sovereign accorded the barons restoration of their holdings and confirmation of their jurisdiction over them in the first and second instance, but he also granted concessions to the popolo (essentially, the middle class). Francesco Guicciardini, in his Storia d’Italia, clarifies the complex relationship between Ferdinand the Catholic and Naples: in spite of the sovereign’s extraordinary political acumen, that relationship did not satisfy expectations within the Kingdom, and in the long run all levels of society were discontented. The visit of Ferdinand the Catholic to Naples, which Guicciardini reconstructs in book 7 of his History, disappointed the Neapolitans:

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He had no time to employ his thoughts on Italy, from his desire to return as soon as he could to the government of Castile, the principal foundation of his greatness. On this occasion it was necessary [to use] all means to preserve the friendship of the King of the Romans [Maximilian], and of the King of France [Louis XII]. . . . When he set himself about establishing the Kingdom of Naples and gratifying the nobility, he found difficulties, into which he was thrown by the Peace he had made with the King of France, being obliged to make restitution of the estates taken from the Angevin barons, which either by agreement or as a Reward, had been distributed among those who had followed his party.3

These were the outlines of Neapolitan domestic policy; external policy became clearer, after Ferdinand had left Naples, in his orders to two viceroys, Giovanni d’Aragona, count of Ripacorsa (1507–1509), and Ramón de Cardona, count of Albento (1509–1522). Ferdinand’s basic concern was to have the Kingdom of Naples participate in high-level politics and take a leading role in the complexities of Italian politics. His viceroys had the task of harvesting the inheritance of the Aragonese Kingdom of Naples, but also of promoting the integration of Naples into a much larger organism, as one aspect of the development of the Crown of Aragon, a fully articulated and multinational political entity. The second phase in the politico-institutional history of the Kingdom of Naples within the Spanish empire, from 1516 to 1532, was that of the years of political and administrative construction early in the reign of Charles V. This was an era of experimentation—so to speak—that involved the entire empire. There are no studies on the relationship between the government of the empire in this period and the viceregal government of Naples.4 On another occasion I

3 “Perché alle cose d’Italia non lo lasciò pensare il desiderio di ritornare presto nel governo di Castiglia, fondamento principale della grandezza sua, per il quale era necessitato fare ogni opera per conservarsi amici il re de’ Romani e il re di Francia . . . e nel riordinare o gratificare il regno napoletano gli dette difficultà l’essere obbligato, per la pace fatta col re di Francia, a restituire gli stati tolti a’ baroni angioini, che, o per convenzione o per remunerazione, erano stati distribuiti in coloro che avevano seguitato la parte sua”: Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia, ed. Silvana Seidel Menchi, 3 vols. (Turin: Einaudi, 1971), bk 7, chap. 8, 2:677, quoted from The History of Italy, trans. Austin Parke Goddard, 10 vols. (London: 1753), 4:96–97. 4 For preliminary orientation, see Giuseppe Galasso, “Trends and Problems in Neapolitan History in the age of Charles V,” in Good Government in Spanish Naples,

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advanced the somewhat audacious hypothesis that this period of the construction of the political and administrative apparatus was experimenting with new ideas that anticipated more stable later achievements, in particular in Thomas Cromwell’s 1530 “Tudor Revolution in Government,” as G. R. Elton called it.5 I use the notion of experimentation because Charles V’s policies were conceived in reaction to changing events and were soon out of date. The first creations of the sovereign (on what has been defined as the “Burgundian model”) were the Consiglio Privato (Privy Council) and the posts of Grand Chancellor (Cancelliere) and Grand Chamberlain (Gran Ciambellano). The office of Grand Chancellor is fairly closely based on its English counterpart. After Charles’s election as emperor and the rise of Mercurino di Gattinara as Grand Chancellor, matters became more complicated, and it soon proved difficult to coordinate the work of the central organs of government and that of the various territorial secretariats. With the development of the Council of Castile and the Council of State, the structure of the state became even more complex. After the Grand Chancellor’s death, Charles gave up the function of centralization and divided the Secretariat of State into two parts, entrusting Granvelle with matters regarding the empire, the Low Countries, France, England, and Northern Europe, and Los Cobos with Hispano-Italian affairs. It is essentially from that moment on that we can begin to speak of a Spanish Italy. According to Alfred Kohler, Gattinara’s centralizing project soon proved impossible as a practical governing policy; at that point the emperor divided the empire into two parts.6 In the realm of political economics as well, Charles V adopted diversified provisions, a course of action

ed. and trans. Antonio Calabria and John A. Marino (New York and Bern: Peter Lang, 1990), pp. 21–41 orig. in Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 80 (1961); and James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impressario of War. Campaign Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 54–63. 5 Aurelio Musi, “Modelli di Stato e di potere,” in Carlo V, Napoli e il Mediterraneo, Acts of a Conference, Naples 11–13 January 2001, ed. Giuseppe Galasso and Aurelio Musi, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane, 99 (2002), 18–19. See also G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953). 6 Alfred Kohler, Carlos V: 1500–1558: Una biografia, trans. Cristina Garcia Ohlrich, ed. Bernardo J. García García (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2000), originally published as Karl V. (1500–1558): Eine Biographie (Munich: Beck, 1999).

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that (according to Ramón Carande) contradicted the thrust of a unified mercantilist policy.7 Thus even in this second phase a fluid and difficult process of politico-institutional construction necessarily influenced the complex relations among the viceroy of Naples, the administration, and the various social groups in the Kingdom of Naples. The period from the end of the fifteenth century to the beginning of the viceroyalty of Pedro de Toledo in 1532, according to Carlos Hernando Sánchez, were the years of the “republic of the barons.”8 In my opinion, this expression is highly ambiguous: by analogy, it recalls the Polish context of feudal anarchy and the liberum veto. It is totally inappropriate for representing the shift in monarchical authority and in the relationship between the sovereign of a new dynasty and the society of the Kingdom of Naples in the early years of the sixteenth century, years in which a fair amount of power remained in the hands of the urban nobility and the feudal lords, but that still trended toward the consolidation of the monarchic power—that is, a trend toward the arduous and contradictory process of the affirmation of the modern state in Naples and elsewhere. Much has been written about the third phase in our politico-institutional history, which coincides with the viceroyalty of Pedro de Toledo (1532–1556), and the turning-point in imperial affairs in the 1540s that led from Charles V’s earlier victories to defeats, the Peace of Augsburg, his abdication, and the splitting of his monarchical holdings between his son Philip and brother Ferdinand. Recent studies, in particular those of Carlos Hernando Sánchez,9 reinforce the notion that those years saw the formation of an “Italian subsystem,” a complex of regional powers within the Spanish imperial system that formed a relatively unified political space with closely related component parts. Testimony to this can be found in the ties between the Duchy of Tuscany and Naples, skillfully reconstructed in Hernando

7

Ramón Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1943), in Italian translation as Carlo V e I suoi banchieri (Genoa, 1987), 40ff. 8 Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, El reino de Nápoles en el Imperio de Carlos V: La consolidación de la conquista (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlo V, 2001). 9 Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI: El virrey Pedro de Toledo (1532–1553): Linaje, estado y cultura (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1994).

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Sánchez’s study. After 1540, Pedro de Toledo instituted a more authoritarian and centralized regime in the Kingdom of Naples based on the supremacy of the Collateral Council togato (men of law whose non-noble members would become the new nobility of the robe) over the Collateral Council di spada (the old nobility of the sword), a distinction between “affairs of justice” and “affairs of state and of war,” and a reform of the provincial administration, all of which was resisted by Parliament, the nobility, and the seggi. If we are to grasp these developments they need to be placed in the context of the imperial turning point. It provided a new vision, which Giuseppe Galasso has defined as more empirical and modern,10 of a continental hegemony founded on Spain. That new state of affairs implied the restructuring of the empire. The fourth phase of our history coincides with the age of Philip II (1556–1598), Charles V’s successor on the throne of Spain and in his Castilian and Aragonese dominions. The political structures that developed under Philip II can be better defined as an “imperial system” than as an “empire.” As we shall see, that concept is more satisfying than “composite Monarchy,” a notion that alludes exclusively to the multiterritorial plane and to the coexistence within one political formation of a multiplicity of historical experiences characterized by different degrees of development in the economic, social, civil, and juridical-institutional realms, unified by an appeal to the superiority of the Catholic Habsburg Monarchy.11 The model of the imperial system is also clearly distinct from—and in some senses even counter to—the model of a “federation of states,” a notion that is implicitly (if not explicitly) used by some scholars to stress certain aspects that, although present in the Spanish political complex, were not prevalent. Among these are Spain’s relative respect of the autonomy of its European reinos and the integration and participation in

10 Giuseppe Galasso, “Introduzione,” in Nel sistema imperiale: L’Italia spagnola, ed. Aurelio Musi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994), 9–47. 11 There has been much debate on the nature and composition of Spanish political structures. We owe to John H. Elliott the notion of “composite Monarchy,” which he has elaborated in many works: J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (London: Edward Arnold, 1963), in Italian translation as La Spagna imperiale (Bologna, 1982); Elliott, The Old World and the New, 1492–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Elliott, Spain and Its World 1500–1700: Selected Essays (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989); Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies,” Past and Present 137 (1992): 48–71.

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power of various social groups in those kingdoms.12 The representation of the domains of the Monarchy under Philip II as a federation is unacceptable, even taking into account the radical difference between Spain’s European reinos and its New World viceroyalties: the first had a complex of traditions and privileges whose legitimacy was founded on a long juridical and politico-institutional civilization, jealously proclaimed and guarded by the more representative local social groups and, in substance, accepted and respected by the Habsburg sovereign; the distant viceroyalties were always seen as a genetic malformation, terrae nullius, lands of savages and unbelievers, hence of peoples with no right to autonomy and lands of pure conquest. The federal interpretation is also without foundation because the model of absolute power and of the king of Spain as the only holder of a title to sovereignty had never been challenged. When parties or factions entered into debate at the court of the Catholic King, they never questioned the indivisibility of sovereignty or its prerogatives and attributes: rather, they discussed organizational matters; the practice of empire. Even the theorists of limited monarchy, who were present in nearly all the areas of the Habsburg domains, were less interested in limiting the powers of the sovereign than in achieving a more precise definition of the areas of discretion of the viceroy or the governor, the highest government authority of the territory, in relation to the most important magistracies and the high minister of the territory. The principle appealed to in such instances was that the viceroy and the governors must always take political and administrative decisions in conjunction with the various councils of the territory subject to the Catholic Monarchy (vicerex debet cuncta facere cum Consilio). In short, although jurists and political writers invoked the principles of God, the people, and reason (ars recte gubernandi ) as limits to the sovereign’s power, they focused less on the fact of holding title to power than on its exercise, especially in places where the summit of the administrative structure was represented by an alter ego for the sovereign such as a viceroy or a governor. That figure’s job description had been profoundly transformed in the

12 For discussion of these questions, see Giuseppe Galasso, “Il sistema imperiale spagnolo da Filippo II a Filippo IV,” in Lombardia borromaica, Lombardia spagnola (1554–1659), ed. Paolo Pissavino and Gianvittorio Signorotto, 2 vols. (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 1:13–40; Galasso, Alla periferia dell’impero: Il Regno di Napoli nel periodo spagnolo, secoli XVI–XVII (Turin: Einaudi, 1994), 5ff.

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administrative practice of the latter half of the sixteenth century: the “naturalization” of the sovereign in Castile clarified an ambiguity in the nature and functions of the viceroy during the first half of that century as practice became increasingly bureaucratic. In the era of Philip II, viceroys and governors operated at the summit of the territorial magistracies, and for that very reason they could not ignore the question of representative and political equilibrium within those territories. Empire, Spain, system: these are the three components of the notion that I am proposing here. As Galasso has put it so well: In the case of modern Spain, the term “empire” should not be understood in an institutionally defined sense. That is, it should not be understood as relative to the existence of a political structure or state formally defined as an empire, in the same way that one speaks of the Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire, the French Empire under Napoleon I and Napoleon II, the German Empire and Bismarck, the Empire of Austria after 1806, the Indian Empire with Queen Victoria, and so forth. In the case of Spain one speaks, and one may speak, of empire only in the sense of a power that assumes a particular historical and political relief thanks to the extent of its dominions, the forces it has available, the preponderance it exercises in a determined geographical and historical context, the connection between its political dimensions and its economic and cultural ones, and so forth. In this sense the notion of empire is closely connected with that of civilization: an imperial reality is conceived of as a reality in which the manifestations of human civilization reach a certain level and density, and which carries on, on that base and through its political and material power, a large-scale action of civilization and exerts a cultural and moral influence destined to remain alive beyond its own time.13

The empire in question shifted its center of gravity to Spain—or rather, as we shall see, to a particular region of Spain, Castile— between the last years of Charles V’s reign and the first years of Philip II’s. Imperial Spain was a system: that is, it was a structure endowed with unity, an interdependence among its elements, and functions exercised by the various parties concerned.14 It seems to me that there are five essential characteristics of the imperial system in the classic age of its development in the reign of Philip II. Recent historiography usually divides the period into three

13 14

Galasso, “Il sistema imperiale spagnolo,” 13–14. Musi, L’Italia dei viceré.

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phases: that of the rey prudente from 1556 until 1565; a phase that oscillates between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic from 1565 until 1580; a phase of active imperialism from the annexation of Portugal in 1580 to Philip’s death in 1598.15 The first characteristic is religious and political unity. The two forms of unity were powerfully fused, for a number of reasons. In a complex society such as the ancien régime, various loyalties and senses of belonging (to a family, a clan, a social class, a corporation, a profession, etc.) coexisted; only two loyalties were construed in the singular: loyalty to God and to the king. The Habsburgs, an ancient and prestigious dynasty, succeeded in unifying the two sentiments and consolidating the loyalty of its subjects by emphasizing both the unity of the respublica christiana and dynastic unity. For some historians—Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, for example16—universalism was the basic element of the Catholic Monarchy. Its inspiration was not the state: the statist paradigm did not suit a political construction that, not only under Charles V, but also under Philip II and Philip III, used the pen of its jurists and treatise-writers to reformulate the ideas of universal power and the respublica christiana. Naturally, the point was not to reassert Charles V’s ideal, either in Gattinara’s version or that of the emperor’s former tutor, Adrian of Utrecht (later Pope Adrian VI), but rather to update those terms to fit a confessional age that produced a divided Europe after the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Dynastic unity, in combination with religious unity, gave the Spanish imperial system one unifying reference and provided it with its most powerful argument for legitimacy and its highest and most efficacious seat of political aggregation, in particular during the reign of Philip II. The Spanish sovereign offered a dual constitutional personality: he was the nexus of a vast complex of states with local powers, but he was also the only person holding title to sovereignty and the right to make decisions in the domestic politics of each of the states and to set foreign policy for the entire monarchy. That complex political system was synthetically referred to as “the Crown.” As Galasso states: 15 Aurelio Musi, Le vie della modernità (Florence: Sansoni; Milan: RCS Libri, 2000), 128–36. 16 Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, Fragmentos de Monarquía: Trabajos de historia politica (Madrid: Alianza, 1992).

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aurelio musi It was in fact [the Crown] that constituted the trait-d’union between the lands of the Monarchy, in that it represented in each one of them undisputed legitimate power and inasmuch as it formed, for that reason, the center of their convergence and unifying gravitation and their most prominent common element. Therefore there were countries with a monarchic regime, joined together in personal union under the same sovereign, over which the reigning House could boast of holding recognized patrimonial and other rights—hence countries that were reciprocally autonomous and on the same plane in respect to the rights of the reigning House.17

The second trait of the Spanish imperial system is the presence within it of a guiding region functioning as a sort of motor, decisive for the operation of the entire machine. It was Castile that fulfilled that function. The economic, social, and political strength of the system derived from this fact. Beginning in the age of Charles V, the region of Castile had grown demographically and in geographic extent, thanks to its American possessions; it had enjoyed notable economic development because of a favorable international climate; and it had assumed a central role in the international market through its major financial markets and through long-distance commerce. Philip II placed the capital in Madrid, at the border between Old and New Castile, and he launched a genuine process of Castilianization that was to affect both the economic and political elites of the empire. In both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the most influential and powerful group within the leadership of the empire was an expression of the most ancient and prestigious feudal aristocracy of Castile. The empire’s most representative cultural forms were also Castilian. The importance of Castile as a guide is also demonstrated by the fact that when the long crisis of the seventeenth century struck Castile, it hit the imperial system at its heart and set off its slow decline. The third characteristic of the Spanish imperial system is the interdependence of its component parts, thanks to a configuration of subsystems. A “subsystem” can mean:18 a) a set of coordinated functions assigned to relatively homogeneous parts of the system;

17 18

Galasso, “Il sistema imperiale spagnolo,” 19. Musi, L’Italia dei viceré, 27–28.

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b) a system of regional power; c) a relatively unified political space. The Italian subsystem provides an example of all of these three components. a) The Italian subsystem was Spanish Italy—that is, the group of political entities whose evolution was directly or indirectly marked by the destiny of Spain and its imperial system. This means not only the provinces that were subject to the Habsburg crown, but also such states as the Ligurian Republic, which, beginning in 1528, was directly integrated into the economic, social, and political life of the Spanish Monarchy; the Pontifical States and its power network, which had Spain as a privileged interlocutor; and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany after the conquest of Siena. On this occasion I shall limit my remarks to defining the complex of functions—strategic, military, and economic—of the Italian dominions subject to Spain. Strategic functions were connected to imperial defense. According to Christopher Riley’s “theory of bastions,”19 the outermost imperial provinces were supposed to protect the inner ones and Spain itself, which, in exchange, offered military and financial support. Thus the Duchy of Milan, the “keystone of the kingdom” and the “heart of the monarchy,” served a highly important crossing of a two-directional military corridor running from the west toward central and eastern Europe, connecting Spain, Germany and the Low Countries and linking the two empires, Spanish and Germanic, and another south-north corridor from the Mezzogiorno of Italy to northern Europe, a route of particular importance during the long war in the Netherlands and the Thirty Years War.20 Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples were assigned the task of containing the Turkish peril. The assignment of the Tuscan garrisons (Stato dei Presidi) comprising Porto Ercole, Porto S. Stefano, Orbetello, Talamone, and Monte Argentario was to keep watch over central Italy, using particular

19 Christopher Riley, “The State of Milan in the Reign of Philip II of Spain,” D. Phil. Thesis, Oxford, 1977, 18–20. See also Mario Rizzo, “Centro spagnolo e periferia lombarda nell’impero asburgico tra Cinque e Seicento,” Rivista Storica Italiana 104 (1992): 315–48, esp. pp. 324–25. 20 Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659. The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries’ Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).

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vigilance to sense any attempted autonomy on the part of the dukes and grand dukes of Tuscany.21 As for economic functions, Sicily was the system’s granary and a leading producer of silk; the Kingdom of Naples generated the secondhighest tax revenues in the imperial group, and when Castile underwent an economic crisis the Neapolitan kingdom faced an even heavier fiscal load. b) Spain did not unify Italy: in the two centuries of its predominance the particularism and fragmentation of the political system were confirmed as long-term givens within the many centuries of Italian history. Nor did the dominions of the Spanish Crown form an economic, political, civil, or cultural unit. We can speak of Italy as a system of regional power, however; as a dynastic and diplomatic space endowed not only with strategic and military functions that were decisive for the defense of the interests of the Habsburg Crown in the Mediterranean, but also for a role (a variable role, not one defined once and for all) within the Spanish scheme of hegemony. I am referring to a role that was political in the strict sense, and that the Italian subsystem played when the international strategy of the monarchy was at stake. Such moments include the focus of foreign policy alternating between Milan and the Netherlands in 1544 and the dialectic of parties and factions in the court of Philip II. c) In this manner a relatively united but highly differentiated political space came into being, one that perhaps lacked unifying mechanisms of government and administration—the Council of Italy created in the mid-sixteenth century did not realize that objective—but in which we can discern a relationship between the major lines of imperial Spanish policy and territorial adjustments in the Italian subsystem. An analysis of precisely that relationship leads us to the fourth characteristic of the Spanish imperial system, the connection between concentration and political participation—that is, between relatively uniform lines of guidance for the governance of the empire and the territory’s concrete political instruments, which might vary. This sends us back to the question of the relationship between dominion and consensus, but also among integration, representation, and resistance. I shall have more to say on the topic below.

21 Ivan Tognarini, “Lo Stato dei Presidi in Toscana,” in Il tramonto del Rinascimento, vol. 10 in Storia della società italiana (Milan: Teti, 1987), pp. 297–313.

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Finally, the fifth characteristic: hegemony in international relations. This was a radical innovation in an organization of power that, as it reached its most complete stage in the last years of Philip II’s reign, inaugurated what José Antonio Maravall has called “the worldwide level of political life, in that it demanded that in all of its parts the problem had to be posed of the relations with that organization of power, obliging all the other countries to enter into international combinations that embraced the planet.”22 I would like to suggest several topics for research in the history of the Neapolitan viceroyalty that merit further study. The evolution of the council system in the years of Philip II has for the most part been studied in its specifically Spanish characteristic of “polysynody,” to repeat the well-known term coined by Jaime Vicens Vives. It is instead probable that the council system translates a Mediterranean model in which two functions coexist with difficulty. The council, that is, was both an organ of representation for the various levels of society and a chamber in which interests were compensated, on the one hand, and a magistracy with political and administrative functions, on the other. The dialectic between these two poles runs through the entire history of the “Mediterranean” councils and deserves deeper investigation. A second question, which concerns the characteristics of this fourth phase, is the redefinition of the role of the viceroy and the viceroys’ political acts in a shifting balance of power and a changing dynamics of power, not only within the Kingdom of Naples, but also within the more complex Spanish imperial system. Finally, there are the magistracies: we still know very little about the Collateral Council, the Regia Camera della Sommaria, and the Sacro Regio Consiglio, to name only the most important administrative organs and offices governing state politics, finances, and justice, respectively, in the Kingdom.23 The fifth phase in the politico-institutional history of the Kingdom of Naples, from 1598 to 1665, coincides with the reigns of Philip III (1598–1621) and Philip IV (1621–1665), an age of dynastic integration and resistance. This is perhaps the period that we know best,

22 José Antonio Maravall, Estado moderno y mentalidad social (siglos XV a XVII), 2 vols. (Madrid: Revista de Occident, 1972), in Italian translation as Stato moderno e mentalità sociale, 2 vols. (Bologna, 1991), 1:235. 23 See Musi, “Modelli di Stato e di potere,” 21, and bibliography.

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thanks to the studies of Galasso, Villari, Spagnoletti, Benigno, Muto and the author of this essay. Between the viceroys and the validos, a system of power, factions, and clienteles was developed in which the formal level of institutional dialectic shared space with an informal profile. We are still far from fully understanding, in concrete terms, how the relations between those two levels operated; how they became organized within the dynamic of politico-institutional representation, integration, and resistance; or how the magistracies of both the center and the periphery reacted to all this. Especially in the ages of Philip III and Philip IV, the system of dynastic integration reached its height: the interplay of the relation between formal power, which derived from the exercise of a jurisdiction, and informal power, which derived from the accumulated effects of clientage, patronage, and the influence of parties and factions at court, became a good deal more intricate, conditioning the political dynamic of the imperial system. John Elliott has even spoken of an “Olivares regime”: this was the period of greatest affirmation of the new political figure of the valido at the court in Madrid, a role that had already proven its usefulness with the Duke of Lerma under Philip III, but that Olivares developed further through a frank use of clientage, control over the most important figures in the labyrinth of the Spanish court, and family ties.24 Powers of right and de facto power interacted to condition the interplay of representation within the dominions of the Spanish Crown. The European dominions of the Habsburg monarchy were governed by the logic of compromise. Political exchange was based on a recognition, on the part of the monarch, of the representation of interests and of a group of privileges in the subject territories and the recognition, on the part of the social groups in the territories, of a unique sovereignty and the duty of loyalty to the king. Thus compromises of interests were constituent elements in the system of territorial government. In the case of the Kingdom of Naples, for example, four fundamental compromises are recognizable: one between the monarchy and feudalism, one between the monarchy and the capital city, one between the public financial system and private eco-

24 J. H. Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986).

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nomic operators, and one between state and Church, in particular in tax matters.25 The first of these compromises is clearly the most important, and it exemplifies a tendency common throughout the empire. Beyond differences among the various domains of the Spanish monarchy, they shared a basic element in the elaboration of strategy for governance: the search for the best means for neutralizing the political power of the feudal aristocracy, while at the same time maintaining or enlarging its sphere of jurisdiction and its social and economic strength. This was the model that took shape in Castile, and it was the model that emerged in the Kingdom of Naples. The concept of resistance and its various historical exemplifications prompted lengthy discussion during the planning stage of research on the modern state in Europe promoted by the European Science Foundation, an initiative that thus far has resulted in seven volumes published by the Oxford University Press and translated into French and German. The group in which I myself participated, “Representation, Resistance, Sense of Community,” chaired by Peter Blickle, focused on the use, in various European contexts, of the political science notion of resistance as the protection of interests, individual and/or corporate, and their stabilization on the level of political decision-making.26 The other meaning of resistance—as rebellion or conflict—is perhaps better known and more widely studied and discussed. The topic has produced a wealth of recent literature. Limiting the field to the Spanish imperial system, we need only recall the works of Elliott, Schaub, Palos Penarroya, and Amelang on Catalonia and those of Villari, Galasso, Ribot, Musi, and Benigno on Naples and Sicily.27

25 Aurelio Musi, Mezzogiorno spagnolo. La via napoletana allo Stato moderno (Naples: Guida, 1991). 26 Aurelio Musi, “Integration and resistance in Spanish Italy, 1500–1800,” in Peter Blickle, Resistance, representation, and community (Oxford: European Science Foundation, Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): 305–319. 27 The principal bibliography on the topic is as follows: On the Catalan Revolt: J. H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans: A Study in the Decline of Spain (1598–1640) (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963); Jean-Frédéric Schaub, “La crise hispanique de 1640: Le modèle des ‘révolutions périphériques’ en question (note critique),” Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales 40 (1994): 219–39; Juan L. Palos Penarroya, “Il dibattito ideologico nella rivoluzione catalana del 1640: Nuovi orientamenti storiografici,” Il Pensiero Politico 33 (2000): 117–32.

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Two aspects of the question have received little attention. The first is the connection between revolts within the Spanish imperial system and the “right to resistance,” which those in revolt saw as clearly opposed to “rebellion”; the second is the legitimacy of revolt as the right to resist, which was intimately connected to the identity of the urban community and to the status, assumed by the capital cities in particular, of privileged partner of the sovereign and of the monarchic power. As it has been rightly stated: “For those who had been declared rebels, especially communities or their representatives, rebellion had not ever been held legitimate, nor would it be, even after the baroque age, until the French Revolution proclaimed the right of rebellion. What was legitimate was instead to resist, because the prince himself had allowed resistance in specific instances, as long as it did not break the obedience and loyalty owed to him, and because natural law and divine law, which were above the prince, recognized it.” Some time ago I proposed a definition and summary of the last phase as the “new order and ancien régime after Westphalia.”28 The same hendiadys that characterizes the latter half of the seventeenth century can seemingly be traced in politico-institutional life in the Kingdom of Naples. The current stage of our knowledge permits us to insert Naples into a European tendency to construct a new order as a completion of the ancien régime. The politics of government reflects the same trend, beginning with what Galasso calls the “centrist” coalition of the count of Oñate (1648–1653), the viceroy after Masaniello’s revolt, up to the time of a new move toward absolutism in the final decades of the seventeenth century.29 The new multipo-

On the Neapolitan revolt of 1647–48: Rosario Villari, La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli: Le origini (1585–1647) (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1967), in English translation as The Revolt of Naples (Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1993); Aurelio Musi, La rivolta di Masaniello nella scene politica barocca (Naples: Guida, 1989; 2d ed., 2002); Giuseppe Galasso, Alla periferia dell’impero. On the revolt in Sicily in 1674–78, see Luis Antonio Ribot Garcia, La revuelta antiespañola de Mesina: Causas antecedentes (1591–1674) (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, 1982). More generally, and for many aspects of the topics touched on in this essay, see Francesco Benigno, Specchi della rivoluzione: Conflitto e identità politica nell’Europa moderna (Rome: Donzelli, 1999). 28 Musi, L’Italia dei viceré. 29 Giuseppe Galasso, Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello. Politica, cultura, società (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1972).

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lar order that was in construction after the various peace agreements of the mid-century did not yet throw the old Spanish imperial order into serious crisis, although that order had received several hard blows in the 1640s. This is demonstrated by the overall persistence of the Italian subsystem in the Sicilian crisis of 1674–78, as can be seen in a fine recent work by Luis Ribot.30

2. The State and Social Stratification The second topic that I would like to consider in these pages, after that of the periodization of politico-institutional history, is the relation between the state and social stratifications in the Spanish viceroyalty of Naples. A fairly organic corpus of studies and investigations is now available—by Mantelli, Muto, Musi, Comparato, Visceglia, and others31—and it permits us to think about what topics have been well covered and what gaps persist, but also to think about the various interpretations proposed, a dual thread that seems to me to provide the inspiration for this conference. In this case as well, we cannot avoid beginning with a proposed periodization of the relationship between the state and the social groups involved in the apparatus of public administration in Naples from the early sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century. In a first phase, from the 1530s to the beginning of the reign of Philip II, there is a discernible project of bureaucratic mediation for which social mobility serves as a base for the creation of an autonomous political and administrative class in the Mezzogiorno. In the second phase, which runs from the late sixteenth century to Masaniello’s revolt, that project is in crisis and yielding to the aristocracy in southern Italy. The third phase, which opens with the restoration of

30 Luis Antonio Ribot Garcia, La Monarchia de España y la guerra de Mesina (1674–1678) (Madrid: Actas Editorial, 2002). 31 Roberto Mantelli, Il pubblico impiego nell’economia del Regno di Napoli: Retribuzioni, reclutamento e ricambio sociale nell’epoca spagnola (secc. XVI–XVII) (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 1986); Giovanni Muto, Le finanze pubbliche napoletane tra riforme e restaurazione (1520 –1634) (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1980); Musi, Mezzogiorno spagnolo; Vittor Ivo Comparato, Uffici e società nel Regno di Napoli: Aspetti dell’ideologia del magistrato nell’età moderna (Florence: Olschki, 1974); Maria Antonietta Visceglia, “Comunità, signori feudali e officiales in Terra d’Otranto tra XVI e XVII secolo,” Archivio Storico per le province napoletane 104 (1986): 259–86.

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Spanish rule and the government of viceroy Oñate, is that of the formation and development of a nobiltà di toga—men of law promoted to the nobility of the robe—among the ranks of the administration. Only in the second half of the seventeenth century did that group achieve self-consciousness as a political class.32 The studies available either concern the viceroys, present collective biographies of high magistrates, or treat offices in the periphery and the mechanisms of venality of offices. According to current research, there are four major routes, four political and administrative career paths for becoming viceroy of Naples: the Spanish council system, the ecclesiastical career, circulation among posts within the Italian and Spanish reinos, and ambassadorships, especially to Rome. The model of the viceregal cursus honorum that emerges is one of an itinerant functionary, a person endowed with a notable mobility within a system founded on a logic of replacement and on a surprising rationality that lies in an equilibrium between bureaucratic reason and political reason. Biographical studies of Spanish high functionaries in the Kingdom of Naples between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries have demonstrated several things:33 a) Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, there is a clear tendency to hereditary or family transmission in the highest ministerial posts; b) Typology can show a certain formalization of careers, expressed in three models: a vertical model of periphery and center; a horizontal model of career paths within the magistracies of the capital city; and a provincial model. The first of these led, after twenty or thirty years, to such provincial magistracies as the Udienza alla Vicaria or the Sacro Regio Consiglio. The stages in the horizontal model were within the judiciary of the Vicaria and the Sacro Regio Consiglio, or the political, military, fiscal administration of the Sommaria and the Collateral Council. Functionaries who remained on the provincial level circulated among such posts as president ( preside), lawyer attached to a state office (auditore), and crown attorney (avvocato fiscale);34 32 Pier Luigi Rovito, Respublica dei togati: giuristi e società nella Napoli del Seicento (Naples: Jovene, 1981). 33 Aurelio Musi, “Amministrazione, razionalità statale, formazione del ceto politico: I funzionari spagnoli nel Regno di Napoli, secoli XVI–XVII,” in Studi di storia meridionale in memoria di Pietro Laveglia, ed. Giovanni Vitolo and Carmine Carlone (Salerno: P. Laveglia, 1994), 121ff. 34 Gaetana Intorcia, Magistrature del Regno di Napoli. Analisi prosopografica secoli XVI–XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1987).

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c) Some biographies of Spanish high functionaries give concrete evidence of the project to construct an administrative elite in the mid-sixteenth century. Here I am thinking of such men as Francisco Reverter, Luis Ram, Francisco Moles, Antonio Patino, etc. Studies regarding administration in the periphery and the sale of offices have stressed both the penetration of noble groups in peripheral areas of the Neapolitan state and a relative mobility and broader social participation, especially in peripheral and local offices subject to the system of venality.35 Social dynamics changed in relation to the typology and the functions of the office in question. Three different social dynamics were at work: a more accentuated mobility in the office of tax collector and provincial treasurer, an important stage in the bureaucratic career, an instrument of financial control, and an organ of local power; a lesser degree of mobility in the posts of port master and customs master; an overwhelming presence of aristocrats in the secretariats and in general in all offices connected with the jurisdictional organs of feudalism. Venality on all levels in the twelve provinces of the Kingdom of Naples in the Spanish period is the topic of a forthcoming study by a student of mine, Carla Pedicino.

3. Center and Periphery In reality, the question of the relationship between the central government and local governments in the Spanish viceroyalty of Naples is much more complex and more fully articulated than it seems, even as it is described in recent studies. One very recent publication, Gérard Delille’s Le maire et le prieur, is a case in point, as it compares the relationship of lineages over generations to local and central power across the Western Mediterranean from Castile, Catalonia/ Aragon, and Provence to the Italian states.36

35 See Aurelio Musi, “Stato e stratificazioni sociali nel Regno di Napoli,” in Disuguaglianze: Stratificazione e mobilità sociale nelle popolazioni italiane dal secolo XIV agli inizi del secolo XX, Papers from a conference, Savona, 18–21 November 1992, 2 vols. (Bologna: CLUEB, 1997), 490ff. 36 Gérard Delille, Le maire et le prieur: Pouvoir central e pouvoir local en Méditerranée occidentale, XV–XVIII siècle (Rome: École Française de Rome; Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2003).

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Delille’s principal source is the Libro Magno delle famiglie di Manduria, a work that reports the genealogies of all the families who lived in the village of Casalnuovo, between Lecce and Taranto, from the late fifteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The redaction of this document began in 1572, soon after the Council of Trent, perhaps in response to a directive of the cardinal archbishop of Milan, Carlo Borromeo, the feudal lord of the area. The document’s 2,082 columns of genealogical information, listing a total of 10,000 marriages, ought to permit an exact survey of consanguineous relations. A source unique in the world. Related sources are notarial registers, parish registers, proceedings of minor matrimonial suits, diocesan archives, and private archives, especially of the Imperiale family. This data offers a highly interesting comparison between southern Italy and Spain. The exercise of local power in the Kingdom of Naples was founded on a dualism between nobili and popolari. Delille’s study, which posits the need to map the principal systems of local government, sees the problems inherent in this general principle as these: a) Perfect equilibrium was not the general rule: representation of the various social levels was the result of relations of force that varied from place to place and epoch to epoch; b) The juridical distinction between nobles and popolo, sanctioned by the existence of the nobiltà separata, cannot be generalized across regions. In Calabria typology was of three kinds: by distinction, distinction without closure, and separation; in Melfi social groups were articulated by “spheres” (sferi ), and so forth.

Even in Castile, the prevalent form of local governance was according to the principle of mitad de oficios. That system, however, was subject to two contrary developments: an increase in the number of offices between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries (one example is the office of regidor), and the gradual extinction of family lines due to closure of social orders and the demographic impact of primogeniture. This means that during the eighteenth century the posts to be filled outnumbered the persons available. The system entered into irreversible crisis. Membership in the family group and the presence of lineages were the basis of local political and administrative life in Castile. Beginning in the fifteenth century, lineages evolved from strict patrilineal kinship (grandfather to father to son) to a broader system of alliances

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and clientelage. Lineages entered into the formation and the development of factions and bandos, where they used flexible strategies adapted to the occasion, and into systems of lateral noble-popular combinations that conditioned the entire dynamic of relations between local power and the central power. The Crown intervened to put an end to violent conflict among bandos—or at least to subject them to discipline. This resulted in the stabilization of factional political representation and the fossilization of local oligarchies. It is important to distinguish between the realengo (crown lands) and señorios (feudal lands). In the realengo officials enjoyed lifetime tenure, and widespread venality gave the Crown better control of the political game; in the señorios factions predominated. It is also important to note that the sale of offices did not produce homogeneous effects. In Toledo, for example, the local oligarchy was reinforced between 1521 and 1700 and venality encouraged mobility within factional struggle. In Soria the sale of offices permitted the bureaucratic rise of families engaged in transhumance and linked to the interests of the sheepowners’ guild, the Mesta. Everywhere, however, venality and lifetime tenure in office limited violent conflict between factions. Naples was a different case. There the urban oligarchies were subject to control and there was little venality on the local level, even in feudal domains. This point is open to debate, however, in the light of recent research on venality in the local offices of the Kingdom of Naples between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There are other points to be made regarding Delille’s treatment of the viceroyalty of Naples: 1. Ideal equality and real inequality among social classes in their access to public office: In order to obtain changes in the attribution of offices the dialectic of social status counted less than the struggle between clans built on lateral alliances. It was not a question of nobles against non-nobles, but of faction against faction; 2. The interplay of kinship lines: Changing from one social order to another occurred frequently in the first half of the sixteenth century; then slowed but did not disappear, not even in the period of the serrate, when social distinctions were tightened. In Reggio Calabria there were instances of moving from among the onorati to the nobility. In Casalnuovo social ascent or decline in the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth century was regulated by the number of generations and lineage, but later, in

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aurelio musi the eighteenth century, mobility produced a radical modification of relations of force among social groups; Social mobility and geographical mobility: Relations and strategies for inscription in the Seggi privileged the centers closer to Naples, and a family member placed at the summit of the hierarchy of the state and the Church accelerated the upward social mobility of the entire family; Factions and lineage segmentation: The example of Casalnuovo: Between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries two opposing factions occupied the two principal power centers in the village, the office of mayor and the position of prior of the Monte di Pietà. Pirro Marrone, a powerful notable, took over the post of prior, but with his consent the adverse faction, the Giustiniani family, excluded from the Monte di Pietà, controlled the office of mayor; Political structures: Between the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century, the municipal council of Casalnuovo was not closed, and there was a close connection, based on kinship and alliance, between nobles and non-nobles; Factions and lineage segmentation: the example of Altamura. Here political structures, between the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century, were lateral, based on alliance and not blood filiation in the male line. Matrimony was the keystone of all political structures, and the role of the feudal lords, the Farnese family, and the central power was decisive.

Delille offers the following conclusion: In western Europe between the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century a new configuration emerged in relations between center and periphery: the state attempted to regulate local violence and reduce the power of factions by extending venality in offices, permitting hereditary public office, encouraging economic competition, and redefining the orders within society. In this same period, in some areas of the western Mediterranean such as the Italian Mezzogiorno, alliances, flexible matrimonial strategies, interplay among factions, and the concentration of the representation of interests of the community in the hands of feudal lords (political mediators par excellence) conditioned local government and its relations with the central government. During the course of the eighteenth century, a generalized adoption of primogeniture, demographic contraction, the isolation of the lineages, a crisis in feudal mediation, and a change in power rela-

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tions among social levels influenced not only the economic machinery of the transmission of goods, but also the political machinery. The system of hereditary, patrilineal succession, and the isolation of the lineages inaugurated a new phase.

4. Conclusion I have lingered over Delille’s volume because it opens several perspectives of great interest for the study of the politico-institutional history of the Kingdom of Naples in the Spanish age. It makes clear the need for a comparison between the case of Naples and the evolution of the western Mediterranean area as a whole—which, as Delille’s conclusion demonstrates, was far from homogeneous. The idea of a Neapolitan path to the modern state is thus confirmed; an idea that Galasso and the author of this essay have helped to illuminate, during the past twenty years in particular. Finally, a much closer collaboration between historians of the early modern period and of the contemporary period in the Italian Mezzogiorno is perhaps to be desired with the aim of reconstructing the genesis and developments of a democrazia latina that may turn out to be—even in light of the most recent studies in history and political science—the category best suited to represent political structures in a given area of the Mediterranean.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE STATE OF MILAN AND THE SPANISH MONARCHY* Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño

Lombardy during the Italian Wars From the start of the Italian Wars in 1494, Milan was a battleground. The French invasions led to the decline of the local Sforza dynasty, and from 1499 to 1512, Louis XII claimed the title of Duke of Milan.1 French rule transformed the distribution of power in Lombard society. With the creation of the politically and militarily powerful position of Lieutenant General, the first system for an absent sovereign was established, and the mediating role of an oligarchy was ensured through the institution of a Senate comprised of powerful Milanese oligarchs and five foreign togati (men of law).2 The families that governed the city of Milan adapted to the permanent absence of the duke and they formulated a system of embassies and legates to the French royal court to deliver petitions and gifts in order to ensure that the dominant faction at court would attend to

* Translated by Karina Xavier. Abbreviations AGS = Archivo General de Simancas; E = Estado; AHN = Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid; ASCMI = Archivio Storico Civico, Milan; ASMi = Archivio di Stato, Milan; ASV = Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Rome; BFZ = Biblioteca Francisco de Zabálburu, Madrid; BNMa = Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid; BPR = Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid; HA = Gräflich Harrach’sches Familienarchiv, depositado en Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna. 1 L. G. Pèlissier, ed., Documents pour l´histoire de la domination française dans le Milanais (1499 –1513) (Toulouse, 1891); and L. Arcangeli, ed., Milano e Luigi XII. Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–1512) (Milan, 2002). 2 G. P. Bognetti, “La città sotto i Francesi”; and G. Franceshini, “Le dominazioni francesi e le restaurazioni sforzesche,” in Storia di Milano, vol. VIII: Tra Francia e Spagna (1500–1535) (Milan, 1957), pp. 3–80 and 81–333; and A. Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, “Carlos V y el Estado de Milán,” Torre de Lujanes 43 (March 2001): 85–99.

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their requests.3 These forms of negotiation and pressure, and the new plan of government, constituted decisive precedents for the political process when the State of Milan became part of the Habsburg monarchy. The shadow of Louis XII loomed over Charles V’s conception of the government in Milan. The dethroned Sforza dynasty, longed for by a part of the local nobility and dependent on the interested complicity of certain kings and rulers, constantly threatened to ambush French domination in Lombardy. The end of Ludovico Sforza, il Moro, did not mean the definitive defeat of his line, since his two young sons were growing up in the midst of the cabals of the European courts. The nuptial alliances woven by Ludovico allowed the Sforza to survive after the victory of Louis XII. In 1493, Emperor Maximilian I married for the second time, to the duke’s sister, Bianca Maria Sforza, who moved to the Austrian duchies with a household of Lombard nobility. The matrimonial alliance revived Habsburg interest in projecting its influence into northern Italy, and Charles VIII’s invasion in 1494 brought to southern Europe the Valois-Habsburg rivalry, which years before had centered on the Flemish and Burgundian states. When the second French invasion threatened Lombard soil in September 1499, the Duke sent his sons, Ercole Massimiliano and Francesco, to Innsbruck. After the defeat and imprisonment of Ludovico, the children enjoyed the protection of Bianca Maria Sforza in the Imperial court until her death in December 1510. Pawns or valuable hostages in the volatile negotiations between the King of France and Maximilian, the sons, as they grew up, began to unite the Lombard nobles interested in reestablishing the ducal dynasty and to arouse the interested support of those rulers and Italian republics that did not want the French monarch as neighbor. After the death of Bianca Maria, Marguerite of Austria, ruler of the Low Countries, became the young boys’ guardian, and the Habsburg courts became a favorable environment for exiled Lombards. Some entered the service of the young Charles of Ghent, duke of Burgundy. Notable among them was the Milanese humanist Luigi Marliani, from a family of captains and

3 A. Salomoni, Memorie storico-diplomatiche degli Ambasciatori, Incaricati d’affari, Corrispondenti, e Delegati, che la Città di Milano inviò a diversi suoi Principi dal 1500 al 1796 (Milan, 1806), pp. 1–43.

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advisers serving the dukes of Milan. Luigi was physician to the dukes of Milan, adviser to Maximilian I, and to his son Philip the Fair, and after 1512, to Charles.4 In Brussels in 1516, Luigi designed the celebrated emblem of Charles that featured the columns of Hercules and the maxim Plus Ultra. A year later Charles rewarded him with the bishopric of Tuy in Galicia.5 This circle of exiles considered Ercole Massimiliano Sforza to be the legitimate Duke of Milan, while his younger brother, Francesco, held the title of duke of Bari. For both, the moment of glory would arrive with the French army’s reversals during 1512 and 1513. The future of the State of Milan was the focus of Sforza aspirations and Habsburg interests as well as that of the Lombard oligarchy’s network of connivances and the intentions of other Italian rulers. The conquest of the kingdom of Naples in 1503, as a clear indicator of Spain’s projection into Italy, introduced a new factor.6 The uncertainties precipitated by Isabella’s death and Philip’s brief reign in Castile permitted Ferdinand the Catholic to count on Castilian resources for his policies in Italy, whose inner workings he observed during his stay in Naples in the winter of 1506 and 1507. With papal complicity, it was possible to use southern Italy as a staging ground for military expeditions into the Paduan plains, and with alternating progress and setbacks, the Neapolitan viceroy, Ramón Folch de Cardona, directed the operations of the Holy League in northern Italy.7 For the first time, the Catholic King’s army left the Neapolitan theater of operations, and by establishing ties with the local nobility in the Po valley, the leaders became privy to the cultural and artistic trends of these local courts. Thus, the Italian Wars left a decisive imprint on the habits of a segment of the Spanish nobility.8

4 See E. Rosenthal, “The invention of the columnar device of Emperor Charles V at the Court of Burgundy in Flanders in 1516,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 36 (1973): 198–230. 5 S. Leydi, Sub Umbra Imperalis Aquilae. Immagini del potere e consenso politico nella Milano di Carlo V (Florence, 1999), pp. 52–54 and 83–86. 6 C. J. Hernando Sánchez, El reino de Nápoles en el Imperio de Carlos V. La consolidación de la conquista (Madrid, 2001). 7 J. Zurita, Historia del rey don Hernando el Católico: de las empresas y ligas de Italia, ed. by A. Canellas López, M. Canellas Anoz, and A. J. López Guitiérrez, vol. 5 (Zaragoza, 1996). 8 On the careers of Spanish captains dedicated to letters, see VV. AA., La Espada y la Pluma. Il mondo militare nella Lombardia spagnola cinquecentesca (Lucca, 2000).

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At the end of the fifteenth century, the Crown of Aragon’s secular image in Italy, with its diplomatic, military, political, social, economic, cultural, and artistic implications, was complemented by increasing Castilian influence.9 For example, the Lombard humanist, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, came to Spain in 1487 and served in the court of the Catholic Kings.10 Captain Gonzalo de Ayora worked in the service of Ludovico, before performing diplomatic missions for Ferdinand the Catholic, who entrusted de Ayora with the task of organizing his security guard. Alongside the close ties between the Spanish Court and Naples, an ever more relevant interest in Lombard

9 P. Mainoni, Mercanti lombardi tra Barcellona e Valenza nel basso medioevo (Bologna, 1982); Idem, “Compagnie iberiche a Milano nel secondo Quattrocento,” Anuario de Estudios Medievales 24 (1994): 419–428; A. Boscolo, “Milano e la Spagna all’epoca di Ludovico il Moro,” in Milano nell’età di Ludovico il Moro, vol. 1 (Milan, 1983); G. Fantoni, “Milano e la Spagna alla fine del Quattrocento: le lettere di Francesco Litta a Ludovico il Moro,” Quaderni di Letterature Iberiche e Iberoamericane 18/20 (1993): 5–28; and G. Navarro Espinach, “El Ducado de Milán y los reinos de España en tiempo de los Sforza (1450–1535),” Historia, Instituciones, Documentos 27 (2000): 155–181. 10 In January 1488, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera explained to his old patron, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza Visconti, his reasons for abandoning Italy and moving to the Spanish Court with the Count of Tendilla, who had been the ambassador to the pope. P. Mártir De Anglería, Epistolario, ed. and Latin trans. J. López de Toro, vol. 1 (Madrid, 1953), pp. 3–5. For the career of Anghiera, see Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, vol. 39 (Madrid, 1842–95), pp. 397–402. He was named chaplain in 1501 (A. De La Torre, La Casa de Isabel la Católica [Madrid, 1954], p. 28) and maestro de caballeros of the Court in Liberal Arts in 1502 (M. C. Solana Villamor, Cargos de la Casa y Corte de los Reyes Católicos [Valladolid, 1902], p. 77). Regarding his activity in the court of the Catholic Kings, one can recall the observations of the traveler Jerónimo Münzer: “I met in Madrid a laureado and consummate poet named Peter Martyr of Milan, author of the distinguished poem in praise of the kings, who manages a studio where he teaches the children of the elite. He invited me to attend one of his lessons, and I did. His disciples were the Duke of Villahermosa, the Duke of Cardona, son of the Count of Cifuentes, don Juan Carrillo, don Pedro de Mendoza, son of a sister of the count of Tendilla, and many others of noble families whom I heard recite from Juvenal, Horace, etc. All of them, forty in number, are enlightened youths, servants of the royal house; they have teachers in various disciplines and awaken in Spain the taste for letters.” (“Conocí en Madrid a un laureado y consumado poeta, llamado Pedro Mártir de Milán, autor de un insigne poema en loor de los reyes, que regenta un estudio en el que enseña a los hijos de los grandes. Éste me invito a asistir a una de sus lecciones, como lo hice. Eran sus discípulos el duque de Villahermosa, el duque de Cardona, hijo del conde de Cifuentes, don Juan Carrillo, don Pedro de Mendoza, hijo de una hermana del conde de Tendilla, y otros muchos de nobles familias a los que oí recitar a Juvenal, a Horacio, etc. Todos ellos, en número de 40, son mozos esclarecidos, servidores de la casa real, tienen maestros de varias disciplinas y despiertan en España el gusto de las letras.”) J. Münzer, “Relación del viaje,” in Viaje de extranjeros por España y Portugal, ed. J. García Mercadal, vol. 1 (Salamanca, 1999), p. 382.

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affairs developed, as is clear in the diplomatic missions sent by the Catholic Kings to Milan throughout their reign.11 Threatened by the Habsburg and Valois designs, the Swiss cantons, the papacy, and some Italian princes reached a compromise that distanced the two European powers from direct domination in Lombardy. This led to the parceling out of territories bordering Milan, and the reinstatement of the Sforza between 1512 and 1515, with Ercole Massimiliano, as duke of a reduced state. With French troops threatening, Duke Massimiliano made concessions to Milanese citizens and merchants to mobilize money and men.12 However, these accords did not impede the new French king, Francis I, from occupying the State of Milan from October 1515 until the end of 1521. In December 1515, the Duke of Bourbon was named governor, and in March 1516, he defeated Emperor Maxmilian’s troops when they attempted to expel the French from Lombardy. In 1518, Francis I and Governor Lautrec reorganized the city administration, establishing a council of sixty decuriones perpetuos. The complex dynastic succession in the Spanish kingdoms and the Empire after the death of Ferdinand the Catholic in 1516 and Emperor Maximilian in 1519 favored French hegemony in Lombardy, but Charles V was able to consolidate his authority and forge a new alliance that defended the rights of Francesco Sforza.13 On November 19, 1521, an incursion of Spanish troops into Milan forced the withdrawal of the French and the first sack of the city. The Spanish military presence in Milan thus began to be associated with extortions

11 An example is the embassy sent in 1495, AGS, Patronato Real, 43–1. Regarding this issue, see the report of the secretary, Juan Claver, addressed to the Catholic King after his negotiation with Duke Ludovico Sforza in December 1495, AGS, E, leg. 1172, n. 2. M. A. Ochoa Brun reports on the diplomatic formalities fulfilled in the Sforza court in Milan by Francisco Vidal de Noya in 1484, by Fonseca y Claver in 1495, and by Diego del Águila between 1514 and 1515, until the conquest of Milan by the army of Francis I (Historia de la diplomacia española, vol. 4 [Madrid, 1995], pp. 94, 230 and 366–368). Regarding the embassy of Diego del Águila, see J. M. Doussinague, El testamento político de Fernando el Católico (Madrid, n.d.), p. 245. Regarding the activity of Diego del Águila in 1516, see BRAH, ms. 9/16. 12 See E. Verga, “Delle concessioni fatte da Massimiliano Sforza alla Città di Milano (11 luglio 1515),” Archivio Storico Lombardo 21:2 (1894): 331–349 and, concerning the method of election and power of the vicar between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see A. Visconti, La pubblica amministrazione nello Stato milanese durante il predominio straniero (1541–1796) (Rome, 1913), pp. 409–430. 13 AGS, Patronato Real, 43–4 and 43–8.

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and offenses against the population, an image that prevailed for nearly a decade, the most inimical phase of the Italian Wars. Under Francesco, the Sforza were restored and held power between 1522 and 1526. In May 1522, the new duke signed an edict that established a plan for supreme tribunals and endowed the office of First Secretary with the rank of Lord High Chancellor. However, the precariousness of Francesco’s rule was obvious given the heavy troop presence, which held de facto power in the cities and counties, and the imperial court had been debating the appropriateness of supporting the Sforza and the possibility of maintaining the strategic castle of Milan under imperial guard.14 The politics of equilibrium, assured through alliances among the states, crumbled under the unexpected, indisputable Spanish victory at Pavia in February 1525, highlighted by the capture of Francis I. The absence of counterweights before the great strength of Charles V incited secret negotiations aimed at restoring an Italian peace by balancing French and Hispano-Imperial powers. The clandestine alliance between the papacy, the Venetian republic, Francesco Sforza, and France was discovered in October 1525 after the imprisonment of Lord High Chancellor Gerolamo Morone.15 In November, the ministers and territorial entities in the State of Milan swore an oath of fidelity to the emperor.16 This began Charles V’s domination over the State of Milan. The emperor took direct control between 1525 and 1529, and again, following the death of Francesco, in November 1535. Although this latter date is usually cited as the beginning of the imperial government, in some respects, it actually marks a continuation of the domination that was exercised between 1525 and 1529. However, apart from military and

14 Regarding the Italian politics of Mercurino Gattinara, see the bibliography by M. Rivero Rodríguez, Gattinara. Carlos V y el sueño del Imperio, (Madrid, 2005), chap. 6. 15 F. Cazzamini Mussi, La congiura di Gerolamo Morone (Milan, 1946). See Gerolamo Morone’s original Latin order (Pavia, 25 October 1525) against Duke Francesco Sforza to hand over the principal Milanese fortresses, as well as a French copy of the same document in AGS, Patronato Real, 43–12. 16 Duke Francesco II Sforza obtained the imperial investiture of the duchy of Milan in October 1524, which thus let Charles V confirm the reinstatement of the Sforza that had occurred between 1521 and 1522 during the withdrawal of the army of Francis I. In October 1524, while the young emperor was signing the Investiture of Tordesillas, the French army returned to Milan, which was occupied (with the exception of the castle) until the Battle of Pavia.

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diplomatic aspects of the Spanish victory, little is known about this first phase of Milan’s political domination by Spain.17 Thus, it is critically important to identify the leaders during those years of plague and war. In November 1525, Francesco Ferdinando D’Avalos, Marquis of Pescara became the ruler of Milan in the name of the emperor, but he died of tuberculosis on 3 December. Shortly before his death, he arranged for his military and political successors by naming Alfonso D’Avalos, Marquis of Vasto as captain general of Milan and Antonio de Leyva as governor. Antonio de Leyva’s administration (22 February 1527–December 1529) relied above all on a network of family, friends, and clients. His relatives were solidly placed within the administrative apparatus of the imperial army in Italy, and Antonio utilized them to ensure control of the Castle of Milan. He decided not to make any changes in the ministers and officials appointed by the Sforza, and in a letter to the emperor, he praised the collaboration he was receiving from the three heads of Milan’s supreme tribunals—the Senate, the Extraordinary Court, and the delle Biade —as well as from the head of the municipal administration. The cooperation of the magistrates was decisive in the search for support for the army, whereas the cooperation of the senators ensured the administration of the territory. The understanding with the head of the municipal administration made it possible to negotiate with the elite that ruled the city, not only to establish new taxes or to billet troops, but also in case of revolts and mutinies in order to prevent the destruction of the city. Responding to the active mediation of Clement VII, Charles V had returned the duchy to Francesco at the end of 1529. Sforza promised to compensate the imperial treasury within one year with a payment of 400,000 escudos followed by payments of 50,000 escudos annually for a decade. After many payments and negotiations, on February 15, 1531, Spanish troops left the castle in Milan and the fortress in Como amidst widespread jubilation. However, the War of Musso and the heavy payments to Charles V, which converted

17 See Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, “La Cucagna o Spagna: los orígenes de la dominación española en Lombardía,” in G. Galasso and C. J. Hernando Sánchez (eds.), El reino de Nápoles y la monarquía de España. Entre agregación y conquista (1485–1535) (Madrid, 2004), pp. 401–452.

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Lombardy into a cash cow for the imperial treasury, would provoke the Lombards’ mistrust of their duke. Charles V’s intervention in Milan’s diplomatic questions, principally through his involvement in the marriage arrangements between the duke and Cristina of Denmark, clearly limited Francesco’s political activities. Francesco died on November 1, 1535 without leaving a male successor. Commander de Leyva, considering the principal branch of the Sforza extinct, rushed to proclaim the return of Milanese lordship to Charles V.

Under Imperial Rule: The Lombardy of Charles V In the midst of de Leyva’s frantic efforts to maneuver the Italian nobility into swearing allegiance to Charles, Francis I made known his opposition to the emperor’s direct domination of the State of Milan. He proposed that Charles V transfer control to the Duke of Orleáns, while the income from the state would remain at the service of the French king during his lifetime. Charles, wishing to curb the aspirations of Francis I, proposed instead that Milan go to the third son of the French king, the Duke of Angoulême, who was distanced from direct succession to the throne.18 In early 1536, the French army conquered the duchy of Savoy and advanced through Piedmont until encountering Leyva’s troops. Charles believed this represented a step on the road to a French invasion of Milan, which would throw Italy into turmoil. He thus justified his direct domination of Milan as a way of guaranteeing the peace of Italy, a sort of deposit, with diplomatic negotiations deciding the outcome. The invasion of Savoy and the French threat to Lombardy provoked a new war with France.19 After 1535, as Imperial Lieutenant (Lugarteniente Cesáreo), Antonio de Leyva, the Prince of Ascoli (d. September 7, 1536) was the first and only Spaniard to be governor during the reign of Charles V. Three Italians would follow him: Cardinal Marino Caracciolo (1536–38); Alfonso D’Avalos, Marquis of Vasto (1538–46); and Ferrante Gonzaga,

18

Regarding the diplomatic crossroads of 1535 and 1536, see J. M. Jover Zamora, Carlos V y las formas diplomáticas del Renacimiento (1535–1538) (Valencia, 1960), pp. 44 and 133–137. 19 R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron. The Reign of Francis I (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 330–341.

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Prince of Molfetta (1546–54). Only at the end of 1553 and the beginning of 1554, in the context of the transfer of power between Charles and Philip, did the name of Juan de Vega appear as potential successor to Ferrante Gonzaga, the leader of imperial politics in northern Italy between 1546 and 1554. Vega, then viceroy of Sicily, declined the offer.20 When Philip took effective powers as Duke of Milan, he would name the Duke of Alba as governor.21 During Cardinal Carraciolo’s governorship, D’Avalos commanded the imperial army, and they constantly argued over billeting of troops and management of the treasury.22 The separation of the military and administrative powers had grave consequences for the direction of the war. The Marquis of Vasto’s subsequent eight-year governorship permanently influenced the distribution of political power in Milan.23 Many edicts, laws, decrees, and practices were codified into the New Constitutions during the emperor’s stay in Milan in August 1541. However, when D’Avalos went to the Imperial court in 1545 to ask that his jurisdiction as governor be strengthened vis-à-vis the Senate, the emperor and his advisors publicly disavowed him. With the imperial promulgation of the Order of Worms, on 6 August 1545, the Senate’s judicial and gubernatorial powers were increased, impeding the governor, the Secret Council, and Lord High Chancellor from meddling in matters reserved for the Senate.24 20 Cfr. M. J. Rodríguez Salgado, The Changing Face of Empire. Charles V, Philip II, and Habsburg Authority, 1551–1559 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 106; in Spanish translation, Un imperio en transición. Carlos V, Felipe II y su mundo, 1551–1559 (Barcelona, 1992). 21 Philip informed the Senate of the appointment of Alba as Governor, Lieutenant and Captain General with the duty of safeguarding the State of Milan, assuring that “in all that concerns the well-being of this state, he will do as I myself [would do]” (ASMi, Uffici Regi p. a., 60; Hamptoncourt, April 15, 1555, letter signed by Philip and Gonzalo Pérez). Regarding the Milanese government of the Duke of Alba, see W. S. Maltby, Alba: A Biography of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, third duke of Alba, 1507–1582 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 87–96; and, above all, Epistolario del III Duque de Alba don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, ed. J. FitzJames Stuart XVII Duque de Alba, vol. 1 (Madrid, 1952), pp. 158–362. 22 Cfr. F. Chabod, Lo Stato e la vita religiosa a Milano nell´epoca di Carlo V (Turin, 1971), pp. 155–156. 23 The perfomance of Alfonso D’Avalos, Marquis of Vasto, as governor and captain general had political and symbolic implications that deserve a more detailed study. The interpretation offered by Chabod of the government of the marquis is unconvincing given that it merely offers an outline of this complex period (see, for example, Ibid., pp. 157–161). In Chabod’s work, it appears that the Marquis of Vasto serves as a foil to enhance the initiatives and margin of maneuver of Ferrante Gonzaga. 24 Chabod, pp. 150–154.

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The D’Avalos government coincided with a period of uncertainty respecting the final disposition of the State of Milan. In December 1538, Charles acceded to the marriage of the Duke of Orleáns, second son of the King of France Francis I, to either his daughter or niece, with the State of Milan as dowry. A year later, in the light of complex negotiations about the matrimonial alliances between the Habsburgs and Valois, doubts persisted concerning Milan’s future. The possibility even existed that Lombardy would be made part of the Empire or sold to the Farnese, the family of Pope Paul III. The Council of State was averse to losing control of Milan, and they had the support of Prince Philip, who had been named Duke of Milan by his father in October 1540, although it was supposed that this concession remained secret. The change in government leadership in Milan after the death of the Marquis of Vasto in mid-1546 coincided with increasing determination on the part of the emperor’s council to retain control of Lombardy. On July 5, 1546 in Ratisbon, Charles authorized a new investiture of Prince Philip as head of the State and Duchy of Milan and the County of Pavia; but in August, his father ordered him to also keep this secret. Ferrante Gonzaga, governor of Milan between June 1546 and March 1554, successfully maximized his power by forming a network of alliances and clients in the tribunals of Milan and in the imperial court. Gonzaga believed that the Order of Worms only applied to his predecessor, and through interventions and discretionary appointments, he annulled some of the legislative dispositions that had limited the governor’s margin for maneuver.25 In December 1548 and January 1549 Prince Philip, who had never before set foot outside of Spain, toured northern Italy. During this time, he had to conceal his rank as duke, and the subdued ceremonial profile harmed his reputation. Ferrante Gonzaga did not want this embarrassment to affect his future relations with the emperor’s heir. So, for the greater glory of the House of Gonzaga, during November 1548, he designed a triumphal entrance into Mantua for Philip, which would sweeten the prince’s passage through northern Italy without disobeying the orders of Charles V. Beginning in 1546, Charles V claimed Milan as his dominion, with no further discussion of ceding it to the Valois for the sake of

25

Ibid., pp. 161–169.

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peace in Christendom. A few significant changes were introduced in the system of government in the state, including the appointment of a Lombard regent, who was a member of the itinerant court of Charles V and acted as special adviser in questions relating to the State of Milan. Milanese senator Giacomo Pirovano occupied the post between 1546 and 1552.26 This office was closely connected to a new way of administering the dominion, which was promoted by Governor Ferrante Gonzaga and, in the imperial court, by Antonio Perrenot, who played a decisive role in matters relating to Milan. The regent frequently traveled between Milan and the court, and he was responsible for harmonizing the priorities of the emperor’s advisers with the interests of a few powerful figures in the local hierarchy. Those players included the patrician tribunals of the city of Milan, the Senate, and Ferrante Gonzaga. Pirovano, who had maintained strict ties with his patron Perrenot from a very early date, died in June 1552, just at a time of imperial crisis, when the ties that had for many years united Perrenot and Ferrante Gonzaga were beginning to splinter. Pope Julius III’s placement of the Farnese in the duchies of Parma and Piacenza provoked the War of Parma (1551–1552), and it ended less than honorably for Ferrante Gonzaga and the emperor. At the end of April 1552, the papal envoy, Monsignor de Fiesole, informed Charles V of the armistice that Julius III and the representatives of the king of France were negotiating.27 The War of Parma and its extension into Piedmont had impeded Charles V from reacting strongly to the growing rumors regarding the loyalty of Maurice, Duke of Saxony. Diplomatic representatives corroborated that the emperor’s money and troops were committed to the situation in northern Italy, leaving Charles at the mercy of the initiative of Maurice, who was temporarily detained in Linz negotiating a general agreement on political and religious matters with Monsignor Rye, Charles V’s representative. Monsignor Rye pointed out that

26 With respect to the ministerial career of Giacomo Pirovano and the institution of the Lombard regent in the imperial court, see my study, “Gli humori d’Italia si devono conoscere et governarsi per Italiani. Antonio Perrenot y el gobierno del Estado de Milán,” in Carlo V, Napoli e il Mediterraneo (Naples, 2002), pp. 305–370. 27 See Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, “Moti di Italia e tumulti di Germania: la crisi del 1552,” in F. Cantù and M. A. Visceglia, eds., L’Italia di Carlo V. Guerra, religione e politica nel primo Cinquecento (Rome, 2003), pp. 337–374.

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“the upheavals in Italy” were an invitation to Henry II to mobilize his armies in northern Italy and could also inspire the German princes to attempt to free themselves from the emperor’s authority. The factional struggle in the courts of Charles and Philip weakened Ferrante Gonzaga at the end of his mandate in Milan and reinforced the Senate as a counterweight to the governor. Ferrante was one of the first political victims of the transition of power from Charles to his son,28 and shortly after Philip’s rule of Milan began in 1554, the Duke of Alba took over as governor. The Duke of Alba’s program aimed to reinforce the role of Spaniards in the administration of justice and, against the desires of the Milanese elite, reduce the jurisdiction of the Senate. Senator Alessandro Visconti, among other ministers, expressed displeasure at the possibility of a profound change in the style of government. In October 1555, Visconti wrote to Antonio Perrenot lamenting the change, saying that he feared the same form of government that Viceroy Pedro de Toledo had implemented in Naples between 1532 and 1553 would be imposed on Lombardy.29 With the uncertainty surrounding the imperial succession, the authoritarian tactics of Alba, nephew of the feared Neapolitan viceroy, heightened the concerns of the elite. Senator Visconti raised sinister predictions of discord and civil disorder in Milan during the transition between the familiar rule of the emperor and the new regime of his Spanish son. The Burgundian Perrenot family’s ministership in Milan under Charles V had been characterized by the privileging of native Milanese and the togati, so lettered Lombards desired that King Philip would follow that same path. They observed with unease how the Duke of Alba censured the Milanese networks of familial relationships in the

28

See Rodrìguez Salgado, pp. 102–110. Letter of Alessandro Visconti to Antonio Perrenot (Milan, 9 October 1555), BPR, II/2271, ff. 123–124. The Milanese senator praised the conduct of the chaplain of Milan, Juan de Luna, whom he considered well connected to the nobility of the city. As Carlos Hernando indicates, Pedro de Toledo turned the tribunal of the Vicaria into “the axis of repressive politics,” by entrusting its administration to Spanish regents like the two Aragonese Federico Urríes and Bernardo de Bolea, and later Fernando Figueroa. Cfr. C. J. Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI. El virrey Pedro de Toledo (Salamanca, 1994), p. 240. The fears of the Milanese patriciate that the Duke of Alba would impose the style of government of Viceroy Pedro de Toledo in Lombard lands were not only based on the uncle and nephew having maintained close family relations, but perhaps also on the influence Bernardo de Bolea achieved with the Duke of Alba while residing in Milan. 29

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local tribunals, while he promoted Spaniards and demonstrated his preference for the nobles of the sword over the lawyer class of the togati.

Spanish Milan under Philip II For forty-four years, from July 1554 until his death in September 1598, Philip, Duke of Milan, governed the state effectively.30 After the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, his reign was characterized by the prevailing peace in the state. However, Milan, as a chief site of the Italian Wars, had suffered for decades, and neither its subjects nor ministers were certain that the treaty would hold. Under various pretexts—the mustering of French troops on the borders with the duchy of Savoy, the Religious Wars in France, or the possibility that the papacy would form a league against Philip II with the backing of Savoy, Tuscany, and even Emperor Maximilian II— rumors of war and apprehension long ran rampant in both Milan and the royal court. During the reign of Philip II, nine proprietary (that is, not provisional) governors held the office. Seven were Spanish, and the two Italian governors, D’Avalos and Aragona, had close ties to the Spanish aristocracy. Among the Spaniards, most belonged to the grand Spanish lineages, including the Toledo, Fernández de Córdoba, Cueva, Guzmán, Zuñiga-Requesens, and Velasco families. Hispanicization extended to a key position in the Milanese government, the Lord High Chancellor, the person responsible for signing and validating the governor’s orders to guarantee their consistency with the law. The Chancellor also supervised the work of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Courts and advised the governor, examined royal letters, and consulted about the resources necessary for their execution. During the reign of Philip II, Juan de Barahona, Andrés Ponce de Leon, Vicente López de Montenegro, Danese Figliodoni, and Diego Salazar held the office of Lord High Chancellor. Another key office was that of regent on the Council of Italy, established in 1555 to advise Philip on governing Milan and Naples

30 A. Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, Milán y el legado de Felipe Il Gobernadores y corte provincial en la Lombardía de los Austrias, (Madrid, 2001).

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(which he had received from Charles V after his marriage to Mary Tudor).31 Two individuals served as regents representing Milan, and throughout the seventeenth century, one was usually a Lombard and the other, a Spaniard. The presence of Lombard nobility on the Council of Italy was essential to limiting the ascension of Spaniards to the top ministerial posts in Milan. Following Regent Juan de Barahona’s appointment as Lord High Chancellor, his seat on the Council of Italy was vacant from 1562 through 1568. Therefore, during this formative period, the only voice of Lombardy was that of Milanese Regent Gabrielle Casati, replaced in 1565 by Giulio Claro. In 1563, the Duke of Sessa, as governor, was asked for a list of nominees to fill the Barahona vacancy. He had feared that both places would go to Italians, but Philip II requested that the governor propose Spaniards as well.32 During the reign of Philip II, Milan’s Spanish regent on the Council of Italy was generally a lawyer with a degree from the Spanish college in Bologna, such as Barahona, Leonardo de Herrera, Diego de Salazar, and Miguel Lanz. Regarding the presence of Spaniards in the Senate and the courts, the process was slow and complicated. In 1570, the Council of Italy warned the king that “there are thirteen positions in that Senate, and three of these have always been held by Spaniards.”33 Even though this statement was untrue, towards the end of the reign, it became common practice to reserve three of the fourteen Senate seats for Spaniards. The entry of Spaniards into the Ordinary and Extraordinary Courts was also gradual, until the eventual inclusion of one Spanish judge trained in law (cuestor de capa) and another togato in each court.34 In the College of Prosecutors, the Spanish took one position of abogado fiscal (prosecuting attorney).35 On the other hand, the definitive distribution of the presidencies of the courts had to wait until the reign of Philip III, the practice during the seventeenth century being that a Spaniard or foreigner be named president of the Extraordinary Court, and a Lombard of the Ordinary Court.36

31

See M. Rivero, Felipe II y el Gobierno de Italia (Madrid, 1998), pp. 50 and 235– 237; and A. Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, “Le origini del Consiglio d’Italia (1554–1556),” Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 1 (2003): 163–195. 32 BFZ, Fondo Altamira, carp. 247. 33 AGS, SP, leg. 1792, n. 151. 34 AGS, SP, legajos 1792, 1793 and 1796. 35 AGS, SP, legajos 1792, 1794 and 1795. 36 On the process of distribution of presidencies among nations during the reign

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Conversely, in the times of Philip II, a number of Spanish men trained in law occupied the presidency of the Ordinary Court. The position of Captain of Justice was reserved for the Lombards, although on numerous occasions, the governors proposed Spaniards for the post. The re-creation of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Courts as supreme tribunals that administered the Lombard treasury occurred throughout the reign of Philip II. By 1559, the king was already showing an interest in combining the Magister delle Entrate with the Oficio delle Biade. Visitor-general Andrés de la Cueva was consulted on this matter in 1560. In February 1563, an order was signed creating the two tribunals that would administer the Milan treasury until the mid-eighteenth century. Likewise, Philip II began the reform of the Secret Council, a body with jurisdiction in matters of war and government, on which the governors used to place their clients without the king appointing them. Throughout the reign, various dispositions were aimed at specifying which top military and government posts had the right based on rank to belong to the Secret Council. Finally, the king and the Council of Italy intervened to regulate the position of the Captain of Justice in charge of criminal justice. Until 1561, the governors controlled the selection of the Captain, filling it with individuals lacking legal training. Philip II decreed that the post was a royal appointment, to be renewed every two years, and occupied by a togato. The governor, who saw his powers significantly reduced by the interference of the Council of Italy, loudly complained. During the 1560s, Philip II and the Council of Italy promoted an unquestionable policy limiting the governor’s and even the Senate’s powers. In general, the governors until then had actively practiced patronage on a local scale, being decisive in most appointments, even some that the king should have selected, including the members of the Secret Council, the Lord High Chancellor, the royal State trea-

of Philip III, see my study: “Españoles y lombardos en el gobierno del Estado de Milán en tiempos de Federico Borromeo,” Studia Borromaica 18 (2004): 297–324. On the government of the State of Milan during the reign of Philip III, see C. Mozzarelli, “Nella Milano dei re cattolici. Considerazioni su uomini, cultura e istituzioni tra Cinque e Seicento,” in Pissavino and Signorotto, eds., 1: 421–456; and M. C. Giannini, “Città e contadi dello Stato di Milano nella politica finanziaria del conte di Fuentes (1600–1610),” in E. Brambilla and G. Muto, eds., La Lombardia Spagnola (Milan, 1997), pp. 191–208.

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surer, the army commissioner general, the contador of the artillery, the city governors, and the castle lieutenants. The method used to skirt the legal prohibition against the governor making such appointments was to fill vacancies provisionally, awaiting the royal decision. In this manner, some offices were occupied for years by people chosen by the governor. The Council of Italy firmly opposed these practices, with the objective of filling them through the regular process of a royal appointment made from a slate of three candidates chosen by the Council of Italy itself and in which the nominees of the governor and the tribunal were also specified. In a complementary fashion, to reinforce control over the territory, the Council of Italy initiated a series of general visits to examine the work of the ministers and the management of the treasury. The visitors-general were Andrés de la Cueva, between 1559 and 1562, and the all-powerful Luis de Castilla, whose long general visit took place in two phases between 1581 and 1595. Notwithstanding, as was true of all the ministers, the visitors-general had connections to particular factions in the royal court. Under Philip II, the revolt of the Low Countries altered the strategic significance of the Lombard dominion, a key part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish infantry took en route to Flanders. This military dimension of the Milanese State determined the landscape of the Lombard plain, which was interlaced with garrisons and bastioned fortresses based on the modern theories of military engineering. The Lombard nobility, in command of some of the infantry, actively participated in the art of war.

The Kings of Spain and purchasing honor in Milan The purchasing of honors and offices had already begun under Philip II with the sale of noble titles over feudal lands, particularly in the 1560s and 1570s. The apogee of this venality came under Philip IV and Charles II. Even in the mid-seventeenth century, the Council of Italy and the councils in Madrid fought with the local governors and tribunals in Milan over control of the sale of titles. Throughout the second half of the seventeenth century, the controversial attempt to catalogue the legitimate titled nobles in the State of Milan made it possible for the governors to promote the sale of titles and feudal lands. Like other kingdoms of the monarchy, the State of Milan had

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only a few titled nobles when it was devolved to Charles V in 1535. Franco Arese has traced the origins of titles and feudal lands extant in 1700. The Visconti and Sforza dukes had only granted twentyfour titles of marquis, count, and baron, although one would have to check the number of titles annulled with the extinction of family lines.37 Arese notes that Charles V granted only eight titles between 1535 and 1554. After that, the concession of titles gradually began to accelerate. Philip II created eleven and Philip III, fifteen; but Philip IV granted seventy-one, and Charles II, eighty-two. The data that Franco Arese cites are more accurate as we approach the end of the seventeenth century, while the number of titles created during the sixteenth century was actually greater than mentioned above. Nevertheless, from the second half of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth centuries, there existed a dual process for granting titles. On one hand, elites in the principal cities of the State of Milan articulated their own concept of patrician nobility, which was based on restricted rules of access to urban corporate groups; on the other, the kings increased the ranks of the titled feudal nobility through the multiplication of the number of marquises and counts residing in Milan. The monarchs made use of the undoubted attractiveness of titles, and of the patrimonial option of investing in feudal lands, as a way to reinforce in Lombardy the Castilian model for family organization. In a June 1609 letter, Philip III directed the governor, the Count of Fuentes, to strengthen male primogeniture as the principle for succession within the Lombard nobility. Returning to a 1601 order that established that titles of marquises and counts be transferred only to the first-born son, Philip wrote that this rule ought to be applied without exception to titles conferred after 1601.38 Between 1612 and 1617, faced with the plans of the Duke of Savoy, the State of Milan mobilized militarily and financially to confront the conflict of succession in Monferrato. A few months after the signing of the Treaty of Madrid-Paris in September 1617, the Council of Italy attempted to mitigate the compromised situation of

37 Cfr. F. Arese, “Feudi e feudatari nello Stato di Milano alla morte di Carlo II (1700),” in Storia di Milano, vol. XI (Milan, 1958), pp. I–XIX. 38 Cfr. Letter of Phillip III to the Count of Fuentes, governor of the State of Milan (San Lorenzo, 7 June 1609), ASMi, Araldica p. a., 1.

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the Lombard treasury through the sale of feudal lands and noble titles. In January 1618, Philip III ordered the Extraordinary Court to sell all devolved feudatories, “and because that court requests advice about how to arbitrate the titles, let it be understood that the marquis goes for 4,000 Castilian ducats, and a count for 3,000, when the persons who might purchase those titles are from worthy families, and without any irregularities, but that when there is some sort of irregularity, it will be necessary to ask a higher price.”39 Therefore, at the end of the reign of Philip III, and with the intent of adjusting the price, the quality of the family buying a noble title was taken into account, penalizing future candidates of humble origin. The funds obtained from the sale of titles and feudal lands were destined to pay the debts generated by the War of Monferrato. From 1620 the existing tension around the Valtellina, and the support for the Catholic population of this strategic valley, obliged the governor, the Duke of Feria, to keep an army at the ready, with the resulting costs of levying and maintaining those troops. Some plebeian families of the Milanese state managed to climb the hierarchy of honor and power by capitalizing on the opportunities offered by the Spanish monarchs through the sale of titles of nobility. The newcomers were integrated into the elite through nuptial alliances with old patrician families. In Las Meninas (1656), Princess Margarita appears surrounded by various people, one a jester who is pestering a peaceful dog. The dwarf-jester was named Nicolo Pertusati, and he came from a humble Lombard family. Thanks to the jester’s influence in the king’s court, the Pertusati experienced

39 “Y porque el dicho Magistrado pide se le avise, en lo que se han de arbitrar los títulos, le dareys a entender que el Marqués en quatro mil ducados Castellanos, y el de Conde en tres mil del mismo valor, quando las personas que los compraren sean de familia benemérita, y sin excepción alguna, y que quando la huviere en la qualidad, se havrá de suplir con mayor precio,” Letter of Philip III to the Marquis of Villafranca, governor of the State of Milan (Madrid, 19 January 1618), ASMi, Araldica p. a., 1. Philip III only excepted two feudatories from this sell order: Romanengo, which he conceded to the Lord High Chancellor Diego de Salazar; and San Giovanni in Croce, which was reserved for sale by the executors of the general of the light cavalry, Alonso de Pimentel, to be used towards the debts left at his death. The procedure for seizure and liquidation of a feudality returned to the royal chamber followed by the ministers and officials of the Magistrado Extraordinario is detailed in G. Benaglio, Relazione istorica del Magistrato delle Ducali Entrate Straordinarie nello Stato di Milano (Naples, 1711), pp. 220–221. For a perspective on the feudal situation of the State of Milan, see C. Magni, Il tramonto del feudo in Lombardia (Milan, 1937).

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an impressive trajectory of social ascent, which enabled them to secure the presidency of the Senate (the principal court of the State of Milan), and to become one of the most powerful families in Lombardy during the first half of the eighteenth century. Like Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, who had come to Spain from Lombardy in the late fifteenth century, the Habsburg court made the fortunes of other skilled Lombards, such as the clockmaker/engineer Juanelo Turriano (1500?–1585), the painter Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625), and the goldsmiths/sculptors Leone Leoni (1509–1590) and Giacomo Nizzola da Trezzo (ca. 1515–1589).

The crisis of the monarchy: from “Greater Lombardy” to the politics of conservation In 1635 in northern Italy and in all of Europe, winds were blowing that announced an imminent war that would fan the bellicose flames already burning in the Low Countries and in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. After the victory of Nördlingen in September 1634, the Catholic monarchy of Philip IV appeared to be at the zenith of its power and territorial extension, although the Swedes and Dutch still disputed Habsburg military hegemony in Europe. But gone were the times when the court of Madrid enjoyed the capacity to initiate and provoke a war not imposed upon it, as it had in 1628. Then, the Count-duke of Olivares had committed troops and funds in a costly dispute over the succession of the duchy of Mantua, without the Dutch front secured or the German conflict contained before proceeding with such an aggression. The war was settled in 1631 with the Catholic monarchy’s loss of reputation, while the agents of Richelieu took the opportunity to ally themselves with the northern Italian princes. The Count-duke’s recklessness had broken the fragile equilibrium on which the Pax Hispanica rested. The Catholic King’s armies not only did not capture Casale, on top of that, they failed to prevent French troops from establishing a bridgehead in Italy with the occupation of the strategic fortress of Pinerolo, from whose presidio they menaced the heart of the duchy of Savoy. In the words of John H. Elliott, “In Mantua, Olivares made the unforgivable mistake of compounding immorality with failure.”40 After 40

Cfr. J. H. Elliott, The Count-duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline

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more than seventy years of relative absence on the Italian scene, the French monarchy had recovered the initiative with the acquiescence of northern Italian principalities.41 Encouraged by the French, the dukes of Savoy, Parma, and Mantua formed a defensive and offensive league with the ultimate goal of occupying a good part of the State of Milan and dividing the conquered areas among the allies according to their military contribution. In mid 1635, the French army, together with the troops of Savoy and Parma, invaded the State of Milan, laying siege to Valenza Po. After a few months, the siege ended in failure and the allied troops dispersed.42 The traditional collaboration between the Catholic monarchy and the duchy of Parma since the reigns of Philip II and Philip III was abruptly interrupted, giving way to open warfare. These events provoked the interest of the councils of Madrid regarding the Spanish role in installing the Farnese as rulers of Parma and Piacenza. Armed combat and the siege of Piacenza unfolded in parallel with those judicial investigations. At the end of 1635, the Milanese authorities began to exchange information with the councils of the royal court about the legal nature of the feudal territory of Piacenza.43 Throughout 1636, the Council of Italy and the Council of State collected the complete documentation deposited in the archives of Simancas,

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 360 and, in general, pp. 337–408. Regarding the Court of Madrid and the intervention in Mantua, see M. Fernández Alvarez, Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y la Guerra de Sucesión de Mantua y del Monferrato (1627–1629) (Madrid, 1955), and R. Ródenas Vilar, La política europea de España durante la guerra de Treinta Años (1624–1630) (Madrid, 1967), pp. 151–235. On the State of Milan during the reign of Philip IV, see G. Signorotto, Milano spagnola. Guerra, istituzioni, uomini di governo (1635–1660) (2d ed., Milan, 2001). 41 The previous French interventions to reinstate the marquisate of Saluzzo and in the Valtellina did not involve an effective appearance in northern Italy, and only the occupation of the strategic fort of Pinerolo materialized, anchoring the duchy of Savoy in the French orbit. 42 In the failure of the siege of Valenza, the intervention of Cardinal Teodoro Trivulzio stands out. This Lombard magnate with numerous properties and feudatories in the counties of Lodi and Cremona gathered troops at his own expense in the service of the Catholic King and carried out negotiations between the contenders, attracting his brother-in-law, the new prince of Castiglione, Ferdinando Gonzaga, to the protection of Philip IV. (AGS, E, leg. 3344). On Cardinal Trivulzio in the government of the State of Milan, G. Signorotto, “Spagnoli e lombardi al governo di Milano (1635–1660),” in P. Pissavino and G. Signorotto (eds.), Lombardia borromaica, Lombardia spagnola, 1554–1659 (Rome, 1995), pp. 139–143. 43 AGS, E, leg. 3448.

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Madrid, and Milan concerning the rights of the Catholic King with respect to the seigniories of the Duke of Parma. The starting point had been the secret signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1556 that established the dukes of Parma and Piacenza as vassals of the kings of Spain and guaranteed maintenance of a Spanish garrison in the Visconti-Farnesian citadel of Piacenza in exchange for the “honorific and obedient fief ” of the city of Piacenza and the territory of Parma and Piacenza up to the Taro River.44 The treaty was secret in order not to arouse the emperor and the pope, whose rights were conspicuously damaged by the creation, in the heart of Padua, of a fief that was a dependency “of his Serene Highness and of his future heirs to the throne of Spain.” If a Farnese duke lacked a legitimate male heir, the lands would return to the control of the kings of Spain. It is necessary to underscore the transcendence of the results of these arrangements, to which were added, at the end of the reign of Philip II, the concession of the Low Countries to Archdukes Alberto and Clara Eugenia as a “dowry and fief of the crown of Castile.”45 To the indignation of the Empire and the papacy, Philip II had coordinated a feudal conglomerate in areas strategic for Castilian hegemony in Europe. The evacuation of the Spanish troops from the fortress of Piacenza in July 1585 was not unconditional, but rather it was stipulated that the Catholic King would need to approve the appointment of the castellans of Piacenza, who would swear allegiance to him before the governor of Milan. In 1636, then, the councils of Madrid did not limit themselves to affirming that Duke Odoardo of Parma had neglected his obligations as vassal of the king of Spain by taking his troops to join with the French army. If that went unpunished, it could become a pernicious precedent for other Italian princes who were traditionally dependent on the Spanish monarchy, such as the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was tied to the Catholic King by the investiture of Siena. While the armies of Philip IV occupied the regions of Piacenza and the Parmigiano in 1636, the Council of Italy prosecutor, Juan Ruiz de Laguna, wrote a treatise, Compendio historial de los progressos de la ciudad dePlacencia en Lombardia, which came to light in early 1637, detailing the Catholic King’s rights over the city of Piacenza.46 44 45 46

AHN, E, leg. 1984, and AGS, E, leg. 3344. Testament of Philip II, p. 99. Compendio historial de los progressos de la ciudad dePlacencia en Lombardia, y de los

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In laying out the rights of the king of Spain over Piacenza, Ruiz de Laguna did not limit himself to the Treaty of Ghent and the conditions for the restitution of the Piacenza fortress. He went on to submit that the city of Piacenza was part of the State of Milan, which meant restoring the territorial legacy of “Greater Lombardy” of the Visconti. In demonstrating the continuity of Visconti government in Piacenza, Ruiz de Laguna frequently relied on the testimonies of Milanese historiography, and above all, on Bernardino Corio’s L’historia di Milano.47 It is interesting to note how the chronicles of the “Golden Age” of the city of Milan were used in the service of Spanish expansionism in the time of the Count-duke.48 Ruiz de Laguna underlines the relevance of Gian Galeazzo Visconti’s attainment of the rank of Duke of Milan and enumerates the feudal Lombard cities (Asti, Vercelli, Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, and Parma) that the duke obtained as a concession from Emperor Wenceslas in 1395.49 It is necessary to point out that in the Compendio historial, the terms “state of Milan” and “Lombardy” refer to different, though imprecisely defined, territorial spaces. The State of Milan comprised Piacenza and Parma,50 but not Bergamo. Ultimately, Ruiz de Laguna avoids specifying the effective territorial dimension of the “state of Milan,” which united various seigniories around the duchy of Milan and that only acquired a certain degree of coherence during the second half of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, owing to

Señores que la han dominado desde su fundación, hasta los tiempos del Rey don Phelipe Quarto el Grande (Madrid: “En la Imprenta del Reyno,” 1637). 47 In 1503, Corio’s history was published in Milan with the title Patria Historia. Corio belonged to the urban nobility and had exercised posts in the city including maestro delle strade. Linked to the House of Sforza, the last part of the history of the metropolis is mixed up with the problems of the Sforza, although the work has abundant critical references to the decisions adopted by Galeazzo Maria, Francesco, and even Ludovico Sforza. See G. Ianziti, Humanistic Historiography under the Sforzas. Politics and Propaganda in Fifteenth-century Milan [Oxford, 1988], pp. 236–238. L’historia di Milano was revised in Venice in 1554 and 1565. 48 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Corio’s history was used by different political individuals with polemical goals. Thus, in the mid-sixteenth century, the city of Pavia used Corio’s testimony to reinforce its position in the traditional struggle with the city of Cremona for preeminence, giving birth to a bitter debate. Again, during the first years of the seventeenth century, in a period of conflict between the city of Milan and the governor of the State, the vicario de provisión suggested re-editing the history of the Milanese metropolis (cfr. B. Corio, Storia di Milano, ed. A. Morisi Guerra [Turin, 1978], I, pp. 18–20). 49 See Corio, Storia di Milano, ed. cit., II, p. 931. 50 Example, f. 16.

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the relative stability of its borders and to the formulation of a common voice for the cities and counties in the Congregación del Estado. Milan’s imprecise definition determines the centrality of the term “Lombardy” in the treatise written by the Council of Italy’s prosecutor.51 The “Greater Lombardy” of the Visconti was the true protagonist in the Compendio historial’s narrative of the vicissitudes of Piacenza, and this was not merely nostalgic evocation of the former greatness of the Visconti. Philip IV, as the Duke of Milan, claimed the Visconti inheritance, and Emperor Wenceslas’s concession could become a weapon easily used against the unruly princes of northern Italy. Therefore, the city of Piacenza and its territory became the immediate objective of a group of ministers intent on reestablishing the reputation of the Catholic King in Italy. Even if the expansionist suggestion of Ruiz de Laguna for the annexation of the duchy of Piacenza was discarded, the project to reestablish a Spanish garrison in the fortress of the city still had support. This option was congruent with the old aspirations of the court in Madrid to formulate a strategic web of Spanish presidios in northern Italy that would guarantee peace for the princes of that region. The armies of Philip IV were present in the fortresses of Monaco, Sabbioneta, Correggio, and Fuerte de Fuentes, in addition to the customary garrisons at Finale, Pontremoli, and the Tuscan presidios, permitting the passage of the Catholic King’s armies towards the Empire and the Low Countries and constituting a solid safeguard of the southern and insular kingdoms of the monarchy

51 Many decades later, the ambiguity in the Spanish ministries concerning the concepts of Lombardía and the Estado de Milán remained. The contador principal of the army of the State of Milan, Sebastián de Ucedo, in his treatise Índice del mundo conocido (Milan: Antonio Pandulfo Malatesta, c. 1672), pp. 334–337 divides peninsular Italy into three large areas: Lombardy, Tuscany-Papal States, and the Kingdom of Naples. Lombardy, by its turn, is subdivided into Upper Lombady (State of Milan, which includes Las Langas and Finale; the principality of Piedmont; La Rivera and Genoa; the duchy of Monferrato; etc.) and Lower Lombardy (the Venetian terraferma, Mantua, Parma, Modena, etc.). The judgment that the marquisate of Finale was an integral part of the State of Milan—and its consequent financial and fiscal effects—was not shared by the numerous city-republics represented in the Congregación del Estado. The precarious identity of the State of Milan, shaped in mid-sixteenth century thanks to the stability of borders and to the imperatives of fiscal reorganization, culminated in the seventeenth century when, at different times, the cities and counties were capable of articulating a shared voice in the court of Madrid. From 1706, the successive dismembering to which the State found itself subjected, in benefit of the duchy of Savoy, dramatically raised the issue of identity that was linked to the political and fiscal structure of the State of Milan.

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in Italy. The discourse on “Greater Lombardy,” more than a project resulting from an expansionist agenda for the Duke of Milan in northern Italy, was thus conceived as an element of negotiation with those northern princes who had been tempted with the dismembering of the State of Milan. The shadow of the Lombardy of the Visconti was the ace in the hole in the negotiation with the princes that attempted to sever their dependence on the kings of Spain. In the mid-term, the claim on the Visconti inheritance would have required the sacrifice of the Burgundian legacy. Philip IV was clearly aware that in addition to being the duke of Milan, he ought also to continue being duke of Brabant and count of Flanders as well. With the crisis of 1640, the issue of Piacenza exposed the different ways the king’s ministers conceived of state policy. In the Council of Italy, the most controversial votes took place in 1645 and 1646. In 1644, 1645, and 1646, most regents on the Council of Italy voted for a definitive accord to seal a new alliance between the Duke of Parma and the Catholic King. The strategy to conserve the Catholic monarchy in Europe demanded a careful withdrawal in some venues and the conservation of resources in order to employ them in other decisive theaters. The provincial revolts required adoption of different policies than those at the time of the Count-duke, when even the court in Madrid could allow itself to provoke an illegitimate and unnecessary war, like that of Mantua. Times had changed, and the military and financial potential of the monarchy cracked before the multiplication of open fronts: Catalonia, Portugal, the Low Countries, Germany, Piedmont, and Monferrato. It was best to consider a new policy, since the state of things indicated to the princes that Philip IV no longer aspired to the role of Señor de Italia. Most of the regents on the Council of Italy appealed to the “Royal Prudence” of Phillip IV to reject the uncertain and unlikely benefit of lordship over Piacenza and to avoid imminent damage to his monarchy in northern Italy. It was necessary to reestablish the peace by reconstructing the foundations of equilibrium between the Catholic King and the princes. The shadow of “Greater Lombardy” projected upon the duchy of Piacenza could ruin the conciliatory image of Philip IV as protector of the princes of northern Italy against the territorial voracity of France. The evocation of the Lombardy of the Visconti and of the concession of Emperor Wenceslas to the dukes of Milan could plant a disquieting uncertainty among the princes concerning the policies the court of Madrid would adopt in Italy if

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it ultimately won in its bloody struggle with France.52 Thus, the ministers of the king of Spain occupied themselves with returning the idea of “Greater Lombardy” to the history books from whence they had conjured it up. The peace treaties that sealed the end of the Eighty Years War with the United Provinces and of the Thirty Years War in the Empire also ended the siege of Cremona by the French armies, with the aid of the duke of Modena and Prince Tommaso of Savoy. The Fronde and the resulting French military collapse permitted the armies of Philip IV to recapture the city of Barcelona in 1652, while in Lombardy the Marquis of Caracena finally obtained the surrender of the fortress of Casale.53 The decline of the monarchy’s military potential and the cycle of revolts in the various territories between 1640 and 1648 precipitated a progressive change of political directives in the court of Madrid. The fall of the Count-duke of Olivares was an episode in this process of transformation. Reform and reputation were no longer the goal of the government, and the focus shifted to conservation of the European kingdoms and seigniories of the Spanish monarchy. By eliminating the capacity to send troops and money to areas of potential conflict, the new politics of conservation demanded first, a change of attitude with respect to the provincial oligarchies that guaranteed the social peace of the territory. From 1640, the chronology of the accords between the royal court and the oligarchies varied by province. In the kingdom of Aragon and in the State of Milan, the bases were established early for a tacit accord that facilitated the collaboration between royal ministers and certain local potentates capable of mobilizing men and financial resources to defend the borders threatened by France. The negotiations in the Kingdom of Naples and the Principate of Catalonia came with the conclusions of their respective revolts, establishing a sociopolitical status quo that continued, in essence, until 1701.

52

Precisely in 1646, the L’historia di Milano of Bernardino Corio, which had not been edited since 1565, was re-edited in Padua. There would be no new editions until 1855 during the Risorgimento. 53 Regarding the political and military action of the marquis of Caracena during those years, see G. Signorotto, “Il marchese di Caracena al governo di Milano (1648–1656),” Cheiron 17–18 (1992): 135–181. More extensively, concerning the social and political context of Lombardy in the time of Philip IV, see the same author’s fundamental work Milano spagnola (Milan, 2001).

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During the second half of the seventeenth century, the tacit agreements between the royal court and the provincial oligarchies were subject to an ongoing readjustment in relation to the strength of each. The king and his ministers used their resources to obtain the acquiescence of powerful families, by distributing honors, noble titles, magistracies, military commands, diplomatic posts, ecclesiastical appointments, pensions, rents, feudal lands, permissions to marry, and the like. Certainly, these means for reinforcing the position of the Catholic Crown in Europe were not novel and had been a foundation for the monarchy’s foreign policy since the sixteenth century. But in the provinces, the reestablishment of the balance of power was clear, which translated into a more active role for the local elites in diverse areas, from military commands and magistracies to the growing strength of the discourse on provincial identity. The period between 1652 and 1700 was not exempt from conflicts between the royal court and the provincial potentates arising from such things as the visitor-general inspections, the sale of magistracies, titles, and fiefdoms, the violation of privileges and constitutions, and the quotas of fiscal and military contributions. But tensions led to open revolt only against the monarch in the city-republic of Messina, whose oligarchy accused Philip IV’s widow, the regent queen Maria of Austria (1665–1675), of not curtailing the hostile policies of the king’s local ministers. With respect to the State of Milan, one of the regency’s most visible measures was the sale of magistracies in the Lombard tribunals by the regents of the Council of Italy.54 The funds collected were handed over to the treasurer of the Council of Italy, and in 1676, sent to Genoa under the supervision of the presidents of the Councils of Italy and of the treasury and of the treasury’s countinghouse. From Genoa, the money went to the viceroys of Naples and Sicily to defray the costs of the war that had erupted in 1674, provoked by French support for the revolt in Messina. In March 1678, French armies left Messina, which meant the end of the war in Italy and the acceleration of the peace negotiations, which concluded in

54 Regarding this process and its consequences, see Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, La República de las Parentelas. El Estado de Milán en la monarquía de Carlos II (Mantua, 2002).

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September.55 The reconquest of eastern Sicily made way for a change of direction in Milan’s provincial government.

The price of loyalty Under Philip III, the State of Milan had reached its greatest territorial extent with the annexation of the Marquisate of Finale, an enclave situated on the Ligurian coast. The Duke of Savoy’s hostility stirred the court of Madrid to reinforce the army, thus increasing the fiscal burden. Open warfare was a fixture during the first decades of Philip IV’s reign. The neighboring princes, supported by France, attempted to conquer and divide the territory among themselves. In that critical juncture, the deployment of troops and money from Spain was interrupted by the provincial revolts of 1640. The Lombard nobility had to face the war while assuming a leadership role in the government. While conspiracies and rebellions broke out in the Low Countries, Catalonia, Portugal, Andalucia, Aragon, Naples, and Sicily, Lombardy remained loyal to the crown, maintaining social order in spite of the billeting of troops and the increase of fiscal burdens. The key to this attitude lies in the commitment of the Lombard oligarchy to the conservation of Spanish dominion, preferring a distant king to the ambitions of neighboring princes. Beginning in 1640, provincial revolts revealed the military and fiscal vulnerability of the monarchy. After 1652, the royal court was forced to carefully attend to its relations with local elites in the interest of avoiding new skirmishes. Similarly, the local oligarchy had to mobilize resources to guarantee the survival of the monarchy. In this sense, it is necessary to keep in mind which social groups in the provinces benefited from the cycle of revolts in order to understand the social tensions that burgeoned during the first decades of the reign of Charles II. Certain sectors of the provincial oligarchies profited from the fidelity they had demonstrated in the middle of the century in order to strengthen their local power throughout the second half of Philip IV’s reign. With the king’s death in 1665 and

55 On the Revolt of Messina, see the magisterial study of Luis Ribot, La Monarquía de España y la guerra de Mesina (1674–1678) (Madrid, 2002).

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generalized peace, the discontent slowing began to appear among the groups that had been partially marginalized or debilitated by the return to the status quo imposed after the revolts. Thus, in 1665 and 1666, the attempt by the embassy of the fidelissima ed esemplare city of Messina to continue its privileged status with Philip IV, in the person of the regent Maria of Austria, was perceived in Palermo as a threat that the Messina oligarchy would continue to exploit the memory of Palermo’s revolt in order to obtain commercial and fiscal advantages. In the Kingdom of Naples and the State of Milan, this process of redistribution of power had an even greater effect on the composition of local hegemonic social groups. In the city of Naples, in the 1660s and 1670s, the conflict between the nobles of the seggi and the piazza del popolo became more acute, while the formulation of a cursus honorum unmediated by the crown increased the distinction among the seggi nobles between those inclined to collaborate with the viceroys and those who assumed a politics of self-sufficiency in relation to royal authority. However, the relations between the viceroy and the feudal barons were even more significant. After crushing the rural elements of the Neapolitan revolt and repressing the protests of commoner landowners and peasants in 1647 and 1648, the barons presented themselves as the guarantors of the conservation of the kingdom within the monarchy. During the restoration of the Count of Oñate and his successors, the fiscal and military effort that the kingdom had to make in defense of the monarchy in Italy necessitated a politics of social peace. On the other hand, after the War of Messina, the royal court considered that the feudal barons had taken advantage of the monarchy’s difficulties in order to de facto extend their privileges, putting in doubt the system of counterweights that since the time of Pedro de Toledo, had given the viceroys in Naples room to maneuver. The Neapolitan general visit headed by the Milanese patrician Danese Casati adopted a position openly against the interests of the barons, and multitudes of petitions from aggrieved vassals inundated the visitor-general’s secretaries. To put in question the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the barons was an aggressive form of re-examining the post-war social order. Don Juan José of Austria (Philip IV’s illegitimate son) and the Council of Italy supported the visitor-general’s inspection, but faced with the barons’ Frondist rebellion, Medinaceli checked it. Even so, the inertia of the readjustment was

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once again felt during the viceroyalty of the Marquis of Carpio, who reestablished the preeminence of viceregal power vis-à-vis the barons, but without threatening the feudal nature of the Kingdom of Naples. In the State of Milan, the conflict between contending parties was equally intense, although no serious revolt occurred during the 1640s. In the mid-seventeenth century, the outbreak of war in Lombardy coincided with the military collapse of the monarchy caused by the provincial revolts. It was necessary to mobilize local troops and money frequently, but without subsidies from Spain. In collaboration with neighboring princes, such as the dukes of Savoy, Parma, and Modena, France continuously threatened to, and some actually did, invade. Since the wars of Monferrato, some voices in the court at Madrid recommended more actively involving the Lombard elites, by promoting them to preeminent posts in the State such as Lord High Chancellor, generally reserved to men of law from the Spanish college. Between 1635 and 1659, the bellicose din was constant. In different campaigns, the royal court privileged the Catalan front or found itself hard-pressed to squelch the revolts in Sicily and Naples. The Lombard subjects frequently felt abandoned to their luck, surrounded by princes who had conspired to divide up the counties of the Stato. In these circumstances, some governors understood the expedience of conceding the initiative to the native Milanese. The Milanese patrician Bartolomeo Arese, president of the Ordinary Court, mobilized resources to sustain the war by establishing a solid alliance between families of the Lombard feudal aristocracy, such as the Visconti and Borromeo, sectors of the urban patriciate, Spanish families with Lombard roots, and a rising group of financiers, bond holders, and tax farmers.56 This Hispano-Lombard faction directed the logistics of the war and was promoted in the supreme government of the Stato during times of peace. The sale of magistracies in the 1670s brought the rise and fall of this faction, which began to be resisted openly by the ministry of Juan José of Austria as well as

56 Concerning the role of the jenízaros (“janissaries”), Spanish families which had settled in Milan for generations and intermarried with Lombard families, see Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, “Naciones mixtas: los jenízaros en el gobierno de Italia,” in A. Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño and B. García García (eds.), La Monarquía de las Naciones. Patria, nación y naturaleza en la monarquía de España (Madrid, 2004), pp. 597–649. On the Lombard nobility, see C. Cremonini (ed.), Teatro Genealogico delle Famiglie Nobili Milanesi, 2 vols. (Mantua, 2003).

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the Milanese patriciate, a leadership that had been partly sidelined during the war. The faction led by Bartolomeo Arese extended beyond the social boundaries of his own caste in the Milanese patriciate. The presence of Milanese patricians in the Senate declined, while the royal court and the governors promoted the non-Milanese Lombard oligarchies. After being the favored interlocutor of the crown for more than a century, the Milanese patriciate had to accept the political ascendance of other territorial networks, like the Congregación del Estado, where Milanese patricians participated alongside their counterparts from Pavia, Cremona, Lodi, Alessandria, Novara, and other smaller cities, as well as with the syndics of those counties. Between 1677 and 1683, the Milanese patriciate reacted vigorously to increase its presence in the Senate and to limit the social implications of the sale of magistracies.

The extension of the sale of magistracies in the Italian provinces During the last years of the reign of Charles II, the sale of magistracies was definitively extended to the Senate. The supernumerary posts of senator were sold for 20,000 escudos, that is, double the price for the post of quaestor in the Ordinary Court. The Milanese patriciate and the Congregación del Estado failed in their attempt to preserve the Senate from the expanding venality. Some patrician families of Pavia, like the Gambarana and the Belcredi, took advantage of it to assure their presence in the supreme tribunals. Both houses had ancestors who had obtained posts of quaestor and senator following the patrician administrative career (corso delle lettere). Nonetheless, between 1695 and 1697 both Gerolamo Gambarana and Giovanni Battista Belcredi opted for the shortcut of money, adapting to the system of the venality of offices in the hope of conserving and increasing their houses. The Milanese patriciate’s failed attempts to oppose the sale of magistracies in Madrid fractured its ranks. The illustrious families of Milan contemplated with unease how certain families of the Pavian patriciate took advantage of the sale of offices. In the last years of the century, a competition began when some distinguished Milanese families decided to engage in the market for senatorial offices. In August 1697, Count Carlo Visconti bought a supernumerary post of senator for 16,000 escudos, four thousand less than the price Gambarana had paid. After the signing of the Peace

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of Rijswick in September 1697 concluded the War of the League of Augsburg, the offers for Senate posts continued. In November 1697, Pirro Visconti, Marquis of Borgoratto, offered only 8,000 escudos, although he attempted to compensate for the paucity of the sum by mobilizing his patronage network. Pirro Visconti wrote to Count Harrach, imperial ambassador destined for the court in Madrid, asking that the latter manage the purchase of the post of senator and mediate to win the support of the influential wife of Charles II, Queen Mariana of Neuburg. The Marquis Visconti thus added his claim to the intense factional conflict in the court of Madrid, divided by debates about monarchal ascension in the absence of an heir. Pirro Visconti ordered the abbot Viglione, an experienced agent residing in Madrid, to offer the 8,000 escudos directly to the queen instead of through channels in the Council of Italy or the secretariat of the Despacho Universal, as other buyers had done.57 In the end, Marquis Visconti failed in his attempt, although he was aware in advance of the difficulties, given the many candidates offering sums greatly superior to what he was able to amass. In these struggles for a supernumerary post in the Senate, the contenders risked all their resources, from cash to family relations. Ultimately, a patrician from Lodi, Count Giovanni Battista Modignani, who had moved to Madrid to gain familiarity with the secrets of the art of court negotiation, won.58 In February 1699, Modignani successfully attained the coveted supernumerary office of senator and initiated a brilliant career that, under the tutelage of the Austrian Habsburgs, would bring him to the posts of regent and president of the Ordinary Court. Nonetheless, fortune smiled on Marquis Pirro Visconti, and he overcame his defeat. In this context, the death of Charles II gave way to the brief Bourbon domination of Lombardy, as Philip V moved to Milan in order to defend the integrity of his territory. With the start of the War of the Spanish Succession, their strict ties with the court of Vienna made Pirro Visconti and his brother Annibale support the cause of the Austrians despite persecution by the Bourbon

57

Letter of Pirro Visconti to Ferdinand Bonaventura I, count of Harrach (Milan, 12 November 1697) in HA, 310. 58 Regarding this aspect, see the interesting documentation found in ASMi, LittaModignani, Modignani, cart. 1, with the indications of the city of Lodi concerning the negotiations Modignani had to make in the court of Madrid.

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administration. The course of the war led to the Austrian invasion of Milan, where Charles of Austria was proclaimed archduke. In 1706, the Austrian imperial army defeated the French-Spanish troops before Turin. Prince Eugene of Savoy shortly thereafter occupied the State of Milan and entrusted the political and military government of Lombardy to the Visconti brothers. Pirro Visconti obtained the post of Lord High Chancellor and for ten years, he directed the government. During the reign of Charles III (Emperor Charles VI), the sale of supernumerary positions (albeit in moderation and as a complement to appointments for regular posts of senator and quaestor) became a customary fiscal resource for the Court of Vienna. In 1673, the court in Madrid had begun the large-scale sale of high-court magistracies and prosecutorial offices in the State of Milan. Initially, supernumerary posts of cuestor togado and cuestor de capa, as well as abogado (attorney) and síndico fiscal (prosecuting judge), were sold. Throughout the reign of Charles II, the venality extended even to the Senate itself, affecting all the supreme Lombard tribunals. The State of Milan became the first dominion of the Catholic monarchy in which the high-court appointments were sold in a systematic manner. The vicissitudes of the Lombard experience behind them, the government decided to implement the system of venality in other territories of the monarchy. Beginning in November 1687, the royal court sold a great number of posts of oidores, alcaldes del crimen, and fiscales in the law courts of the Americas, in short cycles (1687–1691, 1693–1695, and 1699–1700) that were not linked to the critical circumstances of the wars in Europe.59 This venality had far-reaching consequences for the transformation of political society of the kingdoms of the Americas. The Creole families attained new heights of power in the Indies, breaking the control wielded by peninsular letrados over government and the administration of justice. In Milan, the sale of magistracies constituted a threat to the patrician system; in

59 Cfr. M. A. Burkholder and D. S. Chandler, From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias (1687–1808) (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977), pp. 18–36; in Spanish translation, De la impotencia a la autoridad. La Corona española y las Audiencias en América, 1687–1808 (México, 1984). The following great batches of venal offices in the American Audiencias took place between 1706 and 1712, in 1740, and between 1745 and 1750. Before 1687 it is not known with full certainty if there were sales of judicatures and fiscalías in noticeable quantities. Burkholder and Chandler recognize that there were isolated cases in the 1680s and even in 1643 and 1660 (p. 21, nn. 14–15).

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the kingdoms of New Spain and Peru, the sale of positions in the Audiencias laid the groundwork for Creole self-government. In the kingdom of Sicily, certain posts for maestro razionale of the tribunal of the Regio Patrimonio were already being sold in the 1630s. Overall, during the 1680s, this accelerated, with various sales of these posts from 1681 until 1687, when the supernumerary posts of the tribunal were reformed. With time, the sale of magistracies would again resume, culminating during the government of the viceroy Carlo Filippo Spinola Colonna, Marquis of Los Balbases, who, between 1708 and 1712, sold numerous posts of maestro razionale as well as judged in the Tribunal of the Sacra Conciencia and the Gran Corte.60 Both in Italy and the Americas, the sale of magistracies had become a customary resource for the court with profound consequences in the sociopolitical status quo of the implicated provinces. Therefore, during the last years of the reign of Charles II, the sale of supernumerary offices of senator definitively change the model of the corso delle lettere conceived as the patrician path to nobility. The implications of this process were to be found not so much in the social backgrounds of the buyers of these posts, who belonged to the patriciate of the principal cities of the State of Milan. As demonstrated by the case of the Marquis Pirro Visconti, the true innovation was that the patrician houses had to enter into a competition, where the relevant factor was the amount of money needed to buy the office. The price, between 16,000 and 20,000 escudos, was similar to that paid for entry into the Order of the Golden Fleece during the reign of Charles II. Until then, the culmination of the corso delle lettere depended on the nominations by the Senate and the governor and on the final slate of three candidates submitted by the Council of Italy, where the relationships between the patrician candidates in Milan and in Madrid played a primordial role. In contrast, the ascendance of venality eclipsed the importance of the provincial nominations and the essential meaning of a corso delle lettere, founded upon the legal education of the togati, membership into the Collegio di Nobili Giureconsulti, performance in previous positions, and the network of friendships, parentage, and patronage of the patrician 60 Vittorio Sciuti Russi, Astrea in Sicilia: il ministero togato nella società siciliana dei secoli XVI e XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1983), pp. 263–264 and Idem, “Aspetti della venalità degli uffici in Sicilia (secoli XVII–XVIII),” Rivista Storica Italiana 88, n. 2 (1976): 342–355.

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togati. So, the door to the Senate was opened to upstarts through the disbursement of cash, a possibility that culminated when the State of Milan became dependent on the Court of Vienna, making Milan the scene of a large-scale market of magistracies. For decades, exiled Spaniards who formed part of the Council of Spain in Vienna continued governing Lombardy, although their position in the territories was slowly weakened. Maria Teresa of Austria definitively excluded them from the administration of Lombardy, and in 1746, the Spanish army’s last occupation of Milan failed.

PART TWO

SPANISH INFLUENCE IN THE ITALIAN STATES

CHAPTER FIVE

NAPLES AND FLORENCE IN CHARLES V’S ITALY: FAMILY, COURT, AND GOVERNMENT IN THE TOLEDO-MEDICI ALLIANCE* Carlos José Hernando Sánchez

Senza lasciar gli amati e bei soggiorni, e passar acque e monti e fanghi e stecchi potean gli’illustri figli ir con gli specchi del paterno valor ben forse adorni. E chi serà che d’altr’onor non s’orni, se segue voi con gli occhi e con gli orecchi? Ma voi, geloso che non cadan secchi gli aperti fiori al tramontar de’giorni, li traeste fin qua per lunga via, perché fruttin miglior, qual pianta, svelta dal suo, per ingombrar novo terreno. Quanto vi deve onor Napoli mia, poiché l’avete a tanta speme scelta, ed ogni vostro ben chiuso nel seno! [Without leaving beloved and lovely sojourns, and passing over waters and mountains and mires and thickets, the illustrious offspring can go, perhaps well adorned with reflections of paternal valor.

* Translated by Patricia Rosas and Laura F. Temes. Abbreviations AA Archivo de los duques de Alba (Madrid) ADMS Archivo de los duques de Medina Sidonia (Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz) AGS Archivo General de Simancas ASF Archivio di Stato di Firenze ASN Archivio di Stato di Napoli ASV Archivio Segreto Vaticano BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana BNCF Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Firenze) BNM Bilbioteca Nacional de Madrid BNN Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli CSyC Colección Salazar y Castro RAH Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid) ZAB Archivo y Biblioteca Zabálburu (Madrid)

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carlos josé hernando sánchez And who will there be who does not ornament himself with further honors if he follows you with his eyes and his ears? But you, concerned that the open flowers not dry out and fall at the twilight of the days, have deigned to bring them here, over a long road, so they might bear better fruit, as plants grown tall by your [example], to occupy new terrain. How much my Naples must honor you, because with so much hope you have chosen her and enclosed your every possession in her breast!] Luigi Tansillo, sonnet CLXXIX, dedicated to Viceroy Pedro de Toledo1

In about 1550, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, keen observer of the aristocratic and court milieu in the reign of Charles V, wrote that “the marquis of Villafranca, don Pedro de Toledo, for many years viceroy of the magnificent city and kingdom of Naples, cannot claim that things have gone badly for him in that position since from it he has married and placed his sons and daughters very well, leaving them all as lords and landowners, with titles and great estates.”2 Pedro de Toledo’s long-lasting administration of Naples (1532–1553) introduced to the Italian stage one of the most influential family networks of the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth century. The Toledos’ prestige, patrimony, and the cohesiveness of their lineage had been forged through service to the court by members of both the secondary branch of the marquises of Villafranca, represented by the viceroy, as well as by the central branch, headed by his nephew, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, third duke of Alba. This was reinforced by an apt matrimonial strategy that would ratify a close alliance with the Medici, consummated in 1539 with the wedding of one of the viceroy’s daughters, Eleonora of Toledo, with a sovereign prince, Cosimo I de’ Medici, second duke of Florence.3 In

1 “Al vicerè Toledo che dalla Spagna avea condotto a Napoli i suoi figliuoli, perché ‘fruttassero megio’” in L. Tansillo, Il Canzoniere edito ed inedito, Introduction and notes by E. Pèrcopo, ed. T. R. Toscano, 2 vols. (Naples: Consorzio Editoriale Fridericiano, 1996), 2: 39. 2 G. Fernández de Oviedo, Batallas e Quinquagenas, Battle III, Quinquagena I, dialogue 29, RAH, ms. 9/5.387, ff. 588–590: “El marques de villafranca don pedro de toledo virrey dela Exçelente çibdad E Reyno de napoles muchos años ha no podrá dezir que le ha ydo mal con aquel offiçio, pues que desde alli ha casado e colocado tan bien sus hijos e hijas e todos los dexa señores e bien Eredados con titulos e estados grandes.” Cfr. G. Fernández de Oviedo, Batallas y Quinquagenas, ed. J. B. Avalle-Arce (Salamanca: Editorial Diputación de Salamanca, 1989), pp. 332, 402, and 407. 3 For more on how the Toledo family established itself in Italy, see C. J. Hernando

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both Naples and Tuscany this would achieve the objective that, according to the poet in the viceregal court, Luigi Tansillo, don Pedro had pursued by making most of his children go to Italy, “so they might bear better fruit, as plants grown tall by your [example], to occupy new terrain” (“perché fruttin miglior, qual pianta, svelta/dal suo, per ingombrar novo terreno”). We cannot understand the political language and overall societal mentality that encompassed this and many other eulogistic poems in terms of modern categories of state, nation, society, or culture. In the ancien regime that was taking shape in the first half of the sixteenth century, these concepts were partial or fragmentary given the complexities of power at its various levels and in its various manifestations. The values of family enlargement, reputation, and honor— developed in an exemplary fashion by a major Castilian lineage in the divided and turbulent Italy of the 1500s—pose the need to analyze the modes of social and political comportment based on criteria widely held in the courts of that time. Only thus can one penetrate a concept such as that of “Spanish Italy,” revitalized by recent historiography, which inevitably implies a total history approach. Beyond the circumstances of each region’s development in the Italian political constellation at the beginning of the Modern Age, it is necessary to investigate their connection with the overarching framework of the Spanish monarchy, including comparative studies on the various Italian states and the Spanish, and even the Flemish, territories. From that perspective, there is special significance in studying the relationships established between the kingdom of Naples—the heart of the Spanish presence on the Italian peninsula after the consolidation of its conquest by the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba at the beginning of the sixteenth century4—and Medici Florence—a state that has traditionally aroused immense historiographic attention, above all for the prestige of its cultural splendor during the transition of its republican structures to a principate. Along these lines, the debate remains open about the relationships between the Spanish monarchy, the so-called authoritarian model of government that it had imposed in other areas of Italy, as well as Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI. El virrey Pedro de Toledo. Linaje, estado y cultura (1532–1553) (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1994), pp. 91–173. 4 Idem, El reino de Nápoles en el Imperio de Carlos V. La consolidación de la conquista (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la conmemoración de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001).

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in Florence itself, and the sometimes overly simplified process of aristocratization or of “refeudalization.” Florence’s destiny reveals a political process impelled by the political and military actions of Charles V and his representatives—Spaniards, Italians, and Flemings—in an Italy that, after the major confrontations with Francis I of France in the 1520s, began to reorganize itself between 1528 and 1530 based on the unity of certain familial and factional interests with imperial designs. Not in vain, one of their primary objectives was to guarantee the vital sea-lanes between Naples and Spain along the Tuscan coast. This chapter’s purpose is to explain some of the political and ideological keys of this transformation, within the framework of broader research on the overall history of the Neapolitan viceroyalty, in which until the mid-sixteenth century, the French option for much of the kingdom’s nobility continued to constitute a real possibility in Italy’s complex political environment.5

1. “A honore suo e conservatione di sua casa” (“To his honor and the conservation of his house”): The Marriage of 1539 Among the decorative pomp for the wedding of Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo in 1539 was the scene erected in the great patio of the old Medici palace in the Via Larga. The display included several paintings evoking the most important moments in the rise of this dynasty. One depicted Lorenzo the Magnificent’s visit to Naples. Another, a work by Bronzino, portrays the “dispute that took place at Naples, before the emperor, between Duke Alessandro and the Florentine exiles, with the River Sebeto and many figures.” Vasari believes that “this was a most beautiful picture, and better than any of the others.” The praise for the artist’s skill seems to respond to the special attention placed on the dispute, which occurred contemporaneously with the marriage of the previous duke, Alessandro I, to Charles V’s natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, and thus impregnated the painting with obvious legitimating value. This episode—considered to be one of the most significant in gaining recognition of the power and prestige of the Medici—had occurred four years earlier during the emperor’s visit to Naples, one of the 5 Idem, “Entre Francia y España: la nobleza napolitana y la corte de los Valois,” in press.

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crucial stops in the triumphal tour through Italy following the conquest of Tunisia, which after Rome, took him to Florence itself.6 In the theatrical montage erected in the patio of the palace on the Via Larga in 1539, all the scenes were crowned by imprese and escutcheons linked to the protagonists, with particular attention to “the coats of arms of some of the most illustrious families with which the house of Medici had kinship.” If above the first of the cited paintings was seen the coat of arms of Lorenzo the Magnificent, over the second appear those of Spain, in yet another sign of the new political situation to which the Italian territories and lineages had to bend.7 Along with pointing to the dependence on Spain and the Empire, the inclusion of both scenes emphasized the Medici family’s connection with Naples. And among the various scenes dedicated to the recent arrival in power of Cosimo I, another painting reminded viewers that the duke’s wife was from Naples. One of these scenes presented him, “invested by his Imperial Majesty with all the insignia and imprese of a duke” under the “coats of arms of the Medici and of Toledo” and another, the last in the series, shows, “the marriage of the same Duke Alessandro, which took place in Naples; the imprese had two Crows, the ancient symbols of marriage, and in the frieze were the arms of Don Pedro di Toledo, Viceroy of Naples.” According to Vasari, this scene also “by the hand of Bronzino, was executed with such grace, that, like the first-named, it surpassed the scenes of all the others.”8

6 Idem, “El ‘Glorioso Trivmfo’ de Carlos V en Nápoles y el humanismo de corte entre Italia y España,” in G. Galasso and A. Musi, eds., Carlo V, Napoli e il Mediterráneo (Naples: Società napoletana di storia patria, n. 119, 2001), pp. 447–521. 7 G. Vasari, “Vita di Aristotele da Sangallo,” in Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori, eds. P. Della Pergola, L. Grassi, and G. Previtali, vol. 6 (Novara: Istituto Geografico de Agostini, 1967), pp. 302–303: “la disputa che ebbono tra loro in Napoli et innanzi all’imperatore, il duca Alessandro et i fuori usciti fiorentini, col fiume Sebeto e molte figure”; “questo fu bellissimo quadro e migliore di tutti gl’altri”; “l’arme d’alcuna delle famiglie piú illustri, con le quali avevano avuto parentado la casa de’ Medici.” Quoted from “Bastiano da San Gallo, called Aristotile, Painter and Sculptor of Florence,” in Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptor and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere, with an introduction and notes by David Ekserdjian, 2 vols., Everyman’s Library, 129 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 2: 436 8 G. Vasari, op. cit., vol. 6, pp. 304–5: “investito dalla maestà cesarea di tutte l’insegne et imprese ducali”; “l’arme de’Medici e di Tolledo”; “le nozze del medesimo duca Alessadro fatte in Napoli: l’impresa erano due cornici, simbolo antico delle nozze, e nel fregio era l’arme di don Petro di Tolledo viceré di Napoli”; “che

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As this iconographic display reflected, the wedding of the head of the house of the Medici with the daughter of the viceroy of Naples renewed a tradition of contacts that went back to the fifteenth century and, especially, to the period of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Ferrante. In the winter of 1479–1480, Lorenzo had made his famous visit to the Neapolitan capital, an event now presented as a harbinger of the new alliance formed in 1539. For many generations, the relationship between Naples and Florence had rested on the presence in Naples of commercial and financial agents from Tuscany. Naples was a source for raw materials, which the Florentine businessmen—along with, first, the Catalans and later, above all, the Genoese—knew how to exploit thanks to their alliance with “the system of viceregal, baronial, and local power.”9 The Medici bank lent money to the Aragonese dynasty, and for that reason, Charles VIII of France, when he conquered the kingdom in 1494, shut down the bank at the same time that the family was exiled from Florence. In the following decades, the first Italian wars had a particular impact not only on Milan, but also on Naples and Florence. Following the conquest of Florence and its incorporation into the Spanish monarchy, the diplomatic contacts with the kingdom had given way to military action. This included the intervention in 1512 of viceroy Ramón Folch de Cardona, which led to the first Medici restoration, and the intervention in 1530 of Viceroy Philibert of Châlon, prince of Orange, which unleashed the traumatic end of the Florentine Republic. In the following years, the military nature of such episodes would give way again to diplomacy and cultural openings, approaches that had produced very useful results at the end of the fifteenth century. The Medici presence in the kingdom of Naples acquired new seigniorial rank in 1522, when Charles V granted Alessandro de’ Medici, the natural son of Lorenzo de’ Medici and also the nephew of Leo X, the city of Penne and terra of Campli in Abruzzo, with the title of duke, “in consideration of the merits of the illustrious ‘family of the Medici.’” Particularly important was the election of era di mano del Bronzino, era fatta con tanta grazia che superò come la prima tutte l’altre storie”. Quoted from Vasari, Lives of the Painters, trans. De Vere, 2: 437. 9 L. Fusco Girard, “Toscana e Mezzoggiorno: Aspetti economici,” in Napoli nell’500 e la Toscana dei Medici (Naples, 1980), p. 65. Cfr. M. Jacoviello, “Strozzi e Medici nel regno di Napoli durante la seconda metà del secolo XV,” in Venezia e Napoli nel Quattrocento. Raporti fra i due Stati e altri saggi (Naples: Liguori, 1992), pp. 189–210.

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Cardinal Guilio de’ Medici, who became Pope Clement VII that year. He was considered to be one of the main supporters of the imperial party in the College of Cardinals, and the emperor had wanted to ensure his loyalty, expecially after the outbreak of war with Francis I of France the year before.10 On January 3, 1536, the marriage of Alessandro and Margaret of Austria was celebrated in the old Aragonese residence of Castel Capuano in Naples. Charles V presided over the ceremony, and Viceroy Pedro de Toledo was present. The expenses for the festivities were so great that in November of that year, the emperor permitted Alessandro de’ Medici to sell part of his Neapolitan fiefs to cover them.11 However, the price paid by the duke was very low compared to the political advantages that resulted from having imperial support against the Florentine republicans, who had sent a legation to Naples to make their claims.12 Pedro de Toledo, who had served as the emperor’s courtier for many years and who had mediated in other marriages, performed that role well for the wedding of the new lord of Florence. In 1532, when Alessandro took power officially and began to consider a union with the nine-year old Margaret, she was sent from Flanders to Naples, where she would remain until her transfer to Florence in 10 “En atención a los méritos de la ilustre ‘Medicorum familia,’” privilege signed in Valladolid on September 22, 1522, in ACA, Privilegiorum, reg. 3935, f. 53. See J. E. Martínez Ferrando, Privilegios otorgados por el Emperador Carlos V en el reino de Nápoles (Sicilia aquende el faro). Serie conservada en el Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (Barcelona, 1943), p. 166, and G. Coniglio, “I Medici, i fiorentini e il viceregno,” in Napoli nell’500 e la Toscana, pp. 9–10. 11 For more on the wedding of Alessandro de’ Medici and Margaret of Austria in Naples, and the costly celebrations which followed, see G. Rosso, Historia delle cose di Napoli sotto l’impero di Carlo V (Naples, 1635), pp. 126–127 and A. Castaldo, Historia di Napoli, BNN, ms. XV.G.22, ff. 116v.–117. Cfr. Coniglio, “I Medici, i fiorentini,” p. 12. 12 For more on the relationship between the Florentine republicans and the Neapolitan nobility and literati, through figures such as Antonio da Gagliano, a Florentine citizen residing in Naples and a close friend of Filippo Strozzi, or the writer Fabricio Luna, as well as on the homage paid by the kingdom’s nobility to Margaret and Alessandro on the occasion of their nuptials in the midst of strong anti-Medici strife due to the presence of the ambassadors of the fuorusciti, see M. Grippo and T. R. Toscano, “Carlo V nelle delizie aragonesi di Poggio Reale. Un ‘accademia’ poetica di nobili napoletani in un raro opuscolo a stampa del 1536,” Critica letteraria, 22:2, n. 83 (1994): 279–307. This work comments on an academic banquet celebrated in the Aragonese villa of Poggio Reale in honor of the bride, which is evoked in a book dedicated to Alessandro, Le cose volgare di Messere Agostino Landulfo Vescovo di Monte Piloso nelle quale se raggiona dell’una e l’altra fortuna divise in sei libri et allo Illustrissimo Signore Allessandro di medici Duca di Fiorenze intitulate (Florence: Matteo Cancer, February 1536).

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1536.13 Shortly after the marriage, on January 6, 1537, circumstances changed abruptly when the duke was assassinated by his cousin Lorenzino. The Medicis’ uncertain future threatened imperial interests in Florence and throughout Italy, so Margaret remained in constant communication with the viceroy from her successive residences. She would end up moving away from the capital of Tuscany14 until she was remarried to Ottavio Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, whence she was known as Margaret of Parma. For the marriage, the emperor granted her a dowry of Penne and Campli, which Alessandro had held along with other feudi in the Abruzzi.15 In 1537, Charles V had doubts about young Cosimo de’ Medici’s suitability for occupying the duchy. Those reservations were encouraged by some of the emperor’s Italian representatives, such as Cardinal Marino Caracciolo, governor of Milan, and the ambassadors, the count of Cifuentes and the marquis of Aguilar.16 Confronting all of them from the outset, Pedro de Toledo gave his unfaltering support to the new duke of Florence.17 The following months, until the defeat of the exiled republicans led by Filippo Strozzi, were decisive for Cosimo. Throughout, don Pedro continued to receive regular reports from his representatives, such as Federico de Urrías, and he urged the young duke to maintain his loyalty to the emperor.18 Those contacts took on a new dimension when the familial interests of the viceroy entered the picture on the occasion of Cosimo’s marriage in 1539. When Ottavio Farnese, the grandson of the pope, and Margaret of Austria, the former duke’s widow (whose hand Cosimo had ini13 See B. Segni, Storie fiorentine (1527–1555) (Augsburg, 1723), Bk. VI (1532), p. 160 and Bk. VII (1536), p. 198. 14 Don Pedro’s correspondence reflects his closeness to Margaret and the tight network of information in defense of the princess’s interests, which he maintained through the imperial ambassador in Rome and representatives, such as the bailio Federico de Urrías. See, for example, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 4. 15 Privilege of March 17, 1539, confirmed by the viceroy of Naples on February 21, 1540, ASN, Arc. Farnesiano, busta 1332, vol. I, inc. 13. Cfr. I. Donsi Gentile, “Le fonti documentarie dell’archivio di stato di Napoli,” in Napoli dell’500 e la Toscana, p. 55, n. 8. 16 G. Spini, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato mediceo (Florence: Vallecchi, 1980), pp. 21, 72–73. 17 This was demonstrated on February 16, just after Cosimo was proclaimed duke, when the viceroy responded to his demands and promised to support him before the emperor, by making use of the bailio Urrías, his regular representative for Florentine affairs up to then: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, fol. 5. 18 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 7.

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tially sought) became engaged and were then married on October 12, 1538, Cosimo needed to establish his dominance through a union that would ensure succession. He chose to accept the candidate who posed the fewest problems and who, at the same time, would be able to ensure the continuity of imperial protection and the culmination of the contacts with the viceroy of Naples that had been cultivated since the start of his reign. Even though the choice of one of don Pedro’s daughters rather than a hereditary royal princess provoked criticism, the viceroy’s pressure was decisive in achieving the final agreement. In 1528, don Pedro had established the entailed estate for the marquisate of Villafranca, which he had received from his wife María Osorio Pimentel; he had married their daughter, Ana, to the count of Altamira; and a year later, their other daughter, Juana, was married to the heir of the count of Aranda in Aragón. Then, in 1538, the viceroy mobilized all his resources in a family strategy whose objective was to reinforce his lineage and his administration in Naples. Don Pedro was coming face to face with opposition from a group of Neapolitan families led by Ferrante Sanseverino, the prince of Salerno, and Alfonso d’Avalos, the marquis of Vasto. During the emperor’s visit to the kingdom in the winter of 1535–1536, they had tried to get don Pedro dismissed. Consequently, the following year, the viceregal administration was subjected to the first general visit (visita), entrusted to Bishop Pedro Pacheco, whose family had traditionally opposed the Toledos. In 1538 and 1539, as the Florentine marriage negotiations were unfolding, Pacheco’s criticisms of the viceroy’s distinguished collaborators and representatives reached a culmination, endangering the reputation of the principal imperial representative in Italy and deepening the rumors skillfully spread by don Pedro’s adversaries of an impending ouster.19 Following the death of Cardinal Marino Caracciolo, another complication appeared for the viceroy when the marquis of Vasto, who already held the post of captain-general of the Italian army, was appointed governor of Milan. With the greater-than-ever need to prove that he could still rely on the support of the emperor, don Pedro viewed the marriage of the duke of Florence as a propitious occasion to satisfy simultaneously his hopes for his family and his government. In 1538, he sent to court one of his most trusted men, Juan de Figueroa, the 19

See Hernando, Castilla y Nápoles, pp. 127 and 302.

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regent of the Vicaria, to obtain Charles V’s permission for the marriage of Cosimo and Pedro’s daughter. Given that imperial support would practically ensure the success of the viceroy’s initiative, this mission was key to the whole operation. The situation was even more serious for Cosimo, since the imperial representatives in Italy were still divided over the advisability of supporting him. Suspicions about the Medicis had already been expressed definitively in 1535, through the Florentine republicans’ legation to see Charles V in Naples and the marriage of Alessandro and Margaret of Austria. Now, with the pending marriage of Cosimo, the mistrust was reanimated, encouraged by the Farnese.20 If Cosimo was winning the decided support of the viceroy of Naples, the latter’s adversaries, the Avalos and the Doria families, were seeking a rapprochement with the papal positions. They were supported by the new imperial ambassador in Rome, the marquis of Aguilar, as well as by his predecessor, the count of Cifuentes, who had been charged with supervising the Florentine situation after the murder of Alessandro. Cosimo ended up proposing that he marry one of the granddaughters of the pope,21 an alternative supported by Andrea Doria. It was also implicitly supported by the marquis of Aguilar, who had pointed out the undesirability of marrying a daughter of the viceroy, given that he could shortly be replaced, which would degrade the union into nothing more than a simple private operation between families.22 This was also the opinion of some of Cosimo’s most influential advisors, who believed that marriage with the daughter of a simple Castilian noble could be interpreted as an excessive sign of submission and vassalage to the emperor.23 In the face of these misgivings, there prevailed the emperor’s interest in the vicere20 See the comments of contemporary authors, such as Paolo Giovio or Giovan Battista Adriani, compiled in A. Biondi, “L’immagine dei primi Farnese (1545–1622) nella storiografia e nella pubblicistica coeva,” in M. A. Romani, comp., Le corti farnesiane di Parma e Piacenza (1545–1622). I. Potere e società nello stato farnesiano (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978), pp. 189–229, esp. 204–6. 21 Florentine historian Bernardo Segni, Storie fiorentine, p. 247 mentions the granddaughter of Pope Paul III as the key in this attempt at rapprochement with the Farnese, which would have displeased Charles V. 22 See Spini, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato, p. 134. At the time, widespread opinion held that a wedding with a member of the Farnesio family would have been more advantageous, as reflected in a March 6, 1539, letter from the humanist Antonio Agustín, in C. Flores Sellés, Epistolario de Antonio Agustín (Salamanca: Editorial Universidad de Salamanca, 1980), p. 68, letter 42. 23 According to Segni, Storie fiorentine, Bk. IX, p. 247.

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gal project of establishing a family axis between Naples and Florence that reinforced Cosimo’s reputation without his having to marry a princess from the imperial household. Once Charles V’s wishes were known, Cosimo was no less resolved in choosing his wife.24 In Naples, two daughters of Don Pedro were marriageable. According to a letter of January 1539, from Nicolini, the duke’s representative to the viceroy, the first candidate was the eldest daughter, Isabel, but Cosimo preferred her younger sister, Eleonora, for her personal qualities.25 Despite the political advantages that the engagement promised, Cosimo involved himself actively in the bride’s dowry negotiations, which were his responsibility, as had been the case when the previous duke, Alessandro, had married Margaret of Austria. Faced with the heavy demands made by don Pedro, Cosimo ordered his representatives in Naples, Luigi Ridolfi and Jacopo de’ Medici, to reduce the figure as much as possible. Given the viceroy’s interest in the engagement, on which he had staked his prestige throughout Italy and in the eyes of the emperor (no less so than had the duke of Florence), Don Pedro arrived at an agreement on February 26, and a month later the betrothal was celebrated by proxy in Castelnuovo.26 The news of the engagement 24 As a sign of his desire to serve the emperor, the duke declared himself ready to face the criticism arising from the alleged inequality of the union, especially given the favorable terms of the pope’s offer: A. Baia, Eleonora di Toledo (Florence, 1906), p. 16. According to Cosimo’s doctor and biographer, Baccio Baldini, Vita di Cosimo Medici. Primo Gran Duca di Toscana (Florence: Stamperia di Bartolomeo Sermartelli, 1578), dedicated to Francesco I de’ Medici, p. 30. 25 Nicolini’s letter is dated January 4, 1539, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.261, cfr. Baia, Eleonora di Toledo, p. 16. However, one of don Pedro’s biographers, Costantino Castriota, would later assert that the union was agreed upon after reaching an arrangement to marry Isabel to the son of the duke of Castrovillari and given the failed attempt to marry Eleonora to another of the great barons of the kingdom, Antonio de Aragón: C. Castriota (Filonico Alicarnaseo), Vita di don Pietro di Toledo vicerè di Napoli, BNN, ms X-B-67, ff. 25 and 27. 26 According to the prenuptial agreement, signed on March 29, 1539, a dowry was set at 20,000 ducats, which later would have to be followed by two additional payments of 10,000 and 20,000 ducats. See “Instrument del matrimonial entre Cosme I y Leonora de Toledo,” ASF, Carte Strozziane, series I, XIII, ff. 64–66. For the terms of the contract, see also R. Galluzzi, Storia del Gran Ducato di Toscana (Florence, 1822), vol. I, Bk. I, Chap. 2, p. 86. Segni, Storie fiorentine, Bk. IX, p. 247, for his part, states that “la dote della sposa furono scudi venticinquemila confessati dal Duca, ed affodati in su i suoi beni patrimoniali.” According to Spini, after two months of negotiations, don Pedro still demanded 50,000 scudi. Eventually, an agreement was reached whereby Cosimo declared that he had received 30,000— which, in reality the viceroy had not delivered—and Cosimo promised to give Eleonora a gift of 30,000 scudi if he were to die without leaving, children, Spini,

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unleashed the most diverse commentaries, depending upon which interest predominated, that of the nation or that of the family.27 Cosimo’s representative, Jacopo de’ Medici, praised Eleonora’s qualities when writing enthusiastically to Pier Francesco Riccio, the duke’s mayordomo, about the signing of the agreement.28 For his part, Cosimo wrote to the viceroy at the beginning of April to express his joy “for the full completion of the nuptials, much desired by him,” with the wish that it “would be to his honor, universal contentment and satisfaction, and conservation and maintenance of his house.”29 On June 11, Eleonora embarked from Naples with a fleet of seven galleys, which were commanded by her brother, García. An entourage of Spanish and Neapolitan knights and ladies attended her, all of whom her father had carefully selected. He wrote a detailed account of the people who would accompany the bride for the wedding and those who would remain in her service in Florence. In addition to her cousins, Pedro and Gutierre de Toledo, certain of the viceroy’s most trusted men also went, including Antonio de Aldana, Fabrizio Marramaldo, Federico de Urrías—bailio of Saint Eufemia in the order of St. John, regent of the Vicaria since 1533, and governor of Calabria in 1534—Cesare di Gennaro, Julián and Diego Pérez, among other captains, courtiers, and servants30 who very soon began to request favors of Cosimo.31 On June 22, the fleet arrived in Livorno, where the first celebrations were held in an attempt to herald the initiation of a new period of stability in Tuscany, which was still feeling the effects of the crises of 1530 and 1537. Eleonora was received by the Archbishop of Pisa, a city to which she went that same day, after meeting Cosimo halfway.32 He had just inspected the western Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato, p. 135. The legates Ridolfi and Medici carried the wedding ring to Naples and acted as the duke’s proxies, as was narrated by Gambarelli when he described to Cosimo the Neapolitan ceremony held March 29. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 337, fol. 139. Cfr. Spini, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato, p. 136, n. 33, as well as ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, VIII, 3. 27 A. Marucelli da San Gallo, Cronaca, BNCF, ms. Magliabechiana, cod. II, IV. 19, p. 34. Cfr. G. Spini, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato, p. 135. 28 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, “Carteggio di Cosimo I,” filza 1.169. 29 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, “Minutari di Cosimo I,” filza 3: “la totale effectuatione del sponsalitio da lui molto desiderato”; “a honore suo, a contento e satisfactione universale e conservatione e mantenimento di sua casa.” 30 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 a, n. 11 and n. 12. 31 For example, on June 11, 1539, the viceroy wrote Cosimo to recommend one of his daughter’s servants: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, fol. 12. 32 Amongst the different accounts of this arrival, one of the most detailed is

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area of the duchy in order to muster the support of the Pisans, traditional adversaries of Florence. Because of that, the entourage and the temporary display erected in Pisa were adorned in particularly sumptuous fashion.33 The retinue next went to the Medici villa of Poggio a Caiano, while the display for the entrance into Florence was being completed, which would happen on June 29. The wedding, celebrated in the Medici Palace in the Via Larga on July 6, included a series of gala events, presented as the beginning of the recuperation of Florentine splendor. Through constant allusions to Charles V as the new Augustus Caesar, imperial protection was invoked.34 Marco Guazzo, Historie di tutti i fatti degni di memoria nel mondo successi dal MDXXIIII, sino a l’anno MDCLIX (Venice: G. Giolito di Ferrarii, 1549; 1st ed. 1546), p. 249. Cfr. Anonymous, Memoria di fatti diversi accaduti in vari tempi nel regno di Napoli, BNM, ms. 8.584, f. 82; Castaldo, Historia, f. 136v.; Anonymous, Apparato de’ feste nelle nozze del Duca de Fiorenza, BAV, ms. Vat. lat., 12.230, f. 280 and Galluzzi, Historia del Gran Ducato, Bk. I, Chap. II, p. 87. 33 Pier Francesco Riccio wrote to Lorenzo Pagni—Cosimo’s secretary—from Pisa on June 23: “La Sª Duchessa entrò in Pisa con una veste di raso nero tutta piena di gran punti d’oro così in testa et col colletto; stamattina lassato el bruno, è venuta fora con una vesta pavonaza di velluto et ricamata d’oro, in testa una scuffia d’oro, a collo il vezzo gli donò el Sr. Duca, in dito el Diamante; et così questi sri. Spagnuoli veduta la metà del Sr. Duca senza troppe cerimonie gli hanno in questo satisfatto. Hoggi dopo desinare il Sr. Duca fece conoscere alla Sª Duchessa il Sr. Alamanno Salviati, Piero et tutti così li altri gioveni fiorentini, che fece lor grande accoglienza come fa all’universalmente con la più dolce et accorta maniera che mai si sia visto” (“The Lady duchess made her entry into Pisa wearing a dress of black satin covered with large gold dots with the same on her head-dress and her collar; this morning, leaving off her black garb, she came forth with a purple velvet dress embroidered with gold, a gold cap on her head, and at her neck the necklace that the lord Duke had given her, the Diamond on her finger; and in this manner the Spanish lords, seeing the lord Duke’s consort, satisfied him in this without too much ceremony. Today after dining the lord Duke presented to the lady Duchess Signor Alamanno Salviati, Piero, and all the other Florentine youths, who gave them a great welcome, as is done universally, with the sweetest and most proper courtesy ever seen”). ASF, Carteggio di Cosimo I, I, filza 339. Cfr. Baia, Eleonora di Toledo, pp. 20–21. Cfr. Guazzo, Historie di tutti i fatti, pp. 249–249v. 34 According to Segni, Storie fiorentine, Bk. IX, p. 247, the celebrations coincided with a serious famine. The most famous description of the celebrations is the one published as a letter to Giovanni Bandini, who was Cosimo’s legate before Charles V, by P. F. Giambullari, Apparato et feste nelle nozze del Ill. Sr. Duca di Firenze et della duchessa sua consorte con le sue stanze, madrigali ed intermedi in quelle recitati (Florence: Giunti, 1539). Cfr. Personificazioni delle città, paesi e fiumi della Toscana festeggianti le nozze di Cosimo I ed Eleonora di Toledo, ed. Ubaldo Angeli, (Prato, 1898); A. Minor, A. and B. Mitchell, A Renaissance Entertainment: Festivities for the Marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence in 1539 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1968); H. W. Kaufman, “Art for the Wedding of Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora di Toledo,” Paragone 21, n. 243 (1970): 52–67; N. Pirrota and Elena Povoleda, Li due Orfei. Da Poliziano a

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The marriage of the duke opened up new horizons for the Medici and the Toledo families. One of the many poets in Cosimo’s court, Anton Francesco Grazzini, known as Il Lasca, expressed the expectations of both houses in his Egloga I. Among other encomiastic topics, he had two shepherds singing the future glory of the couple as the culmination of the accumulated virtues of their ancestors, in a display of the values based on the household and the family similar to that which Luigi Tansillo would later write for Pedro de Toledo.35

Monteverdi (Turin: ERI, 1969), pp. 196ff; A. M. Nagler, Theater Festivals of the Medici, 1539 –1637 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), pp. 5–12; G. Cipriani, Il mito etrusco nel rinascimento fiorentino (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1980), pp. 75–80 and R. Strong, Art and Power. Renaissance Festivals 1450–1660 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Pres, 1984), pp. 34–35, 75. According to Galluzzi, Historia del Gran Ducato, p. 87, Charles V sent as his representative the “Commendatore Mosquira.” Cfr. A. Lapini, Diario, ed. O. Corazzini (Florence, 1900), pp. 102–103. For more on how Cosimo used the image of Charles V, see F. Checa Cremades, “Artificio y lenguaje clasicista en la Florencia medicea: Carlos V y el arte florentino del siglo XVI,” in Cuadernos de trabajos de la Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma 15 (1981): 229–40. 35 “. . . e vò ch’alla nuova Alba’ ci ritroviamo in questo loco ameno Lieti à cantare degli alti sposi illustri L’antica schiatta é la nobil progenie e de gli Avi é de Padre il pregno él nome, i fatti, egregi, e l’opre e invitte e sole, i chiari gesti, e l’animose imprese, l’honor la gloria, de spoglie e’trofei, le vittorie, le palme e le corone, i carri trionfal, le statue, e gli archi, di che non pur l’Italia e l’Europa ma tutto il mondo va superbo e ricco . . .” (“and I desire that at the new Dawn we gather again in this pleasant place, happy to sing of the illustrious high spouses’ ancient lineage and noble progeny, and of the Ancestors and the Father the issue and the name, the outstanding deeds and works both indomitable and unique, the famous acts and daring enterprises, the honor and glory of spoils and trophies, the victories, palms, and crowns, triumphal chariots, statues, and bows, by which not only Italy and Europe are made proud and enriched, but all the world”). Il Lasca, Nelle nozze dell’Illustrissimo e Eccellentissimo Signore il Signore Cosimo de Medici duca di Firenze. Egloga I, BNCF, Magliabechiana, VII, 1.240. For more about the author, see M. Plaisance, “Culture et politique à Florence de 1542 à 1551: Lasca et les Humidi aux prises avec l’Academie Florentine,” in Les êcrivains et le pouvoir en Italie à l’epoque de la Renaissance (Paris: Université de la Sorbonne, 1973), vol. 3, pp. 149–242. Emphasis on the House of Toledo became a theme for Medici historians, as we saw in Scipione Ammirato. We find similar ecomia in other works, such as the one by P. Pighner, Vita Cosmi I, which appeals to “The origin of the distinguished House of Toledo and its magnificent achievements” (“Origen de la Ilustrissima casa de Toledo i sus grandes proezas”) to point out that “the House

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2. The Virtuous Image of Eleonora of Toledo Decades after the 1539 marriage, the Neapolitan Giulio Cesare Capaccio would emphasize Eleonora’s prominence in the main political events of the duchy of Florence through an exaltation of her virtues of prudence, vigilance, devotion, and conjugal love, characteristics that shaped one of the foremost female figures in the government.36 Even though the duke and duchess were one of only a few royal marriages in the Renaissance that could, without prevarication, be offered as an example of family virtues, the repeated expression of those virtues reflects the political intentions of Cosimo, who liked to compare himself to Augustus Caesar and to his restoration of the values of family following the republican chaos. Eleonora, presented as a new Juno, would prove worthy of the praise, which the Toledo family also cultivated. “a lady in truth most rare, and of such great and incomparable worth, that she may be likened without question and perchance preferred, to the most celebrated and renowned woman in ancient history,” according to the famous description by Vasari.37 The duchess, raised in the Neapolitan viceregal court, was established as the best interpreter of the norms of Cosimo’s government. This was palpable in the emblems selected to exalt her model image as a wife and a mother. Along with the maxim “Famam Servare Memento” (“Remember to preserve reputation”) in the Florentine academy she frequented under the name of Ardente Alterata, she was assigned an impresa with the motto “Imis Haerens Ad Suprema” (“Cleaving [from] the lowest to the highest”), showing a tree trunk from which a flame climbs to the heavens, according to the interpretation of Scipione of Toledo is renowned all over the world and is extremely fortunate thanks to the courage of valiant Captains and notable men that have come from it . . . also for sending progeny such as Eleonora of Toledo, happily remembered as the duchess of Florence, to a State such as Florence, for the good and benefit of the lineage and the State” (“La Casa de Toledo manifiesta i conoçida es por todo el mundo, i affortunadissima por el valor de bravissimos Capitanes y hombres segnalados, que della an salido [. . .] también por mandar tal fruto a un tanto Stado como es el de Florencia, para bien y aumento fellice de linea y estado, como fue Donna Leonor de Toledo fellice memoria Duquesa de Florencia,” Biblioteca Laurentiana (Florence), Cod. CCXXXII, f. 80. 36 G. C. Capaccio, Illustrium mulierum, et illustrium litteris virorum elogia (Naples: Carlino and Vitale, 1608), p. 165. 37 Vasari, Le Vite, vol. 6, p. 301: “Donna nel vero rarissima e di cioè sí grande et incomparabile valore, che può a qual sia piú celebre e famosa nell’antiche storie, senza contrasto aguagliarsi e per aventura preporsi.” Quoted from Vasari, Lives of the Painters, trans. De Vere, 2: 434.

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Ammirato.38 In addition to these images is the famous impresa minted by Paolo Giovio for a medal in 1551, which shows a turkey hen protecting its chicks with outspread wings, under the motto “Cum Pudore Laeta Foecunditas” (“With modesty, joyful fecundity”), “alluding to the nature of the bird, which is dedicated to Juno, the queen of the heavens, according to the opinion of the gentiles” and “the peacock being a bird of highest modesty, beauty, and fertility.”39 Reputation, piety, and fecundity were the values that ruled the family ethic, and Eleonora was presented as its incarnation, as Father Lauro de Módena, among many others, declared in 1546 when he dedicated his Italian translation of the treatise that Juan Luis Vives had written for the Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon, in 1523, Dell’ufficio del Marito, come si debba portare verso la Moglie, De l’Istitutione della Femina Christiana, vergine, maritata, ò vedova, et dello ammaestrare i fanciulli nelle arti liberali.40 In an environment open to religious criticism and one that even included some leeway for the heterodoxy that characterized Cosimo’s court in its first decades and also the court of Viceroy Toledo in Naples until the death of Juan de Valdés in 1540,41 the works of Vives, the Valencian friend and disciple of Erasmus, were well received. His practical philosophy, a synthesis of Christian and ancient classical principles, filtered through an exacting critical reception by Greek and Latin authors, was presented as a complement to the Neoplatonic tradition of Florence. At the same time, it also offered an ethic of courtly behavior, especially useful for the regime constructed by Cosimo and Eleonora. Vives offers a moral repertory not only for family matters, represented by his trea38 Faced with Eleonora’s displeasure with his initial version, Ammirato expounded on the symbolic possibilities of the impresa: “Alla Illustrissima et Eccellentissima Signora la Signora Donna Leonora di Toledo de Medici Sua Signora,” Opuscoli, 3 vols. (Florence: Amadore Massi and Lorenzo Landi, 1637–42), 1: 679–82. 39 P. Giovio, Dialogo dell’imprese militari e amorose, ed. M. L. Doglio (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978), pp. 136–37. 40 Opera veramente non pur dilettevole ma ancho utilissima à ciascuna maniera di persone (Venice: Appresso Vincenzo Vaugris, al segno d’Erasmo, 1546). In the dedication, pp. 1v.–2, “Ala Illustrissima et eccellentissima signora, la signora Lionor di Toledo, Duchessa di Firenze,” the translator insists on the conventional image of Eleonora as a family role model to identify her with the contents of the work, which concern “On the office of the husband: How he should behave toward his wife, On the Instruction of the Christian Woman, virgin, married, or widowed, and On the training of children in the liberal arts.” 41 See M. Firpo, Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo. Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), and C. J. Hernando Sánchez, “Entre ‘Napoli Nobilissima’ y ‘Napoli Sacra’: las órdenes religiosas y el virrey Pedro de Toledo,” in F. Rurale, coord., I religiosi a corte. Teologia, politica e diplomazia in Antico Regime (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), pp. 51–100.

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tise of 1523, but also in the area of friendships and dependency relationships that connected the prince and society as a whole through a system of favors and indulgences based on patronage (beneficio) as a principle palatable to both Aristotlean liberality and Christian charity.42 If the philosopher of Valencia was one of the first to interpret Seneca’s treatise De beneficiis in those terms, the interest awakened by Christian-Stoic syncretism of his moral models in the HispanoFlorentine environment under the Toledo and Medici families would in 1546 lead Eleonora herself to commission Benedetto Varchi to translate into Italian the two books of Seneca’s treatise for the competition arranged by her cousin, Pedro de Toledo.43 According to this doctrine, the largesse of the lord or prince projected his virtues onto his subjects, and as a testimony of his magnificence, it became the best guarantee of his reputation. An example of this would be the acts of Eleonora, whose tastes and whose protection influenced the arts and letters of Tuscany in her time. This is reflected in the profusion with which her likeness was reproduced in the most varied artistic images, both before and after her death; the influence she exerted on fashion and courtly behavior;44 and the exceptional quantity of literary eulogies in Italian and Spanish that sang her praises. 42 See A. M. Hespanha, La gracia del derecho. Economía de cultura en la Edad Moderna (Madrid: Centro de estudios constitucionales, 1993), pp. 160–164 and A. ÁlvarezOssorio Alvariño, “El favor real: liberalidad del príncipe y jerarquía de la república (1665–1700),” in Ch. Continisio and C. Mozzarelli, coords., Repubblica e virtù. Pensiero politico e Monarchia Cattolica fra XVI e XVII secolo (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), pp. 393–453, esp. 397–404. Cfr. K. A. Blüher, Séneca en España. Investigaciones sobre la recepción de Séneca en España desde el siglo XIII hasta el siglo XVII (Madrid: Gredos, 1983). 43 Published in Florence by Lorenzo Torrentini in 1554—and reprinted in Venice by Iolito de Ferrarris in 1561 and 1565 and in Florence by Giunti in 1574—the dedication of the work is signed by Varchi “Dalla Pieve a S. Gavino” and dated 1546. On the relationship between Vives and Varchi, see P. Cherchi, “Due lezioni di B. Varchi ispirate da J. L. Vives,” Lettere italiane 40 (1988): 387–399. Varchi was close friends with the principal poet of the Neapolitan court of Pedro de Toledo, Luigi Tansillo, who, in turn, was also in contact with other figures in the Medici court, such as Giovan Battista Gelli. See Tansillo, Il Canzoniere, E. Pèrcopo, “Introduzione,” vol. 1, pp. CLII–CLIV and sonnets CCCI a CCCVI, vol. 2, pp. 162–167. 44 See Moda alla corte dei Medici. Gli abiti restaurati di Cosimo, Eleonora e don Garzia, exhibit catalog (Florence: Centro Di, 1993), esp. the article by R. Orsi Landini, “L’amore del lusso e la necessità della modestia. Eleonora fra sete e oro,” ibidem, pp. 35–45. See Bruce L. Edelstein, “Bronzino in the Service of Eleonora di Toledo and Cosimo I de’Medici: Conjugal Patronage and Painter-Courtier”, in Sheryl E. Reiss and David G. Wilkins, eds., Beyond Isabella. Secular Women Patrons of Arts in Renaissance Italy (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2001), pp. 226–261; Idem, “Nobildonne napoletane e committenza: Eleonora d’Aragona ed Eleonora di Toledo a confronto”, Quaderni Storici, n.s. 104, 35:2 (2000), pp. 295–329; the foundamental studies in Konrad Eisenbichler, ed., The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo. Duchess of Florence and Siena (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), and Alessandra Contini, “Spazi

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One example, among others, comes from one of the Spanish poets of the Neapolitan circle of her father—the until-now little known Juan de la Vega—in a collection of poems dedicated to the viceroy in the critical year of 1552, where the topic of the competition among the arts, evoked through the major artists of ancient Greece, prove once again her royal objectives for the development of her court.45 femminili e costruzione di un’identità dinastica. Il caso di Leonora di Toledo duchessa di Firenze”, in Christof Dipper and Mario Rosa, eds., La società dei principi nell’Europa moderna (secoli XVI–XVII) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005), pp. 295–320. 45 “To the DISTINGUISHED LADY Eleonora de Toledo, Duchess of Florence. If, with a certain inventiveness, our age holds such hope that it presumes to portray your likeness with the brush and pen of Apelles, Fidia, or Homer, They shall if such art is able to capture the sum of your beautiful likeness on canvas, marble, or paper. But your valor, which will not allow the human mind to devise your eminent history, will be immortal to each generation. And the sky which celebrates your memory will form here an eternal and clear mind, where Eleonora’s honor and glory shall reside.” (“ALLA ILLMA. SIGNORA Doña Leonor de Toledo duquessa de Florencia. Si en algunos ingenios esperança Tiene esta nuestra edad tal que presuma Llegar con su pinzel martillo, y pluma D’Apelles, Fidia, Homero a somejança Podran con arte si tanto arte alcança Formar quando el juizio se consuma Por tablas, marmor, por papel en suma De vuestro bello externo la semblança Mas vuestro alto valor que no consiente A ingenio humano urdir su eccelsa historia Podra ser inmortal de gente en gente Quel cielo qual celebra tal memoria Formara a qui una eterna, y clara mente Donde biva eLhonor suyo, y su gloria.”) Versos de Juan de la Vega (Naples: Mathia Cancer, 1552), n.n. The wordplay, which linked the name of the honored individual with aristocratic virtues and attributes, was typical of the courtly poetry of the time. Eleonora herself was the object of this kind of association with the concept of honor, as reflected by the Florentine poet Angelo Firenzuola, who in 1542 highlighted the wisdom of the names the viceroy had chosen for his children: “Che ben propizie ed amiche li furo Le sante Muse nell’impor de’nomi A’suoi buon figli; che inanzi agli effetti Gli fer veder nell’informe cagione

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Similar courtly eulogies are repeated by other poets, such as Varchi,46 or in Spain, Jerónimo de Urrea, who in his translation of Orlando

Quel che devea seguire, e lo spiraro Con la prudenza lor, ch’ei nominasse La bella figlia sua, d’Etruria onore, Con quel nome gentil di Leonora; Ch’ella l’onore onora, e l’onor lei: Ella al consorte suo procaccia onore, E ‘l gran consorte suo lei onora, come A sì onorata donna si conviene; E mertan le virtù con ch’ella è saggia, E chiede la beltà con ch’ella è bella, E quelli onor che fan ch’ognun lei onora.” (“To whom most propitious and friendly were the holy Muses in giving names to his good children; who before the fact gave him to see in the formless cause what had to follow, and inspired him with their prudence, so that he gave his beautiful daughter, the honor of Etruria, the gentle name of Leonora; in which she does honor to the honor, and which honors her: She brings honor to her consort, and her great consort honors her, as is proper for such an honored lady; and they deserve the virtues with which she is wise, which requires the beauty with which she is beautiful, and that those honors make everyone honor her.”) A. Firenzuola, “Lagrime nella violenta morte d’un giovane nobile napoletano,” Opere, ed. A. Seroni (3d ed., Florence: Sansoni, 1993), p. 848. 46 Given the references to the Spanish lineage of the duchess, among other sonnets dedicated to Eleonora, it is worth mentioning the following two: “DONNA, che insin dall’alto, e ricco Ibero, Non curando il tuo vago, e bel Sebeto, Per far l’Arno di te superbo, e lieto Movesti, anzi à bear questo hemispero; Paura di scemar troppo del vero Fa, ch’io tengo entro il cor chiuso, e segreto Quel, che molti anni già tacito, e cheto Cantando vo del valor vostro altero: Beltade oltra misura, e singolare Splendor di sangue illustre, e l’altre tali Doti, e tante, che son si rare al mondo. A voi, ver gl’altri ben veri immortali, Son quasi nulla, e sol per altrui care, Tanto vi gira il ciel largo, e secondo.” (“LADY, who came from high and rich Ebro, heedless of your meandering and beautiful Sebeto, to make the Arno proud of you and joyful—rather, to make this hemisphere rejoice; fear of straying too far from the truth leads me to sing of your high valor, which I hold close to my heart, still and in secret, withheld for many years: Beauty beyond measure and singular splendor of illustrious blood, along with many other endowments so rare in the world. To you, in comparison with whom the other true immortals are as nothing and dear to others only, as long as heaven, great and kindly, surrounds you.”) “DONNA, che quanto havea d’alto valore, E di vera pietà tutto l’ibero Giugneste à quanto havea forte, e sincero L’Italia tutta con eterno amore;

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Furioso included the duchess in the gallery of notable women of the Spanish nobility.47 On the death of Eleonora, in 1562, the main exponents of her court—Pier Vettori, Giambattista Adriani, Pietro Perondini, Varchi, or Angiolo Bronzino, himself, who immortalized her in his portraits—eulogized the character and achievements of the duchess in funeral prayers and poems, associated since then with the Medici mythology cultivated in the governments of her children, Francesco I and Fernando I.48

Poscia, che’l Ciel d’ogni beltade il fiore Col fior d’ogni bontade avinse: io spero Veder frutto di voi si dolce, e fero, Che quel molti anni già perduto honore Torne d’armi, e di lettere, e regga il mondo Con le virtù d’entrambi, onde ancor sia Il viver piu, che mai bello e giocondo. Dunque legge alle genti, e Rege dia Con LEONORA il gran COSMO secondo, Coppia feroce a’rei; quanto à bon pia.” (“LADY, who joined in eternal love all that Iberia had of high valor and true piety with all that Italy had of strength and sincerity; since, given that Heaven brought together the flower of every beauty and the flower of every goodness, I hope to see fruit from you so sweet and proud that, after many years, turning away from the honor of tournaments and letters, he will rule the world with the virtues of both, and will live more handsome and gay than ever. Therefore may the great COSIMO, with ELEONORA, couple as fierce to evil doers as you are pious to the good, give laws to the people and Rule.”) B. Varchi, I Sonetti (Venice, 1555), pp. 172–173. 47 “. . . Look back and admire such merit, Such honor, such worth, and such an example: Look at such beauty, such virtue In doña Eleonora, Duchess of Florence.” (“. . . Pues buelve y mira tal merecimiento, Tal honrra, tal valor y tal dechado: Mira tal beldad, tanta excelencia, En doña Leonor duquesa de Florencia.”). J. de Urrea, Orlando Furioso (Venice, 1575), Canto XXXV, p. 422. 48 Amongst the numerous poems and funereal prayers composed upon the death of Eleonora de Toledo, the following merit attention: P. Vettori, Laudatio Eleonorae Cosmi de Medicis Ducis Uxoris (Florence, 1563); G. Adriani, Oratio de laudibus Eleonorae Cosmi Iuxoris (Florence, 1563); P. Perondini, Oratio ad populum patentem infunebre Eleonorae Cosmi de Medicis I coniugis (Florence, 1563) and Poesie toscane et latine di diversi eccel. ingegni nella morte del signor don Giovanni cardinale, del signor don Grazia de’Medici et della signora donna Leonora di Toledo de’Medici, duchessa di Fiorenza et di Siena (Florence: L. Torrentino, 1563). All of them insist on exalting the ancient glory of the House of Toledo, from the Reconquest on, and Pier Vettori also includes the tradition of their origins from the Byzantine emperors.

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3. “Por servicio de Su Majestad y particular beneficio” (“For His Majesty’s Service and for Private Benefit”): The Imperial Politics of Cosimo I and Pedro de Toledo The celebratory announcement issued for the wedding of 1539 reflects the consecration of the Neapolitan-Florentine axis of familial and political interests as a pillar of imperial power in Italy. The very image of Cosimo as ruler was bound to present more than a few parallels with that of Pedro de Toledo.49 The latter not only offered his advice on family and administrative matters, but he also intervened decisively to help Cosimo, as was clearly seen a little after the marriage to Eleonora, when a major famine in Tuscany obliged the duke to ask his father-in-law to send Neapolitan grain, a request that he would repeat in later years.50 The revived distrust among Cosimo’s adversaries, beginning with Charles V’s other imperial representatives in Italy,51 reinforced the alliance between the Medicis and the viceroy of Naples, who tried to shape Cosimo’s decisions in matters of both Italian politics and the administration of his household and his duchy.52 49 As did Cosimo’s biographers, such as Scipione Miccio, Segni, Storie fiorentine, Bk. X, pp. 247 and 251 stated, for instance, that the duke of Florence, “nel modo del suo governo era inviolabile nelle esecuzioni della giustizia” (“in the manner of his governance was inviolable in the execution of justice”), and praised him for emulating Charles V, in whose “medesimo modo si governava [. . .] dando essempio di fè, di religione, di giustizia e di temperanza, imponendo sempre varie gravezze” (“same manner of governing . . . giving an example of faith, religion, justice, and temperance, always imposing a variety of punishments”). Cfr. Carmen Menchini, Panegirici e vite di Cosimo I de’Medici tra storia e propaganda (Florence: Olschki, 2005). 50 Don Pedro, who on that occasion declared, “che non mancherà di far tutto quello che conoscera essere in benefizio di quello stato e di V. Eccellenza” (“that he will not fail to do all that he knows to be to the advantage of the state of Your Excellency”), responded to this and later requests; however, repeated requests led him to remind his son-in-law of the needs of the Kingdom of Naples itself. See the correspondence of Pirro Musefilo with Cosimo I (December 1539 to April 29, 1541), in “Narrazioni e documenti sulla storia del regno di Napoli,” Archivio Storico Italiano 9 (1846), pp. 96–97 and 100. On January 10, 1540, the requests by the Florentine representative in Naples were particularly insistent, when he asked the viceroy to send the grain directly from Apulia to Florence, in view of the “penuria e miseria che al presente si trova in quel stato [. . .] e delli pericoli che V.Ecc. [Cosme I] potrebbe per tal cosa passare . . .” (“penury and misery that at the present are found in that state . . . and of the dangers that Your Excellency [Cosimo I] could encounter for that reason”). Galluzzi, for his part, notes that following the duke’s wedding in 1539 the situation became so critical that Cosimo was only able to alleviate it thanks to the support of the Spanish dominions in Italy, Historia del Gran Ducato, Bk. I, Chap. 2, p. 87. 51 See Galluzzi, Historia del Gran Ducato . . ., Bk. I, Chap. 2, p. 87. 52 As a result, one of the first letters the viceroy sent to Cosimo after the

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Don Pedro’s influence was so great that at the end of 1539, Juan de Luna, the Castilian from Florence—despite his enmity toward Cosimo—asked for the viceroy’s intercession in order to get him to finance the construction project to strengthen the Tuscan capital’s fortifications.53 During the summer of 1539, when the viceroy traveled to the province of Apulia, he stayed in close communication with his son-in-law through the Florentine representative in Naples, Pirro Musefilo.54 Once back in Naples, at the end of October 1539, don Pedro informed Cosimo of the death of María Osorio Pimentel, the viceroy’s wife. He also counseled him to end his differences with Cardinal Cibo, “it is right that Your Lordship should hold him in all good regard since this is due given the times that he has been employed in matters pertaining to Your Lordship” (“al qual es razon tenga v.s. todo buen miramiento pues se le deve por las vezes que se ha empleado en las cosas de v.s.”) and, above all, that the duke

wedding informed him of Turkish and Berber maneuvers, in addition to providing stern recommendations on how the duke should govern his household and state, without neglecting to mention that news had reached him of the unsuitability of one of his jesters: Letter from Pedro de Toledo to Cosimo I, Andria, September 16, 1539, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.068. 53 “Reminding him to provide munitions as well as increase the number of soldiers, since there are so few of them; also, the castle is large and it is unfinished and, although I know Your Excellency will have discussed this in many regards with his lord the duke, I beseech Your Excellency once again that you write him . . .” (“acordandole lo mas de proveer ansi de municiones como de creçer algunos soldados que los que ay son muy pocos, y el castillo es grande y no esta acabado, y ahunque sé que v. excelencia por muchos respectos avra acordado esto al Sor. duque me ha parescido suplicar de nuevo a vuestra excelencia se lo escriva . . .”), Florence, December 3, 1539, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 26. 54 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.068, ff. 5, 6, and 7: three letters from the viceroy to Cosimo, written in Andria and dated August 10 and 16, pertaining to the manner in which regular information related to Florentine affairs should be conveyed; another letter also written in Andria and dated August 30, related “the maneuvers and progress of the Turkish Armada.” The letter Don Pedro wrote from Andria on September 11, in which he thanked him for the shipment of a few “chapters” related to the ducal court, is another example of this detailed epistolary relationship: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.068 (letters, n.n., many undated). While informing him of the emperor’s maneuvers, the viceroy warned Cosimo of the French plots. Musefilo, for his part, informed Cosimo from Naples about the kingdom’s political and social situation and the main events taking place in the duchess’s family, such as illnesses or weddings, like her older brother Fadrique’s wedding that had just taken place in Spain. The viceroy wrote about these and other domestic matters while at the same time requesting different indulgences for the relatives and servants of Neapolitan noblemen, such as the duke of Montalto: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4068, n.n.

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should always act as “His Majesty’s loyal and obedient vassal” (“leal y obediente vasallo de su magestad”). The viceroy argued that Cosimo must impose his own judgment on his advisors and continue his energetic policy centered on the administration of justice and on fortifications: “In planning to fortify your lands, Your Lordship does the right and very prudent thing, because the care and protection taken by princes, such as you yourself take, can only result in good outcomes” (“v.s. haze muy bien y con toda prudencia considerando en fortificar sus tierras porque del cuydado y buen recabdo que tienen los principes como v.s. lo es y le tiene no pueden sobre venir sino buenos subcesos”).55 In September 1540, Musefilo brought Cosimo news from the imperial court about the Florentine exiles and don Pedro’s insistence on increasing their collaboration in light of the recent French and Turkish schemes in order to be “warned, and to fortify his lands, and to make money by all the ways and means that he could.”56 In November 1540, the viceroy had authorized the exportation from the kingdom of one hundred carts of barley to meet the needs of Florence.57 Then, in 1541, again in support of the interests of the duke, don Pedro acted as mediator in the dispute between the pope and Cosimo over the imposition of new tithes in the Florentine domain.58 Don Pedro’s influence was felt both in military or diplomatic matters—dominated by the difficult relations with the pope, which were especially tense at this time because of the confrontation between Ascanio Colonna and Paul III—as well as in the granting of positions for the Florentine administration59 and in the most varied family matters.60 On March 10,

55 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, fol. 13–14v. (Naples, October 28, 1539). 56 “Narrazioni e documenti,” pp. 112–113, Naples, September 2, 1540: “avvertito, e fortificar le sue terre, e far danari per tutte quelle vie e mezzi ch’l poterà.” 57 ASN, Collaterale, Partium, vol. 15, f. 63. 58 Galluzzi, Historia del Gran Ducado, Bk. I, Chap. 2, pp. 96–97 and Chap. 3, p. 99. 59 On February 10, 1541, the viceroy, then in Trani, informed Musefilo of his pleasure with the latest appointments by Cosimo: “I am extremely satisfied that the lord duke, my son, has given the concession of the government of Pistoia to Juan de Lantela, and that another gentleman coming to Rome to replace him is arriving at a good time . . .” ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.070, n.n. 60 On February 26, 1541, the viceroy, who was in Lecce for a new inspection tour of the coasts of Apulia, thanked Musefilo for the latest news about his daughter and the rest of the ducal family: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4070, n.n.

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facing the pope’s troubling anti-imperial schemes, the viceroy wrote to Musefilo. He instructed him to have the viceroy’s brother, Cardinal Juan de Toledo, who had been living in Rome since at least 1540, center all his attention on the defense of imperial interests in the Curia and, for the moment, to abandon the management he had undertaken of the overt administrative crisis in the Republic of Siena.61 The cardinal, a Dominican who had received a solid theological education in Salamanca and Paris, was establishing himself at the center of the family network in Italy.62 The news that Eleonora was expecting a child raised hopes in both houses. In September 1540, Musefilo told Cosimo about the viceroy’s plan to go to Florence to take advantage of the emperor’s next visit to Italy, on the occasion of the campaign in Algiers.63 The visit, which did not occur until 1541, provided a new opportunity to reinforce the joint actions of the Medici and Toledo families. As he had said he would, the viceroy arranged an interview with the emperor, which was to be one of the most decisive meetings of don Pedro’s mandate. Cosimo, for his part, wanted to propose the return of the fortresses in Florence and Livorno, and he wanted to ensure imperial support against new republican machinations. Meanwhile, the much-anticipated birth of his first-born son took place in May 1541.64 After presiding over the solemn baptism of Francesco on

61 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4070, n.n. Military men (such as Antonio de Aldana—father of the poet, Francisco de Aldana—who had lived in Florence with his family since 1540) acted as couriers for the marquis of Villafranca, as the latter wrote in another letter to Musefilo from Padula in late May 1541, at the conclusion of his inspection tour: “I do not send you any letters for the lord duke, my son, because I am sending Aldana to inform you all about the Berbers, and that information should be passed on to his Majesty” (“con esta no os embio cartas para el Sor. duque mi hijo porque embio a aldana para que le de quenta de todo lo de berberia, y que de allí pase a su magestad”), ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4070, n.n. 62 See Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI pp. 101–14 and 144. 63 P. Musefilo to Cosimo I, Naples, September 1, 1540, “Narrazioni e documenti,” p. 112. 64 For that reason, “La Duchessa mandò a Regalar al Vice Rè suo Padre uno anello, che nel Riceverlo lo bacciò et se lo messe del dito Giovio e disse: Qui quedará asta la muorte per amor del mio hijo e hija,” (“The Duchess sent as a gift to the Viceroy her Father a ring, which, when he received it, he kissed and put on his middle finger, saying, ‘Here it will stay until death, for love of my son and my daughter’”), ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 a, nº 3. The birth was celebrated by key exponents of the court culture encouraged by Cosimo and Eleonora, such as the old republican, Benedetto Varchi, who, after praising the

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August 1, Cosimo named Eleonora regent in his absence. On August 25, he arrived in Genoa for the interview with Charles V. Among the many suits and litigations brought by the emperor’s representatives and adherents in Italy, the issue of Alessandro de’ Medici’s inheritance confronted Cosimo and Margaret of Austria. There was also the matter of the duke of Florence’s reconciliation with the marquis of Vasto, governor of Milan. The resolution of these matters was entrusted to Nicolas de Granvelle.65 On August 20, the viceroy had left Naples with García’s fleet. That same day, don Pedro wrote to Cosimo so that he would arrange adequate lodgings for the viceroy and the large contingent that was accompanying him to Lucca,66 where the anticipated meeting was to take place.67 In don Pedro’s retinue was Musefilo, who wrote to Cosimo on September 1 from Gaeta, where the fleet had stopped to pick up Ascanio Colonna, who needed imperial support following his recent war with the pope. In Civitavecchia, Cardinal Juan

duchess in numerous compositions, would reflect on the family alliance in poems dedicated to the duke and duchess’s son. “CRESCETE Signor mio, crescete, e i vostri Avolo, e padre, e tanti illustri Heroi Dell’un sangue, e dell’altro eguale, poi Che vincer non si pon sì rari mostri; [. . .] Trema tristo il gran Barbaro, e si lagna D’udire in voi per suoi ultimi danni, Giunto insieme il valor d’Italia, e Spagna,” (Grow, my Lord, grow, like your Ancestors, father, and many illustrious Heroes of one blood and the other, because such rare prodigies cannot be vanquished; . . . The great Barbarian trembles sadly and complains to hear that the valor of Italy and Spain [is] joined in you for his final destruction). B. Varchi, I Sonetti (Venice, 1555), p. 173. 65 Galluzzi, Historia del Gran Ducato, Bk. I, Chap. 3, p. 106. 66 Together with family members and several of the kingdom’s noblemen, the viceroy was accompanied by numerous servants and household regulars, such as the poet Luigi Tansillo, who would later record in verse conversations he had during those weeks with other retainers of the viceroy, such as Rosso, the jester; doctor Paolo Tucca; or the knight, Cola María Rocco. See “Capitolo XIX. Lettera al Signor Cola Maria Rocco” (ca. 1549): “. . . Penso al camin di Lucca e de la Spezia” (“I think of the road to Lucca and La Spezia”); and “Capitolo XXI: Al Signor Duca di Sessa. Capriccio, nel quale si loda la gelosia (ca. 1549)”: “Quando Cesare e il Papa erano a Lucca,/Soleva il Rosso meco conversare/Il più del tempo, e v’era spesso il Tucca . . .,” (“Capriccio, in which jealousy is praised: When Caesar and the Pope were at Lucca/Rosso used to converse with me/much of the time, and Tucca was often there”), L. Tansillo, Capitoli Giocosi e Satirici di Luigi Tansillo editi ed inediti, ed. S. Volpicella (Naples: Libreria di Dura, 1870), pp. 300 and 328. 67 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.070, n.n.

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de Toledo would embark, joining the rest of his family: In addition to the viceroy, there were his children García and Luis, and his sonin-law, the duke of Castrovillari, all of whom, as the Florentine representative reported in his detailed description of the trip, would have preferred to lodge with Cosimo than with don Pedro.68 From Florence, Eleonora provided lodgings for her father’s retinue.69 Cosimo, who had gone by sea to Genoa to welcome the emperor, traveled with him to Lucca, where the viceroy was awaiting them.70 Once the conversations with the pope were over, the duke and his fatherin-law accompanied Charles V as far as the port of Munistero, where he embarked for La Spezia, where he would meet his fleet. Back in Lucca, the viceroy left with Cosimo for Florence, where Eleonora was awaiting them. With the political objectives of the father-in-law and the son-in-law fulfilled through the renewal of imperial trust, the family reunion in the city of the Medicis confirmed the ties binding the two houses.71 The meeting in Lucca had again confirmed the close relationship between don Pedro and the main counselors of the emperor, Nicolas de Granvelle and Francisco de los Cobos, great patrons of the court, who controlled an extensive clientelage network in Italy, and with whom the viceroy’s nephew, the young third duke of Alba, was beginning to ally. Don Pedro maintained a concentrated correspondence with them, and that, along with the reports from his representatives in Spain, let him closely follow the evolution of imperial favor toward his major supporters, and he was kept current on what was happening in the court. When the court was in Valladolid, in February 1542, don Pedro told Cosimo about the closeness to the emperor that the duke of Alba and Francisco de los Cobos were

Pirro Musefilo to Cosimo I, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.070, n.n. On September 3, the elders of the council of the Republic of Lucca informed him that the rooms had already been selected according to the requirements of the duchess: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 a, n. 158. 70 According to B. Baldini, Vita di Cosimo Medici, p. 32, “dimorò quivi il Duca tanto quanto gli stettero il Pontefice et l’Imperadore, il quale rimase si bene appagato del senno et del sentimento del Duca” (“The Duke remained there just as long as the Pope and the Emperor, who was well pleased with the good sense and the sensitivity of the Duke”). 71 In typical anecdotal fashion is how the biographer Filonico expresses it when describing the meeting between don Pedro and his daughter: Filonico Alicarnaseo, Vita di Pietro di Toledo, ff. 27–27v. 68 69

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both enjoying.72 The latter had written about the interest that the emperor had shown in the duke of Florence, as don Pedro hurried to relate to Cosimo: “From Bracamonte’s letter of January 26, it is known that the supreme Knight Commander has understood that His Majesty is very happy about the person, willingness, and work of the lord duke of Florence, and he wants to see him doing well, and that he considers him to be his very good friend and servant and that his affairs will continue to improve each and every day.”73 While Cobos and Alba cultivated the favor of the emperor, in Rome, Cardinal Juan de Toledo performed a similar function with the pope.74 The family alliance played a role on the major stages of the imperial and the papal courts as well as both in Naples, which was well established as the main viceregal court thanks largely to don Pedro, and in Florence, a blossoming court, where Cosimo would ultimately forge one of the most polished European models of court society. Between the two centers, communications were growing ever stronger, founded on the confluence of the ethic of blood relations and patronage, which required the distribution of honors and considerations to members and relatives of both houses. Starting in 1539, the brothers of Eleonora—Fadrique, García,75 and Luis de Toledo76—as well Naples, February 20, 1542, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4073, f. 43. Ibidem.: “por letras de bracamonte de XXVI de henero se entiende Como del Comendador mayor a entendido que su mt. esta muy contento de la persona voluntad y obra del Sor. duque de florencia y que desea todo su acrecentamiento y que le tiene por muy buen amigo y servidor y que sus cosas se yran acrecentando cada dia mas.” 74 Shortly after, the viceroy told Cosimo that the cardinal was returning to Rome. Naples, February 25, 1542, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4073, f. 37. 75 In late 1539, García expressed his loyalty to Cosimo in response to a previous letter from the latter stating his wish to strengthen ties with his new wife’s family: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.068, n.n. In 1543, Neapolitan nobles like the countess of Nola asked him to intercede before Cosimo on behalf of her interests in Florence which, in this case, related to the pardon of one of her relatives, a Neapolitan knight who was imprisoned in the Tuscan capital: Naples, May 25, 1543, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, Carteggio Universale di Cosimo I, filza 360, f. 464. García also maintained regular contact with other Florentine figures, such as Pandolfo di Roberto Pucci: Naples, March 15, 1548, ASF, Carte Strozziane, Series I, A.C., 54 and 65. 76 He was expressing his intention of going and kissing the hand of his brotherin-law when the duchess “gives birth to a son; then I’ll feel compelled to recognize him as my lord as I do Your Excellency”: Naples, October 28, 1539, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4073, ff. 13–14v. Eleonora’s older sister, Isabella, and her new husband, the duke of Castrovillari, would make similar statements: Naples, 72 73

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as other relatives and retainers living in Tuscany began to solicit favors from Cosimo.77 Francisco de Toledo, cousin of the viceroy, living in Rome since the beginning of the 1530s and characterized both for his cultural interests as well as for his personal ambition, would become a privileged interlocutor before the imperial court on behalf of the court of Cosimo and Eleonora.78 He would also be a patron of a large number of Spanish clients thanks to the favor that he enjoyed with the duke of Florence. In this way, rising careers were forged, such as those of the Castillo brothers, Antonio, a rector in the university of Pisa, and Jerónimo, who would serve as secretary to one of the sons of Cosimo, Cardinal Juan de’ Medici.79 One of the viceroy’s cousins, also named Pedro de Toledo, lived in Italy and, as we have seen, encouraged the translation of Seneca’s De beneficiis. He would also become well established in Florence and would distinguish himself for his participation in the patronage of the duke and duchess by joining the new Florentine academy in 1544, only a few months after Luigi Tansillo created it,80 and sub-

June 21, 1540, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.070, n.n. Other letters from Isabella de Toledo to Cosimo I in ASF, Mediceo del Principato, Carteggio Universale di Cosimo I, filza 362, f. 592 (Naples, September 18, 1543); filza 369, f. 384 (Naples, October 27, 1544); filza 372, f. 27 (Naples, January 10, 1545), pertaining to various family affairs and favors requested by the duke and the duchess of Castrovillari for their proteges in Florence. 77 In 1542, Luis de Toledo would write Cosimo to ask that he grant a favor to a relative in his household: Naples, July 9, 1542, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, fol. 156. Two years later, Luis insisted once more that Cosimo provide protection to one of the sons of the mayor of Villafranca del Bierzo, who lived in Naples and had run into trouble with the law: Naples, January 10, 1545, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 249. 78 See L. Gomez Rivas, El Virrey del Perú don Francisco de Toledo (Madrid: Instituto Provincial de Investigaciones y Estudios Toledanos, 1994), pp. 85–95. 79 Antonio del Castillo would recall his reliance on Don Francisco in a letter he wrote to Cosimo from Naples on April 10, 1560: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.075, n.n. 80 See Tansillo, Il Canzoniere, E. Pèrcopo, “Introduzione,” vol. 1, p. XLIX and sonnet CCCI, vol. II, p. 162. Tansillo was accepted into the Academy degli Unimidi on May 18, 1544, and Pedro de Toledo was accepted on November 4. Pèrcopo and later authors who researched the members of the academy confuse Eleonora of Toledo’s cousin with the viceroy. On November 5, 1544, Niccolò Martelli wrote a letter to Pedro de Toledo to congratulate him on his acceptance into the academy the previous day, and he appealed to the lineage and personal merits of the new member, after evoking Cosimo’s protection: “. . . onde voi leggiadrissimo S. D. PIETRO non vi sdegnarete se i meriti vostri e la gratia delle persone vi hanno dato poco per ritenerse assai offerendole incontracambio del’chiaro sangue e Illustre di Tolledo farne vi simulacro eterno con empio scorno del tempo e de l’oblio alle

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sequently demonstrating an ongoing interest in academic learning,81 even as he was working diligently as Cosimo’s diplomatic and court representative, first in Naples, and later in Rome.82 In this dense correspondence, the youngest son of the viceroy, Luis de Toledo, stands out. He was educated in Naples by the humanist, Girolamo Borgia, and with a doctorate in law, he was destined for an ecclesiastical career. With the support of Cosimo, don Pedro continuously pursued the cardinal’s hat for his son, and Luis became a privileged spokesperson for the two families. He repeatedly expressed his allegiance to his influential brother-in-law, reporting to Cosimo on the events in the Neapolitan court. On March 6, 1542, he wrote that the viceroy “is two steps away from idolatry” as a result of the new portrait that Cosimo had sent of don Pedro’s granddaughter. Luis also recalled hunts in Pisa, comparing them to what had taken place in the area of the Astroni west of Naples. In an intimate tone filled with images of everyday family life, but not exempt from courtly adulation, he went on to comment on the most recent rumors of war in Italy.83 Similar regard was shown a little later by his older brother, García, when he wrote to Cosimo to say—in between news about family gifts and courtly references— that he was willing to put the viceregal fleet at his service.84 For his part, from Spain, Fadrique, the eldest son of don Pedro and heir to the marquisate of Villafranca, also offered his services to Cosimo, and then, appealing to his family connections and the well-being of his house, he in turn asked for various considerations for close friends and protégés.85 Florence was also becoming an obligatory reference point for leading groups in the kingdom of Naples. Barons from the provinces, nobles and courtiers from the capital, merchants and administrative representatives all went to Cosimo more and more regularly to ask that he protect their interests in Tuscany. At the same time, the

future genti che verranno,” (N. Martelli, Il Primo libro delle lettere, Florence, 1546, p. 54. 81 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 466. 82 His frequent letters to Cosimo are evidence of this, such as the one written from Naples on February 20, 1542: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 35. 83 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, ff. 38–38v. 84 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 357, 1ª parte, ff. 5–6. 85 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 357, 1ª parte, ff. 245–245v. and filza 355, f. 418.

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Florentine market constituted a useful stage for the circulation of wealth between the southern kingdom and the rest of the empire, as was evidenced on July 28, 1543, when the viceroy asked Cosimo to protect the business interests of the Fugger family and guarantee the passage of silver being sent by the German bankers to the mint that produced the kingdom’s currency.86 As he reinforced his authority and reputation, Cosimo was becoming firmer in his desire to consolidate his independence through the recuperation of the two forts still controlled by the Spaniards, which he had demanded during the meeting with the emperor in 1541. With that objective, he mobilized all of the court’s influential figures. Cosimo took advantage of the recent imperial offer made to the pope, for the possible creation of a Farnesian state in Milan or Siena, to request for himself, as compensation, the fulfillment of his old demands.87 The question of the forts would demonstrate the strength of the familial bonds, as the viceroy and his allies—beginning with Nicolas de Granvelle himself—were brought in to intervene in support of the duke of Florence. In 1543, with a new meeting between the duke and the emperor to occur in Genoa, they could not postpone discussing the issue. In May, the viceroy wrote to his son-inlaw that the meeting was granted. Charles V, entangled in a new war with Francis I of France, found himself in economic difficulties, and Pedro de Toledo urged Cosimo to take advantage of that to recover the forts in exchange for a sum, the amount of which it was urgent to set immediately. Don Pedro mobilized his contacts in the court—Idiáquez, Figueroa, and Granvelle—to favorably dispose the emperor to Cosimo’s petitions, “both in order to serve His Majesty as well as being of particular benefit to you yourself and your house” (“tanto por ser servicio de su magestad como por el particular beneficio suyo y de su casa”). Those interests that the viceroy considered mutual extended to other matters, such as the support given to Benedetto Accolti, Cardinal of Ravenna, in his disputes with the pope.88 In June 1543, when Cosimo managed to get the emperor to

86 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 217. For more on the relationship between Cosimo and the Fugger family, see G. F. Von Pölniz, “Cosimo I Medici und die europäische Anleihenpolitik der Fugger,” Quellen und Forschungen aus Italianischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 22 (1942): 207–237. 87 See Spini, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato, pp. 210–214. 88 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 360, ff. 214–214v.

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accept an agreement to return the forts in exchange for 150,000 escudos, Cardinal Juan de Toledo hurried to put income from his Burgos bishopric at the duke’s disposal to cover the amount.89 Juan de Toledo strengthened the ties that united him with the duke and duchess of Florence both at the family level90 and also at the government level. In 1544, he intervened to get Cosimo to permit 89 “The other day I wrote Your Excellency to offer my congratulations regarding the favor His Majesty granted all of us regarding the fortresses. At that time, I was brief because time was lacking. Now, given that it is necessary to carry out what His Majesty has offered, and since friends and servants are necessary in these times, and since no one born has to a greater degree fit that role, nor is there anyone who owes more to Your Excellency than I, I would like to offer everything I have and that I am worth. And, therefore, I beg Your Excellency to grant me the favor of taking from my bishopric any amount you need for any period of time necessary, for which I will send an open order to rent it for as long as you wish. Meanwhile, in order to better accomplish this I will retire to Naples and incur as few expenses as possible until Your Excellency has taken what you need. And though I currently find myself with funds, I would not wait too long. I know that for this type of matter you will want to entrust your attention to me before anyone else, for my will and obligation towards you is greater than one could wish for. I won’t go on further but I insist on my offer, which is the only way I can repay all that I owe you. As soon as I receive word of what must be done, it will be carried out. May God guide you and protect Your Excellency’s life and health, with continual improvements. Parma, June 19, 1543. Your Lordship’s faithful servant, the Cardinal of Burgos” (“El otro dia escreví a v. exa. congratulandome a la merced que su magt. nos ha hecho a todos en lo de las fortalezas: y fue entonces breve porque el tiempo no me dio mas lugar: Agora viendo que es menester complir con su magt. lo que se le se le ofrescio: y que para estas necissidades son menester los amigos y servidores: y que no hay persona nascida a quien mayor parte aya cabido de lo hecho: ni que mas deva a v. exa. que yo, paresciome de ofrescer todo lo que yo puedo y valgo: y assi supplico a v. exa. si en el mundo me desea hazer merced que tome sobre mi obispado la summa de dineros que le paresciere por el tiempo que sera servido: para lo qual yo embiare un mandato libre para arrendarlo por el tiempo que querra: y para entretanto porque mejor se pueda hazer yo me recogere en napoles: y estare con la menos costa que podiere hasta tanto que sea complido lo que v. exa. tomare: y si al presente me hallara con dineros: yo no sperara esta dilacion. y porque se que en un caso como este antes se querra encargar v. exa. de mi que de nadie: pues la voluntad y obligacion es la mayor que se puede desear, no dire en esta mas sino que en todo me remito a la obra: con la qual y no con otra cosa puedo servir lo mucho que devo: y con el primero me mande avisar de la orden que tengo de tener: porque luego se porna en effecto guielo todo nro. señor: y conserve la vida y salud de v. exa. con todo crescimiento. en Parma XIX de Junio 1543. Servidor de V. E. Cardlis. Burgs”). ASF, Mediceo del Principato. filza 3.876, n.n. 90 On December 1543, the cardinal, now in Rome, sent several presents to the duke and duchess, and he wrote Cosimo to congratulate him on Eleonora’s improved health, insisting, “I beg Your Excellency always to keep me informed of how both of you are doing, and how I may be of help, for you know I shall have such happiness receiving either type of news . . .” (“Supplico a v. e. que siempre me hagan saber como se hallan y lo que aca se ofresciere en que yo les sirva pues sabe v.e.,

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the recruitment of imperial troops in his domain.91 The cardinal inundated the Medici court with petitions for positions and considerations for the members of an extensive clientele of scholars, religious men, and knights, which he had been constructing between Naples, Rome, and Bologna, where he was the patron of the Colegio Español de San Clemente. The favors requested for the “Neapolitan knights who are friends of mine” (“cavalleros de Napoles que son amigos mios”) or for attendants from his house in Rome included pardons or indulgences for sundry crimes committed by people close to the two houses.92 His recommendations extended to students for the University of Pisa, revitalized by Cosimo, as well as to certain teachers and scholars who were close to his Roman circle, for whom he asked judicial or administrative appointments,93 and professors from the Colegio Español in Bologna or from other centers in that city.94 Added to all of that were petitions for military posts. In the summer of 1546, when Cosimo decided to build new galleys, Juan de Toledo would ask that the title of commander of the fleet be bestowed on the Knight of Malta, Father Pedro del Monte, cousin of the Cardinal del Monte, the future Julius III, with whom Juan had a close friendship.95 The duke of Florence confirmed the alliance with his wife’s family, attending to most of these sorts of petitions and interceding with the emperor in 1545 on the occasion of the trial of García de Toledo due to a brawl with the duke of Ferrandina. Cosimo asked for a pardon for one of García’s servants implicated in that episode, appealing to his own services “apart from the memory that Your Majesty should have of past and present service of the ancestral house of la merced y contentamiento que con ambas cosas rescibire . . .”). Rome, December 20, 1543, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.876, n.n. 91 Rome, April 21, 1544, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.876, n.n. 92 Cardinal Juan to Eleonora of Toledo, Rome, March 17, 1542: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3876, n.n. 93 Such favors included those who served the Medici as well as the Toledos or those close to them, such as the widowed duchess of Florence, Margaret of Austria: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3876, n.n. 94 Juan de Toledo requested a post for the chancellor of the Colegio de España and for an auditor from Bologna: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.876, n.n. 95 Cardinal Juan de Toledo to Cosimo I, Rome, August 14, 1546: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.876, n.n. On other occasions, the Cardinal of Burgos had requested favors for the knights of the Order of Saint John. On January 26, 1544, he wrote Cosimo a letter from Rome: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.876, n.n.

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Alba, for which it should be treated in all instances differently from the others” and he insisted, “I desire and beg Your Majesty with all my heart to deign to recognize me and my ancestral house of Alba in such a way that encourages others who are desirous of serving you, not only to do so in the ordinary manner, but to oblige them with a loving demonstration toward us.” He assigned Francisco de Toledo to present the plea to the emperor personally.96 Nevertheless, the mutual understanding—based on the interests of the houses and the maintenance of the imperial order in Italy—was not exempt from discrepancies. In November 1545, the viceroy expressed his displeasure over the lack of coordination in the matter of the trial against García and over Cosimo’s refusal to allow Neapolitan troops to cross Florentine territory en route to northern Italy. In an angry and hurt tone, don Pedro again interspersed political with private matters, extending his annoyance to Cosimo’s refusal to release from studies in Pisa the famous Aristotlean philosopher of Naples, Simone Porzio, whose services as a physician the viceroy pleadingly demanded.97 However, such disagreements took a back seat to the neccessity of working together to address the many interests that bound the two lineages and the territories under their administration. This was apparent in what don Pedro wrote one month later, when he looked to the good offices of Eleonora as an intermediary and returned to his habitual solicitation of concessions for his close friends.98 In March 1546, the viceroy supported Cosimo in a new dispute with the pope, who had issued an arrest order for the duke’s secretary, Cornasole. Cardinal Juan de Toledo and the imperial ambassador in Rome, Juan de Vega, responded with protestations. Don Pedro kept Cosimo abreast of the details,99 and he urged Vega to

96 AGS, Estado, leg. 1440, 131, Cosimo I to Charles V, Poggio (August 23, 1545): “oltre alla memoria che v.m. debbe tener della servitu passata et presente della casa dalva la qual differentemente da quella debbe esser tractata in ogni caso da laltre”; “desidero e suplico quanto piu posso v.mta. che voglia ricognoscer et me et la casa dalva di sorte che dia animo alli altri che ben desiderono servirla non solo di farlo ordinariamente ma di obbligarli con si amorevol demostration verso di noi.” 97 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, ff. 174–174 rev. 98 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, ff. 276. Sancho de Mardones was the brother of Lope de Mardones, who was the viceroy’s majordomo as well as one of his most trusted men. 99 “The Lord Cardinal, my brother, and Lord Juan de Vega write me from

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continue protesting that Paul III’s stance was antithetical to diplomatic custom.100 Vega, according to what he was reporting to the emperor, had made the pontiff understand about “the care that Your Majesty must take in matters relating to the duke, because the ill will of His Holiness rankles him.” Meanwhile, the viceroy wrote again to Cosimo to ask that he monitor the movements of the Farnese,101 because “this is more a matter relating to the authority and favor of His Majesty than particularly to Your Lordship.”102 The merging of both principles—service to the emperor and the private interests of his vassals and representatives—would be visible again a year later, during the Neapolitan revolt of 1547 over the viceroy’s prospective introduction of the Spanish Inquisition, which gave Cosimo another opportunity to reiterate the value of his support. The crisis, unleashed during grave convulsions throughout Italy, constituted more proof of the solidity of the familial axis, as the duke of Florence confirmed through his quick reaction when he mobilized a contingent of troops for Naples (although, ultimately, don Pedro’s control of the situation obviated the need to send them).103 Cosimo, who had contributed to the financing for the German campaign in 1546 (albeit with an amount smaller than that solicited through Francisco

Rome [about] the imprisonment of Your Lordship’s secretary, Cornasole, thus the letter turns to bad news. I replied to Juan de Vega and a copy of that letter accompanies this one that I am sending. Just as I wrote to him, I say to Your Lordship, that you tell me whatever else might be offered and whether there is anything I should provide from here” (“De roma me escriven el Sor. Cardenal mi hermano y el S Juan de vega la prision del secretario de v.s. cornasole tomando las scripturas que es mala materia. lo que yo respondo al dicho Juan de vega vera v.s. por la copia de su caseta que va con esta a que me remito. lo mesmo que escrivo del Digo a v.s. que me avise de lo de mas que se ofrecera y si le parecera que de aqui se deva proveer algo”). Pedro de Toledo to Cosimo I, Pozzuoli, March 23, 1546, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, f. 322. 100 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza, 4.073, f. 323, cfr. Marques del Saltillo, Juan de Vega, embajador de Carlos V en Roma (1543–1547) (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Politicos, 1946), pp. 167ff: “el cuidado que V. M. ha de tener en las cosas del duque, pues no teniendo buena voluntad S.S. al duque le pesaba harto.” 101 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4.073, ff. 322 and 340–340v.: letter from the viceroy to the emperor, in which he complains about the same matter; written in Pozzuoli, March 2, 1546. 102 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4073, f. 332 (Pozzuoli, March 29, 1546): “esto mas toca a la abtoridad y servicio de su magestad que al particular de v. sª.” 103 S. Ammirato, Istorie Fiorentine (Florence: L. Marchini and G. Becherini, 1824–27), Book XXXIII, p. 346. Historia del Gran Ducato, Bk. I, Chap. 5, p. 158. See also G. B. Adriani, Istoria de’ suoi tempi, 8 vols. (Prato: Fratelli Giachetti, 1822–23), 2: 322–324.

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de Toledo),104 saw his relevance for maintaining the imperial order in Italy again recognized in 1547. During the crisis of Piacenza, Charles V himself insisted that Cosimo coordinate his activities with the viceroy in Naples and with the new governor of Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, in their response to the French machinations.105 The consolidation of the relationships between the duke of Florence and the emperor’s representatives did not impede Cosimo’s growing autonomy from imperial control, which was demonstrated in 1549, on the death of Paul III. During the conclave to choose his successor, the hopes harbored by the principal families represented in

104

See Francisco de Toledo to Charles V, Florence, August 16, 1546, AGS, Estado, leg. 1440, 135. 105 “Assuming that you shall be continuously informed by don Diego de Mendoza, our ambassador in Rome, and others, about the conversations and plots brewing between His Holiness and the King of France because of the Piacenza matter, and considering that although for now it seems implausible that they would go to war, they could still plot against us, and it is wise to think of disrupting their plans by all means necessary. We should write to the distinguished don Fernando de Gonzaga, our governor in the State of Milan and Captain General, so that he will be forewarned and ready, so that having with you, and with our viceroy of Naples, the necessary intelligence and information, you will be prepared and look to preventing and disrupting, if necessary, the maneuvers and plans of those who wish us harm and want to throw Italy into disarray. I have no doubt that whatever you may have to do on your part to serve our state favorably you will do it with the willingness and deeds you have demonstrated up to now, and in keeping with the full confidence I bestow upon you.” (“Presuponiendo que sereys continamente avisado por don diego de mendoça nuestro embaxador en Roma y otros muchos de las platicas y tramas que se andan urdiendo entre su santidad y el Rey de Francia con occasion de lo de plasencia y considerando que aunque por agora no parezca verissimill que quieran mover la guerra, podrian machinar alguna cosa en deservicio nuestro y que es bien pensar de obviar a sus designos por todas las vias que ser pudiere screvymos al Illustrisimo don fernando de gonzaga nuestro governador del stado de Milan y capitan general que este prevenido y sobrel aviso para que teniendo con vos la buena intelligencia y correspondencia que se requiere y assi mismo con nuestro Visorrey de Napoles os halleys todos apercebidos y se mire de prevenir y obviar siendo menester a los andamientos y designos de los que querran procurar nuestro daño y perturbar la Italia, no dubdando que en todo loq ue por vuestra parte se huviere de hazer y conviniere a nuestro estado y servicio os mostrareys con la voluntad y obras que hasta aqui y conforme a la entera confiança que de vuestra persona hazemos.”). Augsburg, November 22, 1547, AGS, Estado, leg. 1440, 152. On October 7, the emperor thanked Cosimo for working together with Ferrante Gonzaga and for “the courage you showed him in that past matter of Piacenza, which is in accordance with the willingness you have always expressed through actions in our state and duty” (“la demostracion de animo que le offrecistes en esta occurrencia passada de Plasencia que es conforme a la voluntad que con obras aveys siempre mostrado en las cosas de nuestro estado y servicio”), AGS, Estado, leg. 1440, 154.

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the College of Cardinals and supported by the emperor or the king of France again reflected the division of interests in the imperial camp. There was an open confrontation between the ambassador in Rome, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, and the viceroy and the duke of Florence. From the outset, Don Diego supported Cardinal Salviati, a notorious adversary of the Medicis despite his family ties. It reached a point that the emperor had to send some forceful instructions telling Salviati to change his position. Meanwhile, the Toledo and Medici families concentrated their efforts on the election of Cardinal Juan de Toledo. In doing that, Cosimo did not hesitate to approach the Farnese.106 He sent Pedro de Toledo, the cousin of the viceroy,107 to Rome with the mission of procuring the support of influential Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Meanwhile, Cosimo’s father-in-law deployed his troops along the Neapolitan border with the Papal States, to add more palpable pressure,108 and he nutured strongs hopes for the success of his brother, Juan.109 During the months that the conclave lasted, Pedro de Toledo, the duke’s representative and criado (servant), kept Cosimo informed of every detail.110 On January 21, Pedro communicated that in the most recent round of voting, Cardinal Toledo had supported Cardinal Morone given the risk that Englishman Reginald Pole might be

106 According to Galluzzi, “sperava egli con l’unione del Farnese di potere elevare al Papato il Cardinale di Burgos, fratello del Vice-Rè, e zio della Duchessa, e dirigere a suo talento il Duca Ottavio,” (“he hoped that with the alliance with the Farnese, the Cardinal de Burgos, the brother of the Viceroy and the uncle of the Duchess, could be raised to the Papacy and skillfully guide Duke Ottavio”), Galluzzi, Storia del Gran Ducato di Toscana, vol. I, Bk. I, Chap. 6, pp. 177–178. 107 In 1548, Pedro de Toledo, along with Lorenzo Pagni, the bishop of Cortona, and Agnolo Niccolini, was among those entrusted with accompanying the young Francesco de’ Medici to Genoa on the occasion of the arrival of Prince Philip with the fleet commanded by García de Toledo, and which would shortly after also take Francesco, his nephew, back to Livorno. See Carteggio di Cosimo I, in ASF, Indice Segretaria Vecchia, nº 61; Galluzzi, Historia del Gran Ducato, Bk. I, Chap. 5, p. 174 and A. Gonzalez Palencia and E. Mele, Vida y obra de don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 3 vols. (Madrid: Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, 1941), 2: 466–69. 108 On September 28, 1549, the viceroy gave his first order for the troops to prepare in Castelnuovo for the eventuality of the pope’s death; with confirmation of the death of Paul III, detailed instructions were issued on November 9 regarding accommodations and supplies for the companies of “men of arms” who would deploy along the border with the Papal States: ASN, Collaterale, Curiae, vol. 11, ff. 227v.–228v. and vol. 12, ff. 25–26 109 See Archivio Storico Italiano, IX, 1846, Doc. IV, nº 8, p. 120 and nº 10, p. 121. 110 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.969, f. 10.

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elected.111 However, in the end, another cardinal, someone even more favorable to the Medici, would be chosen: the Tuscan Giovan Maria Ciocchi del Monte, who became Pope Julius III. On February 9, 1550, Pedro wrote to Cosimo, “Thanks be to God. We are out of the conclave, and we have a pope, and in my view, we could not have asked for anyone better, in terms of what matters to Your Excellency. [He is] someone who only talks of the great obligation that he has to Your Excellency. He knows that Your Excellency has made him pope . . . The Cardinal of Burgos [Cardinal Toledo] has behaved in this election with such goodness and wisdom that it seems that God has enlightened him. This election has gone utterly against the purposes of don Diego [de Mendoza] and against those of Mantua [Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga] and Pacheco, and it happens that Pacheco protested strongly to the Cardinal of Burgos last night.”112 With the help of his relatives, the Toledos, the election of Julius III had implied absolute triumph for Cosimo de’ Medici. The conclave had mobilized the energies of both houses to the same degree that it had aligned their adversaries within the imperial faction, from Ambassador Diego Hurtado de Mendoza to Cardinals Ercole Gonzaga, Cuevas, and Pedro Pacheco, strong opponent of Toledo policy since his visita to the kingdom in 1536. For his part, Cosimo was at odds with don Diego for his opposition positions on Siena, which would become radicalized in subsequent years.113

ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.969, f. 15. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.969, ff. 17–17v.: “bendito sea dios. Somos fuera del conclave con un papa que a mi parecer no le podíamos pedir mejor para lo que a vuestra excelencia toca El qual jamas habla sino en la grande obligacipn en que es a vuestra excelencia. Conoce que vuestra excelencia le a hecho papa [. . .] El cardenal de burgos se a portado en esta elección con tanta bondad y cordura que parece que dios le a alumbrado. Esta electión ha sido totalmente contra la voluntad de don diego [de Mendoza] y qontra la de mantua pacheco y queva el qual pacheco hizo anoche grandes protestas al cardenal de burgos.” 113 This is reflected in Cosimo’s orders to his ambassador, Concini, to present his complaints against Mendoza to the emperor again: Florence, December 1, 1552, ASF, Caste Strozziane, Serie I, C. 7–10. Cfr. W. S. Maltby, El gran duque de Alba. Un siglo de España y de Europa. 1507–1582 (orig. Eng. ed., 1983; Madrid: Turner, 1985), pp. 100–101, which stresses the relevance of the 1549 conclave for giving rise to factions that, in the court, which would cohere around the Toledo and Mendoza families. For more on the conclave, see G. Canestrini, Legazioni di Averardo Serristori, ambasciatore di Cosimo I a Carlo V e in corte di Roma (1537–1568) (Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1853), pp. 305–306; G. de Leva, “La elezione di Papa Giulio III,” Rivista Storica Italiana 1 (1884): 21–36 and Gonzalez Palencia and Mele, Vida y obras de don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 2: 129–43. 111 112

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Meanwhile, it was necessary in every way to guarantee influence in the papal court. Before leaving as the new pope’s envoy on a special mission to the emperor to secure cooperation between the two top powers in Christendom and to clear up any suspicions that may have arisen during the conclave, Pedro de Toledo, the representative, wrote to Cosimo on Feburary 1, 1550.114 Pedro asked for Cosimo’s intervention so that Cardinal Cornaro, whom he believed to be one of the duke’s firmest supporters in the Curia, could acquire an ancient bust of Scipio that he coveted even though it belonged to Cardinal Ridolfi.115 Once again, the collector’s drive, unleashed by a taste for the classical, would turn into a political weapon in the struggle for favor that entangled families and factions, not only in the ducal court but also in the viceregal and papal courts. In fact, the exchange of art objects was a regular activity between the Medici and the Toledo families. As Vasari testifies, portraits, jewels, ancient and modern sculpture, Carrara mables and other materials, books— as well as the artists themselves and aesthetic criteria—circulated in abundance between Naples and Florence during the years in which

114 In his instructions to Toledo, Julio III indicated, “Che la causa principale per la quale havemo fatta l’elettione di voi Don Pedro di Toledo, oltre la nobiltà et altre buone qualità vostre, è stata per che essendovi voi trovata in conclave presso di un personaggio della integrità et bontà che è Monsignor Rmo. di Burgos [ Juan de Toledo] havete veduto tutti li andamenti di detto conclave et sete stato testimonio, quanto il proceder’ nostro, dal primo giorno sino al’ultimo sia stato con ogni humiltà et semplicità senz’haver pur mai ricercato cardinale alcuno del suo voto, ni in somma fatta alcun’altra sorte di prattica per venire al Pontificato, et per esservi voi trovato presente alla nostra elettione, et haver visto, quanto che ella [. . .] possiate referendolo a sua Maestà” (“that the principal reason for which we have chosen you, don Pedro de Toledo, apart from your nobility and other good qualities, is that having been present at the conclave with a personage of the integrity and goodness of Monsignor Reverendissimo [Cardinal] of Burgos [ Juan de Toledo], you witnessed all the proceedings of the said conclave, and as for our own operations, you have witnessed them from the first day to the last with full humility and simplicity, without ever seeking out any cardinal for his vote, nor, in short, have you engaged in any sort of negotiations to rise to the Pontificate, and for being present at our election, and for having seen all that you . . . will be able to report to His Majesty”). As stated in the cited instructions signed February 16, 1550, Toledo had to speak with the emperor about the Council and other urgent matters. Two days later, the Pope wrote an “Aggionta alla ritroscritta instruttione di Don pedro per ordine” in which he asked him to promote before the imperial court a reconciliation among various Italian houses, such as the Farnese and the Gonzaga, and to concentrate his efforts on the duke of Alba and on Granvelle, BNCF, ms. II, IV, 496. 115 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3.969, ff. 1v.–2.

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Viceroy Pedro de Toledo’s patronage resulted in major urban and palatial achievements, and Cosimo’s role as a patron of the arts began to blossom, a role that would later immortalize him.116 These relationships constituted a valuable precedent for the strong artistic exchange maintained by Cosimo as well as by his successors with the court of Philip II.117 During these years, Eleonora strengthened her support of her brothers, who looked to her to take care of their growing economic needs. In August 1548, she ordered that García be paid 6,000 ducats through the Genoese bankers, Andrea Imperiale and Giovan Battista Lercaro at the León fair.118 Luis received special favors. Eleonora paid for his frequent stays in Florence, ordering her agents in the Medici villas and possessions to furnish the provisions necessary to maintain his household119 and guaranteeing the payment of his debts, such as the 3,000 ducats that she covered with the banker Rafael Acciaiuoli in Valladolid in July 1552.120 At the same time, Eleonora

116 See C. J. Hernando Sánchez, “La vida material y el gusto artístico en la corte de Nápoles durante el Renacimiento. El inventario de bienes del virrey Pedro de Toledo,” Archivo Español de Arte 66, n. 261 (1993): 35–55; Idem, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI, pp. 504–537 and Idem, “Los jardines de Nápoles en el siglo XVI. Naturaleza y poder en la corte virreinal,” in C. Añon and J. L. Sancho, eds., Jardín y naturaleza en el reinado de Felipe II (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la conmemoración de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1998), pp. 139–153. 117 See E. L. Goldberg, “Artistic Relations between the Medici and the Spanish Courts, 1587–1621: Part I,” The Burlington Magazine, 1115, 1996, pp. 105–114; R. Mulcahy, “Two Murders, a Crucifix and the Grand Duke Serene Highness: Francesco I de’ Medici’s Gift of Cellini’s ‘Crucified Christ’ to Philip II,” in J. M. de Bernardo Arés, ed., El hispanismo angloamericano: aportaciones, problemas y perspectivas sobre historia, arte y literatura españolas (siglos XVI–XVIII). Pre-Actas: I Conferencia Internacional “Hacia un nuevo humanismo” (Cordoba, Universidad de Córdoba, 1997), vol. 2, pp. 149–175 and Idem, “El arte religioso y su función en la corte de Felipe II,” in F. Checa Cremades, ed., Felipe II. Un monarca y su época. Un príncipe del Renacimiento, exhibit catalog (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la conmemoración de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1998), pp. 159–183, esp. 166–180. 118 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 a, ff. 15–22v. 119 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 b, ff. 47–57v. 120 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 b, f. 9v. Don Luis also incurred debts with the Martelli bank, which specialized in usurious lending to the nobility. In 1522, it had among its clients many Spanish noblemen, such as Bernardino de Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the Marquis de Astorga, and Rui Gómez de Silva himself. Cfr. F. Braudel, El Mediterráneo y el mundo mediterráneo en la época de Felipe II, 2 vols. (orig. 2d ed., Paris, 1966; 2d ed., Madrid, 1980), 2: 83 and F. Ruiz Martin, Lettres marchandes échangées entre Florence et Medina del Campo (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1965) original Spanish version of the preliminary study: Pequeño Capitalismo. Gran Capitalismo: Simón Ruiz y sus negocios en Florencia (Barcelona: Crítica,

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received loans from such figures as Antonio de Aldana and the secretary to Ambassador Diego Hurtado de Mendoza.121 In 1551, Julius III’s ascendance to the papal throne would make the election of Luis de Toledo possible in the next promotion of cardinals, through the initiative of the duke and duchess of Florence, as the viceroy would declare in the instructions that he delivered in January 1552 to his son, García, who was leaving for the imperial court. In the end, however, Luis’s secular vocation would, after the death of his father, lead him to marry and abandon his promising eclesiastical career.122 His legal learning and knowledge facilitated his participation in various diplomatic missions, as is demonstrated by his presence in Florence and by the assignment he undertook at the end of 1552 to prepare Pope Julius III for the passage of imperial troops going to Siena. This episode was decisive in the territorial reorganization of central Italy, and it again confirmed the transcendence of the familial alliance strengthened through the Neapolitan-Florentine axis.

4. The Familial Alliance in Italy under Philip II Charles V in his famous instructions to the future Philip II, written in 1548 during Charles’s stay in Augsburg, would leave proof that the marriage of 1539, which expressed the union between familial and political interests concretely, was a means for insuring the loyalty of the duke of Florence.123 Peace and order in Italy—the inter-

1990), pp. 75–76. In 1560, Don Luis promised his sister he would pay down one of the numerous debts he had incurred with her: ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 a, f. 17. 121 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 5.922 b, ff. 3v. and 10v. 122 RAH, Col. Salazar y Castro, M-21, ff. 14v.–15 and 18. 123 “Ever since I provided him with the State, the duke of Florence has always shown himself to be very partial towards me and my affairs. And I believe he will continue that friendship with you, for he has received so many favors and doing so would be in his best interest, and because of the French claims to his territory. Additionally, he is indebted to the House of Toledo. Therefore, it would be wise to show good will in your dealings with him and assist him in all his affairs because, in addition to what I have already stated, he is a man of prudence and good judgment, and he keeps his State in order and well provided for, and it also matters because of the location of the aforementioned State” (“El duque de Florencia se me ha siempre mostrado, desde que le proveí del Estado, muy aficionado, y tam-

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est that overlay the alliance with one of his principal regional rulers— led the emperor to depend on household and family connections that had solidified the fortunes of his dynasty and whose spread among vassals and allies he himself had encouraged. Although this delicate combination of interests was not free of tension, it would be fundamental for the survival of the complex framework of power that the monarchy of Philip II would inherit.124 Consequently, in 1580, coinciding with the annexation of Portugal, which signaled the culminating moment for the Prudent King, Scipione Ammirato, in the dedication of Delle famiglie nobili napoletane to then Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, later Grand Duke of Tuscany, recalled the spread of familial relations of the great Florentine house in whose shadow he wrote.125 Looking back on the ties that bound the Medicis with the Toledos, the Neapolitan historian repeated the royal origins bién a mis cosas, y creo que continuará esta amistad con vos, pues ha recibido tantas buenas obras, y que haciéndolo ansí será su propio bien, y por las pretensiones de franceses de su Estado; demás desto, por el deudo que tiene con la Casa de Toledo. Y ansí será bien que lo entretengáis en su buena voluntad y favorezcáis todas sus cosas porque, demás de lo dicho, él es de buen seso y juicio y tiene su Estado con buena orden y proveído, y en parte que importa y puede, por estar donde el dicho Estado está situado.”). Charles V to Prince Philip, the Augsburg Instructions, 1548, M. Fernandez Álvarez, ed., Corpus documental de Carlos V, vol. 2, (1539 –1548) (Salamanca: [Universidad], 1975), 2: 577–578. 124 On the continuity of the family policy under the Prudent King and his interest in securing family networks among his subjects or his Italian and Spanish allies, illustrative are the validating views of S. Ammirato, “Oratione d Scipione Ammirato. Fatta nella morte di Filippo Re di Spagna. Detta Filippica terza,” Opuscoli, vol. 1, p. 129. On the shifting politics of the crown regarding the conduct of the king’s leading representatives in Italy—viceroys and governors—whose intermarriage with local lineages Philip II tried to restrict to no avail, see C. J. Hernando Sánchez, “‘Estar en nuestro lugar, representando nuestra propia persona.’ El gobierno virreinal en Italia y la Corona de Aragón bajo Felipe II,” in E. Belenguer Cebria, coord., Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, vol. 3, La Monarquía y los reinos (I) (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la conmemoración de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), pp. 215–338. 125 “di cui hare io pututo far migliore elettione, che di V.S.Illustriss. poi che trattandosi di famiglie nobili Italiane, molte delle quali sono per antica origine, ò Spagnuole, ò Franzesi, parea che fusse necessaria cosa à Principe indirizzarle, il quale non solo fosse di sangue Italiano, ma che havesse etiandio affinità, et congiuntione con legnaggi di quell’altre provincie, perche et l’opera à lei fosse più grata, et ella di lei prendesse più calda, et favorevole protezione, la qual cosa in lei pienamente si vede, poi che oltre l’esser nata per i due lati della paterna origine da quelle case, che han per molti anni tenuto l’imperio di Toscana, et di Lombardia, trahe per diversi rami della materna discendenza principio non che della casa di Tolledo, ma de Reali, et de Re istessi di Castiglia, come assai presto farò col mio albero manifesto. A questo si aggiugne, che come V.S. Illustriss. ha gia nipoti in Firenze nati del sangue imperial d’Austria, dal quale con somma gloria, et felicità

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invoked by them. He went on to report on unions with the major ruling houses of Europe: that of Austria, through the wedding in 1565 of Grand Duke Francesco I with Archduchess Joanna, and that of France, for the older union in 1533 of Catherine de’ Medici with the future Henry II. Such extensive branching of the kin network— a reflection but also a factor in the ongoing search for greater margins of autonomy from Austria and the Valois by the lords of Florence and, especially, for Ferdinando de’ Medici in both his positions, as cardinal and as Grand Duke—served to augur future greatness, courteously presented as the fruit of the broad vision and liberal virtues of the Medici lineage. The cult of family that legitimated nobles and monarchs was vital to the household economy of the families and for the security of the government, something the Medicis had been well aware of ever since the time of the republic and above all, after the establishment of the Florentine duchy, when marriage became a dynastic priority.126 That tradition would be marked by the union of Cosimo I è anchor retta la Spagna, et una gran parte del mondo, così habbiamo veduto in Francia tre Re, de quali ne regna ancor uno nati della casa de’Medici. Onde non è dubbio, che con eguale, et pari affetto d’amore, et di carità riceverà V.S. Illustriss. non solo tutto il libro, ma ciascuna famiglia di qual luogo, ò provincia ella si venga, poi che ella ha indistintamente in tutte tanta ragione di strettezza, et di parentado.” (“[None]of whom could I have made a better choice than of Your Illustrious Lordship, given that being a matter of noble Italian families, many of which are of ancient Spanish or French origin, it seemed necessary to have a Prince to guide them who was not only of Italian blood, but who had established kinship relations and connections with the lineages of those other provinces, both because the project would be more pleasing to Your Lordship and because it would take warmer and favorable protection from you, the which is something plainly seen in Your Lordship, because other than drawing your birth on both sides of your paternal origin from those houses that have for many years held empire over Tuscany and Lombardy, draw your origins, in various branches of your maternal descent, not only from the house of Toledo, but from Kings and from the very Kings of Castile, as I shall soon show with my [genealogical] tree. To this it should be added that since Your Most Illustrious Highness already has grandchildren in Florence born of the imperial blood of Austria, by which with greatest glory and felicity Spain and a large part of the world is still ruled, so we have seen three Kings of France, one of whom still reigns, born of the house of Medici. Therefore there can be no doubt that with equal and similar affection of love and of charity Your Most Illustrious Lordship will receive not only this entire book, but each family, whatever its place or province of origin, as it has, without distinctions, many reasons for closeness and of kinship.”) S. Ammirato, Delle famiglie nobili napoletane (Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, 1580). 126 For more on the Medici precedents of that policy during the Republican period, see M. M. Bullard, “Marriage Politics and the Family in Florence: The Strozzi-Medici Alliance in 1508,” American Historical Review 84, n. 3 (1979): 668–87.

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with Eleonora of Toledo in 1539, even though the wedding in 1536 between the previous duke, Alessandro, and the illegitimate daughter of Charles V, Margaret of Austria, set a precedent for the family’s aspirations that would be brilliantly continued in the following generation, under Philip II. Although the expectations of the Medici family in that era undoubtedly increased—driven by its royal ambitions, partially realized in the papal concession in 1569 of the Grand Ducal crown—the relationship with the Toledo family did not end. The latter’s prominence in the Spanish court meant that they continued being a fundamental player in the maintenance of the unstable equilibrium reached after the retreat of French ambitions in Italy, which led to the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. In this aristocratic universe—at once social and political, cultural and symbolic—that constitutes the theater for the princes of Italy,127 values and modes of comportment play out on a courtly stage. Here the Spanish monarchy established itself as the creative center and the agglomerator of European models capable of conferring political meaning on the most varied manifestations of familial sociability and on the forms with which diplomatic relationships and cultural interests were expressed.128 Under the attentive eye of the Catholic King —thanks to the strategy of accord and submission skillfully deployed by Charles V from 1530 on, and further developed by his son during the second half of the sixteenth century—a tight network of relationships connected the princely families and courts of Florence, 127 See M. Rivero Rodriguez, “Felipe II y los potentados de Italia,” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 63 (1993), special issue on La dimensione europea dei Farnese, pp. 337–70 and C. J. Hernando Sánchez, “El reino de Nápoles y el dominio de Italia en el Imperio de Carlos V (1522–1532),” in B. Garcia Garcia, ed., El Imperio de Carlos V. Procesos de agregación y conflictos (Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2000), pp. 111–153. 128 See A. Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, “La corte: un espacio abierto para la historia social,” in S. Castillo, ed., La historia social en España (Madrid: Asociación de Historia Social, 1991), pp. 247–60; Idem, “Corte y cortesanos en la Monarquía de España,” in G. Patrizi and A. Quondam, eds., Educare il corpo, educare la parola: nella trattatistica del Rinascimento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), pp. 193–261; Idem, “La discreción del cortesano,” Edad de Oro, 18 (1999): 9–42; C. J. Hernando Sánchez, “Repensar el poder. Estado, corte y Monarquía Católica en la historiografía italiana,” in VV.AA., Diez años de historiografía moderna, Monografies Manuscrits 3 (Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1997), pp. 103–139 e Idem, “La corte y las cortes de la Monarquía” in the catalog of the exhibit commissioned by L. Ribot Garcia, Felipe II. Un monarca y su época. Las tierras y los hombres del rey (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la conmemoración de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1998), pp. 71–79.

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Parma, Ferrara, Mantua, Urbino, and Turin, the republics of Genoa and even of Venice, the papal court, and the Sacred College of Cardinals in Rome, with the diverse power centers orchestrated by the monarchy in Italy and, also, in the Spanish kingdoms and in the Low Countries.129 Territorial, ceremonial, and symbolic rivalries were also played out on this stage. Competition centered on the search for prestige and reputation, evident in the famous arguments over diplomatic protocols between the Medici and the Este, Gonzaga, Savoy, and Farnese families, as well as on the struggle for royal favor, sustained with the weapons of a shared administrative culture. The latter, for example, would lead Cosimo I in 1562 to send his eldest son, Francesco, to Spain on the advice of his uncle, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, third duke of Alba. Perhaps inspired by the Felicissimo viaje undertaken in 1548 by the future Philip II, the objective was to let Francesco “see the world and know different cities and peoples,” in a sort of poor imitation of the grand tour undertaken to get a political education.130 Such is also the social and cultural substratum of a political life whose complexity, in the light of the apparent immobilism with which it was identified, reflects the decisive nature of the actions of the Prudent King in consolidating the power that had been forged during the turbulent reign of his father. In that era, the small states of Italy—first among them, Medici Florence—played a significant role, which is beginning to be recognized thanks to the recent historiographical revisionism that has turned attention toward familial values and interests, and the subtle methods for applying pressure and winning consensus presided over by the capacity to distribute privilege and honor, which the imperial, and later the Spanish, court cultivated with particular success.131 129 The relationships between these groups and the general framework of the monarchy are beginning to be better understood thanks to specific case studies, usually focused on diplomatic sources. See, for example, P. Merlin, Tra guerre e tornei. La Corte sabauda nell’età di Carlo Emanuele I (Turin: SEI, 1991); Idem, Emanuele Filiberto. Un principe tra il Piemonte e l’Europa (Turin: SEI, 1995); Idem, “Spagna e Savoia nella politica italiana ed europea da Cateau-Cambresis a Vervins (1559–1598),” in J. Martinez Millan, dir., Felipe II (1527–1598). Europa y la Monarquía Católica, (Madrid: Editorial Parteluz, 1998), vol. I.2, pp. 513–529; D. Frigo, “Il Ducato di Mantova e la Corte spagnola nell’età di Filippo II,” in Ibid., vol. I.1, pp. 283–306; G. Signorotto, “Urbino nell’età di Filippo II,” in Ibid., vol. I.2, pp. 833–879. 130 See L. Berti, Il principe dello studiolo. Francesco I dei Medici e la fine del Rinascimento fiorentino (Florence: Edam, 1967), p. 45: “ver el mundo y conocer ciudades y pueblos distintos.” 131 For a general overview, see A. Spagnoletti, Principi italiani e Spagna nell’età barocca,

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If one looks from this perspective at the relationships the Medici and the Toledo families initiated, the passage of the kingdom from the emperor to Philip II acquires particular relevance. At that point, the connections between the monarchy and the Italian states, laboriously constructed particularly after 1530, were most strongly tested. The bonds were many and subtle, based on kinship and interest, on power and on culture. The conduct of the two lineages, among whose members fractures and contradictions continued to appear, was shaped by other alliances, such as that of the Toledo family itself with the Neapolitan Spinelli or the Roman-Neapolitan Colonna, as well as by competition with the other Italian houses within the Spanish orbit, such as the Avalos, Gonzaga, Doria, and Farnese families. After the matrimonial alliance in 1539, and the revealing intervention in 1543 of the Toledos in support of returning to Cosimo the forts in Florence and Livorno, which were still occupied by the imperial garrisons, the main episodes of that trajectory seem related to the viceregal succession after Pedro de Toledo’s death in 1553. On that occasion, an attempt was made to perpetuate the post of viceroy within the family, by having Luis de Toledo hold the post temporarily as lieutenant until the duke of Alba could become viceroy in both Naples and Milan after the hostile administration of Cardinal Pedro Pacheco. At the same time, an overt crisis developed in Tuscany because of the war with Siena, which continued from its controversial beginnings in 1553 with the campaign of Pedro de Toledo and his death—under a scenario in which the struggle between the ToledoMedici and the Mendoza families predominated—until the military action of the viceroy’s son, García, and the diplomatic intervention of his cousin, Francisco de Toledo. While the question of Siena was being guided into the complex judicial arena—which would lead after Siena’s infeudation to Philip II to its subinfeudation to Cosimo— in 1555, the duke of Alba’s confrontation with Paul IV exploded. The dispute with the pontiff also represented the culmination of the confrontation between the Carafa and the Toledo families. This had been reanimated by the prominent role of the Neapolitan exiles in Rome following the revolt of 1547, and by the Toledos involvement in the factional struggle of the Urbe family, brought about by Cardinal (Milan: Mandadori, 1996). For a longue-durée perspective on the Medici court environment, see M. Fantoni, La corte del granduca. Forma e simboli del potere mediceo fra Cinque e Seicento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1994).

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Juan de Toledo, the viceroy’s brother, and the alliance with the Colonna family, which the marriage of García de Toledo to Vittoria Colonna in 1552 had cemented. Once political and military instability in Italy was surmounted through the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, the relations of the Medici with various branches of the Castilian lineage, reinforced through new unions, still proved itself capable of surviving episodes as tragic as the murder of the daughter of García de Toledo, Eleonora, by her cousin and husband, Pedro de’ Medici in 1576. Meanwhile, within the tangle of courtly factions, the Medici were maintaining privileged lines of communication, channeled through the government of the monarchy of Philip II. In that framework, it is pertinent to touch on the attitudes of the members of the Toledo family when faced with the dispute over granting of the title of Grand Duke to Cosimo I or reinforcing the political dependence of Tuscany on Spain under his successor, Francesco I. The eldest son of Cosimo and Eleonora was considered by his contemporaries as a prototype of the hispanicization of the aristocracy and of a group within the Italian government, both because of his education and courtly conduct as well as his political attitudes.132 Francesco was one of the most solid pillars of support for the Prudent King. He performed that role not only in Italy, but also in other places in Europe, as was visible in his outstanding economic and military collaboration in the Portuguese campaign of 1580, in which his younger brother, Pedro de’ Medici, also participated. As a final revealing footnote to that familial itinerary, the lawsuit between Pedro and his other brother, Ferdinando I, successor to Francesco, which arose over the distribution of Cosimo I’s inheritance, would unfold in the Madrid court during the final years of Philip II’s reign. At the same time, in the strict hierarchy of aristocratic blood, the House of Toledo would continue to maintain most of the vitality it had achieved when it established itself as a source of power—repeatedly expressed through all sorts of images—because of its ability to flow through the channels of the Spanish monarchy, channels which had been etched out largely by the Castilian lineage together with the great Florentine House of Medici. 132

For more on the pro-Spanish political position of Francesco I, compare V. di Tocco, Ideali d’indipendenza in Italia durante la preponderanza spagnola (Messina: G. Principato, 1926), pp. 42–44 and Berti, Il principe dello studiolo, pp. 9–29.

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CHAPTER SIX

PAYING FOR THE NEW ST. PETER’S: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW BASILICA FROM SPANISH LANDS, 1506–1620 Thomas James Dandelet Almost fifty years have now passed since Jean Delumeau published the first Annales-school study of the social and economic history of early modern Rome, Vie économique et sociale de Rome. Inspired by the famous earlier work, The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, by his mentor, Fernand Braudel, Delumeau attempted in his thesis to analyze the deep economic and social structures that shaped sixteenth-century Rome. He subsequently focused on economic themes such as the alum mines, the grain supply, and various sources of papal revenue. On the social front, he examined the broad contours of the social landscape of Rome which included large social groups such as pilgrims and foreigners. Rich in archival detail and novel in conception, Delumeau’s work set the stage for numerous other social and economic studies of the early modern city.1 What Delumeau’s work, as well as subsequent social, economic, and cultural studies of Rome did not do, however, was to depart from the central political presuppositions that marked earlier histories of Rome, and especially those of Pastor and Ranke. In short, these histories were built on the assumption that the papacy was the sole political center that shaped Rome’s political, social, and economic life. This may seem a natural choice given the centrality of the papacy in Rome, its obvious role as an economic patron, social arbiter, and its growing power as an absolute monarchy throughout the period. Yet, what this approach fails to take into account is the other dominant political and economic center in Italy and Rome at the time, namely, the Spanish Empire. While Delumeau acknowledges 1

Jean Delumeau, Vie économique et sociale de Rome (Paris, 1957); See also Peter Partner, The Lands of St. Peter’s (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1976).

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that Rome was a city of foreigners and that the Spanish community was the most important of the foreign “nations” in the city, he never pursues the Spanish archival trail and thus provides no analysis of the community and its impact on Roman society. Similarly, while his study acknowledges in passing the economic ties between the Spanish monarchy and the papacy, he never explores the nature or extent of the economic relationship or the Spanish contribution to papal finance and the Roman economy. In the case of Rome, these absences result not just in a few gaps in the social and economic picture, but in a fundamentally incomplete picture of the sixteenthcentury city that leave many central historical questions unanswered. First among the economic and social questions are these: Where did all of the money come from that transformed Rome into Europe’s most dramatic urban center by 1650? In short, how can we explain the economic and social boom that characterized Rome in the long sixteenth century? The answer to both of these questions as I have argued in my book, Spanish Rome, 1500–1700, is the Spanish Empire. In the pages that follow, I focus on a specific economic chapter of this story that I was unable to include in that book, the funding of new St. Peter’s. Spanish financing was central to the construction of Rome’s most expensive and ambitious construction project, but this role is unacknowledged and unstudied even in the vast literature on St. Peter’s basilica. Indeed, the case of St. Peter’s can be seen as a metaphor for the larger problem of neglect of the Spanish theme and presence in the early modern history of Rome. Restoring that presence promises to give us a more accurate and clear historical understanding of Rome, the papacy, and the Spanish impact in Italy more generally. And in the case that follows, restoring the Spanish role as the primary economic patron behind the building of early modern Europe’s largest church promises to help historians of St. Peter’s understand how the building ever came to be built. In 1506, in one of the central acts announcing the rebirth of Rome and a definitive break with the medieval past, Pope Julius II proudly announced the beginning of construction of the new St. Peter’s basilica. Never one to turn from a great challenge be it the expansion of the Papal State or the decoration of the Sistine chapel, Julius II had decided to replace the basilica that Constantine had built almost 1200 years earlier with the grandest, and most expensive, church in Christendom.

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To pay for such a great endeavor, Julius II crafted a new indulgence in 1507 that was sold to help finance the construction.2 It was that indulgence, and the similar one issued by Leo X in 1513, that served as flash points for the Reformation. Most famously, Martin Luther deemed them worthy of particular criticism in his 95 theses of 1517. Specifically, he singled out the grandiose project of the new St. Peter’s for repeated scorn naming it in no fewer than 4 of the 95 theses. The sharpest of these, numbers 82 and 86 read as follows: 82 – Why does not the pope liberate everyone from purgatory for the sake of love (a most holy thing) and because of the supreme necessity of their souls? This would be morally the best of all reasons. Meanwhile he redeems innumerable souls for money, a most perishable thing, with which to build St. Peter’s church, a very minor purpose. 86 – Since the pope’s income today is larger than that of the wealthiest of wealthy men, why does he not build this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of indigent believers?3

The short answer to Luther’s last question was quite simply that the pope did not have such revenues. The French Concordat of 1516 between Francis I and the papacy had sharply limited the flow of French ecclesiastical revenue to Rome, and attacks like Luther’s ensured that the indulgence for St. Peter’s would raise little money in much of Germany. Similarly, the exit of Henry VIII from the Catholic fold in 1533 meant that revenue from his kingdoms for Roman construction was also at an end. The Reformation, in short, created a full-blown financial crisis for the building of St. Peter’s. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the sack of Rome in 1527 by troops loyal to Charles V, the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, turned the crisis into an economic disaster of epic proportions not just for St. Peter’s, but for Renaissance Rome more generally. By 1527, in short, the building of the new St. Peter’s and the new Rome were at a standstill, and the successors of Julius II were faced with the grim reality that it was much easier to tear down Constantine’s 2 Ennio Francia, 1506–1606, Storia della costruzione del nuovo San Pietro (Rome: De Luca, 1978), p. 45. The bulls Salvator Noster 1507 published by Julius II and Liquet Nos by Leo X in 1513 were the major indulgence bulls for funding St. Peter’s. Johannes Tetzel, the nemesis of Luther, was the Dominican vicecommissario delle Indulgenze at the time of Leo X. 3 John Dillenberger, Martin Luther (New York: Anchor Books, 1962), pp. 498–499.

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old basilica than it was to build a new one. New Constantines were also in short supply, and the popes had to confront the fact that their own revenues would never suffice to build the new project. Indeed, the basilica had become a microcosm of the economic crisis facing the entire city. In the words of Peter Partner reflecting on the church a few decades ago in his book Renaissance Rome, “New St. Peter’s was like a symbol of Roman urban progress. When St. Peter’s grew, Rome grew; when the great church halted, so did the city.”4 Where, then, did the money come from to move forward after 1527? The primary answer to this question can be summed up in one short phrase: the Spanish states in Iberia and Italy. From the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in the early sixteenth century through the reign of the last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II in 1700, it was money from Naples, Sardinia, Castile, Aragon, and, between 1580 and 1640, Portugal that provided the lion’s share of the foreign capital that funded the building of new St. Peter’s. Money from the Papal State and other parts of Italy made up the balance of income and funds from other parts of Europe were virtually nonexistent. The hard financial fact about the building of St. Peter’s basilica is that the majority of funding for the building came from the Iberian and Italian dominions of the Spanish Empire. The basilica thus serves as a central example of how Spanish patronage served as a largely hidden pillar of much of the economic and building boom that marked sixteenth and seventeenth century Rome. At the same time, the various negotiations between the papacy and Spanish monarchy over financing for the church mirror the larger contours of the political relationship between the two powers especially as they developed in the sixteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spanish political power and influence in Italy and elsewhere went hand in hand with economic patronage, and the funding of St. Peter’s is a particularly vivid illustration of that fact. In my earlier work, Spanish Rome, I have argued that Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fell under the political domination and military protection of the Spanish empire. The Spanish faction of cardinals dominated the conclaves and election of popes 4

Peter Partner, Renaissance Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 181.

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particularly in the period from roughly 1560 to 1660, and the papacy’s foreign policy was largely subservient to, and supportive of, that of the Spanish monarchy. At the same time, Rome benefited greatly from the economic and military patronage of the Spanish monarchy and the wealthy community of Spanish immigrants that settled in the city.5 The building of St. Peter’s was perhaps the most extravagant and enduring example of Spanish patronage in Rome and of the reciprocal nature of Spanish and Papal absolutism that I have written about at length. It is also one of the most well-documented examples of this patronage. In my previous work, however, I was unable to incorporate detailed research on the funding of St. Peter’s from the Fabbrica archives which were closed for restoration. I did comment on the most noticeable of the Spanish contributions to the church, namely a portion of the crusade indulgence that regularly flowed into the coffers of the Fabbrica between 1535 and 1700. But it was only during this past year that I was able to consult the Fabbrica archive and, more specifically, the account books of the entrata y uscita, or income and expenditures, that now allow me to deepen and clarify just how significant and enduring the Spanish financing of the basilica actually was. What follows is a presentation of that research. No work on St. Peter’s that I have found includes a detailed analysis of the major account books. These texts provide the basis for understanding the central question of how St. Peter’s was funded. Indeed, the recent literature on the construction of the basilica lacks any detailed study of the financing, or provides only partial descriptions of funding that fail to mention altogether the central role of money from the Spanish-ruled lands.6 Even the most extensive work that focuses specifically on the history of different phases of the construction, Ennio Francia’s Storia della costruzione del nuovo San Pietro omits any detailed examination of the entrata e uscita registers, although to his credit he does acknowledge that the crusade indulgence from

5 Thomas James Dandelet, Spanish Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). 6 See, for example, the chapter by Iris Jones, “The Fabbrica di San Pietro Archives,” in The Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, Antonio Pinelli, ed., 4 vols. (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini editore, 2000), 1: 399–408. Jones makes no mention of the Spanish crusade indulgence at all in her discussion on finances and infers that it was income from bequests that became the main source of income because of popular protest against the indulgence, p. 404.

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Spain was the single largest component of the financing.7 But he gives no specific figures, percentages, or even rough estimates of this contribution, of other contributions from Spanish-ruled lands, or of political negotiations behind them. I hope to fill in this gap in the literature here. Beginning with the initial phase of the construction, from 1506 to 1527, the Spanish monarchy’s attitude to the building of New St. Peter’s in these first decades was strategic and pragmatic. King Ferdinand had already begun a policy of beneficent patronage in Rome by sponsoring the rebuilding of the Franciscan church and convent of San Pietro in Montorio, as well as Bramante’s Tempietto, in the years prior to the beginning of New St. Peter’s. Ferdinand had sought to forge strong ties and a formal military alliance with the papacy throughout his reign, and military and economic necessity drew the pope and monarch increasingly close together. Julius II, for his part, needed Ferdinand’s support in the Italian wars against the French (1510–1512) while Ferdinand tenaciously pursued the formal investiture as king of Naples from the pope after taking control of that realm in 1504. He also needed papal concessions in order to draw revenues from the churches in his lands largely for military spending. Most noticeably, Julius II had granted Ferdinand the bull of the crusade in 1504 that allowed the king to generate large revenues for the planned wars in North Africa.8 The arrangement paid off well for both Ferdinand and Julius II: Ferdinand received the formal investiture to the Kingdom of Naples for both himself and his successors in 1510, while Julius II regained Bologna with Spanish troops paid for, in part, by revenues raised by the crusade indulgence since those soldiers were sent from Africa to Italy for the Holy League’s war against the French in 1512. What the pope did not receive from Ferdinand, however, was direct aid for building St. Peter’s from the crusade indulgence. This innovation, in fact, began when king Manuel of Portugal agreed to

7 Ennio Francia, Storia della costruzione del nuovo San Pietro da Michelangelo a Bernini (Rome: De Luca, 1989), p. 58, makes the following observations on the crusade indulgence: “Alto cespite donde si traeva un reddito cospicuo, sebbene per i quattro quinti fosse fagocitato dal potere civile, era rappresentato dal ricavo delle Bolle Crociate che davano facoltà di raccogliere le collettae cruciate, dette così dal nome della moneta corrente nei paesi di dominio spagnolo.” 8 Jose Goñi Gaztimbide, Historia de la bula de la cruzada en España (Vitoria: Seminario del Vitoria, 1958), p. 472.

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send the Fabbrica 50,000 ducats of revenues raised from the crusade indulgence granted by Leo X in 1514 for the Portuguese wars in North Africa.9 This was the largest contribution by a foreign prince to the construction up to that date, and it set the precedent for the arrangement that would be the single most important source of revenue for the new church, but from Spanish lands.10 This was not, however, immediately clear since Leo X tried to finance the church with a new indulgence proclaimed in 1513 in the bull Liquet Nos. This bull, infamous as the indulgence most harshly condemned by the Protestant reformers, was known as the bula de San Pedro in Spain where it was also strongly criticized. Spanish Erasmians such as Alfonso Valdes criticized the theology of indulgences generally on the same grounds as their northern European counterparts. Leading churchmen like Jimenez Cisneros were also critical of the indulgence, but on the more practical economic grounds that the indulgence would drain revenues away from the crusade indulgence and thus away from Spain and the war against their Islamic foes in North Africa.11 This was also the concern of Charles V when he assumed power as king of Spain. Already in 1519 his representatives were protesting the preaching of the bull of St. Peter’s in Spain to the pope, and eventually a deal was struck whereby the bull would not be preached. Rather, a portion of the crusade indulgence set at 20,000 ducats would be paid to the Fabbrica.12 Like the earlier arrangement between Julius II and Manuel, this was a one-time arrangement that was not continued especially after the pro-French Clement VII assumed the papal throne in 1523. Indeed the pontificate of Clement VII (1523–34) was disastrous for the funding of the church, and work came to a virtual halt for

9 Francia (1989), p. 58, wrongly identifies the 50,000 ducat contribution as coming from Ferdinand, an error made by a misreading of a document that Francia cites from L. Pastor’s, History of the Popes, vol. 8, p. 368, note *. 10 A.F.S.P. (Archivio della Fabbrica di San Pietro), Arm. 2, E, 99. This is one of the first registers that records income for the Fabbrica for the years 1514–1518. It is a volume whose authority as a source is weakened by the fact that it was written after the sack from the memory of a member of the Fabbrica, Bernardo da Bibiena. The income that he remembered for the years from 1514–1518 totaled roughly 88,000 scudi and there is no direct mention made of the crusade indulgence revenue. ff. 2r–17r. 11 Goñi Gaztimbide, pp. 460–61 and p. 483. 12 Ibid., p. 484.

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most of his reign as the account books of the Fabbrica most clearly demonstrate. The pope realized that a new approach to the financing and administration of the project was essential, and perhaps the most important advance of his pontificate for the new church was the reorganization of the Fabbrica into a new collegio made up of sixty cardinals, orators and ambassadors representing all of Christendom proclaimed in the bull Admonet nos in 1524. It was especially important, from the pope’s perspective, to internationalize the project and to emphasize that the church was the work of all Christians and not just the pope’s.13 This reorganization did not make up for the pope’s bad political choices, however, and Spanish money, in particular, was noticeably absent during his rule. Although most of the early financial records for the first twenty-three years of the project, that is from 1506 to 1529, were lost in the sack leaving the economic history of that period cloudy, account books that recorded income and expenditures for the Fabbrica began to be kept in a systematic and regular fashion in 1529. This was most likely a result of Clement VII’s reorganization of the Fabbrica, and fortunately after this date we have generally good records of annual income and expenditures. The picture that they paint is particularly instructive when it comes to the dramatic impact that Spanish income had on the resumption of construction on the church after the dark years of Clement VII. More specifically, we see in the account book for the years 1529 to 1542 that in the last four full years of Clement VII’s pontificate (1529–1533) the annual amounts of income for the Fabbrica were a minimal 581, 779, 939, and 1000 scudi respectively.14 This was barely enough to pay the mule carts that hauled debris away from the demolition of old St. Peter’s, and that was just about all that was being done. Examples of the biggest individual payments to the Fabbrica in those years were 187 scudi and 231 scudi from the confessionali of Bolgna and Rome respectively and 450 scudi from the papal commissary for the indulgence in Fuligno.15 Let me briefly 13 Michele Basso, I privilegi e le consuetudini della Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano, 2 vols. (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1987–88), 1: 41. For a concise introduction to the Fabbrica see Louise Rice, The Altars and Altarpieces of New St. Peter’s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 7–12 where she also includes a list of the major early historians of the Fabbrica in note 1. 14 A.F.S.P., Arm 24, F, 4, f. 11v. 15 Ibid., ff. 1r–2r.

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point out here that the Fabbrica account books gave all sums after they were converted to Roman scudi even if originally paid in the foreign currency of Neapolitan or Spanish ducats. This grim financial picture and the creeping progress on the church began to change in the pontificate of Paul III thanks in large part to improving relations between the papacy and Charles V. The pope gave his strong support to the emperor’s new campaign against the Ottoman’s and their allies in North Africa granting an increased subsidy from the Spanish clergy in the amount of 252,000 ducats.16 At the same time, the emperor’s ambassador in Rome negotiated a renewal of the crusade indulgence that eventually included negotiations over the bull of St. Peter’s that the pope was pushing anew to fund the church. After long negotiations, the settlement that was agreed upon in 1537 stipulated that the bull of St. Peter’s would be attached to the bull of the crusade indulgence, and no separate income from that indulgence would go to Rome. Rather, 20,000 ducats would be paid annually to the Fabbrica from the crusade indulgence that was normally reviewed and renewed by the pope every three years. In the final formula worked out in 1538, it was determined that 100,000 ducats would be paid to the Fabbrica every six years.17 This was a mutually beneficial arrangement that in the first sixyear period from 1538 to 1542 brought to Charles V 730,000 ducats and to the Fabbrica 100,000 ducats.18 The impact upon the construction of New St. Peter’s was dramatic. Payments from the crusade indulgence began to arrive in Rome in 1540 with the following installments showing up in the account book between March of 1540 and August of 1542: March 1540, 7,350; September, 4,200; October, 1,286; November, 872; December, 4,305; February, 1541, 4,305; March, 4,305; June, 6,457; July, 3,228; September, 2,152; January 1542, 13,991; April, 1,500; August, 5,500; September, 1,650; October, 1,650.19 This was suddenly real money on a consistent level, and one can only imagine the delight of the architects, stonemasons, cart drivers, 16

Dandelet, p. 45. Goñi Gaztimbide, pp. 484–490 provides excellent detail on these negotiations. 18 Tarsicio de Ascona, “Reforma del episcopado y del clero de España en tiempo de los Reyes Catolicos y de Carlos V (1475–1558),” in Historia de la iglesia en España, ed. Ricardo García Villoslada, 5 vols. (Madrid: EDICA, 1979–80), vol. 3:1, p. 191. 19 A.F.S.P., Arm. 24, F, 4, ff. 7v–10r. 17

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and other workers for whom this meant regular work and income, not to mention Paul III, who saw progress on the church as a reflection of the success of his papacy. And a triumph it was for the pope but one clearly made possible by money from subjects of the Spanish monarch. To put it succinctly, in the period from 1529 to 1542, the period covered by the first major account book, the income that the Fabbrica received from the crusade indulgence sold in Spanish lands was 62,751 scudi out of total of income of 99,621 scudi or sixty-three percent of the total income for the Fabbrica.20 In addition to this large sum, there was another source of income from the Spanish dominion closest to the Papal State, namely Naples, that also began to regularly flow into the Fabbrica’s coffers in 1538. As part of the broader negotiations with Charles V, the papacy was also allowed to collect various esatione from Naples that included a portion of pious bequests and money from the sale of the indulgence. In December of 1538 1,500 scudi were paid from Naples and another 1,500 were recorded for 1539. In 1541, 3,000 additional scudi were sent to the Fabbrica from the kingdom.21 This 6,000 scudi constituted six percent of the total for the period from 1529 to 1542 and thus brought the contributions to the Fabbrica from Spanish ruled lands to roughly sixty-nine percent. In the remaining seven years of Paul III’s pontificate, this pattern once again repeated itself with the crusade indulgence being renewed and the Fabbrica receiving its determined share. More specifically, the indulgence brought New St. Peter’s 83,716 scudi in the period from the beginning of 1543 to February of 1549 out of a total of 167,609 scudi of income. This constituted just over fifty percent of revenues. Income from Naples brought in another 23,930 scudi or fourteen percent bringing the total from Spanish ruled lands to 107,646 scudi or sixty-four percent.22 The king of Portugal also sent the Fabbrica a share of the crusader indulgence granted for that kingdom which amounted to 12,019 scudi in 1548.23 Before proceeding further with the account books, it is important to note that the year 1546 marked perhaps the most important watershed moment in the history of the new basilica. It was in that year 20 21 22 23

Ibid., f. 11v. Ibid., ff. 5v–pr. A.F.S.P., Arm. 24, F, 21, ff. 1v–10v. Ibid., f. 7v.

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that Paul III appointed Michelangelo as the chief architect of the building, and for the next eighteen years, sixteenth century Rome’s greatest artist worked first to demolish the work of his predecessor, Antonio Sangallo, and then to begin the work that would largely determine the future design of the building. By his death in 1564, Michelangelo had built the supporting walls for the great dome of the church and roughly three quarters of the supporting drum was complete. Significantly, it was again funding from Spanish-ruled lands that made up the majority of financing during this critical period. The reign of Julius III (1550–1555) witnessed the continuation of the crusade indulgence funding for New St. Peter’s, as well as increased funding from revenues in Naples. Thus, between March of 1549 and March of 1556, 110,545 scudi were paid to the Fabbrica from the crusade indulgence and another 30,747 scudi came in from Naples.24 Work on the church subsequently proceeded at a brisk pace as hundreds of masons, laborers, stonecutters and others began to give material substance to the vision of Michelangelo. But this progress and the funding that underwrote it were not guaranteed, as political developments between 1556 and 1558 clearly demonstrated. When the Neapolitan pope, Paul IV Carafa, was elected in 1556, it signaled the beginning of a period of hostilities between the papacy and Spanish monarchy that would lead to war between the two powers from early in 1556 to the fall of 1557. Not surprisingly, Spanish payments to the Fabbrica stopped during this period, and work slowed. In fact, payments to workers on the church for the period from 1556 to 1561 were less than a third of those in the previous five years.25 Payments from Naples would not resume until late in 1559 after the death of Paul IV. And money from the crusade indulgence, renewed only after the election of the new pope Pius IV late in 1559, would not actually be paid to the Fabbrica until 1565. In the years 1563 and 1564, the account books show less than 1,000 scudi total income for the Fabbrica.26 This truly unfortunate disruption in financing could not have come at a worse time for the new church since it clearly slowed the progress being made during the last years of Michelangelo’s life. Still, in the 24 25 26

A.F.S.P., Arm. 25, C, 45, ff. 2r–26r. Ibid., ff. 39r–181v. A.F.S.P., Arm. 25, C, 64, ff. 4v–5r.

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fifteen years between 1549 and 1561, the account books show a total of 233,400 scudi being spent for the construction of which 96,597 scudi came from the crusade indulgence and 44,939 came from Neapolitan revenues. Thus, contributions from Spanish-ruled lands totaled 141,536 scudi or sixty percent of total income during this critical phase of the construction.27 In the following period coinciding with the last years of the reign of Pius IV and the pontificate of Pius V (1565–72) building on the church continued at a good pace in large part because of the huge sums that came from Spain in 1565 from the crusade indulgence accumulated over the previous five years. In that year five payments totaling 97,609 scudi came to the Fabbrica, and another 17,849 scudi was paid from Spain in 1567. Payments from Naples were also considerable totaling 19,113 scudi. Thus contributions from Spanish ruled lands between 1561 and 1570 amounted to 134,571 scudi out of a total income of 150,059 or eighty-nine percent of all income for the Fabbrica.28 By 1570 the contribution to the Fabbrica from Spanish ruled lands clearly constituted the large majority of funds to build New St. Peter’s, and the growing alliance between Rome and Madrid and strong papal support for Philip II during the reigns of Pius IV and Pius V ensured that Spanish economic patronage in Rome would continue. The victory of the Holy League of Spain, the Papal State, and Venice at Lepanto in October of 1571 was the most famous example of the strong bonds between Rome and Madrid in this period, but it also led to a major drain on revenues for St. Peter’s since the money from the crusade indulgence renewed in 1570 went almost completely to the military campaign against the Ottoman empire. Payments to the Fabbrica were delayed throughout the decade. The relatively modest sum of roughly 96,000 scudi came to the Fabbrica between 1572 and 1579, and of this only 3,000 came from the crusade indulgence. The contribution from Naples added an additional 7,036 scudi bringing the total of the Spanish imperial contribution to just over eleven percent of the total.29 The interruption of funding fortunately ended in 1580 when the by now traditional crusade indulgence revenues resumed. In 1580 27 28 29

A.F.S.P., Arm. 25, C, 45, ff. 2r–37v. A.F.S.P., Arm. 25, C, 64, ff. 1r–10v. A.F.S.P., Arm 25, C, 75, ff. 1r–37v.

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and 1581 just over 50,000 ducats from the indulgence arrived from Madrid and an additional 12,000 scudi were paid from Naples in the same period.30 Similarly, in the period between 1582 and 1585, crusade income from Spain came in regularly for a total of just over 37,000 scudi, while payments to the Fabbrica from Naples were just over 31,000 scudi. Thus, in the five years from 1580 to 1585 contributions to New St. Peter’s from Spanish imperial lands totaled 130,000 scudi out of a roughly 205,000 total or 65 percent of the funding.31 By 1585, when Sixtus V was elected, over twenty-five years had passed since the death of Michelangelo, and the cupola still remained unfinished despite much progress on the building. It fell to the pope to close the “open eye” of the basilica, and Sixtus V was determined to finish this task. In the period from 1588 to 1591 it was reported that the Fabbrica spent the enormous sum of 150,203 scudi to finish the dome.32 But the account books only show 60,117 scudi of income, 31,641 of which came from the crusade indulgence and Neapolitan payments.33 Where Sixtus got the rest of the money is not clear, but he clearly deserves credit for making the extraordinary expenditures from his famous treasure chest to finish the task. I want to stress here that the example of Sixtus V underlines the central role of the papacy in moving the construction of St. Peter’s forward, and the purpose of this paper is certainly not to distract from this role. But Sixtus V is already well known for his role as patron of many building projects in Rome, while the role of the other primary economic patrons, the monarchs and people of the Spanish empire, is not. This is a point made all the clearer in the next and last major phase of construction of the basilica that I will be discussing here, namely the completion of the nave and façade of the church during the reign of Paul V. The Borghese pope who ruled from 1605 to 1621 ensured that he would forever be associated with the basilica by having his name carved on the façade in 1612 during the seventh year of his reign. This personal claiming of the basilica set a precedent for the seventeenth century popes, with Urban VIII and Alexander VII, in particular, planting large personal tombs and 30 31 32 33

A.F.S.P., A.F.S.P., A.F.S.P., A.F.S.P.,

Arm 25, C, 85, ff. 3r–8v, ff. 43r.; Arm 25 D, 93, ff. 1r–6r. Arm 25, C, 100, ff. 1r–8v. Arm. 25, C, 135, ff. 1r–5v. Arm. 25, C, 121, ff. 64r–73v.

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plaques in the building commemorating their largess as patrons of the building, even though this went completely against the spirit of the sixteenth-century reforms. In the case of Paul V, the temptation to put a personal stamp on the building is perhaps understandable given the enormous sums spent to finish the building during his reign. In short, Paul V spent 1,510,406 ducats between 1605 and 1620 to finish the exterior structure of St. Peter’s. This was more than the total spent in the previous 100 years, and even after adjusting for inflation it represented a dramatic increase in the rate of spending.34 What made this possible was the financial innovation of using a new monte, or bond issue, to raise the huge sums that began to flow into the Fabbrica between 1609 and 1614. In those years, funding increased from 12,700 scudi in 1605 to 78,447 in 1609, 148,863 in 1610 and a high of 184,347 in 1611. This exponential expansion of funding allowed for rapid progress on the building, but it was funding that was ultimately made possible by the revenues that were paid to the Fabbrica from the lands of the Spanish Empire. This is documented with great clarity in the account book for these years where it is explicitly stated that it was the 30,000 scudi of annual revenue from the crusade indulgence in Spain and Portugal, together with the 9,500 scudi of annual revenue from the tax on grain in Naples that paid the interest on the places sold in the monte. Servicing the debt cost 25,000 scudi annually from 1614 onward.35 Considering this central role that income from Spanish-ruled lands had in funding the completion of the last major phase of the exterior construction of the basilica, as well as every phase prior to it, one would think that perhaps the pope could have put up a plaque acknowledging the largess of the millions of individuals from Italy and Iberia that paid for the indulgence that played such a critical role in funding the church. As we have now seen, throughout the period from 1529 to 1620 income from Spanish imperial lands constituted the majority or roughly 65 percent of all funding. In the period that followed, this contribution would continue and as a percentage of income even grow as in 1634 when over 90 percent of the 65,000 scudi revenue for the Fabbrica came from Spanish imperial lands.36 34 35 36

A.F.S.P., Arm. 29, D, 645, f. 21r. Ibid., f. 19r–20v. Basso, 1: 65–66.

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Acknowledging this central patronage role of the Spanish empire in building St. Peter’s, Rome may not have served the goals or fit the image of seventeenth-century papal absolutism, but it certainly would have been more in keeping with the spirit of the reforms of Clement VII almost a century earlier that had called for New St. Peter’s to be seen as the work of all Christians. And it also would have been a much more honest reflection of the economic history of the building. But more than just accurate accounting is at stake here for at its heart, the story of the seventeenth-century papacy claiming the building as a stage for individual papal propaganda in the form of large personal tombs and plaques is a story about the triumph of the rhetoric of papal absolutism in this period more generally. While the papacy and college of cardinals played the formal role of absolute monarch and his court ruling over the city and state and controlling a great deal of local spending and patronage, the hard financial fact is that they did so with the financial and military backing of the Spanish monarchy. Alone, they simply did not have the revenues to build and protect the city. Certainly papal propaganda was effective at putting the papal stamp on the city in the form of the ubiquitous display of the papal coat of arms on buildings and monuments, and the countless inscriptions that extolled the patronage of individual popes and cardinals. But scratch the surface or account books of many of the buildings and one finds Spanish gold and silver. In this sense, Baroque Rome was very much a Spanish imperial city and new St. Peter’s a Spanish imperial church.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

“PIGNATTE DI VETRO”: BEING A REPUBLIC IN PHILIP II’S EMPIRE* Arturo Pacini At the end of April 1575, when the first news of the popular revolt which had broken out in Genoa reached Madrid, the Duke of Alba warned the Genoese ambassador Marcantonio Sauli about the risks the republic was running; and he did it using one of the striking metaphors he dispensed in his ever acute political analyses: he stated that “all governments of republics were very weak, and that he thought that republics could be considered similar to glass pots ( pignatte di vetro), which striking anything whatsoever easily are broken, and if they break the soup falls on the floor, and then the cats come and carry it away, and that therefore he advised looking very carefully at what they were doing, and the dangers in which we had placed ourselves with so many disagreements.”1 The Genoese republican system, based on the Reformationes Novae of 1528 (which had eliminated the internal political divisions, entrusting the government to a single order of noble citizens) and on the law of 1547 called the “Garibetto” [the little adjustment] (desired by Andrea Doria and which had modified the electoral rules of the Great and Small Councils and of the highest magistratures, the Doge and the Governors), had fallen to pieces in 1575 as a consequence of the conflict between old and new nobles and the entry of the popolo on the political scene of the city.2 The “soup,” in Alba’s * Translated by Ann Katherine Isaacs. 1 Letter to the Signoria of Genoa, 30 April 1575, Archivio di Stato di Genova (henceforth ASG), Archivio Segreto 2415, “che tutti li governi di republica erano debolissimi, et che li pareva che le republiche si potevano assimigliare a pignatte di vetro, le quali urtando in qual si voglia cosa con facilità si rompevano, et rompendosi cadeva la minestra, la quale venivano poi li gatti che se la portavano via, et che però ne consigliava a mirar molto bene quel che facevano, et il pericolo nel quale ci eravamo posti con tante discordie.” 2 On the revolt of 1575 see Rodolfo Savelli, La repubblica oligarchica. Legislazione, istituzioni e ceti a Genova nel Cinquecento (Milan, 1981), and Arturo Pacini, “El ‘padre’

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metaphor, was tantalizing: it was a matter of controlling a city which, as the Duke of Sessa said, in the last half century “has grown and become more noble both in buildings and in all other riches and comforts which men naturally desire”; there were new “sumptuous buildings” as well as, for those who lived there, “clothes, titles and dignities of princes, dukes, marquesses, counts and barons,” to such an extent that Genoa had no equal “not only in Europe but in any part of the world.”3 And the hungry “cats” waiting to eat up the soup were numerous, large and small: the King of France, the Pope, the Duke of Savoy, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and, in the view of many, Philip II himself. The revolt, and the consequent abandonment of the city by the Vecchi [Old Nobles—that is those belonging to the houses of ancient nobility] which placed the power in the hands of the Nuovi [New Nobles—that is the exponents of the families of popular origin included in the nobility since 1528] put the freedom and the very existence of the republic into great danger. In 1575 and 1576 the problem of Genoa was without doubt the most urgent among those which Philip II had to deal with in the Mediterranean area,4 and with the enormous difficulties created for the monarchy by the rebellion in the Low Countries (and the wars of religion in France) produced a dramatic perception of the international picture. The struggle between the powers was accompanied by changes which could not be interpreted using the traditional categories of political knowledge. According

y la ‘república perfecta’: Génova y la Monarquía española el 1575,” in Espacios de Poder: Cortes, Ciudades y Villas (s. XVI–XVIII), ed. Jesús Bravo, 2 vols. (Madrid, 2002), 2:119–132; on the history of Genoa in the first half of the 16th century, Arturo Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria nell’Impero di Carlo V (Florence, 1999). 3 Istruction by the Duke of Sessa to Tiberio Brancaccio, envoy to Genoa, 1 April 1575, Archivo General de Simancas (henceforth AGS), Estado 1068, f. 74, “ha crescido y ennoblescídose assí de edifficios como de todas las otras riquezas y comodidades que los hombres naturalmente suelen dessear”; “edifficios sumptuosos”; “los trajes, los títulos y ditados de príncipes, duques, marqueses, condes y barones”; “no solamente en Europa pero ni en otra parte del mundo.” 4 For an excellent discussion of the Genoese revolt in the context of the ambiguous and difficult relations between the Spanish monarchy and the Papacy, see Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, “El servicio a dos cortes: Marco Antonio Colonna, almirante pontificio y vasallo de la Monarquía,” in La corte de Felipe II, ed. José Martínez Millán (Madrid, 1994), pp. 305–378, spec. pp. 363–368, Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, “La liga santa y la paz de Italia (1569–1576),” in Política, religión e inquisición en la España moderna. Homenaje a Joaquín Pérez Villanueva, ed. Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, José Martínez Millán and Virgilio Pinto Crespo (Madrid, 1996), pp. 587–620, spec. pp. 613–618.

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to the Duke of Alba—a key figure, first on the Flemish and then on the Genoese front—“in the world, where once there were only two powers, that is princes and republics, because of the sins of our times another has been added, that is popular uprisings.”5 Peoples in revolt as a new “power” in times of corruption and sin constituted a threat for the imperial system under Philip; in particular the loss of Genoa would have had disastrous consequences for the delicate mechanisms that allowed it to function. The Genoese republic had long been a faithful ally of the Spanish Habsburgs, and it was linked to them by tight economic and political bonds. The privileged relationship between a conspicuous and qualified sector of the political elite of the city, particularly the ship-owners and merchant-bankers belonging to the old nobility, and the Catholic monarchy had on the one hand contributed to the consolidation of Spanish hegemony in Europe and on the other given new life and prosperity to Genoa’s economy, with the consequence that it circumscribed and inhibited internal conflict from a political point of view. This is a classical theme in early modern historiography.6

5 Letter to the Signoria from Marcantonio Sauli and Giovanni Battista Lercari, 15 October 1576, ASG, Archivio Segreto 2415, “al mondo, dove questi tempi adietro erano solo dui potentati, cioè li principi et le republiche, vi era per li peccati delli nostri tempi sopravenuto il terzo, quale fia le sollevatione de populi.” 6 For the financial relations between the Genoese and the monarchy, it is sufficient to cite such classical texts as Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (Paris, 1966), Ramón Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros (Madrid, 1965–67), Felipe Ruíz Martín, Lettres marchandes échangées entre Florence et Medina del Campo (Paris, 1965) (now in Pequeño capitalismo, gran capitalismo. Simón Ruiz y sus negocios en Florencia [Barcelona, 1990]), Idem, Las finanzas españolas durante el reinado de Felipe II, in “Cuadernos de Historia,” annexes to the review Hispania, 2 (1968), pp. 114–173, Modesto Ulloa, La hacienda real de Castilla en el reinado de Felipe II (3a revised edition Madrid, 1986), Giorgio Doria, “Un quadriennio critico: 1575–1578. Contrasti e nuovi orientamenti nella società genovese nel quadro della crisi finanziaria spagnola,” in Fatti e idee di storia economica nei secoli XII–XX. Studi dedicati a Franco Borlandi (Bologna, 1977), pp. 377–394, Idem, “Conoscenza del mercato e sistema informativo: il know-how dei mercanti-finanzieri genovesi nei secoli XVI e XVII,” in La repubblica internazionale del denaro tra XV e XVI secolo, ed. Aldo de Maddalena and Herman Kellenbenz (Bologna, 1986), pp. 57–123 (now both in Giorgio Doria, Nobiltà e investimenti a Genova in Età moderna [Genoa, 1995], respectively pp. 157–174 and 91–155), and some recent contributions of particular importance, such as Felipe II (1527–1598). La configuración de la Monarquía hispana, dir. José Martínez Millán and Carlos J. de Carlos Morales (Valladolid, 1998), Carlos J. de Carlos Morales, El Consejo de Hacienda de Castilla, 1523–1602. Patronazgo y clientelismo en el gobierno de las finanzas reales durante el siglo XVI (Valladolid, 1996), pp. 115–127, Idem, “Ambiciones y comportamiento de los hombres de negocios. El asentista Melchior de Herrera,” in La corte de Felipe II, ed. José Martínez Millán, pp. 379–415,

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Taking as a starting point two contemporary interpretations of the Genoese revolt furnished by two protagonists of those events, we will discuss here some of the processes which were taking place in the political life of the city from the end of the 1550s. Those processes allow us to put into focus a gradual weakening of the stabilizing function of the advantages and opportunities offered by insertion in the Spanish orbit, to the point that in the middle of the 1570s broad sectors of Genoese society no longer considered the bonds that tied them to the Iberian branch of the Habsburgs obvious and essential for the prosperity and the survival of the republic. All this will help us to understand the meaning, the potentialities, and the limits of a republican order placed within a vast imperial system.7

1. From Charles V to Philip II, and from Andrea Doria to Giovanni Andrea Doria: changes in styles of governing clienteles The events of 1575 and the complicated historical processes that triggered them can be analysed from different points of view. Two

Carlos J. de Carlos Morales, “Los medios de control contable de las finanzas reales en tiempos de Felipe II: el teniente Francisco de Gutiérrez de Cuéllar y la contaduría mayor de cuentas, 1560–1579,” in Felipe II (1527–1598). Europa y la Monarquía Católica, ed. José Martínez Millán (Madrid, 1998), pp. 165–195, Carlos J. de Carlos Morales, “¿Una revolución financiera en tiempos de Felipe II? Dimensiones y evolución de los fundamentos de la Hacienda Real de Castilla, 1556–1598,” in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, ed. Ernest Belenguer y Cebrià, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1999), vol. 1, Los recursos humanos y materiales, pp. 473–504, Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “Una república mercantil en la órbita de la monarquía católica (1528–1684). Hegemonía y decadencia del agregado hispano-genovés,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Carlo V, eds. Bruno Anatra and Francesco Manconi (Rome, 2001), pp. 103–200, Manuel Herrero Sánchez, “Génova en el sistema imperial hispánico,” in Patria, nación y naturaleza e La Monarquía de las naciones: la monarquía de España, (Madrid, 2004) 7 On the notion of imperial system in reference to so-called “Spanish Italy” (previously widely used, but with a low degree of conceptual awareness, and now proposed as a specific historiographical category) see Giuseppe Galasso, “Il sistema imperiale spagnolo da Filippo II a Filippo IV,” in Lombardia borromaica, Lombardia spagnola, 1554–1659, ed. Paolo Pissavino and Gianvittorio Signorotto (Rome, 1995), 2 vols, vol. 1, pp. 13–40; Idem, “Introduzione” to Nel sistema imperiale. L’Italia spagnola, ed. Aurelio Musi (Naples, 1994), pp. 9–47; Idem, “La Spagna imperiale e, il Mezzoglorno,” i, Alla periferia dell’impero. Il regno di Napoli nel periodo spagnolo (secoli XVI–XVII) (Turin, 1994), pp. 5–44; Aurelio Musi, “L’Italia nel sistema imperiale spagnolo,” in Nel sistema imperiale, pp. 51–66; Idem, L’Italia dei viceré. Integrazione e resistenza nel sistema imperiale spagnolo (Cava de’ Tirreni, 2000); and Idem, “L’impero Spagnolo,” Filosofia politica, XVI/1 (2002): 37–61.

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are provided for us, “ready for use” so to speak, in two particularly interesting documents. In the spring of 1577, a few months after the conclusion of the civil war, Philip II asked two of the major “experts” on Genoese affairs in his service, the “asentista” of galleys Giovanni Andrea Doria8 and the ambassador Juan de Idiáquez,9 to give him detailed information on the situation of the city, pacified from a military point of view but still torn by strong political tensions. The interest of the two reports lies in the fact that they offer alternative readings of the revolt which had just ended, and they propose different solutions to impede a new flare-up of the internal conflicts. In support of his theses, Giovanni Andrea Doria provided an acute (albeit self-interested) interpretation of the changes in the city’s politics after the death of his uncle, Andrea Doria, in 1560.10 For whatever reason, he began, among all the provinces of Italy none had ever been “as changeable as the said republic” [“tan mudable como la dicha república”]: this is what the elders said and what could be read in histories. Only from 1528 on, thanks to Andrea Doria and to Charles V, had Genova regained her freedom and the continuous changes in government come to an end. This period of prolonged stability, and those, much shorter, which had been known in the past, were not to be ascribed to the good will and the diligence of the citizens, who were not and never would be united and in agreement, but rather to the care of the princes who had undertaken to protect or to govern the republic. Notwithstanding the internal divisions, it was sufficient that they (kings of France, Dukes of Milan, emperors or whoever else had the necessary forces) supported 8 On Giovanni Andrea Doria, see the entry by Rodolfo Savelli, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 41 (Rome, 1992), pp. 361–375; Idem, “‘Honore et robba’: sulla vita di Giovanni Andrea Doria,” la berio 29 (1989): 3–42; Vita del Principe Giovanni Andrea Doria scritta da lui medesimo incompleta, ed. Vilma Borghesi (Genoa, 1997); Idem, “Momenti dell’educazione di un patrizio genovese: Giovanni Andrea Doria (1540–1606),” in Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria n.s. 36/2 (1996): 191–213; Rafael Vargas-Hidalgo, Guerra y diplomacia en el Mediterráneo: correspondencia inédita de Felipe II con Andrea Doria y Juan Andrea Doria (Madrid, 2003). 9 Idiáquez began with the embassy to Genoa (from 1573 to 1578, in which he distinguished himself by his great ability in managing an explosive political situation which could have damaged the monarchy seriously) a brilliant career in Philip II’s service, which he continued as Philip’s representative in Venice and Paris, and then as Secretary of State and member of the Councils of War and of State. He continued his career at court under Philip III, obtaining the presidency of the Council of the Orders. See the brief biographical profile in Felipe II (1527–1598). La configuración (n. 6 above) pp. 408–409. 10 AGS, Estado 1410, f. 83; a summary of this text is to be found Ibid., f. 147.

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and favored the part “which was superior” [“que era superior”], and thus from time to time the Adornos, the Fregosos, the guelphs or the ghibellines, the Doria or the Spinola or others had conquered and held power for longer or shorter periods of time. As soon as a given prince, king or emperor stopped supporting the dominant faction, it was driven not only out of the government but also out of the city and its dominions. The state changed and a new cycle began. This unhappy mechanism had been interrupted in 1528 thanks to the protection granted to the republic by Charles V and then by Philip II. In Giovanni Andrea’s reasoning the historical turning point did not correspond to any new agent or causal link. The first two Spanish Habsburgs had simply continued with constancy the strategy of preserving and nourishing the authority that Andrea Doria enjoyed in Genoa. His power in the city certainly derived from gratitude for liberation from the French domination, but also, and above all, from the unconditional external support from the Habsburgs. This support was made manifest and it was underlined that always and in every case any concession granted generally to the republic or to particular citizens “was because of his [Andrea Doria’s] intercession and in respect for his services” [“era por su (di Andrea Doria) intercessión y respecto de sus servicios”]. For this reason everyone was ready to accept willingly the admiral’s primacy and to act in accordance with his wishes.11

We find the same interpretation in a document by Gómez Suárez de Figueroa (Spanish ambassador to Genoa from 1529 to 1569) in the initial phase of the building of Andrea Doria’s power system. The admiral, states Figueroa, for “lo que toca a esta república, [. . .] todas las cosas que han de venir de vuestra magestad quiere mostrar, que aunque vuestra magestad lo haga por todos, que por su caussa se haze algo más [what has to do with this republic (. . .) all the things that will come from your majesty he wants to show that although your majesty does them for everyone, because of him something more is done]”; that only thanks to him did the Genoese enjoy the emperor’s complete favor. That was supposed to be apparent in Charles V’s every act towards Genoa. It was therefore a conscious political strategy which Doria deliberately followed in order to acquire consent within the city and which had a further interesting articulation: if on the ordinary political and economic questions Doria was satisfied by being considered the person who increased and perfected the imperial concessions, on one particular theme he wanted his role to be very clear: “en las cosas de la libertad [in things regarding freedom].” He had been “el comienço” [the beginning], the origin and the author of the city’s freedom and he believed that he was by right its protector. Letter from Figueroa to Charles V, 4 February 1530, AGS, Estado 1364, ff. 58, 62 and 63. 11

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Giovanni Andrea had no doubt that if his uncle had not had “the privilege that he was always granted” [“la merced que siempre se le hizo”] by the Habsburgs, the system of power on which the republic had been based for more than thirty years would have collapsed like a house of cards and with it Genoa’s loyalty to Spain would have come to an end. Proof in support of this analysis was furnished by the fact that the divisions which had tormented the city for centuries returned, under new names, shortly after the admiral’s death in 1560. Once again the possibility of remedying this very dangerous situation was in the hands of Philip II alone. Giovanni Andrea declared that he had made strenuous efforts to avoid “the differences between the citizens from taking hold” [“que las diferencias de los ciudadanos tomassen campo”], more than his uncle had ever done, and if the fruits had been much less abundant, that could not be considered his fault, “but rather because with him a different style had been used than with the said prince” [“sino de averse usado comigo diferente estilo de lo que se uso con el dicho príncipe”]. Philip had not taken care at all to preserve Giovanni Andrea’s credit and authority as would have been necessary, and for this reason he had not had the effective tools that Andrea had had at his disposal. The king had favored other actors, “of different profession, quality and service” [“de diferente profissión, calidad y servicio’] (the allusion to the merchant-bankers is clear), raising them to such heights that everyone could understand “that in them your majesty has greater faith than in me” [“que dellos hazía vuestra magestad más confiança que de mi”]. It was by turning to them, not to him, that the Genoese could hope to receive the favors and concessions that in former times the Spanish monarchy distributed through the exclusive mediation of Andrea Doria. The text takes on touching tones when Giovanni Andrea declares that he could list the many favors granted to the merchants at the very times when he had been forced to sell his lands, his silver and even his bed in order to continue to serve Philip II with his fleet of galleys, and above all the concessions that those merchants had obtained for their friends, “which I was not able to obtain for mine” [“que yo no las he podido alcançar para los míos”] had been devastating for his authority. Giovanni Andrea was aware that he was developing his lucid arguments on the razor’s edge, with the risk that he could be accused of defending his own personal interests

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rather than keeping as his guiding light those of the monarch of whom he was “criado” and vassal. In order not to damage the credibility of his analysis, he concluded with an appeal “to the service of your majesty” [“al servicio de vuestra magestad”] and proudly “to the preservation of my country, which is the same thing” [“a la conservación de mi patria, que es una misma cosa”]: both required that the republic of Genoa should continue to live, and that would have been impossible if Philip II had not firmly supported the authority, credit and strength of “a servant in whom there was great faith” [“servidor de mucha confiança”] (a role for which, evidently, Giovanni Andrea was proposing himself ), so as to make Andrea Doria’s regime, now dead, come back to life. To give further proof of his disinterested attitude, Giovanni Andrea hypothesized that he might abandon public life and retire “in a village” [“en una aldea”]. “As regards income and rest” [“Por lo que toca al provecho y al descanso”], he stated, that would perhaps be the best choice, and would have saved him from “travail and bitterness (. . .) along with many excessive expenditures” [“travajos y desgustos [. . .] junto con muy muchos gastos excessivos”], which were his inevitable lot if he continued to stay in Genoa as Philip II’s minister.12 The document presents us with a vision of Genoese history and politics completely pervaded by realism and based on the logic of the power elites. At the centre of the political universe we find royal 12 The document continues with a series of considerations and particular suggestions linked to the contingent political situation in Genoa (the negative effects of the spread of the news that Philip II had given a pension to Bartolomeo Coronata, the principal exponent of the radical wing of the Nuovi during the 1575 revolt; the need for greater coordination, and a certain degree of autonomy from the court of Madrid of the Spanish ministers in Italy; the necessity of respecting punctually the Leges Novae of March 1576, approved after the end of the revolt; the utility of defending the territorial situation of the republic from expansionistic tendencies of neighboring powers, and in particular of the Duke of Savoy, who had acquired the fief of Oneglia, on the western Riviera; the usefulness of coming to an agreement with the Genoese merchant-bankers hit by the decree of suspension of payments declared by Philip II in September 1575, without however damaging their creditors; the urgency of a “gran reformación [great reform]” in the management of the naval forces of the monarchy in order to limit expense and increase efficiency, without which “los gastos de la dicha armada [. . .] no le consumirá menos sus reynos de lo que lo an hecho los estados de Flandes [the expenses of the said armada will not consume less of his realms than the estates of Flanders have done]”). On the questions regarding Genoa see Savelli, La repubblica oligarchica (n. 2 above), Idem, “Potere e giustizia. Documenti per la storia della rota criminale a Genova alla fine del ’500,” in Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica 5 (1975): 29–172, Doria, “Un quadriennio critico” (n. 6 above).

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grace as a tool of government, which is granted and redistributed within clientele networks based on patronage relationships. The resources which royal grace provides circulate, passing from one clientele network to another through personal relationships, reaching the peripheral parts of the body politic. If the transmission structure, adequately hierarchical, works well, and as long as there are resources, the system is guaranteed to hold. Because of the wishes of Charles V and Philip II, in Genoa Andrea Doria had been at the top of the clientele pyramid; Giovanni Andrea complained that he had not been given that role, and that was the cause of the ensuing disasters.13 The revolt of 1575, therefore, in this view was due in substance to the poor functioning of the clientele mechanisms of transmission of royal grace, which had a stabilizing effect when they were governed by a single authoritative hand, that of Andrea Doria, but they had then lost effectiveness when a number of persons had begun to compete in order to take control. It was an interesting reconstruction that certainly had a basis in fact. Genoese historiography has not yet dealt with the events and processes that marked the republic in the second half of the sixteenth century from this point of view, but there is certainly no lack of sources and testimony to support it. We have mentioned the hostility that Giovanni Andrea expresses towards the “merchants” [“mercaderes”], a term here used to refer to the merchant-bankers who had financial dealings with the Spanish crown. Notwithstanding that they both belonged to the group of the “Old Nobles,” of which in 1575 Doria had assumed the unquestioned leadership, there is ample evidence of tension between the two souls of the old nobility. When the Vecchi were hit hard in September 1575, right in the middle of the war effort against the republic, by Philip II’s decree suspending payments, a unanimous chorus of complaints and protests came from that political part against

13 The theme of the power elites (through the study of the court and the clientele and factional bonds that converged on it) has had in recent years great fortune in the various national historiographies. Here it is enough to mention some of the fundamental works of the group coordinated by José Martínez Millán with specific reference to the Spanish Empire; Instituciones y Élites de de Poder en la Monarquía Hispana Durante el Siglo XVI, ed. José Martínez Millán (Madrid, 1992), La corte de Felipe II (n. 6 above), Felipe II (1527–1598). La configuración (n. 6 above), La corte de Carlos V, ed. José Martínez Millán, 5 vols. (Madrid, 2000).

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the king. During the negotiations for the “medio general,” which was supposed to resolve the financial crisis and reactivate the flow of credit to the monarchy, Doria openly took a position against the only solution which could have saved his Vecchi companions, that is the concession to the “trattanti” (those who had negotiated the loans to the Spanish crown) of the possibility of paying their creditors in Genoa with the same money (that is, devalued obligations on the public debt) with which they would be reimbursed by Philip II. He did it with very harsh words: if the decree of suspension had hit only “those who have negotiated there with your majesty” [“los que han tratado allá con vuestra magestad”], he declared, it would not have mattered much if “all of them were to pay with their own wealth the great amount which they have robbed from your majesty, and it is very just that their riches pay for it” [“todos essos pagassen con su hazienda la mucha que han robado a vuestra magestad, y es muy justo que las suyas lo paguen”]. But along with the great merchant-bankers, the whole city was involved; many had lent their money at the going rate, without blame and without participating in the illicit gain deriving from the excessive interest rates imposed on the monarchy. This enormous mass of creditors towards the asentistas now asked “that your majesty not give them the faculty of paying in a way that he will order them to be paid, because as they themselves have not earned the profits and participated in the gain, it is not right that they suffer like those who are so much to blame” [“que vuestra magestad no dé facultad de pagar de la manera que los mandara pagar a ellos, porque assí como no han ganado de los logros y participado de la ganancia, no es justo que padezcan tanta pena como los que tienen tanta culpa”]. Between the “10 or 12 hombres” who hold the contracts, obligations, and revenues in their names” [“tienen en sus cabeças los assientos, juros y rentas”], extremely rich men “who have plenty and lack nothing” [“les sobra y no les falta nada”], and the rest of the citizenry, who “suffer and each day lose hope” [“padesce y pierde cada día mas la esperança”] of getting their hard-earned savings back, Giovanni Andrea placed himself without hesitation on the side of the latter.14 Behind that position there was a complex political calculation: Doria suffered from the emerging power of the merchant-bankers, Letter to Philip II of 22 August 1577, AGS, Estado 1410, ff. 134, 136. On this matter see G. Doria, “Un quadriennio critico” (n. 6 above). 14

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but he knew that their wealth was indispensable in order to keep his political part on its feet. At the same time, he also knew that the solution he was fighting was about to be adopted, and there really was no alternative, since Genoese credit continued to be indispensable for the monarchy. Not the last factor in his calculation, however, was the climate of hostility that for the last decade had been widespread in the city against the financial world. For some time hostile writings and libels had been circulating against those who “give their own wealth and that of others in usury to kings and foreign princes” [“danno il fatto loro e quello d’altri ad usura al re e principi forestieri”]; citizens who, with the exorbitant profits accumulated, “live like kings and princes” [“vivono da re e principi”] with no regard for the good of the republic, and “in order to preserve their wealth they will be forced to debauch her entirely to the great joy of those kings” [“per conservare il privato saranno forzati a ruffianarla del tutto con gioia grande di quei re.”15 If it is certain that in the complex faction-clientele dynamics of the Genoese power elites and the Spanish monarchy there were now new protagonists, there are also indications that there was the beginning of a certain breakdown in precisely this field of the preferential relations with the Habsburgs. In 1567, for example, the king of France, Charles IX, launched a real attack trying to find allies in the Genoese elite using the classical tool of the concession of pensions. The circumstance alarmed the Spanish ambassador Figueroa in the extreme and he protested with the Signoria. Inquiries were made, but little objection could be made to those who had received the pensions: they answered “saying that like others in this city who receive it from your majesty (Philip II), that they can take it from the king (of France) since he gives it” [“con decir que así como otros desta ciudad la toman de vuestra magestad (Filippo II), que ellos la pueden tomar del rey pues se la da”].16 15

The quotation is taken from the Sogno sopra la Repubblica di Genova veduto nella Morte di Agostino Pinello ridotto in dialogo. Interlocutori Stefano Giustinaiano primo institutor della Unione e detto Agostino Pinello procuratore in vita, Biblioteca Civica Berio (Genoa) (henceforth BCB), ms. VII.5.50, c. 72v. It is one of the best products of the political propaganda from the side of the Nuovi in the second half of the 1560s, see Rodolfo Savelli, “Tra Machiavelli e S. Giorgio. Cultura giuspolitica e dibattito istituzionale a Genova nel Cinque-Seicento,” in Finanze e ragion di Stato in Italia e in Germania nella prima Età moderna, ed. Aldo De Maddalena and Herman Kellenbenz (Bologna, 1984), pp. 249–321. 16 Letter to Philip II, 16 June 1567, AGS, Estado 1396, f. 45. The reaction of

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The king of France’s attention was focused obviously, on the Nuovi, and in particular on the Sauli, a powerful family which included among its members the protonotary Marcantonio, the Genoese ambassador in Madrid. In 1567 Figueroa advised the king to give Marcantonio a merced both because of the quality of his person and “in order to acquire the goodwill of the rest” [“por aquistar los ánimos de los demás”].17 Marcantonio Sauli was to be one of the ideologues of the Nuovi during the revolt of 1575, and nevertheless, as he was ambassador to Spain, also a protagonist in the attempts at mediation between the republic and Philip II. It is in any case remarkable that the division between the Vecchi and the Nuovi (the old and the new nobility) was not even mentioned in Giovanni Andrea Doria’s document. The parts [“partes”] to which he refers as the actors, which so many times “have put into travail and misery” [“han puesto en travajo y miseria”] the republic, are generic entities, without substance, in the background and ever ready to reappear “with different names” [“con diferentes apellidos”]. This was due to using a plurality of clientele relationships as had been done after Andrea Doria’s death. 2. The forces in the field: Vecchi, Nuovi, Meccanici, and Popolo The real subjects of the political conflict in Genoa in the second half of the sixteenth century are thrown into high relief in Juan de the sovereign was of extreme alarm: “Siendo de la importancia que se dexa entender por los inconvenientes que adelante podría traer semejante negociación, será bien que bivais con mucha adevertencia en ello, y hagáis las diligencias y prevenciones que os pareciere convenir con las personas dessa república que en esto tuvieren más manos para divertirlos de semejantes platicas, pues no es razón que stando debaxo de mi protectión y amparo todos ellos y valiéndosse de mi en todas sus necessidades, como todo el mundo sabe, den entrada a semejantes platicas, principalmente de franceses, que con tan dañadas entrañas e intención deven de querer meter qualquier pie en essa república [Being of the importance that can be understood because of the damage which in the future might derive from such a negotiation, it will be well that you conduct yourself with much care in it, and that you employ all the diligence and foresightfulness that you believe useful with the persons of this republic who will be most involved in this matter to take them away from such plots, and because there is no reason that, all of them being under my protection and defense, and leaning on me in all their necessities, as the whole world knows, they let such plots enter, particularly of the French, who with such damnable thoughts and intention must want to put a foot in this republic],” letter of 12 July 1567, Ibid., f. 206. See furthermore, Ibid., ff. 35, 57, 71, 182, 210, 211. 17 Letter from Figueroa to Philip II, 16 June 1576, Ibid., f. 45.

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Idiáquez’ text.18 The Spanish ambassador in Genoa laid before Philip II an analysis entirely based on the socio-political divisions within the nobility. The republic “as it is today”—he began—consists entirely of nobles and the people. The nobles command and the people obeys” [“como el día de oy está consiste toda de nobles y pueblo. Los nobles mandan y el pueblo obedezce”]. With a certain degree of simplification, which does not diminish the acuteness of his explanation, Idiáquez states that the Genoese nobility is formed of three parts: the Old (Vecchi ), the New (Nuovi ) and among these the “nobles mecánicos” [mechanical nobles: that is nobles who practice mechanical arts or professions]. This way of distinguishing the various components of the nobility recalls that of the late medieval ordines (nobles and popolo, with the latter divided into merchants and artisans) but it is applied to a deeply changed social reality and internal and international political situation. The lower part of the nobility, the “nobles mecánicos”, the document continues, abhor equally the Vecchi and the principal members of the Nuovi: the former insofar as they are natural enemies, the latter because of the betrayal of 1575, since “being their friends, at the opportune time they disengaged themselves and joined up with the Vecchi ” [“siéndoles amigos, al mejor tiempo los desampararon y se juntaron con los Viejos”]. The alliance between the principle figures among the Nuovi, the “mechanical” nobles and the popolo against the Vecchi was in fact at the origin of the revolt. During the most acute phases of the civil war, however, the radical and extremist wing came to prevail. The richest among the Nuovi, having lost control of the mechanism which they had contributed to setting off, abandoned their companions in an adventure which had become too dangerous, and put themselves at the head of a sort of “party for negotiations” which gained support due to the sense of tiredness that by now had overcome the majority of the Genoese. The search for a compromise between the groups engaged in the struggle was entrusted to the outside mediation of the three ‘princes’ (the pope, the emperor, and the king of Spain) who, with different justifications (because of spiritual supremacy, juridical dependency, and a de facto ‘protection’ over the last fifty years), could boast of some kind of authority over Genoa and had representatives in the city. The product of the work carried out at

18

AGS, Estado 1410, f. 53.

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Casale Monferrato by the representatives of the three princes (cardinal Giovanni Morone for Gregory XIII, the bishop of Aqui Pietro Fauno Costacciaro and Vito Dornberg for Rudolph II, and the duke of Gandía and Juan de Idiáquez for Philip II) was a new constitution: the Leges Novae of March 1576, which supplemented and in some significant parts substituted the Reformationes Novae of 1528. The legislators in Casale, Idiáquez states, acted on the basis of the fault lines in Genoese society which had come to light during the revolt, aiming to “make a true union of the Vecchi and the principal members of the Nuovi ” [“hazer una verdadera unión de los Viejos y de los principales Nuevos”] in order to eliminate the divisions and conflicts, and if this could not be accomplished (as the traditional factiousness of Genoese society suggested) that at least “it was among the most illustrious and richest of all against the seditious and rebellious” [“fuesse de lo granado y hazendado de todos contra los sediciosos y alborotadores”], so that the “better part” [“mejor parte”] prevailed. They aimed, that is, to render the elite of the rich compact so that it could contrast those who demanded a radical change in the power structure of the republic. In 1577, Idiáquez declared, the mechanism which had preserved the divisions and led to civil war—that is the rigid endogamy of the old nobility—had continued to operate in the preceding decades. The “union desired and favored by the laws” [“unión pretendida y favorezcida por las leyes”] still had to be achieved. To do so, complex social mechanisms, difficult to control and direct from above, had to be set up. First of all there was the question of marriage alliances. The two groups had to be willing to contract the bonds of kinship which because of their arrogance the Vecchi were reluctant to create even though they were in dire need of doing so “to preserve themselves” [“para conservarse”]. If the principal members of the Nuovi continued as in the past to marry with the richest of the “mechanical” nobles (and the principal members of the popolo with the less wealthy “mechanical” nobles), the Nuovi would again come to form a single group, and be able to seek the support of the popolo successfully. The old nobility would be surrounded as in the past, and sooner or later there would be another 1575. Thus, the two texts propose interpretations which, at first glance, seem mutually exclusive. Giovanni Andrea Doria, entirely based on mechanisms of distribution of royal grace and the functioning of clientele networks having that purpose, refers to the universe of rela-

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tionships organized around the double sovereign-elite polarity of international power, which the most recent historiography on the Spanish monarchy has studied carefully and brought to the general attention. Idiáquez’ is an entirely socio-anthropological analysis: it explains the reasons for the duration of the political division into estates and singles out the forces present on the political stage, the collective protagonists of the struggle for power in the city arena. It would however be an error to set the two interpretations against each other, endorsing one or the other on the basis of pre-defined ideological schemes. The two draw their validity from the fact that they refer to a multi-dimensional political universe which cannot be defined in a univocal way. If we consider the Spanish imperial system as a coherent whole made of interconnections between power elites, each endowed with a politico-territorial area of reference, engaged in a complex game of competitive cooperation in the production and the achievement of the monarchy’s objectives—then in this sense Genoa was an integral part of the imperial system, in virtue of the quantity and the quality of its contributions: finance and naval power were the two key sectors upon which a significant part of the city’s elite decided to build their relationship with the Catholic monarchy; and in making themselves indispensable to the Spanish Habsburgs in both sectors, the Genoese chose the horizons of the empire as the area in which to plan and carry out their strategies. This meant the full and unconditional acceptance of the rules of behavior that organized that world as a political dimension; and in particular of the language which formed its connective tissue. In the hierarchical and pyramidal universe of the monarchy, every action (from accepting a civil or military office, to the concession of a loan) acquired a political sense in that it was considered a service, in the first place a service to the sovereign, but the same logic was transmitted to all levels of the pyramid; what was obtained in exchange for that action was necessarily a merced, a “grace” granted to recompense the fidelity with which the service had been performed. In the Genoa of the first centuries of the modern age this was the current political language of the financial, ship-owning and military elites that built their fortunes furnishing money, ships and armed men to the Habsburgs. And it is the language (and the logic) that we find in Giovanni Andrea Doria’s text discussed above. The republic itself used it in the relations with the Spanish sovereigns: furnishing the (few) public galleys for the naval enterprises of the monarchy, granting

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corridors for the passage of troops through its territory, making available the mint for coining money were services (a few among the many); mercedes and signs of goodwill were, for example, the royal concessions of free export of grain from the territories of the monarchy, the military protection of the city from external aggression, the financial contribution to the expense of defense in times of war. But, even taking this into account, it is obvious that the republican form of the city government had other meanings too. It defined a political dimension which was structurally different in respect to the hierarchical one of the imperial system: it was the dimension in which the politico-social aggregates mentioned by Idiáquez acted: the Vecchi, the Nuovi, the Meccanici, the popolo; a dimension endowed with its own autonomous political language that went back to the long tradition of republicanism and its specific declensions in the Genoese case. Liberty, common good, equity, and equality in access to office (obviously among those who shared the right of citizenship) were the decisive themes with which the various political actors had to deal in their power strategies; they were also those with which individuals and families who were engaged in “serving” the Spanish monarchy identified themselves. The two political dimensions with their respective languages, the one regarding the vast empire, the other the microcosm of the city, co-existed, in part influencing each other; they were not necessarily incompatible, but they could come into conflict in particular circumstances. The Spanish imperial system, so diversified internally, but at the same time unitary in the logic that governed it, had in the sovereign its unquestioned head: in final analysis the king was the supreme judge of what constituted his service. The same thing was not true in the republic: there was no one to appeal to when the “common good” became the area of contention between opposing political forces. It is not by chance that the way out of the vicious circle in which Genoa found herself with the civil war of 1575 was found by having recourse to a sort of external arbitration carried out by the pope, the emperor and the king of Spain. But the final compromise was reached with difficulty, along with the unfolding events; it was in no way automatic. What is clear is that in 1575 the internal dynamics of the tiny Genoese republic risked inflicting a very serious blow to the Spanish imperial system.

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However inspiring, the observations and analyses proposed by Giovanni Andrea Doria and Juan de Idiáquez are not sufficient. Giovanni Andrea Doria’s analysis contains a notable dose of truth, especially in the first part, dealing with the stabilizing function of Andrea Doria’s primacy, but it does not tell us anything about the lines along which the politics of the city had evolved after that. Moreover, we know that the political and institutional situation of the republic, of which Andrea Doria was the guarantor towards the outside with regard to the Spanish monarchy, and within Genoa with respect to the politico-social forces of the city, began to show signs of wear (although not yet of collapse) in the last years of the admiral’s life. Idiáquez’ interpretation is equally pertinent and at the same time partial in that it does not mention the concrete mechanisms through which the politico-social divisions generated two opposing fronts and were able to take their competition to the extreme limit of recourse to arms. Only by re-establishing a connection with the specific republican context, considering the tools of the political struggle appropriate to that context, can we hope to recompose the mosaic of factors that led to civil war. A reduction of the differences between the various forms of government can be considered one of the “side effects” of the state-centred historiography, long predominant in Italy. Not even that of the power elites, by definition anti-institutional and strongly critical towards the paradigm of state modernization (and so efficacious in reconstructing the functioning of composite structures such as the Spanish Habsburg Empire) helps to recover the specificity of the republican dimension. We will try to move in the direction of clarifying that specificity by taking a step back from the revolt of 1575. We will analyse, albeit cursorily, how in the 1550s and 1560s the contents of an opposition political discourse emerged, against the power organization that had developed after 1528. Thus we will touch some themes which, tightly anchored to the republican “environment” in which the struggle for power took place, were the object first of intense debate and confrontation, and finally in 1575, of open conflict and civil war.

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arturo pacini 3. The birth of an opposition political discourse

The revolt of 1575 is placed in the phase of the Spanish hegemony in Italy. This period has recently captured the interest of historians in relation to the evolution of republican political thought. That has happened, among other things, because of the reception, after years of diffidence, of Anglo-Saxon studies on medieval and modern republicanism as a tradition and a path, over a long period, towards liberalism and the democratic parliamentary tradition of today’s western societies.19 The revision of the old paradigm of the tragic decline of the republics and republican ideas in the course of the sixteenth century appears as one of the products of the attack against the Sismondian myth of Italian decadence in the modern age. That myth was born precisely with reference to the great communal-republican period of the Middle Ages, and from the 1970s on, the historiography on the state had gradually eroded its foundations. Since the field has been cleared of that interpretative structure, even the difficult and contradictory times in which the great republican experiences of Florence and Siena came to an end must be considered in a new way.20 The history of ideas and languages is one of the possible perspectives in which the theme of republicanism in the modern age can be approached for Italy. It certainly has in the diffusion and decline of the “myth of Venice” a focal point,21 but at the same 19 It is sufficient to refer, for example, to the monographic issue of Filosofia politica 12 (1998) on Materiali per un lessico politico: “Repubblica/Repubblicanesimo,” and to the forum in Filosofia e Questioni Pubbliche n.s. 5/1 (2000) on Repubblicanesimo e liberalismo a confronto; or to the acts of conferences such as Politica e cultura nelle repubbliche italiane dal Medioevo all’età moderna. Firenze—Genova—Lucca—Siena—Venezia, ed. Simonetta Adorni Braccesi and Mario Ascheri (Rome, 2001); Ideali repubblicani in età moderna, ed. Fiorella De Michelis Pintacuda and Giovanni Francioni (Pisa, 2002); Libertà politica e virtù civile. Significati e percorsi del repubblicanesimo classico, ed. Maurizio Viroli (Turin, 2004). 20 E. Fasano Guarini, “Declino e durata delle repubbliche e delle idee repubblicane nell’Italia del Cinquecento,” in Libertà politica e virtù civile (n. 19 above), pp. 31–93, spec. pp. 37–38. 21 See Vittorio Conti, “The Mechanisation of Virtue: Republican Rituals in Italian Political Thought in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage, ed. Martin Van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002), vol. 2, The Values of Republicanism in Early Modern Europe, pp. 73–83; but also with particular reference to the problem of citizenship, Gabriele Pedullà, “‘Concedere la civiltà a’ forestieri.’” Roma, Venezia e la crisi del modello municipale di res publica nei Discorsi di Machiavelli,” Storica 25–26 (2003): 105–173.

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time it is necessary to take into account the deep changes linked to the new political context of the peninsula and the ways in which political discourse is formed. In so-called Spanish Italy, where republican political exiles (Florentine in the first place) were spread around the princely courts, Republic and Monarchy were ingredients of a reflection that tends to flee from sharp polarizations. As has been said, “the 16th century in Italy is not so much a century of sharp alternatives as of a mixing of languages.”22 Although we possess praiseworthy studies,23 Genoese political culture has received less attention from historians than it deserves, for one thing because of the reluctance of its citizenry to publish the enormous quantity of writings produced in particular in times of acute political crisis, and which had a broad circulation even outside of the city, but almost always in manuscript form. An emblematic example is that of Andrea Spinola, a tireless writer of memoirs and comments on the city’s politics, who produced thousands of pages but published nothing during his lifetime.24 Another element to be taken into consideration is the very tight link between political writing and the frequent fibrillations that the republic underwent. A critical spirit prevails, often ferociously polemical, with regard to some adversary or another, and by reflection towards the city’s institutions. In this way the Genoese themselves made their republic a kind of anti-myth when compared to the Venetian model. It was a kind of political writing that was perennially linked to current affairs and disputes, in continuous osmosis with the documents produced by the governing institutions. From this point of view, the twenty years that precede the 1575 revolt and the dramatic months of the civil war were an extremely fertile period. From the common trunk of a widely shared republican choice, in connection with significant changes in society, two alternative and conflicting visions of the history and the future of 22

Fasano Guarini, “Declino e durata” (n. 20 above), p. 41, “il Cinquecento italiano non è tanto un secolo di nette alternative, quanto di mescolanza dei linguaggi.” 23 See in the first place Savelli, “Tra Machiavelli e S. Giorgio” (n. 15 above), but also for the general frame of reference Claudio Costantini, La Repubblica di Genova nell’età moderna (Turin, 1978), and the contributions of Carlo Bitossi, “Città, Repubblica e nobiltà nella politica genovese fra Cinque e Seicento,” and Claudio Costantini, “Politica e storiografia: l’età dei grandi repubblichisti,” in La letteratura ligure. La Repubblica aristocratica (1528–1797), 2 vols (Genoa, 1992), respectively vol. 1, pp. 9–35, and vol. 2, pp. 93–135. 24 See Andrea Spinola, Scritti scelti, ed. Carlo Bitossi (Genoa, 1981).

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the city took form. The political culture from which they were born was that of a city inserted with success into the Spanish imperial system. As we have said, a large part of the Genoese elite had adopted its rules of behavior and language, and this was the first and the principal source of contamination and mixture to which the city’s republican tradition had been subjected. The attitude towards the Spanish Habsburg monarchy registered its influence. It is not by chance that Marcantonio Sauli, Genoese ambassador to the Catholic king, an important exponent and one of the toughest ideologues of the “new” nobles, in order to defend the practice of electing magistrates by lot (one of the main elements in the program of that political group) invoked the example of “many republics, and particularly those of Aragon and Catalonia, which are the freest and the most peaceful in the world.” He then goes on to describe their political life in terms that must have been familiar to his quarrelsome co-citizens: “even though among them there are many exiles and factions for private reasons, nonetheless they are not afraid of being insulted and overwhelmed in case the magistracy is held by their adversary.”25 Sauli himself, in commenting on the duke of Gandía’s imminent departure for Genoa as Philip II’s envoy in order to pacify the city—or in case Gandía’s health did not improve, that of the count of Aytona—expressed satisfaction, because “either can be said to be a republic man, in that one is from Valencia and the other from Barcelona”;26 whereas previously he had clearly expressed his unfavorable opinion to the king on the choice of the Castilian Diego de Mendoza, who in Siena had had “bad luck in republican things.”27 The accusation that Juan de Austria made against cardinal Morone, the papal legate in Genoa, and the first to intervene after the popular

25 Letter to the Signoria, 11 March 1575, ASG, Archivio Segreto 2415, “molte republiche, et particularmente quelle d’Aragon et Catalogna, le quali sono le più libere et le più quiete del mondo . . . ancora che fra loro sieno per cause private molti bandi et partialità, nondimeno non hanno paura di essere ingiuriate e soprafatte in caso che il magistrato pervenisse in persona dell’avversario.” On the various and diverging views of the constitutional systems of the Spanish kingdoms, see Xavier Gil, “Republican Politics in Early Modern Spain. The Castilian and CatalanoAragonese Traditions,” in Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage (n. 6 above), vol. 1, Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, pp. 263–288. 26 Letter to the Signoria, 4 August 1575, ASG, Archivio Segreto 2415, “l’uno et l’altro si può dire huomo di republica, essendo l’uno valentiano et l’altro di Barcelona.” 27 Letter to the Signoria, 26 July 1575, Ibid., “mala sorte in cose di repubbliche.”

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revolt in March 1575, is symptomatic: some of Morone’s followers, and in particular a very learned Dominican preacher, from the pulpit “go around praising the liberty under which the lands of the church live, and saying that the pope’s subjects are truly free, without fear that any passion or dissent will be enough to deprive them of the enjoyment of this good which our lord (they call thus the pope) does for them and will do for them.”28 If they spoke in this way, it is evident that it was because there were ears ready to listen. As we have said, however, we find in Genoa a republican choice shared by all sectors of the city’s ruling class, and the internal debate developed according to lines connected to the evolution of the republican culture and ideals of the second half of the sixteenth century. In this regard, the use that was made of Venice as a point of comparison and as a myth in building a coherent political discourse is interesting. The comparison between Genoa and Venice was used in the most varied contexts, in different and more or less meaningful ways. For example, Venice was used as a paragon to justify in the eyes of the Spanish ambassador (at that time Sancho de Padilla) the tensions between Vecchi and Nuovi which came out in the election procedures for the magistrates in the course of the year 1573: they were things of little importance, stated a member of the signoria, which “often happen in republics”: in reality it happened many times “that in the republic of Venice it takes fifteen or twenty days to elect the doge and governors.”29 Not that a sense of proportion and due reverence for the myth of the Serenissima were lacking: Marcantonio Sauli, a “new” noble but a convinced supporter of the need to maintain the strong link between the republic and Spain, declared to the Signoria: “I do not believe that our republic is so strong that she can govern herself without the support of some great prince, and that it can be neutral like Venice, and furthermore I say that I believe that since it is well to have support, the most comfortable and useful support

28 Instruction for Juan Escobedo, envoy to Philip II, 13 June 1575, AGS, Estado 1067, f. 8, “andan publicando la libertad con que se vive en las tierras de la yglesia, y que los subjetos a ella son verdaderamente libres, sin temor que baste ninguna passión ni dissensión a quitarlos de gozar deste bien que les haze y hará nuestro señor (que assí lo dizen entendiendo por el papa).” 29 Lettera to Philip II, 6 November 1573, AGS, Estado 1403, f. 84, “suelen succeder en repúblicas . . . que en la de Venecia se está quince o veynte días en hazer el dux y governadores.”

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must be that of the king of Spain rather than any other prince.”30 But much more important is the fact that Sauli, with respect to institutional organisation, invoked “the republic of Venice, which has governed itself for so many years without open sedition,” and had recourse to the authority of the “very prudent and learned cardinal Contarini who wrote of the republic of Venice.”31 Statements such as these were made currently during the revolt of 1575. In Genoese political debate, the Venetian model had been used for some years in a strong and politically oriented way. In reconstructing the stages in the development of its use, we will try to show how and with what implications it became the ideological patrimony and polemic weapon of a specific part, the “new” nobles. The canonical reference date for the re-emergence of political contrasts in Genoa is 1559 (a year before Andrea Doria’s death) because of the publication in Rome of a libel by Oberto Foglietta entitled Della Republica di Genova.32 This work is influenced by the tensions accumulated in the course of the dramatic 1550s, characterized by the war in which the republic was involved after the French invasion of Corsica and the opening of the Finale question with the rebellion of the marques Alfonso Del Carretto’s subjects. Thus new themes began to emerge around which contrasting groups of forces coagulated. The fractures in the governing group became deeper. Everyone’s eyes and thoughts were now turned towards what would happen after the death of Andrea Doria who was then about ninety. No one could foresee the developments, but the waiting period bred ferment and induced people to take a position since it was clear that a great deal was about to change. Huge resources were engaged in the attempt to re-conquer Corsica. It would have been necessary to have an adequate fleet. There was no lack of galleys in Genoa, but they were in the hands of private

30

Letter from Madrid, 26 July 1575, ASG, Archivio Segreto 2415, “io non credo che la republica nostra sia così gagliarda che ella possa reggersi senza appoggio di alcuno gran principe, et che la possa star neutrale come sta Venetia, et di più dico che io credo che convenendoli appoggiarsi, le debba essere più commodo et più utile lo appoggio del re cattolico che quello di qual si voglia altro principe.” 31 Letter to the Signoria, 11 March 1575, Ibid., “la republica di Venetia, la quale si è governata tanti anni senza manifesta seditione”; “prudentissimo et dottissimo cardinale Contarino che scrisse della republica di Venetia.” 32 On the author see Riccardo Scrivano, “Oberto Foglietta,” in La letteratura ligure (n. 23 above), vol. 1, pp. 59–81.

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ship owners acting on the basis of their own interests and serving a foreign sovereign. The republic was nearly unarmed, and some began to question whether it should remain so. Thus a certain “navalist” tendency began to emerge, gathering consent particularly not only among the Nuovi; while the ship-owners and asentisti of galleys, in majority Vecchi, with the Doria as leaders, did not want to renounce holding such a formidable tool of power as the war fleet. On a practical level the results were less than modest, but not on the political level, in that the military self-sufficiency of the republic and its naval re-armament were, over the long period, decisive questions. Whether or not his name was mentioned, Andrea Doria was at the center of this discussion, and his prestige and his role as mediator super partes was influenced by it. Doria’s opposition to absorbing the Marchesate of Finale under the direct dominion of the republic, due to his kinship with the Del Carretto family, contributed to the tense atmosphere. Foglietta’s work entered this context with great polemic energy, attacking Andrea Doria’s leadership and myth face-on. One of its main points is the reflection around the meaning of the 1528 revolt. Genoa then recovered a long-lasting liberty, but whose was the merit? According to Foglietta, it did not belong to Andrea Doria; he had indeed driven out the French, but the city had had liberators on many previous occasions, only then to fall into servitude again under some tyrant. Those were only fleeting moments of liberty, “of which one could be but little obliged to whoever had been their author”; and the same thing would have happened again “if there had not been union and reform, to which union and reform alone we must be obliged for the perpetuity of this liberty.”33 The myth of the liberator was substituted by a new myth, that of the laws of 1528, which was to have great fortune in the following years. A very good law, however, said Foglietta, had been followed by a very poor one. He attacked the Garibetto with vehemence— the Garibetto was due to Andrea Doria and no other, and Foglietta called it a “very dishonest and detestable”, a “factious and evil” law, with which the Vecchi had “made sure that it cannot happen that in 33 Oberto Foglietta, Della Republica di Genova (Milan, 1865), pp. 137–141, “delle quali si poteva avere poco obligo a chi ne fosse stato autore”; “se non vi fosse stata l’unione e riforma, alla quale sola unione e riforma si ha ad avere obligo della perpetuità di questa libertà.”

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the government there are not as many of their men as all the others, and the same in the small council,” violating the sacred principle of the union. This was even more unjust because the Vecchi were a minority of the noble order, and in that way they trampled on the principle of equality on which the “vivere civile” and the republican form were founded.34 In the dialogue, the arguments against the supposed superiority of the Vecchi are developed with burning irony, but the tone becomes more serious every time their galleys are mentioned. With the aim of prevailing over everyone else, they wanted to impose, contrary to what is just, “that in a free city there be very powerful citizens with excessive strength, and the Republic be weak and disarmed.”35 And here Foglietta appealed to Andrea Doria himself, provocatively inviting him to donate his fleet to the republic as the only way to deserve the name of pater patriae and the eternal gratitude of his co-citizens.36 In 1559 we already have a good part of the ideological arsenal with which the civil war was fought in 1575. In Foglietta’s work we find in general terms the defense of the republic against the excessive power of private citizens; on the institutional level the reform of 1528 is contrasted with the Garibetto, which means bringing back the intransigent ideal of union of the governing stratum of citizens, the decided affirmation of their perfect equality, the re-vindication of access of individuals to office on the basis of their virtues, abilities and merits; all this against the claim of the Vecchi that the governing citizens should be, de facto, divided into two orders, that the prestige and power of the old nobility was sufficient to balance the numerical imbalance between the Vecchi ad the Nuovi, and that for that reason the places on the magistracies were divided in half between the two parts of the nobility. Foglietta does not yet draw all the consequences from these considerations, and the Venetian model is still in the background in his work: it is significant that he mentions it twice; once to show that when the Venetian nobles co-opted many popular families into the

34 Ibid., pp. 94–95, “disonestissima e detestabile”; “faziosa e scellerata”; “provveduto talmente, che non può essere che nel governo non siano tanti dei loro, come di tutti gli altri, e così nel consiglio piccolo.” 35 Ibid., p. 107, “che in una città libera siano cittadini potentissimi e di eccessive forze, e la Republica sia debole e disarmata.” 36 Ibid., pp. 117–118.

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aristocracy, “which were in much greater number than the nobles,” and they opened up access to the government of the republic to them, “they (the nobles) reserved for themselves neither half nor any part of the offices, judging that, as is undoubted, that would not have been making everyone really into one body, nor would they (the co-opted popular families) have been perfectly noble” (exactly the inverse of what the Genoese nobility was then doing); the other to appreciate the Venetian grand council as an organ formed of “all this body of the nobility,” in contrast to the Genoese case, where the council was formed of 400 citizens and renewed every year.37 In the course of the following years, the political contrasts between the two components of the Genoese nobility grew at the same rate as a process of polarization of wealth and differentiation of its sources. The Vecchi, having survived the trauma of Philip II’s 1557 bankruptcy, specialized more and more in financial dealings with the Spanish monarchy, accumulating enormous fortunes, and developing, for this reason too, an arrogant and exclusive pride. The Nuovi, mostly active in the commercial and manufacturing sector, reacted by continuing the polemics and articulating the arguments further. From this point of view, an anonymous work which can be dated 1567, entitled Sogno sopra la repubblica di Genova [“Dream about the Republic of Genoa”], represents an important phase.38 Its continuity with Foglietta’s work is evident in the choice of the protagonists of the dialogue: the main interlocutor, who lends his voice to the author, is Stefano Giustiniani, a popolare, whom Foglietta had praised for his “virtue, constancy and assiduous diligence” in keeping the negotiations for union and reform alive during the time of the Adornos’ and the Fregosos’ tyrannies.39 In the Sogno the model of Venice, an “almost perpetual republic, almost a thousand years that she has continued, a thing which now

37 Ibid., pp. 89–90 and 135, “le quali erano in numero assai più delle nobili”; “essi [nobili] non si riservarono né metà, né parte alcuna de’ magistrati, giudicando, come è senza dubbio, che ciò non sarebbe stato farsi veramente tutti un corpo, né coloro [i popolari cooptati] sarebbero stati perfettamente nobili”; “tutto questo corpo della nobiltà.” 38 See above n. 15 39 Foglietta, Della Republica di Genova (n. 32 above), p. 138, “virtù, costanza e assidua diligenza.”

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in our time cannot be read about any other empire in the world,”40 and the “prudent Venetians”41 are continually held up as exemplary. And Gasparo Contarini, who sang the praises of the perfect Venetian constitution in his De magistrattbus et republica venetorum, is evoked.42 Obviously the reference to Venice is exploited in the first place in order to condemn factions and divisiveness and to exalt the principles of agreement, union, and equality among citizens;43 this in final analysis was the bone of contention between the new nobility and the old. But Venice and Contarini are useful for the author of the Sogno. He, too, attacks the customs of the Vecchi, entirely contrary to the “the citizenly or political form of life”: the exorbitant dowries of brides, the widespread gambling even among matrons, the wealth and unbridled luxury of both men and women in their dress, in their household furnishings, in their servants and valets who attended them, so much so that in “competing and measuring each other in pomp (. . .) the good families of Genoa are extinguishing themselves.” In “this luxury and regal splendor” enormous resources were being lost, and by giving ostentatious visibility to the inequality of fortunes pride and envy were encouraged, placing union and, with it, liberty at risk. In contrast, the “the prudent Venetians created for the men an honorable and citizenly dress, and for the women another, nor do they vary it in any way, so that in that way they moderate the citizens’ luxury, and the poor and patrician citizen does not have to envy the rich and powerful one, and thus the women and the men, dressing all alike, live with each other in the same way, and preserve the substances of the great and medium citizens.”44 40 Sogno (n. 15 above), BCB (Genoa) ms. VII.5.50, c. 29v, “quasi perpetua republica, che è quasi mill’anni che ella si mantiene, cosa che più a quest’ora non si legge d’alcun altro imperio del mondo.” 41 Ibid., cc. 6r, 29v, 66r, “prudenti veneziani.” 42 Ibid., c. 37r, 38v, 51r, 55r. On the importance of Contarini’s text for the diffusion of the myth of Venice in the second half of the sixteenth century, see Conti, “The Mechanisation of Virtue” (n. 21 above), and G. Silvano, La ‘Republica de’ Viniziani’. Ricerche sul repubblicanesimo veneziano in età moderna (Florence,1993). 43 Sogno (n. 15 above), BCB (Genoa) ms. VII.5.50, cc. 1v, 37r. 44 Ibid., cc. 26r–29v, “al vivere cittadinesco o politico”; “concorrere e gareggiare nella pompa [. . .] si vanno estinguendo le buone famiglie in Genova”; “questo lusso e questa splendidezza regia”; “prudenti veneziani [. . .] constituirono alli uomini un abito onorevole e cittadinesco, et alle donne un altro, né quello si varia in modo alcuno, di maniera tale che con quello moderano il lusso cittadinesco, et il povero e patrizio cittadino non ha da invidiare il più ricco e potente, e così le donne e

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Compared to the work of Foglietta, in the Sogno two themes which were to be fundamental in the following years are carefully analyzed: first, the alternative between the 1528 reform and that of 1547 (the “Garibetto”) was clarified on a technical institutional level as the contrast between election to public office by lot or by vote, tightly connected to the theme of equality in the participation of citizens in the “honors and burdens” of the administration of the republic.45 The overbearing power of the rich oligarchs derived from the fact that the 1547 law had entirely eliminated drawing by lot from the electoral procedures, whereas the reformers in 1528 had established “that the magistratures must be elected in part by lot and in part by vote, as the Venetians do.”46 The only way to preserve liberty was to go back to the law that had instituted the republic, and here the author of the Sogno appealed not only “to the long experience of the Venetians” and to Contarini,47 but “to the wise Machiavelli, who wants all well-ordered republics every 40 years to take the state back to its origins in order to preserve it longer.”48 The theme of excessive wealth of the few corrupting the life of the republic, present in Foglietta but in a fairly generic way, gains new polemic force in the Sogno. Its author is very decided in accusing the world of finance linked to Spain, with its corollaries of noble titles (especially in the Kingdom of Naples), pensions and benefices. Agostino Pinelli, Stefano Giustiniani’s main interlocutor in the dialogue, was forced to admit that at present “in Genoa no one is taken into account except those who come from Spain with one hundred thousand scudi, these are those who have the government in hand, even if they know little of the world and of the laws of the republic.”49 Furthermore they had contracted bonds of dependency from

gli uomini vestendo tutti del pari, stanno tra di loro al paragone, e si conservano in tal modo le sostanze de grandi e quelle de mezzani.” 45 Ibid., c. 49r. 46 Ibid., cc. 50r, 60v–61v, 81v, “che i magistrati si dovessero ellegger in parte a sorte et in parte per suffragi, siccome fanno i veneziani.” 47 Ibid., c. 55r, “alla longa esperienza de veneziani.” 48 Ibid., c. 63, see Savelli, “Tra Machiavelli e S. Giorgio” (n. 15 above), p. 274ff., “al savio del Machiavelli, che vuole che tutte le republiche ben ordinate di 40 in 40 anni al più tardi ripiglino il stato per mantenerlo più longamente.” 49 Sogno (n. 15 above), BCB (Genoa) ms. VII.5.50, c. 51r. “a Genova non è tenuto conto se non di chi viene di Spagna con scuti 100 mila, questi sono quelli che hanno il governo in mano, ancorché sappino poco del mondo e delle leggi della republica.”

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an external power which made them not deserve the government of the republic and dangerous for the common liberty: once again it was necessary to look to the Venetians, who “to preserve their dominion and free republic do not want their citizens to be lords of any vassals and when they accept privileges or stipends from foreign princes without express order of the Senate they are declared rebels and deprived of their goods and citizenship.”50 But the Sogno attacks the asentistas head-on: they were a small group “of the most ambitious and least Catholic,” who as all the world by now knew with the plague of “great usuries” destroyed whole cities and provinces; they ruined both Genoese and Spanish merchants, they fomented wars, and they had “impoverished all Spain in general.”51 This verdict without appeal was even more meaningful in that it accompanied an exaltation of commerce and particularly of silk manufacture, which gave just earnings and enriched the republic. The art of silk, in fact, was contrary to usurious money lending, “does not give damage to Genoa, rather very great profit,” and it was to preserve their own supremacy that the oligarchs did everything to destroy it.52 Therefore we have the condemnation of the excessive wealth and power of a few, of the sterility, and doubtful conformity to Christian morality, of money-lending and financial dealings, of the infiltration of aristocratic and feudal customs and life-styles contrary to those of city republics, of the servitude of a republic intentionally weakened in order to bend her to the dominion of a minority, and on the other hand the exaltation of a mercantile and maritime tradition which fertilized and enlivened urban society, consonant with the republican form of government, ethically and morally worthy of a Christian community. These were some of the most significant themes that emerged in the course of the 1550s and 1560s, often in the shadow of the Venetian model. They nourished an opposition culture which prepared the popular revolt and the civil war of 1575, and we find 50 Ibid., c. 83r, “per conservar il loro imperio e republica libera non vogliono i loro cittadini signori di vassalli alcuni, e quando accettano dignità o stipendio da principi stranieri senza ordine espresso del senato gli fanno ribelli e privano de beni e cittadinanza.” 51 Ibid., c. 22r, “delli più ambiziosi e men cattolici”; “grosse usure”; “impoverito quasi tutta la Spagna in generale.” 52 Ibid., c. 40r, “non dà danno a Genova, anzi utile grandissimo.”

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them in the flood of libels, memoirs and recollections produced at that time. Evidently, even the contaminated republican language of the second half of the sixteenth century still had a relevant persuasive energy, with reference both to the internal social, political and institutional structures and to the Spanish imperial system of which the republic of San Giorgio was part. It is equally clear that Genoa’s gravitation in the orbit of the Spanish Habsburg monarchy did not impede the full development of a political dialectic firmly anchored to the republican tradition and form of government.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE VENETIAN TERRITORIAL STATE: CONSTRUCTING BOUNDARIES IN THE SHADOW OF SPAIN John Jeffries Martin

The Venetian empire was divided into two parts. One of these was the Stato da mar, an archipelago of trading colonies and islands that reached from the Dalmatian coast to the Aegean and beyond, possessions that Venice had begun to colonize during the Fourth Crusade (1202–04). As is well known, this maritime empire became and remained the source of much of the city’s wealth and power throughout the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The other was the Stato da terra or the terraferma, Venice’s territorial possessions in northeastern Italy—a large swath of land that reached from the Adda to the Adriatic, and included both mountainous regions (much of the Italian Alps) along its northern frontiers and, along its southern borders, the rich fertile plain that lay to the north of the Po. (Figure 8.1: Stato da terra) Venice’s control over the terraferma had begun in the early fourteenth century, accelerated in the fifteenth, and was by the beginning of the sixteenth century recognized as a lynchpin of the Republic’s economic and political stability. In this chapter, I approach the terraferma as a state in its own right, one with many affinities to other territorial states in Italy in this period: the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Milan, and the Kingdom of Naples, itself part of a larger imperial system. Such a perspective requires little justification; as Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan has written, “the Venetian Terraferma is now a field unto itself.”1 My particular emphasis is on the way in which the Venetian ruling elites struggled, in the shadow of growing Spanish power on the peninsula in the early modern period, to protect their interests by 1 Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Venice Triumphant: Horizons of a Myth, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 101. The two classic inaugural studies on the terraferma are Marino Berengo, La società veneta alla fine del Settecento: ricerche storiche (Florence: Sansoni, 1956) and Angelo Ventura, Nobiltà e popolo nella società veneta del ’400 e ’500 (Bari: Laterza, 1964).

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Fig. 8.1. Venetian Stato da terra (Archivio di Stato, Venice).

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strengthening the integrity of the Republic’s borders on the mainland. I will also show how these borders, in turn, played a key role in consolidating Venice’s mainland holdings as a territorial state. This focus on the periphery breaks with most former accounts of the consolidation of Venetian power on the terraferma.2 Traditionally historians have approached this subject from the center outwards. From the Dominante—the city of Venice itself—the Venetian Senate dispatched representatives from its noble class to act as governors, judges, and military commanders of the various regions it had conquered in the Dominio. They also used symbols to reinforce their power. They displayed the imperial lion of St. Mark; they produced maps of the Republic’s holdings on the mainland; and, in a move that gestured to its holdings in distant Lombardy, the Venetian Senate even erected an equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in the campo in front of San Zanipolo, the city’s Dominican house. Colleoni, one of the great Renaissance condottieri was, by birth, a Bergamasque who had helped pacify the Lombard territories for Venice in the early fifteenth century. But, while breaking with the traditional narrative, a focus on the periphery is consistent with the recent revolution in the historical understanding of the early modern state. As a result of the pioneering works by such scholars as Giorgio Chittolini and Elena Fasano Guarini, historians now no longer look at such formations, as Federico Chabod and many others of his generation once did, as highly-centralized and rational anticipations of modern political arrangements (above all the nation); nor do they understand their dynamics purely as the conquest by a center over the periphery; rather they tend to see them as far more complex, as a mosaic of overlapping jurisdictions in which local lordships, bishoprics, towns and village communities continued to have a certain degree of independence even when they were nominally under the rule of a dominant city or prince. Within each territorial state, moreover, we are likely to find a mixture of contradictory forms of political organization that we can best approach not in the classical language of Renaissance political theory, but rather by attention to the most basic concerns with power as manifest in law, taxation, trade, and the use 2 Hendryk Spruyt, The Sovereign State and its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) sees the growth of the sovereign state as the result of policies of internal colonization; on Venice, esp. p. 173.

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of military force.3 Such concerns were particularly acute in borderlands, where matters of defense and jurisdiction were often, almost by definition, subject to dispute between two contiguous states. The early modern territorial state, I am suggesting, was not merely a product of a centralizing authority (whether a prince or a city) but was also a formation constructed at its periphery. In fact, it was largely the fostering of common interests between the center and the borderlands—between Venetian magistrates in the lush chambers of the dogal palace, on the one hand, and peasants and shepherds living in poverty in villages along the Republic’s distant mainland frontiers, on the other—that would invest the territorial state with greater and greater integrity in the early modern period. The process of state formation was, therefore, a dialectical one, a “two-way” affair.4 Precisely because it was a two-way affair, any explanation of the process of territorial consolidation must focus on both the center and the periphery as well as on the modalities through which these two areas influenced one another. In the case of Venice, the growth of Spanish power had a particularly strong impact on ideology. Here history overlaps with legend and myth—the leyenda negra of Spain, on the one hand, and the mito di Venezia, on the other. Spain, according to the Black Legend, was responsible for all that went wrong in Italy in the sixteenth century. The preponderanza spagnola shut down the Renaissance, introduced the Inquisition, and stalled the Italian economies.5 Certainly many in Italy deplored the Spanish presence. One Venetian ambassador described Naples, after the Spanish occupation, as “the kingdom of the damned,” and Tommaso Contarini lamented what he saw as Spain’s intention to “keep the Italian princes

3 Elena Fasano Guarini, “Geographies of Power: The Territorial State in Early Modern Italy” in The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad, ed., John Jeffries Martin (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 89–103. Among the major works on the Renaissance and early modern state, see Giorgio Chittolini, La formazione dello Stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado: secoli XIV e XV (Turin: Einaudi, 1979). 4 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 8; Sahlin’s insights into the role of borderlands in the making of the French nation have informed much of my own argument concerning the construction of the Venetian territorial state. 5 For a concise discussion of this myth see James C. Davis, A Venetian Family and its Fortune, 1500 –1900 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1975), pp. 76–77; on the economic consequences of Spanish imperialism, see especially Antonio Calabria, The Costs of Empire: The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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disunited.”6 But the hatred of Spain, in the case of Venice, also fueled a vigorous republicanism. Gasparo Contarini, who served as the Republic’s ambassador to Spain from 1521–1525, was acutely aware of the differences between the political values of his own state and those of the Spanish monarchy. We can sense this in his letters, but it is above all in his De magistratibus et republica Venetorum, begun while he was in Spain, then reworked in the wake of the Peace of Bologna of 1529, that we can discern the emergence of an increasingly articulate Venetian republican discourse in the shadow of growing Spanish power in Italy.7 To be sure, there were periods in the sixteenth century when Venice’s commitments to republicanism would seem eclipsed, as the ruling group in Venice closed in on itself, restricting power to an increasingly narrow group of noble households in the Council of Ten. Such a shift has often been related to the need for a more aggressive foreign policy following the War of the League of Cambrai (a coalition of states concerned about Venice’s territorial expansion) that, under the leadership of the French, temporarily stripped Venice of its terraferma holdings in the wake of the Battle at Agnadello in 1509. But the enduring nature of the ascendancy of the Ten can be related as well to Venetian military and naval policies in the Mediterranean in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, from the time of its first alliance with Spain against the Turks in 1537–1540 to its entry into the Holy League with Spain and the Papacy in 1570–1573. Nonetheless, the success of Venice in the second of these alliances, especially the growing confidence of the ruling group following the startling and decisive victory of the Holy League over the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1571, had the curious result of leading to a new upsurge of confidence, particularly among those patricians who have come to be known as the giovani. This group strove to restore greater openness in the Venetian ruling class; they pushed, moreover, for

6 Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 367. 7 Elisabeth G. Gleason, “Confronting New Realities: Venice and the Peace of Bologna, 1530” in Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797, ed. John Jeffries Martin and Dennis Romano (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pp. 168–184 and Felix Gilbert, “The Date of the Composition of Contarini’s and Giannotti’s Books on Venice”, Studies in the Renaissance 14 (1967): 176–77.

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greater Venetian independence from Spain and from the papacy. Their leaders included the doge Nicolò da Ponte, a figure who has been described as “notoriously anti-Spanish;” the equally republican and anti-Spanish doge Nicolò Contarini; the historian Paolo Paruta; and, of course, Paolo Sarpi, who feared having the republic engulfed in what was for him an unwelcome pax hispanica.8 “Generally,” as Brian Pullan has written, “Venice had by the early seventeenth century become a symbol of [a] just and peaceful government for all who hated Spain.”9 But anti-Spanish feeling did not simply surface during the crisis of the Interdict (1606–1607); it came back with a vengeance a decade later, in 1618, during the so-called Spanish Conspiracy, a period in which many Venetians, suddenly fearful of an attack on their city by Spanish troops, again expressed with great intensity the opposition of a free, republican Venice to an intolerant, tyrannical Spain. The author of an anonymous pamphlet from the early seventeenth century praises Venice as “a free city, metropolis of a great republic, which is patron of kingdoms and of provinces, glorious for illustrious and lofty deeds” and condemns the Spanish, whom he describes as “born liege and dependent, slaves to the will of another, on whom, as if by a threat your life and all your fortunes depend.”10 Yet this was only one dimension of Spain’s impact on Venice. Another was military, a sphere in which Venetian elites paid particular attention, as we might expect, to borderlands. Venice’s apprehensions were justified. After all, Spain had been one of the parties to the League of Cambrai. To be sure, after this loss, Venice fought its way back; and from its reconquest of the terraferma down to the War of the League of Cognac (1526–29), Venice did all it could to drive Spain from the peninsula. The Venetians carried out naval 8 See Gaetano Cozzi, Il doge Nicolò Contarini: ricerche sul patriziato veneziano agli inzi del Seicento (Venice: Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, 1958) and William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 9 Brian Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 6. 10 Risposta alla lettera scritta contro la Serenissima Republica di Venetia dal sig. Duca d’Ossuna vicirè di Napoli alla S.ta di nostro sig. Papa Paulo V, cited in Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty, p. 503; for a critique of the tendency to exaggerate the differences between Spanish and Venetian forms of government, see Thomas J. Dandelet, “Politics and the State System after the Hapsburg-Valois Wars” in Early Modern Italy, ed. John A. Marino (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 14–15.

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operations along the Apulian coast aimed at helping the French reconquer Naples and dispatched their condottieri to Lombardy in an effort to frustrate Spanish ambitions there. But by 1529 the Republic of Venice found itself outmaneuvered both militarily and diplomatically, as France and the papacy—its two major allies—both reached separate agreements with Spain, forcing Venice to accept Spanish rule in the Kingdom of Naples and to abandon its hope of keeping the Spanish out of Milan. When Charles V was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna in 1529, therefore, the Venetians reluctantly recognized that the world had changed. “El mondo è mutado,” Sanuto noted in his diaries at this time.11 Spain was now the major power in Italy—a reality that became crystal clear for the Venetians with the return of the Duchy of Milan to Spanish control in 1535. Even more than Agnadello, Elisabeth Gleason has argued, the Peace of Bologna marked a turning point in Venice’s history. The Venetians now understood that the larger states in Europe had become the superpowers; and that their own role was reduced. To be sure, Venetians remained brilliant diplomats; they knew well the art of enticing the papacy, France, England, and even the Ottomans into alliances that would frustrate the territorial ambitions of their neighbors. Yet this process of adaptation also involved structural shifts as the Venetians—whether nobles, merchants, or peasants—adjusted to the new realities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After all, for Venice, now surrounded by Hapsburg powers along its western and northern frontiers and facing a continuing threat to its Mediterranean holdings from the Ottomans, this stabilization was not a resolution. If anything, Venice began to give more attention to its borders than ever before. As J. R. Hale has observed of Venice in this period: “Encircled by two active enemies, the Turks in the east, the Austrian archdukes in the north, and two potential new ones, Spanish Milan in the west and the papacy in the South, Venetian neutrality had perforce to be armed.”12 In 1542, the Venetian Senate established a new magistracy, the Provveditori alle Fortezze to 11 Marino Sanuto, I diarii, ed. Rinaldo Fulin et al., 58 vols (Venice: Presso la Deputazione, 1879–1903), vol. 27, pp. 456–7, cited in Gleason, “Confronting New Realities,” p. 170. 12 J. R. Hale, “The First Fifty Years of a Venetian Magistracy: The Provveditori alle Fortezze” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, ed. Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), pp. 499–529.

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oversee the construction and refurbishing of the Republic’s fortifications; for, as the founding document specified, “our fortresses, both at sea and on land are, as is well known to all, the foundation (il fondamento) of our state.”13 In the first fifty years of its existence alone, these magistrates in conjunction with the Senate oversaw the construction or the updating of fortifications at Bergamo, Orzinovi, Crema, Brescia, Peschiera, Verona, Padua, Treviso, Marano, Palmanova, Cadore, Chioggia, and the Lido. Such initiatives did much to make clear the ruling group’s determination to remain lords of the terraferma as it was defined in the wake of the Spanish occupation of Milan. There would be no more Agnadellos. The international situation may have grown more ominous, but Venice grew more determined than ever to hold onto its empire, and the Republic’s intensified attention to fortifications undoubtedly meant not only a larger standing army but also patronage and employment for those residents of the terraferma who were most loyal to the Republic. Yet it is also crucial to examine this process of consolidation from the vantage point of the Venetian borderlands and, in particular, the ways in which their development was shaped by local traditions. One of the most vivid examples comes from the frontier that developed between the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice, two of the most aggressive states of the Renaissance. The collision between these two states had developed in response to Venetian aggression on the mainland in the early fifteenth century. Until the 1420s the Visconti Dukes of Milan had dominated most of eastern Lombardy, and Venice was not yet viewed as posing a genuine threat. But the expansionist policies of the Venetians had suddenly changed this equation. In 1428, under Doge Francesco Foscari, the troops of the Serenissma had seized both the Bresciano and the Bergamo, with the result that the Republic’s mainland possessions now extended from the Adriatic to the Adda. If Milan had seemed the most aggressive state at the very beginning of the century, Venice’s westward expansion of the terraferma had rendered other Italians especially fearful of the Republic’s ambitions. Throughout Italy in the fifteenth century, the Republic evoked mixed emotions of fear and admiration among contemporaries. In the early sixteenth century, Machiavelli 13

The founding document is published in Hale, “The First Fifty Years,” pp. 528–9.

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alluded to the odio universale (the universal hatred) of his fellow Italians towards the Venetians as a result of what was widely perceived to be their efforts to dominate the entire peninsula, to create a monarchia d’Italia.14 By the mid fifteenth-century, the Adda had come to serve as a frontier between the Milanese and the Venetians. This broad river originated in the Rhaetian Alps, passed through the Valtelline before joining Lake Como from which it then re-emerged, now flowing south between Venice’s western borders and the eastern reaches of the Duchy of Milan until it reached the Po. For most of us, the Adda is familiar primarily from the evocative pages of Manzoni’s I promessi sposi, though it and the valleys through which it flows were among Leonardo da Vinci’s favorite landscapes and an inspiration to both his artistic and scientific imagination.15 For both the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice, by contrast, this frontier was a continual source of apprehension, and it required nearly constant surveillance. When they had first conquered the Bergamasco, the Venetians had tried to extend their dominion west of the river, but they finally agreed with the Milanese on the Adda, from Trezzo north, as a frontier between the two states, an agreement that was then formalized by the Peace of Lodi in 1454.16 Later it was across this river that the French, under the leadership of King Louis XII, had entered Venetian territory and attacked Venetian forces just outside the village of Agnadello at the outbreak of the War of the League of Cambrai (1509). Even after the Duchy of Milan fell under Spanish control in 1535, these territorial anxieties, as we shall see, continued. Spain’s control of the Duchy was of enormous strategic importance—it offered the Spanish a foothold in a territory just to the south of France, its major enemy, while at the same time making it possible for the Spanish to send troops directly into Italy and 14 Nicolai Rubinstein, “Italian Reactions to Terraferma Expansion in the Fifteenth Century,” in Renaissance Venice, ed. John R. Hale (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), p. 197. 15 Luigi Giuseppe Conato, Leonardo e il paessaggio Lombardo (Brescia: Fausto Sardini, 1987). 16 “Relazione del capitano di Bergamo Lorenzo Donado, read in the Senate, 31 December 1565” in Relazioni dei rettori veneti in Terraferma, vol. XII: Podesteria e Capitanato di Bergamo (Milan: Giuffrè, 1978), pp 72–3. Gaetano Cozzi offers a luminous discussion of this text in his “Politica e diritto in alcune controversie confinarie tra lo Stato di Milan e la Repubblica di Venezia (1564–1622),” Archivio storico lombardo 78–9 (1951–2).

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then up through Milan and Savoy, along the famed Spanish Road, for combat in the Netherlands.17 The fact that the Spanish eventually positioned a large number of troops in the Duchy could not have been reassuring to the Venetians. Against the Spanish tercios the Adda must have seemed a fragile barrier indeed.18 As a result, the Venetians saw the Adda as critical to their defenses. The preservation of this frontier was essential to protect the fortress at Bergamo from a sudden raid by the Spanish through the mountain passes and valleys to the west of the city. To a degree that we often forget, a fortress such as the recently refurbished one in Bergamo relied for its protection on smaller fortresses and castles on its periphery and on the expectation that local populations—largely peasant populations which eked out their living raising sheep, cutting wood, and mining charcoal—would warn the militias garrisoned in the fortresses of an imminent attack. In this context, recognition by the Venetian authorities of the intersection of interests between the peasants along the frontier and the military in Bergamo was critical to the survival of the state. We can see this interplay at work in several instances in the Venetian borderlands, but the region where the concerns were the deepest were not where a natural frontier such as the Adda served to delineate the states but rather those areas where the borderlands were more fluid and the frontier, as a consequence, less well defined. One of the more significant of these regions was the eastern Comasco, particularly the territory that lay between Lake Como and the city of Bergamo. The valleys in this mountainous and forbidding landscape were a matter of economic and political interest to both the Venetians and the Milanese. They were rich in minerals, in charcoal, in wood, and in wool. In the seventeenth century, according to one report, the iron mined in the Valsassina, at the eastern most extreme of the Duchy of Milan, was sufficient to meet the military needs not only of the Duchy but also of the King of Spain.19 Had the Venetians been able to drive all the way west to Lake Como itself, therefore, 17 Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2d ed., 2004), pp. 51–2 and map on p. 43. 18 Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, p. 175. 19 Domenico Sella, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 112. This work supplements and surpasses Bruno Caizzi, Il Comasco sotto il dominio spagnuolo: saggi di storia economica e sociale (Como: Centro lariano per gli studi economic, 1955).

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Milan would have been forced to give up one of its most valuable assets. But the Venetians had been stopped in their westward expansion in these mountains and compelled in the early fifteenth century to negotiate a mountain frontier with the Milanese. This led to a largely artificial division of the region, with the boundary following the eastern arch of the Valsassina. The land that lay to the west of this line, including the Valsassina, was Milanese; the land to the east, which included the Val Taleggio, was Venetian. This division reflected a pre-existing rivalry between Guelfs and Ghibellines. But this formal division and even the eventual use of borderstones to delineate more clearly the two territories did not put an end to the conflict along this mountainous frontier. Even when the Hapsburg-Valois wars for the control of Italy were officially ended by the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, the conflicts continued. To some degree this is surprising. This treaty focused enormous attention on regulating the boundaries between powers.20 Moreover, the second half of the sixteenth century was a period of significant rapprochement between Venice and Spain, as both powers confronted the expansion of Ottoman naval power in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, the consolidation of Spanish power on the peninsula was a reality the Venetians could not ignore, and border disputes were one of the ways in which states with diverse interests tested one another’s will in this apprehensive period. This process was most vivid along the frontier between the Valsassina in Milanese territory and the valleys of San Martino and Taleggio in the western Bergamasco. In 1564 the Milanese authorities in Lecco, a town on the southern shores of Lake Como, sent out surveyors who laid claim to a small stretch of Venetian territory in the Val San Martino and, in particular, an area that included a small fortified hill overlooking one of the many narrow mountain passes that the Milanese could potentially use in a strike against Venice. The surveyors staked their claim by establishing a straight line between the walls of the village Chiuso and the peak of a nearby mountain to its north—in essence pushing the border between the Duchy and the Republic further into the Bergamacsco and thereby seizing the hilltop fortress.21 Lorenzo Donà, the Venetian captain at Bergamo, 20 Joycelyn G. Russell, Peacemaking in the Renaissance (London: Duckworth, 1986), pp. 133–223. 21 “Relazione del capitano di Bergamo Lorenzo Donado,” pp. 72–3.

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retaliated by reasserting the validity of the former boundary and issued a decree prohibiting any of the peasants under Milanese jurisdiction from pasturing their sheep on the Venetian side. The matter escalated. The castellan at Lecco together with the fiscal in Milan came back into the Val San Martino in the company of armed men and entered the hilltop fortification where “they wrote certain things, believing that by this act they could take possession.”22 Then the Milanese declared that no one, unless a subject to Philip II, was to pasture sheep in the area they had claimed. When peasants under Venetian jurisdiction continued to make use of the land just as they had done for generations—sheep themselves are notoriously consistent in their grazing patterns—the Spanish seized their sheep and even a shepherd, setting off one of those minor international disputes that questions of jurisdiction frequently posed in the early modern world.23 What I wish to underline here—albeit briefly—is the collision between traditional, collective grazing rights that the villagers on both sides of the frontier had enjoyed for generations—rights that stemmed from collective memories and representations of the land where they had long been able to put their sheep to pasture or from which they had been able to cut wood—on the one hand, and the increasing importance placed by the Spanish and subsequently the Venetians on more formal notions of boundary demarcation on the other—notions that made use of a survey and the delineation of an imaginary line. In a fascinating study of the making of borders in the Cerdanya Valley between France and Spain from the seventeenth to nineteenth century Peter Sahlins has argued that it was the imposition of linear boundaries over such lands that led to the shift “from a jurisdictional to a territorial polity—the ‘territorialization’ of the state.”24 But this episode suggests that even before the formal emergence of the modern political boundary, the Spanish and

22

“Relazione del capitano di Bergamo Lorenzo Donado,” p. 74. On the role of the castellans and podestà in Spanish Milan, see Federico Chabod, Lo Stato e la vita religiosa a Milano nell’epoca di Carlo V (Turin: Einaudi, 1971), pp. 185–192 esp. 24 In addition to Sahlins’s Boundaries, see his “The Nation in the Village: StateBuilding and Communal Struggles in the Catalan Borderland during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries” The Journal of Modern History 60 (1988), p. 239. 23

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the Venetians were making use of a similar concept in at least an ad hoc way for their own strategic advantage. The Spanish also made use of more traditional claims. We see this in an episode that took place in the Val Taleggio, a valley that lay in Venetian territory just to the north of the Val San Martino. This region was also rich in pasture and forests, an important source of lumber, and is still celebrated for its soft, flavorful cheese. Traditionally the inhabitants of this valley had worshiped in the parish church of Taleggio, one of the larger settlements in the region. Yet in 1565 a problem arose. The parish was technically under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the inhabitants of Vedeseta, a community in the Valsassina, though over the course of the late fifteenth century, most of the villages had withdrawn from this parish and begun to worship in new churches in their own villages. Had the residents of Vedeseta accepted this arrangement and not attempted to use ecclesiastical authority for political ends, they might have kept the peace. But one night they slipped over the river and painted the arms of Philip II on the walls of the parish church in Sottochiesa, one of the villages in the Val Taleggio. Outraged by this attempted usurpation, the villagers reacted immediately; they whitewashed the walls, erasing the royal imagery. The ecclesiastical authorities intervened in favor of the Spanish arguing that the villagers of Vedeseta held the right of ius patronatus. But this did not sit well with the Venetians, since—as captain Lorenzo Donà noted—the parish in question was located “on the common goods of the subjects of Your Serenity, with the result that, by taking possession of this church, your adversaries will then claim to be the lords of these public things. This would be of the greatest harm and prejudice to your most faithful subjects.”25 A significant part of the danger lay, no doubt, in the fact that, the Val Taleggio, like the Val San Martino, included a fortress—the castle of Pizzino—which, like many other smaller bulwarks served as one of the centers from which the militia at the fortress in Bergamo could be warned in the event of an attack from the Spanish in Milan. (Figure 8.2: Territorio di Bergamo)

25 “Relazione del capitano di Bergamo Lorenzo Donado,” p. 75; Gaetano Cozzi, “Politica e diritto in alcune controversie,” p. 11.

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Fig. 8.2. Territorio di Bergamo (University of Kansas Spencer Collection).

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The dispute in the Val Taleggio lasted for at least two decades with both the Milanese and the Venetians taking an active interest.26 The Spanish in Milan clearly saw this usurpation to their economic advantage. The Venetians also recognized the value of the valley; the area was especially rich in lumber which was needed more than ever at the Arsenal for the construction of ships. To be sure no war broke out, but the incident in the Val Taleggio, like the nearly simultaneous one in the Val San Martino, makes it clear that the Venetians and their Milanese neighbors constructed boundaries slowly, through a series of jurisdictional disputes even when an impressive natural boundary—the sinuous eastern shore of Lake Como would have constituted the obvious border—lay nearby. If the underlying cause in the Val San Martino had been grazing rights, in the Val Taleggio, at least according to the relazione of Lorenzo Donà, the reaction of the peasants stemmed largely from their loyalty to the Republic. Indeed, when the territory was conquered in the mid-fifteenth century the Venetian doge Francesco Foscari had reaffirmed many of the communal institutions of the villagers in the Taleggio—rights that included the election of representatives to a governing council.27 As Donà wrote to the Senate, “the subjects of Your Serenity outnumber those of the subjects of the State of Milan, and they are warlike and brave. They would never let anyone usurp their belongings, for they are most faithful to Your Serenity, who has bestowed on them many privileges, among which is the power of choosing the local official or administrator (the vicario) of this Valley.”28 At the very western frontier of the Venetian state, therefore, we find a compelling example of the degree to which peasant communities in the Republic were able to preserve certain communal values within the context of a state that, in general, acknowledged the local customs

26 That territorial boundaries were slowly constructed and often remained centers of dispute is evident from the cartography of the region. A map of the Bergamo published in 1680 clearly shows the village of Vedeseta as Bergamasque; by contrast, a map of the Bergamo drawn by the French cartographer Jean Javier but published in Venice in 1776 shows the village of Vedeseta as Milanese. See La Lombardia e la Bergamasca: rappresentazioni cartografiche sec. XVI–XIX, ed. Emilio Moreschi (Bergamo: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 2005), pp. 97 and 109 respectively. 27 Sergio Salvetti, Taleggio: la terra la storia (Ponteranica: Edizioni Villdiseriane), p. 21; see also “Val Taleggio; note storiche” at http://it.geocities.com/sergiosalvetti/id15.htm ( Jan. 30, 2005); this site is especially useful for its inclusion of early maps of the region. 28 “Relazione del capitano di Bergamo Lorenzo Donado,” pp. 75–6.

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of peasants. Venice may have ruled over the local notables of the terraferma with a relatively heavy-hand, but the peasantry in Lombardy, it appears, recognized that the Venetian administrators of their region (the capitani and the podestà) were often able to protect them from encroachments on their rights by the local nobility—a perfect example of the way in which the central regime and the borderlands acted together to give a greater sense of cohesion. This was, as Gaetano Cozzi has written, a period in which there was a “greater integration between the dominant city and the rest of the state.”29 Clearly, the process of state formation was as dependent on peasant culture as it was on the values of the ruling elite. That this region was particularly proud of its political autonomy becomes especially clear when we expand our consideration to lands west of the frontier between Milan and Venice. As Fernand Braudel observed long ago, “The hills were a refuge of liberty, democracy, and peasant ‘republics.’”30 This was certainly the case in the valleys of the eastern Comasco. Again, there was likely more in common among the Milanese and the Venetian peasants in this region than there was between either group and the ruling group at the center. For in the valleys adjacent to the Val San Martino and the Val Taleggio, we also find fiercely independent political traditions. When the Valsassina, for example, was threatened by the possibility of being subjected to a feudal regime in the mid-seventeenth century, the local sindaco (an elected official who represented the region) wrote to the Dukes in Milan: “So much does this valley abhor being removed from the direct jurisdiction of the Crown and being subjected to a feudal lord that without any doubt a majority of our people would leave and cross the border into Venetian territory.”31 Like their neighbors in the valleys of the Bergamo, the rural population of the Valsassina valued their freedoms. In this sense, the periphery always exercised considerable influence over the center. The regimes the

29 Gaetano Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia e l’Europa (Turin: Einaudi, 19788), pp. xi–xiii. 30 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 40. This is a translation of the second, revised edition of Braudel’s masterpiece which was originally published in 1949. 31 Sella, Crisis and Continuity, p. 160. Also see Caroline Castiglione’s Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640 –1750 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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Venetian representatives established in these mountain communities dovetailed almost perfectly with the local, peasant traditions. Even in the case of the Duchy of Milan, where there was an apparent conflict between the freedoms of the rural populations of the Valsassina and the imperial government in the city, we are reminded that all Italian territorial states consisted of a veritable patchwork of political formations, and that micro-republics could carve out an existence for themselves not only within a republic but within a duchy as well. The most famous dispute involving the western frontier came in the early seventeenth century, when the Spanish consolidated their control over the Valtelline, an elongated mountain pass that ran along the River Adda from the northeastern shores of Lake Como to the Tyrol and that was, therefore, of enormous strategic importance to the Spanish who wished to use it to move troops from Lombardy to Austria. The pass would become an essential component of Hapsburg strategy, providing a link between Spain and the Austrian Hapsburgs, especially after the closing of the Spanish Road in 1601.32 The Valtelline was also the northwestern frontier of the Venetian Republic and until 1620 nominally under the control of the Grisons, a mountainous and remarkably democratic confederacy that posed no military threat to the Venetians.33 But even before the Spanish forcefully occupied the valley in the wake of the bloody Sacro Macello of 1620, when the Protestant residents of the region were slaughtered by their Catholic neighbors, Spain had signaled the significance of the pass, gaining permission to use it from the Grisons in 1593 and then in 1603 constructing the nearly impenetrable Forte di Fuentes at the mouth of the valley.34 Clearly the Spanish occupation of the valley posed a significant threat to Venice, which in 1623 formed an alliance with France and the Savoy with the goal of expelling the Spanish from the Valtelline, an area to which the Venetians had long had access and where they had fortifications as well. But the alliance fizzled as the French took the upper hand, temporarily seized the valley, and made a separate peace with Spain, 32

Parker, The Army of Flanders, pp. 61–6. Randolph C. Head, Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons: Social Order and Political Language in a Swiss Mountain Canton, 1470–1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 34 Cesare Cantù, Il Sacro Macello di Valtellina: le guerre religiose del 1620 tra cattolici e protestanti (Bormio: Alpinia Editrice, 1999; originally published 1888). 33

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one that made the valley into an independent Catholic state but one that would continue to serve as a pass for the Spanish and Hapsburg military in its movement of troops from Lombardy to Austria and back again until the treaty of Cherasco (1651) closed off this option for Spain.35 From the Valtelline to Gradisca, a town that lay just north of the Adriatic along the Venetian frontier with the Holy Roman Empire, the Venetians made no major strategic changes in the sixteenth century other than refurbishing older fortresses and castles. The one exception was Palmanova in the Friuli, the extraordinary masterpiece of Renaissance military design. Moreover, in the Friuli, as in the Comasco, the Venetians found ways to ally themselves with local interests. As Edward Muir has pointed out in his study of this borderland region—so important to the defenses of the Republic against the Austrian archdukes—it was impossible for the Venetians not to rely on the castellans whose military prowess and fierce natures made them critical military allies to the Venetians. As lords of Oseppo, the region’s most important fortress, the Savorgnan inevitably became key to the Republic’s defensive strategies in this region. But this family was enmeshed in on-going conflicts both with other castellans, jealous of their power, and with their own subjects who resented the overbearing demands they had placed on them. As a consequence the Venetian government was as protective of local peasant rights in the Friuli as it was of the rights of the peasantry in the Comasco. On the one hand, the protection that the Venetians offered the residents of the Friuli involved a more intense interaction between the Venetian courts and peasant interest, as Muir has shown in his careful analysis of the village of Buia, which, though technically subject to the Savorgnan, found ways through its notaries to enter into litigation on behalf of its interests. As Muir has written, “The republicanism found in the hinterlands of the Venetian Republic did not emanate from Venice. Republicanism arose out of the resistance by communal governments to princely pretensions, and the liberty of these many little res publicae was preserved through the institutionalization rather than the suppression of conflict, an institutionalization 35 Parker, The Army of Flanders, pp. 70, 73–76. See also the Discorso sopra le ragioni della resolutione fatta in Val Telina (almost certainly by Sarpi—published in 1623; there is also an English translation from 1628: A Discourse upon the Reasons of the Resolution Taken in the Valtelline).

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that took the form of continuous litigation.”36 Gaetano Cozzi and Claudio Povolo have pointed to similar conclusions: Venice was able to exercise control over the terraferma less through repression or the exportation of its own system of government than through its policy of protecting local privileges.37 Strategies of protection, of course, varied by region. In the Friuli, it was the courts that served to link the local peasantry to Venice and instill in them a sense of loyalty to the Republic. In the Comasco, Venice did more to leave the peasants alone, since feudal institutions were less powerful there than in the lower-lying and less mountainous domains of the terraferma, including the Friuli. Nonetheless, it is clear that the borderlands played a decisive role in shaping the Venetian territorial state. The last frontier affected by fear of Spain was the Adriatic itself— a sea that can be understood not only as the threshold to the Stato da mar but also as the eastern border of the Venetian terraferma. Spain turned its attention to this region in the early seventeenth century as it sought to expand its shipping rights in the Adriatic. Along the northernmost part of this sea, it was the Uskoks of Senj (near the island of Krk) who, encouraged by both the Spanish ambassador to Venice and Archduke Ferdinand (of Styria), carried out a series of pirate attacks on Venetian ships as well as raids along the Venetian frontier in order to force the Venetians to recognize freedom of navigation in the Adriatic, a sea that the Venetians had long controlled and continued to seek to dominate.38 In 1615 the War of Gradisca (or the Uskok War) broke out between Venice and Ferdinand. This conflict was not confined to Senj and the Adriatic, but centered also

36 Edward Muir, “Was There Republicanism in the Renaissance Republics?” in Venice Reconsidered, p. 159. For Muir’s splendid study of the Friuli, see Mad Blood Stirring: Venedetta in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 15–78. While Muir’s study focuses on the early sixteenth century, Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, trans. John and Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. 14–15 makes it clear that the Dominante’s approach to governance of the Friuli continued along similar lines throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. 37 Gaetano Cozzi, Repubblica di Venezia e Stati Italiani: politica e giustizia dal secolo XVI al secolo XVIII (Turin: Einaudi, 1982), pp. 81–318; Claudio Povolo, L’Intrigo dell’onore: poteri e istituzioni nella Repubblica di Venezia tra Cinque e Seicento (Verona: Cierre, 1997). See also Sergio Zamperetti, “I ‘Sinedri dolosi:’ la formazione e lo sviluppo dei corpi territoriali nello Stato regionale veneto tra ’500 e ’600,” Rivista storica italiana 99 (1987): 269ff. 38 Catherine Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).

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on Gradisca, Cadore, and Pontebba—important border towns to the Republic. It was a war that Venice did not so much successfully win as conclude, with the nervous sense that while it had pushed out many of the Adriatic pirates, it could barely control its western and eastern frontiers simultaneously.39 Finally, the city of Venice itself can be viewed as a border settlement on the eastern edge of the territorial state of the terraferma, a major outpost of this territorial state in the Adriatic. And here too we witness a clamping down on dangers (real or imagined) posed by Spain. Early on the morning of 18 May 1618 Venetian residents awoke to find two men hanging from gallows between the columns at San Marco, just outside the dogal palace. No one knew who the men were, but international tensions led many to suspect that the Venetian government had executed Spanish conspirators. A bit later in the day, Venetians demonstrated outside the Spanish embassy. The Marquis of Bedmar, the Spanish ambassador to the Republic, complained, “The name of the Most Catholic King and that of the Spanish Nation, is in Venice the most odious that can be pronounced. Among the people, the very word Spanish is an insult. . . . They seem to thirst for our blood. It is all the fault of their rulers who have always taught them to hate us.”40 But if Bedmar complained of the Venetians, the Venetians complained of Bedmar, arguing that he, along with the Viceroy of Naples, the piratical rogue Pedro Tellez de Girón, Duke of Osuna, had been plotting a coup against the Venetian state—that they had smuggled mercenaries into the city and that their interest lay in regaining control of the Adriatic and hampering Venice’s alliance with Savoy. Here I dare not rehearse the labyrinthine affair—part history, part legend—known as the “Spanish Conspiracy” other than to note that it provided Venice with another opportunity to assert its independence from Spanish pretensions on the peninsula and that it possibly led to a tightening of the screws in Venice itself.41

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Hale, Military Organization, pp. 241–217. Cited in John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice (New York: Knopf, 1982), p. 522. 41 Richard Mackenney, “‘A Plot Discovered?’ Myth Legend, and the ‘Spanish’ Conspiracy against Venice in 1618,” in Venice Reconsidered, pp. 185–216. A promising source here is a memorandum on this event by Sarpi published in Eugenia Levi, “Per la congiura contro Venezia nel 1618: Una ‘relazione’ di fra Paolo Sarpi,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto 17 (1899): 5–65. 40

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The integration of the terraferma into an increasingly unified territorial state, therefore, took many forms in the wake of the great power that Spain was able to project in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The energy the Venetians devoted to their borders in this period was, in this context, a largely defensive measure. Morever, Muir is correct to stress the importance of the Venetian legal system in ensuring the peasants of the Friuli with their freedoms. “The liberty of . . . rural communities did not rely on a concept of rights or even a Venetian guarantee to respect local statutes, which were regularly ignored or abrogated by powerful oligarchs; it was preserved through community resistance, based mainly on custom, which had to be constantly asserted and vigilantly defended through litigation.”42 Nonetheless, it is crucial to remember that the process of incorporating the borderlands into the Venetian state was not a uniform one, as the contrast between the Comasco and the Friuli shows. In the end, the recognition of this diversity was one of the strengths of the Venetian ruling elite which never sought to impose a uniform code of law or a uniform administrative structure on the terraferma as a whole. In this sense the development of the early modern territorial state was as much the work of peasants, miners, shepherds, and castellans in the borderlands as it was of the nobles in the chambers of the Venetian government. Venice may have become a more integrated territorial state in the early modern period, but the process of integration was accomplished not by flattening out local customs but by acknowledging them, even exploiting them to the center’s advantage. In this dynamic interrelationship between Dominante and Dominio, centralization was paradoxical, involving a concern not only with preserving the power of the ruling government but also with protecting the customs of villagers in the borderlands of a nervous territorial state. If for the Republic of Venice, the near-term consequences of the Spanish domination of Italy led to greater territorial integration, the long-term consequences proved equally significant. Before the emergence of Spain and France as great monarchies, the Venetian Republic had been able to entertain aspirations about its eventual expansion and greatness. But, in the long run, Spain frustrated these ambitions. Against such a powerful adversary, the Venetians had no choice 42

Edward Muir, “The Sources of Civil Society in Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2 (1999), pp. 198–9.

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but merely to try to hold onto the territory they had already conquered. They did so at great expense, and, eventually, their resources would prove insufficient to stave off the erosion of the Stato da mar by the Turks and to prevent, ultimately, the loss of the terraferma to a new Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, who conquered the Republic with lightening speed in 1797. Ironically, by then, Spain’s power too had been eclipsed not only by France but especially by England, as the British established greater and greater control over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.43 Venice had been contained first by the arms of the League of Cambrai and then of Hapsburg Spain and Austria and later by English manufactures and shipping to the northeastern corner of Italy. But, in a final irony, it was to Venice—to its political institutions and to its vigorous maritime trade—that the English looked as a model for their own constitution and their own Empire. James Harrington’s Oceana (1656) was in this respect a critical book. It praised Venice for its free constitution, but—contrary to Harringon’s intent—Oceana also came to make Venice into the most compelling model for the British Empire, one in which liberty and imperialism would coexist, an ideal that continues to have a deep, if not haunting resonance in the modern imperial ambitions of the United States as well.44 In this sense, Spain may have reduced Venice to a small territorial state; and France may have conquered this state, but Venice’s problematic legacy would continue to give ideological justifications to later imperial experiments, experiments that, while deeply flawed, would nonetheless trump the legacy of Spain and make Venice not only a prototype for republican regimes in the modern world but for modern empires as well.

43 Richard T. Rapp, “The Unmaking of the Mediterranean Trade Hegemony: International Trade Rivalry and the Commercial Revolution,” Journal of Economic History 35 (1975): 499–525. 44 Frederic C. Lane, “At the Roots of Republicanism,” American Historical Review 71 (1966): 403–20 and, now, David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

PART THREE

SOCIETY, ADMINISTRATION, AND ECONOMY

CHAPTER NINE

NOBLE PRESENCE AND STRATIFICATION IN THE TERRITORIES OF SPANISH ITALY* Giovanni Muto

Exchanges Between Italy and Spain in “Spanish” Italy We need first to clarify an ambiguous point, the term “Spanish Italy,” which provided the title for the conference on which the present volume is based, but which is a term that contemporary documents never use to refer to the Italian territories that formed a part of the imperial community of the Spanish Habsburgs. In the records of the various councils and royal secretariats in Madrid, each state is always called by its ancient and original title: the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, the Kingdom of Sardinia. Occasionally the term provincia (province) appears, but only in documents organized as an exposition or narration, or else in memoirs or in the political literature. Although the term has come into common use in recent historiography, it has never acquired a strong significance—that is, it has never stood for a process, real or potential, of achieving a gradual uniformity among political ideas or common administrative practices in the areas under the Spanish crown. Quite to the contrary: each of these territories preserved its distinct institutional and administrative identity during the two centuries of the early modern period. Even where literary and artistic production are concerned, relations between Spain and its Italian provinces seem to have been marked by strong and reciprocal exchanges, but (in the Italian areas at least) these never led to the adoption of Spanish cultural modes. The only significant borrowings that may have occurred were on the linguistic level, in both daily speech patterns and in the “higher” linguistic forms of written speech generated by administrative practices or used in the chanceries.1 * Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 For an excellent analysis of the diffusion of linguistic borrowings from Spanish in Naples and other parts of Italy, see Gian Luigi Beccaria, Spagnolo e spagnoli in Italia: Riflessi ispanici sulla lingua italiana del Cinque e Seicento (Turin: Giappichelli, 1968).

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Although it is true that branches of Spanish families such as the d’Avalos, Guevare, Cavaniglia, Cardenas, Villamarin, Alarcon, and Sanchez were rapidly and solidly integrated into the local social scene in those areas, thanks to an open social interchange between Italians and Spaniards (in the Mezzogiorno in particular), this was in part facilitated by the experience of the populations of those kingdoms in the Aragonese period, when they became thoroughly acquainted with the forms and modes of power practiced by the sovereigns and by the elites who governed Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia as their representatives. This was something that Benedetto Croce understood well: as early as 1917, he noted that the aristocratic society of the Kingdom of Naples “saw the lordship of the Catholic Kings as the continuation of that of its Aragonese kings, and, obliged to choose between France and Spain, [it] felt more loyal following the Spanish banners.”2 Among the Neapolitans, or at least the majority of them and certainly the privileged classes, this attitude seems to have reflected a more widespread orientation of Italian society toward Spain; it may not have been a genuine political opinion, but certainly those groups displayed an unprejudiced willingness to accept the culture and the value system of Castilian society that was the true motive force of the Spanish political system. Testimony to that frame of mind can be found in two authors of the sixteenth century. In one passage in the Book of the Courtier Baldassare Castiglione states that “the customs of the Spaniards are more suited to the Italians than those of the French,”3 an opinion that Tommaso Campanella repeated seventy years later: “Therefore the Italians align themselves more with the Spanish for the unity of their language and the similarity of corporate bodies, customs, and rites than with the French, who have a quite different language, habits, and corporate bodies.”4 2 “Nella signoria dei Re Cattolici vide come la continuazione di quella dei suoi re aragonesi, e, posta a scegliere tra Francia e Spagna, si sentiva più leale nel seguire le insegne spagnole”: Benedetto Croce, “La società galante italo-spagnola nei primi anni del Cinquecento,” in Croce, La Spagna nella vita italiana durante la rinascenza (Bari: Laterza, 1917), quoted from the 5th ed. (Bari: Laterza, 1968), 127. This volume contains other extraordinarily pertinent essays on Spanish language and literature, ceremonies, military spirit, religious sentiment, and more, esp. chapters 8–11 and “Conclusione,” pp. 154–270. 3 “Con gli italiani più si confaccian nei costumi i Spagnoli che i Franzesi”: Baldassare Castiglione, Il libro del cortegiano, ed. Amedeo Quondam (Milan: Garzanti, 1981), 175; quoted from The Book of the Courtier, trans., with an introduction, by George Bull (London: Penguin, 1967), 146. 4 “Onde li Italiani con Spagnoli meglio allignano per l’unità della lingua e

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Although these texts reflect the Italians’ openness to the world of the Iberian Peninsula, they fail to explain their willingness to participate in it. The quotations that we have just seen stress some elements that went into creating a sphere of sociability that seemingly penetrated many segments of Italian society, but they contain nothing that hints at anything that shapes a given political option or predisposes people to it. Political options, what is more, were hardly a matter of free choice: Ferdinand the Catholic, Charles V, and Philip II had emerged victorious in wars with France, and the governing classes in Italy—in the provinces under Spanish rule and also in states that enjoyed formal independence—were excluded from all levels of political negotiation. During the course of the sixteenth century the Spanish presence in Italy, which means the individuals and families that came to reside there, grew considerably. In many cases, as one generation followed another, those families took root in Italy, to the point that they came to be considered wholly Italian, even in citizenship. In other cases the Spanish presence was more short-term, tied to the current political situation or to official duties, diplomatic or military, public or private. If in Venice the Spanish presence was circumscribed and tightly controlled, in Florence Spaniards operated a good deal more freely, especially until the 1560s.5 In Genoa, a city whose hombres de negocios (merchants) inspired respect for very good reasons, the Spanish were in good numbers;6 in Rome Spaniards formed a veritable colony and succeeded in influencing many papal decisions.7 somiglianza de corpi e costumi e riti che con Francesi che hanno lingua più diversa e abiti e corpi”: Tommaso Campanella, Monarchie d’Espagne/La Monarchia di Spagna, ed. Germana Ernst (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), 216. 5 For the Spanish presence in Tuscan universities and in the Order of Santo Stefano, see Volpi Rosselli, “Gli spagnoli all’Universiità di Pisa in epoca medicea,” and Bruno Casini, “Cavalieri spagnoli membri del sacro militare ordine di Santo Stefano,” in Toscana e Spagna nell’età moderna e contemporanea (Pisa: ETS, 1998), vol. 2, Giuliana pp. 79–90 and 123–187. 6 For interesting thoughts on relations between Genoese and Spaniards in Genoa, see the seventeenth century texts in Andrea Spinola, Scritti scelti, ed. Carlo Bitossi (Genoa: Sagep, 1981). 7 On the Spanish presence in Rome, see Thomas James Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500 –1700 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001). Dandelet analyzes the many forms of this well-established colony, stating that the Spanish “were colonizers for a form of Spanish imperialism that is largely unexamined in the historical literature: ‘soft,’ or informal, imperialism” (p. 9). He further states that they managed to control and transform, even in an anthropoligical sense, “traditional religious structures or social ‘texts’ such as processions, ritualized charity, and saintmaking into a Spanish text. At one and the same time they both embraced and

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Thus it was that the Spanish presence created potent models that influenced the social life of the Italian Peninsula, although it is perhaps excessive to speak of hispanicization. Even in the Italian provinces dependent on Spain, and even when these provinces were receptive to Spanish customs, they maintained a strong sense of their own identity, which was reiterated and confirmed in both individual and collective practices and behaviors. This means that the term “Spanish Italy,” as it is used here, acquires a simple chronological value, designating areas that in various periods of the early modern age lost their political sovereignty and fell within the orbit of the Spanish imperial community.8 entered into the traditional Roman world and transformed it into a noticeably Spanish version of the earlier model” (p. 11). 8 Recent historiography seems to use the term “Spanish Italy” in much the same restricted sense: see Aurelio Musi, Mezzogiorno spagnolo: La via napoletana allo stato moderno (Naples: Guida, 1991); Gianvittorio Signorotto, Milano spagnola: Guerra, istituzioni, uomini di governo (1635–1660) (Milan: Sansoni, 1996; 2nd ed. 2001); Elena Brambilla and Giovanni Muto, eds., La Lombardia spagnola: nuovi indirizzi di ricerca (Milan: Unicopli, 1997). In the latter half of the twentieth century the term “Spanish” was applied to areas of Italy in different ways, some of them strongly marked in terms of political culture. For a singular interpretation of Spanish Naples, see Francisco Elías de Tejada, Nápoles hispánico, 5 vols. (Madrid: Ediciones Montejurra, 1958), only three volumes of which have appeared in Italian translation, under the general title Napoli spagnola (Naples: Controcorrente, 1999–2005). According to Elías de Tejada, Spanish Naples found its identity only within the context of the traditional monarquía tradicional, which began with the Aragonese period and lasted throughout the years of viceregency. He sees Neapolitan identity and that of the Kingdom as complementary to that of multiple “Spains,” all intent on the “defense of Catholic Christianity, the impassioned maintenance of the liberties of the Kingdom (understood as a perfect and total political body), [and] fervent service to the king, the captain of the campaign of the Counter-Reformation and paladin of missionary Christianity.” In this perspective, the end of Habsburg rule in the early eighteenth century brought to a close the historical mission that the author assigns to the “traditional monarchy,” but it also signaled the loss of the special identity of the Kingdom of Naples: “Europe vanquished the Spains, and Naples was vanquished by Europe. When the victorious European nations imposed the dismembering of the vanquished Spains and a fatal train of events brought Europeanized hispano-French rulers to the various thrones, Philip V in Castile, Charles III in the Two Sicilies, it signaled the end of the Spains for Naples. The introduction of an abstract, encylopédiste, ‘renewal’ and Europe-minded absolutism was the prevailing formula in Europe of the eighteenth century under the aegis of France, a formula that a victorious Europe imposed on us”: Napoli spagnola: La tappa aragonese (1442–1503) (Naples: Controcorrente, 1999), 6–7. For a more balanced and more intelligible position, based on a reinterpretation of the history of Sicily in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through the use of documentary sources, see Virgilio Titone, La Sicilia spagnuola: Saggi storici (Mazara: Società Editrice Siciliana, 1948). Although Titone states that “the policies of the viceroys, wholly aimed . . . at bringing Sicily closer to Spain, can be said to have continued in other forms with a slow infiltration in the most vital ganglia of the sources of the island’s economy” (p. 23), his concrete analysis of individual prob-

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When contemporaries constructed complex theories, stressing the perfection of the political system and the organic nature of relations between the Spanish crown and its peripheral territories, they legitimized Spain’s possession of those areas in Italy. The topos of the relox de principes (the “dial” or “clock of princes”) and the metaphor of the human body, whose parts are moved and animated by the head, the noble element, were widespread in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political literature in Spain and Italy alike.9 These were not merely elegant theoretical elaborations constructed by refined intellectuals; they had entered into the modes of thinking and feeling of political operatives and government personnel. A letter of Juan de Vega, who served as viceroy in Sicily in the mid-sixteenth century, makes effective use of the image of the sovereign as the prime mover of the political system: “Although the ministers are wise and competent and possess all the other qualities necessary to be good governors, they are in the end motivated by a higher cause, which is their Prince; and if the Prince has bad information, or insufficent experience in the nature of the matter, or for whatever other reason, he moves and governs those inferior planets, who are his ministers, in a way contrary to what would be advisable for his favor and authority and the veneration of Justice, it matters little if the minister is very competent, nor is it enough, because the clear and shining star is the sun and the moon, but when there is an eclipse or cloud cover, they lose their strength and clarity.”10 In the early seventeenth century Baltasar Alamos de Barrientos, the author of lems (for example, in the agricultural sector or in tax policy) leads him to a less critical evaluation of the Spanish government. 9 On these topics in the political literature of the age, see the introduction by J. A. Fernández-Santamaría in preface to Baltasar Alamos de Barrientos, Aforismos al Tacito español, 2 vols. (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1987). The text of Barrientos’s Aforismos, completed in 1594, was published in Madrid in 1614. See also, Antonio de Guevara, Libro del emperador Marco Aurelio con el Relox de principes (Valladolid: Nicolas Therri, 1529) in the modern edition of Antonio de Guevara, Relox de principes, ed. Emilio Blanco (Madrid: ABL Editor CONFRES, 1994), which aimed at presenting Charles V with the model of the wise and virtuous king. 10 “Aunque los ministros sean savios y suficientes y tengan todas las otras partes convenientes de buenos gobernadores son alfin movidos por otra primera causa, que es su Principe y si el Principe por mala información o por no tener entera experiencia de la qualidad del negozio, o por otra causa alguna mueve y gobierna estos planetas inferiores que son los ministros diferentemente de lo que conviene a su servicio y a su authoridad y al culto de la Justicia, poco aprovecha que el ministro venga muy adhertido, ni sea sufficiente, por que astro claro y reluciente es el sol y la luna, mas quando se le pone adelante el eclipse, o otra alguna nube, pierden

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much-admired political writings, but also a firm supporter of the need to reform the imperial system, sought to reformulate the connection between sovereignty and power in relations between the center and the periphery, stating that the sovereign must be “the king of all and of each individual nation, and not just our king and the lord of those [nations], and with this many will be formed into one realm.”11 Even administrative language sought to communicate to the subjects of the realm that the nature of power was not exclusively directed toward exploiting the human and material resources of a territory, but was in some sense a gift of the royal person, as attested, by the second half of the sixteenth century, by the Instructions handed down to the viceroys and governors of the Italian provinces, which state systematically, “Kings and princes are constituted principally for governing and administering justice to their subjects and for defending them from their enemies; and since I, as King and natural Seignior of that kingdom [of Naples], owe these two things to the subjects and natives of it.”12

su fuerca y claridad”: Biblioteca Nacional Madrid (henceforth abbreviated as BNM), Ms. 1751, fol. 254. 11 “Rey de todos y de cada nacion in particular, y no rey nuestro solamente y senor de ellos, y con esto vendrà aformarse de muchos como un reyno solo.” Alamos de Barrientos also insists on defining the relationship between the sovereign and his subjects: “Every natural dominion regarding the natural society between the vassals and among the vassals with their head, as between the members of the human body and between [those members and] their head. Natural societies are those of male and female, father and sons and families together, and then of several families united with their kin, and then of several united family groups with one soil, air, and climate, agreeing on laws, customs, and offices appropriate to both the one and the other. Another point of agreement is language and mode of dress; another, to end the list, is species, since we are all humankind. The more of these agreements there are, the more dominion is unified and fortified” (“Ogni dominio naturale cerca natural società tra i vassali e tra i vassali col capo, come tra le membra e membra col capo nel corpo umano. Le società naturali sono del maschio e femmina, padre e figli e famiglia insieme, e poi di più famiglie unite con parentela, e poi di più parentele unite con un suolo aere e clima, convenendo di legge, costumi e offici atti a conversar l’un con l’altro. L’altra convenienza è della lingua e vestire; l’altra finalmente è della specie, che tutti siamo uomini. Quante più di queste convienze vi si trovano, tanto più s’unisce e fortifica il dominio”: Alamos de Barrientos, Aforismos, 214. 12 “Los reyes y principes son principalmente constituydos para que goviernen y administren justicia a sus subditos y los defiendan de sus enemigos y pues yo como rey y señor natural de aquel reyno [de Napoles] devo estas dos cosas a los subditos y naturales del . . .” in Archivo General de Simancas, Secretarias Provinciales, Napoles, 634, cc.135–177 (136): Istrucciones de Felipe III al virrey conde de Lemos, 20 april 1599.

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A Typology of Human Settlement in Spanish Lombardy, Naples, and Sicily This sort of reiterated reference to a unity of the political body of the monarchy that at the same time did not annul the diversity or the peculiar nature of its component parts was backed up by a detailed knowledge of the territories subject to the crown. Today we know a good deal more about the structure and the operation of the apparatus of the central government and the peripheral governments, about the role of the royal court, about what forms political communication took, and about the importance of mediation and informal relationships. The Spanish bureaucracy, whose members were trained in the colegios mayores and given concrete experience with local governance, seem to us to have functioned rather well and, in particular, to have been able to analyze local contexts on the basis of highly dependable information. The documents preserved in the Spanish State Archives in Simancas attest to a farreaching network of channels of information, to a variety of sources, institutional and other, that passed on news, and to the quality of the information that passed back and forth between the viceregal courts and the court in Madrid. It is clear that the court managed to obtain an enormous number of reports and data regarding the physical and geographical characteristics of the Italian territories.13 13 These reports, for the most part redacted by persons attached to governmental offices and, in some cases, by counselors who held high posts, often circulated in multiple copies, which explains why they can be found in archives and libraries throughout Europe. Some sources that seem to me particularly valuable for the quality of their information are: for Sicily, Pedro de Cisneros, Relación de las cosas del reyno de Sicilia, redacted in 1584 and available in a modern edition by Vittorio Sciuti Russi (Naples: Jovene, 1990). Sciuti Russi has edited two other texts: Pietro Celestre, “Idea del govierno del reyno de Sicilia” (1611), and Pietro Corsetto “Instrucción para el principe Filiberto quando fue al virreynato de Sicilia” (1621), both published in Vittorio Sciuti Russi, Il governo della Sicilia in due relazioni del primo Seicento (Naples: Jovene, 1984). See also Alfonso Crivella, Trattato di Sicilia (1593), introduction by Adelaide Baviera Albanese (Caltanisetta and Rome: Salvatore Sciascia, 1970). There is an unpublished “Descrizione de Sicilia,” written in the 1690s preserved in BNM, Ms. 2977. For the Kingdom of Naples there is a description written in the early 1570s in BNM, Ms. 2659. See also “Advertimientos para el Conde de Olivares dados a el 1595, 4 noviembre,” Biblioteca Casanatense di Roma, Ms. 2417; Una relazione vicereale sul governo del Regno di Napoli agli inizi del ‘600: Relación de reyno de Napoles (1602–3), ed. Bernardo José García García (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993). For the Duchy of Milan, see the “Relación sumaria de las cosas del Estado de Milan” (1585), BNM, Ms. 1008; “Relación del Estado de Milan” (ca. 1685), BNM, Ms. 2614.

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These reports describe each region, giving all its morphological characteristics from the quality of its soils to its mountains, rivers, cities, and the characteristics of its population. This is followed by a section describing the political governance of the territory, its organs of government, its courts, the organization of cities, the administration of civil and penal justice, military strength, and ecclesiastical structures. Last comes a summary of the area’s material resources, products, exportation goods, fiscal resources (ordinary and extraordinary), the public debt, and the contributions that each territory might be counted on to make to the ordinary and extraordinary needs of the crown. All of this paperwork, which normally traveled from the Italian lands at the periphery of the imperial community toward the center, attests, on the one hand, to the smooth functioning of an efficient information network and, on the other hand, to a felt need to base decisions on adequate information and an awareness of the real situation in the various territories. All of these questions were put into theoretical form in tracts and treatises. One early sixteenth-century writer, Eugenio de Narbona, recommended to aspirant counselors to the Prince that they pay heed to new forms of knowledge: “Information about the land, customs, conditions, and natural propensities of the peoples of the kingdoms of his prince is knowledge necessary for a counselor.”14 Naturally, such data was used with varying efficacy according to the options available, and it often happened, as the minutes of the various councils indicate, that the decisions taken went in a totally different direction from the one the information suggested. In some cases this occurred because special interests dictated the outcome rather than a pure cost-benefit analysis, even when the information collected had specifically advised against such a course. In other cases, however, the material collected was so purely descriptive that it was in fact of little use, or else it failed to present data and events within a grid of hierarchical importance that might have aided political operatives to pinpoint the central elements of the problem. That gap between the quantity and quality of information available to the political operative of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the abundance of data offered to researchers today provides 14 “Notizia de la tierra, de las costumbres, condiciones e ajectos naturales de las gentes de los reinos de su principe es ciencia necessaria en el consejero”: Eugenio de Narbona, Doctrina politica civil escrita en aforismos (Madrid, 1604), aphorism n. 125.

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(or should provide) a standard by which to measure historians’ work. It permits us to redefine the political and economic hierarchies that ruled the territory, or what today we call the political and economic geography of an ancien régime society. Our different perception and full utilization of the data permit us to construct interpretive categories more adequate to defining the political and economic identities of the societies of the territories of Spanish Italy, using such possible categories as the “regional state” or the “economic region.” In Lombardy, as Giorgio Chittolini has quite rightly noted, it was between the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries that territory was organized in ways that for centuries provided the load-bearing structures of its territorial identity.15 During the early years of Spanish domination, and with the decision in 1543 to institute a new tax survey (estimo generale), those areas saw the beginnings of an extraordinary process of change in the equilibrium between the cities and their surrounding contado that, although limited to adjusting fiscal burdens, encouraged political awareness among the contado communities and used the management of fiscal resources to favor the growing political role of provincial elites.16 In the redefinition of the internal equilibrium of the regional state that occurred between the 1540s and the 1590s, the decisive role was played, not so much by the organs of government in Milan, as by the Spanish power as such—the governor, the court in Madrid, and the Council of Italy, also in Madrid. Throughout this process in which alliances were made and dissolved between one city and another and between each of those cities and the different social groups operating in the communities of the contado, the information that was produced and exchanged (in the form of memoranda, petitions, letters, discourses, memoirs, observations, and replies and counter-replies) was constructed to satisfy legal requirements, but it also displays a logic of quantitative evidence made up of calculations, averages, and evaluations of what was useful to the individual and the collectivity. In short, it testifies to a society in which literacy and the utilization of knowledge were no longer the monopoly of small groups in the cities, 15 Giorgio Chittolini, La formazione dello stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado: Secoli XIV e XV (Turin: Einaudi, 1979), xxx. 16 This process is described in detail in Giovanni Vigo, Fisco e società nella Lombardia del Cinquecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979). On the same topic, see the contributions of Giorgio Chittolini, Milena Occhielli, Barbara Molteni, and Chiara Porqueddu in Studi Bresciani 12 (1983).

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but were a social capital widespread in country areas in small and mid-sized communities that proved capable of producing subjects and representatives equally conversant with the rhetoric of communication and the logic of contradiction. The growth of this extra-urban world is a dimension that deserves analysis in all the areas of Spanish Italy. The first task would be to draw up a typology and establish a hierarchy among settlements that, rather than being uniquely based on demographic statistics, would also be capable of defining communities by their distinct functional identities. Lombardy provides a useful example of settlement typology and of the distribution of communities within the territory. Obviously, not all of those communities were of an equal dignity or size, but they can be placed within an order that in fact describes a hierarchy:17 a) The basic unit is the terra, or “land.” A number of other terms can also be found: there is the simple terra, the larger terra grossa, the “locality” (loco), the town (borgo), the villa, and the cassina all of which indicate a rural community with little socio-professional stratification. Terre were, in substance, agglomerations of fewer than a thousand inhabitants that nonetheless had a political personality, expressed in a representative council of heads of family and consuls (consoli ). It is difficult to quantify the number of terre, but in all probability they counted for under a half of all inhabited centers of the former Lombard duchy. b) By definition, the terre were part of the contado of a city and were subject to the jurisdiction of that city’s officials. Still, over time some terre, independent of their demographic importance, became known as terre separate, obtaining a degree of autonomy from the city on which they were dependent that permitted them, by means of a “privilege” or a pact, to have a fiscal or administrative regime different from that of the other communities in their contado.18 Every contado 17 The schema outlined below is in large part derived from Vittorio BeonioBrocchieri, “Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo”: Famiglie e mestieri nel Ducato di Milano in età spagnola (Milan: Unicopli, 2000), 45–57. 18 One mid-seventeenth-century document defines the terre separate in the region of Novara: “The Valsea, or lands of Varal, which are separate because they delivered themselves to the dukes of Milan under certain treaties, and they do not participate with Novara in paying tribute” (la Valsea, o tierras de Varal, que son separadas, porque se entregaron debaxo de ciertos pactos a los duques de Milan y no concurren con él a los tributos): Archivio di Stato di Milano, Confini, p.a., cart. 5. My thanks to Massimo Giannini for bringing this document to my attention.

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contained a small number of these communities: Cremona, for example, had 277 terre that were “obedient to the contado” and 23 terre separate. c) The next category, the borgo, accounted for some thirty centers that had a population between 1,000 and 2,000 and were more clearly urban in nature. A borgo normally had a distinct political personality, and it was often the site of an outlying office of the central administration (civic, military, judicial, ecclesiastical, or fiscal) located in the city that served as the center of the region. The borgo was often the site of a regularly scheduled market that served to mediate and provide exchange between supply (independent producers in rural areas) and demand (the needs of the urban centers). It is interesting to note that the distribution of these markets by no means reflected the free play of economic forces, but was instead rigidly controlled: for example, the grain sold at the market in Gavirate had to come exclusively from certain specified zones and not from others.19 This was thus a form of regulated market that served to mitigate the rigidity of commercial exchanges in the ancien régime. Some of these centers also held fairs that widened the circuits of exchange to cover a fairly broad area, thus providing for the placement of crafts and industrial products that would not have found sufficient consumers within their area of production. d) The fourth category is that of the near-city (quasi città). These were centers that, although formally dependent on one of the new regional centers of the duchy, enjoyed particular privileges and a greater degree of autonomy. Their population varied between 2,000 and 5,000, which permitted them to have a more fully articulated form of city administration and a more dynamic social structure. Reflecting many of the characteristics of the borgo, they were places of notable economic activity, and although they lacked the formal political structures of the city, they served many urban functions.20 Whereas the borgo functioned on a local scale, knitting together areas grouped fairly closely around them, the range of action of the near-cities

19

See Beonio-Brocchieri, “Piazza universale,” 49. This proposed definition of the quasi città is drawn from Giorgio Chittolini, “Terre, borghi e città in Lombardia alla fine del Medioevo,” in Chittolini, ed., Metamorfosi di un borgo: Vigevano in età viscontea-sforzesca (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1992), 7–29. 20

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obeyed a super-regional logic, and their economic operatives were active even in international markets.21 e) At the top of the scale came the città, which in Lombardy meant Milan and the eight other cities—Pavia, Cremona, Como, Novara, Lodi, Alessandria, Tortona, and Vigevano—each of which, on the model of a small province, administered its own contado, an area subjected to the city’s jurisdiction containing scattered terre, terre separate, borghi, and near-cities. In 1600 one M. Cavalli, procuratore for the Lombard contadi, estimated that the duchy contained 2,209 communities and terre, divided among the contadi of the various cities as follows: Milan, 1,094; Pavia, 384; Cremona, 284; Lodi, 176; Novara, 133; Como, 60; Alessandria, 24; Tortona, 43; and Vigevano, 11.22 All in all, Spanish Lombardy varied not only from one province to another but also within each province; it was a territorial universe “formed out of many different autonomous entities, of many particular liberties granted to towns, valleys, and rural lordships.”23 The territorial structure of the Kingdom of Naples presents a slightly different picture. From the late thirteenth century on, the entire kingdom was divided into provinces, of which there were twelve in the early sixteenth century. Not all of these were the site of an Udienza, the governing organ of the provincial territory with both administrative and judicial functions. Unlike Lombardy, however, the presence of a city with stronger attributions and greater signs of importance did not imply either preeminence over the other cities in the same province or a particular regime of administrative or fiscal subordination of communities to the provincial capital. Overall, the number of cities and communities in the entire Kingdom of Naples in the early seventeenth century has been calculated at slightly under two thousand. In the 1830s Lodovico Bianchini estimated that in the age of Charles V there were 1,563 communities, 21

See Beonio-Brocchieri, “Piazza universale,” 56. “Discorso del Cavalli procuratore de contadi dello Stato di Milano all’Ill.mo et Ecc.mo Sig. Conte di Fuentes, 30 ottobre 1600,” Archivio Storico Civico di Milano, Dicasteri, c. 297 (printed), cited in Massimo Carlo Giannini, “Un caso di stabilità politica nella Monarchia Asburgica: Comunità locali, finanza pubblica e clero nello Stato di Milano durante la prima metà del Seicento,” in Lo conflictivo y lo consensual en Castilla: Sociedad y poder politico 1521–1715, ed. Francisco Javier Guillamón Álvarez and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2001), 99–162, esp. 116. 23 Marina Cavallera, “L’alto milanese all’epoca di Carlo Borromeo: Società e territorio,” Rassegna Gallaratese di Storia e Arte 307, no. 124 (1985), 47–58, esp. 49. 22

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a number that rose to 1,619 in 1579 and to 1,973 in 1586.24 Although the 1586 figure seems credible and is confirmed by seventeenth-century sources, an increment of 410 communities within fifty years seems unlikely, and an increase of 354 communities (or 22 percent) in only seven years seems absolutely impossible. For this reason, it seems to me that data regarding years earlier than 1586 can be ignored. In describing the typology of settlements in the Kingdom of Naples we can begin with the cities, precisely because they took on characteristics that differed markedly from those of other areas of Italy. a) From the formal point of view, in the Mezzogiorno the term città designated an inhabited center that, regardless of the size of its population, had over the course of time received a royal or papal “diploma” elevating it to urban status. In the Kingdom of Naples the number of centers that proudly bore the title of “city” and could exhibit an ancient royal or papal charter in confirmation of its claim was extraordinarily high. Title to the seat of a diocese went along with the title of city, but it is clear that the high number of cities in each province made it impossible for all of them to be the seat of tribunals or local offices of the central administration. In substance, many cities lacked the structures and functions of production or service that defined an urban center. Some seventeenth-century sources indicate, with relative trustworthiness, that there were 144 cities in the Kingdom.25 These were distributed among the various provinces as follows: Terra di Lavoro, 24; Principato Citra, 18; Principato Ultra, 11; Basilicata, 11; Abruzzo Citra, 5; Abruzzo Ultra, 5; Contado di Molise, 4; Capitanata, 12; Terra di Bari, 14; Terra d’Otranto, 14; Calabria Citra, 10; Calabria Ultra, 16. A good 70 percent of these cities were concentrated in two areas: about 40 percent were grouped around Naples, the capital city (Terra di Lavoro and the two Principati); about 30 percent in the three provinces of Apulia (Capitanata, Terra di Bari, and Terra d’Otranto). In my opinion, the extraordinarily high number of cities means that the 24 Lodovico Bianchini, Storia delle finanze del Regno delle Due Sicilie (Naples, 1834–35), in the edition by Luigi De Rosa (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1970), 232. 25 One flourishing genre in the publishing market was descriptions of the Kingdom of Naples that offered cultivated readers a clearer idea of the kingdom and its cities. For the distribution of cities among the various provinces I have made use of Ottavio Beltrano, Descrittione del Regno di Napoli diviso in dodici provincie (orig. ed. 1640; Naples, 1671 in reprint ed. Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1983).

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attribution of the title needs to be verified, since it is doubtful whether all of those centers could have fulfilled the requisites of an urban center. My impression is that in an attempt to enhance the image of the Kingdom, historiography in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries called seats of a diocese a “city”: in the historical literature the areas covered by the cities and the dioceses match exactly, as does their number. In 1671, during a period of demographic decline, “cities” can be found with fewer than 200 recorded hearths, thus indicating a population of under 800 inhabitants.26 In the province of Terra di Lavoro, the city of Fondi had 188 hearths; Calvi, 101; Telese only 6. In Principato Citra, the ancient city of Capaccio had 102 hearths; in Principato Ultra, the city of Volturara had 95, Vico had 88, Montemarino had 43; in Basilicata, Rapolla had 86 hearths; in Calabria Citra, the city of Umbriatico had 42 hearths; in Terra d’Otranto, Motola had 115 hearths; in Abruzzo Citra, the city of Civita Borella had 91 hearths; in Molise, Guardialfiera had 68 hearths; and in Capitana, Lesena had 31. This list could be much longer if it were extended to cities with as many as 300 hearths, or an estimated population of a bit over 1,000 inhabitants. A further distinction needs to be made between cities (and of course between terre and minor centers) that belonged to the royal demesne and those enfeoffed to nobles, native-born to the Kingdom of Naples or not. Even when the balance of power shifted within a city, neither the city’s designation nor its component structures changed. In short, what is meant by a city—beyond its title and the fact that it was normally a diocesan seat—assumes a quite different meaning in Lombardy and in the Kingdom of Naples. b) The other centers of habitation include a fairly broad range of communities known by two different terms. Descriptions of the Kingdom of Naples use the term terre, a word with both an historical and an anthropological dimension. The language of administrative documents and juridical literature calls them università, a term that prevailed during the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whereas the term terre indicated that special circumstances pertained, or that the community in question was part of a feudal barony (as in “le terre del contado di Mareri e baronia di Collalto,” or “le terre del contado di Celano e baronia di Cara Pelle”). Thus

26

Ibid.

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the term università designates the political and administrative identity of an inhabited center, independent of the size of its population. It signals the administrative autonomy of the community, denotes a territory with defined confines, and implies that it was constituted as a juridical subject endowed with an institutional form of representation (a parliament of citizens, a council, syndics, treasurers, and officials of various sorts) holding legitimate power to administer the community’s resources and to impose, even by force, observance of the rules that disciplined community life. Another term frequently encountered is castello, which, as is obvious, refers to the community’s origin in and nature as a defensive structure around which a village or center of habitation developed. With time the military constructions may have disappeared or been transformed into a noble residence, but the toponym continued to designate the center. In the early seventeenth century there were as many as 64 place names bearing the prefix castello (or castel ), a number that rises to 101 in the eighteenth century.27 c) In the typology of settlements in the Kingdom of Naples, the term casale designates an isolated village within the territory of a city or an università. Nearly all of the larger communities of the Kingdom had lands outside the circle of their walls, forming a rural hinterland of villages and towns whose populations varied widely. There were casali of only a few hearths (five to ten) and casali of as many as 80 hearths. These communities had no administrative autonomy, but were placed under the civil and penal jurisdiction of the city from which they depended. At least a hundred cities and communities had casali of the sort in their surrounding areas, for the most part concentrated in the provinces of Terra di Lavoro, Principato Citra, and Principato Ultra. Some cities had fewer than 35 casali (Somma, Arienzo, Caiazzo); others had from ten to twenty casali (Caserta, Nola, Lauro, Salerno, Gragnano, Cervinara); still others had more (Naples, Aversa, Capua, Pagani, Nocera, Lecce); Cozenza topped the list with 85 casali.28 The cities obviously had every interest 27 For the seventeenth century, see ibid; for the eighteenth century, see Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno angioino e aragonese (1266–1494), Storia d’Italia, vol. 15 (Turin: UTET, 1992), 805. 28 For a reconstruction of the geography of the casali in the Kingdom of Naples, see Giovanni Muto, “Città e contado nell’esperienza del Mezzogiorno moderno,” in Città e contado nel Mezzogiorno medievale e moderno, ed. Giovanni Vitolo (Salerno: Laveglia, 2005), 289–301.

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in maintaining control over the areas containing the casali, given that city dwellers preferred to invest in cultivated terrains not far from the city itself, thus reducing the administration costs of their investments and facilitating oversight. In this sense the territories of the casali became areas of intense economic exploitation for the cities, also serving to provision their populations with foodstuffs. In this connection the relationship between the cities and the casali closely resembles the economic function of the contado communities and the dominant cities of North-Central Italy. In the early fifteenth century the island of Sicily was divided into three valli, large circumscriptions of more or less equal size: the Val di Mazara, the Val Demone, and the Val di Noto. During the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the number of self-administered centers of habitation (called università, as in the Kingdom of Naples) increased notably, as follows: 1505 = 158 1548 = 178 1583 = 188

1606 = 208 1623 = 235 1636 = 254

1651 = 285 1681 = 296 1714 = 312

1747 = 325

This extraordinary increase can be explained by the phenomenon of “new foundations,” initiatives on the part of feudal lords who acquired a licentia populandi from the central authorities to create a community in a new locality. The feudatory took it on himself to construct the village, to grant a series of usi civici regulating the use of common lands, and to draw up “chapters of foundation” with the peasants who agreed to move to the new community.29 This phenomenon, which arose in the mid-sixteenth century, reached its peak between 1583 and 1653, with the foundation of 88 new communities, while another 30 were founded between 1654 and 1714. Naturally, the inhabited centers of the island, old and new, were distributed in a hierarchy of size and importance. Leaving aside whether they were part of the royal demesne or were feudal holdings, they can be described as follows: a) In Sicily as elsewhere the città represented localities in possession of a title of foundation going back to diplomas granted by the earlier Angevin and Aragonese sovereigns. Normally, the title of

29 Marcello Verga, “La ‘Sicilia dei feudi’ o ‘Sicilia dei grani’ dalle ‘Wustungen’ alla colonizzazione interna,” Società e Storia 3 (1978): 563–580, esp. 572.

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“city” designated centers in the royal demesne, which numbered 34 in 1595.30 Not all of these had the distinctive signs that usually designated a city: for example, only nine were the seat of a diocese. Many other cities made up for the lack of ecclesiastical dignity by being the seat of a body of the state administration: in the seventeenth century, eleven non-diocesan cities boasted an office of the secrezia or included in their urban territory an office of the grain trade (caricatoi dei grani ). b) A community that lacked the title of “city” fell under the category of the università, and the same considerations pertained in Sicily as in the Kingdom of Naples regarding the use of the terms terra in historical parlance and università in administrative language. The distribution of communities among the three valli favored the Val Demone, which projected eastward toward the coasts of the Kingdom of Naples, and which, by the end of the sixteenth century, registered 45 percent more communities than the Val di Mazara and double the number of those in the Val di Noto.31 c) The casali were less numerous, at least in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These were more common on the island in the Middle Ages, however, when the term might represent a rural center without defensive walls, a colonized village, an agricultural settlement, or, often, an economic entity incorporated into a feudo.32 Unlike casali in the continental Mezzogiorno, in Sicily their population seldom amounted to more than from five to thirty-two families,33 since such territorial structures “were subject to the governance of a juridically superior center, feudal or demesnial, of which they and their own lands or dividae constituted the pertinenciae.”34 It is hard to determine how this form of settlement, which was represented by fewer than ten cities, for the most part located in eastern Sicily, came to disappear in the passage to the modern age. There are two 30 Armando Di Pasquale, “Alcuni aspetti statistico-sociali della Sicilia sotto Filippo II di Spagna,” Annali della Facoltà di Ecomonia e commercio dell’Università di Palermo 5 (1951): 1–53, esp. 53. 31 Crivella, Trattato di Sicilia, 13. 32 The first to call attention to the diffusion of casali in Sicily were Maurice Aymard and Henri Bresc, “Problemi di storia dell’insediamento nella Sicilia medievale e moderna, 1100–1800,” Quaderni Storici 24 (1973): 945–76. Their theses are discussed in Ferdinando Maurici, Castelli medievali in Sicilia dai bizantini ai normanni (Palermo: Sellerio, 1992), 119. 33 Aymard and Bresc, “Problemi di storia,” 967. 34 Maurici, Castelli medievali, 122.

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possible hypotheses, each of which would require investigation: the first is that many of these casali conquered their own administrative autonomy and became an università; the second and contrary hypothesis is that they disappeared in the crisis of the fourteenth century and the ensuing abandonment of rural areas.

Social Structure and Stratification in the Duchy of Milan Thus far I have attempted to present a typology of the human settlements within a territory—that is, to show how people occupied space and to describe the stable forms that this occupation assumed. The quantitative dimension is surely significant here, expressed as the variation through time of the human influx into the cities and the countryside and as the composition of the agglomerations of houses. These are topics that send us back, in one way or another, to the historical demography of the provinces of Spanish Italy, but that will be excluded from my further considerations. What I propose to do instead is to reflect on the social composition of those societies and their internal stratification in both the urban and the rural context. For a number of years now, historians interested in evaluating the social dynamic of ancien régime society have been more cautious in the use of the overall categories that have traditionally guided historical judgments: as we are all aware, categories such as nobility, bourgeoisie, or the people turn out to be a convenient catch-all for more complex, highly articulated realities. The regional states of Italy in the early modern age, and even the aristocracies who lived in the territories of Spanish Italy, show a striking variety in how the world of nobles was structured and in the dynamics and tensions underlying that world. There are of course different possible criteria for identifying and classifying the nobility, even leaving aside its hierarchy in Lombardy, where the title of prince could not be given. In what had been the Duchy of Milan (that is, in the capital city and the eight other cities that exercised jurisdiction over their respective contadi ) one might draw a distinction in the administrative organization of the territory between the city nobility of Milan and that of the other Lombard cities and between Lombard nobility and a nobility of Spanish origin. If instead we adopt access to public office in the organs of government (of either the central government or the city governments)

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as a criterion of differentiation, another articulation becomes possible. A first segment of the Lombard aristocracy was made up of families of ancient origin, members of a nobiltà originaria that went back to the registration of 1377 but that, by the fifteenth century, had become clearly urban. The strength of this group came from vast and rich landholdings, properties that were often renewed feudal concessions but that it would be difficult to qualify as feudal in any strict sense. Many of those families controlled the nerve centers of the central government of the duchy, placing family members in the Consiglio Segreto, the Senate, and the offices of Gran Cancelliere, Magistrato Ordinario and Magistrato Straordinario, Treasurer, and court Regent, not to mention a number of high ecclesiastical posts. The strategies that such groups adopted were quite diverse, however: some families focused on specific areas, filling one office over several generations; other families worked horizontally, inserting family members into a number of institutions; still others focused on civic offices as well as positions with the central government. A second group among the Lombard aristocracy tended to become identified with the exercise of civic responsibilities, both in Milan, the capital city (in the Tribunale di Provvisione, as one of the sixty Decurioni, or as judges, deputies, or members of the various congregations), and in the other cities (as members of the Consiglio Generale, as a referendario cittadino, an oratore, an official, or a member of the local magistracy).35 Among this second group as well, although such families were known for their power in urban government, that did not exclude participation in the councils of the central government. Two hundred eight senators were appointed between 1561 and 1706, and 150 of them came from Lombard families. Within that group of Lombard senators, 80 belonged to families from the capital and 70 from families from the other cities of the former duchy.36 A third and final group was composed of members of the new nobility created in the Spanish age, who were for the most part men of mercantile origins or risen from among the ranks of Lombard and Spanish functionaries. In the same period (1561–1706), 54 out of the 208 senators were Spanish, many of them (at least 70 percent) men already well established in Milan at the time of their appointment.37 35 Ugo Petronio, “Burocrazia e burocrati nel Ducato di Milano dal 1561 al 1706,” in Per Francesco Calasso: Studi degli allievi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978), 479–552, esp. 487. 36 Ibid., 503. 37 Ibid., 502.

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In reality, one characteristic particular to this Lombard aristocracy was a slow amalgamation of the older and newer families, a process that certainly did not annul their differences of origin, but that nonetheless consolidated a tendency to operate according to the public functions they fulfilled. It was, in fact, holding civic office (more than placement within the structures of the central state) that defined the social group that historiography, both older and more recent, has always classified as the “patriciate” ( patriziato).38 This slow but efficacious process of the integration of the various sectors of the Lombard aristocracy took place within the collegi dei dottori, organizations of the legal professions that were “the sanctuaries of the aristocracy”39 and that existed in almost all cities in the duchy. “Autonomous in selecting recruits for the legal profession and the law courts and for judicial functions (thanks to their ability to accredit doctors of law and notaries), these collegi also used their connections with the dottorati and access to information on the families to regulate promotion to the nobility of the robe. Aside from this, however, the collegi functioned as a sort of chamber of compensation, putting into contact sectors of the patriciate that were separated in wealth and influence but whose members were colleagues of equal status within them.”40 Supporting the notion that these professional associations selected and trained the political class is the fact that between 1561 and 1706, 122 of the 150 senators from Lombard cities had been members of the colleges of jurisconsults (72 out of 80 were members of the collegio of Milan, and 50 out of 70 were members of the collegi of the other cities of the duchy).41 38 On the Lombard patriciate, see Felice Calvi, Il patriziato milanese (Milan, 1865); Dante Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato milanese nei secoli XVII, XVIII, XIX (Pavia: Università di Pavia, 1972); Giorgio Politi, Aristocrazia e potere politico nella Cremona di Filippo II (Milan: SugarCo, 1976); Franco Arese, “Nobilità e patriziato nello Stato di Milano,” in Dallo Stato di Milano alla Lombardia contemporanea, ed. Silvia Pizzetti (Milan: Cisalpino-Goliardica,1980), vol. 1, pp. 71–96; Anna Giulia Cavagna, “L’ ‘agire patrizio’: Materiali e riflessioni sull’evoluzione oligarchica di una città dominata,” Bollettino della Società Pavese di Storia Patria (1986): 107–33; Chiara Porqueddu, “Mercanti e patriziato a Pavia nella seconda metà del XVI secolo,” in Lombardia Borromaica, Lombardia Spagnola 1554 –1659, ed. Paolo Pissavino and Gianvittorio Signorotto, 2 vols. (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 1:515–49. 39 Calvi, Il patriziato milanese, 67. 40 Elena Brambilla, “Il ‘sistema letterario’ di Milano: Professioni nobili e professioni borghesi dall’età spagnola alle riforme teresiane,” in Economia, istituzioni, cultura in Lombardia nell’età di Maria Teresa, ed. Aldo De Maddelena, Ettore Rotelli, and Gennaro Barbarisi, 3 vols. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982), 3:79–160, esp. 142. 41 Petronio, “Burocrazia e burocrati,” 506.

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The same function of selection of the political class was fulfilled by the serrate oligarchiche, a closing of oligarchical ranks in the midsixteenth century that barred access to the city councils, hence to the exercise of all civic offices, to families of recent nobility or mercantile origins. It is possible, however, that this disbarment was applied with less rigidity than it may seem, making it possible to assert that “the Milanese patriciate was never a closed body, and new families were continually admitted.”42 What can be verified is a less narrow correlation between the two phenomena, in the sense that whereas the serrate must have operated with a fairly open net, thus permitting a degree of renewal within the patriciate,43 the exercise of public office was guaranteed to a more restricted number of families, also through the activities of the colleges of jurisconsults. The focus on the identity of the patriciate characteristic of a long historiographical tradition has led to neglect of the more markedly feudal sector of the world of the nobility. Feudalism in Lombardy differed greatly from that of other areas in Italy, in particular, from the situation in the South. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Lombardy feudal grants of the Visconti-Sforza era had been followed by a number of modifications and upheavals in the fifteenth century, when a sizeable number of persons invested the wealth they had gained from urban mercantile activities in the acquisition of landed properties, often sold by the dukes as feudal grants. The resulting integration of old and new families of feudal nobility had the effect of consolidating widespread support for the policies of the dukes of Milan. Renewed feudalization, begun in the fifteenth century and in part continued into the sixteenth century, was not limited to human resources: it also included notable economic changes arising from significant investments in land that promoted a more rational exploitation of agricultural holdings—investments, that is, in irrigation, new practices of crop rotation, stabled livestock, the construction of peasant housing, as well as cash rentals and an increase in new types of agricultural operatives.44 42

For the mechanisms that regulated admission to the patriciate, see Calvi, Il patriziato milanese, 49–53. 43 Arese, “Nobilità e patriziato,” 74. This statement seems confirmed by Dante Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato. 44 For an analysis of the situation in one area in which such transformations took place, see Enrico Roveda, “Una grande possessione lodigiana dei Trivulzio fra Cinque e Seicento,” in Ricerche di storia moderna, vol. 2, Aziende e patrimoni di grandi famiglie (sec. XV–XIX) (Pisa: Pacini, 1979), 25–140.

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Emphasis on the role of the Lombard patriciate has hindered an overall reconstruction of feudalism in Lombardy and a more accurate understanding of its possibly distinct identity. A distorted reading of Cesare Magni’s work on the twilight of Lombard feudalism (which remains to this day the most relevant contribution to the topic) has contributed to neglect of this segment of the aristocratic society of the ancien régime. Magni reconstructs a highly detailed profile of the different jurisdictional descriptions attached to Lombard feudatories. A 1441 decree of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti had strongly limited the exercise of feudal powers, and the same decree was periodically reconfirmed in the years that followed, up to the promulgation of the New Constitutions in 1541. A feudal judge had to be a subject of the State of Milan and hold a degree from the University of Pavia; he was subject to confirmation by the Senate and underwent an inspection after two years. In order to obtain reconfirmation, he had to have the consent of the community over which he exercised his mandate.45 Moreover, when a vassal was engaged in a legal dispute with the feudatory, he could recuse the feudal judge, and the law spelled out in detail the reasons for which he could refuse to submit to the judge’s jurisdiction. Given such conditions, the exercise of feudal justice operated within clearly defined spatial and jurisdictional limits. First, feudal justice was restricted to the lower level of jurisdiction: the appeals judge who handled rulings emanating from the feudal judge had to be chosen from among the members of the college of jurisconsults—an organ that was controlled by the urban oligarchies—and his activity necessarily took place under the supervision and protection of the highest-ranking city magistrate. Feudatories, aware of the intrinsic weakness of their jurisdiction, sought to make use of another body, that of the Auditor super feudis, whom they themselves elected, thus transforming that office into something like a court of appeals. An order of the Milanese Senate dated 11 January 1568 blocked such moves and restated the ruling that feudal jurisdiction pertained only at the lower level.46 It should be kept in mind that feudal jurisdiction stopped at the city gates. What is more, the privilegium civilitatis covered not only the city dwellers themselves, but also those members of the rural population

45 46

Cesare Magni, Il tramonto del feudo lombardo (Milan: Giuffrè, 1937), 169. Ibid., 159.

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who worked for city proprietors, cultivated their lands, or lived on their lands.47 Given this configuration, feudal jurisdiction could not function as an instrument for increasing the power of the territorial lords. This intrinsic weakness of jurisdictional exercise is perhaps what led to the conviction that feudalism was of little importance in Lombardy. In reality, although the feudatory’s powers came to be limited in point of law, in real terms they remained great, both as an additional way to exploit patrimonial resources and as a point of reference within the social hierarchy.48 Although we have no maps of the overall geography of Lombardy that would show the internal hierarchy of feudalism, either in terms of numbers of communities or numbers of vassal hearths, it is nonetheless clear that the phenomenon pervaded the former duchy. As Magni states, “All of the principal and more important part of the contado is infeudated: the regions of Milan, Lodi, Pavia, and Novara are filled with fiefs; the diffusion of feudal holdings is even greater around Tortona and Vigevano; in the Cremona area feudalism is markedly less widespread, but it includes large and rich holdings; only in the Como area is feudalism scarce.”49 This state of affairs had existed for ages, however, and the process does not seem to have accelerated in the Spanish age: “Out of more than 1,600 parcels of land infeudated in the early eighteenth century, only about one-fourth can be considered to be due to new infeudations on the part of Spain: three-quarters of the feudal lands of the State of Milan had already been subject to feudal encumbrances in the pre-Spanish era, and in the eighteenth century these were either still subject to ancient ties, preserved unchanged, or else were subject to ancient ties only slightly modified on the basis of reinfeudation contracts drawn up by Spain.”50 Although it seems legitimate to hold that, especially in the higher echelons represented, for example, by the Visconti, Borromeo, and Trivulzio lineages, extensive feudal possessions increased the political power of the high

47

Ugo Petronio, “Giurisdizioni feudali e ideologia giuridica nel Ducato di Milano,” Quaderni Storici 26 (1974): 351–402, esp. pp. 398–400. 48 Ibid., 398. This thesis is forcefully stated in Domenico Sella, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979). 49 Magni, Il tramonto del feudo, 225. 50 Domenico Sella and Carlo Capra, Il Ducato di Milano dal 1535 al 1796, Storia d’Italia, vol. 11 (Turin: UTET, 1984), 30.

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aristocracy, it remains to be seen what real advantages feudalism brought to those in its lower ranks—that is, those who held title to only a few parcels of land conceded to them as fiefs.

Social Structure and Stratification in the Kingdom of Naples If this was the case in Lombardy, can we form a similar description of the internal stratification of the aristocratic universe of the Kingdom of Naples and of Sicily? This question has a special significance in the Neapolitan context, where the image of the nobility has always been forced to fit the model of feudalism, or at least has been seen in terms of feudalism. The topic of the Neapolitan nobility, and the nobility of the South in general, has almost always prompted a negative evocation of feudalism, hence of the feudal nobility that drew its identity and its strength (but also its weakness) from its economic and jurisdictional management of the infeudated communities within its territories. Aristocratic society in the South has been interpreted exclusively to fit a paradigm of a privileged and parasite class of people who were in essence rough-hewn and of a low cultural level. That image was purveyed throughout the fifteenth century in a number of texts written by intellectuals and political figures in a number of Italian states, Tuscany in particular. The first to describe Neopolitan nobles as idle and inept was Poggio Bracciolini, writing in 1440.51 In the 1480s Cristoforo Landino expressed himself in sim-

51 “The Neapolitans, who boast of their own nobility above all others, appear in effect to locate it in laziness and ignorance. Given over to nothing else, if not to an inert leisure, they live their lives seated and yawning, drawing their living from their own lands. For a noble it is something unspeakable to dedicate oneself to agriculture or to the administration of one’s patrimony . . . They react with horror before commerce as if before the most unworthy and vile occupation. . . . They would prefer to go in for robbery and theft rather than any form of legitimate earnings” ( I Napoletani, che vantano la propria nobilità, al di sopra degli altri, appaiono in effetti collocarla nella pigrizia e nell’ignavia. A null’altro dediti, se non a un ozio inerte, trascorrono la vita sedendo e sbadigliando, ricavando di che campare dalle proprie terre. Per un nobile è cosa disdicevole dedicarsi all’agricoltura o all’amministrazione del proprio patrimonio. . . . Inorridiscono di fronte al commercio come di fronte all’occupazione più turpe e più vile. . . . Preferibbe[ro] praticare la rapina e il furto piuttosto che una forma di guadagno legittima): Poggio Bracciolini, De vera nobilitate, ed. Davide Canfora (Rome: Salerno, 1999), 43–44.

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ilar terms.52 Machiavelli repeated the image in the 1520s, though not without contradictions.53 In reality, however, as early as the first half of the sixteenth century the structure of aristocratic society in the Kingdom of Naples was much more varied than these texts might lead one to think: in the passage from to the Aragonese to the Castilian age antagonistic and contradictory elements had entered into the social and cultural picture, with obvious effects on the political options of society’s leaders. It may be useful, if we want to analyze the world of the nobility in Southern Italy and discern its various components, to borrow the criterion used for Lombard nobility—access to public responsibilities—to draw a distinction between involvement in civic power structures and in the apparatus of the central government. In the major cities of the Kingdom, pre-established quotas stipulated by city statutes (which were often changed or readjusted in both the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century) regulated access to posts within the reggimento urbano for members of noble families and “popular” families. This was in substance a “two-class system,”54 although there were also instances in which the government of the city was open to such representatives of the “middle classes” as merchants, collectors of excise taxes (arrendatori di gabelle), notaries, and other professional groups. But was it enough to be noble or declared noble to run for city office? The answer to that question permits us to distinguish between two different segments of the urban nobility. The first of these is the patriziato urbano, both in the capital city of Naples and in the other cities of the Kingdom.55 This urban patriciate

52

Cristoforo Landino, De vera nobilitate, ed. Maria Teresa Liaci (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1979), 40. 53 Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Corrado Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1983), 190–91, available in English translation by Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov as The Discourses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 54 For a reinterpretation of this model in a perspective that compares Italian and Spanish areas, see Gérard Delille, Le maire et le prieur: Pouvoir central et pouvoir local en Méditerranée occidentale, XV–XVIII siècle (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2003). 55 There is no organic treatment of the patriciate in the Kingdom of Naples, in part because little documentation has been preserved. For more recent literature on the topic, see Angelantonio Spagnoletti, “L’incostanza delle umane cose”: Il patriziato di Terra di Bari tra egemonia e crisi, XVI–XVIII (Bari: Edizioni dal Sud, 1981); Giovanni Muto, “Gestione politica e controllo sociale nella Napoli spagnola,” in Le città capitali, ed. Cesare De Seta (Rome: Laterza, 1985), 67–94; Giuliana Vitale, “La nobiltà

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was made up of families who, by dint of self-promotion, following procedures elaborated in customary law but also recognized by public ordinances, had set themselves up as a more or less closed privileged class that held a monopoly on the portion of the civic responsibilities attributed to the aristocracy by the city statutes or other regulations. Identification and recognition of patrician status operated through membership in the seggi. These seggi, organisms that originated in the late Middle Ages in ways that are not always clear and that existed only in the larger cities of the Kingdom, were thus the structures for aristocratic representation.56 At the same time, however, they were the channels through which the governing class of the cities was selected. In cities where the seggio was formally constituted, it also referred to a physical space in which the aristocracy gathered—a portico, a small building, or a chapel in a church—to discuss its problems, carry on elective assemblies, and decide what position to take in questions pertaining to city government. Not all noble families in the various cities were members of a seggio, a situation that created a number of problems for political stability. In reality, throughout the fifteenth century, inscription in a noble seggio was fairly fluid, and the nobility itself may not even have considered membership to be decisive or a necessary requirement for holding civic responsibilities. In the early sixteenth century, however, the seggi of both Naples and the provincial cities set up increasingly rigid di seggio a Napoli nel basso medioevo: Aspetti della dinamica interna,” Archivio per le Province Napoletane (1988): 151–69; Giovanni Muto, “Problemi di stratificazione nobiliare nell’Italia spagnola,” in Dimenticare Croce? Studi e orientamenti di storia del Mezzogiorno, ed. Elvira Ciosi and Aurelio Musi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1991), 73–111; Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Identità sociali: La nobiltà napoletana nella prima età moderna (Milan: Unicopli, 1998); Giovanni Muto, “Interessi cetuali e rappresentanza politica: i ‘seggi’ e il patriziato napoletano nella prima metà del Cinquecento,” in L’Italia di Carlo V: Guerra, religione e politica nel primo Cinquecento, ed. Francesca Cantù and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome: Viella, 2003), 615–37; Giovanni Muto, “Immagine e identità dei patrizi cittadini del Mezzogiorno nella prima età moderna,” in El reino de Nápoles y la monarquía de España: Entre agregación y conquista (1485–1535), ed. Giuseppe Galasso and Carlos José Hernando Sánchez (Madrid: Real Academia de España en Roma, 2004), 362–78. 56 In Naples, the capital city, patrician families were distributed in five seggi (Capuana, Nido, Montagna, Porto, and Portanuova); in Salerno in three, in Sorrento in two, and in Trani in four, while many other cities (Tropea, Bari, Barletta, Cosenza, Catanzaro) had only one seggio. In cities that had no seggi, mechanisms for the constitution of artistocratic representation followed a variety of systems. The division by classes (ceti ) operated by creating separate meetings for the nobles, or else by registering their votes for each measure in registers kept apart from the ones that held the decisions taken by the city government.

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norms for admission, and by the mid-century new families who aspired to the nobility found access to them much more difficult. This “closing” of the seggi paralleled a similar tightening of institutional mechanisms regulating the political life of the city councils, which were normally governed by a two-level system of noble and “popular” representation, but in which the aristocratic component was actually made up of a limited number of families. This process of narrowed access first appeared in Naples in the first half of the sixteenth century, then in the cities of Calabria, and later—beginning in the 1550s and 1560s, in those of Apulia.57 In any event, it was always quite clear that the patrician condition—whatever the treatises on the topic may have to say—granted no higher grade of nobility. What distinguished the cavalieri patrizi—patrician knights— from all the other nobles was the fact that only they were permitted to run for city office. The urban aristocratic universe was not wholly composed of patricians, however: in the bigger cities of the Kingdom there was a second group of noble families called nobiltà fuori piazza, thus indicating that they were not members of a patrician seggio, hence could not participate in city government. Those nobles found their situation particularly frustrating, because “not having any part in public affairs, they came to be in their own land as if they were foreigners, in fact worse.”58 This was a somewhat heterogeneous group. It of course included aristocratic families of Neapolitan origin and families from other areas of Italy who had lived in the cities of the South for generations; but there also were many families from Catalonia or Aragon who had arrived in the suites of the Aragonese kings or the Catholic kings and Neapolitan families of merchant ancestry who, in the course of two or three generations, had won posts in the public administration or the legal and judicial professions that comported a noble title. The chief aspiration of this quite numerous group (in the capital city alone its numbers equaled those of the patrician families)

57 This phenomenon has been noted for Catanzaro in 1559, for Cosenza in 1565, and for Tropea in 1567, and it continued during the early decades of the seventeenth century: see Giuseppe Galasso, Economia e società nella Calabria del Cinquecento, 2nd ed. (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1975), 313–23. 58 “Non avendo alcuna parte nei pubblici affari, vengono a stare nella lor patria come fussero forestieri, anzi peggiori”: Francesco d’Andrea, Avvertimenti ai nipoti, ed. Imma Ascione (Naples: Jovene, 1990), 244.

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was to gain entry into a seggio of their city, thus gaining access to participation in city government. On various occasions during the latter half of the sixteenth century the nobili fuori piazza sought to force access to the seggi in Naples by seeking the support of the court in Madrid. At one time (the sources do not specify the date) the seggi of Naples, thinking to reinforce their defenses against pressures put on them by the nobili fuori piazza, appealed to the sovereign for a ruling regarding requests for admission. Philip II (and his successors after him) reacted with great caution. In July 1571, after an attempt on the part of certain barons and ministerial council members to gain admission in the Neapolitan seggio of Porto, the king wrote to the viceroy, recommending prudence: “In this matter, do not do anything until you notify us and have our answer.”59 The sovereign was particularly concerned that if the members of the various councils, the magistracy, and the ministerial offices in Naples became part of the seggi, they might form an alliance with the patriciate, thus reducing the scope of the crown’s function as a social mediator. This is, in any event, how the royal decree of 13 December 1581 stating that no Neapolitan regent or minister could request admission to the patrician seggi should be read.60 The seggi’s resistance to admitting new families among their ranks held firm throughout the seventeenth century, despite the acceptance of individuals on an exceptional basis, as shown in a midseventeenth-century text that states, “For many years now no one has entered the seggi by means of their statutes, and if someone has done so, which has been extremely rare, it has been as a favor or through other practices.”61 In the years 1557–58 new requests for admission to the seggi intensified tension between the two groups of urban nobles. On both sides they operated like veritable pressure groups, attempting to construct alliances in the court in Madrid, sending ambassadors with lists of powerful persons to be contacted, and seeking to obtain a hearing with the sovereign. Faced with resistance on the part of the Neapolitan patriciate to accepting them in their seggi, the nobili fuori piazza suggested that two additional seggi be 59 “En este negozio no se haga novedad hasta de dar nos notizia y se tengais respuesta nuestra”: Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli (BNN), Ms. XI.A.22, fol. 146. 60 Ibid., fol. 314. 61 “Sono tanti anni che ne li seggi non vi è entrato niuno per la via di li loro statuti e s’alcuno v’ entrato, il che è stato rarissimo, è stato per favore o altre pratiche”: Real Biblioteca de Madrid, Ms. II 2466, fols. 250–99.

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created for the new nobility. In their petition to the sovereign they quite cleverly argued that the two new seggi would in fact form “two columns and two strong fortified castles in your service: not so much because there are among us some eighty Spanish families, as because we all would be dependent on the grace and the justice of Your Majesty.”62 On this occasion, as on others when the same suggestion was made (for example during the revolt of 1647–48), the sovereign either sought to gain time or gave an extremely ambiguous response, and in fact the question was set aside. One evident result, however, was that the division of the urban nobility into two groups— the patriciate of the seggi and the nobili fuori piazza—added to political and social instability (in the capital city of Naples in particular), thus accentuating the mediating function of the crown and of the viceroy as the direct representative of the crown in the governance of the Kingdom. The aristocratic universe was not wholly concentrated in the cities: by its very nature it expanded throughout the territory, which it sought to shape to its values. One value particular to this world was an internal differentiation, a criterion that signaled differences of power, wealth, and precedence by means of a hierarchy within the noble status that was reflected in the ranks within the titled nobility, the nobiltà titolata. In this third segment of aristocratic society titles (prince, duke, marquis, count, and baron) to inhabited fiefs were granted by the sovereign, thus transmitting to the title holders the status of “lords of vassals.” It is in this sense and in practice that the titled nobility coincided with what has traditionally been called feudalism in the Kingdom of Naples. Quantitatively speaking, this social group (as was the case in other European lands) increased notably, tripling its numbers between the 1580s and the 1670s.63 Historians have always displayed a great interest in this segment of the nobility in both its political and its economic characteristics. I am more interested in understanding whether the titled nobility in

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“Due colonne e due castella fortissime in servizio suo; non tanto per esserci fra noi circa ottanta famiglie spagnole, come perché dependeremo tutti dalla grazia e giustizia della Maestà Sua”: quoted in Francesco Palermo, ed., “Narrazioni e documenti sulla storia del Regno di Napoli dall’anno 1522 al 1667,” Archivio Storico Italiano IX (1846): 147–199, esp. 179. 63 Rosario Villari, La rivolta antspagnola a Napoli: Le origini (1585–1647) (Bari: Laterza, 1967; 1987), 188–91; Muto, “Problemi di stratificazione nobiliare nell’Italia spagnola,” 88.

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the Kingdom of Naples, given its feudal characteristics, can be considered a group genuinely opposed to the urban nobility. Documentary sources relative to the mid-sixteenth century offer some answers to my question. In 1557 the feudal nobility in the Kingdom can be summarized in these terms: “The [noble] houses with title to feudal holdings are a social body of 558 individuals bearing 327 family names who hold title to 714 lordships corresponding to 1,592 [properties], divided among cities, landholdings, [and] infeudated villages, for a population of 329,102 vassals, representing 78 percent of the population of the Kingdom.”64 There were internal differences within this feudal nobility, however. A first group of six great families (Carafa, Sanseverino, d’Avalos d’Aquino, and Pignatelli in the seggio of Nido and Caracciolo and Orsini in the seggio of Capuana) controlled 417 communities and 32 percent of all subject vassals; these families were all titled nobility and all were inscribed in the seggi of the capital city of Naples. A second group of eleven families controlled 306 communities, with 25.51 percent of all vassals. These families were also all of the titled nobility, and 63.63 percent of them were inscribed in the seggi of Naples. A third group was made up of 39 families, who controlled 323 communities with 23.10 percent of all vassals. Among this third group of families 71.79 percent were of the titled nobility, but only 53.84 percent were members of Neapolitan seggi. These three groups were followed by another three groups of feudal nobles who controlled fewer and fewer communities and vassals. In these three last groups the families who belonged to the titled nobility were noticeably fewer than the families who were members of Neapolitan seggi. For the purposes of this analysis it thus seems evident that whereas the highest echelons of the feudal nobility (the first three groups) were composed of families in large part from titled houses who were members of the seggi of Naples, the lesser echelons of the feudal nobility were represented by families that had not managed to obtain a title from the crown, even though many of them came from the urban nobility. The last and lowest segment of the noble world was made up of untitled barons, men of bourgeois origins or from families of unrec64 Maria Antonietta Visceglia, “Dislocazione territoriale e dimensione del possesso feudale nel regno di Napoli a metà Cinquecento,” in Signori, patrizi, cavalieri in Italia centro-meridionale nell’età moderna, ed. Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome: Laterza, 1992), 31–75, esp. p. 63. Cfr. Muto, “Immagine e identità dei patriziati cittadini,” pp. 372–373.

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ognized nobility, not members of the cities’ seggi. Such men could hope to acquire feudal title to a small (often very small) community, and when they managed to do so, they exercised all the powers and functions connected with the role of feudatory, but often without the privilege of using the title of count, marquis, or baron. We can thus consider this type of feudalism as a form of investment in which profits were dependent on the exploitation of local resources, requiring the continual presence of the untitled baron in the community infeudated to him. For that reason we can conclude that this group was formed of men native to the region and strongly connected to it who were capable of making their investment pay. This is the sense in which it seems to me we should understand Francesco d’Andrea, for whom investment in the acquisition of a fief was wholly legitimate, even for non-nobles, on the condition that “they think of procuring [property] not too far from Naples” and that they refrain from ever seeking “any title, both in order not to disqualify themselves for the legal profession and because nothing can come of titles but ruin and disesteem of the house.”65 In the current state of scholarship we know very little about this lesser level of the nobility, and the sources themselves do not permit us to quantify this group with any exactitude. According to Rosario Villari, it was not large, never numbering more that some five hundred persons.66 Thus far our investigation of the Neapolitan nobility has focused on access to posts in the city government and control over landholdings as criteria of social identity. There is a third way to measure the sphere of action and the contractual capacities of the nobility in relation to its internal stratification, which is through access to the more important offices of the central government. The prevailing interpretation, based on both contemporary evidence and more recent sources, tends to depict a primacy of the togati—magistrates and judges—over the nobility. As early as during the sixteenth century, the Spanish crown is seen as favoring a process of gradual insertion of a personnel of non-aristocratic extraction into the highest posts of the central apparatus of Neapolitan government. The togati of Naples—doctors of law who came in large part from the 65 “Che si consideri di procurare che non sian troppo lontani da Napoli”; “mai alcun titolo, si per non rendersi inabili all’avvocazione, si perché da titoli non potrebbe seguire altro che la ruina e la disestimatione della casa”: D’Andrea, Avvertimenti ai nipoti, 270–71. 66 Villari, La rivolta antispagnola, 191.

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mercantile middle class and from the “civic class” of jurists, lawyers, and the professions—are pictured as taking control of the central institutions, the Consiglio Collaterale in particular, thus limiting the action of the viceroy himself and relegating nobles to a totally marginal position. This process is thought to have already been evident during the 1520s and to have reached a decisive turning point in October 1542, when, at the urging of the viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, Emperor Charles V decreed the closing of the chancellery of the Consiglio Collaterale, arguing that among the problems treated by that body, those of estado y guerra could be handled by all the council members, nobles included, whereas questions relative “to things of justice and law suits” were better reserved to the regents of the chancery and the viceroy.67 During Pedro de Toledo’s years as viceroy (1532–53), “the difference of functions between ‘the laity’ and the togati gradually took on a class significance, because Spanish policy was clearly aimed at removing the nobles from the summits of the administration. The legos, or ‘laymen,’ of the Collaterale and the idiotas [non-doctors of law] of the Sommaria were certainly all nobles.”68 There is no reason to doubt that this strategy is a tell-tale thread running throughout the history of relations between the Spanish crown and its Neapolitan province, but it may nonetheless be useful to offer a few further reflections regarding the timing and the manner in which such an operation was put into effect. The Consiglio Collaterale, as we have seen, stood at the summit of the institutional hierarchy of the Kingdom of Naples and was the most important government structure. The viceroy served as its presiding officer, and it was organized into two sections: the Collaterale di Giustizia, also referred to as the Collaterale di toga or di cappa lunga (of the long cloak), whose membership was comprised uniquely of reggenti di cancelleria (for many years three in number); and the Collaterale di Spada, or di cappa corta (of the short cloak), with a membership that included the same regents, but also a number of council members, both noble and nonnoble, appointed by the sovereign. In order to understand to what extent nobles and non-nobles participated in the central government 67 “A las cosas de justicia y de partes”: This is the interpretation given in Renata Pilati, Officia Principis: Politica e amministrazione a Napoli nel Cinquecento (Naples: Jovene, 1994), 245–46. 68 Raffaele Ajello, Una società anomala: Il programma e la sconfitta della nobiltà napoletana in due memoriali cinquecenteschi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane/Consorzio Editoriale Fridericiana, 1996), 24.

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through service in this magistracy, I shall focus on the group of the reggenti di cancelleria, clearly the most significant nucleus of this ministerial body. During the entire period of Spanish presence, 88 men were named reggenti di cancelleria.69 In the years from 1507 to 1558, 18 regents were named, 8 of whom were natives of the Kingdom of Naples, patricians di seggio, and doctors of law. During the years 1561 to 1648, 37 regents were named, 24 of them Spanish and 13 native-born. Among the latter, 6 were patricians di seggio (and four of them doctors of law). During the final years of the Spanish period, from 1649 on, nominations reflect a greater degree of mobility: 16 of the 33 regents named were Spanish and 17 were natives of the Kingdom. Only three of the latter group were patricians di seggio and doctors of law. These figures lead to some interesting and somewhat surprising conclusions: a) In all three of the periods given above there is an approximate equilibrium between Spanish and native-born personnel in these posts. We should keep in mind that the pragmatic, De officiorum provisione (1550), which was the document that regulated the division of title to offices between Neapolitans and men from outside the Kingdom, did not stipulate the nationality of the regents of the Collaterale, which means that the crown had a freer hand in naming persons whom it considered worthy of trust; b) In the age of Charles V a compact group of regents were both patricians and doctors of law. It is thus possible that the urban nobles who occupied the post of regent in this period (names such as Loffredo, Muscettola, Albertino, and Pignone) sought to differentiate themselves from the titled nobility and to put themselves forward as a dependable ally of the crown by lending support to the crown’s project of streamlining the apparatus of government; c) Possessing a law degree—being a togato—was thus not incompatible with being a patrician di seggio or a member of the urban nobility. What is more, throughout the first half of the sixteenth century 69 Finding one’s way among the various documentary sources is not an easy task because all of them are incomplete. Researching the decrees and the privileges of nomination should be carried out directly, using the resources of the Archivo General de Simancas and the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón. The calculations that appear in the text are based on the data given in Gaetana Intorcia, Magistrature del Regno di Napoli: Analisi prosopografica, secoli XVI–XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1987), data that, although incomplete, are homogeneous and seem plausible.

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the nobility showed itself open to the civilization of letters on a number of occasions; d) The patrician component in the chancellery lessens gradually as time went by, but it was still significant until the revolt of 1647–48; e) Only after Masaniello’s Revolt did the non-noble togati seem to have gained complete control of the chancellery. Less extensive surveys hint that the presence of Neapolitans— specifically, of togati of bourgeois extraction—was strong in the other organs of the central government, in particular those concerned with economic and financial matters—the Camera della Sommaria, the Scrivania de Razione, and the Tesoreria Generale.70 The Spanish presence in governmental institutions was thus a good deal less pervasive than has been thought, confirming a deliberate choice on the part of the Spanish to construct alliances with the local elites so as to broaden consensus with the actions of the crown. Obviously, such alliances were not restricted to the level of institutional administration, but rather involved the full range of Neapolitan and Southern society. Privileging a relationship with civil servants in the institutions of government by no means excluded establishing equally solid relations with other social groups, even with the nobility, in other contexts. As for the Neapolitan nobility, although its numbers were few in terms of percentage of the population, it was not excluded from high political office, especially during the sixteenth century. Ettore Pignatelli, count of Monteleone, was viceroy of Sicily from 1517 to 1534; Alfonso d’Avalos, marquis del Vasto, was governor of Milan between 1538 and 1546; Francesco d’Avalos, marquis of Pescara, was first the governor of Milan (1560–1563), then viceroy of Sicily (1568–1571); Marino Caracciolo was first ambassador to Milan, then governor of that city (1536–37); Marcello Pignone, marquis d’Oriolo, was general visitor in Sicily from 1562 to 1564. Without casting any doubt on the primacy of the civili in the long run, it is interesting to note that the civil servant class had no monopoly on the “toga.” Legal training needs to be contextualized within the long term of the Spanish presence, both in the Kingdom of 70 For a survey of the economic and financial branches of the government of the Kingdom of Naples, see Giovanni Muto, “Meccanismi e percorsi della mobilità socio-professionale nell’apparato ministeriale: I funzionari della camera della Sommaria di Napoli tra XVI e XVII secolo,” in Felipe II y el Mediterráneo, ed. Ernest Belenguer Cebrià, 4 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoraciòn de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), 2: 379–94.

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Naples and elsewhere. The history of the Duchy of Milan offers confirmation that there was no rigid opposition between nobles and togati. In Lombardy many patricians were togati and one generation after another in the great aristocratic houses followed the route of “service to the crown” in governmental institutions after being filtered through the Collegio dei Giureconsulti, the association of the legal profession. It is not by chance that one mid-seventeenth-century Milanese text states: “The famous Count of Fuentes put it well [when he said] that this State was a Republic of togati.”71

Social Structure and Stratification in the Kingdom of Sicily By the criteria used for the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples, aristocratic society in Sicily seems quite different in a number of ways. In Sicily the feudal nobility had already underdone rapid change before the sixteenth century. According to Henri Bresc, “Out of 426 feudal and/or knightly families . . . surveyed between 1300 and 1349, only 94 still existed after 1400, that is, barely 22 percent.”72 That portion of the nobility in fact coincided with the nobiltà titolata, which grew little in numbers throughout the Cinquecento, never arriving at more than 98 holders of a title. The multiplication of titles was, by and large, a phenomenon of the seventeenth century, when the number of beneficiaries nearly doubled. This is the group usually referred to in historical literature as “the baronage.” “Barone includes all of the feudal families, which for that reason was called baronaggio.”73 The feudal nobility was not homogeneous in its social identity, however. During the course of the sixteenth century we can identify 141 families, belonging to 108 lineages, whose origins classify them in four categories: the ancient baronage, a baronage of Spanish origin, a baronage of Italian origin (Tuscan in

71 “Diceva adunque bene il famoso conte di Fuentes, che questo Stato era una Republica di togati”: Pedro Enríquez de Acevedo, count of Fuentes, was governor of the Duchy of Milan between 1600 and 1610. This statement, taken from a text by Corrado Gonfalonieri, can be found in Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 291. 72 Henri Bresc, “La feudalizzazione in Sicilia dal vassallaggio al potere baronale,” in Storia della Sicilia, ed. Rosario Romeo, 10 vols. (Naples: Società Editrice Storia di Napoli e della Sicilia, 1977–81), vol. 3 (1980), 501–543, esp. 508. 73 Antonio Mango di Casalgerardo, Sui titoli di barone e di signore in Sicilia: Ricerche storico-giuridiche (Palermo: A. Reber, 1904), 71.

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particular), and an autochthonous Sicilian baronage.74 During the course of the sixteenth century the first two of these categories (the ancient baronage and the Spanish baronage) shrank in comparison with the other two, but it is interesting that family origin did not produce genuine differences and that what we see is rather a process of amalgamation. In the Quattrocento, in Sicily as elsewhere, a nobiltà civica grew up in the major cities that sought to restrict the process of access to public office. The selection mechanism was a mastra of the nobility, a list of families that had occupied civic office in the past and were held to possess the requisites for aristocratic status. The names of those elected to city offices were taken from these lists. Unlike the seggi of Naples, the mastre did not presuppose a physical location in which the nobility could gather, nor did it come to designate a political subject who deliberated on the city’s problems. The mastra of course changed through time: until the mid-sixteenth century, it designated a highly fluid group, which only later became more rigid with the creation of closed lists (mastre serrate). The first mastra was drawn up in Catania in 1432, where it served as a means for providing a list of persons eligible to fill various posts. Even within this closed group, however, such posts were monopolized by a rather small number of families, thus effectively limiting their circulation. During the period 1601–1700, 712 persons from 52 families were named to the three most important municipal offices (those of patrizio, capitano, and giurato), and 123 of those 52 families seem to be newly ennobled as they do not appear on sixteenth-century lists. The most relevant piece of information, however, is the fact that two-thirds of all holders of top posts come from only eight families, first among them the Paternò family with 146 designations.75 The same phenomenon can be seen in Siracusa, where a mastra was drawn up as early as 1549 in which a small number of families account for at least one-half of all designations to high office.76 Caltagirone presents an interesting case. There a 1569 survey identifies 157 gentlemen’s “hearths,” representing 70 aristocratic houses, the equivalent of 5.62

74 Domenico Ligresti, Feudatari e patrizi nella Sicilia moderna (secoli XVI–XVII) (Catania: C.U.E.C.M., 1992), 72. 75 Ibid., 182–83. 76 Ibid., 190–98.

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percent of the population.77 In reality, however, many of those families do not appear on the city mastra for that same year, thus confirming that how the community defined the criteria for aristocratic status differed from how the nobles perceived themselves. A second mastra in 1661 added new families, but it created two separate rolls, distinguishing between first-class and second-class nobles. Public offices ( patrizi, capitani, giurati ) were reserved to nobles of the first class, while nobles of the second class were guaranteed only admission to the city council. The mechanism of the mastre must also have operated in many other smaller cities, as it did in Bivona,78 while in Messina and other larger cities the presence of an urban nobility was long balanced by the role of the popolari. The Messina mastra, created in 1519, listed nobles more as individuals than as representatives of the various aristocratic families. The aristocratic world in Palermo operated quite differently. In some ways its divisions resembled those of Naples, although in Palermo the urban nobility was not structured in seggi,79 as in Naples, or listed in mastre, as in other Sicilian cities. Palermo’s role as the capital city of Sicily (a role always disputed by Messina)80 did much to increase the city’s population, and thanks to the many nobles and merchants attracted to the city, it displayed a high degree of social mobility. During the fifteenth century, access to public office was regulated by a procedure calling for the compilation of lists of eligible persons, from which the out-going officials and the royal commissioner chose new office holders. In 1472, however, the selection of new officials was put in the hands of the viceroy, who chose them from among the lists that had been compiled.81 Generally speaking, this same procedure was maintained in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although appointments for the major offices in the city ( pretore, capitano, and three giudici civili ), in principle made by the 77 Giacomo Pace, Il governo dei gentiluomini: Ceti dirigenti e magistrature a Caltagirone tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Rome: Il Cigno/Galileo Galilei, 1996), 138. 78 Antonino Marrone, Bivona, città feudale, 2 vols. (Caltanisetta and Rome: Sciascia, 1987), 1:170–71. 79 The special characteristics of Palermo were described in 1593 by a Neapolitan functionary, Alfonso Crivella, who was sent to Sicily in the late sixteenth century: see Crivella, Trattato di Sicilia, 6–4. 80 Francesco Benigno, “La questione della capitale: Lotta politica e rappresentanza degli interessi nella Sicilia del Seicento,” Società e Storia 47 (1990): 27–64. 81 Valentina Vigiano, L’esercizio della politica: La città di Palermo nel Cinquecento (Rome: Viella, 2004), 114–16.

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sovereign, were made on the basis of a three-person short list of candidates forwarded by the viceroy to the Council of Italy in Madrid. It was not stipulated in this procedure that the elected officials must be noble, much less did it specify a particular type of noble. The requisite qualifications were Palermitan citizenship, appropriate age ( judged on the basis of experience, not years), and a number of somewhat vague qualities, such as nobility, maturity, goodness, and prudence.82 Although in its form this process was less oriented toward discrimination by social origin, there was nevertheless an increasing tendency, in the seventeenth century, for the office of pretore to be occupied by a member of the titled nobility, leaving little room for members of the newer, non-titled families.83 All of this makes it difficult to view the urban patriciate of Sicily as a group endowed with a distinctive identity. The power oligarchies that operated in the cities seem to have had little self-awareness as a social class. Although they recognized internal distinctions, these were not used as the basis for legitimate pursuit of public office, as was the case in Naples. In a text from the 1620s, Del Palermo restaurato, Vincenzo Di Giovanni differentiates between three segments within the aristocratic world: within the society of cavalieri some belonged “to the order of magistrates, captains, and senators,” thus forming an urban nobility in the strict sense; some were “feudal barons” or holders of fiefs; and some could properly be called “titled nobles” (princes, dukes, marquises, and counts).84 Di Giovanni’s description of the structure of the aristocracy leaves out some lesser levels of the noble world, such as cavalieri regi, persons who had the right to preface their names with the noble “don,” and cavalieri aurati. Within the operations of the municipal government these distinctions operated only in part, however, the various categories of noble combining, despite internal tensions, to form a governing elite capable of establishing a generally stable equilibrium and bound together by a common interest in opposing the lower classes. In 1714 one gentleman scholar used an image to describe the form of the city government of Caltagirone that would fit many Sicilian cities of the 82 Geltrude Macrì, “La nobilità senatoria a Palermo tra Cinquecento e Seicento,” Mediterranea: Ricerche Storiche 3 (2005): 75–95, esp. 83. 83 Ibid., 87. 84 Vincenzo Di Giovanni, Del Palermo restaurato (Palermo, 1872). The distinctions Di Giovanni gives for the aristocracy in Palermo apply, in large part, to many of the major cities of Sicily.

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time: “This city has never admitted the slightest Democracy or participation of popular government, but has maintained itself in the Aristocracy of the closed Nobility.”85 Although the Sicilian nobility exerted broad control over the territory and its economic resources, it never succeeded in bringing the apparatus of the central government under its hegemony. In theory, two things facilitated that aim. On the one hand, the Sicilians held that the relationship linking their kingdom to the Spanish crown was contractual in nature; Sicily was not a kingdom conquered with force of arms, like the Kingdom of Naples, it was a kingdom “subject to a pact and voluntarily maintained” that had freely agreed to the conditions of its adhesion to the imperial community.86 Scipione di Castro (ca. 1520–1588) said of the Sicilians’ aim in this regard, “They believe that they have acquired great merit with the crown of Spain for having consigned themselves to it spontaneously. They think that they deserve respect of all the points of the agreement relative to their submission.”87 In the political situation of the sixteenth century, all of this was of course little more than a rhetorical feint, but Sicilians found it reassuring and, in any event, their claims do not seem to have been contested by the Spanish court, which augmented their bargaining power with that body. Moreover, the Spanish crown had recognized the privilege of nationality in connection with nominations to the central apparatus of government, a move that (at least in theory) prevented the nomination of Spaniards to the Sicilian administration. Still, the island’s nobility never managed to be seen by the crown as a credible and efficacious governing elite, among other reasons, because in all lands of the imperial community the Spanish sovereigns put little faith in a public administration wholly entrusted to the nobility. For that reason, from the early decades of 85 “Non ha mai questa città ammesso Democrazia veruna o partecipazione di governo popolare, ma s’ è conservata nell’Aristocratia della Nobiltà serrata”: Francesco Aprile, Specialità degli ossequi e del Giubilio della Gratissima Città di Caltagirone . . . (Catania, 1714), quoted in Pace, Il governo dei gentiluomini, 308. 86 The definition is from the Sicilian jurist Mario Cutelli in Vittorio Sciuti Russi, Astrea in Sicilia: Il ministero togato nella società siciliana dei secoli XVI e XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1983), 72. 87 “Pactionado y entregado volontariamente”; “Stimano di aver acquisito grandi meriti presso la corona di Spagna, per essersi consegnati spontaneamente ad essa. Credono che a loro sia dovuto il rispetto di tutti quei punti dell’accordo relativo alla loro sottomissione”: Scipione Di Castro, Avvertimenti di Don Scipio Di Castro a Marco Antonio Colonna quando andó viceré di Sicilia, ed. Armando Saitta (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1950), 50.

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the sixteenth century the administration of the province of Sicily made broad use—as in Naples—of personnel from the middle class and the lesser nobility. These doctors of law turned out to be only mediocre administrators, and—much more seriously—they gave little sign of forming a social group capable of opposing the high nobility or of pursuing the interests of the crown with any real efficiency, among other reasons, because appointments to office (unlike those in Naples) were biennial, not permanent. Thus the crown and the court of Madrid had notable problems controlling the province of Sicily, in part because the only two offices to which non-Sicilians could be named were the Conservatore del Real Patrimonio (an office established in the fifteenth century for general accounting of state income) and the Consultore del Viceré (an office created in 1535 precisely in order to reinforce the viceroy’s control over the administration). Only with the pragmatic, De reformatione tribunalium of 6 November 1569, however, did the crown succeed in eliminating aristocrats from the institutions of the central government. In reality, that operation was limited to the formal aspects of the problem, given that as early as the mid-sixteenth century “a power block was formed between the feudal nobility and the legali [the legal profession] that proved long-lasting in the history of the Southern island kingdom.”88 One problem central to the overall architecture of Sicilian governmental institutions was the absence of a council of state (on the model of the Consiglio Collaterale in Naples) capable of lending support to the viceroy in matters of politics and justice. A request to that effect advanced by the Sicilian Parliament in 1612 ushered in a new confrontation between the nobility and the crown. The two parties to the question had in mind different models for a council: the crown imagined a structure similar to the Consiglio Collaterale in Naples (that is, a body controlled by regents who would not necessarily be either Sicilian or noble, but who would be absolutely trustworthy); the Sicilian nobility envisioned a council whose members would be noble and native-born. Given these differences, reaching a compromise that might have salvaged 88 Sciuti Russi, Astrea in Sicilia, 76. On the relationship between the nobility and the central government, see H. G. Koenigsberger, The Practice of Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969). On the evolution of that relationship in the seventeenth century in the context of the emergence on the political scene of the figure of the valido, see Francesco Benigno, L’ombra del re: Ministri e lotta politica nella Spagna del Seicento (Venice: Marsilio, 1992).

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the project proved extremely difficult, and although the petition was formally approved on 16 October 1616, it was never put into effect,89 thus forcing the nobility to operate outside of governmental institutions—something that its members managed to do without too much difficulty.

Maintaining Stability Under One Monarchy Many of the studies cited in these pages interpret events in Spanish Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in terms of a search for a formula for political stability in which what mattered to contemporaries was not so much the loss of sovereignty and political autonomy, as an absence of strife and internal dissent. A century later, the memory of the conflicts that had torn apart republics and principalities in late fifteenth-century Italy was still strong, and in Spain’s Italian provinces such thoughts alimented a current of prudent appeal to the example of Tacitus. One Neapolitan, Fabio Frezza, stated in 1614: “When a republic has long been agitated by civil discords, the weary citizens do not hesitate to put themselves under the dominion of one alone who will govern them”90 Frezza’s words found an echo a few years later in Giulio Cesare Capaccio, who stated, “Single governance is a happy operation, because of all species of governments Monarchy is the most desirable.” Capaccio hastened to add, however, that the monarchy he has in mind is “true royal Monarchy, constituted according to our custom. It is this that I esteem in a King, because [he is] Unus Rex, as in an absolute and free prince, as also in a Republic (not a paradox) in which all the best, with will alone, make one Dominium, which is the reason why in the best Republic two fig-peckers are not wanted in one tree— that is, that the Nobility and the people [both] govern.”91 89

For a reconstruction of these events, see Sciuti Russi, Astrea in Sicilia, 128–36. “Quando una repubblica è stata a lungo agitata da civili discordie, i cittadini stanchi non recusano di mettersi sotto il dominio d’uno solo che li governi”: Fabio Frezza, Massime, regole, precetti di Stato e di guerra, cavati da i libri de gli annali dell’istoria e dalla vita di Giulio Agricola di Cornelio Tacito . . . (Venice, 1614). On the development of tacitismo in Italy and on the most recent bibliography on the question, see Tacito e tacitismi in Italia da Machiavelli a Vico, ed. Silvio Suppa, Quaderni dell’Archivio della Ragion di Stato, 3 (Naples: Archivio della Ragion di Stato, 2003). 91 “Felice negozio il governo solo, ché perciò tra tutte le specie de i governi la Monarchia è più desiderabile”; “La vera Monarchia regia costituita secondo il nostro 90

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The choice that many groups in the governing classes in Italy— and not only in Spanish Italy—made to bind themselves to the Spanish crown also arose from a recognition that a monarchy that seemed highly successful and seemed to display a capacity for expansion was a better guarantee of their own existence. More than empire—the perspective of the Holy Roman Empire, as interpreted by Charles V and Gattinara—the Spanish monarchy was the model that seemed to promise the Italian elites a place for themselves as a group and to offer social and political space to each individual.92 In the choice between a republic and a monarchy that permeated the Italian political scene in the Cinquecento and occupied much of the theoretical reflection of the time,93 the Spanish example (or, the contrast between the Kingdom of Castile and the other Spanish kingdoms) forcefully determined the orientation of the governing classes on the Italian Peninsula. For many and different reasons, the various segments of aristocratic society that made up the greater part of those governing elites—in Spanish Italy and in the republics and principalities that managed to maintain their independence—found their place in a model of political relations, even though that model reduced their contractual power in comparison to that of other groups, such as the togati and officials well established in governmental posts.94 In ways similar to what was happening in the sphere of economics in the early modern age with the appearance of what has been called “the international republic of money”95—another

costume. È questa così stimo in un Re, perché Unus Rex, come in un assoluto principe e libero, come anco in una Repubblica (non sia paradosso) over tutti gli ottimati con sola volontà fanno un solo Dominio, che per ciò nell’ottima Repubblica non vogliono in un arbore due beccafichi, cioè, che la Nobiltà, e il popolo governi . . .”: Giulio Cesare Capaccio, Il Principe (Venice, 1620), 181. 92 Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003), 111. 93 Ibid., 90–118. On republican and princely models, see Elena Fasano Guarini, “La crisi del modello repubblicano: Patriziati e oligarchie,” in La Storia: I grandi problemi dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. Massimo Firpo and Nicola Tranfaglia, 10 vols. (Turin: UTET, 1986–88), vol. 3 (1987), pt. 1, pp. 553–84; H. G. Koenigsberger, “Republicanism, Monarchism and Liberty,” in Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of Ragnhild Hatton, ed. Robert Oresko, G. C. Gibbs, and H. M. Scott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 43–74. 94 Raffaele Ajello has insisted in a number of studies on the presence of a modello togato that presented an alternative to the aristocratic model, in Naples in particular: see, in particular, Ajello, Una società anomala. 95 Aldo De Maddalena and Hermann Kellenbenz, eds., La Repubblica internazionale del denaro tra XV e XVII secolo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986).

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arena of tensions and conflicts—something like an “Internationale of political and military men and administrators” in the service of Spain and its variegated and heterogenous empire emerged in the realm of politics.96 It is hardly surprising that in the sixteenth century groups of individuals of various social extractions (groups that were not large numerically, but were made up of men of a fairly high cultural level) chose to serve the crown—or, if another term is preferred, the public powers. The social universe of the early modern age did not offer many other possibilities (outside of an ecclesiastical career) in which to invest one’s social identity and professional resources. This made the sovereigns the only source of legitimation capable of adding value to one’s identity. In today’s society individuals can find better ways to enhance their professionalism and expend their resources in the political market through organizations, voluntary associations of individuals that project and pursue a strategy of placing their members in institutions and exerting pressure on the political power. In societies of the early modern age the forms that an organization could take were much more limited, and were in fact circumscribed by the individual’s economic sphere and work (as with the crafts and trades guilds). In some instances the academies played a role in bringing people together, and under the guise of providing literary sociability, they often served as a channel of political communication. Precisely for that reason the sovereigns regarded them with suspicion and, in some instances, openly opposed them.97 Political institutions seem not to have been burdened with the formalization and selfreferential legitimacy that weighs them down today; in the Cinquecento they had to struggle to combat other powers that sought to coopt their resources and jurisdiction. Naturally, one might hold that in societies of the early modern age the very category of “institution” had an extremely limited range of applicability. Even in a very Maurice Aymard, “Une famille de l’aristocratie sicilienne aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles: Les ducs de Terranova,” Revue Historique 501 (1972): 29–66. 97 One exemplary case is Naples, where in 1547 the viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, was successful in his opposition to the three academies (the Accademia degli Ardenti, the Accademia dei Sereni, and the Accademia degli Incogniti) in which the nobility met: see Benedetto Croce, Aneddoti di varia letteratura, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (Bari: Laterza, 1953), 1:247–52, a work first published in 1919. There is persuasive evidence that the activities of these academies continued in the years following, although not in public form and with discussion limited to debates of a literary nature: see Tobia R. Toscano, Letterati, corti, accademie: La letteratura a Napoli nella prima metà del Cinquecento (Naples: Loffredo, 2000), 236–44. 96

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reductive definition, institutions nonetheless defined a trajectory and fixed a minimum of rules under which political actors accepted to circumscribe their behavior. Still, it is difficult to imagine that the institutional models that emerged, both at the center of the Spanish imperial system and in its peripheral kingdoms during the course of the sixteenth century, responded to any precise program. To the contrary, many such models had a brief or tormented life, and the viceroys and the governors made use of a healthy pragmatism and a high degree of flexibility in the practice of government as they managed its mechanisms and administrative procedures. The extreme variety of the contexts and the relationships we encounter in Spain’s Italian provinces has led some scholars to turn away from an exclusively institutionalist approach in favor of an analysis of the formal mechanisms that regulated the processes of political decision making. One scholar has stated, speaking of Spanish Italy in the years from Charles V and Philip II, “Governance was articulated around a closed circle, a Hispano-Italian elite which cohered around the enjoyment of royal favor. This guaranteed peace and tranquility in the Italian domain, thus assuring the loyalty of the local elites by allowing them to participate in the distribution of favors and beneficios coming from the monarch, uniting the group through a mutual exchange of favors and influence.”98 The ability to accede to la grazia reale, and, through its administration, to make use of the mechanisms for the distribution of patronage by giving out “favors and benefits” was certainly a strong encouragement to the consolidation of a governing elite. The route providing access to the extraordinary resource of “royal grace” was the court. For some decades now, many studies have stressed the importance of the court, presenting it as the category most central to investigation of ancien régime societies in general, including the system of the Italian regional states.99 This has been seen as true of 98 “El gobierno se vertebraba en torno a un círculo cerrado, una élite ispanoitaliana que se cohesionaba en torno al disfrute de la gracia real; a través de ésta se garantizaba la paz y la quietud de los dominios italianos, asegurando la lealtad de las élites locales al hacerlas partícipes de la distribución de favores y beneficios que emanaban del monarca, de modo que el grupo se articulaba mediante un mutuo intercambio de favores e influencias”: Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, Felipe II y el gobierno de Italia (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999), 35. 99 See, A. G. Dickens, ed., The Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage and Royalty, 1400 –1800 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1977); Cesare Mozzarelli and Giuseppe

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Spanish Italy as well: “Beginning with the sovereign and through the court, relations based on patronage and clientelism were established like a capillary network covering the monarchy in aggregate, so that power was not articulated by means of judicial or normative relations; it circulated through obligations established between individuals, distributing itself through a complex tangle of connections and loyalties between patrons and clients, with the monarch at the apex.”100 The ability of patronage and clientage networks to mobilize their members is an indisputable fact, and we can see them in operation throughout the modern era. Still, it seems difficult to imagine that the maintenance of peace and tranquillity—fundamental categories of the political lexicon of the sixteenth century and the base for much of the stability and the credibility of the political system— could pass exclusively through this sort of court privilege and operate by means of royal “grace” alone. The stability of a political system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries depended on the capacity of those who managed that system to find positive solutions to three orders of problems: a) Administering the material resources of a given territory, which meant assuring the conditions for the production of wealth and the defense of property rights; finding broad and efficacious measures for supervising the transmission of family patrimonies; guaranteeing

Olmi, eds., La corte nella cultura e nella storiografia (Rome: Bulzoni, 1983); Sergio Bertelli, Franco Cardini, and Elvira Garbero Zorzi, eds., The Courts of the Italian Renaissance (New York: Facts on File, 1986); J. H. Elliott, Spain and Its World, 1500–1700: Selected Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, eds., Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c. 1450–1650 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); José Martínez Millán, ed., La corte de Felipe II (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1994); Maurice Aymard and Marzio A. Romani, La cour comme institution économique (Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1998). For a critique of the use of the concept of “court” in Italian historiography, see Trevor Dean, “The Courts,” in The Origin of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, ed. Julius Kirshner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 136–151. 100 “Partiendo del soberano y a través de la Corte, las relaciones de patronazgo y clientela se establecían como una red capilarizada sobre el conjunto de la Monarquía, de modo que el poder no se articulaba sobre relaciones jurídicas o normativas, circulaba a través de obligaciones establecidas entre individuos, distribuyéndose a través de una compleja maraña de vínculos y lealtades, entre patronos y clientes, en cuya cúspide estaba el monarca”: Rivero Rodríquez, Felipe II y el governo di Italia, 216–17. A similar interpretation can be found in Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Principi italiani e Spagna nell’età barocca (Milan: Mondadori, 1996).

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(within the limits of the possible) a distribution of wealth that was differentiated but socially acceptable; providing for fiscal revenues that were sizable but allowed ample exemptions and privileges; and assuring the provisioning of urban markets and regulating price fluctuations; b) Guaranteeing tutelage of questions of identity that the community considered a part of its collective patrimony in such matters as the maintenance of constitutional regulations (the capitoli of the kingdom, fueros, and pacts), guaranteeing recognition of a social order founded on class differences; observance of local customary law; defense of religious faith (which implied both a recognition of the religious nature of the monarchic power and its readiness to operate against religious heterodoxy as the armed hand of the Church); and tutelage of sacred space in the cities; c) Affronting (more or less efficaciously) emergencies arising from such variables out of the system’s control as food shortages arising from an imbalance between population and resources, insurgencies, epidemics, and disturbances caused by internal enemies. Naturally, problems of the third order could neither be foreseen nor prevented, and the lasting power of the political system lay much more in its ability to control the situation after such emergencies. The other two orders of problems, to the contrary, were more directly dependent on measures taken by the governments and on the efficacy of the solutions they adopted. It seems difficult to prove that either the court in Madrid or reliance on patronage from the sovereign had a determinant role in resolving these first two sorts of problem. Such problems involved the use of collective resources (wealth, fiscal revenues, the price of goods, juridical norms) that pertained not to individuals but to the entire community as reflected in its various social levels. The modalities for appropriating or administering such resources could be modified only by negotiation among the social groups involved, thus involving compromise and a new equilibrium among the different demands. If all of that could not be accomplished through negotiation—that is, if one party to the discussion opted for radical or unilateral change—rupture would ensue, bringing unforseen consequences. Admittedly, the negotiators were single individuals, but above all they were representatives of social bodies to which they responded for their acts. The crown might intervene in a case of a stalemate, hurrying events along, using its authority to force a decision in a situation that had dragged on too long, or

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opting to favor one of the parties. It might even do so against the opinions of a majority of its counselors because it was endowed with superior powers and able to judge not only by a “commutative justice” that “consists wholly in equality” and that “is the proper of the legal experts and judges,” but also—and above all—by means of “distributive justice, which consists wholly in inequality but [is] proportionate, and which belongs only to the prince.”101 The sovereign, and the viceroys and the governors who represented him, were expected to make only measured use of this second form of justice, and it seems clear that over time recourse to distributive justice was used with extreme prudence. As one Sicilian regent, Pietro Corsetto, stated, “Justice must be carried out according to the kingdom’s legal principles and established practices.”102 This was true not only in Sicily. I have sought in these pages to describe the internal stratification of the nobility of Spanish Italy and establish a relationship between that privileged elite and the territory over which it sought to gain control. There were of course many other actors and elements in this political game: the Church, the court in Madrid, non-aristocratic society, the world of the common people, informal regulatory systems, the republics and principalities of the Italian Peninsula, and even the other European powers, which attentively observed the evolution of the political situation in Italy. May these remarks serve as a basis for understanding how the aristocratic world succeeded in maintaining its own political space, while also defending the central importance of its system of values within Italian society.

101 “Giustizia commutativa”; “consiste tutta nella ugualità”; “è propria dei legisti et di giudici”; “giustizia distributiva che consiste tutta nella inequalità ma proportionata”: Mario Galeota, Dselle fortificazioni, BNN, Ms. XII. D. 21. The Aristotelian reference to this dual form of justice is common to many sixteenth-century authors, however. 102 “La justicia . . . se debe hacer con sus términos jurídicos y estylo del Reyno”: Pietro Corsetto, “Instruccion,” quoted in Sciuti Russi, Il governo della Sicilia, 66.

CHAPTER TEN

THE PROFESSION OF ARMS AND THE NOBILITY IN SPANISH ITALY: SOME CONSIDERATIONS* Claudio Donati

This essay will present a consideration of the relationship between the profession of arms and the Italian nobility during the age that saw first the affirmation and decline of Charles V’s imperial ambitions, then the consolidation of the Catholic Monarchy of the Spanish Habsburgs in the age of Philip II. I shall add some reflections on the seventeenth-century phase of the settlement, crisis, and stagnation of Spanish power in Italy, focusing on military careers among the Milanese patriciate. I shall exclude the eighteenth century, although it is good to keep in mind that for the Italian nobility as a whole, and in particular for nobles in provincial areas that had been part of the Catholic Monarchy, the death of Charles II in 1700 by no means signified either the eclipse of the Habsburgs (given that the Austrian Habsburgs succeeded the Spanish Habsburgs, bringing new dreams of empire) or the end of all relations with Madrid and the Bourbon dynasty that took over the Spanish throne.1 * Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 Useful bibliography regarding Spanish Italy, on which this study has relied includes: Rosario Villari, ed., Per il re o per la patria: La fedeltà nel Seicento: Con “Il Cittadino fedele” e altri scritti Politici (Rome: Laterza, 1994); Giuseppe Galasso, Alla periferia dell’impero: Il Regno di Napoli nel periodo Spagnolo, secoli XVI–XVII (Turin: Einaudi, 1994); Aurelio Musi, ed, Nel sistema imperiale: L’Italia spagnola (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994); Paolo Pissavino and Gianvittorio Signorotto, eds., Lombardia Borromaica, Lombardia spagnola 1554–1659, 2 vols. (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995); Antonio Alvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, La Republica de las parentelas: La Corte de Madrid y el Estado de Milan durante el reinado de Carlos II (Madrid: Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, 1995; Mantua: Arcari, 2002); Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Principi italiani e Spagna nell’età barocca (Milan: Mondadori, 1996); Gianvittorio Signorotto, Milano Spagnola: Guerra, istituzioni, uomini di governo (1635–1660) (Florence: Sansoni, 1996; 2nd ed. 2001); Elena Brambilla and Giovanni Muto, eds., La Lombardia spagnola: Nuovi indirizzi di ricerca (Milan: Unicopli, 1997); Peter Hersche, Italien im Barockzeitalter (1600–1750): Eine Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte (Vienna: Böhlau, 1999); Giorgio Politi, La società cremonese nella prima età spagnola (Milan: Unicopli, 2002); Francesco Benigno, Specchi della rivoluzione: Conflitto e identità nell’Europa moderna (Rome: Donzelli, 1999); La Espada y la Pluma: Il mondo militare nella Lombardia spagnola cinquecentesca (Viareggio: Baroni, 2000);

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Before examining the effects of Habsburg hegemony in nearly the entire Italian Peninsula and the adjacent islands (with the partial exception of the Venetian Republic) on the military role of the nobility, a preliminary question arises: Is it accurate to speak of the concept of the Italian nobility in terms of a unique, homogeneous group, or should we take into account regional differences among the nobility? This problem is central to the famous dialogue on nobility of the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini, written around 1440.2 After noting the leading theories and practices among the various nationes of Italy (Neapolitans, Venetians, Romans, Florentines, Genoese, and Lombards), Bracciolini arrives at the conclusion that there was no consensus on qualifications for ennoblement. Indeed, there were clear, if not irreconcilable, differences, particularly in regard to involvement in commerce, participation in civic responsibilities, the use of the weapons of war (but also of the hunt), and a preference for living in the country or in the city. Thanks to this varietas, the two participants in the dialogue, the humanist Niccolò Niccoli and Lorenzo de’ Medici (the brother of Cosimo Il Vecchio) reach opposing conclusions. Niccolò Niccoli, although not concealing his predilection for Florence, where nobility was defined by the ability to boast of ancestors who had filled major offices in the city’s administration, arrives at a negative opinion of the very existence of any such phenomenon (“Are we not forced to admit that, since nobility is revered on such disparate grounds, there is no sure definition in all this to guide us?”). Lorenzo de’ Medici, on the other hand, justifies the undeniable difference of opinion regarding nobility by appealing to custom: Aurelio Musi, L’Italia dei viceré: Integrazione e resistenza nel sistema imperiale spagnolo (Cava de’ Tirreni [Salerno]: Avagliano, 2000); Bruno Anatra and Francesco Manconi, eds., Sardegna, Spagna e stati italiani nell’età di Carlo V (Rome: Carocci, 2001); Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, El reino de Nápoles en el Impero de Carlos V: La consolidación de la conquista (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001); Luis Antonio Ribot Garcia, La Monarchia de España y la guerra de Mesina 1674–1678 (Madrid: Actas Editorial, 2002); Aurelio Musi, ed., Alle origini di una nazione: Antispagnolismo e identità italiana (Milan: Guerini, 2003); Francesca Cantù and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, eds., L’Italia di Carlo V: Guerra, religione e politica nel primo Cinquecento (Rome: Viella, 2003). 2 For a recent edition with facing translation in Italian, see Poggio Bracciolini, La vera nobiltà, ed. Davide Canfora (Rome: Salerno, 1999); English translation by Renée Neu Watkins with David Marsh, “On Nobility,” in Humanism & Liberty: Writings on Freedom from Fifteenth-Century Florence, trans. and ed. Renée Neu Watkins (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 118–48.

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“We ought to respect custom which, since it instills habits, exercises supreme power over human conduct”.3 This second thesis, which accepted the variety of usages as a given, thus privileging the jurists’ consuetudo loci as regards the observance of universal laws, easily permitted the inclusion of merchants and bankers among the nobility—in Florence and the other cities of Tuscany in the fifteenth and the early sixteenth century—as a genuine nobilitas, given that the rural gentry were of totally marginal political and social importance. The rural gentry played an important role in the Neapolitan region, in Lombardy, in the Alps and the Appenines, as they did in the better part of Christian Europe from France to Germany to England. Spain occupied a middle position, where both types of nobility were considered equal: the urban (in civitatibus) nobles, who descended from ancient families and whose wealth came from various sources, and the rural families (in campis commorantes), who lived exclusively on income from their lands. Thus a Florentine humanist of the first half of the fifteenth century saw the characteristics of nobility in the various nationes of Italy and Europe as the result of specific and at times divergent custom, which in turn was determined by long-term historical processes.4 It is interesting to note that from this perspective, the figure of the prince played a very minor role: he might be among the components of the definition of nobility, but he was not indispensable to it. It is also noteworthy that although Poggio Bracciolini had been present at the Council of Constance and was well acquainted with both the emperor’s entourage and the papal Curia, the two great universal powers of Christian Western Europe are completely absent from his dialogue. To how great an extent did that viewpoint survive in the beginning of the sixteenth century? One of the most famous passages in Machiavelli’s Discourses springs immediately to mind.5 Machiavelli compares the civiltà of Tuscany, where there are “no baronial castles, 3 Ibid., “haec ita apud nos non varia tantum, sed diversa est in invicem contraria, ut nullam certam radicem habere videatur, ex qua oriri possit. . . . quasi morum magistra . . . tanquam ducem sequi debemus.” Eng. trans. in Humanism & Liberty, pp. 128–29. 4 For an up-dated summary of this topic and an ample bibliography, see Renato Bordone, Guido Castelnuovo, and Gian Maria Varanini, eds., Le aristocrazie dai signori rurali al patriziato, (Rome and Bari: GFL Laterza, 2004). 5 Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe e Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Sergio Bertelli (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1960), bk 1, chap. LV, pp. 254–58, quoted below from Machiavelli, The Discourses, trans. Leslie J. Walker, S. J., with revisions by Brian Richardson (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), 245–46.

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and either none or few gentry,” to the world of a “gentry” of men “entirely inimical to any form of civic government” who “live in idleness on the abundant revenue derived from their estates, without having anything to do either with their cultivation or with other forms of labour essential to life” and of those even more pernicious men who “have castles under their command and subjects who are under their obedience.” That sort of gentry was rife in the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Romagna, and Lombardy (a term used in a broad sense, given that it included much of Piedmont and Emilia).6 Machiavelli’s geography was a feudal one, as has been confirmed by a number of recent specialized works.7 It is worth noting that in the Discourses Machiavelli did not set the line of demarcation between the world of civiltà and the gentiluomini between central and northern Italy, on the one hand, and southern Italy, on the other hand (as has often been suggested, on the basis of a passage in Benedetto Croce’s Storia del regno di Napoli ),8 but rather between 6 On the meaning of the term “Lombardy” in the fifteenth century, see Francesco Somaini, Un prelato lombardo del XV secolo: Il card. Giovanni Arcimboldi vescovo di Novara, arcivescovo di Milano, 3 vols. (Rome: Herder, 2003), 1:xii–xiii. 7 Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Identità sociali: La nobiltà napoletana nella prima età moderna (Milan: Unicopli, 1998), esp. pp. 59–87; Sandro Carocci, Baroni di Roma: Dominazioni signorili e lignaggi aristocratici nel Duecento e nel primo Trecento (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1993); Maria Antonietta Visceglia, ed., La nobiltà romana in età moderna: Profili istituzionali e pratiche sociali (Rome: Carocci, 2001); John Larner, The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origins of the Signorie (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965); Giorgio Chittolini, Città, comunità e feudi negli stati dell’Italia centro-settentrionale: secoli 14.–16. (Milan: Unicopli, 1996); Marco Gentile, Terra e poteri: Parma e il Parmense nel ducato visconteo all’inizio del Quattrocento (Milan: Unicopli, 2001); Letizia Arcangeli, Gentiluomini di Lombardia: Ricerche sull’aristocrazia padana nel Rinascimento (Milan: Unicopli, 2001). For a territory on Italy’s borders, see Marco Bellabarba, La giustizia ai confini: Il principato vescovile di Trento agli inizi dell’età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996). 8 Croce states: “It has been said over and over that, while elsewhere feudalism was in decay, in the Kingdom of Naples (and, for similar reasons, in Sicily) it drew upon fresh blood and acquired new growth and power. But actually it was not the feudal order, which originally answered a need and served a purpose, that rose up again stronger than ever, but the perversion and corruption of this order, which was sheer anarchy. Machiavelli judged the gentlemen and barons in which the Kingdom of Naples abounded, who neither exercised any art or trade nor saw to the cultivation of the land but contented themselves with the possession of castles and obedient subjects, as ‘men completely inimical to any kind of civilization.’ It was because of these men, he said, that in the Neapolitan provinces ‘there was never any republic or any political system,’ and anyone wishing to introduce these things would have had, as a start, to do away with the barons”: Benedetto Croce, Storia del regno di Napoli (1924) (Bari: Laterza, 1953), 63–64; quoted from History of the Kingdom of Naples, trans. Frances Frenaye, edited, with an introduction, by H. Stuart Hughes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 66.

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Tuscany and the rest of the Peninsula—with the exception of Venice, where being a gentiluomo was not synonymous with the ownership of lands or the lordship of castles and feudal lands, but designated a member of the governing families of the Republic.9 If we look critically at this dichotomy between the virtuous citizens of republics and the anarchical lords of castles that Machiavelli describes with such vigor and clarity, we are obliged to admit that his description of the true complexity of the Italian situation in the early sixteenth-century is inadequate. What is missing in Machiavelli’s vision, influenced as he was by the historical and political tradition of Florence, is a third sort of nobility in the differing constitutional realities of the various republican city-states, a phenomenon well depicted in Jacob Burckhardt’s nineteenth-century vision of the “civilization of the Italian Renaissance.”10 This third type of noble owed his good fortune to service to a prince, a service that was in turn an essential component of his social status.11 It would be mistaken to assert that Italian nobles of this type were completely absent from Machiavelli’s works—we need only think of The Art of War and the figure of Fabrizio Colonna, the condottiero who served a number of Italian sovereigns in the Italian Wars and was ultimately given the title of Grand Constable (Gran Contestabile) of the Kingdom of Naples.12 It is beyond doubt, however, that if we want a more accurate and more deeply felt description of this social type, we need to turn to authors outside of the republican tradition. Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier has been treated to an extraordinary renewal of interest in recent scholarship, making it one of the most read, most commented upon, and most admired works of

9 Innocenzo Cervelli, Machiavelli e la crisi dello stato veneziano (Naples: Guida, 1974), 221–39. 10 Jacop Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, ed. H. Gunther (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker, 1989), in English translation as The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London/New York: Penguin, 1990). 11 On the strict correlation between officium and dominium and the consequent merging of bureaucracy and the nobility in the Duchy of Savoy in the fifteenth century, see Guido Castelnuovo, Ufficiali e gentiluomini: La società politica sabauda nel tardo Medioevo (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1994). 12 Niccolò Machiavelli, Arte della guerra e scritti politici minori, ed. Sergio Bertelli (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961), in English translation, with commentary, by Christopher Lynch as The Art of War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). On Fabrizio Colonna, see Franca Petrucci, “Colonna, Fabrizio,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 27 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiano, 1982), 288–93.

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sixteenth-century Italian literature.13 In spite of all this attention, it seems worth while to pursue our semantic reflection, spurred on by the all-too famous phrase of Charles V’s on the occasion of Castiglione’s death in Toledo in February 1529: “Yo vos digo que es muerto uno de los mejores caballeros del mundo” (“I tell you that one of the world’s finest knights has died”). In the first part of The Courtier the concepts of courtliness and courtiers are mixed in quite complex ways with those of chivalry and horsemen, nobility and nobles, gentry and the rural world. For Castiglione, the term cavalleria clearly implies the profession of arms, and because one of the personages in the dialogue, the Veronese count Lodovico da Canossa, asserts that “the first and true profession of the courtier must be that of arms,” what results is a perfect merging of the cavalier, the soldier, and the courtier. Another personage in the dialogue, the Genoese Federico Fregoso, offers some reservations regarding this definition, however. According to him, the sole reason for which a courtier should become involved in “a skirmish or pitched battle” is to seek “due honor.” For that reason, he should “arrange to withdraw from the main body and accomplish the bold and notable exploits he has to perform in as small a company as possible.”14 Fregoso’s statement, and others on the part of other discussants such as Gaspare Pallavicino and the marchese Febus de Ceva,15 seems to indicate that, even within the world of the Italian gentry of the early Cinquecento, various ways of conceiving of nobility and its related practices existed. These variations merit further and thorough investigation, as some scholars have begun to do concerning certain regions of Italy.16 13 Baldassare Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano, ed. Walter Barberis (Turin: Einaudi, 1998), quoted below from The Book of the Courtier, trans., with an introduction by George Bull (London: Penguin, 1967), 9 (for Charles V’s statement). Among the many recent studies of this work, see at least Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione’s Cortegiano (Cambridge: Polity, 1995; University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996); Amedeo Quondam, “Questo povero cortegiano”: Castiglione, il libro, la storia (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000). 14 Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 57, 115. 15 Claudio Donati, L’idea di nobiltà in Italia, secoli XIV–XVIII (Rome: Laterza, 1988), 39–44. 16 For Lombardy, see Arcangeli, Gentiluomini di Lombardia. For Naples, “the construction of multiple codes of behavior, which oriented the Neapolitan nobility of the early Cinquecento in a variety of ways,” see Giovanni Muto, “I trattati napoletani cinquecenteschi in materia di nobiltà,” in Sapere e/è potere: Discipline, dispute e professioni nell’ università medievale e moderna: Il caso bolognese a confronto, Atti del 4o con-

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Thus The Book of the Courtier, set in the court of Urbino in the early years of the sixteenth century was drafted, added to, and polished until 1524. The work arrived at a moment of transition, hence it does not fully transmit a sense of the changing climate that was beginning to emerge at that point in history but that reached full development only later. More useful for our purposes are what is to be gleaned from works conceived and written in the years between the first phase of the Italian Wars and the affirmation of Charles V’s imperial ambitions, a program that intertwined, in ambiguous, problematic, and to some extent conflicted ways, with the unfolding of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.17 From a similar viewpoint, a manuscript in Latin discussed by Felix Gilbert in his study of politics and historiography in the age of Machiavelli and Guicciardini has interesting things to offer.18 The Historiae de bellis italicis was written by Girolamo Borgia, a courtier and later a cleric, who was born in 1479 in Senise (Basilicata), a feudal holding of the Sanseverino family in the Kingdom of Naples.19 The twenty-one books of the Historiae cover the period from 1494 to the 1540s, although Borgia had initially thought he would stop at the year 1530 for explicitly polemical reasons related to the coronation of Charles V in Bologna “so that later generations will not emulate his inhuman and reprehensible crimes, thinking that he is cruel, has become greedy, is called inexorable, that his empire is noble.”20 Five years later however, Charles V’s conquest of Tunis in an action taken with the backing of the newly elected Pope Paul III and the consent of the German Protestant vegno, Bologna 13–15 April 1989, 3 vols., vol. 3, Dalle discipline ai ruoli sociali, ed., Angela De Benedictis (Bologna: Comune di Bologna; Istituto per la Storia di Bologna, 1990), 321–43. 17 For more than one insight into this topic, see Massimo Firpo, “ ‘Sempre soggetto al Santissimo Papa et alla Santa Chiesa’: I primi biografi italiani di Carlo V,” Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 119 (2001): 249–74. 18 Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 264–66, in Italian translation by Franco Salvatorelli as Machiavelli e Guicciardini: Pensiero politico e storiografia a Firenze nel Cinquecento (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), 225–27. 19 Elena Valeri, “Girolamo Borgia e le guerre d’Italia: Una storia inedita,” Tesi di dottorato, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” 2000–2001. Valeri has elaborated on her thesis and published a portion of the text itself in an essay: Valeri, “Carlo V e le guerre d’Italia nelle Historiae di Girolamo Borgia (1525–1530),” in L’Italia di Carlo V, 139–70. 20 “Ne posteri inhumana turpiaque imitentur facinora opinantes crudelem esse, avarum fieri, inexorabilem dici, esse insigne imperium”: Girolamo Borgia, Historiae de bellis italicis, in Valeri, “Carlo V e le guerre d”Italia,” p. 160.

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princes, induced Borgia to return to his Historiae with a notably different perspective, shifting from the Italian Wars to the bellum salutare against the new Carthage, represented by the “barbarian” kingdom of Tunis, led by a new Scipio, the Christian emperor. Borgia’s providentialist optimism was somewhat dented as his narration of events moves on to the new bellum gallicum involving Charles V and Francis I of France, and it is further deflated with the intensification of hostilities on the part of Paul III, the true protagonist of the final section of Borgia’s Historiae, in his war without quarter on Protestantism, the pestam impiam that had been tearing apart European Christendom for the last quarter century. The full affirmation of the Catholic Reformation threw Girolamo Borgia’s religious and cultural reference points into crisis, since he was a fervent supporter of Erasmus and a great admirer of Bernardino Ochino. Ochino’s flight to the antiquos hostes Italiae —that is, the Swiss—was deeply upsetting to the now elderly Borgia, helping to cut short a work that perhaps not by chance remained unpublished. Even if Borgia did not discuss the military nobility directly, the topic is conspicuously present not only in his Historiae but in his own life. The leading actors in the first part of his work are above all condottieri and men of arms whose profession receives the author’s appreciation as an expression of noble virtù, but in his narration of the later period, culminating in the League of Cognac, the Sack of Rome, and the fall of the last Florentine republic, his focus remains on wars, but they are no longer seen in the framework of warlike nobility. A similar divide characterizes another literary work that offers a necessary reference for anyone interested in Lombard nobles or, more generally, the Italian nobility of the early Cinquecento,21 the Novelle of Matteo Bandello.22 In the age of Duke Ludovico Il Moro, Bandello entered into the Dominican Friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. During the period of the French government of Milan he lived in close contact with families of the military nobility of Ghibelline sentiments (and with some who were not Milanese, 21 Paolo Giovio is another author whose work offers interesting information on how the noble condition was thought of and experienced in the first half of the sixteenth century. On him, see T. C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-Century Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 22 Matteo Bandello, Le quattro parti de le Novelle del Bandello riprodotte sulle antiche stampe di Lucca (1554) e di Lione (1573), ed. Gustavo Balsamo-Crivelli, 4 vols. (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice, 1910–1911).

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such as the Bentivoglio and Sanseverino families). He then became linked to Prospero Colonna, Lieutenant of the imperial troops, and after 1522 he took an active role in the restoration of the Sforza, but in 1526 he was obliged to leave Milan for ever as a result of his active participation in a conspiracy led by the chancellor, Gerolamo Morone. From that time on, Bandello, no longer a friar but secretary to such noble men of arms as Aloisio Gonzaga di Castelgoffredo and Cesare Fregoso, was acutely aware of living in a dying phase of history, a sentiment that he expressed in the dedications to the novellas he had begun to write.23 The leading figures in this lost world were for the most part members of the same military and knightly nobility that had been concentrated in ducal and French Milan and in the smaller courts of the Po valley, a nobility in which letters and arms intertwined harmoniously in a continual succession of festive occasions, tourneys, games, conversations, and love affairs, temporarily interrupted by departures for warlike undertakings experienced primarily as welcome opportunities for martial exercises and a chance to display the virtù that was inherent to nobility. For all its mannerist appearance, this projection of nobility raises a genuine historiographical problem. In describing the transformation of the Italian nobility in the sixteenth century, almost all scholars have focused on the serrata of the various oligarchies—that is, on the decline of political dialectic in many Italian cities, whether the underlying cause is interpreted as a trend in the direction of “republican democracy” or a “conflict between factions.” This means that, even if at times a city went through a phase of open opposition (as in Genoa),24 the final result everywhere was a consolidation of a patriciate that was known for what was an essentially juridical culture and that gained control over social mobility through formalized mechanisms of cooptation.25 This take-over represented the necessary and 23 Adelin Charles Fiorato, Bandello entre l’histoire et l’écriture: La vie, l’expérience sociale, l’évolution culturelle d’un conteur de la Renaissance (Florence: Olschki, 1979). 24 Rodolfo Savelli, La repubblica oligarchica: Legislazione, istituzioni e ceti a Genova nel Cinquecento (Milan: Giuffrè, 1981); Arturo Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria nell’Impero di Carlo V (Florence: Olschki, 1999). 25 For two now classic formulations of this thesis, see Cesare Mozzarelli, “Il sistema patrizio,” in Patriziati e aristocrazie nobiliari: Ceti dominanti e organizzazione del potere nell’Italia centro-settentrionale dal XVI al XVIII secolo, ed. Cesare Mozzarelli and Pierangelo Schiera (Trent: Libera Università degli Studi di Trento, 1978), 52–63; Bandino Giacomo Zenobi, Le “ben regolate città”: Modelli politici nel governo delle periferie pontificie in età moderna (Rome: Bulzoni, 1994).

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indispensable condition for the legitimation and survival of the urban elites in the age of the hegemony of Habsburg and Spanish ambitions. Without wishing to challenge this now well-established line of interpretation,26 it should be noted that the urban patriciates were not the only forms of nobility in Italy, as the two Florentines, Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolò Machiavelli, fully understood. What happened, after the Italian Wars, to the signori di castello and the gentiluomini that they describe? Undeniably, studies of Cinquecento Italy have paid less attention to these groups than to the urban patriciates. Even when they have considered lords and gentlemen, such studies have focused on the figures and the noble houses which managed to carve out an acknowledged, autonomous space within the Italian dynastic system as it took shape between the Congress of Bologna in 1530 and the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis in 1559. One should also keep in mind the phenomenon of the disappearance, redefinition, and in some cases the conversion of many other such “houses” in the framework of a “simplification of the Italian political map.”27 We need only recall the Rossi, Fieschi, Pallavicino, da Correggio families, the del Carretto and di Saluzzo marquisates, the Gonzaga di Sabbioneta and later the Della Rovere families. In short, the picture that emerges is far from being either linear or unequivocal—all the more so as this was a period of general changes that threw into confusion longstanding material realities and mental structures.28 The profession of arms favored the rise and the consolidation of a great many dynasties of nobles and lords in many areas of Italy, especially those between the Alps and the Po. To the houses just mentioned we can add those of the Colleoni, Martinengo, Gambara, Lodron, Castelbarco, Savorgnan, Colloredo, Collalto, Trivulzio, Birago, 26 Nor should one undervalue the presence, in Italy no less than in Spain, of a resistance to the consolidation of the Habsburg system on the part of some who held positions similar to or close to those of the comunero movement, or of the persistence of a nostalgia for a popular democracy of the Savonarolan variety. These are topics that seem not to attract the attention of current historiography, but see Giovanni Muto, “L’impero come impossibile identità comune,” in Musi, ed., Alle origini di una nazione, 371–94, esp. pp. 380–84. 27 Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003), 3. 28 For a comparison with the situation in Spain, see David García Hernán, ed., La nobleza en la España moderna (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 1992); I. A. A. Thompson, “The Nobility in Spain, 1600–1800,” in The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. H. M. Scott, 2 vols. (London and New York: Longman, 1994–96), vol. 1, Western Europe, 174–236.

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Scotti, Gonzaga, Sforza, Montefeltro, Orsini, Colonna, Farnese, and Sanseverino families. To ask to what extent and for what reasons these noble houses changed or retained their military and knightly identity within the span of one or two generations touches on one of the key points of a discussion regarding the characteristics, the timing, and the forms of the passage from the Middle Ages to the modern age.29 As regards military organization, one hypothesis suggests that an important change took place in the two decades between the reforms of Charles V introducing tercios—infantry—into the Spanish army in 153430 and the orders of Philip II, por la gracia de Diós Rey de Inglaterra y de Iberia, regarding the gentes de armas present in the State of Milan in 1555.31 One significant witness to that change of climate is the treatise De re militari et bello by Pierino Belli, published in 1563 with a dedication to Philip II. Belli was a Piedmontese who had served as auditore, not to an Italian condottieri such as Bartolomeo d’Alviano or Cesare Fregoso, but rather to Spanish or imperial governors of Milan: Ferrante Gonzaga, the Marquis del Vasto, Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, and the Duke of Sessa.32 This work, which Belli wrote in 1558, was not a treatise on the art of war, properly speaking, but rather perhaps the first work attempting to treat the relationship between the state, the army, and warfare in a perspective that was both political and jurisprudential.33 Here the figure of the condottiero or the man of arms proud of his bravura take second place 29 On this general topic, see Giorgio Chittolini, Anthony Molho, and Pierangelo Schiera, eds., Origini dello Stato: Processi di formazione statale in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994); Roberto Bizzocchi, Guida allo studio della storia moderna (Rome and Bari: GFL Laterza, 2002), 3–36. On the military aspects of this transformation, see Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (London: Bodley Head; Totowa NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1974); Philippe Contamine, ed., War and Competition Between States (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Mario Del Treppo, ed., Condottieri e uomini d’arme nell’Italia del Rinascimento (Naples: Liguori, 2001). 30 René Quatrefages, Los tercios españoles (1567–1577), trans. Carlos Batal-Batal (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1979). 31 On this period, see in particular, M. J. Rodriguez Salgado, The Changing Face of Empire: Charles V, Philip II, and Habsburg Authority, 1551–1559 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 32 Pierino Belli, De re militari et bello tractatus, introduction by Arrigo Cavaglieri, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), photographic reprint of Venice, 1563. 33 Diego Quaglioni, “La disciplina delle armi tra teologia e diritto: I trattatisti dello ‘ius militare’,” paper given before the 47th Settimana di Studio of the Centro per gli Studi Storici Italo-Germanici in Trento, “Militari e società civile nell’Europa dell’età moderna,” Trent, 13–17 September 2004, publication (Bologna: Il Mulino), forthcoming.

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to the state administrative apparatus of war with its inspectorsgeneral (veedores), paymasters (contadores), billeting officers, and judgeadvocates. In the age of Philip II the duchy of Milan (Milanesado), an area in which the tercios destined to be used to control the Italian scene were gathered and that later served as a training ground for soldiers to be sent to the war theater in Flanders, provided a major laboratory for working out this shift, which regarded not only the technological and strategic aspects of warfare but also the relationship between the state organization and its men at arms.34 As the Venetian ambassador, Francesco Morosini, wrote in 1581, Milan “can never be without feeling the results of war, seeing that it is the receptacle of all the soldiers who serve His Catholic Majesty in Italy, in Flanders, or in Spain itself.”35 Thanks to specialized studies by English, Spanish, and Italian scholars,36 a good deal of information is now available regarding the financial strategies employed to provide armies consisting of masses of men (and women) with foodstuffs, arms, and other needs, but also regarding the increasingly important role of businessmen—hombres de negocios —under the Habsburg monarchy. Some studies have appeared regarding the mentality and ideology of Spanish soldiers,37 but it is only in recent years that scholars have

34 Among the monographs treating this topic, see M. E. Mallett and J. R. Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c. 1400–1617 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Claudio De Consoli, Al soldo del duca: L’amministrazione delle armate sabaude (1560 –1630) (Turin: Paravia, 1999); Enrique García Hernán, Milizia general en la Etad Moderna: El “Batallón” de don Rafael de la Barreda y Figueroa (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa—Secretaría General Técnica, 2003). 35 Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato, ed. Luigi Firpo, 14 vols. (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1966–96), vol. 8, Spagna (1497–1598) (1981), 757. 36 Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries’ Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); I. A. A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain 1560–1620 (London: Athlone Press, 1976); Luis Antonio Ribot Garcia, “Milán: Plaza de Armas de la Monarquía,” Investigaciones Historicas 10 (1990): 223–30; Giuseppe De Luca, Commercio del denaro e crescita economica a Milano tra Cinquecento e Seicento (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1996); Mario Rizzo, “Competizione politico-militare, geopolitica e mobilitazione delle risorse nell’Europa cinquecentesca: Lo Stato di Milano nell’età di Filippo II,” in La Lombardia spagnola, 371–87. 37 Raffaele Puddu, Il soldato gentiluomo: Autoritratto d’una società guerriera: La Spagna del Cinquecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982); Puddu, I nemici del re: Il racconto della guerra nella Spagna di Filippo II (Rome: Carocci, 2000); Alessandro Cassol, Vita e scrittura: Autobiografie di soldati spagnoli del Siglo de Oro (Milan: LED, 2000). Also of interest is José María de Cossío, ed., Autobiografias de soldados (siglo XVII) Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 90 (Madrid: Atlas, 1956).

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begun to take up the theme of the consequences, both short-term and long-term, of the experience gained in the Milanese garrisons and on the front in Flanders and other theaters of war between the mid-sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century for more than one generation of Italian nobles,38 first among them, those who were subjects of the king of Spain.39 An adequate grasp of the varied characteristics of this process depends on understanding the close connection between the Spanish Habsburg monarchy during the reign of Philip II, the revival of Roman Catholicism from the Counter-Reformation to the age of the baroque, and the central roles played by both branches of the Habsburg dynasty in their struggle against the Ottomans and Protestants. Some of the interconnected moments in this historical process are, in chronological order: the defense of Malta against the Ottoman offensive; naval expeditions in the Mediterranean that culminated in the Battle of Lepanto; the participation of contingents from the papal armies and Medici and Savoy forces in campaigns in support of the Catholic party in France; the long war of the Spanish Crown against the rebels of the United Provinces; campaigns against the Turks in Hungary; the early phases of the Thirty Years’ War in imperial territories in Germany; and the conflict for control

38 Angelantonio Spagnoletti, “Onore e spirito nazionale nei soldati italiani al servizio della monarchia spagnola,” paper given before the conference, “Militari e società civile nell’Europa dell’età moderna.” See also the studies of Giampiero Brunelli, in particular, Soldati del papa: Politica militare e nobiltà nello Stato della Chiesa (1560 –1644) (Rome: Carocci, 2003). There is also the classic study of Benedetto Croce, “I Caracciolo d’Avellino: Note in margine ad alcuni libri di Maiolino Bisaccioni,” in Croce, Uomini e cose della vecchia Italia, 2 vols., vol. 1, Seria Prima (Bari: Laterza, 1927), 143–82. 39 A famous passage in I carichi militari di fra’ Lelio Brancaccio cavalier hierosolimitano, del Consiglio Collaterale per S.M. Cattolica nel Regno di Napoli e suo maestro di campo e consiglier di guerra ne gli Stati di Fiandra deserves mention here. It states: “Never has necessity nor the example of foreign nations led us to the recovery of good organization, which consists principally in the infantry, without having our most powerful King of Spain draw from our paternal houses, and using us in various lands, and particularly for many years now in the states of Flanders, has not so much instructed us as made us formidable to our enemies, as is well known in this theater, where all the nations of Europe are to be found”: quoted from the 2nd ed. (Milan: Gio.Battista Bidelli, 1620) 103. On Brancaccio, who fought for the king of Spain from 1589 as a captain, sergeant major, master of the camp, and general master of the camp, serving in Piedmont, Savoy, Burgundy, Flanders, Naples, Lombardy, Catalonia, Germany, and Provence (where he died in battle in 1637), see Gaspare De Caro, “Brancaccio, Lelio,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 13 (1971), 787–89.

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of the Valtellina.40 For many Italian nobles, moving from one theater of war to another was an important life experience that did much to consolidate a common and widely shared Habsburg-Catholic ideology,41 one consequence of which was a revival, in a changed international situation, of the traditional opposition between Guelphs and Ghibellines (that is, pro-French and pro-Habsburg factions) in the early eighteenth century.42

The Military Dimension of the Nobility of the Seventeenth Century: The Example of Milan Peter Hersche, a Swiss historian who wrote an informative summary of Italian history of the baroque era (Barockzeitalter) between 1600 and 1750, observed that the possibility of pursuing a military career in the service of the kings of Spain or the German-Bohemian branch of the House of Habsburg enabled many Italian nobles—younger sons in particular—to consolidate the family fortunes. The Farnese, Spinola, Colloredo, Collalto, Carafa, Piccolomini, and Montecuccoli families represent only the tip of the iceberg in a phenomenon of vast dimensions in this regard.43 The genealogies, papers, and oaths of service that can be found in family archives in many parts of Italy bear witness to the importance of the practice of arms for a sizeable portion of the nobility during the latter half of the sixteenth 40 Gregory Hanlon, The Twilight of a Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats and European Conflicts, 1560 –1800 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1998), 9–91. Antonio Conzato, “Per un profilo della nobiltà friulana nel Cinquecento: Tra permanenza e partenza,” Studi Veneziani n.s. 41 (2001): 99–178; Carla Sodini, L’Ercole Tirreno: Guerra e dinastia medicea nella prima metà del ’600 (Florence: Olschki, 2001); Brunelli, Soldati del papa. 41 “Service to the Habsburgs was not the attribute solely of the Neapolitan, Sicilian or Milanese aristocracy, over which the king of Spain was the legitimate sovereign. The appeal of the Flanders and Hungarian threatres lured young men away from their Ligurean, Tuscan, Emilian, Umbrian, and even Terraferma palazzi. Another important direction of the specifically Catholic activity lay in appeal of the maritime military orders, of Malta and of Santo Stefano”: Hanlon, The Twilight of a Military Tradition, 7. On the latter point, see also the studies of Angelantonio Spagnoletti, in particular, Spagnoletti, Stato, aristocrazie e Ordine di Malta nell’Italia moderna (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1988). See also Franco Angiolini, I cavalieri e il principe: L’Ordine di Santo Stefano e la società toscana in età moderna (Florence: Edifir, 1966). 42 In this connection, see Claudio Donati, Tra urgenza politica e memoria storico: La ricomparsa dei ghibellini (e dei guelfi) nell’Italia del primo Settecento, forthcoming (Rome: Viella). 43 Hersche, Italien im Barockzeitalter, 37.

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century and the beginning of the seventeenth century,44 at the same time attesting to the loving care with which the military actions of family ancestors were remembered and passed on, either in the interest of supporting claims to mercedes (grants or concessions) from the sovereign for whom those valorous warriors had offered their sword for long periods of time, and in many cases had given their lives, or in the interest of putting the family’s nobility on a solid and universally recognized foundation. We do not yet have certain data regarding the geographical distribution of the practice of arms or the territorial origins of Italian officers in the service of the Spanish Habsburgs, but Gregory Hanlon’s quantitative analyses suggest some provisory conclusions.45 According to Hanlon, between 1560 and 1600 only 47 percent of the Italian officers in the service of the Catholic King came from territories under direct Spanish domination—that is, Milan, Naples, and Sicily— whereas almost 20 percent came from the Papal States, and another 15 percent from the duchies of the Po Valley. In the half century from 1610 to 1660, a period of an increase in the absolute numbers of officers of Italian origin, Hanlon tells us that “the proportion of subjects of the king of Spain rose to 60 percent of the Italians.”46 This figure seems clearly significant, because—even on the basis of what will be discussed below—it would indicate a sharp tendency on the part of the Italian nobility subject to the crown of Spain to embrace a military career in the service of their own natural sovereign, moving in the direction of state control of the army and of the provincial nobility, which was, as is known, one of the principal objectives of the Count-Duke of Olivares.47

44 For a number of patricians in Amantea and Monteleone in Calabria, see Francesco Campenni, La patria e il sangue: Città, patriziati e potere nella Calabria moderna (Manduria, Bari, Rome: Lacaita, 2004), 196–210. 45 On the limitations of Hanlon’s analyses, derived from “data bases to be handled with tongs,” see Piero Del Negro, “Il tramonto della tradizione militare italiana: Il caso veneziano tra Sei e Settecento,” in Lo spirito militare degli italiani, Atti del Seminario, Padua 6–18 November, 2000, ed. Piero Del Negro (Padua: Dipartimento di Studi Storici e Politici, 2002), 23–32, esp. pp. 23–25. 46 Hanlon, The Twilight of a Military Tradition, 227. See also the statistics in ibid., pp. 224–48 (maps) and pp. 249–54 (graphs). 47 J. H. Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), 244–77.

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Studies on the nobility in Naples seem to indicate the contrary,48 but the Milanese nobility seems to fit better within the trend that Hanlon describes. Here a factor peculiar to Milan came into play: in the most acute phase of the conflict between France and the Habsburgs—a phase that coincided with revolts in Sicily, Naples, Catalonia, and Portugal—the multiple military initiatives of the Spanish monarchy led to a reduction in the number of Castilians in the army in Lombardy, with a consequent rise in the importance, in both qualitative and quantitative terms, of contingents of local origin, which were often enrolled and commanded by Milanese nobles.49 The point merits a few reflections on the importance of military service to the king of Spain for the Milanese and the Lombard patriciate of the seventeenth century. The topic has long been neglected by historians who have been more sensitive to the juridical and togatilike characteristics of the high nobility and, consequently, its monopoly of magistracies, especially municipal and royal-ducal ones, and high ecclesiastical offices, beginning with that of bishop. A genealogical catalog entitled Teatro genealogico delle famiglie nobili milanesi drawn up in Milan, probably between the 1730s and the 1740s, provides the names of many Milanese noblemen who served as captains, sergeant majors, colonels, lieutenant generals, and masters of the camp in the service of the Catholic Kings, and to a lesser extent, in the service of the Habsburg emperors.50 The results of this 48 Giovanni Muto, “ ‘I segni dell’onore’: Rappresentazione delle dinamiche nobiliari a Napoli in età moderno,” in Signori, patrizi, cavalieri in Italia centro-meridionale nell’età moderna, ed. Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1992), 171–92; Tommaso Astarita, The Continuity of Feudal Power: The Caracciolo of Brienza in Spanish Naples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), esp. p. 71; Angelantonio Spagnoletti, “L’aristocrazia napoletana nelle guerre del primo Seicento,” in I Farnese: Corti, guerra e nobiltà in antico regime, ed. Antonella Bilotto, Piero Del Negro, and Cesare Mozzarelli (Rome: Bulzoni, 1997), 445–68. 49 Gianvittorio Signorotto, “Guerre spagnole, ufficiali lombardi,” in I Farnese, 367–96; Davide Maffi, “Potere, carriere e onore nell’esercito di Lombardia 1630–1660,” in La Espada y la Pluma, 195–245, esp. pp. 214–21. 50 Cinzia Cremonini, ed., Teatro genealogico delle famiglie nobili milanesi: Manoscritti 11500 e 11501 della Biblioteca Nacional di Madrid, 2 vols. (Mantua: Arcari, 2003). Aside from the four manuscripts discussed by Cinzia Cremonini in her introduction to this publication, many other copies of this work exist. The catalog entry for the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan copy, listed as D.255.inf, bears a dubious attribution to “Gio. Antonio Triulzi dottore collegiato di Milano.” In reality, the question of attribution remains open. Cremonini asserts that the signatory of the dedication, one Giambattista Consoni (or Consonni) “is a pseudonym . . . a nom de plume” (pp. 37–38). After some archival investigation, I located one “Giambattista Consonni figlio di Angelo Maria, abitante a Milano, Porta Ticinese, parrocchia di S. Alessandro

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survey, founded on a sample that is nonexhaustive but surely representative of Milanese noble families in the early decades of the eighteenth century (immediately after the end of Spanish domination in Lombardy) permit us to establish a picture of undeniable interest.51 Sixty-one members of noble houses are listed with specific service records, some given in great detail. (See Appendix.) If we enlarge this list to include military personnel for which the Teatro genealogico does not provide precise dates, but who can be securely dated by their place on the various family trees as having lived and been active between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century, we can identify at least 175 more persons. These can be divided into three groups: ancient families whose prominence went back at least to the era of Visconti and Sforza rule (such as the Barbiano di Belgioioso, Borromeo,52 Caimi, Carcano, Castiglioni, Dal Verme, Lampugnani, Marliani, Schiaffinati, Stampa, Trivulzio,53 Trotti,54 and Visconti families);55 families that rose to high offices, civic, royal, or ecclesiastical under the Spanish (such as the in Zebedia,” who was involved in a law case involving confiscation of goods that was initiated in 1733 but dragged on at least to 1744 (Archivio di Stato di Milano, Finanza-Confische 1026). This means that a person of that name lived in Milan during the time that the Teatro genealogico was being drafted and completed. This information calls for further research to document any possible relations between this Consonni and the dottore collegiato Giovanni Antonio Trivulzio, to discern eventual consonances or connections with the activities of Giovanni Sitoni di Scozia, the most famous Milanese genealogist of the early eighteenth century, and to provide a fuller context in which the Teatro genealogico was planned and redacted and suggest the objectives that it intended to realize. 51 Later genealogies are more reliable. See, for example, Pompeo Litta, Famiglie celebri italiani (Turin and Milan: various publishers 1819–1885); Felice Calvi, ed. Famiglie notabili . . . milanesi, 4 vols, (Milan: Vallardi, 1875–85); Franco Arese Lucini, “Appendice genealogica,” in Dante Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato milanese nei secoli XVII, XVIII e XIX (Pavia: Università di Pavia, 1972). The advantage of the Teatro genealogico resides, first, in its complete description of the families in existence in the early Settecento (as opposed to a partial listing of some families, as is true of the other genealogical works mentioned) and, second, in its aim of presenting the Dignità, Posti, Privileggi e Glorie of those families, probably in view of an eventual catalog of the nobility that, after a first attempt in that direction in 1750, was to reach concrete form in the Ufficio Araldico in 1769. On this topic, see Claudio Donati, Nobili e chierici in Italia tra Seicento e Settecento: Studi e ricerche storiche (Milan: Cuem, 2002), 105–27, and pertinent bibliography given therein. 52 Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 171–74. 53 Ibid., 125–39. See also Mario Rizzo, “I cespiti di un maggiorente lombardo del Seicento: Ercole Teodoro Trivulzio e la Milizia Forese,” Archivio Storici Lombardo 120 (1994): 463–77. 54 Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 180–93. 55 Ibid., 185–93.

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Arese,56 Barbò, Carpani, Clerici,57 Durini, Foppa, Fossani, Lonati, Lucini, Melzi, Messerati, Pecchio, Rosales,58 Serbelloni, Sfondrati, Sormani families); families that had recently risen in society (for example, the Arbona,59 Calderara, Casnedi, Cernuschi, Cittadini, Sangiuliani, and Silva families). A recent and thorough investigation of the camp commanders and other infantry and cavalry officers not only in Milan, but also in all the other cities and provinces of the duchy, who participated in military campaigns in Piedmont and Lombardy between 1635 and 1659 enables us to add to our list other families in Alessandria (Ghilini, Guasco), Novara (Caccia, Tornielli), Pavia (Corti, Bottigella), and Cremona (Ala, Ponzoni).60 As these data indicate, this was a large group, and one that made its presence felt particularly strongly in the central decades of the seventeenth century. The Croce family, to pick an example, is by no means an exceptional case. Odoardo, a decurion, had several sons: Barnabò, an infantry captain in 1631 and lieutenant general of the artillery in 1637; Giovanni Battista, a knight of Malta and an infantry captain who died in 1629; and Odoardo, an ensign, or standard bearer (alfiere) who died at the age of twenty-two in 1635. The younger Odoardo’s older son, Giuseppe, served as auditore generale for the urban militia in 1636, and his younger son, Giovanni Battista, was a captain.61 In short, in two generations we find five members 56

Ibid., 141–56. L. Delgrossi, “I Clerici di Cavenago: Una famiglia lombarda tra dominazione spagnola e monarchia austriaca (sec. XVII–XVIII),” tesi di laurea, Università degli Studi, Milan, 1991/92, relatore Carlo Capra. 58 Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 158–61. As Signorotto writes “The case of Matteo Rosales is one of the most significant regarding the ability of a Spaniard to settle in the Lombard territory.” 59 “The Arbonas arrived at the gates of Lombard nobility on 8 June 1690 with the acquisition of the feud of Agrate. The buyer was Giovanni Paolo Arbona, the son of Giovanni Pietro Arbona, a wealthy and well-known merchant of calami and bindelli (combed wool thread and ribbons)”: Matteo Sacchi, “Alla ferrata solita della Loggia dei Mercanti: Il mercato dei feudi in Lombardia, 1680–1700,” Società e Storia 27 (2004): 51–95, esp. pp. 88–95. The Teatro genealogico lists another son of Giovanni Pietro Arbona, named Giovanni Carlo, who was a “captain in the imperial service in Flanders,” probably in the War of the Austrian League, and who must have died before his father, who died on 15 November 1701: Sacchi, “Alla ferrata,” 91. 60 Davide Maffi, “Milano in guerra (1635–1659): Politica, esercito, finanze e società,” tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Torino, 1998/99. My thanks to the author for permitting me to read this study. 61 Lucia Aiello, “La Causa pia Croce (1794–1915),” in Il tesoro dei poveri: Il patrimonio artistico delle istituzioni pubbliche di assistenza e beneficienza ex Eca di Milano, ed. Marco G. Bascapè, Paolo M. Galimberti, and Sergio Rebora (Milan: Silvana, 2001), 57

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of the Croce family who were professional soldiers or who at least had a connection with the military at one point in their lives. The sons of Giorgio Clerici present a similar picture. On 18 February 1662 Carlo Clerici, a graduate of the University of Salamanca who was at the time Vicario di Giustizia of the State of Milan, sent a petition to Philip IV requesting a promotion to Capitano di Giustizia. Attached to the petition was a full description of the merits of his father, Giorgio, and his brothers entitled, “Summary of service for thirty-six years to the Spanish Habsburgs by the Nobles of the Robe and the Sword of the Clerici Family from 1626 to 1662.” The document states: His father Giorgio Clerici has aided Your Majesty on various occasions with considerable sums of money, particularly, with 55,000 escudos when the Marquis of Leganes governed this State during Casale [the siege of Monferrato, 1628–29]. From then until 16 July 1649, he has provided the governors with 137,000 libras. His brother, Giovan Pietro Clerici, served Your Majesty in the State of Milan, in Flanders, and in Germany for more than eight years. Having accompanied the army commanded by the Cardinal Infante to Flanders as a Captain of Infantry, he gave up his life in the service of Your Majesty in the Battle of Nördlingen [1634]. Colonel Ludovico Clerici, another brother, served Your Majesty for twenty-two years running, first as a soldier, then as Colonel of High Germans in the States of Flanders. He distinguished himself on all occasions, always acting with great valor in the service of Your Majesty. He died in 1658, still in service. Captain Francesco Clerici, also a brother, took up arms to serve Your Majesty on 30 August 1641, first as a soldier, then as a lieutenant, twice as a Captain of Infantry, and eventually as [a Captain] of Armored Cavalry. He distinguished himself on all occasions offered by being in the royal service of Your Majesty, particularly in the siege and capture of Barcelona, serving at his own expense and fulfilling the duties of an honorable Soldier . . . and not having ever received any concessions or considerations for any of this noteworthy service.62

161–63. On Giuseppe Croce, see F. Biella “La milizia urbana milanese e il suo tribunale nel Seicento: Le inchieste processuali dell’auditore Giuseppe Croce dal 1636 al 1649,” tesi di laurea, Università degli Studi Milan, 1995/96, relatore prof. Susanna Peyronel Rambaldi. 62 Archivio di Stato di Milano, Clerici di Cavenago-Ramo antico, cartella I, fascicolo 11, Summarium servitiorum per annos triginta sex Austriacae Coronae Hispanicae per Nobiles de Clericis toga et armis praestitorum ab anno 1626 ad annum 1662: “Su padre Gorgon Clerici ha assistido a V.M. en diferentes ocasiones con sumas considerables de dinero, en particular en el tiempo, que governava quel Estado el Marques de Leganes lo hizo en la ocasion de Casal de 55000 Escudos, y desde entonces hasta el dia 16 de Iulio

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In this instance as well, the three younger brothers of Carlo Clerici had been officers in the Spanish army, where they had served for many years. One of them died in the Battle of Nördlingen, an event that stood as a symbol of Catholic military superiority.63 In order to learn about the military activities of Milanese noblemen, however, one need not gain access to the papers stacked in the local archives: funerary monuments in many of the city’s churches tell of the achievements of these men in full detail. In San Pietro in Gessate, for example, there is an inscription placed there by Count Francesco Panigarola to celebrate the many expeditions in which his father, Giambattista Panigarola, took part before he died at Nördlingen: Always a noble hero, who first, dedicated to war, led a squadron in the Trivultian legion attacking Ostende, where, gore-stained, he began to match the victories [won by] his blood to [those of ] his kings. Afterwards, in chaotic Italy, in charge of a cavalry wing and repeatedly setting out on military expeditions to Asti, Vercelli, Valtellina, Verrua,

de 1649 ha servido a los Governadores con 137000 Libras. Iuan Pedro Clerici su hermano despues de haver servido a V.M. en el Estado de Milan, Flandes y Alemana por el espacio de ocho y mas anos passando a Flandes con el Exercito, que conducia el senor Cardinal Infante siendo Capitan de Infanteria deexó la vida sobre el Campo en serbicio de V.M. en la batalla de Norlinquen [1634]. El Coronel Ludovico Clerici otro hermano fuyo despues de haver servido a V.M. deste Soldado, hasta el puesto de Coronel de Altos Alemanes en los Estados de Flandes por el espacio de veinte y dos anos continuos, haviendose hallado en todas las ocasiones, que en su tiempo se han ofrecido y en ellas cumplido siempre con mucho valor a lo que era de serbicio de V.M. murió el ano de 1658 continuando el serbicio. El Capitan Francisco Clerici tanbien hermano fuyo empecó a serbir a V.M. en las armas en 30 Agosto 1641 de Soldado, y lo continuó de Alferez, dos vezes Capitan de Infanteria, y ultimamente de Caballos Coracas haviendose hallado en todas las ocasiones, que assi mismo se han ofrecido del real Serbicio de V.M. y particularmente en el sitio y toma de Barcelona sirviendo a su costa y cumpliendo con las obligaciones de Soldado honrado (. . .) Y non haviendo por todos estos tan relevantes Serbicios jamas recebido merced alguna.” Fascicle 10 of the same cartella contains a memorandum in Italian that states: “Signor Giorgio Clerici has provided to the Regia Camera, in various payments, 740,148 lire. Signor Gio. Pietro Clerici, son of the above-mentioned Signor Giorgio, was a captain in Flanders in the 3rd [company] of the Master of the Camp [Giambattista] Panigarola, was retired, and being returned to his house with permission, raised another company of Italian infantry in the 3rd of don Carlo Guasco, and passing to Flanders with the Most Serene Infante, was killed fighting in the battle of Nördlingen. Signor Lodovico Clerici, son of the above-mentioned Signor Giorgio, after having served as Ensign, Captain, and Sergeant Major of a Regiment of German Cavalry, died a Colonel of the German Infantry. Signor Francesco Clerici, son of the above-mentioned Signor Giorgio, was a Captain of Armored Cavalry.” 63 Göran Rystad, Kriegsnachrichten und Propaganda während des Dreissigjährigen Krieges: Die Schlacht bei Nördlingen in den gleichzeitigen, gedruckten Kriegsberichten (Lund: Gleerup, 1960).

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Piedmont, and Casale, having nobly discharged these assignments and the embassy to the Emperor and Catholic King, he first as tribune led a legion into Belgium, next into Alsatian Bavaria, and often battling down by his soldiery conspiratory powers, finally, in the memorable battle of Nördlingen he withstood the attack of the onrushing Swedes and held the battlements against a siege; pouring forth the enemy’s blood while not sparing of his own, he lost his life but gained a victory for the religion of Austria.64

The inscription on the tomb of Gian Pietro Annoni, who took an active part in the last campaigns in Lombardy before the Peace of the Pyrenees, is similarly informative, even something like a complete service record.65 In the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie there is an epitaph in praise of Ludovico Melzi (who is mentioned in the Teatro genealogico), the author of a highly successful treatise on the cavalry, Regole militari sopra il governo e servitio della cavalleria, a work published in Antwerp by Gioachimo Trognaesio in 1611, and republished in 64 “Heros semper egregius, / qui primum bello devotus turmam duxit / in Trivultia legione oppugnantem Ostendam / ubi cruentus regibus suis victorias / suo coepit sanguine comparare / postea in turbata Italia / saepius alae praefectus profectusq./ ad expeditiones, Astensem / Vercellensem Vallis Tellinae Verruanam / Pedemontanam utramq. Casalensem / his et legatione ad Caesarem / ad Regem Cath. praeclare perfunctus / primum tribunus in Belgium / secundum in Alsatiam Bavariam / legionem deduxit / et coniuratas potestates / suo milite saepe debellans / tandem in memorabili Norlingensi pugna / sustinuit impetum irrumpentis Sueci / contra obsidionem vallum tenuit / hostilis effusor sanguinis sed non parcus sui / amisit vitam, victoriam / religioni Austriae est elucratus”: Vincenzo Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e degli altri edifici di Milano dal secolo VII ai giorni nostri, 12 vols. in 6 pts. (Milan: Tipografia Bortolotti di G. Prato, 1889–93), 1: 250. 65 “Primo turmae Germanicae ductor / tum equestris xiliarchi optio / mox xiliarchus / post haec emerita stipendia / patriae temporibus civium amore / et omnium iudicio / rursus excitus est ad arma / bellicis anni MDCLIIX tempestatibus / cum legio aere civium collativo scriberetur / ipsi omnium votis expetito / ille tribunatus delatus est / ergo cum Gallus occupata Mortaria / propinquum agmen bello / haberet infestum / ipse Viglevano praefuit cum impio / itaq. post omnes numeros / tutissimae militiae et eximiae charitatis / egregie impletor implevit / fata castrum et urbis proceres / in luctus ingens armamentum / summa frequentia / prodiere in funus” (“At first a leader of a German squadron, then adjutant of a battalion commander, then a battalion commander, after this military service when his country needed him he was called back to service by the love of his people and by the decision of all to arms in the martial storms of the year 1658, when a legion was levied expressly for him by the votes of all the people through a monetary contribution of citizens. And so, that tribunate was conferred when France, Mortara having been occupied, was maintaining a hostile column nearby, ready for battle. He himself was in charge along with the impious Viglevanus. And so, after he fulfilled—nobly a fulfiller—all the ranks of a most secure military career and of an exceptional esteem, the lot of the camp and the leaders of the city came forth in a great crowd and with a huge display of mourning for his funeral rites.”): ibid., 5:353.

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Spanish translation in Milan by Giambattista Bidelli in 1619.66 The church of Sant’Angelo a Porta Nuova contains a monument with an inscription placed there by Count Francesco Sormani in 1696 to honor his father Paolo, “Italicae Legionis Tribuno,” who died in 1671, and his uncle Alessandro, who died at the age of ninety in 1695: “He passed through all the ranks of military service in Belgium and Germany, and in Insubria was deputy to the supreme commander of the camp.”67 Many other examples could be added.68 Two significant facts emerge from what has been said thus far, and of course further investigation would be needed to bring them fully into focus. These are, first, the continuity in the military tradition among the Milanese nobility that had its roots in the ViscontiSforza age and that weakened only in the latter half of the eighteenth century with the creation of the imperial and royal army of the Austrian Habsburgs;69 and second, the loyalty of that same nobility to the Spanish Crown and to the Habsburgs, a loyalty that remained solid from the mid-sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century, then fell into crisis in the early eighteenth century, when “the Spanish monarchy found itself with two heads” and, for that reason, “the problem of dynastic loyalty became agonizing and explosive.”70 We need only recall that Count Francesco Sormani, whom

66 “Patricius Mediolanen./ eques Hierosolymi / Philippi II et Philippi III / Cath. Regum / in Gallia Burgundia Belgio / Insubria / turmae equit. hastator ductor / legionis ital. legatus / equitum promagister bellicus intimusque / consiliarius / proximo sub alpino bello / alterius exercitus moderator.” (“Milanese patrician, Knight of Jerusalem under the Catholic kings Philip II and Philip III in France, Burgundy, Belgium, and Insubria (area near Varese), leader of a cavalry squadron, fighter in the first rank, legate of an Italian legion, wartime commander of the cavalry and trusted counselor, leader of a second army during the recent Alpine war.”: ibid., 3:404. Ludovico Melzi died in 1617. 67 “In Belgio Germania / omnes militiae gradus emenso / in Insubria denique / supremi castrorum praefecti / legato”: ibid., 5:89. 68 See ibid., 2:86, 119 (Caimi); 3:152 (Castiglioni); 5:48 (Tosi). 69 On this aspect of the question, see Claudio Donati, “L’organizzazione militare della monarchia austriaca nel secolo XVIII e i suoi rapporti con i territori e le popolazioni italiane: Prime ricerche,” in Österreichisches Italien—Italienisches Österreich? Interkulturelle Gemeinsamkeiten und nationale Differenzen vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges, ed. Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig and Marco Meriggi (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), 297–329. 70 Spagnoletti, Principi italiani, 238. See also Claudio Donati, “Una famiglia lombarda tra XVI e XVIII secolo: Gli Este di San Martino e i loro feudi,” in Archivi, territori, poteri in area estense (secc. XVI–XVIII), ed. Euride Fregni (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999), 435–53, esp. pp. 450–51.

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we have encountered proudly celebrating the military service of his father and his uncle in the armies of the Spanish Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburg emperor, received an order only six years later, in September 1702, from the Capitano di Giustizia of Milan under Spanish Bourbon rule requisitioning the possessions of his brother Antonio, who was told to deliver himself over to the royal prisons within one month: “having confessed under torture and being convicted of treason and rebellion, of course under penalty of death along with confiscation of his property;” and this because “he furnished military service and continued to provide it in the camps and armies of the emperor contrarily both in Italy and along the Rhine and in Belgium and elsewhere.”71 As is often the case, fortune’s wheel took another turn, and in 1714, after the State of Milan had definitively been turned over to the Austrian Habsburgs, Marshall Antonio Sormani was appointed military governor of the fortress at Pavia, where he ended his days in 1730, covered with honors.

Appendix: Noble Milanese Military Officers (ca. 1550–1700) Gabrio Serbelloni celebre soldato luogotenente di 4000 fanti nella famosa giornata sull’Albi del 1549 ove fece prigione il duca di Sassonia colla totale disfatta delle sue truppe, fu gran croce di Malta, marchese di Ajmonte, e luogotenente del governatore di Milano in tempo di peste nel 1575 in cui morì Giovan Paolo di Gabrio Serbelloni luogotenente in Affrica sotto suo padre conte Oliverio Varesi capitano al servizio spagnolo 1556 Fabrizio Cotta capitano al servizio spagnolo 1561 Scipione Origoni del Consiglio Militare dello Stato 1562 conte Carlo Barbiano di Belgioioso fu capitano di cavalli, ed al soccorso di Malta assediata dal Turco [1565] Giovan Ambrogio Visconti capitano in Fiandra al servizio spagnolo 1566 Bartolomeo Mezzabarba auditor militare in Pavia, uomo di grande dottrina 1567 Giovanni Antonio d’Adda soldato in Fiandra 1567

71 “Sub poena confessi et convicti crimini laesae maiestatis ac ribellionis, scilicet sub poena mortis cum bonorum confiscatione,” because “militare servitium praestiterit et praestet in castris et exercitibus Caesareis vel aliter tam in Italia quam ad Rhenum et in Belgio et alibi”: Alessandra Dattero, Il governo militare dello stato di Milano nel primo Settecento: Saggio storico e inventario della serie “Alte Feldakten” del Kriegsarchiv di Vienna (Milan: Unicopli, 2001, 77–78.

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Alfonso Casati dottore e capitano di cavalli 1567, d’indi fu residente regio a Svizzeri e Grigioni 1594, e del Consiglio dei 60 Decurioni 1602 Donato Carcano capitano di gallera nella famosa giornata di Lepanto sotto Pio V [1571] Pietro Antonio Lonati cavaliere di Calatrava 1568, commissario generale degli eserciti 1579, fu senatore conte Luigi Trotti mastro di campo al servizio spagnolo 1579 Agostino Schiaffinati capitano al servizio spagnolo morto sotto Mastricht [1579] Sinodoro Bescapè ebbe servigio militare 1580 don Francesco Manriquez ebbe il feudo di Desio [1580] prima nel 1553 ebbe la compagnia di suo padre [don Garzia], e comandante generale sopra l’artiglieria 1597, del Consiglio Segreto di Sua Maestà, provveditore generale degli eserciti 1577 Giacomo Acerbi capitano al servizio spagnolo 1581 Alessandro Castiglioni al servizio spagnolo 1587 Raffaele Fossani capitano al servizio spagnolo poscia di Savoia 1587 Bartolomeo Corradi da Lodi, ebbe comando di capitano al servizio spagnolo 1587 conte Alessandro Cicogna capitano al servizio spagnolo 1591 Alessandro Cusani capitano in Fiandra sotto il duca Farnese conte Galeazzo Trotti maestro di campo al servizio spagnolo 1601 Giovan Francesco Barbiano di Belgioioso fu colonnello in Ongaria e per delitti gravi ed enormi venne bandito da questo Stato con taglia di 6000 ducatoni [1603] d’indi nel 1609 fu ammazzato conte Galeazzo Barbiano di Belgioioso generale di battaglia al servizio spagnolo 1605 Fabrizio Visconti capitano al servizio spagnolo morì in Fiandra sotto Gant comandante di 1000 fanti 1608 Luigi Brivio capitano morto 1610 Lodovico Melzi cavagliere di Malta celebre soldato luogotenente generale della cavalleria diede alle stampe l’opera militare sopra il governo e servizio della cavalleria [1611], fu gran priore di Malta don Antonio Visconti di Massino capitano al servizio spagnolo 1613 Matteo Casati morto in battaglia 1620 Giovan Antonio Daverio capitano che col favor dell’armi illustrò ed arricchì la sua posterità 1621 principe Giovan Giacomo Trivulzio colonnello di Filippo III, mortagli la moglie 1626 fu in Roma, creato cardinale da Urbano VIII Angelo Fagnani cavagliere di Malta e capitano in Fiandra 1627

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Giambattista Panigarola mastro di campo al servizio spagnolo, infeudato di Ceranova Principato di Pavia 1622, creato conte 1626, morì sotto Nordlinghen nella Fiandra [1634] marchese Ottavio Cusani questore nel Magistrato Straordinario, e delegato in tempo di peste 1629, tenente generale della cavalleria dello stato Lancellotto Corradi mastro di campo al servizio spagnolo, creato marchese per regio diploma cesareo 1630 essendo in quella corte [imperiale] per affari regi conte Carlo Barbiano di Belgioioso colonnello d’infanteria soldato celebre 1631 Ermes Stampa creato marchese di Soncino per cesareo diploma 3 novembre 1636, fu governatore di Cremona conte Giulio Cesare Borromeo generale d’armi di S.M. Cattolica nello Stato, morì sotto Vercelli di cui aveva con ogni braura intrapreso l’assedio [1638] Gerolamo Tosi capitano 1638 venne confiscato per duello, rifugiossi alla corte di Torino, venne creato conte da quel Duca 1653 conte Antonio Bigli governatore della milizia di tutto lo Stato, colonnello di fanti e tenente generale della cavalleria nello Stato di Milano, et de 60 Decurioni, morto il 25 genaro 1643 barone Antonio Guidoboni Cavalchini fu al servizio spagnolo 1644 poscia in Milano si accasò Camillo Porta soldato celebre e maestro di campo al servizio spagnolo 1644 Alessandro Sormani fu soldato celebre generale di fanti spagnoli 1647 Nicolò Bussetti maestro di campo al servizio spagnolo, uomo celebre nell’armi, fece pure acquisto dei feudi di Avolasca, Rocca delle Grue, Castel Ramè ed Oliva in Provincia Tortonese 1647 marchese Carlo Corio celebre soldato al servizio spagnolo fu maestro di campo generale, de 60 Decurioni, creato marchese il 4 luglio 1649 Ferdinando Cusani cavagliere di Malta colonnello cesareo morto sotto Porto Longone 1650 Ottaviano Guidoboni Cavalchini al servizio spagnolo capitano 1651 conte Garzia Manriquez sargente maggiore al servizio spagnolo 1652 marchese don Francesco Manriquez fu capitano di corazze 1653 Gerolamo Paravicini capitano celebre al servizio spagnolo 1656, creato marchese 1683, poi graduato sergente maggiore, infeudato di Macchedio nella Pieve di Desio 1686 Francesco Visconti al servizio spagnolo 1657 Giacomo Acerbi morì in Fiandra soldato 1657 don Giuseppe Fossani fu capitano di fanti al soccorso di Valenza del Po, lasciò l’armi e venne creato questore nel Magistrato Ordinario 1660

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Innocente Cotta sargente maggiore al servizio spagnolo 1661 soldato valoroso Federico Croce sargente maggiore soldato celebre, creato marchese il 30 marzo 1676, fu de XII di Provvisione 1653 Giovan Francesco Pozzi capitano di cavalli spagnoli 1673 principe Claudio Rasini de 60 Decurioni, e nel 1684 fu governatore di Cremona Giambattista Sirtori capitano al servizio spagnolo 1690 conte Giacomo Durini del Consiglio Segreto di S.M., commissario generale degli eserciti 1693, morto 1707 Bartolomeo Prata capitano di cavalli 1695 SOURCE: Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, MSS. 11500–11501, “Teatro Genealogico delle Famiglie Nobili Milanesi.” Anastatic reprint: Mantua: Arcari, 2003.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVOLVING THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ITALY: SUBORDINATION AND AGENCY Elizabeth S. Cohen

Following its chronological tetralogy on the history of women in the West, in the mid-1990s Laterza published a topical history of women in Italy. Four anthologies on Fede, Lavoro, Matrimonio, and Maternità synthesized developments from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.1 While a landmark for the field, even a multi-volume work must be selective about both topics and points of view.2 The early modern period, defined here as 1500–1750, which has garnered a rich literature in the past thirty years, receives uneven attention in the several volumes.3 Nonetheless, for its framework and habits of exposition Storia delle donne in Italia is a useful platform from which to review scholarship on this period. First, I highlight patterns of thought that have shaped both this collection and the field: in particular, the practice of speaking of women as universal category and the application of models of subordination and agency. Second, I use the themes of the four volumes to survey recent early modern research and also take up some major areas of women’s activities—the body, intellectual and cultural life, and politics—that, in part due the field’s habits of Note: This bibliography is necessarily selective. It seeks to include representative work from a wide range of scholars, both Italian and not, mostly cited only in the original language of publication. It also surveys a variety of Italian regions, with as much attention as possible to zones notably touched by Spanish influence. 1 Storia delle Donne in Occidente (Rome-Bari: Laterza) includes Christiane KlapischZuber, ed., Storia delle donne: Il Medioevo (1990), and Natalie Z. Davis and Arlette Farge, eds., Storia delle donne dal rinascimento all’ età moderna (1991). Storia delle donne in Italia (Rome-Bari: Laterza) includes Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella Zarri, eds., Donna e fede: Santità et vita religiosa in Italia (1994); Angela Groppi, ed., Lavoro delle donne (1996); Michela De Giorgio and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, eds., Storia del matrimonio (1996); Marina D’Amelia, ed., Storia della maternità (1997). 2 Historiographical overview: Silvia Mantini, “Women’s History in Italy: Cultural Itineraries and New Proposals in Current Historiographical Trends,” Journal of Women’s History, 12:2 (2000), 170–98. 3 Much work has appeared in anthologies, collections, and journals such as Quaderni storici, Renaissance Quarterly, Memoria: Rivista di storia delle donne (1981–91), Genesis: Rivista della società delle storiche italiane (since 2002).

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exposition, the series does not address directly. A final section reflects on how breaking-up the universal “women” by thinking more systematically about social class, time, and space can strengthen scholarship in this field.

Thinking about women Women as a primary category: sex and gender Born in the 1970s, the new field of women’s history evolved in complex response to social ideas from the Enlightenment. Thinking of human beings as universal types who engaged in society for their mutual betterment, that tradition differentiated two sexes—male and female, each with an essential nature rooted in distinct and complementary physiologies. Biologically fitted for different, but socially useful roles, “woman” was subordinated to “man” for the benefit of all. Despite the rigidities of unchanging “nature,” trickle-down models of progress built on these arrangements, with the advancement of women the marker, but not the cause of change for the good. While feminist historians in the late twentieth century rejected Enlightenment optimism, they, with those around them, continued often to think of women as one universal category defined by perpetual disempowerment and marginalization. Within these assumptions, history as change and as liberation still had little place. In the 1980s the concept of gender created more space for historical maneuver. “Gender” differs from the earlier term “sex” in rejecting the notion that maleness and femaleness are rooted in physiology and fixed. In other words, they are not “natural,” but rather socially and culturally constructed as part of an ideological system. While often deeply entrenched, gendered identities and behavior can vary from culture to culture and transform over time. Thus, they belong to history.4 In a given setting, however, scholars still often speak of 4 On general arguments: Paola Di Cori, “Prospettive e soggetti nella storia delle donne. Alla ricerca di radici comuni,” in La ricerca delle donne. Studi femministi in Italia, ed. M. C. Marcuzzo and A. Rossi-Doria (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1987), pp. 96–111; Gianna Pomata, “Storia particolare e storia universale: in margine ad alcuni manuali di storia delle donne,” Quaderni storici, n. 74 (1990), 341–84; Merry WiesnerHanks, “Storia della donne e storia sociale: sono necessarie le strutture?,” in Tempi e spazi di vita femminile tra medioevo ed età moderna, ed. S. Seidel Menchi, et al. (Bologna: Mulino, 1999), pp. 25–48.

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women as a single group defined by an ideologically constructed subordination. The gender approach allows separate investigation of feminine and masculine norms and experiences.5 It also recognizes the interaction of the two categories.6 Furthermore, such analysis encourages historians to integrate gender with other explanatory factors and to use it to nuance discussion of social, political, economic, and cultural issues.7 Models of subordination and of agency The model of subordination, which we have already encountered in conjunction with the practice of universalizing women, emphasizes the tight constraints justified through cultural precept and ideology and imposed on all women by the socially and politically dominant. In the early modern world elite men who distrusted female nature strove to discipline its weakness. To prevent trouble, all women were to dwell in containment—secluded, enclosed, isolated within walls of law and social practice, if not always of stone. The paragon of chastity, silence, and obedience neither acted nor spoke; she was not subject, but object. Many historians read such restrictive precepts, cast in generic and universal rhetoric and enforced by a gamut of institutions, as the potent common ground of female experience. For its vocabulary this scholarship leans heavily on the extensive literature of prescription composed by preachers, educators, moralists, lawmakers, magistrates, and even writers of stories and songs and illustrators of broadsheets.8 Studies of the institutions that formally and 5 Judith Brown and Robert Davis, eds., Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy, New York: Longman, 1998; Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships. Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Stanley Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 6 Sharon Strocchia, “Funerals and the Politics of Gender in Early Renaissance Florence,” in Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, ed. M. Migiel and J. Schiesari (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 155–68. The genders still often appear in parallel rather than interacting; e.g. books about men add a final chapter about their female relatives: Edoardo Grendi, I Balbi. Una famiglia genovese fra Spagna e Impero (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), pp. 270–301; Federica Ambrosini, Storia di patrizi e di eresia nella Venezia del ’500 (Milan: Francoangeli, 1999), pp. 273–324. 7 For example, Sandra Cavallo, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy. Benefactors and Their Motives in Turin, 1541–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Renata Ago, “Collezioni di quadri e collezioni di libri a Roma tra XVI e XVIII secolo,” Quaderni storici, n. 110 (2002), 379–403. 8 Short studies and a massive bibliography on the prescriptions for both secular women and nuns: Gabriella Zarri, ed., Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al

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informally imposed these codes then confirm submission as the primary feature of women’s history in this era. This approach to women’s history highlights how, like rank, office, and other forms of social advantage, maleness too was a site of privilege. The subordination model has loomed large in the history of early modern Italiane. In a recent example, Gabriella Zarri packed both nuns and wives inside her title Recinti.9 The positioning of women as objects, not subjects, appears also in inventive studies drawing on the cultural anthropology of exchange—Christiane Klapisch-Zuber’s tour-de-force on the “Griselda complex” and Jutta Sperling’s rendering of Venetian nuns as potlatch gifts.10 Enclosure was the lot not only of elite women who figured prominently in those studies, but also of the social dregs. Female beggars, orphans, the diseased, girls at risk, and sexual transgressors found themselves locked into walled asylums that proliferated through the early modern period.11 As slaves, XVII secolo (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1996); Sharon Strocchia, “Learning the Virtues: Convent Schools and Female Culture in Renaissance Florence,” in Women’s Education in Early Modern Europe: A History 1500–1800, ed. B. Whitehead (New York: 1999), pp. 3–46; Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Il bisogno di eternità. I comportamenti aristocratici a Napoli in età moderna (Naples: Guidi 1988), pp. 141–74. On didactic pictures of women: Sara Matthews Grieco, “Pedagogical Prints: Moralizing Broadsheets and Wayward Women in Counter Reformation Italy” in Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. G. Johnson and S. Matthews Grieco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 61–87; Paola Tinagli, Women in Italian Renaissance Art. Gender, Representation, Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997); Sara Matthews Grieco with Sabina Brevaglieri, eds., Moglie, monaca, serva, cortigiana (Florence: Morgana, 2001); Alberto Cottino, ed., La donna nella pittura italiana del Sei e Settecento (Turin: Umberto Allemandi, 2003). 9 Gabriella Zarri, Recinti. Donne, clausura e matrimonio nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Mulino, 2000). Also, Margaret King, Women of the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 10 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “The Griselda Complex: Dowry and Marriage Gifts in the Quattrocento,” in Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985): 213–46; Jutta Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in the Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). On the uses of anthropology for women’s agency: Gianna Pomata, “La storia della donne: una questione de confine,” in Gli strumenti della ricerca 2: Questioni di metodo, ed. G. De Luna, et al. (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1983), pp. 1434–69. 11 Sherrill Cohen, The Evolution of Women’s Asylums Since 1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Bologna: Lucia Ferrante, “L’onore ritrovato: Donne nella Casa del Soccorso di San Paolo a Bologna (secolo XVI–XVII),” Quaderni storici 53 (1983), 499–528. Florence: Richard Trexler, “A Widows’ Asylum of the Renaissance. The Orbatello of Florence,” in Old Age in Preindustrial Society, ed. P. Stearns (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), pp. 119–49; Daniela Lombardi, Povertà maschile, povertà femminile. L’Ospedale dei Mendicanti nella Firenze dei Medici (Bologna: Mulino, 1988); Nicholas Terpstra, “Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters: Girls and Conservatory Guardianship in Late Renaissance Florence,” Renaissance Studies 17:2 (2003), 201–29.

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too, women suffered distinctive oppression.12 Indeed, the legal and economic restrictions of these less privileged groups invite further questions about the relative severity of different female subordinations. For all its evident power, the subordination model is sometimes read too loosely onto the past, where it homogenizes the experiences of women not only in the societies of early modern Italy, but also globally, across space and time. It underplays differences of social rank, civil status, education, wealth, and language. The much-used prescriptive literature does not reflect the complexities of real life, especially not that of the ordinary majority. Furthermore, feminist historians, who embrace equality for themselves, sometimes underestimate the impact for all premodern people of hierarchy itself—both as valued principle and foundation of social order. While we must not discount specifically gendered domination, we should calibrate its impact in a world where subordination was the norm for nearly everyone. The second model for writing women’s history, agency, focuses not on what women could not do or say, but on what they could. While this approach emphasizes women’s activity and even, despite their exclusion from most institutional authority, their exercise of personal power, it does not assume gender equality or female liberty. It does include women going about the regular business of their lives as well as sometimes carrying off exceptional accomplishments. Here women were not passive. They petitioned, bore witness, entered contracts, exercised patronage, and advocated in informal settings; they headed households, supported themselves, managed estates, and traveled; they led convents, inspired disciples, administered charity, and taught; they conspired, took lovers, and committed crimes; they created and patronized art and literature. Studies of individuals—saints, Milan: Stefano D’Amico, “ ‘Sta lontano dalla donna dishonesta’: Il deposito di S. Zeno a Milano.” Nuova rivista storica 73 (1989), 395–424. Rome: Angela Groppi, I conservatori della virtù. Donne recluse nella Roma dei papi (Rome: Laterza, 1994); Eugenio Sonnino, “Between Home and the Hospice. The Plight and Fate of Girl Orphans in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Rome,” in Poor Women and Children in the European Past, ed. J. Henderson and R. Wall (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 94–116. Sandra Cavallo, “Family Obligations and Inequalties in Access to Care in Northern Italy, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in The Locus of Care, ed. P. Horden and R. Smith (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 90–110, cautions that such welfare institutions were often porous. 12 F. Angiolini in Lavoro delle donne, pp. 92–115; Susan Stuard, “Ancillary Evidence for the Decline of Medieval Slavery,” Past and Present, n. 149 (1995), 3–28; Raffaella Sarti, “Viaggiatrici per forza. Schiave ‘turche’ in Italia in età moderna,” in Altrove. Viaggi di donne dell’antichità al ’900, ed. D. Corsi (Rome: Viella, 1999), pp. 241–96.

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consorts, poets, artists, among others—alike testify to activities and achievements of privileged and gifted women.13 Microhistories based in Inquisition and criminal court depositions have given voice to the aspirations and stratagems of less advantaged ones.14 The agency model thus highlights the particular within the universal and represents women as not all the same, but richly diverse. Some might argue that these studies all feature exceptional figures who cannot represent an agency typical for other early modern women. Some of the women had spiritual or artistic talents that brought them celebrity; others inherited high rank and presided over courts or convents. While early modern rhetoric sometimes used the language of exceptionality and “honorary” maleness to isolate women whose prominence seemed to transcend the limits for their gender, twenty-first-century historians need not follow that logic. While such exceptional women accomplished things that most women could not, they were certainly not the only ones with agency. Another contingent of active premodern women catch the eye of scholars because they were prosecuted for religious and sexual transgressions. However fascinating, the behavior of poisoners, witches, spellcasters, and adulteresses might be dismissed as deviant. Subordination thinking would contend that judicial repression was a better index of what women could not do than of what they did. Nevertheless, trial stories still tell much about agency, including that of the socially weak. Even heinous acts belonged to deeply entrenched cultural complexes. Edoardo Grendi’s principle of the “normal exception” recognizes that many deeds condemned by the authorities were routine for their lower-status perpetrators. Furthermore, much female activity represented in tribunal records was neither illicit, nor transgressive. To be sure, no single woman represented all others of her sex. Yet, exceptional,

13 For short profiles: Ottavia Niccoli, ed., Rinascimento al femminile (Rome: Laterza, 1991); Giulia Calvi, ed., Barocco al femminile (Rome: Laterza, 1992). 14 E.g. Fulvio Tomizza, La finzione de Maria (Milan: Rizzoli, 1981); Gene Brucker, Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Raul Merzario, Anastasia, ovvero la malizia degli uomini (Rome: Laterza, 1991); Cecilia Ferrazzi, Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint, ed. A. Schutte (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Note that not all microhistory about women emphasizes female agency. Critics of the genre also caution not to underestimate the power of the authorities to shape testimonies: Thomas Kuehn, “Reading Microhistory: The Example of Giovanni and Lusanna,” Journal of Modern History 61 (1989), 514–34; Andrea Del Col, most recently, in the introduction to L’Inquisizione nel patriarcato e diocesi di Aquileia, 1557–1559 (Trieste: Università di Trieste, 1998).

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transgressive, or not, every female deed or word reveals some part of what early modern women could do. The model of agency also must acknowledge that women often did not act alone. Women regularly drew on alliances with kin and neighbors and on networks of patronage, friendship, and common interest. Such connections brought women together, with their peers and even across class lines. And, while male authority often thwarted women’s plans, men—kinsmen, spiritual directors, and others—also could serve as valuable collaborators and supporters. Following threads spun in the anthology Ragnatele di rapporti, historians have explored within households, neighborhoods, and religious communities the force and the ambiguities of such interpersonal links.15 The term “agency” here too designates a broad spectrum of behavior, not only action, but also subjective life. Agency may mean extraordinary achievements, but it does not presume successful completion of conscious intentions. It also includes compromises and even contested failures. Reading historical actors as autonomous rationalists, a critique of the “agency” concept recognizes decision-making by slaves only in direct resistance against oppressors; in this view masters, and their institutions and culture, determined all other slave behavior.16 The fettered women of the subordination model would appear to suffer a like plight. In both cases, the argument devalues the strivings of the weak. At the same time, women’s historians seeking feisty foremothers should not anachronistically read their active or outspoken subjects as sharing with them a modern ideology of feminist resistance.17 Early modern women did sometimes fight back, occasionally acting for themselves against their families and other superiors. More often, with kinfolk, they struggled to play one authority off against another. Only rarely, however, did they identify themselves or their opponents by gender. Both the models of subordination and of agency are constructs— often implicit, but nonetheless potent—in the minds of both writers and readers. Neither represents the past fully. While each emphasizes different things, the two are not opposites, nor mutually exclusive. 15 Lucia Ferrante, et al., eds., Ragnatele di rapporti. Patronage e reti di relazioni nella storia delle donne (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1988). 16 Cornelia Dayton, “Rethinking Agency, Recovering Voices,” American Historical Review 109 (2004), 827–43. 17 Elizabeth Cohen, “The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi. A Rape as History,” Sixteenth Century Journal 31 (2000), 47–75.

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Indeed, a mature history of women needs both. Nevertheless, a persistent, if not always articulated debate over how to balance these issues shapes the historiography.

Topics in Italian women’s history Marriage With marriage as a pivotal element, the history of the family provides a solid foundation for the history of Italian women. Nevertheless, much family history leaves women in the margins. Demographers studying broad population trends often address gender variables only indirectly. Family reconstitution and household-based studies, on the other hand, uncover the outlines of female life cycles up and down the social scale. Pioneering work by David Herlihy and KlapischZuber on fifteenth-century Florentine catasti highlighted male and female patterns.18 Quantitative methods also supported gendered study on specific groups such as patricians and nuns.19 Illuminating a later period, Gerard Delille’s massive history of kinship and property in the Kingdom of Naples linked, for example, the demography of nuptiality to themes of transmission of property that preoccupied other historians of the family.20 A major current in the literature depicts legal structures and kinship systems, draped in ritual, where “family strategies,” governed the circulation of property and spouses.21 This scholarship posits com18 David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Les toscanes et leur familles: Un étude du catasto florentin de 1427 (Paris: Editions de l’E.H.E.S.S., 1978). 19 Dante Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato milanese nei secoli XVII, XVIII, XIX (Pavia: Universita di Pavia, 1972); Burr Litchfield, “Demographic Characteristics of Florentine Patrician Families, Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries,” Journal of Economic History, 29:2 (1969), 191–203; Judith Brown, “Monache a Firenze all’inizio dell’età moderna. Un analisi demografica,” Quaderni storici, n. 85 (1994), 117–52; Samuel Cohn Jr., Women in the Streets: Essays on Sex and Power in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 20 Gérard Delille, Famille et propriété dans la Royaume de Naples (XV e–XIX e siècle) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1985). Giovanna Da Molin, Famiglia e matrimonio nell’Italia del Seicento (Bari: Cacucci, 2000) reports her work on Puglia in regional comparisons for Italy as a whole. Urban demography attending to women: Eugenio Sonnino, “The Population in Baroque Rome,” in Rome/Amsterdam. Two Growing Cities in Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. P. van Kessel and E. Schulte (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997), pp. 50–70; Monica Chojnacka, Working Women of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 1–25. 21 A deft synthesis: Gianna Pomata, “Family and Gender,” in Early Modern Italy,

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pelling logics that typically preempted personal choice. Through the premodern period, two principles of inheritance and lineage competed, with the patrilineal gaining increasing dominance over the bilateral. Dowry property that departed with the out-marrying bride figured as a highly contentious component of family assets. The pursuit of prestige and political allies also influenced match-making. In the classic case study, historians have portrayed the patrician family of Quattrocento Florence as, congruent with the subordination model, a bastion of exclusive male authority.22 Further research on other places, and indeed on Florence itself, has nuanced this picture of unremitting patriarchy. Legal regimes, often at a confluence of Roman law and local statute, varied in their strictures.23 In the Kingdom of Naples among other places, the bilateral principle, even if weakening overall, led to property sometimes moving with women.24 Nevertheless, by implication, in all these structural arguments senior males, ed. J. Marino (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 68–86. Also, Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe, eds., Marriage in Italy, 1300–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 22 Julius Kirshner, “Pursuing Honor While Avoiding Sin: The Monte delle Doti of Florence,” Quaderni di studi senesi 41 (1978), 1–59; Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual; Thomas Kuehn, Law, Women and Family. Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) and “Understanding Gender Inequality in Renaissance Florence: Personhood and Gifts of Maternal Inheritance by Women,” Journal of Women’s History 8 (1996), 58–80; Anthony Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). For Venice: Chojnacki, Women and Men; Donald Queller and Thomas Madden, “Father of the Bride: Fathers, Daughters, and Dowries in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1993), 685–711. For Verona: Emlyn Eisenach, Husbands, Wives and Concubines. Marriage, Family, and Social Order in SixteenthCentury Verona (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2004). 23 On women and property: in Lavoro delle donne, essays by I. Chabot and R. Ago; in Le ricchezze delle donne. Diritti patrimoniali e poteri familiari in Italia (XIII–XIX secc.), ed. G. Calvi and I. Chabot (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1998), essays by A. Bellavitis, G. Benadusi, S. Cavallo, G. Lumia, P. Paterni, and L. Turchi; Ida Fazio, “Le ricchezze e le donne: Verso una ri-problematizzazione,” Quaderni storici, n. 101 (1999), 539–50. On women as legal persons, Thomas Kuehn, “Figlie, madri, mogli, vedove. Donne come persone giuridiche,” in Tempi e spazi, pp. 431–60; Marina Graziosi, “Women and Criminal Law: The Notion of Diminished Responsibility in Prospero Farinacci (1544–1618) and Other Renaissance Jurists,” in Women in Italian Renaissance Society and Culture, ed. L. Panizza (Oxford: Legenda, 2000), pp. 166–81, and “ ‘Fragilitas sexus’: Alle origine della costruzione giuridica dell’inferiorità delle donne,’ in Corpi e storia. Donne e uomini dal mondo antico all’età contemporanea, ed. N. M. Filippini, et al. (Rome: Viella, 2002), pp. 19–38. On Rome: Simona Feci, Pesci fuor d’acqua. Donne a Roma in età moderna: diritti e patrimoni (Rome: Viella, 2004). On Milan: Laura Deleidi, “Donne milanesi della prima metà del Cinquecento: La memoria degli atti notarili,” Società e storia, n. 64 (1994), 279–314. 24 Delille, Famille et propriété; compare the aristocracy, Visceglia, Il bisogno di eternità, pp. 11–105.

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themselves chessmen moved by abstract “family strategies,” make decisions, while subordinated dependents—female and male—figure only as pawns. When family history looks at matchmaking and property transactions from the perspective less of structure than of process, the agency of women becomes clearer. Although the exclusionary rhetoric of contracts and civil law often veiled female activity, women’s wills can show patterns of affiliation distinct from those of their menfolk.25 The archives of criminal and ecclesiastical tribunals record women’s advocacy for themselves and for other subordinate household members. In formally contested marriages, long-suffering wives often sued successfully.26 Much more common must have been wifely efforts not against, but for the casa of her husband and sons. From the woman’s point of view, this too was agency. Patricians in Renaissance Venice engaged their wives as collaborators in family affairs,27 as were Roman noblewomen, like Felice della Rovere Orsini and Maria Spada Veralli.28 Furthermore, widows, more visible than wives as managers of family business, likely learned their craft when still their husbands’ consorts.29 Marriage, while both norm and goal for secular women, waned in early modern Italy, notably among elites. The numbers of adult

25 Cavallo, Charity and Power; Cohn, Women in the Streets; Chojnacki, Women and Men; Giovanna Benadusi, “Investing the Riches of the Poor: Servant Women and Their Last Wills,” American Historical Review 109 (2004), 805–26. 26 Daniela Hacke, “ ‘Non lo volevo per marito in modo alcuno’: Matrimoni forzati e conflitti generazionali a Venezia fra il 1580 e il 1680,” in Tempi e spazi, pp. 195–224; Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglione, eds., Coniugi nemici: La separazione in Italia dal XII al XVIII secolo (Bologna, 2000); Joanne Ferraro, Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (New York, 2001). 27 Chojnacki, Women and Men, pp. 153–68. 28 Caroline Murphy, The Pope’s Daughter. The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Renata Ago, “Maria Spada Veralli, la buona moglie,” in Barocco al femminile, pp. 51–70. 29 On Florentine widows: Elaine Rosenthal, “The Position of Women in Renaissance Florence: Neither Autonomy nor Subjection,” in Florence and Italy: Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubenstein (London: Westfield College, 1988), pp. 369–81; Isabelle Chabot, “Widowhood and Poverty in Late Medieval Florence,” Continuity and Change, 3:2 (1988), 291–311, and “Lineage Strategies and the Control of Widows in Renaissance Florence,” in Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. S. Cavallo and L. Warner (New York: Longman, 1999), pp. 127–44; Ann Crabb, The Strozzi of Florence. Widowhood and Family Solidarity in the Renaissance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000). Widows in Sicily: Sara Cabibbo, “La capra, il sale et il sacco: Per uno studio della vedovanza femminile tra Cinque e Seicento,” Archivio storico per la Sicilia orientale 85 (1989), 117–68.

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females who were neither wife, nor nun rose. Although such “women without men” left patriarchal moralists uneasy, law permitted and necessity forced many of them to run households, usually modest, and to make a living on their own. Having remarked both the sometime independence and the frequent liabilities of widows, scholars should not overlook other sorts of singlewomen: nubile teenagers; working-class and other spinsters; concubines and prostitutes in more and less permanent relationships. While the subordination model highlights these women’s vulnerability and the consequent enclosure of some in asylums, their very exposure, and the need to fend for themselves, made agents of many. An issue of Memoria (1986) explored women alone in Florence and Rome, while historians of Venice have examined single workers and patricians’ concubines.30 Motherhood Bravely, Laterza dedicated a whole volume to the neglected theme of motherhood. Sources, even prescriptive, are scarce. While praising parenthood, Renaissance moralists said little about mothering. Advising about conception, obstetrics and wetnursing, medical writers anticipated male, more than female, readers.31 Nonetheless, using art and ricordanze, historians of Quattrocento Florence show patriarchal structures molding ambiguous maternal obligations.32 Some family historians, enamored of modernization theory and rejecting essentialist “maternal

30 Marina D’Amelia, “Scatole cinesi. Vedova e donne sole in una società d’ancien regime,” Memoria, n. 18 (1986), 58–79; Monica Chojnacka, “Singlewomen in Early Modern Venice: Communities and Opportunities,” in Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250 –1800, eds. J. Bennett and A. Froide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 217–35; Alexander Cowan, “Patricians and Partners in Early Modern Venice,” in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, ed. E. Kittell and T. Madden. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), pp. 276–93. 31 Rudolph Bell, How To Do It. Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). On wetnursing, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Blood Parents and Milk Parents: Wet Nursing in Florence, 1300–1530,” in Women, Family, and Ritual, pp. 132–64. 32 Anne Schutte, “’Trionfo delle donne’: Tematiche di rovesciamento dei ruoli nella Firenze rinascimentale,” Quaderni storici, n. 44 (1980), 474–96; Jacqueline Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “The ‘Cruel Mother’: Maternity, Widowhood, and Dowry in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in Women, Family, and Ritual, pp. 117–31; also, Isabelle Chabot, “Seconde nozze e identità materna nella Firenze dal tardo medioevo,” in Tempi e spazi, pp. 493–523. Compare, for Venice, Chojnacki, Women and Men, pp. 97–111, 169–82.

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instinct,” have dismissed premodern mothers as typically neglectful and cold.33 Aiming to salvage a more balanced sense of natural love, Marina D’Amelia draws on noblewomen’s letters to rebut those mother-blaming conclusions.34 Further evidence of maternal care comes in Giulia Calvi’s study of the seventeenth-century Tuscan “moral contract” that bound women guardians to act for their fatherless offspring.35 Other scholars begin to recognize that good mothering demanded not only solicitous nurture, but also toughness. Olimpia Barberini’s fraught engagement—both emotional and economic— with her adult sons is a good example.36 Religion The first of Laterza’s volumes, Donne e fede, addresses probably the most studied of the four big themes. While religious minorities— Christian dissidents and Jews—have attracted scholarly attention, here, as in most of the literature, faith meant Catholicism.37 Furthermore, discussion has focused not on the mass of laywomen, but rather on those, often nuns, who dedicated their lives to God and his service.38 Both before and after the Council of Trent, relations 33 A literature review and response: Stephen Wilson, “The Myth of Motherhood a Myth: The Historical View of European Child-Rearing,” Social History 9 (1984), 181–98. 34 Besides Storia della Maternità, pp. 3–52, Marina D’Amelia, “Diventare madre nel XVII secolo: L’esperienza di una nobile romana,” in Tempi e spazi, pp. 279–310. 35 Giulia Calvi, Il contratto morale. Madri e figli nella Toscana moderna (Rome: Laterza, 1994). 36 Caroline Castiglione, “Accounting for Affection: Battles Between Aristocratic Mothers and Sons in Eighteenth-Century Rome,” Journal of Family History 25 (2000), 405–31. 37 Claire Honess and Verina Jones, eds., Le donne delle minoranze: le ebree e le protestanti d’Italia (Turin: Claudiana, 1999). Also, on Christians: John Martin, “Out of the Shadow: Heretical and Catholic Women in Renaissance Venice,” Journal of Family History, 10 (1985), 21–33; Olimpia Morata, The Complete Writings of an Italian Heretic, ed. H. Parker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); on Jews: Sandra Debenedetti Stow and Kenneth Stow, “Donne ebree a Roma nell’età del ghetto,” Rassegna mensile di Israel 52 (1986), 63–116; Howard Adelman, “Jewish Women and Family Life, Inside and Outside the Ghetto,” in The Jews of Early Modern Venice, ed. R. Davis and B. Ravid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 143–65; Stefanie Siegmund, “La vita nei ghetti” in Gli ebrei in Italia dall’alto Medioevo all’età dei ghetti, ed. C. Vivanti, Storia d’Italia, Annali 11 (Turin: Einaudi, 1996), pp. 884–91. 38 Gabriella Zarri, ed., Il monachesimo femminile in Italia dall’alto medioevo al secolo XVII ([Verona]: Segno dei Gabrielli, 1997), part II; note especially: for Milan, essays by R. Mariani and L. Aiello; for southern Italy, essays by A. Facchiano, G. Lunardi, E. Novi Chiavarria, and M. Campanelli. Luigi Fiorani, “Monache e monasteri

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between the institutional church and religious women mobilized both subordination and agency. As in the Middle Ages, religion at once taught obedience and endorsed spiritual creativity. Before the Reformation, “living saints” navigated between these ideals toward inspiration that resonated strongly not only for themselves, but also for their admirers—men and women, lay and religious.39 In parallel, while patrician families, with church help, compelled many daughters to take the veil, other women fought for the chance to do so.40 Nunneries offered varied lifestyles: for some comfortable and sociable, for others mean and tedious. Spiritual energy nourished a lively culture of religious drama and music.41 For Gabriella Zarri in Donna e fede the Council of Trent sternly reduced women religious to solemn quiescence. It reimposed cloister and discouraged local initiative. At particular risk in the new climate were divine visions that for theologically untrained women underpinned claims to religious authority and sanctity. The procedures for the “discernment of spirits,” which sought not only to combat diabolical incursions and ignorant fantasies, but also to validate true messages, stimulated exchange between Italian and Spanish commentators and fed the Inquisition.42 The volatile career of the mystic and organizer Paola Antonia Negri illustrates the opportunities

romani nell’età del quietismo,” Ricerche per la storia religiosa di Roma 1 (1977), 63–111; Cohn, Women in the Streets, pp. 76–97; Mary Laven, Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent (London: Penguin, 2002); Sharon Strocchia, “Sisters in the Spirit: The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio and Their Consorority in Early Sixteenth-Century Florence,” Sixteenth Century Journal 33 (2002), 735–67. 39 Gabriella Zarri, Le sante vive. Profezie di corte e devozione femminile tra ’400 and ’500 (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1990); Elisje Schulte van Kessel, ed., Women and Men in Spiritual Culture, XIV–XVII Centuries (The Hague: Netherlands Government Printing Office, 1986), especially essays by A. Prosperi and R. Guarnieri. 40 Giovanna Paolin, Lo spazio del silenzio. Monacazione forzate, clausura e proposte di vita religiosa femminile nell’età moderna (Pordenone: Biblioteca dell’immagine, 1996); Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic. 41 Drama: Elissa Weaver, Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Music: Craig Monson, Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Robert Kendrick, Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Art: Gary Radke, “Nuns and Their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly 54 (2001), 430–59; Franca Trinchieri Camiz, “’Virgo non sterilis’: Nuns as Artists in Seventeeth-Century Rome,” in Picturing Women, pp. 139–64; Jonathan Nelson, ed. Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523–88), First Women Painter of Florence, in Italian History and Culture 6 (2000). 42 In Donna e fede essays by A. Prosperi and A. Schutte.

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and risks of the Tridentine period for women.43 Nonetheless, the Council’s strictures, like earlier church reforms, did not suppress all female visionary creativity.44 Nor did Trent’s subordinating zeal obliterate agency for less mystical nuns. While in some places the sisters actively resisted the Tridentine discipline, women also spurred the foundation and reform of religious houses. Renée Baernstein’s study of the Sfondrati family and the convent of San Paolo in Milan portrays several generations of female leadership.45 As Elisa Novi Chavarria shows for Naples, Trent’s campaign for cloister, even where successful, did not break connections—holy and practical—that linked nuns to the outside world.46 Convents were very human communities where routine problems of daily life and running institutions still played out.47 For some nuns, agency still took the form of fighting back either formally or through personal transgression. Some, with patience and outside support, petitioned for release from coerced vows.48 A few others took more carnal steps. While at trial she tried to pass blame to her lover, the storied nun of Monza, granddaughter of the first Spanish governor of Milan, got pregnant and was implicated in the murder of a lay sister.49 The abbess Benedetta Carlini of Pescia liked fondling 43 P. Renée Baernstein, A Convent Tale: A Century of Sisterhood in Spanish Milan (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 57–78; Massimo Firpo, “Paola Antonia Negri da ‘Divina madre maestra’ a ‘spirito diabolico,’ ” Barnabiti Studi 7 (1990), 1–65. 44 On later Italian visionaries: Mario Rosa, “La religiosa” in L’uomo barocco, ed. R. Villari (Rome: Laterza, 1991), pp. 219–67; E. Ann Matter, “The Personal and the Paradigm: The Book of Maria Domitilla Galluzzi,” in The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion and the Arts in Early Modern Europe, ed. C. Monson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), pp. 87–103; Antonio Riccardi, “The Mystic Humanism of Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (1566–1607),” in Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 212–36. 45 Baernstein, Convent Tale; on monastic culture in Milan: Danilo Zardin, Donna e religiosa de rara eccellenza: Prospera Corona Bascape. I libri et la cultura nei monasteri milanesi del Cinque e Seicento (Florence: Leo Olschki, 1992). A Roman example: Stefano Andretta, La Venerabile Superbia: Ortodossia e trasgressione nella vita di Suor Francesca Farnese (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1994). 46 Elisa Novi Chavarria, Monache e gentildonne: Un labile confine (Milan: Francoangeli, 2001). 47 Silvia Evangelisti, “ ‘Farne quello che pare e piace . . .’: L’uso e la trasmissione delle celle nel monastero di Santa Giulia di Brescia (1597–1688),” Quaderni storici, n. 88 (1995), 85–110. 48 Francesca Medioli, “To Take or Not to Take the Veil: Selected Italian Case Histories, the Renaissance and After,” in Women in Italian Renaissance Society and Culture, pp. 122–37. 49 Medioli, pp. 122–23; Giuseppe Farinelli and Ermanno Paccagnini, eds., Vita e processo di suor Virginia Maria de Leyva, Monaca di Monza (n.p.: Garzanti, 1989).

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one of her nuns, though her more serious crime was pretending to a sanctity marked by fraudulent stigmata.50 The church punished such transgressions, but often with restraint, preferring to whisk bad examples from public view and to create no martyrs for followers to avenge. Religion also framed the lives of many women—some married, others widowed or single—who did not become nuns. Some pledged formally to religious orders as tertiaries. Others, known as bizzoche or pinzochere, worked alone or often with like-minded women and with sympathetic male spiritual directors, to negotiate their own styles of pious life.51 Charity and teaching attracted female energies in many cities, and new communities embraced this work. Efforts to organize assistance not only served needy widows and girls, but also forged networks of patronage and sociability for female administrators.52 Others, like some of Anne Schutte’s “aspiring saints” in the Veneto, or Jean-Michel Sallmann’s in the Kingdom of Naples, improvised bonds with the divine that fit their temperaments and, often modest, economic means.53 We know of these women because they ran afoul of the Inquisition; their stories tell of gendered suppression, but also of ever-resurgent female agency. Work Proliferating studies have shown that women’s engagement with property was more extensive than the subordination model suggests. At the same time, many women wrestled with poverty. A few benefited

50

Judith Brown, Immodest Acts. The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 51 Gabriella Zarri, “Il ‘terzo stato’,” in Tempi e spazi, pp. 311–34; Katherine Gill “Open Monasteries for Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy: Two Roman Examples,” in Crannied Wall, pp. 15–47. 52 Lucia Ferrante, “Patronesse e patroni in un istituzione assistenziale femminile (Bologna sec. XVII),” in Ragnatele di rapporti, pp. 59–79; Cavallo, Charity and Power; Chojnacka, Working Women. 53 Anne Schutte, Aspiring Saints. Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Jean-Michel Sallmann, Naples et ses saints à l’âge baroque (1540–1750) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1994), pp. 177–210. Also, Luisa Ciammitti, “Una santa di meno: Storia di Angela Mellini, cucitrice bolognese (1677–17[?]),” Quaderni storici, n. 41 (1979), 603–39; Gabriella Zarri, ed., Finzione e santità tra medioevo ed età moderna (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1991), notably essays by G. Palumbo on Naples, G. Signorotto on Milan, and M. Modica Vasta on Sicily.

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from organized charity, accepting shelter or a dowry at the price of institutional oversight.54 Most women, however, had to work, not only to keep house, but also to gain a livelihood. Yet to historians this female labor remains elusive. Moral precepts designed for the elites mislead. The spinning urged on the idle matron to keep her from sin was for ordinary women a matter of survival.55 Especially for economic history at a macro level, uncooperative sources have converged with modern definitions of productive work to make early modern Italian women largely invisible as workers. Large-scale quantitative studies of the size of the labor force, migration, wages, standards of living, and the like usually neglect gender and its ramifications. Medievalists target organized trades and manufactures, where Italian women appear less numerous than in northern Europe.56 Only the textile industries have left evidence of wide female participation.57 Largely informal and unsalaried, most women’s productive labor went first unrecorded and then forgotten. Yet female efforts and skills both sustained their own and their families’ welfare and contributed to the larger economy. While we have piecemeal glimpses of premodern women at work in both rural and urban settings, we need new ways of thinking about labor and economic value before historians can do justice to the female workforce as a whole.58 54

Luisa Ciammitti, “Quanto costa essere normali. La dote nel conservatorio femminile di S. Maria del Baraccano (1630–1680),” Quaderni storici, n. 53 (1983), 469–97; Angela Groppi, “Mercato del lavoro e mercato dell’assistenza: Le opportunità delle donne nella Roma ponteficia,” Memoria, n. 30 (1990), 7–32; Marina D’Amelia, “Economia familiare e sussidi dotali. La politica della Confraternità dell’Annunziata a Roma (secoli XVII–XVIII),” in La donna nell’economia. Secc. XIII–XVIII, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1990), pp. 195–215. 55 Alessandra Mottola Molfino, “Nobili, sagge, et virtuose donne. Libri di modelli per merletti e organizzazione del lavoro femminile tra ’500 e ’600,” in La famiglia e la vita quotidiana in Europa dal ’400 al ’600: Fonti e problemi (Rome: Istituto poligrafico e Zecco dello Stato, 1986), pp. 277–93. 56 R. Greci in Lavoro delle donne, pp. 71–91. Also, Anna Bellavitis, “Donne, cittadinanza e corporazioni tra medioevo e età moderna: ricerche in corso,” in Corpi e storia, pp. 87–104. 57 Judith Brown and Jordan Goodman, “Women and Industry in Florence,” Journal of Economic History 40 (1980), 73–80; Judith Brown, “A Woman’s Place was in the Home: Women’s Work in Renaissance Tuscany,” in Rewriting the Renaissance, ed. M. Ferguson, et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 206–24, 363–70. In Donna nell’economia: Alberto Guenzi, “La tessitura femminile tra città e campagna: Bologna, secoli XVII–XVIII,” pp. 247–59; Walter Panciera, “Emarginazione femminile tra politica salariale e modelli di organizzazione del lavoro nell’industria tessile veneta nel XVIII secolo,” pp. 585–96. 58 Maria Paolo Zanoboni, “’De suo labore et mercede me adiuvavit’: La manodopera femminile a Milano nell’età sforzesca,” Nuova rivista storica 78 (1994), 103–22;

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In the meantime, there is much to learn about how early modern women experienced their skilled and unskilled labor. Exploring sociability more than political economy, Monica Chojnacka’s study of Venice sets a good example. In cities, most women worked as servants, laundresses, and seamstresses.59 Other female specialties, probably often practiced part-time, included midwifery and the concoction of remedies and cosmetics.60 Atypically, a few highly skilled women earned a living as printers, artists and performers.61 More representative, perhaps, was the improvised livelihood gleaned by prostitutes, who, at least in Rome, peddled domestic as well as sexual services. An older literature on prostitution, reiterating subordination, focused on campaigns to regulate or even banish these women.62 More recent work, however, has portrayed them, undaunted by moral stigma, as helping to make their own fates.63 Angela Ghinato, “Le ricamatrici: Un esempio ferrarese,” in Donna e lavoro nell’Italia medievale, ed. M. G. Muzzarelli, et al. (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1991), pp. 83–91; Luciana Morassi, “La donna nell’economia friulana tra Patriarcato e Repubblica,” in Donna nell’economia, pp. 329–44. 59 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Female Celibacy and Service in Florence in the Fifteenth Century,” in Women, Family, and Ritual, pp. 165–77; Oscar Di Simplicio, “Le perpetue (Stato senese, 1600–1800),” Quaderni storici, n. 68 (1988), 381–412; Daniela Lombardi and Flores Reggiani, “Da assista a serva. Circuiti di reclutamento delle serve attraverso le istituzioni assistenziali (Firenze-Milano, XVII–XVIII sec.),” in Donna nell’economia, pp. 301–19; Dennis Romano, Housecraft and Statecraft. Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice, 1400–1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Katherine Rinne, “The Landscape of Laundry in Late Cinquecento Rome,” Studies in the Decorative Arts 9 (2001–02), 34–60. 60 On the Kingdom of Naples, David Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); on Sicily, Maria Sofia Messana, “Malattia, guarigione e pratiche terapeutiche magico-religiose nella Sicilia del Seicento,” Quaderni storici, n. 112 (2003), 93–116; on Brescia, Franca Romano, Guaritrici, veggenti, esorcisti (Rome: Gangemi, 1987). On midwifery, Giulia Calvi, “Manuali delle levatrici (sec. XVII–XVIII),” Memoria, n. 3 (1983), 108–13; Nadia Maria Filippini, “Levatrici e ostetricanti a Venezia tra Sette et Ottocento” Quaderni storici, n. 58 (1985), 149–80, and “The Church, the State and Childbirth: The Midwife in Italy during the Eighteenth Century,” in The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe, ed. H. Marland (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 152–75. 61 Deborah Parker, “Women in the Book Trade in Italy, 1450–1600,” Renaissance Quarterly 49 (1996), 509–41; Evelyn Lincoln, “Making a Good Impression: Diana Mantuana’s Printmaking Career,” Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997), 1101–47. 62 For Sicily, Antonino Cutrera, Storia della prostituzione in Sicilia (Palermo: Editori Stampatori Associati, 1971). For Venice: Antonio Barzaghi, Donne o cortegiane? La prostituzione a Venezia (Verona: Bertani, 1980); Cathy Santore, “Julia Lombarda, ‘Somtuosa Meretrize’: A Portrait by Property,” Renaissance Quarterly 41 (1988), 44–83. 63 For Milan: Stefano D’Amico, “Shameful Mother: Poverty and Prostitution in Seventeenth-Century Milan,” Journal of Family History 30:1 (2005), 109–20. For Rome: Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner, Töchter der Venus (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1995);

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Bodily matters Introduced to historians through Michel Foucault and Norbert Elias, a new domain of inquiry, the body, proposed a range of topics from health and sexuality to consumption. Both theorists identified the early modern period as a critical moment when state structures and “civilizing” norms intensified discipline of not only mind, but body. These codes, coupled with Tridentine strictures, heralded a regime of ambitious regulation. While essays in Storia delle donne in Italia touch bodily matters in religious experience and obstetrics, Laterza’s earlier series covered the topics of consumption and sexuality.64 There, drawing in part on Italian examples, Diane Owen Hughes—on clothing —and Sara Matthews Grieco—on appearance and hygiene— detail elaborate prescriptions for the use and display of female bodies.65 Studies of feminine apparel in Spanish Milan and in Florence agree that, like other forms of conspicuous consumption, dress carried symbolic weight and gendered meanings.66 Hughes suggests, however, that, besides subordination, there could also be female agency. Women, even some young brides, requested special fabrics and furbelows. Questions remain about who chose what to buy and display and decided to whom to give the treasures next. While studies of eighteenth-century England report the growing power of female shoppers, work on Italy, based on inheritance law and wills, suggests that early modern women were rather losing control of resources.67 Here Elizabeth Cohen, “Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 22 (1992), 597–625, and “Seen and Known: Prostitutes in the Cityscape of Late Sixteenth-Century Rome,” Renaissance Studies 12 (1998), 392–409; Alessandra Camerano, “Donne oneste o meretrici? Incertezza dell’identità fra testmenti e diritto di proprietà a Roma,” Quaderni storici, n. 99 (1998), 637–75; Tessa Storey, “Storie di prostituzione nella Roma della Controriforma,” Quaderni storici, n. 106 (2001), 261–93. 64 For example: Bynum in Donna e fede; Ferrante in Lavoro delle donne; Filippini in Storia della maternità. 65 Diane Owen Hughes, “Le mode femminili e il loro controllo,” in Storia delle donne: Il medioevo, pp. 166–93; Sara Matthews Grieco, “Corpo, aspetto e sessualità,” in Storia delle donne: Dal Rinascimento all’età moderna, pp. 53–99. 66 Paola Venturelli, Vestire e apparire. Il sistema vestimentario femminile nella Milano spagnola (1539–1679) (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999); Carole Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press, 2002). A rich primary source: Giovanni Battista Spaccini, Il registro di guardaroba dell’Infante Isabella Savoia d’Este (1617–1630), ed. G. Biondi (Modena: Archivio storico, 2000). 67 Sandra Cavallo, “What Did Women Transmit? Ownership and Control of Household Goods and Personal Effects in Early Modern Italy,” in Gender and Material Culture in Historical Perspective, ed. M. Donald and L. Hurcombe (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 38–53.

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again, historians may see agency or subordination depending on the evidence and their expectations. Early modern Italian views of gendered bodies and sexuality belonged to a wide European medical and moral culture. Concerning physiology and sexual difference, medieval and Renaissance literature drew on learned writing from across Europe.68 While historians can scarcely see the marital bulk of sexual activity, illicit behavior that invited repression generated archived paper. Records of Italian ecclesiastical and city tribunals reveal varieties of local custom and considerable agency, as people not only submitted to the courts, but also used them to achieve their own sense of right order. Articles about premarital pregnancies in Piedmont and unpaid prostitutes in Bologna, for example, show that early modern women, though subject to sexual exploitation, did struggle for their own interests.69 In Lucia Ferrante’s apt phrase, sexuality sometimes served as a “resource.”70 Guido Ruggiero’s Venetian microhistories also illustrate women striving to manipulate sex for power.71 Intellectual and artistic life In Laterza’s Italian series the most notable gap concerning early modern women is cultural and intellectual life. The subordination model judges these activities out of bounds to women. Traditional 68 Joan Cadden, Meaning of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Ian Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Ottavia Niccoli, “ ‘Menstruum quasi monstruum’: Parti mostruosi e tabù mestruali nel ’500,” Quaderni storici, n. 44 (1980), 402–28; Katharine Park, “Dissecting the Female Body: From Woman’s Secrets to the Secrets of Nature,” in Crossing Boundaries: Attending to Early Modern Women, ed. J. Donawerth and A. Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), pp. 29–47. 69 Sandra Cavallo and Simona Cerutti, “Onore femminile e controllo sociale della riproduzione in Piemonte tra Sei e Settecento,” Quaderni storici, n. 44 (1980), 346–83; Lucia Ferrante, “Pro mercede carnali . . . Il giusto prezzo rivendicato in tribunale,” Memoria, n. 17 (1986), 42–58. Also, Elizabeth Cohen, “La verginità perduta: Autorappresentazione di giovani donne nella Roma barocca,” Quaderni storici, n. 67 (1988), 169–91; Georgia Arrivo, “Raccontare lo stupro. Strategie narrative e modelli giudiziari nei processi fiorentini di fine Settecento,” in Corpi e storia, pp. 69–86. 70 Lucia Ferrante, “La sessualità come risorsa. Donne davanti al foro arcivescovile di Bologna (Sec. XVII),” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome 99, pt. 2 (1987), 989–1016. 71 Guido Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), and “The Abbot’s Concubine: Lies, Literature, and Power at the End of the Renaissance,” in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, ed. E. Kittell and T. Madden (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), pp. 166–80.

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misogyny argued that, as a sex, women could not produce worthy art; norms of sexual propriety said that they should not venture onto public terrain. Nevertheless, digging outside the canon, historians of literature, art and music have unearthed much indisputable documentation of women’s participation. Creative work in various media engaged female minds and purses across society. Women patrons, particularly of art and church decoration, were active.72 Educated women, living both secular and religious lives, wrote poetry, drama, letters, histories, devotional texts, and polemics.73 We do not yet know of Italian women, who, like Christine de Pizan, wrote to support themselves or their children. There were, however, professional painters and performers. Although pronouncements that women never produced “great” art have muted somewhat, debates about gender, style, and quality continue. Witness, for example, recent controversy stirred by the joint exhibition of the Gentileschi painters, father and daughter.74 While in principle public display put a woman’s honor at risk, in practice it could bring renown. Much depended on who and what and where. Compare the fates of two celebrated prodigies of Latin learning. In Quattrocento Florence, slander hounded the precocious Isotta Nogarola from the fray of humanist debate into a retreat of 72 Catherine King, Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy, c. 1300–1550 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Sheryl Reiss and David Wilkens, eds., Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2001); Mary-Ann Winkelmes, “Taking Part: Benedictine Nuns as Patrons of Art and Architecture,” in Picturing Women, pp. 91–110; Carolyn Valone, “Roman Matrons as Patrons: Various Views of the Cloister Wall,” in Crannied Wall, pp. 49–72. 73 A compact survey of genres with bibliography on individual writers and Italian texts: Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood, eds., A History of Women’s Writing in Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). The University of Chicago Press “Other Voice” series offers English translations of, inter alia: Laura Cereta; Tullia d’Aragona; Cassandra Fedele; Veronica Franco; Moderata Fonte; Lucrezia Marinella; Antonia Pulci; Arcangela Tarabotti; Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici. Letters: Gabriella Zarri, ed., Per lettere. La scrittura epistolare femminile tra archivio e tipografia, secoli XV–XVII (Rome: Viella, 1999); Alessandra Strozzi, Selected Letters. A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. H. Gregory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Virginia Galilei, Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623–1633, [bilingual] ed. and trans. D. Sobel (London: Penguin, 2001). Histories: Silvia Evangelisti, “Angelica Baitelli, la storica,” in Barocco al femminile, pp. 71–95; K. J. P. Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 74 Keith Christiansen and Judith Mann, eds., Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi (New Haven: Yale, 2001); Judith Mann, ed., Artemisia Gentileschi: Taking Stock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005). Also, Mary Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

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chaste, solitary study.75 In 1678, Eleonora Cornaro Piscopia, under her father’s wing, disputed at the university in Padua and won a doctorate in philosophy; her degree won glory for her family, but we do not know how she herself profited.76 Princely courts and the prestigious arts they fostered gave talented women greater opportunities to perform and prosper. Reared and trained in artistic families, painters and musicians earned money and honor for themselves and their kin—Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Francesca Caccini, among others.77 Even courtesans like Veronica Franco and Tullia d’Aragona could elevate their scandalous lifestyle by literary dexterity.78 In a world of artistic rivalry and intellectual disputes, publicly creative women sometimes faced criticism. Typically, men accused them of breaching norms of chastity as well as silence. Some scholars read such invective as, for women, not mere ludic combat but annihilation. Yet research keeps finding more culturally active women, and few Nogarolas. These gifted women, often with their families, found space to thrive within the confining norms. In the right circumstances public display brought more honor than shame. 75 Margaret King, “The Religious Retreat of Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466): Sexism and its Consequences in the Fifteenth Century,” Signs 3 (1978), 807–22. 76 Paul Kristeller, “Learned Women of Early Modern Italy: Humanists and University Scholars,” in Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, ed. P. Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1980), pp. 91–116. Also, on women and humanism: Margaret King and Albert Rabil, Jr., eds., Her Immaculate Hand (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983); Cecil Clough, “Daughters and Wives of the Montefeltro: Outstanding Bluestockings of the Quattrocento,” Renaissance Studies 10 (1996), 31–55. By the mid-eighteenth century challenges for women interested in science had changed, if not eased; e.g. Paula Findlen, “Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi,” Isis 84 (1993), 441–69. 77 Ilya Perligieri, Sofonisba Anguissola (New York: Rizzoli, 1992); Caroline Murphy, Lavinia Fontana (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Jadranka Bentini and Vera Fortunati, eds., Elisabetta Sirani, “pittrice eroina” 1638–1665 (Bologna; Editrice Compositori, 2004); Jane Bowers, “The Emergence of Women Composers in Italy, 1566–1700,” in Women Making Music, ed. J. Bowers and J. Tick (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), pp. 116–61; Beth Glixon, “New Light on the Life and Career of Barbara Strozzi,” Musical Quarterly 81 (1997), 311–35; Suzanne Cusick, “A Soprano Subjectivity: Vocality, Power, and the Compositional Voice of Francesca Caccini,” in Crossing Boundaries: Attending to Early Modern Women, pp. 80–98; Anne MacNeil, Music and Women of the Commedia dell’Arte in the Late Sixteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 78 Margaret Rosenthal, The Honest Courtesan. Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth Century Venice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Fiora Bassanese, “Selling the Self, or the Epistolary Production of Renaissance Courtesans,” in Italian Women Writers from the Renaissance to the Present, ed. M. Mariotti (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1996), pp. 46–82.

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Within this array of expression by early modern women, some scholars have sought a specifically female consciousness, or even a female culture.79 Historians of art and literature have probed creators’ language and thought, including their views of gender. Attributing modern feminist views to this era demands caution. Yet in striking, now recovered texts, a few writers, notably Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti, did speak out against patriarchy’s constraints and scorn.80 Meanwhile, many creative women worked within the practices of their profession and status, where they acted for their patrons as much as for themselves. The domain of self-expression expanded in the early modern period, but women continued to speak mostly through conventions set by men. Social and cultural historians are perforce more tentative about describing the subjectivities of the less articulate. Using methods from cultural studies, a swelling scholarship seeks to explore idioms and beliefs of people beyond the elite. Building on Ginzburg’s study of Menocchio and its critiques, we need more work on how broadly shared ideas and attitudes might have translated into the minds of those not formally educated, including most women. Furthermore, since much cultural history reads male-authored texts, we should ask explicitly how—variously—women received and used these ideas. Politics The Laterza collection also omits politics. True, in this domain institutional practices support the subordination model. The blanket exclusion of women from administrative or judicial office—in theory and in practice—might seem to end the story. Nevertheless, the ban itself evolved, indeed clarified and tightened, as early modern states and their bureaucracies consolidated; it is worth tracking this process and its impact. For example, in some urban communes in northern Europe, when male political participation broadened, women’s displacement from public power sharpened.81 Does this hypothesis apply to republics in Renaissance Italy? 79 Societa italiana delle storiche, Discutendo di storia: soggettività, ricerca, biografia (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1990). 80 Ginevra Conti Odorisio, Donna e società nel Seicento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1979); Virginia Cox, “The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early Modern Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly 48 (1995), 513–81. 81 Martha Howell, “Citizenship and Gender: Women’s Political Status in Northern

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In princely states, on the other hand, where political activity centered on the court, women could play influential roles as patrons, as brokers, and occasionally as regents. While in Castiglione’s Cortegiano Duchess Elisabetta presides over parlor games, not military strategies and budgets, letters of her real-life counterparts show high-born women proffering sweet talk and gifts, gleaning and forwarding precious information, negotiating for posts and emoluments, and maneuvering to pry their menfolk out of trouble. Through self-presentation and art patronage, noblewomen also participated actively in the politics of display. Several studies have followed Roman aristocrats, their family relationships and their larger networks of influence.82 In the case of a queen, like Elisabetta Farnese, second wife of Philip V of Spain, the political ramifications were European in scope.83 Occasionally, women even ruled, in fact, if not in form.84 At the other end of the social spectrum lies the largely unexplored domain of neighborhood and village politics, where women frequently took informal part. Norms of female silence dated from St. Paul, and yet real women gossiped, consulted, and arranged family and local affairs. In difficult situations they sometimes resorted, as providers and purchasers, to such weapons of the weak as magic.85 While both verbal and material stratagems often targeted personal relationships, the face-to-face nature of local life readily gave them broader repercussions. Tommaso Astarita’s account of Pentidattilo in Calabria provides an example, as do Thomas Cohen’s tales from Rome.86 With Medieval Cities,” in Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. M. Erler and M. Kowaleski (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 37–60. A parallel argument has been made about the enlargement of political participation in the social contract thinking of the eighteenth century. 82 Renata Ago, “Giochi di squadra: uomini e donne nelle famiglie nobili del XVII secolo,” in Signori, patrizi, cavalieri nell’età moderna, ed. M. A. Visceglia (Rome: Laterza, 1992), pp. 256–64; Marina D’Amelia, “Nepotismo al femminile. Il caso di Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj,” in La nobiltà romana in età moderna, ed. M. A. Visceglia (Rome: Carocci, 2001), pp. 353–99; Benedetta Borello, Trame sovrapposte. La socialità aristocratica et le reti di relazioni femminili a Roma (XVII–XVIII secolo) (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2003). 83 Mirella Mafrici, Fascino e potere di una regina. Elisabetta Farnese sulla scena europea (1715–1759) (Cava de’ Tirreni: Avagliano, 1999). 84 For Alfonsina Orsini de’ Medici, Natalie Tomas, The Medici Women. Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003). 85 David Gentilcore, From Bishop to Witch (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992). Documentary accounts of witches: Franco Cardini, ed., Gostanza, la strega di San Miniato (Rome: Laterza, 1989); La confessione di una strega (Rome: Bulzoni, 1989); Franca Romano, Laura Malipiero, strega (Rome: Meltemi, 1996). 86 Tommaso Astarita, Village Justice. Community, Family and Popular Culture in Early

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women largely shut out of formal governance, we should not exaggerate their political roles; yet we also err in writing them out altogether.

Diversifying women’s history Storia delle donne in Italia was a milestone for the field of the mid-1990’s. As in other general works, the use of the generic “women” and emphasis on the deep and subordinated continuities of female experience persisted. In parallel, the view of women’s otherness perpetuated their analytical isolation. These perceptions remain powerful, but the field also benefits from more systematic recognition of diversity among women. Attention to differences of social class, time, and place supports better connections between female experience and broader early modern institutional and cultural developments. The focus on differences also allows for comparisons and for tracking convergent and divergent change. Establishing standards of measurement, especially for the little recorded but crucial dimensions of social practice and everyday identity formation, is a challenge that beckons scholarly collaboration. Status and class In the Laterza series, as in many general treatments of women’s history, categories of gender mostly trump those of class. These gendered statuses rest on the habitual classification of female lives into a series of stages defined by marriage and reproduction: unwed daughter, wife, mother, widow.87 Catholic Europe requires as well the parallel status of nun that partakes socially, if not physically, of the others. The dominating institutions of family and church thus define the key female identities. The three Laterza volumes on marriage, motherhood, and religion take such categories as their central focus. For the early modern period, although less advantaged women did sometimes cross the stage, elites hog the limelight. With some exceptions, few essays look closely at how differences of rank and wealth altered the ways

Modern Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Thomas Cohen, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). 87 Silvana Seidel Menchi, “La fanciulla e la clessidra. Nota sulla periodizzazione della vita femminile nelle società preindustriali,” in Tempi e spazi, pp. 105–55.

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women played out these standard roles. Only the fourth volume, on work, deals with a class rather than a status category. There premodern women’s work appears compared to men’s, but seldom with an eye to broader class variables. Social class and economic resources influenced both female subordination and female agency. Let us look briefly at two examples. The first, quantitative, asks how rates and timing of nuptiality responded to shifting access to dowries. When demographers controlled for class, they found, sometimes, differences between patricians and the mass of the population, but, at other times, less gap than they expected. The second case compares the ideal of seclusion with the realities of mobility. Although the subordination model presumes domestic isolation, the agency approach, in fact, finds females, regularly, in public spaces, even streets and highways. Yet, as studies show for Venice, class markedly affected patterns of movement. Patrician women, with material comforts and servants at their behest, appeared less freely outside their homes; working women, in contrast, needed to circulate, consort with their peers, and sometimes even migrate to survive.88 Instead of privileging the more accessible elites and their ideals, synthetic discussion of early modern women should consider also the practices of the majority. Time and change Women’s historians still lack a consensus about which chronologies matter.89 For Italy we cannot complain about scholarly neglect of the early modern centuries. Nevertheless, Laterza’s volumes share with many topical anthologies a quite amorphous sense of time. A habit of thinking that women, especially before modernity, were little touched by history makes dates incidental. While few would now contend that nothing ever moved, women’s historians continue to debate the directions of change and the period categories best fitted to female experiences. The persistent resonance of Joan Kelly’s question of 1976—“Did Women Have a Renaissance?”—reflects this uncertainty.90 In any case, an earlier generation’s presumption that 88 Dennis Romano, “Gender and the Urban Geography of Renaissance Venice,” Journal of Social History 28 (1989), 339–53; Chojnacka, Working Women. Propriety for noblewomen need not require the strict seclusion; for Rome, Borello, Trame sovrapposte. 89 Wiesner-Hanks, “Storia delle donne,” pp. 35–46. 90 Joan Kelly-Gadol, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?,” in Becoming Visible:

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women’s lot improved after some unspecified low point in the premodern past must be rejected on two scores. First, as I suggest above, all early modern women did not share a single condition. Second, emerging evidence shows that in some domains, particularly access to and control of property, between the Middle Ages and nineteenth century, things got worse before they got better. While the hopeful ideologies that scholars like Romeo De Maio saw in the Renaissance may have brought—eventually—more freedom for women, it was no simple, upward progress.91 Without a clear temporal framework of social, ideological and other change, studies on women often sit apart from the larger picture of historical development. Some broadly argued social histories do treat rates of marriage or female transmission of property, but few follow women’s distinct trajectories through time. Pomata’s synthetic account of the rise and decline of family agnaticism is exceptional in its precise timing of changes that affected women from the sixteenth into the nineteenth centuries. More of this sharp and consistent sense of chronology would help build bridges between women’s and other history. Place and local identities Here we address geohistorical categories that matter particularly to a volume on Spanish Italy. Storia delle donne in Italia begs several questions for the premodern period. It is not clear what features of women’s lives were distinctively Italian, as opposed to continental— European, on the one hand, or regional—Lombard, Florentine, or Neapolitan, on the other. Essays in Laterza’s volumes evoke broad cultural norms rooted deep in Western thought and Christianity— chastity and piety for women, misogyny for men—that Italians shared with many other Europeans. They also draw on that bulk of historical research that focuses on particular locales. Like the rest of Italian historiography, studies about women are distributed unevenly along the peninsula. Cities are visited and villages and rural hinterlands frequently bypassed. North, as usual, outweighs south. While

Women in European History, ed. R. Bridenthal, et al., (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), pp. 137–64; compare Elissa Weaver, “Gender” in Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance, ed. G. Ruggiero (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 188–207. 91 Romeo De Maio, Donna e Rinascimento (Milan: Mondadori, 1987).

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women in Milan, Bologna, and Rome have their researchers, Florence and Venice have commanded, especially from foreign scholars, a lionness’s share of the attention.92 Local inquiries seldom peer past their own boundaries to make comparisons.93 Synthetic projects have investigated regional variety of family structures, but rarely other topics.94 It is thus difficult both to determine how localities were distinct and, especially where chronology is also loose, to trace their participation in larger patterns of change. Taking, for example, the case of Florence, we encounter the difficulties both of measuring difference and explaining it. Was the heavy patriarchy imputed to Quattrocento Florence the upshot of a distinctive political regime? Or, was it an early manifestation of agnatic family strategies that came to prominence a century later in other Italian states? Did Florence in the sixteenth century become less patriarchal, or had it never been so different from other regions in the first place? Framed as they are, the Laterza volumes cannot take on such questions. The essays vary in their specificity of place, but overall the strategy supplies data from a mix of cities and regions and then leaves the reader to extrapolate from the studied to the still obscure. Confronting the many gaps in local knowledge, historians who herd all women into the corral of commonality usually assume similarity, not difference. A brief review of what we know of women in the Kingdom of Naples illustrates the complexities of these arguments about common ground and regional distinctions. Here studies represent women of diverse class and status. Delille and Da Molin describe broad aspects of demography, family, and property. Visceglia does similarly for the aristocracy and also explores class-specific glosses on proper female conduct. Novi Chiavarria and others show us elite female monasticism. Sallmann tells of irregular holy women, mostly of lesser rank, who

92 Various regional syntheses: Federica Ambrosini, “Toward a Social History of Women in Venice,” in Venice Reconsidered, ed. J. Martin and D. Romano (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pp. 420–53; Rachele Farina, Dizionario biografico delle donne lombarde, 568–1968 (Milan: Baldini and Castoldi, 1995); Gabriella Olla Repetto, “La donna cagliaritana tra ’400 e ’600,” in La famiglia e la vita quotidiana in Europa dal ’400 al ’600: Fonti e problemi (Rome: Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1986), pp. 251–76. 93 Some that do compare: Cohn, Women in the Streets; Merzario in Lavoro delle donne; Brown, “Monache”; Schutte, Aspiring Saints. 94 Marzio Barbagli, Sotto lo stesso tetto: Mutamenti della famiglia in Italia dal XV al XX secolo (Bologna: Mulino, 1984, 2000); Da Molin, Famiglia et matrimonio; Pomata, “Family and gender.”

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aspired in vain to sainthood. Such “living saints” also appear in Gentilcore’s work, along with informal healers and others who risked prosecution as witches. Astarita’s account of husband murder in Calabria reveals social negotiations and women’s strategies among ordinary villagers. Can we then speak of Regno women as collectively distinct? Certainly, Italian historiography, rooted in divergent regional patterns of political regimes, land tenure patterns, class formation, and urbanization, would predict differences between South and North. Chronologies also do not match neatly, as social studies of northern cities often focus on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while those on the Kingdom are fuller from the seventeenth. Nevertheless, for a mix of reasons, not least of which common historical questions and metaphors—“living saints,” for example, the women of Naples that we see in these studies look a lot like their social peers elsewhere. Visceglia’s essay on aristocratic ideals for women seeks to distinguish Neapolitan from Tuscan preferences, but, as she acknowledges, there is a lot of commonality in these codes and the varieties of hue that she suggests need testing in non-prescriptive sources. The expectation of more stringent sexual honor in the Mezzogiorno may have seemed likely to nineteenth-century hindsight, but for the early modern period this remains unproven. Rome and more northerly cities took honor seriously, but also knew that, especially for ordinary people, life needed it to be negotiable. The same is likely in the South. Like the control of property, sexual propriety is a paradoxical domain where strictures on women may have first become more demanding as modernity advanced. The harvest of knowledge on the Neapolitan women so far indicates that differences are less likely to crop up regionally than between social groups or between ecological zones with distinct land tenure arrangements. Gauging the Italian impact of Spaniards and Spanish culture will have to await more study and specifically gendered analysis of several distinct regions, both before and after the Iberians’ arrival. Certainly, Spanish women, both mean and great, made lives for themselves in Italy. At one end of the spectrum, with literary irony burnishing the profiles of the Losana Andalusa and Isabella de Luna, Spanish women numbered among the famous prostitutes of Rome.95 At the other end were lofty noblewomen who accompanied their 95 Francisco Delicado, Ritratto della Losana andalusa, ed. T. Sirri (Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1998); Deanna Shemek, Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), pp. 158–80.

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viceregal kinsmen and, on occasion, married Italian princes. Among these some had real influence. The Spanish-born Eleonora of Toledo travelled in 1539 from her father’s Neapolitan court to wed Cosimo de Medici, Duke of Florence; with heirs, spousal counsel, and cultural and religious initiatives she helped consolidate her husband’s regime.96 Similarly, the Infanta Catalina Michaela of Austria, daughter of Philip II and, in 1585, wife of Carlo Emmanuele of Savoy, had a big hand in the reorganization of his ducal court.97 Where, through politics and marriage, Spaniards took power, they shook up government personnel and patronage networks. The benefit from the distribution of goods and favors to different people and religious congregations could initiate shifts in religious and cultural sensibilities. Eleonora of Toledo, again, invited the Jesuits to Florence. As Sebastian Schütze’s essay here shows, Spanish rulers in Naples brought new preferences for art. And fashion, especially where novelty bore ever more prestige, revised consumption and display. With the Spanish mode of somber attire, for example, courts literally changed color. Political hegemony was not a simple vector for shifting taste. Nor were appearances mere play. As Giulia Calvi suggests concerning Florence’s early modern sumptuary legislation, leaders could seek to reinforce or modify power relations by manipulating clothing.98 If in this instance Duke Cosimo and his successors did not self-consciously adopt a “Spanish” policy, elements of Iberian vestimentary practices that had infused Tuscan culture may have colored the ideological materials with which the Florentine rulers worked. Deep adjustments to the gender regime, altering laws, customs, and attitudes that gave texture widely to the relations between men and women, if they happened at all, would likely have come slowly and been hard for historians to detect. Future research on the women of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, Sicily and many other still shadowy regions will uncover much that resembles the lives of their contemporaries elsewhere in Italy and in Europe. But, the more we know, the more local variety will also appear. Spanish dominance may well turn out to have had some influence on women, but it is likely to have differed by place and by social class.

96 Konrad Eisenbichler, ed., The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence and Siena (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004). 97 Annibal Guasco, Discourse to Lady Lavinia, His Daughter, ed. P. Osborn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 4–8. 98 Giulia Calvi, “Abito, genere, cittadinanza nella Toscana moderna (Secc. XVI–XVII),” Quaderni storici, n. 110 (2002), 477–503.

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While our scope still has limits, we know much more about early modern Italiane than we did thirty years ago. Historians have both reviewed the norms and structures that devalued and oppressed women and recovered the successful and flawed, eloquent and ignorant, creative and conventional actions and words of many of them. A more comprehensive and balanced understanding follows from examining both subordination and agency in relation to one another and in a variety of specific historical contexts. The somber catalogue of precepts and disciplines that kept women down must not stand alone, lest the fascinating play of female ambitions, fears, and deeds go unattended. Nor should historians of agency forget that women acted in a culture of constraint, so that they rarely matched the most famous male achievements. But much of history was the everyday; there women not merely took part, they were often essential players. Only by shuttling between the models of subordination and agency can scholars approach the big questions: change and causality? In the history of a gendered Italian and European world, change manifestly occurred; the nineteenth century did not look like the Middle Ages. But where were the turning points? Do we join those who reclaim the Renaissance from Kelly? Is the eighteenth century, as some suggest, more critical? And are gender relations the mere echo of change in other domains of power? Or do they form an integral part of the social, economic and political processes by which we track historical evolution of the sort discussed elsewhere in this collection of essays? For many aspects of early modern Italian history both these last statements are true. History without women is incomplete; history without female agents cannot account for all that happened.

CHAPTER TWELVE

GOVERNMENT/ADMINISTRATION: THE ITALIAN KINGDOMS WITHIN THE SPANISH MONARCHY* Mireille Peytavin

The Italian states that had passed under Spanish rule already had developed over the centuries their own perfectly functional institutional systems of administration and government.1 The formerly independent Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of Naples, and Duchy of Milan were placed under the authority of the Council of Italy when it was created in the mid-sixteenth century, while the Kingdom of Sardinia continued to be a dependency of the Council of Aragon, and thus, from a strictly institutional point of view, was not a part of the corpus considered here. Sicily, Naples, and Milan became a part of the Spanish holdings in quite different ways, which influenced the relations that they succeeded in establishing with the monarchy. Sicilians liked to recall that they had given themselves voluntarily to the king of Aragon at the time of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, freely choosing their new sovereign. In the name of the liberty that the Sicilians had enjoyed for several centuries, the Spanish limited their interference on the administrative level. They willingly recognized that special circumstances conditioned the forms and the rules of their presence, which is why they accepted the notion that offices in Sicily would be systematically reserved to native Sicilians. After a number of dynastic vicissitudes, Ferdinand the Catholic used military conquest to defeat Angevin claims to the Kingdom of Naples in 1503. In administrative terms, this conquest translated into * Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Abbreviations AGS Archivo General de Simancas ASN Archivio di Stato di Napoli BNM Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid BSNSP Biblioteca della Società Napoletana di Storia Patria 1 For all bibliographical and archival references, see my study, Mireille Peytavin, Visite et gouvernement dans le Royaume de Naples, XVI–XVII e siècles (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2003).

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a much larger Spanish intervention than was true in Sicily. Throughout the early modern period, the Neapolitans remained highly aware of how they became subjected to the Spanish crown. For example, Spanish personnel and Neapolitans shared the right to hold the various offices of the Kingdom; the division was regulated by pragmatics established by the viceroys, and these offices were the object of bitter competition. Finally, the Duchy of Milan joined the Italian territories under Spanish possession by feudal devolution. Given the duchy’s importance, Emperor Charles V decided to govern it directly and invested his son Philip with Milan in 1545. The quite different conditions at different times in which Sicily, Naples, and Milan came into the Spanish monarchy meant that the connections between those territories and the monarchy—and the ways in which the monarchy dealt with each of them—differed enormously as well. It is important to avoid forcing them into a common framework. Differentiating these three unique histories, relationships, and jurisdictions is absolutely necessary; still, the fact that Sicily, Naples, and Milan comprised the Council of Italy authorizes a certain number of insights that can prove highly useful in treating them together as an ensemble. This is all the more true because, despite the existence of the Council of Italy, the histories of the three realms have usually been treated separately. There is no doubt, however, that persons existed—in Madrid, Palermo, Naples, Milan, and probably elsewhere—who conceived of administrative and management reforms on the scale of all three of these territories (and I attempt to throw light on their acts below), even as they were mindful of the importance and the historical origins of the singularities of each realm. Generally speaking, the new rulers retained the existing institutional systems. Undeniably, the complexity and sophistication of those systems had nothing to envy their Aragonese or Castilian counterparts, despite the evident modernity of the structures recast by the Catholic kings. The ancient date and the solidity of the administrations of the respective kingdoms spoke in favor of their functionality, while the series of major reforms imposed in the Duchy of Milan by its most recent possessors guaranteed their adaptation to later changes. Moreover, one would have to know these various systems thoroughly in order to compare them and draw up proposals for restructuring them. The foreign dynasties (the kings of Aragon, then the Habsburgs) always used common sense and pragmatism in their dealings with

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these new territories. The new rulers do not seem ever to have acted out of a desire to institute other forms of organization by force, or without first measuring the chances of such novelties being accepted. Nor is it probable that they had the means for conceiving or imposing other organizations, and in any event these would probably not have been radically different. At the moment of their installation, the Spanish did not force radical changes in orientation. Rather, they followed the evolution of events and sought to inflect the results of change. Moreover, such evolutions were not typically Spanish; they were part of a broader movement of increased complexity within all administrations in Western European monarchies of the early modern period. Although the new sovereigns did not destroy the institutional structures of their new possessions, they did make certain additions, such as the Collateral Council, founded in Naples by Ferdinand of Aragon. His aim was to provide a high council or authority for systems that otherwise might topple; just as he imposed the presence of viceroys, first in Sicily then in Naples, and of a governor in Milan. If new influences necessarily had their effect, it was nevertheless at the heart of those institutions that changes aimed at making them function better arose. Indeed, the circuits that were established as time went on—diplomatic and military, commercial, and especially financial, both inside and outside of the territories—were shifted to the advantage of the Spanish monarchy. In this fashion, the installation of a new source of sovereignty did not lead to dismantling the institutional structure or to challenging social hierarchies. To the extent that social classes remained useful, they were used, as far as was possible, in ways that conformed to Spanish interests. Thus the administration of these territories can quite well be conceived of as an instrument used by the Spanish monarchy for the government of its Italian possessions, without forcing any one of those territories to abandon what made it singular and what provided its inhabitants with a source of pride. And why should they not feel proud? There were few people, among the populations living within those territories, who had any awareness of belonging to a broader community, who felt the need to merge into a vaster whole, or who wanted to take on collective ambitions. The high view is the privilege of the very few. One might include among those few the three Italian ministers who sat on the Council of Italy at the side of their three Spanish colleagues and who were prepared to respond to questions regarding their land of origin.

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The history of institutions in Spain’s Italian domains is thus placed under the seal of permanence: a long and heavy permanence. Thanks to their inscription in the long term, those institutions did a remarkably good job of surviving dynastic transitions—which made them a superb instrument of government. Of course, it is of basic importance to describe that instrument, its composition and its rules, and to know how to relate the various institutions to one another so as to arrive at an orderly, readable, and comprehensible whole that, in the long run, permits a clear description of administrative functions.2 What I shall attempt to do in this essay, working on the basis of such indispensable works, is to identify a certain number of articulations put into place in the early modern period between administration and government, but also between monarchy and territories. Do these paired terms overlap? Must we make a strict separation between a monarchy that governs and territories that administer? Don’t these words—monarchies, territories, kingdoms—become hollow shells thanks to having been used, precisely, for their apparent neutrality? Can we not attempt to give them a content, to humanize them? I shall use a few examples to throw a little light on the different ways that both Italians and Spaniards made use of the precious instrument of administration, All of them tried to warp it, bending it to revised missions. I shall treat three points: first, the small groups of letrados— jurists who peopled the administration—who decided and perhaps inspired the policies of the monarchy: this is the level of the councils. The second is the question of the changes brought to the “style” of the courts as they fluctuated between a conscientious attempt to achieve consent and the temptation to be authoritarian: this is the level of institutions. The third is the shift in which those who represented sovereignty distributed favors: this is the level of the ministers. How can one explain these three orientations? I will show that there were—as was true in the Spanish monarchy and in the other states of the early modern period—factors of a general evolution that, accompanied more or less closely by the Spanish monarchy, influenced the history of institutions and the Italian ministers. The first point to be made is that we can see the establishment and the consolidation of connections (or rather exchange circuits) on the admin2

See the remarkable presentation by Roberta Colussi, the most recent in a long series of works on the history of law: Roberta Colussi, “Diritto, istituzioni, amministrazione della giustizia nel Mezzogiorno vicereale,” in Storia del Mezzogiorno, ed. Giuseppe Galasso and Rosario Romeo, 15 vols. in 19 pts. (Milan: Editalia, 1994), vol. 11, Aspetti e problemi del Medioevo e dell’età moderna, 17–131.

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istrative level between the small group of council members whose daily tasks were carried out at the heart of the monarchy, at the side of the king, and another small group, perhaps comparable to the first, that worked at the heart of the Italian domains at the side of the viceroys and governors. The concept of this circuit of exchanges and its animation passed through the founding of the Council of Italy and the organization and regular operation of the general visits, a sign and condition of its strength. Council members worked to construct the various elements that defined the Spanish monarchy, which in the early modern period meant describing the type of relations that it established with its various component territories. Such connections eventually encouraged attempts to administer the territories at a distance, first by creating entities within which this could be done if so decided. This was something totally new in terms of the traditional Italian systems, but it was innovation by addition, as with the installation of viceroys and governors. Moreover, government by councils and the practice of official visits had already existed in the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. The Spanish monarchy transposed methods that had proven their worth elsewhere, in the case of Italy affixing them somewhat artificially onto existing structures. Nonetheless, the change of scale that this required was so vast that by their number and breadth of powers the general visits became a genuine object of curiosity. The same methods—government by council and general visits—were applied in the vast American holdings under the tutelage of the Council of the Indies. One would have to admit that in the Italian territories the Council of Italy and the visit were at times poorly understood and not always taken completely seriously. A second point to be made is that notable efforts were made within these new Spanish institutions (new, that is, for the Italian domains), the Council of Italy and the general visit, to attempt to change the “style” of Italian institutions. I am using terms like “attempt” and “efforts” because I want to avoid an overly authoritarian view of Spanish action pertaining to Italian systems. The Spanish Monarchy was not always safe from the temptation to be authoritarian, but when decisions were applied autocratically—on the administrative level at least—it was only because there was no overly virulent opposition to them. Here the reform of the courts in Sicily in 1564 is a case in point.3 3 Vittorio Sciuti Russi, Astrea in Sicilia: Il ministero togato nella società siciliana dei secoli XVI e XVII (Naples: Jovene, 1983).

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The models that the Spanish proposed were always the “styles” current in Castile, in particular that of the Chancellery of Valladolid. Although it is nearly impossible to give a rigorous definition of the “style” of a court, we can say that the term covers its specificity, its customs, and its internal rules, but excludes all principles of law. These “styles” were formalized with difficulty and late, and then only in the form of brief manuals for internal use. Rather, they constitute the unwritten practices reserved to the personnel of a court, distinguishing that court from others: they determine the organization of the week and the schedule for the hours of the day; they set procedural order, noting who receives cases and who distributes them, who redacts summaries and who presents them for signature, who establishes the hearing dates and who summons lawyers, prosecutors, etc. Admittedly, this is all extremely useful information. Both the visitors and the Council of Italy offered proposals for reshaping these “styles.” Their suggestions were genuine programs for reform. First such reports were brought to the attention of the ministers concerned and submitted for their approval. Then they were gradually refined in a process that involved much shuttling back and forth to the Council. This studied attempt to gain the Council’s consent might just as easily result in reasonable-sounding reforms that were put into effect, in working documents that ended up watered down to the point of being totally insipid, or in a brutal crisis. The process might also result in a major reevaluation of institutions: each modification of detail induced a rebalancing of the whole. The institutions that seemed to accept reform more easily, even to the point of suggesting or anticipating it, naturally got more attention. The various courts of the city of Naples, as we shall see, provide several examples of this, reaffirming the flexibility of institutions as they worked for their own modification or competed with one another. In point of fact, the Monarchy’s attempted administrative interventions were not restricted to the organisms with a jurisdiction that covered the entire kingdom. In each of the territories considered here, the importance of the capital city was so strong—financially as well as in its preeminence in terms of political decision-making—that its municipal institutions were neither neglected nor considered secondary. Moreover, the ministers shared an analysis and adopted the same positions. Clearly, the interlocutors of the monarchy, who reflected a common administrative culture, sought to affect all institutions.

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A third point is this: the fact that in the early modern period the king resided outside the Italian territories was the source of considerable change. One change was in the place in which royal favors originated. One of the objectives of the distribution of royal largesse was to obtain, reinforce, or reward the loyalty of friends or subjects through honors, titles, promotions, stipends, pensions, etc. In the case of the ministers, fidelity was expressed primarily by their more or less active consent to the programs drawn up by the monarchy, even to participation in their elaboration. Distance from the person of the king and from the small world of the court meant that replacements for them had to be found: one solution was to transfer to the viceroy a portion of the privilege to distribute favors, a system that involved certain inconveniences and required fairly strict codification. It also required the identification, within the various Italian societies, of means for relaying the discourse and the acts of the monarchy. This was one of the roles that the Council of Italy took on. The Italian ministers found that the shift in where royal favors were distributed might at first complicate their strategies for benefiting from them. Possible interlocutors, efficacious intermediaries, and wellplaced agents became more and more numerous, but more difficult to locate and less sure. Conversely, that same element of confusion made it even more imperative for the monarchy to make sure that the connections that it wove with the ministers were solid. It did so by offering reliable and increasingly remunerative advantages to its officials, or at least by permitting them to take them. Enjoyment of an office was a first manifestation of royal grace, worth having even if immediate revenues were meager. Later on, the officials who so desired might perhaps profit from an offer of assured income, land, or even a title, depending on the financial needs of the monarchy. Or the official might prefer to accumulate offices, thus constructing a patrimony in a pattern that was characteristic of the place but was usually oriented to transmission in the family line. Finally, one of the greatest favors that might be offered was access to the small group of individuals who had arrived at a global vision of the political economy of all the territories of the monarchy. Elevation to the rank of regent of one of the Councils, in Italy or in Spain, was perceived as a crowning achievement, reserved to ministers who had won the greatest renown in the service of the monarchy. When a minister purchased or was given an independent income thanks

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to a pension, lands, titles, and offices, these did not just represent an expectation of profitable financial investments and greater prestige for his family; they were also a sign—both symbolic and concrete— that he subscribed to the objectives and methods of the monarchy. They were also a way to shore up the changes, both administrative and more broadly political, that brought public recognition.

1. The Councils The small group of ministers who operated at the heart of the monarchy, at the side of the king, were almost alone in having a global vision of all of the territories under Spanish sovereignty. These men were of course those who sat as regents on the various councils of the monarchy, accompanied by a larger number of assistants who were less visible but still decidedly present. Each of the many councils has a history of its own, a date of foundation, a staff, and above all an area of competence. Can we nonetheless find a certain number of points in common, outside of their responsibility to counsel the king? At least two characteristics shed light on the administrative procedures of the monarchy and their concrete application to the government of the Italian domains. The first of these (which all the councils shared) was the permanent and general utilization of the visit. A second is the polyvalence of their personnel, who passed from one council to another and were a good deal less specialized than one might think. The visit has a long history in Mediterranean kingdoms and in Spanish, Italian, and French territories. It was codified as a juridical procedure and was used to examine persons as well as institutions. To cite an example, in the age of the Catholic Kings, traces of that codification can be found in the Ordenamientos of Toledo of 1480.4 The emergence of the councils as government agencies of the monarchy in Spain by no means signals the abandonment of a practice with which officials were familiar. Quite to the contrary, the councils found a place for themselves in the developing procedure of the visit,

4 Carlos Garriga Acosta, “Control y disciplina de los oficiales públicos en Castilla: La ‘visita’ del Ordenamiento de Toledo (1480),” Anuario de historia del derecho español 61 (1991): 215–390.

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thus in part also finding their place within an administrative organization in construction. Visits to institutions or officials on the order of the competent authorities can be compared to the judiciary procedure of preliminary investigation. In other words, they were inspections. The visitors concentrated on seeking out and collecting documents that might later lead to a trial. They played the role of examining magistrates. These dossiers were then passed on to entities capable of taking decisions, whether this means punishment, congratulations, or filing the information away without further action. In the early modern period, this role was usually taken by special juntas, and it was at this stage in the process that the councils entered the picture. The Council of Castile and the Chancellery of Valladolid can serve as an example, and one that has the merit of antiquity. The Chancellery of Valladolid, as is known, operated under the direct authority of the Council of Castile, which ordered regular visits of the Chancellery (the earliest known notification dates from 1492).5 The Council of Castile chose the visitor and gave him his instructions. The visitor rendered an account of his activities to the Council, and he summarized the results of his visit after it had ended before the Council. Then the regents of the Council (or, later, when the number of councils had grown, a group of different regents) functioned as a junta for the visit. The junta discussed the administrative situation described by the visitor, reflected on possible changes to be made, and eventually proposed reprimands or sanctions to the king. The Council thus operated as if it held competence and authority over the institutions subordinate to it. With the visit, the Council of Castile both constructed a new administrative practice and validated it: in return, the proper functioning of the visit and its repetition at regular intervals justified the exercise of the Council’s authority. Until the sixteenth century, the Chancellery of Valladolid was visited, on the order of the Council of Castile, in 1492, 1503, 1508, 1515, 1525, 1534, 1542, 1554, 1566, 1577, and 1589. These repetitions by no means indicate—as it was long taken to be the case when legal or administrative initiatives were reiterated—that decisions could not be applied. Quite the contrary:

5 This is according to the provisions contained in the Recopilación de las Ordenanzas de la Real Audiencia y Chancilleria de Su Majestad que reside en la villa de Valladolid (Vallodolid, 1765).

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repeated visits are a sign of the vitality of an instrument that was working well. Whether that instrument was used efficiently by the Council is another matter. And what did the Council of Castile do with the masses of documents gathered by the successive visitors? One might expect to find only individual prosecutions, which is why the visit has had such a bad press among historians of the ancien régime, who criticize the practice for doing less than they would have liked in repressing practices that they judge attributable to the ministers’ personal responsibility. If we can prioritize its concerns, the Council began by describing, counting, classifying, and observing. Next it proposed the establishment or the reform of rules that today we might call norms and in the early modern period were known as “style.” Only then did it turn to the behavior of officials, in great part in the aim of rewarding them, the true royal attribute, rather than punishing them. The Council of Castile also established visits to the Chancellery of Granada, following the same procedures and with approximately the same frequency, the first recorded visit dating from 1484,6 when the new Chancellery had just been installed in Ciudad Real, where it was to remain until 1505.7 The Council also established visits to the various institutions of the Spanish monarchy under its authority. For each institution, the reform proposals were made on the model of what had already been tried and reformed elsewhere. In general, it was the “style” of the Chancellery of Valladolid that dominates as a model. Between the visits and the exploitation of the materials assembled by the visitors work never stopped. This means that we have here a true administrative procedure, aimed at the making of norms established on the basis of observation and the continuance of practices. This procedure also tended to encourage the imposition and the transfer of these norms to other institutions, gaining authority from the Council’s review in the process. Was this administrative procedure unique to the Council of Castile? Not by any means: it was repeated in almost identical form by the other councils as they were founded and put into operation. The Council of the Indies, which is also remarkable for its early date, organized visits called “general,” which were aimed at a review of 6

Garriga Acosta, “Control y disciplina.” Santos Manuel Coronas Gonzalez, “La Audiencia y Chancilleria de Ciudad Real (1494–1505),” Cuadernos de Estudios Manchegos, II época, 11 (1981): 47–139. 7

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all of the institutions and the officials of the entire American realm. That council also held juntas to review visits, either with the aid of the visitor and in his presence or among some of its regents, together with those of the other councils. Without repeating the same remarks about each one of the councils, which all functioned in the same manner, we can turn to the Council of Italy, a somewhat later addition to the Spanish “polysynodal” system.8 This council was unique in that at first it acted for the monarchy only in the management of royal favors. Its other special trait (which had earlier precedents, however) was its composition: half of its regents (in theory, three) were Spanish, and the other half were drawn from each of the three Italian territories. The Council of Italy followed the same model as the other councils in setting up visits. They occupied nearly all of the regents’ time. As soon as they had finished examining (in his presence) the documents that a visitor had brought back, they began to plan the next mission to be sent to the Italian kingdoms. From 1559, the date of the foundation of the Council, visits were conducted in 1581, 1606, 1628, and so forth. They show a strong regularity, even though they were spaced farther apart than was true of visits to the chancelleries. The scale of the Italian visits was different, in terms of the larger number of institutions and officials to be reviewed, particularly in the changing times of the second half of the seventeenth century. The regents proposed reforms and suggested new norms and “styles.” They recorded the result of the recommendations formulated by the Council following the preceding visit. They decided on the rewards or the punishments to be meted out to each official. All of this work took them years and years, among other reasons, because the Italian visits, like the American ones, were general visits taking into account (at least in theory) all of the institutions and officials of a given territory. And not just of one territory. The Council of Italy always sent out simultaneous general visits to the three provinces, Naples, Sicily, and Milan.9 If the visitors failed to arrive in Italy in an equally 8

Manuel Rivero Rodriguez, “El Consejo de Italia y el gobierno de los dominios italianos de la monarquia hispana durante el reinado de Felipe II (1556–1598),” Tesis Doctoral, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1991; Rivero Rodriguez, Felipe II y el gobierno de Italia (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999). 9 Mario Rizzo, “Finanza pubblica, impero e amministrazione nella Lombardia spagnola: Le ‘visitas generales,’ ” in Lombardia borromaica, Lombardia spagnola 1554–1659, ed. Paolo Pissavino and Gianvittorio Signorotto (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 303–31.

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simultaneous fashion, it was only due to the hazard of nominations, departures, and voyages. The Council always emitted letters of commission for the three visitors at the same time, which shows that the regents belonged to the small group who were aware of the need to insert the Italian territories solidly within the Spanish domains as a whole and to work for the internal consolidation of the empire. In this connection, it is highly important to note the extent to which the general visit and the Council of Italy were constructed and justified as a mutual effort based on a permanent process of going back and forth. In practice, however, the Council of Italy found it difficult to assert itself as a source of authority for several reasons: it was founded later than the other councils (in 1558); its prerogatives were more limited; its composition was mixed; and the three Italian domains had little in common. When the visits pointed to poor conduct on the part of the officials, they demonstrated that the Council’s control was needed to limit disorder and neglect. On its side, the Council justified the visits by its need for information. Every time, the visit was defined by means of the definition of the Council, and vice versa. The existence of the general visit was intimately connected with a dynamic that the Council put into place, even though it was a practice that had begun before its founding and that it simply picked up and annexed as its own. The visit, as a solemn emanation of the Council, and the visitor, when he returned to give his report before the Council, were thus participating in the task of administering the Italian territories under Spanish rule. The Council carried out that task of administration largely by compiling the results of its inquiries, formulating or reformulating rules and norms (connected to a common referent as far as was possible), and, in accessory fashion, by its actions in its review of officials. This means that at all times the Council of Italy relied on the material collected through the visit, either in its correspondence with the visitors when they were in the field, during the sessions of the post-visit juntas after the visitor’s return, or during the meetings of the Council itself, when the juntas had finished their work. All of the councils, each at its own pace, functioned in the same fashion. How was the unity of these multiple councils assured, aside from the fact that they used the same administrative procedures? In essence, the same persons ran them. It is known that the regents of the various councils came from a relatively small number of social groups and that as a general rule they had all received the same sort of education,

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which undoubtedly contributed much to their cohesion. If we also think of the ministers who acted as visitors for the Council and who sat on the juntas, we have a larger group with an even more remarkable coherence. I shall offer two example, one of a regent and the other of a junta. The regent is Fernando Ramírez Fariñas, a regent of the Council of Castile. He visited the Chancellery of Valladolid in 1624;10 as a member of the Council of the Inquisition, he visited the district courts on a regular basis; he visited the Audiencia of Seville in 1632.11 When he returned from Seville, he was named to post-visit juntas regarding both Naples and Sicily,12 continuing to serve on the Sicily commission until 1639, dedicating three afternoons per week to the task, and on the Naples commission until 1634. The junta is that of the general visit of Milan, which met from 1591 to 1596. In 1591, when the sessions began, the junta was made up of two regents of the Council of Castile and one regent of the Council of the Inquisition. Work dragged on, however, and the members of the junta were gradually replaced with regents of all the councils, who were eventually joined by two other regents of the Council of Castile, a regent of the Council of the Indies, a regent of the Council of Aragon, and two regents of the Council of Italy.13 The juntas were not simply composed of members of the other councils as they became available; they were deliberately made up of regents of all the councils, who were constantly occupied either as a visitor or a judge of a visit. This was one normal activity among various other administrative tasks, but it also represented much more than that. It was an opportunity to assert their power over officials subordinate to them. It was a means for acquiring and increasingly diversifying their areas of competence in different institutional realms and geographic locations. It was a confirmation of their excellence and a reflection of the preference that their superiors had shown to them. Finally, it was a possible jumping-off place for access to higher responsibilities. Like the permanent councils and the more or less ephemeral juntas, the post-visit juntas brought together the great

10

As seen in the rulings recorded in Recopilación. Ordenancas de la Real Audiencia de Sevilla, 1603 (Seville: Guadalquivir Ediciones, 1995). 12 AGS, Secretarias Provinciales (henceforth SP ), legajo (henceforth leg.) 232. 13 AGS, SP, leg. 1902. 11

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professionals of the government of the Spanish monarchy. The decisions that were made within them—personal judgments on officials and proposals for the reform of institutions—had just as much weight and importance as the consultations of councils that played a more public role. In reality, the councils as a group formed a closed world within which the regents circulated with great ease. Individuals moved ceaselessly from one council to another, if not officially, at least concretely, by attending innumerable meetings and sitting on innumerable juntas, work groups, secret meetings, and commissions, all of which ceaselessly shaped and reshaped each one of the apparently fixed councils that made up the apparatus of government of the monarchy. In this fashion, objectives and working methods were smoothed out and harmonized, although the specificity of the Italian territories as a whole and of each domain was maintained within the Council of Italy. Unity and efficient administration were assured by the polyvalence of the group of the regents and their assistants, all of whom were well aware that visitors were often rewarded on their return with a seat on a council. Governance of the Italian possessions was thus carried on thanks to the formation and renewal of a small group of ministers, men accustomed to move within Spain’s polysynodal system and whose areas of expertise went far beyond the Italian territories. The regents of councils were often ecclesiastics. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, they were also recruited, with increasing frequency, from among the auditori (lawyers) in the chancelleries. These men used the procedure of the visit with brio as an operational technique common throughout the administration of the Spanish monarchy. The regents functioned permanently either as visitors or as members of the various post-visit juntas, and their service covered all of the Spanish provinces. This made possible both a genuine awareness of the breadth and the diversity of the territories of the monarchy and the establishment of priorities. The councils were specialized, to be sure, but their administrative procedures were used and fashioned collectively. The chancellery auditori and the ecclesiastics who were charged with visits knew that this was an entry into the group of future regents, or at least that it was a mark of distinction and a promise of advancement. It is interesting that the inverse does not seem to have been true: the Italian regents of the Council of Italy (Fulvio de Costanzo or Carlo Tapia, for example) were not asked to visit other institutions

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or sit on the post-visit juntas. The opening that the Council of Italy offered to Italian regents rapidly reached its limits, and serving as a regent by no means signaled the integration of non-Castilian ministers into still higher administrative circuits of the monarchy.

2. Institutions How did the Councils and the juntas seek to affect the administrative organization of Italian institutions? The commissions and the instructions that the Council redacted charged the visitors with verifying not only that the officials were observing the rules and regulations of their courts, but also that each court, as an institution, was observing its own regulations and the various orders of the king pertaining to it. Moreover, the visitors were charged with uncovering defective operations in all parts of the administrative system and in the system as a whole, as well as suggesting reasons for the problems. This explains the dissertations redacted at the visit’s end, proposing interpretations of what the visitor had noted as major defects. Above all, such papers were expected to propose solutions to the problem. As for the juntas, they prepared general and particular orders for the councils to pass on to the various institutions visited. Throughout his visit, the visitor took note of what seemed to him not to be functioning properly in the courts and the various administrative organisms. What were his criteria? Common sense and an interest in obtaining results, to be sure, but also comparison with organizations that he was familiar with, even when it was questionable whether they were any more efficient. For example, the styles of courts were judged—a process that involved evaluation of judiciary procedure, the organization of priorities among judges, and the division of labor among the subordinate officials—by reference to the “style” of the Chancellery of Valladolid, the oldest tribunal, the one most ceaselessly visited, and one that had provided a number of visitors and regents of various councils. Another example: in 1556 the Duke of Alba was interested in founding a council in Milan on the model of the Collateral Council of Naples.14 In another example, in 1564 Marcello Pignone, marquis of Oriolo, who was acting

14

AGS, SP, leg. 1154.

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as a visitor in Sicily, was charged with modifying the organization of the courts in imitation of the Neapolitan court of the Vicaria, the central civil and criminal court in Naples.15 The notes that the visitors took, as well as suggestions from the officials themselves, were submitted for general discussion during the sessions of the juntas and the councils. The visitors advanced proposals, the regents commented on them. They could appeal for enlightened counsel to persons judged to have special competence in the matters discussed, such as the Conservator of the Royal Patrimony.16 It was highly useful to have regents of both Castilian and Italian origin on the Council of Italy. Daily acquaintance brought to a height the search for consensus and helped the Council to avoid forced imposition of solutions that could turn out to be absurd in the local situation. The Council of Aragon, to cite one example, was made up exclusively of regents who were native subjects of the Crown of Aragon, thus did not enjoy the benefits of a similar mix. The sizable amounts of time devoured by putting this entire process into operation should not be minimized, and I might recall that it was a process poorly conceived for making urgent decisions when they proved necessary (but urgent decisions were not generally the job of the Council of Italy). Various sets of reforms were thus gradually elaborated, primarily on the basis of repeated earlier recommendations, slightly modified but sometimes including radically new elements. One example of these is the introduction in Naples, after the 1559 visit, of the new posts of secretarios de mandatos (secretaries of directives) that the visitor-general had recommended. These secretaries were to redact some of the daily working documents sent to the escrivanía de ración, the military treasury of the Kingdom of Naples. In the order that the Council of Italy prepared in this connection and later repeated in the king’s own name, it was explained that the secretary of the kingdom needed free time to take care of other affairs that passed through his hands. 15 AGS, SP, libro (henceforth lib.) 1154, Comision, instruccion, instruccion secreta, que se dieron al Marques de Oriolo para la institucion de los tribunales del reino de Sicilia. 16 AGS, SP, leg. 227, “Al Señor Don Francisco de Alarcon del Consejo del Rey nuestro Señor en el Real de Castilla, Visitador General por Su Mag.d del Reyno de Nápoles, Don Geronimo Funes y Muñoz Conservador general del Real patrimonio de Su Mag.d de los Reynos de Nápoles y Sicilia y estado de Milan,” 1628; Giovanni Muto, Saggi sul governo dell’economia nel Mezzogiorno spagnolo (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1992); Christopher Riley, “The State of Milan in the Reign of Philip II of Spain,” D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University, 1977.

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There are probably other reasons for the creation of this secretariat, because some who reported to the next visitor in 1581 on the circumstances of its founding said that it was a result of the passionate hatred that the viceroy of Naples, the Duke of Alcalá, harbored for the secretary of the kingdom, Juan de Soto, and an attempt on the duke’s part to shrink Soto’s field of action and his prerogatives.17 In any event, the new secretariat was the result of various combined suggestions, primarily from persons directly interested in occupying the new posts, in a period in which the number of such hopefuls was growing significantly. But if the monarchy found the creation of new offices certainly in its interests, it tried to limit their expansion when their proliferation escaped its control. When this happened, it was up to the Council to take action. The report of the visit to Naples in 1606, for example, signals that the number of clerks (notai e mastridatti) of the Bagliva (court overseeing minor misdemeanors) had gradually increased to 104 persons. The authorized number of positions was 24! Fulvio de Costanzo held that ancient municipal court office (baglivo), which heard the least important cases and was known as the “Poor People’s Court.” In 1606 the visitor had to negotiate with the baglivo, who enjoyed all the profits from that dizzying increase of personnel, given that he named the persons who held subordinate posts in his court.18 The same visitor also took measures to limit the number of scribes (scrivani) in the Vicaria. In neither case did he think to solicit the approval of the Council.19 This makes it more understandable that the juntas were in session year after year. After the proposals for reform had been properly redacted and carefully edited; after the general orders had been separated from the particular ones (according to criteria now hard to discern), the proposals still needed the king’s assent. A corpus of such orders designated for one institution or another slowly built up. Before they could be officially imposed, however, they had to be submitted to those same institutions for their opinion, at times for their approval. For example, in 1566 the viceroy of Naples transmitted to the Sommaria orders concerning that body that he had received from Madrid. He 17

AGS, Visitas de Italia (VI ), leg. 24–1. AGS, VI, leg. 83–4, Processo de la Balliva de Nápoles contra el Regente Fulvio de Costanzo, cabo 1. 19 AGS, VI, leg. 79–6, Papeles tocantes a los descargos del Ballivo de Nápoles, el rey, 1611, Al virey de Nápoles de informacion a S. M. del Ballivo de aquella ciudad, con copia de carta de su Md escrita a su Exa en el Pardo 20 noviembre 1608. 18

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asked the officers to analyze the document so that he might know which of the orders received might cause difficulties, should they be applied. Every chapter of the document was copied, annotated, and sent back to him by the Sommaria.20 Reading and commenting on the report on the 1646 visit occupied the Collateral Council for several months.21 The official orders were thus discussed at length, article after article, then amended, put off to a later date, rejected, or improved. They were inserted into a continual, if not interminable, process of negotiation that was never abandoned on either side. Thus as visit followed visit, new norms were established according to the degree that the Collateral Council accepted the changes to the various practices that the visitor had noted. When the orders were finally ready, the visit had been so long in the past that it is easy to consider the entire process as a set of simple gesticulations. Still, the essence of the administrative task was clearly realized during this long and patient gestation, in which various “styles” were polished and made explicit, although it is equally certain that some reform projects melted into the sands. Finally, the orders were solemnly presented to the worthiest representatives of the various institutions by the viceroy, during a public ceremony in the process of which decisions were also announced regarding the officials. In real terms, we can see that these orders, general and particular, were received more as propositions than as documents with an imperative content. They were abundantly discussed before being poured into a long and precaution-ridden system of trips back and forth between Madrid and the Italian capitals, during which time they were ceaselessly reformulated. Thus there was a permanent oscillation between conflict and a search for consensus. After definitive redaction, the orders were filed in the archives of each court, where the next visitor could verify their presence and check on their application. This long progress of reform could lead to a wide variety of situations, given that it could be affected by ongoing events and represented the expression of quite different personalities. One of these was the count of Miranda, viceroy of Naples, who let it be known that the orders received after the visit of 1581 seemed to him impracticable.22 We need to understand that the viceroys and the governors 20 21 22

BSNSP, ms XX C 27, fols. 135–147. ASN, Notamenti Collaterale, vol. 52. BNM, ms 7110, fol. 67r of the Relación hecha por el señor Conde de Olivares

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were totally excluded from this entire administrative process, which took place exclusively between the officials of the Council of Italy and those of the various tribunals. Still, the viceroys and governors were expected to act once the discussions had ended, solicited by the Council of Italy and by the institutions in the territories. In effect, they were expected to emit pragmatics aimed at the application of reforms, once these were finally approved, in order to lend their authority to the reforms—a necessity that might easily push them to manifest their discontent. The orders emanating from the Council of Italy might also be absorbed, in whole or in part, into royal pragmatics. The content of the documents produced by the juntas during or after review of officials’ trials does not easily lend itself to systematic analysis. The files display an accumulation of details, among which the chances of finding any simple and linear design are slim indeed, and all the more so because where the innovations and administrative changes originated was soon lost to view. General and particular orders were transmitted to Naples in 1566 after the general visit of 1559.23 Still in Naples, Chapters of Reform dated 1644 referred to the general visit of 1628,24 coming well after pragmatics reorganizing the Sommaria had already been published in 1634.25 The contents of these orders and capitoli concern an infinite number of small adjustments: the number of clerks in the secretariats, which court held predominance over which other court, the job descriptions of particular officials such as the revenue collector of overdue accounts (significatorie), the role of subordinates, and the regulation of certain questionable dealings remarked during the course of the visit. Reading these documents, and above all interpreting them, is difficult, especially if one tries to take into account the reality of their application. To return to the question of the uncontrolled rise in the number of clerks in the secretariats of the Bagliva and the Vicaria: one possible año 1598 para su sucesor, fols. 62–71: “De las resultas de la visita que hizo Don Lope de Guzmán se hicieron en España ciertas ordenes que se despacharon estando alla el regente Fornaro. Vinieron en tiempo del señor Conde de Miranda que haviendole parecido impraticables replico a su Magestad que no havria vuelto a escrivir nada” (“As a consequence of the visit of don Lope de Guzmán, certain orders were drafted in Spain that were sent when the Regent Fornaro was there. They arrived during the administration of the Count of Miranda who, finding their implementation impractical, replied to his Majesty that he would not write anything more”). 23 AGS, VI, leg. 23. 24 AGS, SP, lib. 442. 25 AGS, SP, lib. 442.

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explanation lies with the growth of the sale of offices within the Spanish monarchy. The posts in question were subordinate, not highly visible; they could be sold because they did not comport powers of jurisdiction. The right to sell such posts was disputed among the various entities in a position to do so, perhaps even more than the profits. The king, the viceroy, the directors of the institutions involved— that is, the baglivo and the regent of the Vicaria—were in competition, and the monarchy attempted to seize the exclusive right to sell offices, working through its visitor. All this is true. Still, the arguments put forth by the ministers of the Vicaria, whose employees were taken away, point to other difficulties. The two institutions, the Vicaria and the Bagliva, were themselves engaged in a fierce rivalry on the highly profitable terrain of the redaction of certain obligatory documents for individual citizens. The officials of the Vicaria accused the employees of the Bagliva of waiting on every street corner to grab those in need of such papers and sending them to the offices of their own court.26 The Bagliva was also accused, more generally, of increasing its jurisdictional space more and more out of all measure, thanks to an exaggerated inflation in the number of its clerks and also to the opening of a new prison. The visitor had to take a position in this dispute between two courts. It was also a dispute between two types of jurisdiction, however, since the Vicaria was a royal institution and the Bagliva a municipal one. It was also quite certainly a dispute among a number of individuals. If the visitor got mixed up in it, it was because it was part of his job, but it was also because both of the rival institutions appealed to him. Efforts to organize or reorganize the administration advanced according to the opportunities open to the visitor as circumstances changed. The Council also touched on the question of the number of employees in recommendations given in the orders it redacted after the visits. One interpretation of those recommendations is that they were aimed at a reevaluation of the respective jurisdictional spheres of the various royal and municipal institutions. The Italian possessions were thus governed by an administrative cooperation with the institutions of the various provinces. A genuine attempt to seek consent went quite far and lasted quite long. This does not mean that the Spanish monarchy was incapable of achieving its 26 AGS, VI, leg. 83–4, Processo de la Balliva de Nápoles contra el Regente Fulvio de Costanzo.

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goals rapidly when it wanted to. There were other command circuits between the heart of the monarchy and the societies of the Italian provinces. The institutional path was one of those circuits of command, and it was used in parallel with others. It might at times be simply abandoned when the general situation called for decisive action. Moreover, it might happen that the Spanish councils and the Italian institutions were not opposed, even that they found themselves in perfect agreement. The officials who peopled those institutions were more or less closely associated with the objectives of the Spanish monarchy. That association was not necessarily expressed politically, but might be realized in financial or economic terms, even if all officials did not draw large monetary benefits from their posts. Loyalty to the monarchy was taken for granted, which permitted the administration of the provinces to function without having to add too many Spanish ministers to the roster of local ministers.

3. Ministers One of the advantages of the close connection between the monarchy and its officials lay in the inclusion of the Italian territories within the economic and financial circuits that drained resources toward the empire’s grand objectives. The European monarchies, faced with an enormous need for funds as the early modern period advanced, used a certain number of means to procure them, either successively or concomitantly. Though the list is not exhaustive, these included: the establishment and development of various fiscal levies, direct and indirect; the invention of new taxes; the complication and sophistication of various systems of investment funds; waves of confiscations and cancelled redemptions; solicitations addressed to the socially privileged and fiscally exempt classes and to the cities; contracts for leases and tax collection; and loans.27 It goes without saying that these measures could not be imposed on the population by brute force alone. The ministers played a role of considerable importance in assuring

27 For a clear and well-organized summary of this question, see Françoise Bayard, Le monde des financiers au XVII e siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1988); Daniel Dessert, Argent, pouvoir et société au Grand Siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1984); Antonio Calabria, “Finanzieri genovesi nel regno di Napoli nel Cinquecento,” Rivista Storica Italiana 101, no. 1 (1989): 578–613.

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acceptance of the new measures and in adjusting them to the customs of each of the various territories: leaving aside the question of loyalty, they probably also found it to their advantage to do so. The arrendamenti (tax-farms) can serve as an example. This system developed and spread like tentacles throughout Naples and Sicily in the early modern period. The Italian states adopted it with alacrity when directly solicited either by the monarchy or by the cities, which guaranteed the payment of interest out of revenues from taxes and gabelles (commodity taxes).28 In Naples in the latter half of the sixteenth century, interest rates on such contracts were remarkably high, reaching 7, 8, and even 9 percent. The finances of the kingdom were solid and the income payments were promptly made. During the years from 1580 to 1585, one might even speak of a “golden age of tax-farms.”29 The process was simple, an investment was entirely fractionable, hence easily adapted to the investor’s available capital; new issues were frequent and the system functioned efficiently—on that condition that one had liquid capital. Such funds flourished because they arose in a period of general (or at least relative) prosperity. That same prosperity rendered taxation more acceptable, as tax rates had not reached the insupportable heights of the seventeenth century. On a larger scale, it also facilitated the payment of taxes by the various populations. The monarchy raised the funds that it needed, shifting the payment of interest to its subjects through direct and indirect taxation.30 Given a favorable economic climate, when this system was used to respond to exceptional needs, it could remain totally safe and proved highly useful.31 If the Monarchy or the cities

28

These mechanisms had been known for a long time. For examples regarding Sicily, see Maurice Aymard, “Bilancio di una lunga crisi finanziaria,” Rivista Storica Italiana 84, no. 4 (1972): 988–1021; Luis Antonio Ribot Garcia, “La época del Conde Duque de Olivares y el Reino de Sicilia,” in La España del Conde Duque de Olivares, ed. John Elliott and Angel García Sanz, (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1990), 653–77. 29 Mireille Peytavin, “Naples, 1585: La fièvre de la rente,” in La monarchie hispanique XVI e–XVIII e siècles, Actes du Colloque de la Fondation Singer-Polignac, 7–9 December 2000, ed. Vincent Bernard (Paris), forthcoming. 30 Giuseppe De Luca, “Debito pubblico, sistema fiscale ed economia reale nella Lombardia spagnola: L’alienazione delle entrate: Prime direzioni di recerca,” in Le forze del principe: Recursos, instrumentos y limites en la práctica del poder soberano en los territorios de la monarquía hispánica, ed. Mario Rizzo, José Javier Ruiz Ibañez, and Gaetano Sabatini, 2 vols. (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2004), 1:179–210. 31 The Republic of Venice provides an example of a government that was capable of buying back its income shares—reimbursing the sums raised on the market—by

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reached a point where they could neither meet the interest payments nor buy back the shares, they still could abandon the guarantees to the shareholders. This is what happened in the Kingdom of Naples after the Revolt of 1647, when certain commodity taxes were privatized.32 Even if buying shares in an arrendamento was a good investment in the latter half of the sixteenth century and the early years of the seventeenth century, the fact remains that it was also a way to support the monarchy. Political support in this form was solicited, for example, among the members of the titled nobility, the religious communities, the Genoese financiers, the charitable organizations— and the ministers.33 Access to the various gabelles was made widely available to them, and they were quite aware of benefiting from a certain form of favor. Taking advantage of financial and monetary fluctuations was difficult for anyone who was neither a merchant or a banker. That the capital involved came in part from the monarchy (given that the ministers were also reinvesting their stipends and emoluments) made it easier for them to be patient about late payments. The Italian officials thus financed their sovereign willingly, even as they created solid and durable ties to him. They bought income contracts—many of them—as new issues came onto the market. During general visits, the ministers were required to present two summaries of their wealth—one, of the current state of their finances; the other, of their finances before they took office—all to be sure that they had not enriched themselves excessively while in office. Gabelle contracts figure prominently on them. Some bought offices when they were available. These tended to be lower-level secretarial positions or clerkships. Some ministers turned this traffic to good advantage, thanks to an entire system of leases and management arrangements. They gradually began to invest in land, at first in agricultural properties (which they preferred to manage themselves), later in lordly adopting an international policy scaled to its means rather than to its ambitions. On this topic, see Luciano Pezzolo, “Elogio della rendita: Sul debito pubblico degli Stati italiani nel Cinque e Seicento,” Rivista di Storia Economica 12, no. 3 (1995): 283–330; Pezzolo, L’oro dello Stato: Società, finanza e fisco nella Repubblica veneta del secondo ’500 (Venice: Il Cardo, 1990). 32 See the classic study of Luigi De Rosa, Studi sugli arrendamenti del Regno di Napoli: Aspetti della distribuzione della richezza mobiliare nel Mezzogiorno continentale (1649–1806) (Naples: L’Arte Tipografica, 1958). 33 See Roberto Mantelli, L’alienazione della rendita pubblica e I suoi acquirenti dal 1556 al 1583 nel regno di Napoli (Bari, Cacucci, 1997; first published 1994), a remarkable and highly original work, to which I pay with gratitude.

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estates. Commerce was generally not permitted to them, but they might use a front man: commercial activities appear only indirectly in their declarations of patrimony; at times they appear in denunciations of a minister or in articles of accusation against him. Lists of the gabelles, which it was perfectly legal to own, often appear in the documents furnished to the visitors. This is probably because officials were the first to hear about new offerings on the market and to have information on the relative solidity of the gabelles guaranteeing new share issues, on the financial situation at the moment, and on any eventual difficulties threatening the payment of interest that might lead to forced repurchase or lowered interest rates. They were in a prime position for knowing how, from whom, and when to buy, in particular regarding offerings emitted by the capital cities of the Italian provinces, which willingly served as an intermediary for the monarchy in raising money. Ministers also knew how to make use of their shares, which they listed in their financial declarations with sums borrowed and lent, dowries to be paid or received, and outstanding inheritance payments. Gabelle concessions were easy to cash in, which meant that ministers sometimes used them as a sort of script money. They could be bought and resold, bequeathed, given as part of a dowry, shared in an inheritance, or reserved for one’s own heirs. It is a fact that within the Kingdom of Naples the boom of the system of income funds in the latter half of the sixteenth century accompanied not only an explosive rise in taxation, indirect taxes in particular, but also the proliferation of offices and a rise in their value.34 For office holders, especially those who lived in the capital city, these were highly attractive innovations. Like all Neapolitan citizens, they were exempt from payment of the donativo, which did not apply in Naples. They even might escape payment of certain gabelles if they received a portion of their wages in the form of provisions and furnishings. On the other hand, the invention of new taxes, increasing tax rates, and the organization of tax collection evolved in ways that they were able to benefit from fairly directly, first because it was thanks to the payment of those taxes that they received their wages, but also because they profited

34 Roberto Mantelli, Il pubblico impiego nell’economia del Regno di Napoli: Retribuzioni, reclutamento e ricambio sociale nell’epoca spagnuola (secc. XVI–XVII) (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 1986).

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from interest payments on arrendamenti when they held gabelles that guaranteed them. Rendered even more attractive by its air of modernity, this kind of investment was also absolutely risk free. They were guaranteed by the power of the monarchy and the efficiency of its tax-collection system, an efficiency for which, as is clear, officials had every interest to make work. The censo, an annuities fund, was an agreement between one individual and another individual, a municipal corporate entity, or a religious community. The granting of credit and the purchase of fund shares made possible by a censo generally involved no risk for the person who furnished the capital, because the value of the guarantee generously compensated for any eventual default of interest payments.35 According to these agreements, interest payments would be made regularly and endlessly, a fact that certainly inclined investors to loyalty but also opened the way to all sorts of calculations—on the part of those receiving the payments. When investors knew that payments would be paid faithfully and with no time limit, as one can well imagine they tended not to cash in the shares that produced these mechanical profits, but rather reinvested the proceeds immediately in the same manner as the original capital, in income funds, preferably chosen among those that appeared to be the surest, guaranteed by taxes or gabelles whose vitality one could ascertain personally. Wealth ought to accumulate throughout one’s life in a somewhat dizzying manner. The ministers ceaselessly revitalized their contract with the monarchy, their fidelity to the 35 Mireille Peytavin, “Renta y rendimiento: Tipos de inversión economica en el reino de Nápoles,” Hispania 61–62, no. 208 (2001): 521–38; María del Pilar Martínez López-Cano, Guillermina del Valle Pavón, eds., El credito en Nueva España (Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 1998); Maurice Berthe, ed., Endettement paysan et crédit rural dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne, Acts of the 17th Journées internationales d’histoire de l’Abbaye de Flaran, September 1995 (Toulouse: Presses de l’Université du Mirail, 1998); Laurence Fontaine, Gilles Postel-Vinay, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and Paul Servais, eds., Des personnes aux institutions: Réseaux et culture du crédit du XVI e au XX e siècle in Europe, Acts of a colloquium, Mons 14–16 November 1996 (Louvain-la-Neuve: BruylantAcademia, 1997); Marie-Noëlle Chamoux, Danièle Dehouve, Cécile Gouy-Gilbert, and Marielle Pepin Lehalleur, eds., Prestar y pedir prestado: Relaciones sociales y crédito en México del siglo XVI al XX (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, 1993), also published in French as Prêter et emprunter: Pratiques de crédit au Mexique (Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1993); Bartolomé Bennassar, “De nuevo sobre censos y inversiones en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII,” in Bartolomé Bennassar, Josep Fontana, Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, Angus MacKay, and Felipe Ruiz Martin, Estado, Hacienda y Sociedad en la Historia de España (Valladolid: Instituto de Historia Simancas, Universidad de Valladolid, 1989), 79–94.

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sovereign reaffirmed; while simultaneously the subjects ceaselessly confirmed their loyalty, their confidence ceaselessly reassured. Today we are all too familiar with this type of pyramid scheme, which can only end in failure sooner or later—though of course not for everyone. These dazzling perspectives tell us much, however, about the optimism of a good portion of the population of the Spanish monarchy who had money to invest in the sixteenth century, and within that group about the optimism of some ministers of the monarchy. A consortium realized by heads of family, nobility, and ministers in Naples at the end of the sixteenth century offers an example of that optimism. Among this group we find Fulvio di Costanzo, the baglivo, a noble di Seggio,36 a cavaliere, and a minister of the monarchy who was also a member of several administrative bodies of the city of Naples. The consortium eventually founded a Monte (an interest-producing fund) called the Monte delle Ventinove Famiglie, a fund for twenty-nine familes.37 This Monte was a dowry fund;38 its purpose was to assure the marriages of the daughters of the founders and their families. Its statutes, which can be consulted in the Archivio di Stato di Napoli, have already been used in several ways by historians, especially the preamble, which states that the rank of cavaliere in Naples was threatened with withering away because daughters who lacked a dowry could not marry according to their social station. The twenty-nine associates put together a capital fund, divided it into equal shares, and invested in the purchase of income fund contracts. Because the yield of those funds was pre-established and considered to be stable, 36 On the various categories of nobility, see Maria-Antonietta Visceglia, “Un groupe social ambigu: Organisation, stratégies et représentations de la noblesse napolitaine XVIe–XVIIIe siècles,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 4 (1993): 819–51; Giovanni Muto, ‘Problemi di stratificazione nobiliare nell’Italia spagnola,” in Dimenticare Croce? Studi e orientamenti di storia del Mezzogiorno, ed. Elvira Chiosi and Aurelio Musi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1991), 73–111. 37 On this question, which is still not well understood, see Alberto Cova, “Banchi e monti pubblici a Milano nei secoli XVI e XVII,” in Banchi pubblici, banchi privati e monti di pieta nell’Europa preindustriale: Amministrazione, tecniche operative e ruoli economici, 2 vols. (Genoa: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 1990), 1:327–40. 38 Gérard Delille, “Un esempio di assistenza privata: I monti di maritaggio nel Regno di Napoli (secoli XVI–XVIII),” in Timore e carità: I poveri nell’Italia moderna, ed. Giorgio Politi, Franco della Peruta, and Mario Rosa (Cremona: Biblioteca Statale e Libreria Civica in Cremona, 1982), 275–82; Giovanni Muto, “Forme e contenuti economici dell’assistenza nel Mezzogiorno moderno: Il caso di Napoli,” in ibid., 237–58; Maria Leuzzi Fubini, “Protezione del matrimonio e assistenza femminile: Aspetti disciplinanti delle doti di carità in Toscana in età moderna,” Archivio Storico Italiano, disp. 3 (1998): 479–501.

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a term of twenty-five years was fixed before the first dowry could be paid, during which time the income would be added to capital, always invested in more investment fund contracts. The statutes even specify that, so far as possible, the funds must be backed by the city of Naples. The rest of the text of the statutes establishes an order of priority among the daughters of the founders and stipulates payments for daughters who entered a convent. Unfortunately, this fine edifice, founded in 1585, fluctuated during the course of the seventeenth century—as was inevitable, given the overall economic picture. The funds serviced by the monarchy and the municipality paid little, at times nothing. The twenty-nine were unsure as to whether their patience could last until the economic situation took a turn for the better, especially since they had a fair number of marriageable daughters. Other family-based Monti, however—like that of the Caracciolo family—had a brilliant financial destiny,39 which shows that this sort of calculation might not be so bad, on the condition that the founders keep their nerve and that there not be a superabundance of beneficiary daughters. Moreover, the spectacular re-establishment of the finances of the Venetian Republic in the seventeenth century—at a time when its elites were also dangerously launched on massive attempts to raise capital by means of investment funds—shows that the system was imagined as being absolutely reversible, and that with the backing of strong public will, could in fact be reversed.40 The ties between the monarchy and its ministers were not based solely on a common vision of what should be the proper administration of the territories. Together, the monarchy and the ministers looked to draw profits that were other than political. In terms of financial revenues, hence of access to land and to other types of desirable goods, the Italian officials’ support of the administrative procedures and the more strictly political objectives of the government of the Spanish monarchy was well remunerated. In exchange, the monarchy could count on their participation in the management of affairs and rely on their fidelity. To conclude, let me raise the question of the efficacy of that administration, which, as we have just seen, was admittedly a fine but 39 Silvana Bartoletto, “Il Monte Caracciolo di Ciarletta alla vigilia della soppressione (1770–1811),” Rivista Storica del Sannio (1998): 5–50. 40 See note 30.

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perhaps overly sophisticated instrument. It was an instrument that was jealously preserved (but transformed) by a personnel strongly identified with it. It was also an instrument that the political power did not always have the means or the will to put into action, but that seemed to respond to the stated ambitions of the monarchy and its kingdoms. In the historiography of the Kingdom of Naples, scholars have become accustomed (and rightly so) to stress the exemplary series of reforms put into place by the viceroy count of Lemos or those of the regent Carlo Tapia in the early seventeenth century. We can wager that those occasions—relatively short moments in the long time span of Spanish sovereignty in Italy—would never have been possible without the help of that administrative machinery, finally set into motion to participate in its own reform.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A DECLINING ECONOMY: CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ITALY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES Paolo Malanima

In the 1950s and ’60s, the approach to the sixteenth and seventeenthcentury Italian economy was dominated by the views proposed by Fernand Braudel in La Méditerranée (1949; 1966) and by Carlo M. Cipolla in his essay on “The Decline of Italy” (1952). In their interpretation, Italy did not lose the primacy it had held from the late Middle Ages on, as historians previously thought. Italy’s economy continued to prevail on the European scene at least until the end of the sixteenth century. Only at the beginning of the seventeenth century did a crisis striking first of all industrial and commercial urban activities—the advanced Italian economic sectors—set the peninsula in a backward position relative to the rapidly developing, more dynamic economies of Northern Europe. In the opinion of Cipolla, a very low level of economic development was reached by the mature Italian economy, especially in the second half of the seventeenth century.1 Even Ruggiero Romano, although not sharing the view of an advanced Italian late medieval and Renaissance economy and stressing its traditional agrarian character, agreed, after all, on the seventeenthcentury crisis as a turning point in Italian history and widened the impact of the crisis to the agricultural sector as well.2 According to 1 Cipolla (1989). In the original title of his 1952 article on the seventeenth-century decline (“The Decline of Italy: The Case of a Fully Matured Economy”), Cipolla wrote of a “fully-matured” Italian economy; even though, he did not develop this idea in the text. 2 Romano (1997) collects several of his essays on the theme. Two of his essays are available in English: “Between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Economic Crisis of 1619–22,” (orig. 1962) in Geoffrey Parker and Leslie Smith, eds., The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1978), pp. 165–225; and “Italy in the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,” (orig. 1968) in Peter Earle, ed., Essays in European Economic History (Oxford, 1974), pp. 185–98.

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this prevailing view, Italy began slowly to recover only in the eighteenth century3 and to develop from the very last years of the nineteenth century. A new “revisionist” approach gradually replaced this perspective from the late 1970s.4 The Italian economy began to appear as one characterized by a continuous flexibility. The seventeenth-century crisis was no longer seen as a turning point in the last millennium, but as a short-term disease in a sound constitution, able to adapt itself to the changing conjuncture. According to this view, Italian economic evolution since the late Middle Ages followed a flat line. This flat, longterm trend set Italy above the other European economies in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Since some Northern European economies began to advance in the early modern period much more rapidly than Italy, the Italian flat trend resulted then in a relatively lower level of economic development than these more dynamic economies. The Italian economic decline did not exist in absolute, but only in relative terms. Recent new research on demography, urbanization, prices, and incomes suggests a different profile of Italian economic history. We can perhaps come back to the perspective, already suggested by eighteenth-century writers, of an Italian trend slowly declining since the late Middle Ages. It is the purpose of this paper to propose an outline of the Italian economy during the Spanish centuries. We will look at the economy in the age of the Spanish hegemony and will neglect the theme, dear to past historians, of the economic influence of this hegemony. The old view, already put forward by some eighteenth-century writers such as Pietro Verri, and authoritatively represented by twentiethcentury historians, such as Salvatore Pugliese5 and Bruno Caizzi,6 saw in the Spanish direct dominion in Lombardy and indirect influence over the rest of Central-Northern Italy the main cause of economic decadence. The increasing burden of taxation on the Lombard population, especially during the Thirty Years’ War, diverted—in the opinion of many past historians—considerable financial means from productive activities towards military unproductive uses. More recent 3 4 5 6

See especially Caracciolo (1973). See especially Rapp (1976), Sella (1979), Aymard (1978), and Malanima (1998b). Pugliese (1924). Caizzi (1980).

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historians have, on the contrary, put forward that Lombardy benefited from the Spanish involvement in seventeenth-century wars.7 Financial gross receipts from the Kingdom of Naples and Spain were widely employed in Lombard military industry to support the engagement in war, stimulating production in many economic activities.8 The view that, after all, the early modern Italian economy was shaped much more by deep changes in the relation between men, resources, techniques, and capital formation than by the choices of individuals and governments, seems much more realistic in the light of recent research.9 Probably things were different in the Kingdom of Naples, which played the role of a supply base of finance for the defense of Lombardy and the support of Spanish activity in Central Europe. In that case “fiscal pressure came to serve as a powerful destabilizing force in the Kingdom”.10 The late medieval and Renaissance economy appears, in the perspective proposed in the following pages, as a mature agrarian economy. Maturity is here seen as the advanced condition of a society when the possibilities of further progress, within the borders of the available prevailing technology, are lacking.11 It was characterized by increasing population pressure, declining opportunities for investment, declining labor productivity, relatively static economic structure—and consequently lower urbanization rate, slow social changes, and limited political and administrative transformations.12 After all, Italy had already attained, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the advanced condition that many other European societies would only reach several centuries later, such as high population density, high urbanization, high levels of industrial, commercial, and financial activities, and high investments in art and culture. A new epoch opened in the second half of the nineteenth century. New possibilities were then displacing the limits of the technological frontier. Later than other European regions, only at the end of the nineteenth century did Italy profit from these changes.

7

See especially Sella (1979) and the comments by Angiolini (1982). See also the general reconstruction of the Spanish Lombardy by Vigo (1994). 9 On those themes, a wide range of material is now provided by the recent Rizzo, Ibañez, Sabatini (2004). 10 Calabria (1991), p. 130. 11 On the theme in an historical perspective, see Kindleberger (1996). 12 On these social and political aspects, not examined in the following pages, see especially Chittolini (1979). 8

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Since the movement of the economy can be much better appreciated in a wide perspective, we will set the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the context of long-term developments in the Italian economy from about 1450 until 1750. We will look only at Northern and Central Italy (Latium excluded), with only some hints to the Southern economy. After all, in the past, as today, the Center-North and the South-Islands represented two deeply different realities. The availability of quantitative information in the historical literature is, besides, wider for the Center-North than for the rest of Italy, making it easier for a long-term economic reconstruction of these regions.13 We will examine, first of all, (§ 1) demographic movement, (§ 2) the cities and urban activity, (§ 3) the trend of production and productivity in the countryside, and (§ 4) prices and labor incomes. From these measures, it will be possible to confront, in the end, (§ 5) the problem of per capita product and (§ 6) to propose a general explanation for the movement of the Italian economy. 1. Population. In the period under examination Central-North Italy was the most densely populated area in Europe. While in 1600 and 1700 the average density in the continent (without Russia) was 17.8 and 19 inhabitants per sq. km. respectively, in Central-Northern Italy it was 48.6 and 50;14 in England it was 27.1 and 36.4; in France 33.1 and 34.9; and in Spain 15.4 and 15.9. Only the Netherlands approached Italy during the seventeenth century, with the rise from 36.4 inhabitants per sq. km. at the beginning to 46.2 at the end of the century.15 What is more, such a high density was reached in Italy not on flat, good soils easy to cultivate with cereals, but on a prevailing hilly and mountainous territory with wide marshy areas, not only near the coast, but in the interior as well (for instance in the Venetian state). The difficulties in the production of cereals were partially compensated for by the possibility, thanks to the climate, of arborial cultivation—especially the vineyard, the olive tree, and the mulberry tree. On these lands, demographic pressure, together with a relatively static agrarian technique, could often precipitate worsening economic conditions, much more than elsewhere on the continent. 13 The topics analysed in these pages have been much more developed in Malanima (2002). 14 In the South-Islands (Corsica included) the density at the same dates was 36.5 and 36.4 and in Italy on the whole 42.9 and 43.5. 15 Malanima (2002), ch. 1.

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For Italy, the old, main demographic studies by K. J. Beloch have been recently confirmed by research exploiting the method of the inverse projection (Table 1 and Figure 13.1).16 The movement of population in Italy was not deeply different, on the whole, from the average European trend. In Central-Northern Italy, as in Europe, the Black Death and subsequent epidemics caused a deep trough in the demographic curve. A fast recovery took place from 1450 until the end of the sixteenth century, when the level of 8 million inhabitants—already attained at the start of the fourteenth century—was reached again. The upward movement was interrupted by new, frequent, and serious plague epidemics from 1575 until 1630 and by famines and diseases—typhus epidemics especially—until 1650, when the modern demographic rise began and continued, without long-lasting interruptions, until the end of the twentieth century. Table 1. Population in Central-Northern Italy (CN), in Tuscany and in the South-Islands (SI) from 1300 to 1750 (thousands)

1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750

Italy CN

Tuscany

Italy SI

7,750 5,605 4,720 4,425 5,310 6,785 7,828 6,230 8,051 9,300

1,045 715 440 420 561 832 886 824 937 1,054

4,750 3,895 3,280 3,075 3,690 4,715 5,445 5,270 5,430 6,200

Source: Beloch (1937–61) and Malanima (2002) for Italy; Breschi and Malanima (2002) for Tuscany. Latium and Corsica are included in the South (from the southern borders of the current regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Marche).

Tuscany—the best known area, from a demographic viewpoint— confirms the trend described by Central-Northern Italy on the whole. After the Black Death, which had devastated Tuscany more than the rest of the Center-North, population began to increase from the middle of the fifteenth century. In Tuscany, however, the late medieval 16 Beloch (1937–61) for Italy; Breschi and Malanima (2002) for Tuscany. See also, for the Center and the North, Galloway (1994).

paolo malanima

388 10,000,000

1,500,000

9,000,000

1,300,000

8,000,000 1,100,000 Italy CN

6,000,000

900,000

5,000,000

700,000

4,000,000

Tuscany

Tuscany

Italy CN

7,000,000

500,000

3,000,000 300,000

2,000,000

100,000

1,000,000

–100,000 1750

1720

1690

1660

1630

1600

1570

1540

1510

1480

1450

1420

1390

1360

1330

1300

Fig. 13.1. Population in Italy CN and Tuscany 1300–1750

level of population was reached again only at the middle of the eighteenth century. In the Kingdom of Naples, on the contrary, after a stabilization in the first half of the seventeenth century, population declined with the 1656–57 plague and rose thereafter to reach its 1600 level again in 1700. 2. The cities. It is known that in the late Middle Ages Italy was among the most urbanized areas on the continent. Only Flanders shared with her such a high level of urbanization.17 France, England, and Spain were relatively far below the Italian values. In Central and Northern Italy in 1300, 21 people out of 100 lived in cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants (Table 2). Urbanization rates declined after the Black Death, which ravaged the cities much more than the countryside. The collapse in the gross demand for manufactured goods and services, as a consequence of the fall in population all over Europe, led to a decline in urban activities and in the demand for labor in Italian cities, deeply dependent on foreign demand for high luxury commodities and services.18

17 On the theme of Italian urbanization in the Center-North, see Malanima (1998a), and Malanima (2005). 18 In the debate between Lopez-Miskimin (1962) on one hand, and Cipolla (1964) on the other, Cipolla was right to stress that per capita incomes increased after the

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Table 2. Urban inhabitants (thousands) and urbanization rate in Central-Northern Italy from 1300 to 1750 (cities with at least 5,000 inhabitants)

1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750

Urban Inhabitants

Urbanization Rate

1,657 992 829 752 1,117 1,357 1,438 947 1,363 1,646

21.4 17.7 17.6 17.0 21.0 20.0 18.4 15.2 16.9 17.7

Source: Malanima (2005).

Towns remained under-populated until the new increase in European population from the last decades of the fifteenth century. Central and Northern Italian cities rapidly recovered. In 1500 the urbanization rate was again the same as in 1300: 21 percent. A new decline took place from the late sixteenth century and particularly from the plague epidemics in 1575–76, striking especially the Northern cities. Frequent industrial and commercial crises, between the end of the sixteenth and the middle of the seventeenth century, deepened the downward trend. We know, from a wide historical literature, that woollen production collapsed in the period 1570–1620.19 A central sector of activity in the Italian cities almost disappeared in those decades in the face of an increasing competition from Northern European regions and primarily England. Although the wool industry recovered during the eighteenth century, it never again reached the position held in the late medieval and Renaissance period. A strong decline struck the silk industry as well. This sector, however, was able to recover in the second half of the seventeenth century and even to surpass its sixteenthcentury production level. It replaced, in the end, in quantitative terms, the decayed woollen sector.20

Black Death, but Lopez-Miskimin were not wrong to propose a decline in urban industrial and commercial activities in Italy. 19 The topic has been widely described by Malanima (1998b). 20 Battistini (2003).

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As to the loss of external markets, recent and less recent historical literature has repeatedly shown that the Italian cities revealed a great flexibility in their adaptation to the European and Mediterranean economic landscape. Financial investments and trade declined in the first half of the seventeenth century, but rose again thereafter. In the eighteenth century, Italian ships in the Mediterranean and Italian merchants in Northern European cities were not less numerous than in the sixteenth century. Overall, the Italian economy revealed the capacity for adaptation in the changing environment and remained among the strongest in Europe. The conclusion may be that Italian urban decline took place only relative to the expanding Northern European economies. But it took place—and this is the often forgotten side of the coin—also in relation to its population. When population began to rise again, from the end of the seventeenth century, per capita production of secondary commodities and services weakened much more than before, particularly in the eighteenth century.21 Industry and trade had actually recovered to reach the same level as before. Now, however, the product of the secondary and tertiary sectors was divided among a much wider population; hence it was lower in per capita terms. In the North and Center, the proportion of urban to total population declined to reach the low level of 15 percent in 1650. Later a new, slow increase took place. Late medieval and early modern values were, however, not reached again until the twentieth century. If a declining urbanization is connected both with diminishing labor productivity in the countryside and the city, the downward trend in urbanization was a first indication of the weakening Italian economy during the centuries after the Renaissance.22 A comparison with other European regions allows us to place Italy in a continental perspective. Before 1900, three European regions— Central-Northern Italy, the Netherlands, and England—played a decisive role in the economy and took the lead one after another. Italy prevailed until 1500. In the Netherlands no city exceeded 5,000 inhabitants in 1300. In 1500 the level of Dutch urbanization was

21

Malanima (2003). The topic has been more widely developed in Malanima (2005). Only an increase in agricultural productivity may allow peasants to feed more non-agricultural inhabitants and only an increase in industrial urban productivity has the effect of attracting more people to the cities. 22

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already high, but lower than in Italy. As far as the urbanization rates reveal, the Netherlands was able to surpass Italy by the sixteenth century and keep the highest position in the European urban hierarchy until 1800, even if some decline took place during the eighteenth century. England passed Italy during the eighteenth century and the Netherlands during the first half of the nineteenth century (Table 3). Table 3. Urbanization rates in Central-Northern Italy, England (and Wales) and the Netherlands from 1300 until 1850–60 (cities with 10,000 inhabitants and more)

1400 1500 1600 1700 1800

Italy CN

England (and Wales)

The Netherlands

12.4 16.4 14.4 13.0 14.2

3.0 3.2 6.1 13.4 24.0

5.0 15.8 24.3 33.6 28.8

Source: For England: Wrigley (1986), p. 147 and 1400 estimate, based on Bairoch, Batou, Chèvre (1988); for the Netherlands Klep (1992), Devries (1994), and Devries (1986). Data for 1850–60 are from Devries (1994), p. 45, except for Italy (Malanima, 2005).

3. The countryside. The main effect of the increased population pressure was decreased per capita agricultural product. Despite the conquest of new arable land through land reclamation and deforestation, per capita agricultural product diminished continuously during the sixteenth century.23 In the last decades of the century, imports of wheat and other agricultural products from the South reached an unprecedented level. The lower densely populated lands in the South supported then the urban population in the North. Demographic decline interrupted this trend in the seventeenth century, but per capita agricultural product began to decrease again with the new population spurt in the eighteenth century. Despite the diffusion of new crops such as maize and mulberry trees in the Central and especially in the Northern Italian countryside from the late sixteenth century and despite the widening of rice cultivation in the Po Valley, agrarian

23

See the following § 5.

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labor productivity diminished. As often in agricultural societies, in Italy as well, this decline was in part offset by the increased workhours by peasant families. Both maize and mulberry trees cultivation implied, in fact, longer hours of labor. Recently two different, but partially converging estimates of rural labor productivity have been elaborated by Allen and by Federico and Malanima.24 They clearly reveal a declining trend; common, on the other hand, to all of the European regions, with the only exceptions the Netherlands— at least in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—and England, whose agricultural performance widely outpaced those of the rest of Europe. From the fifteenth century until 1800, while rural labor productivity diminished by 30 percent, land productivity rose by 50 percent (Table 4). At the end of the nineteenth century, Italy ranked last in Europe as to labor productivity in agriculture, but was among the most advanced regions as to land productivity. In agriculture, when labor and land productivities in the United Kingdom are made equal to 100, in Italy they were respectively 28 and 146.25 Land intensification and labor intensification went hand in hand for several centuries. Table 4. Average land and labor productivity in Central-Northern Italian agriculture from 1300 to 1861 (1400 = 100)

1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800

Land Productivity

Labor Productivity

100 96 94 107 119 106 131 161 151

100 102 88 77 72 78 76 82 70

Source: Federico and Malanima (2005). The series on land productivity has been worked out as the ratio of the agricultural product to the area of agricultural surface (defined as the total sum of land used for arables and permanent crops, permanent pasture, forest and woodland) in Central-Northern Italy (15,593,000 ha out of 16,984,000; from the 1929 land register).

24 25

Allen (2000); Federico and Malanima (2005). O’ Brien and Prados de la Escosura (1992), p. 531.

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The relation between labor productivity in agriculture and population movement is particularly enlightening (Figure 13.2). While population increased, average labor productivity in agriculture continuously declined during the four centuries, 1400–1800. 4. Prices and wages. During the late Renaissance, prices in Italy were still relatively higher than in other European economies.26 In the second half of the sixteenth century a consumer price index, elaborated using the same basket for several European regions and then based on purchasing parity power, shows that Italian prices were only lower than those of Spanish cities, then overrun by South American silver.27 A mature economy is often characterized, yesterday and today, by high prices. The increase in gross demand, as a consequence of the demographic rise, followed by the growth in the money supply—during the period of the Price Revolution from 1530 on—could not but cause the 180

Output per worker

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Population (000) Fig. 13.2. Population and output per worker in agriculture, Italy CN 1400–1800

26 The topic of prices and wages in Italy has been more widely examined in Malanima (2004). 27 Allen (2001), p. 426 and Van Zanden (1999).

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increase in prices, and especially in agricultural prices (Figure 13.3).28 This price rise follows the movement of population. It starts in the second half of the fifteenth century, is slow until 1530, and intensifies from then on. A decline in prices characterizes the period from 1610 until 1730, when population stagnated and more and more people fell into poverty. In the South the long-term trend is similar to that in the North.29 As in any advanced economy, wages in late Renaissance Italy were among the highest in Europe.30 At the beginning of the twentieth century, they were, on the contrary, among the lowest. In 1905 Italian wages were only about 40 percent of English wages,31 a clear indication of how much the Italian economy had declined from the early modern period. While nominal wages, as is always the case in pre-industrial economies, appear relatively stable, with some increase only in the second half of the sixteenth century, real wages diminished continuously 10 8 6 4 2 0 1850

1800

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Fig. 13.3. Price index in Central-Northern Italy 1450–1861 (1450–60 = 1)

28 The price index is based on Tuscan prices until 1605 and on Lombard prices from then on. Data are from: Tuscany (1270–1605)—De La Roncière (1982); Pinto (1993a) and (1993b); Parenti (1939); Tognetti (1995); and Lombardy (1606–1860)— De Maddalena (1949) and (1974); Sella (1968); Zanetti (1964). 29 Coniglio (1952). 30 Allen (2001), p. 428. 31 Zamagni (1989), 119.

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from the fifteenth century on (Figure 13.4). High wages prevailed in the late Middle Ages, and especially during the fifteenth century. A decline in wages took place both in Northern and Southern Italy as well as in the other European regions during the sixteenth century. In Italy this decline was relatively more precocious than elsewhere, starting already in the first half of the century. Later Italian wages reveal a relative stability, already singled out by past historians.32 Italian urban wages followed the upward price movement. Losses in purchasing power took place in the sixteenth century, but were, at least in part, neutralized by the increase in nominal wages. As Figure 13.4 shows, a recovery took place both in urban wages in the second half of the seventeenth century, during the so-called seventeenth-century crisis. A new downward trend characterized the eighteenth century, in particular its last decades. Evidence on rural wages, in Italy as elsewhere, is much scantier. Usually a similarity in the movement of urban and rural wages is assumed, but not proved at all. For the period 1450–1750 in CentralNorthern Italy, we have two different series—one from Tuscany, the other from Monferrato and Piedmont—comparable only in some

180 160 140 120 100 80 60

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32

Especially by Parenti (1939).

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Fig. 13.4. Building wage rates in Florence and Genoa (1450–1800) (1520–30 = 100)

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late sixteenth century decades (Figure 13.5).33 Furthermore rural wages may provide only limited information on labor compensation for a region such as Central-Northern Italy, where different forms of tenancy existed and where, as a consequence, labor payments were usually a percentage of the agricultural product and not a fixed wage. Wage laborers were, besides, only a small fraction of the total peasant population, probably not exceeding 20 percent of the whole in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The movement described by rural wages is not the same as that of urban wages. In the countryside, as we have seen in the cities, a decline in rural labor payments took place in the second half of the fifteenth century. In the cities, however, this decline in wages was interrupted during the sixteenth century; it continued, instead, in the countryside until the demographic decline provoked by plagues and epidemic diseases between 1629 and 1650. Since wages are a proxy for marginal productivity, we may suppose that, during the sixteenth century, rural marginal productivity was declining much more than urban marginal productivity. Urbanization was still high until the 1575 plague and urban economies were still dynamic. A city—we know—consumes people, since in a city mor250 200 150 100 50 0 1790–00

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Fig. 13.5. Rural wage rates in Italy CN (1450–1800) (1520–30 = 100) 33 Nominal wages for Tuscany are from Tognetti (1995) and Parenti (1939); for Piedmont from Doria (1968) and Pugliese (1908).

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tality rates exceed fertility rates. The still expanding urban activities were, however, able to attract labor from the countryside, thanks to the wage differential existing between rural and urban employment and could quickly recover from the epidemic shocks such as the one in 1575–76 in Lombardy-Venetia. From a classical economic perspective, we could suppose that this declining trend in the primary sector was setting a ceiling to the economic system on the whole: a hypothesis already presented by Ruggiero Romano several decades ago.34 Low agricultural productivity meant that the supply of agricultural products—foodstuffs and raw materials—to the cities was becoming more difficult and more expensive. Possibilities of expansion for the economic system as a whole were becoming increasingly limited. 5. Gross Product and per capita GDP. A synthetic view of gross and per capita product is far from easy for pre-modern economies. Data on population, urbanization, productivity, prices, and wages, such as those just presented, can allow a synthetic outline; even though—we have to stress—certainty is never attainable in such statistical exercises (both yesterday and today). The synthesis here presented for the centuries between 1400 and 1800 is only a first attempt to improve and modify.35 In a simulated reconstruction, J. L. Van Zanden has recently confirmed the broad outlines of these findings.36 Both the curves of the Italian per capita product are very similar, even though our methods of calculation are different. Long-term trends in gross and per capita product here presented are based on a new methodology. The first step consists in the reconstruction of per capita agricultural product from the demand side on the basis of elasticity coefficients as to prices—both agricultural and non agricultural—and wages.37 To the curve of agricultural production is then added secondary and tertiary sectors’ product, computed from the correlation between economic structure and urbanization for the period 1861–1931. By means of an extrapolation from the urbanization rate in the previous centuries, it is then possible to go back towards the late Middle Ages. 34 35 36 37

Romano (1980). Malanima (2003). Van Zanden (2004). Federico-Malanima (2004).

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The long-run trend in gross product does not reveal anything new, since—as expected—it follows population movement (Figure 13.6). We discover the late medieval depression; the sixteenth-century rise; the sharp fall because of the 1629–30 plague; and the new upward start after 1650–60, when modern demographic transition begins, interrupted only at the end of the eighteenth century. In modern advanced economies both gross and per capita product— albeit with different speeds—are, however, upwardly bent. It is not so with pre-modern economies. Here, usually, the increase in population—and hence in gross product—is followed by a decrease in per capita GDP. In Central-Northern Italy the curve is clearly downward bent since the late Middle Ages (Figure 13.7). We see the sixteenth-century decline, the seventeenth-century crisis after about 1620, a recovery at the end of the seventeenth-century, and a new decline during the eighteenth century crisis—much more serious in Italy than the widely discussed seventeenth-century crisis. A closer look at the curves reveals many interesting features. The first is the precocious decline, since the very beginning of the sixteenth century. The second is the stronger decrease in secondary and tertiary sectors than in agriculture; during the seventeenth century especially,

(000) 3500000 3000000 2500000 2000000 1500000 1000000 500000 0 1790–00

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Fig. 13.6. GDP in Italy CN (1400–1800) (Italian 1860–70 lire)

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Fig. 13.7. Per capita agricultural product and per capita GDP in Italy CN 1400–1800 (Italian 1860–70 lire)

both curves are approaching one another. On the whole, the Spanish influence in Italy developed during a long period of declining prosperity. Nothing would be easier than to explain the second as a consequence of the first, as has been done by past historians. Needless to say, coincidence is not causality; the reasons for Italian economic decline are different. 6. The Italian trend. It is not difficult, on the basis of these long series, to outline an explanation. A classical economic perspective would suggest that capital formation—including as capital, fertile soils made productive by investments of financial resources and peasant labor— increased less than population in early modern Italy. Over time each worker was provided with less and less capital, that is, with less land, tools, and animals. Marginal and average labor productivity could not but diminish; and with diminished labor productivity, per capita product diminished as well. The decline in real wages can only be explained as a consequence of the decline in productivity. This downward trend affected both rural and urban economies—the agriculture, manufacturing, and service sectors. Even though such a quantitative reconstruction is not yet possible for Southern Italy, the similarity of

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the wage trend in the Center and North suggests that the same declining trend also characterized the Kingdom of Naples.38 This explanation may describe not only the long-term trend, but also shorter movements. In the ratio between capital and labor, the Black Death introduced a meaningful change. High mortality determined a collapse in population and, obviously, in the labor force. Capital formation then took place not because of an increase in fertile lands, tools, and animals per worker, but because of the disappearance of many workers; the fewer remaining workers being endowed with much more fixed capital. In the fifteenth century, workers were more productive than before and later. As a consequence, wages were higher and per capita incomes higher as well. The Renaissance economic boom was, after all, supported by the epidemics: wealth was the offspring of death. In a less dense population, epidemics were less ravaging than before. Since labor was also more productive, population could start to rise again. Population increase, however, not accompanied by a corresponding capital formation, meant less fixed capital available per worker, a decline in labor productivity, and hence—the ratio between labor force and population remained the same—in lower per capita product as well. Wages began to decline in the late fifteenth and during the sixteenth century, while population was rising. The increasing population density in the cities, together with declining productivity and wages, was making a stop in demographic growth always more probable. New epidemics, striking the cities from 1575–76 on, and particularly between 1629 and the middle of the seventeenth century, brought a reversal in the preceding trend. Population declined, even if less than in 1348–49. The ratio between capital and labor force changed again. Labor became more productive than before; in a first phase particularly in the countryside, then in the towns as well, thanks to the mentioned changes in urban activities. Recovery was again a consequence of death. After all, the second half of the seventeenth century does not look as backward as many past historians believed. Relatively low prices and high wages both in the cities and in the countryside made the economic conditions not so bad for the majority of the population; even though trade and industry were less dynamic than before. 38

See especially data on wages in Coniglio (1952) and Romano (1965).

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The classical economic model here presented is endogenous, since it does not assume the introduction of external factors, with the exception of plague epidemics, although its diffusion becomes more probable when population increases. So, at least partially, epidemics too are internal to the present model. After the late medieval and Renaissance high level of per capita income, an epoch of decline followed in inverse relation with the demographic movement. The decline was precipitous both in the countryside and the cities during the sixteenth century; it slowed down in the seventeenth century particularly in the countryside, where a partial recovery took place in the second half of the century and the first half of the eighteenth century. When population rise accelerated, from the middle of the eighteenth century, per capita product fell more rapidly, reaching its lowest level between 1790 and 1820. While Northern-Central Italy was on a par with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands at the start of the eighteenth century, it was no longer so by the end of the century. In absolute and relative terms Italy had lost her advanced position. Maturity had been followed by decline. Bibliography Allen, R. C. (2001), “The great divergence in European wages and prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War,” Explorations in Economic History 38: 411–47. —— (2000), “Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe 1300–1800,” European Review of Economic History IV: 1–26. Angiolini, F. (1982), “L’economia del Milanese nel sistema imperiale spagnolo”, Società e storia V: 391–99. Aymard, M. (1978), “La transizione dal feudalesimo al capitalismo,” in R. Romano, C. Vivanti (eds.), Storia d’Italia. Annali: Dal Feudalesimo al capitalismo, 1: 1131–92, Turin, Einaudi. Eng. Trans., “From Feudalism to Capitalism in Italy: The Case that Doesn’t Fit.” Review 6 (1982): 131–208. Bairoch, P., Batou, J., Chèvre, P. (1988), La population des villes européennes de 800 à 1850, Geneva, Droz. Battistini, F. (2003), L’industria della seta in Italia nell’Età Moderna, Bologna, Il Mulino. Beloch, K. J. (1937–61), Bevölkerungsgeschichte Italiens, Berlin-Leipzig, De Gruyter. Braudel, F., (1949; 1966), La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen á l’époque de Philippe II (1st ed., Paris: Armand Colin, 2d ed., 2 vols., Paris: Armand Colin); The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Siân Reynolds, 2 vols. (London: Wm. Collins Sons Ltd. and New York: Harper & Row, 1972–73). Breschi, M., Malanima, P. (2002), “Demografia ed economia in Toscana: il lungo periodo (secoli XIV–XIX),” in M. Breschi-P. Malanima (eds.), Prezzi, redditi, popolazioni in Italia: 600 anni, Udine, Forum: 109–142. Caizzi, B. (1980), Il Comasco sotto il dominio spagnolo, Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi (1st ed., Milano, 1954).

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Calabria, A. (1991), The cost of Empire. The finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Caracciolo, A. (1973), “La storia economica,” in Storia d’Italia: Dal primo settecento all’Unità, in R. Romano and C. Vivanti (eds.), Turin, Einaudi, 3: 511–693. Chittolini, G. (1979), “Introduzione”, in La crisi degli ordinamenti comunali e le origini dello stato del Rinascimento, Bologna, Il Mulino: 6–50. Cipolla, C. M. (1952), “The Decline of Italy: The Case of a Fully Matured Economy,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 5: 178–87. —— (1964), “The economic depression of the Renaissance,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 16: 519–24. —— (1989), Le tre rivoluzioni e altri saggi di storia economica e sociale, Bologna, Il Mulino. Coniglio, G. (1952), “La Rivoluzione dei prezzi nella città di Napoli nei secoli XVI e XVII”, Atti della IX riunione scientifica della Società Italiana di statistica (Roma, gennaio 1950). De La Roncière, Ch.-M. (1982), Prix et salaires à Florence au XIV e siècle, Rome, Ecole Française de Rome. De Maddalena, A. (1949), Prezzi e aspetti di mercato in Milano durante il secolo XVII, Milan, Università Bocconi. —— (1974), Prezzi e mercedi a Milano dal 1701 al 1860, Milan, Università Bocconi. Devries, J. (1984), European Urbanization 1500–1800, London: Methuen. —— (1986), “Population and Economy of the Preindustrial Netherlands,” in R. I. Rotberg and T. K. Rabb (eds.), Population and Economy. Population and History from the Traditional to the Modern World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 101–22. Doria, G. (1968), Uomini e terre di un borgo collinare dal XVI al XVIII secolo, Milan, Giuffrè. Federico, G., Malanima, P. (2004), “Progress, decline, growth. Product and productivity in Italian agriculture 1000–2000,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 57: 437–64. Galloway, P. (1994), “A reconstruction of the population of North Italy from 1650 to 1881 using annual inverse projection with comparisons to England, France and Sweden,” European Journal of Population 10: 223–74. Kindleberger, C. P. (1996), “Maturità economica,” in Enciclopedia delle Scienze Sociali, Rome, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, V: 590–96. Klep, P. M. M. (1992), “Long-term Developments in the Urban Sector of The Netherlands (1350–1870),” in Le reseau urbain en Belgique dans une perspective historique (1350 –1850), Brussels, Actes Andelingen. Lopez, R. S., Miskimin H. A. (1962), “The economic depression of the Renaissance,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 14: 408–26. Malanima, P. (2003a), “Measuring the Italian Economy 1300–1861,” Rivista di Storia Economica XIX, n. 3: 265–95. —— (2003b), “Le crisi d’Italia e la crisi del Settecento,” Società e storia, nn. 100–01: 273–86. —— (1998a), “Italian Cities 1300–1800. A quantitative approach,” Rivista di Storia Economica XIV: 91–126. —— (1998b), La fine del primato. Crisi e riconversione nell’Italia del Seicento, Milan, B. Mondadori. —— (2002), L’economia italiana. Dalla crescita medievale alla crescita contemporanea. Bologna, Il Mulino. —— (2005), “Urbanisation and the Italian Economy. During the Last Millennium,” European Review of Economic History 9: 97–122. —— (2004), “Labour, Productivity, Wages in Italy 1270–1913,” www. iisg.nl, paper presented in the congress, “Towards a global study of prices and wages,” Utrecht, 19–21 August 2004. O’Brien, P., Prados de la Escosura, L. (1992), “Agricultural productivity and European industrialization,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 51: 514–36. Parenti, G. (1939), Prime ricerche sulla rivoluzione dei prezzi a Firenze, Florence, CYA.

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Pinto, G. (1993a), I livelli di vita dei salariati fiorentini (1380–1430), in Id., Toscana medievale. Paesaggi e realtà sociali, Florence, Le Lettere: 113–52. —— (1993b), “Il personale, le balie e i salariati dell’ospedale di San Gallo di Firenze (1395–1406),” in Id., Toscana medievale. Paesaggi e realtà sociali, Florence, Le Lettere: 69–112. Pugliese S. (1924), Condizioni economiche e finanziarie della Lombardia nella prima metà del secolo XVIII, in Miscellanea di storia italiana, III, T.XXI, Milano, Fratelli Bocca. —— (1908), Due secoli di vita agricola. Produzione e valore dei terreni contratti agrari, salari e prezzi nel Vercellese nei secoli XVIII e XIX, Milan-Turin-Rome, Bocca. Rapp, R. T. (1976), Industry and economic decline in Seventeenth-century Venice, CambridgeLondon, Cambridge University Press. Rizzo, M., Ibañez, J. J. R., Sabatini, G. (2004) (eds.), Le forze del principe. Recursos, instrumentos y límites en la práctica del poder soberano en los territorios de la monarquía hispanica, Murcia, Universidad de Murcia. Romano, R. (1980), “Tra XVI e XVII secolo. Una crisi economica: 1619–22,” (orig. 1962) in Id., L’Europa tra due crisi. Tra XIV e XVII secolo, Turin, Einaudi: 76–147. —— (1997), Paese Italia. Venti secoli di identità, Rome, Donzelli. —— (1965), Prezzi, salari e servizi a Napoli nel secolo XVIII (1734–1806), Milan, Banca Commerciale Italiana. Sella, D. (1979), Crisis and continuity. The economy of Spanish Lombardy in the seventeenth century, Cambridge (Mass.)- London, Harvard Univ. Press. Tognetti, S. (1995), “Prezzi e salari nella Firenze tardomedievale: un profilo,” Archivio Storico Italiano, CLIII: 262–333. Vigo, G. (1994), Uno stato nell’impero. La difficile transizione al moderno nella Milano di età spagnola, Milano, Guerini e associati. Wrigley, E. A. (1986), “Urban Growth and Agricultural Change: England and the Continent in the Early Modern Period,” in R. I. Rotberg and T. K. Rabb (eds.), Population and economy. Population and History from the Traditional to the Modern World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 123–68. Zamagni, V. (1989), “An International Comparison of Real Industrial Wages, 1890–1913,” in P. Scholliers (ed.), Real Wages in 19th and 20th Century Europe, New York-Oxford-Munich, Berg: 107–39. Zanden, J.-L. Van (1999), “Wages and the standard of living in Europe, 1500–1800,” European Review of Economic History III: 175–94. —— (2004), “Simulating early modern economic growth,” in www. iisg.nl/research/jvzsimulating Zanetti, D. (1964), Problemi alimentari di un’economia preindustriale. Cereali a Pavia dal 1398 al 1700, Turin, Boringhieri.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE RURAL WORLD IN ITALY UNDER SPANISH RULE John A. Marino

As the new Neapolitan viceroy-designate prepared for his formal entrance into Naples on November 27, 1595, unsigned “Adviertimentos” probably written by his predecessor laid out the continuing problems confronting Spanish rule in the city and kingdom of Naples. In the cursus honorum of Spanish office-holding in Italy, the new viceroy-designate Enriquez de Guzmán, count of Olivares (viceroy of Naples, 1595–1599), was coming to Naples from service as the viceroy of Sicily (1592–95) to replace Juan de Zuñiga, count of Miranda (viceroy of Naples, 1586–1595). Guzmán had previously served as Spanish ambassador in Rome (1582–92), where he had earlier replaced that same Zuñiga (ambassador in Rome, 1568–1579) and where his son the later Count-Duke “favorite” of Philip IV was born. The departing viceroy’s “warnings” or “advice” to the new viceroy began with a customary courtesy that presented a generic programmatic charge defining the “four principal issues” (food provisioning, administration of justice, fiscal resources, and billeting of troops) for “el buen govierno of the Kingdom,” but also included a fifth urgent and topical one, “to these four should be added one more, if it is rather out of the ordinary, that has gained hold for some years here in the roots of the Kingdom such that its oversight is no less important than those others which I have listed,” namely, brigandage.1 Rosario Villari has 1 Rosario Villari, La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli. Le origini (1585–1647) (Naples: Laterza, 1973), App. 3, p. 252 transcribes Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, MS. 2417, ff. 195–200, which begins: “Quatro cosas son las principales en que consiste el buen govierno deste Reyno: en la Buena administracion que vulgarmente llaman la grassa que se pide particularmente en esta Ciudad; en la observancia de la justicia y prematicas; en el benefficio conservacion y aumento del Patrimonio Real y en la Buena disciplina y orden de la milicia y fuerças que su Magestad sustenta y mantiene en este Reyno con grande costa y cuydado y es de creer no sin causas de Buena consideracion por razon de stado. A estas quarto se puede juntar otra, que si bien accidental, tiene de algunos años aca ganadas tales raizes en el Reyno que su remedio no importa menos que todos los demas que se ha dicho, que se la insolencia y gran numero de foragidos que andan en el Reyno.”

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summarized the thesis of the document as “the problem of how to restore order . . . [in] two aspects: one concerns the influence of the state and of royal justice in the provinces, and thus the need to control baronial power; the other concerns the negative consequences of the political and administrative autonomy of the capital.”2 Villari’s well-known analysis of the political instability caused by the autonomy of the barons and the pretensions of the city of Naples undergird his exposition of the long-term origins of the violent insurrection that erupted in city and countryside in 1647. A complementary reading of viceroy Zuñiga’s advice would emphasize Spanish understanding of the constrictive bonds that defined the urban-rural continuum of pre-industrial states. State capitals could not exist without their hinterlands supplying men and materiel, which accounts for the expansionist and centralizing impulse to conquer, dominate, incorporate, pacify, and control neighboring territory. At the same time, distance provided refuge for local lords and peasants to resist the centripetal forces of the dominant city; but the safety of distance depended upon the relative strength and efficiency of centralizing institutions and powers. Spanish rule in Naples manipulated this reciprocal relationship between center and periphery to play off local interests one against another in a well-documented policy of divide and conquer that maintained itself often with expedients bearing unintended consequences or at the expense of temporizing the resolution of intractable problems. Although the previous chapter’s long-term perspective in Paolo Malanima’s analysis emphasizes that internal, rather than external forces shaped the “Italian trend” in economic development, individual and governmental decision-making in the short and medium-run to exploit resources for domestic politics (provisioning and pacification), imperial projects (war and finance), or personal profit (for the rich and powerful), nevertheless, had significant impact for good or ill on the viability of economic structures and the prospects for change in early modern Italy. If Philip Hoffman’s work on the French countryside (1450–1815) is taken seriously, moreover, his argument for the real causes of growth in French peasant agriculture as derived from politics and the grain trade challenges comparison with the Italian case.3 2 Ibid., p. 97 from the Eng. trans., The Revolt of Naples, trans. James Nowell with the assistance of John A. Marino (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), p. 57. 3 Philip T. Hoffman, Growth in a traditional society: the French countryside, 1450–1815 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

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What I would like to examine in the rural world of Spanish Italy, then, is the question of Spanish political economy in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italy. Was there a Spanish economic policy in the countryside? How did Spanish political choices, government administration, law and custom determine policy and its effectiveness in balancing supply and demand, facilitating distribution, enacting and enforcing tax policy, equitable exchange and just prices, and fair and even justice? Did it differ from the policies in other early modern states? How did such governmental practices affect the internal factors of production—land, labor and capital? Did it or its absence help or hinder economic sustainability and growth? Let’s begin by following viceroy Zuñiga’s five-point program of potential problems in their broadest understanding to see how external political practices confronted the internal factors of production in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italy: first, how provisioning needs related to population and agricultural production; second, how justice was a question of jurisdiction—civil or criminal, royal, feudal, or ecclesiastical—and its equitable administration; third, how the fiscal resources of the Royal Patrimony consisted of direct and indirect taxes as well as the sale, rental, or fees from royal and feudal property; fourth, how the billeting of troops concerned maintaining infantry and cavalry companies and provisioning forts and castles for both public defense and public order; and finally fifth, how brigandage reflected both economic circumstances for the endemic and/or the conjunctural poor and the effective political control in the countryside to enforce law and order, curtail contraband, control monopolistic speculation, and eliminate vigilanteeism. The problem, therefore, is more complex than the simplistic mantra of laissez-faire, state nonintervention or the binary dualism of city and countryside, lords and peasants, noble and commoner, rich and poor, central and local power, center and periphery, production and consumption, manufacturing and agriculture, or North and South in a kind of structuralist hall of mirrors. First, then, it is a truism that urban populations depended on the agricultural surplus provided by the countryside and bad harvests or undelivered grain brought famine and the kind of urban unrest feared by viceroys in the large Neapolitan capital. Recurrent grain shortages in Naples in 1508, 1533, 1555–60, 1585 through the 1590s, 1627–31, and 1647–50 reinforced the Spanish administrators’ understanding of the fragility of political rule in the capital. The well-known riot, lynching, and ritual cannibalism of 1585 against the eletto del popolo

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Giovan Vincenzo Starace, who was responsible for the earlier exportation of some 400,000 tomoli of grain to Spain, and its resonances in the countryside were met with repressive force as the revolt’s ringleaders were rounded up, executed or exiled, and their property confiscated, houses leveled and sown with salt. When did Naples’ Spanish administrators’ learn about the problem of population and food-provisioning, the annona of the city, and what policies did they develop to deal with the problem? In his recent work on the togati officer, Carlo Tapia (1565–1644), Gaetano Sabatini has surveyed theory and practice in grain-provisioning and explained the Neapolitan background to Tapia’s pathbreaking understanding of the grain trade in his 1638 Trattato dell’abbondanza.4 Beginning in 1555, the specter of famine began to haunt Naples. A series of bad harvests, again a story well-documented by Silvio Zotta’s work in the Doria’s feudal state of Melfi, resulted in a number of important political decisions with intervention by both the viceroy in Naples and Philip II in Spain regarding rural land use, grain distribution, and even urban population in the capital.5 Rich farm land in the Tavoliere di Puglia, terre salde, was taken out of pasture and auctioned off to the highest bidder to rent for grain production: 1,000 carra in 1555, 500 carra in 1560 and thereafter contracts renewed, 1,000 carra in 1562, 500 in 1567, 230 in 1577, 400 in 1584, and 1,600 in 1591 as famine once again spread. In 1560, the viceroy duke of Alcala placed the office of grassiero regio or prefetto dell’annona (usually filled by one of the Collateral Council regents), under the jurisdiction of the city council, the Tribunale di San Lorenzo. Its popolo representative, the eletto del popolo, had overseen Neapolitan grain provisioning under viceregal authority since 1548, with responsibilities that included regulating the supply and price of flour in the city. In 1561, a road to transport grain was approved to link the Neapolitan capital with the breadbasket province of Capitanata in order to facilitate the kingdom’s supply network and circumvent the threat of Adriatic pirates, both Turkish and 4 Gaetano Sabatini, “Carlo Tapia: la vita, le opere, il Trattato dell’abondanza” in Carlo Tapia, Trattato dell’abondanza, ed. Gaetano Sabatini (Lanciano: Casa Editrice Rocco Carabba, 1998) 5 Silvio Zotta, “Agrarian Crisis and Feudal Politics in the Kingdom of Naples: The Doria at Melfi (1585–1615),” in Good Government in Spanish Naples, eds. and trans. Antonio Calabria and John A. Marino (New York and Bern: Peter Lang, 1990), pp. 127–203.

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Venetian.6 And in 1562, the Collateral Council voted to limit the size of the capital by prohibiting new construction within the city walls. The linkage between demographic growth, food supply, and the fiscal needs of the state were debated and determined at the highest levels of the Spanish government. Thus, twenty-five years later, with a worse crop failure and increased population pressure, the eletto del popolo Giovan Vincenzo Starace’s unwise decision in 1585 to export grain to Valencia and consequently raise the price of bread in Naples, which of course meant shrinking the size of the standard loaf, not only led to his lynching and ritual cannibalism, but signaled the beginning of an extremely difficult decade of famine and hardship in the countryside and capital of Naples.7 An anonymous document bound together with a copy of the “Adviertimentos” of the viceroy duke of Osuna (viceroy, 1582–1586) to his successor the count of Miranda—the author of the document used as our point of departure—presents 36 “expedients for the relief of the communes (universidades) of the Kingdom” that Gaetano Sabatini attributes to Tapia circa 1595 and was to form the core of his later 1638 tract.8 These “Expedientes” provide a number of indications on the growing expertise and insights of the Neapolitan ministers regarding administrative reform, budgetary safeguards, and centralization policy. Three issues are paramount: first, the gathering and maintenance of good records to insure accounting and administrative oversight and control by the central government over local authority; second, rural debt; and third, counter-feudal measures against baronial abuses and attempts to gain more property in the countryside at the expense of the communes and the royal desmense. Provisions include a libro major in every commune for income and expenses (both ordinary and extraordinary) and for local resolutions, a cadastral survey of individuals’ goods and baronial holdings, two sets of books (one by the parish, the other by the mastredato dela terra) of baptisms

6 Anna Giannetti, “La strada dalla cittá al territorio: la riogranizzazione spaziale del Regno di Napoli nel Cinquecento,” in Cesare De Seta, ed., Storia d’Italia: Annali, vol. VIII: Insediamenti e territorio (Turin: Einaudi, 1985), pp. 241–285, esp. pp. 281–284. 7 Villari, Eng. trans., pp. 22–29. Peter Burke, “Southern Italy in the 1590s: Hard Times or Crisis?” in Peter Clark, ed., The European Crisis of the 1590s. Essays in Comparative History (London; Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1985), pp. 177–190. 8 Sabatini, pp. 7–12 summarizes the document in Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli [BNN], MS. Branc. II-E-5, cc. 151r–159r, “Expedientes para relevar las universidades del Reyno.”

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and burials to avoid the expense and labor of numbering hearths, which were counted for direct taxes and provided the largest source of revenue to the kingdom. Other measures recommend an annual royal visitor to each commune, establishment of a grain depository to maintain a surplus in each commune, regularizing fiscal payments, renegotiating loans, rescheduling debt service, and control of the fiscal squeeze by a host of local, provincial, and viceregal tax-collectors. But the largest number of these recommendations concern the third problem, baronial pretensions aimed at asserting local noble authority over the communes and their citizens and alienation of royal demesne. The conflicts between rich and poor (e.g., access to common pasture), feudal lords and commoners (e.g., confirmation of commoner privileges by Charles V in 1536), or feudal lords and the royal demesne (e.g., on the sale or transfer of jurisdictional status) remained a constant threat to viceregal authority in the capital and challengeed Spanish government’s anti-feudal policy of reducing baronial autonomy. In general, bureaucratic rationalization, “confirmed with the authority of laws, doctrines, and examples,” guided Tapia to help overturn the politically short-sighted and economically counterproductive price controls through policies that he would elaborate some forty years later.9 In other words, Tapia advocated rational decisions inspired by judicial practice and precedent, good—as opposed to bad—government. Tapia’s 1638 Trattato itself begins by examining the three causes of scarcity—natural, supernatural, and accidental causes—in order to propose remedies to ameliorate the effects of natural and supernatural disasters and to adopt measures to prevent the mistakes of man that had caused accidental dearth. What Tapia envisions is essentially a supply-side, rather than demand-driven fix. He does not question the commonly accepted need for a fixed political price for bread, but rather he recommends that every commune should adopt a provisioning structure like that of the capital, speculation should be stamped out, grain exportation should be prohibited, contraband eliminated, and grain depositories established to monitor supply at the local level. To insure steady supplies, Tapia specifically counseled that granaries for surplus be built near grain production, profit margins of producers be reduced to prevent speculation, and constant

9

Tapia, Trattato dell’abondanza, “Proemio,” in Sabatini, p. 41.

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inspections control supply to prevent bottlenecks in distribution by preventing exportation and contraband while fostering local community control. Sabatini concludes that Tapia was among the magistrates who saw the state not only mediating conflicts between the king and the corporate bodies under his rule, but going even so far as to prepare for the needs of the population by reducing the effect of natural and supernatural acts out of human control, i.e., by controlling fortuna.10 The result would create a new relationship between the centralizing imperatives of the early modern state, local municipalities, and individual interests. The state could accomplish this end by paying attention to the second point of the viceroy count of Miranda’s “Adviertimentos” with which we began, jurisdiction to insure equitable justice. In Tapia’s 1595 “Expedientes,” the first two items point the way to an understanding of the assumptions and practices underlying his analysis. First, because the many poor pay more taxes than the rich, a skewed fiscal system only exacerbates the inequalities of rank, wealth, and privilege. Second, Tapia acknowledges that the università parliaments each have particular rules and rights, debate resolutions, and legislate regulations in terms of the common good. The first point reinforces Spanish royal policy of treating all subjects equally and thus moderating internecine disputes between communes and between communes and barons.11 Of course, while such mediation can also be interpreted as another example of the Spanish policy of divide and conquer, its unintended consequences suggest a trial and error method of application and an ever-growing resentment on the part of the rich and powerful who felt that their “natural” rights had been usurped. The Venetian ambassador Michele Suriano summarized the nobles’ position in his 1559 relazione from Spain: “The nobles are in despair because they see themselves reduced to the status of their inferiors, and the common people, seeing themselves treated like nobles, become insolent and presumptuous.”12 This lack of respect resurfaces constantly in the disputes with their feudal subjects. Baronial grazie submitted to the absentee king from the Neapolitan parliament continually

10

Sabatini, pp. 12–13. BNN, MS. Branc. II-E-5, “Expedientes,” item 4, c. 152r. 12 James C. Davis, ed., Pursuit of Power. Venetian Ambassadors’ Reports on Turkey, France, and Spain in the Age of Philip II, 1560–1600 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), pp. 47–48. 11

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petitioned for a restoration of their privileges, but without redress. The barons, for example, not only decried passage through their lands free from tolls for the dogana of Foggia’s tratturi (sheepwalks 111 meters wide that stretched from the Abruzzi to the Tavoliere di Puglia), but also government efforts to reorder them in 1533, 1574, 1601, 1645, and 1648 by removing “vines, vegetable gardens, shrubs, grain crops, or enclosures” and imposing fines for encroachment of 1,000 ducats in 1574 and even capital punishment in 1575.13 Further, those who paid taxes in the royal customhouse at Foggia were exempt from baronial jurisdiction, just as peasants who fled the countryside to reside in the city of Naples. At the same time, sixteenth-century sheepowners’ parliaments in the dogana of Foggia in November 1578 had 170 locati participants voting, 136 in November 1582, 100 in November 1583, and eventually a representative assembly of 37 sindaci particolari with an executive committee of four sindaci generali all elected by the sheepowner locati after 1615.14 Similarly, the traditional rights and privileges enjoyed by commoners were the subject of local parliamentary debates in the small villages that make up the Doria’s feudal state of Melfi described by Zotta in the famine crisis after 1585.15 The Barberini estates in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century Roman campagna highlight the political dimensions of these conflicts between patrician lords and commoner clients over the usual lord/peasant questions of fishing and hunting rights, boundaries, forced labor, increased taxation, middlemen overseers, and similar traditional rights.16 The role of the central government of the early modern states versus the feudal interests of the landed nobility are played out in law and written records. Robert Putnam’s recent arguments on associational life in “making democracy work” in contemporary Italy notwithstanding, there is clear and substantial evidence of local village action and communal advocacy throughout the absolutist rule of the early modern period in the Italian South.17 Study of peasant discontent

13 John A. Marino, Pastoral Economics in the Kingdom of Naples (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), pp. 42–43. 14 Marino, pp. 95–96. 15 Zotta, “Agrarian Crisis and Feudal Politics,” in Good Government in Spanish Naples, eds. Calabria and Marino. 16 Caroline Castiglione, Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640 –1760 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 17 Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

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and revolt in France confirms what one sees in Spanish Italy, an endemic resistance to the squeeze of hunger and taxes that is only held in check by coercion and repression through armed force.18 The imperative of state finance to maintain and increase the royal patrimony, the viceroy count of Miranda’s third adviertimento, was the steering rationale of Spanish rule in Naples—conservation of their inheritance and continuity of their mandate to rule in unbroken good government from their Aragonese ancestors. In Spanish Naples, the mistaken policies of the 1548 reintegration of pastoral and arable land in the Tavoliere di Puglia under the jurisdiction of the dogana of Foggia have been shown to be a major cause of the 1555–60s famine. Increased pasture favored numerous sheepowner interests over feudal agriculturists and meant increased state revenues from the indirect tax on the number of sheep grazing in the winter pastures of the dogana, an indirect tax which was the kingdom’s single largest source of revenue coming in a lump sum in one place within a month. The 1548 reintegra transferred 2,060 carra to pasture creating a 58 percent pasture to 42 percent agriculture ratio. Because 8 percent of agricultural land was reserved for grazing draft oxen (mezzane) and another 17 percent of the arable was left fallow (maiese) or fallow open to grazing (restoppie), the effective pasture to arable ratio was 83 percent pasture to 17 percent arable—the formula for the famine disaster that was to follow. The terre salde rentals of 1555, then, restored the nominal pasture/agriculture ratio to near parity with 52 percent pasture to 48 percent arable. Testimony recorded from five agriculturist witnesses on agrarian practice in Puglia during the reintegra revealed an equally alarming result of state intervention in field rotation. One witness, Federico de Minadois from Manfredonia, complained that the state’s pastoral favoritism had compelled agriculturists to provide sheep pasture unwillingly and if left unencumbered, they would adapt a three-field rotation system that would be more beneficial to soil replenishment than the currently state-imposed two-field system on ever-exhausted plots.19 Pasture assignment and taxation through the arcane method of sheep numeration through the 1553 system of free bidding and fictive 18 Yves-Marie Bercé, History of peasant revolts: the social origins of rebellion in early modern France, trans. Amanda Whitmore (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990); and Idem, Revolt and revolution in early modern Europe: an essay on the history of political violence, trans. Joseph Bergin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987). 19 Marino, pp. 60ff.

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sheep counts ( professazione voluntaria and pecore in aerea)20 in the dogana of Foggia was the kind of rural, tax-maximization state policy that the Venetian ambassador Michele Suriano was referring to when he excoriated the Spanish for the innumerable tax expedients exploiting the kingdom of Naples: The kingdom of Naples yields revenues of a million in gold and has expenses of a million and a half. They make up the differences with grants, assessments, subsidies, new taxes and increases of old ones, confiscations, and other unusual methods. You can’t imagine a method of extracting money from subjects which has not been used in this kingdom.21

Spanish rule saw the “extension and multiplication [of such indirect taxes] after 1504, [which] amounted to a true fiscal novelty,” and even “resorted to bizarre, if ingenious, measures” with the 1605 proposal “for a duty of one ducat per window, applicable to the capital and payable by landlords.”22 But, as heavy as such indirect taxes (ranging from 29 percent to 43 percent of toal revenues between 1563 and 1638) might have been, direct taxes on the number of hearths in each of the kingom’s twelve provinces continued Aragonese practice and were the most important source of revenue in Naples during the Spanish period.23 The clegy, inhabitants of the Neapolitan capital, and allodial holdings in the capital were exempt from the hearth tax, as this was essentially a tax on the countryside and its provincial towns. Thus, the manipulation of internal mechanisms such as the taxation method of professazione voluntaria, favoritism in the reservation of the best pasture for rich holders in locazioni particolari, and the already mentioned collusion with merchant buyers to standardize the prezzo alla voce in the seventeenth century are all examples of the kinds of tax policies, resource allocation, and price-fixing that the fiscal-provisioning state employed to fill its coffers at the expense of what was best for the land and its laborers. 20

John A. Marino, “Professazione voluntaria e pecore in aerea: ragione economica e meccanismi di mercato nella dogana di Foggia del secolo sedicesimo,” Rivista Storica Italiana 94:1 (1982): 5–43. 21 Davis, p. 46. 22 Antonio Calabria, The Cost of Empire: The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 43–44. 23 Ibid., pp. 39–40 and 59–63.

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The fourth of the main causes of bad government in Naples according to the viceroy count of Miranda’s adviertimentos, the billeting of Spanish troops, was also included in Suriano’s 1559 relazione to the Venetian Senate: His majesty rules by force, and being afraid of the temper of his subjects, he always wants to have a large body of Spaniards stationed there. While the people of newly acquired territories will put up with foreign troops, in a kingdom long under one dynasty, and held by inheritance, foreign troops are more of a burden on the populace than a necessary safeguard for the kingdom.24

This same point is made in one of the early warnings in Tapia’s 1595 Expedientes: Because it is notorious that the ruin and perdition of the said università are caused in great part by the continued and gross billeting of menat-arms and other soldiers, some form of relief should be made for such oppression.25

In Tomaso Costo’s 1596 collection of witty and pithy tales, Il Fuggilozio, an anecdote about the meeting of Charles V and one of Naples’ wisest professors of philosophy, messer Agostino Nifo da Sessa, during the emperor’s 1535–36 winter sojourn is revealing. When asked by the emperor, “What thing in this world would make you call yourself happy,” the philosopher responded without a pause, “Not to billet Spanish soldiers.” His response was not specifically anti-Spanish, as the narrator explained, but applied to all soldiers of every nation, because “soldiers lack humanity, and do not obey the law, respect honor, or fear God.”26 Spanish troops and military forces, in fact, were everywhere in Italy and the kingdom of Naples. In the early period of Spanish conquest and consolidation of Naples itself, Giovanni Muto reports that in 1514 Spanish military occupation consisted of three components: defense of the Neapolitan capital’s three castle fortresses; a standing army of 13 companies (7 Spanish and 6 ginetti or “mixed bloods”) with some 1,500 men; and another 1,100 men to man 31 provincial

24

Davis, pp. 46–47. BNN, MS. Branc. II-E-5, “Expedientes,” item 5, c. 152v. 26 Tomaso Costo, Il Fugglilozio, ed. Corrado Calenda (Rome: Salerno editrice, 1989), Day 7, novella 5, “Graziosa risposta di Agostin da Sessa all’Imperador Carlo V,” pp. 479–480. 25

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forts and castles.27 By 1562, 24 companies of tercios counted 4,860 men stationed around the kingdom; and in 1563, a “new militia” primarily from rural musters aimed at creating a standing army in the countryside of 20,000 Battaglione infantry with 3,000 cavalry by 1577. The model for Naples was a popolo provincial militia of 10,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry set up in Sicily by the viceroy Juan de Vega early in the 1550s and later reformed by viceroy Olivares in 1594 before he left Sicily for Naples. Outside Naples itself, income from the kingdom provisioned and the viceroy of Naples commanded five infantry companies in the Tuscan presidios (Porto Ercole, Porto S. Stefano, Orbetello, Talamone, and Monte Argentario) after the so-called “War of Siena” in 1557. By 1604, the Neapolitan capital billeted 26 companies of 4,701 Spanish infantry and 1,240 soldiers (16 companies of 880 men-at-arms and 4 companies of 360 light cavalry); and musters in the provinces stationed around the kingdom a large standing army of 25,586 men under arms (33 companies of 2,800 Battaglione cavalrymen and 74 companies of 22,786 Battaglione infantrymen).28 A list of forts and fortresses by provinces indicates the important defensive role of the dozens of provincial ports around the foot of the Italian boot in Southern Italy as much against Turkish incursions as the maintenance of internal law and order. It was not the presence of foreign soldiers alone that raised the ire of the kingdom’s inhabitants, but also the taxes levied to maintain them. Taxes “for the pay of the Spanish infantry” were introduced in 1542 and assessed at 3 grana per hearth per month or 36 grana per hearth per year for two years; later in 1544, they were raised to 4 grana monthly or 48 grana per hearth per year. This new impost raised the rural hearth tax of 1.51 ducats per hearth per year by almost one-half ducat, but it was only the beginning. A new tax for “fixed garrisons” was introduced between 1608 and 1610, and an “extraordinary” tax of 16 grana per hearth per month or 1.92 ducats per hearth per year above and beyond the regular hearth assessment of 1.99 ducats above was levied in 1636, and although it was supposed

27 Giovanni Muto, “Il regno di Napoli sotto la dominazione spagnola,” in La Controriforma e il Seicento, vol. 11 of Storia della società italiana, eds. Giovanni Cherubini et al. (Milan: Teti editore, 1989), pp. 288–94. 28 Bernardo Jose Garcia Garcia, ed., Una relazione vicereale governo del regno di Napoli agli inizi del ’600 (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993), pp. 71–77.

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to be rescinded the following year, was still being collected in 1638 and 1642.29 Brigandage, per the viceroy count of Miranda’s adviertimentos, is the fifth and last of the immediate concerns for the incoming viceroy Olivares. Banditry should be construed as a broad category that includes all kinds of extra-legal commercial activity from contraband to fraud and also the oft-related feudal intimidation, from grain speculators’ cornering the market to outright violence. Maurice Aymard has traced a 1570s grain contraband network out of a monastery in the Tremiti Islands off Capitanata to Venice, and Sabatini has reported how Carlo Tapia, as uditore in Principato Ultra in 1588, had jailed a number of barons for illegally using the papal enclave of Benevento as a clearing house for illegal grain exports from the kingdom.30 Villari emphasizes that the roots of mafia-style intimidation and “protection” came from the hands of the private army of feudal barons, while even the billeting of troops implies that soldiers lived off the local surplus, by favor or force. The late sixteenth-century rapid increase in agricultural and feudal rents at the same time that Church economies and finances were being reorganized led to the rise of the “social” bandit.31 It’s not by chance that brigandage increased during the conjunctural crises of recurrent famines from the mid-1580s, which further emphasizes the insoluble bonds joining together food provisioning, justice, taxes, military billeting, and brigandage as interconnected problems in the duke of Miranda’s warning on good government. Villari documents the career of the most famous bandit of the late sixteenth century in the kingdom of Naples and the Papal States, the Abruzzese Marco Sciarra, who gathered a bandit army of some 1,000 men around himself between 1585 and 1586.32 Endemic banditry was widespread in the Neapolitan countryside in the 1580s with Benedetto Mangone in Principato Citra and Ascanio Fusco in Terra di Lavoro the best-known bandits and some ten outlaw bands identified 29

Calabria, pp. 63–65. Maurice Aymard, Venise, Raguse, et le commerce du blé pendant la seconde moitié du XVUe siècle (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1966), pp. 43–44 and Marino, Pastoral Economics, p. 178; Sabatini, pp. 5–6. 31 Villari, Eng. trans., The Revolt of Naples, pp. 33–42 and 47–48. 32 Ibid., pp. 48–55; and John A. Marino, “Wheat and Wool in the Dogana of Foggia: An Equilibrium Model for Early Modern European Economic History,” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome 100:2 (1988): 885–886. 30

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in Abruzzo Citra and Ultra. The Spanish viceregal government was ineffective at controlling banditry at the level of provincial Udienze (courts); and in July 1584, the commissioner for the repression of banditry, Giovanni Grandi, reported that the provincial governor in the Abruzzi did not have sufficient military forces to combat the bandits and needed additional help from the communes. The crop failure of 1585 and subsequent famine helped trigger the unusual coming together of the diverse, normally small, fifteen to thirty-man, outlaw bands under Marco Sciarra’s leadership into a disciplined force for six or seven years. The permeable Abruzzi border between the kingdom of Naples and the Papal States provided easy access to safe-havens on both sides. Sixtus V’s papal bull of July 10, 1585, addressed the need to cut the bandits off from their kin and villagebased support networks; nevertheless, in 1586 the Venetian ambassador reported that some 15,000 bandits were still present in Roman territory, and in summer 1590 Sciarra’s band even camped outside the gates of Rome.33 What policies did the government of Spanish Naples employ against bandits? The viceroys themselves became directly involved. In a viceregal letter to the commissioner-general of the countryside on September 13, 1588, the viceroy count of Miranda already recognized that the bandits had moved beyond attacks against individual, rich subjects and were engaging in attacks against towns in open rebellion. From 1588 to 1592, Sciarra’s army sacked dozens of Abruzzi towns, notably rich sheep-raising towns in the dogana of Foggia’s pastoral system such as Serra Capriola, Gioia, and Introdacqua. But the viceroy wrote to the countryside commissioner and provincial governors on March 30, 1589, that their efforts were counter-productive because of the damage and destruction caused by soldiers in pursuit of the bandits. On June 13, 1590, Carlo Spinelli, a regent of the Vicaria court, was appointed to lead troops against Sciarra’s men, who retreated into papal territory after sacking Vasto. In December 1590, the papal militias joined an army sent by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to besiege Sciarra in a rural Roman village; but, the bandits broke free with the help from another bandit Alfonso Piccolomini. During the papal succession crisis of 1590–1592 with five popes in two years, this Piccolomini had become a preoccupation

33 Arturo De Sanctis Mangeli, La Pastorizia e l’alimentazione di Roma nel medioevo e nell’età moderna (Rome: P. Maglione & C. Storini, 1918), p. 47.

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of the Collateral Council in Naples by the end of 1591.34 Finally, on March 12, 1592, Adriano Acquaviva, the count of Conversano, led an army against bandits in the Abruzzi, Capitanata, and Molise; Carlo Gambacorta reinforced troops in Terra di Lavoro, and Clement VIII appointed Giovanni Francesco Aldobrandini and Flaminio Delfino to lead a strong army to defend the border with Naples. Sciarra and his army, however, were not defeated and sought escape by entering into Venetian service to fight against Adriatic pirates. Two Venetian galleys transported him and 500 men from Civitanova before the end of May 1592; but, they were eventually betrayed by their Venetian employers in obedience to Clement VIII’s insistence. Still Sciarra managed to escape and made his way back to the mainland where he was killed near Ascoli by one of his former lieutenants. Thus, bandits turned into rebels with the support of local villages and kinsmen, when a series of bad harvests turned into long-term famine and the central state was unable to control its mountainous hinterlands. The weakness of the Spanish administration in Naples in the aftermath of the 1647 Revolt of Naples had similar destabilizing effects in the countryside. A memorial from the sheepowners in October 1648 at the time that flocks moved down from the Abruzzi to Puglia petitioned the Sommaria in Naples to secure the tratturi from bandits after an attack in which 150 horses and 1,000 sheep had been slaughtered.35 Four transhumant seasons later in January 1653, 300 men led by Bartolomeo Bitelo alias “Martello” and Geronimo dela Roqueta sacked the towns of Villa de Pensano and Civitella with damage to flocks and property, and the Council of State in Madrid suspected that they had been actively supported by the Pope to disrupt the Neapolitan kingdom.36 The newly arrived viceroy Conde de Castrillo (November 20, 1653–January 11, 1659) reported to the Council of State in February 1654 that three of the “rebels and bandits” had been captured and tried, and that the Martello was ready to surrender with 150 men if pardoned and inducted in the king’s service.37 Thus, rebels were turned into regular state soldiers as the 34 Archivo General de Simancas [AGS], Estado, Nápoles, leg. 1092, f. 102 (28 November 1591). 35 Archivio di Stato, Foggia, Dogana delle pecore, Serie I, fas. 3, 293r–294v (2 October 1648). 36 AGS, Estado, Nápoles, leg. 3276, f. 19 (14 January 1653), 1v. 37 AGS, Estado, Nápoles, leg. 3277, f. 27–28 (19 February 1654) is the viceroy’s communication, and f. 26 (19 May 1654) is the Council of State’s acceptance of the pardon.

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weakened state attempted to negotiate and induce bandits into protecting the state. But at the beginning of the transhumant season in September 1667, the Council of State in Madrid was still concerned with the problem of Abruzzi bandits who had remained outside government control hold up in mountain towns for some fourteen years from 1653/54.38 A band of 400 men headed by Cola Raniero was thought to be corresponding with the French ambassador to overthrow Spanish rule in Naples. Raniero was still at large seventeen years later in 1684 with 600 men in the town of Montorio and another 400 bandits in Casa de Pampeta, when a military expedition under the Marquis of Santa Christiana set out against them with 1,500 Spanish infantry, 250 Italian soldiers, 100 cavalry, and 100 “men of the court.”39 Bandits continued to damage the state income from sheep customhouse tolls, with 36,000 ducats (more than two-thirds of the uncollected income of the smaller doganella d’Abruzzo) lost to banditry between 1671 and 1679.40 A census of kingdom-wide bandits between 1675 and 1677 accounted for 2,388 bandits; and in 1682, another bandit census reported 4,443 bandits.41 In 1682, more than 25 percent of the kingdom’s bandits were in Abruzzi Citra and Ultra and together with Contado di Molise almost one-third. Yet, in 1684, the Council of State estimated that 6,000 bandits still roamed free and that not even 20,000 men-at-arms would be sufficient to catch them.42 Thus, bandits to rebels to recruits (voluntarily or condemned to the galleys or military service) mirrored the weakening power of Spanish government, the downturn in the seventeenth-century economy, and the crisis in village life in the rural world of Spain’s Neapolitan kingdom. More spectacular cases than the sacking of towns by outlaw bands, such as the Easter Tuesday 1686 Massacre in the Calabrian village

38

AGS, Estado, Nápoles, leg. 3291, f. 15 (20 September 1667). AGS, Estado, Nápoles, leg. 3313, f. 86 (17 February 1684) and f. 85 (22 February 1684). 40 AGS, Secretarias Princiales, Nápoles, leg. 391, (1671–1679). 41 AGS, Estado, Nápoles, leg. 3302, f. 203 (30 June 1678) and Secretarias Princiales, Nápoles, leg. 195 (13 March 1682). See also, Marino, “Wheat and Wool,” Table 2, p. 890 for the disposition of bandits by province in 1682. Percentage of total bandit census by province were: Terra di Lavoro (19.7%), Principato Citra (19.2%), Principato Ultra (6.7%), Abruzzo Citra (13.0%), Abruzzo Ultra (13.5%), Calabria Citra (4.1%), Calabria Ultra (6.8%), Contado di Molise (5.6%), Basilicata (7.1%), Terra di Bari (2.3%), and Terra d’Otranto (2.0%). 42 AGS, Estado, Nápoles, leg. 3313, f. 156 (22 April 1684). 39

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of Pentidatillo when one noble clan murdered its rival over an affair of honor—the broken wedding engagement between the two clans, caught the attention of the kingdom at large because its ferocious violence seemed from another age.43 The extermination aimed not only at the adult members of the Alberti clan, but also the slaughter of its innocents, young children, including even a fetus in the womb that might carry on the family name. The unbridled brutality of the act shocked contemporaries, but the vendetta clearly reflected a traditional aristocratic mentality of honor and shame. The much more mundane case in this same village in 1711 of the murder of an often absentee husband by his peasant wife and her lover, and the uncovering of her earlier abortion—both performed with the aid of a female village resident knowledgeable in such things—in Tommaso Astarita’s extraordinary micro-history, introduces us to a rural world with a human face. Pentidattilo is a rather typical village of about 500 people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Constrained by geographic isolation, poor natural resources, and a subsistence agricultural economy (albeit slightly improved by raw silk production and some cash-cropping of citrus), Pentidattilo’s local society appears simple and its mostly oral culture traditional; yet, Pentidattilo remained subject to a highly refined legal jurisdiction from above. As much as David Sabean’s 1,000-person village of Neckerhausen in the Black Forest was self-absorbed by kinship, inheritance, and property relationships and conflict, Astarita’s Pentidatillo was also engaged in “continuous negotiation and collaboration” between the authorities of the outside world and its local values, traditions, and autonomy. No matter how small or isolated, such villages and towns became increasingly integrated into the early modern state, the modern economy, and the Tridentine Church. One should not claim that there was anything particularly Spanish about the administrative, fiscal, and military demands put upon remote Pentidattilo from its Neapolitan capital. Much still can be learned from the structural portrait of Gerard Labrot’s exceptional use of over 300 apprezzi (assessments) compiled by a government agent (tavolario) to assess the value of villages and 43 Tommaso Astarita, Village justice: Community, family, and popular culture in early modern Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). See also, David Sabean, Property, production, and family in Neckarhausen, 1700–18 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

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towns upon their sale as fiefs in the kingdom of Naples. Even though the “whispers” or “murmurs” from these documents claim to provide only a descriptive impression or inventory of village settlement patterns, of buildings from castles and palaces to the peasant house, of the varieties of space and organization within the village, of peasant time and the recurring rhythms and rituals of the seasons, and of the permeation of the Church into life-cycle events, the extraordinary and unusual needs and crises of daily life break through the structural catalogue of material life when Labrot identifies the natural obstacles and institutional impediments to economic and social change in the feudal countryside.44 This push and pull, the centripetal and centrifugal forces emanating from the towns and cities versus old feudal and seigniorial authority are the topic of Gérard Delille’s recent book on central and local power in the Western Mediterranean.45 If large cities such as Naples, Milan, or Palermo were worlds unto themselves, their inhabitants were, nevertheless, constantly being drawn from and replaced by villagers from another world so far away, yet next door and under the same roof. The persistence of the local in response to the insistence of the centralizing state and Church is the loser’s story of the disappearing rural world in the face of the driving force of the urban-rural dynamic. The local and particular help to identify the turning-points and trajectory of the rural/urban continuum. A now moot debate between Ruggiero Romano and Carlo Cipolla on the economic character of the early modern European city as an epiphenomenon or the dynamic motor of change in comparison to the weight of numbers in the countryside has lost its force, because it has become clear that neither city nor countryside can be understood without the other. Not only did the replacement of deceased plague victims in northern Italian cities after 1630 and southern Italian ones after 1656 come from the countryside, but the normal ratio of deaths over births in good times made cities dependent on the constant influx of country folk. Cities in Naples, Sicily, and Lombardy under Spanish rule were no exceptions.

44 Gérard Labrot, Quand l’histoire murmure: villages et campagnes du royaume de Naples (XVI e–XVIII e siècle) (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1995). 45 Gérard Delille, Le maire et le prieur: Pouvoir central e pouvoir local en Méditerranée occidentale, XV–XVIII siècle (Rome: École Française de Rome; Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2003).

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The population of the kingdom of Naples before the 1656 plague has been traditionally dichotomized between its teeming capital with about 10 percent of the kingdom’s population (approximately 250,000 out of 2.5 million) and no provincial town larger than 20,000 inhabitants. Nevertheless, some forty towns in Spanish Naples and Sicily numbered over 10,000 inhabitants and an important line of recent research in local history has begun to investigate the place of such small towns in the Italian South as much more than simply “agrotowns” or “rural dormitories.”46 While many provincial towns in the Neapolitan kingdom such as L’Aquila, Aversa, Barletta, Brindisi, and Salerno experienced population decline under Spanish rule, others such as Lecce, Foggia, and Bari in Puglia grew, often exponentially. Much of this rebound growth may be attributed to a recovery and redistribution of population after the devastating losses of the fourteenth-century crisis that saw the number of communes drop by 40 percent, from 2,356 communes in 1268 to 1,462 in 1505. This trend continued into the eighteenth century, with about one-half of the population residing in towns between about 2,000 and 8,000 inhabitants in 1793, and roughly one-quarter in towns below 2,000 inhabitants and one-quarter above 8,000 inhabitants.47 The distinctive feature of the southern Italian towns, a much higher percentage of agricultural laborers resident in them than in northern towns, reflected a preference for communal living in grouped villages of the agro-town, which provided safe haven for agricultural workers who might walk hours to their fields every day. In Puglia, agricultural workers constituted 67.6 percent of the population in Barletta, up to 80 percent in Gravina, and over 80 or even 90 percent in the casali around Bari, with 44 percent in Bari itself; while in 1791 Galanti reported that “the peasant of Gravina and of Altamura must go up to 15 miles away to work.”48 The city of Naples, on the other end of the spectrum, because of tax exemptions, its courts and bureaucracy, noble residence, 46 Brigitte Marin, “Town and country in the kingdom of Naples, 1500–1800,” in Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800, ed. S. R. Epstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 318. Jan Devries, European Urbanization 1500 –1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984) provides statistics on 30 Southern Italian towns, pp. 276–277. See, Aurelio Musi, “Le piccole e medie città nella storia moderna del Mezzogiorno continentale,” Rassegna storica salernitana 10 (1994). 47 Giuseppe Galasso, L’altra Europa. Per un’antropologia storica del Mezzogiorno d’Italia (Milano: Mondadori, 1982), “Gli insediamenti e il territorio,” pp. 36–40. 48 Marin, pp. 326–327 cites Giuseppe Maria Galanti, Relazione sulla Puglia peucezia (1791).

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economic opportunities, and food-supply privileges and networks, acted like a magnet drawing some 43 percent of the kingdom’s population to within a 50–60 kilometer radius of itself after 1750. But this kind of urban massing, whether it drew the poor and disaffected trying to escape feudal dues and starvation or the provincial nobility and their retainers moving to set up residence and play court in the capital, fostered growth without development and intensified stratification between haves and have-nots, patrons and clients. Overall, the varying landscapes of the kingdom had a population density of 35 people per square kilometer. In Sicily, the number of communes roughly doubled under Spanish rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from 158 administrative centers in 1505 to 312 in 1714. From 1583 to 1653, barons conceded privileges to establish 88 new villages.49 Palermo and Messina, the island’s largest cities, doubled their population in the sixteenth century to about 105,000 and 50,000 inhabitants respectively. In 1600, only three other towns (Catania, Nicosia, and Piazza [Enna]) numbered 20,000 inhabitants or greater; but, by 1700, they had population declines of 43 percent, 43 percent, and 55 percent to 16,000, 12,000, and 9,000 inhabitants respectively. In 1700, only Palermo and Messina continued to have populations greater than 20,000 at 100,000 and 40,000 inhabitants respectively. Two types of large towns—port cities and agro-towns—distinguished Sicily’s three administrative regions. In western Sicily’s Val di Mazzara, four of six towns with populations that reached 10,000 inhabitants sometime between 1500 and 1800 were ports (Marsala, Palermo, Termini, and Trapani); in northeastern Sicily’s Val Demone, two of four were ports (Acireale and Messina); but, in the agricultural interior of central and southeastern Sicily’s Val di Noto where 60 new wheat-growing towns were established in the first half of the seventeenth century, only three of ten were ports (Catania, Modica/Pozzallo, and Siracusa). These seven other Val di Noto towns, about one-third of the 20 Sicilian towns that reached populations of 10,0000 sometime in the early modern period, were all agro-towns (Caltagirone, Caltanisseta, Castrogiovanni, Mazzarino, Noto, Piazza [Enna], and Ragusa). The Sicilian granary was considered the breadbasket of the Mediterranean with annual surpluses exported

49 Gregory Hanlon, Early Modern Italy, 1550–1800. Three Seasons in European History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 97.

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to feed about 200,000 people. As export demand for wheat fell with the seventeenth-century plagues, landowners switched to cash-cropping vines and citrus. The pattern of large towns and agro-towns dominated Sicily as it did the Kingdom of Naples, with two-thirds of Sicily’s population living in towns larger than 5,000 inhabitants.50 The population of Spanish Lombardy before the 1630–31 plague, on the other hand, numbered 1.2 million inhabitants, with 20 percent of the total population resident in its nine largest towns. Milan’s average of 120,000 inhabitants under Spanish rule led the state’s population profile, with Cremona, Pavia, Como, and Lodi ranging in size from 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants and Novara, Tortona, Alessandria, and Vigevano under 10,000. Population density in the state of Milan rivaled that of the Low Countries to lead all of Europe with 75 inhabitants per sq. km., nearly twice the mean in the Italian peninsula. The 1630–31 plague had reduced the total population of northern Italy by one third, and urban population concentrations fell so that only Milan, Cremona, and Pavia numbered over 10,000 inhabitants by 1640. The subsequent demographic recovery in the second half of the seventeenth century redistributed population disproportionately in the countryside. This rural population recovery in Lombardy reflected a restructuring of the town-country relationship as high labor costs in the towns and reduced demand for grain allowed for a diversification of labor and production in the countryside. Urban entrepreneurs transferred some aspects of the manufacturing process to rural putting-out industries, with silk production the most widely diffused. Lombard towns began to specialize in luxury production goods, while the proto-industrialization of the countryside provided cheaper goods for a newly emerging demand among a broader base of consumers. This trend can be generalized for the economy of all northern Italy from the 1660s. It was not a governmental policy of Spanish Lombardy, but rather a market response to the 1630–31 plague. Thus, for example, similar new rural industries took root in the Venetian Terraferma as Venice continued to monopolize luxury textile production and its dominated towns such as Vicenza and Bergamo became active in producing cheaper goods. In Piedmont, rice and maize

50

Ibid., pp. 97 and 19. For population statistics, see Devries, pp. 276–277.

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were introduced as commercial crops and silk production grew rapidly. Likewise in Tuscany, industrial decline in Florence found compensatory cheap labor for lower quality goods in the countryside, and declining grain yields from soil exhaustion led to a shift to vineyards for commercial wine production. This restructuring as a result of the demographic decline and industrial downturn of the seventeenthcentury crisis accelerated the foundation of a new economic infrastructure that made rural decentralization the cornerstone of both a new production system of proto-industrialization and a new market of non-luxury goods for non-elites. The 1630–31 population decline in Northern Italy and subsequent change in urban demand had profound effects in the Italian South, where Neapolitan revenues were being siphoned off to support the Spanish defense of Lombardy,51 and some quarter century later high plague mortality in 1656 would not result in a similar economic restructuring. Rather than diversify and broaden in the countryside, the Southern economy turned in upon itself. Why? Agricultural production in Sicily and Naples were segmented into localized markets whose regional economies were tied to Tuscan, Venetian, and Genoese trade exporting raw materials from Messina and Palermo on the island, and L’Aquila, Lanciano, Foggia, Bari, Lecce, Taranto, Regio di Calabria, and Salerno on the mainland. The absence of an integrated, articulated national market worked against the economic viability of the Southern economy as an independent unit. Grain from Puglia and Sicily, oil from Puglia, wine in general, silk from Sicily and Calabria, Abruzzi wool sold at Foggia in May and a much smaller quantity in Lanciano in August, Sicilian sugar, and Abruzzi saffron all had their Northern markets dry up in the first half of the seventeenth century. Raw materials for textiles were particularly hard hit. The supply of raw wool suffered a devastating blow with more than two-thirds of the flocks wintering in the Tavoliere di Puglia lost in 1611–12; which, because of the demography of sheep, would have taken at least ten years to recover to their original level. At the same time, the spread of mulberry tree culture to the rural North effectively ended silk exports from Calabria by the early seventeenth century and from Sicily in the second half of the century. 51 Calabria, The Cost of Empire, pp. 89–90 documents 11 million ducats sent from Naples to Milan from 1631 to 1643, with 48,000 soldiers, 5,500 horses, and 3.5 million ducats from 1631 to 1636.

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By way of comparison over the long term, in Naples in 1520 the leading exports were agricultural commodities (27.9% grain, 24.8% olive oil, 18.6% silk) for a total of 71.3 percent of all exports; whereas in 1771 the value of grain exports had halved to 14 percent and silk exports had been reduced to only one-third of their earlier value at 6 percent of exports overall, while olive oil production had nearly doubled to 41 percent of exports.52 A 10:1 trade imbalance in favor of agricultural raw material exports in 1580 may have still maintained the illusion that the Neapolitan kingdom was still a wealthy Mediterranean garden; but, the changes wrought by the late sixteenth-century downturn had cut demand from the kingdom’s chief foreign buyers and left the kingdom’s various regions dependent on local trade so that the export trade imbalance shrunk to 5:1 near the early stages of the seventeenth-century crisis in 1622.53 Thus, by 1771 exports no longer paid for imports and a trade deficit of about 1,250,000 ducats, about 6:5 imports to exports, reflected the long-term negative economic spiral of the modern southern Italian economy.54 Galasso emphasizes that southern Italy’s economy suffered from the limitations of an exporter of agrarian products and raw materials.55 Thus, with the failure of wheat crops from the mid 1580s, the result was not only famine but also bankruptcy. First famine and later disease in 1656 reduced population, such that the number of hearths in the kingdom’s towns outside of the capital declined 7.4 percent between 1595 and 1648, and again even more steeply by 21 percent between 1648 and 1669. The concomitant crisis in credit, the failure of Neapolitan banks in the 1590s, and the transfer of state budget surpluses to other parts of the Spanish empire forestalled local investment in alternative enterprises.

52 Giuseppe Coniglio, I Vicerè Spagnoli di Napoli (Naples: Fausto Fiorentino, 1967), app. 10, pp. 367–368 for 1520; and Giuseppe Maria Galanti, Nuova descrizione geografica e politica delle Sicilie, eds. F. Assante and D. De Marco, 2 vols. (orig. ed. 1786–90; Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1969), 1: 548–570 for 1771. See also, Giuseppe Galasso, “Il Mezzogiorno nella ‘crisi generale’ del Seicento,” in Alla periferia dell’impero. Il Regno di Napoli nel periodo spagnuolo (secoli XVI–XVII) (Turin: Einaudi, 1994), pp. 217–246. 53 Giuseppe Galasso, “Trends and Problems in Neapolitan History in the Age of Charles V,” in Good Government in Spanish Naples, eds. Calabria and Marino, p. 60 for 1580; and Giuseppe Coniglio, Il viceregno di Napoli nel sec. XVII (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955), p. 87 for 1622. 54 Galanti, 1: 548–570. 55 Galasso, “Il Mezzogiorno nella ‘crisi generale’ del Seicento,” pp. 222–223.

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Rural debt mounted as middlemen foreign merchants in collusion with the feudal nobility controlled the agricultural economy through contracts and loans. Contratti alla voce, which provided capital to cashstrapped agriculturists at terms advantageous to merchant lenders, were introduced at the wool fair of Foggia in 1667 and became the norm by the 1680s, although the earliest such wool contract in the dogana dates from 1635, and their use for the poorest sheepowners goes back a century earlier to the “Grazie of Charles V” in 1536.56 In general, this rupture between Northern Italian buyers and southern Italian agricultural producers in the seventeenth century broke the bonds that had sustained Southern productivity. Together with demographic decline and increased fiscal pressures, the crisis kept the regional nodes of production disarticulated from their international market outlets, unconnected with one another, and led to involution within regional markets rather than any kind of structural change.57 In a related vein, Gerard Delille has demonstrated that in the early modern economy, different kinds of agricultural production required different labor ratios.58 The kind of culture—grain, arboreal, or mixed agriculture—determined agrarian society’s demographic growth, family size, age at first marriage, and family formation. Intensive graingrowing regions required more labor, and larger families became the norm, with consequent pressure on property transmission in a system of partible inheritance. And so, we have come full circle from urban populations demanding grain to the grounding of rural demography and social structure in the rules of agrarian production. The seventeenth-century crisis in Italy led North and South in two different directions. Innovation in the northern Italian economy led to interregional specialization and integration at the expense of the rupture of commercial contact with the South.59 The South’s loss of its northern export markets weakened the central state, gave rise to feudal expansion, and precipitated anti-feudal revolts that furthered the fragmentation and decline of the southern economy. Economic 56

Marino, Pastoral Economics, pp. 74–77. Paolo Malanima, “L’economia italiana nel Seicento,” in La Controriforma e il Seicento, vol. 11 in Storia della società italiana, directed by Giovanni Cherubini, et al. (Milan: Teti editore, 1989), pp. 186–87. 58 Gerard Delille, “Agricultural Systems and Demographic Structures in the Kingdom of Naples,” in Calabria and Marino, pp. 79–126. 59 For an economic model of southern Italian seventeenth-century underdevelopment, see Stephan R. Epstein, An island for itself. Economic development and social change in late medieval Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 402–412. 57

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dualism in Italy between North and South was mirrored in the South in the ever-increasing sharp division between rich and poor. Galasso argues, nevertheless, that despite the fact that some 300,000 to 350,000 of the 450,000 hearths in the kingdom of Naples in 1642 represented unproductive family units who made up the poor and popular classes, the remaining 100,000 to 150,000 were the progenitors of modern society’s bourgeoisie.60 What finally did the Spanish do or not do vis-à-vis the economy in their Italian states? They did no better or worse than other early modern monarchies, which, however, was not good enough. The heavy fiscal demands in support of the Thirty Years’ War drained the productive structures of the southern Italian economy, heightened inflation, and led to rural and urban revolt. The subsequent political repression along with the plague of 1656 left Neapolitan and Sicilian society and economy stagnant, and further fueled anti-Spanish sentiment. As feudal dues and rents increased, agricultural productivity remained depressed with fewer and limited domestic markets. The century-long depression left the southern Italian economy behind; and, when it recovered in the eighteenth century, the independent Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies found itself a debtor nation in a new structurally dependent relationship with France and its northern Italian neighbors. The seventeenth-century crisis in Italy created relative economic decline as other European countries caught up with precocious Italian development, but the long-term effects of both internal and external factors made Malanima’s “Italian trend” and the Italian economy a peripheral player in the growing world economy.

60

Galasso, “Il Mezzogiorno nella ‘crisi generale’ del Seicento,” p. 246.

PART FOUR

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EXCHANGES BETWEEN ITALY AND SPAIN: CULTURE AND RELIGION James S. Amelang

The topic of this paper—the cultural and religious links between early modern Italy and Spain—is clear enough, but its goals and strategy need a bit of explanation. My aim is to present a state of the question, one oriented less toward discussing what is already widely known than suggesting what might be some profitable lines of research for the near future. To that end I have divided the essay into two halves. In the first pages I will evoke some individual cases as illustrative of larger patterns of cultural interaction. Thereafter follow some general observations and questions, as befits the open-ended nature of this presentation and the volume as a whole. I begin with a perfectly banal point: that cultural and religious contact between Spain and Italy during the early modern period took place not only via the circulation of texts and objects. It also rested, quite literally, on the intense human traffic between the two peninsulas. This traffic gave rise to innumerable chains of encounter, influence, and (occasionally) conflict. Having time enough and a place to stand, one could identify hundreds if not thousands of these linkages. A more interesting challenge is to venture a step further, and try to forge some of these discrete chains into a single one, one that brings into view the sorts of connections that emerged from the real, physical journeys that took Spaniards to Italy and Italians to Spain. The deeper purpose of documenting these links is to allow them to serve as exemplars of the types of contacts, transfers of influence, and instances of cultural transformation that resulted from displacements of this sort. Our own journey begins in a not very respectable neighborhood of Rome, in what was then known as the Pozzo Bianco and now as the Vallicella area around the Chiesa Nuova. It was there, around 1513, that a Spanish woman named Aldonza—immortalized as the Lozana andaluza, literally the “luscious Andalusian woman”—began her career in the papal city. Aldonza managed to consolidate in a

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single memorable figure several personae who would become stereotypes of Spaniards in Italy. First and foremost among these was the prostitute.1 Her creator apparently had little inventing to do in this regard. Criminal records and other documents from the period provide ample information on the presence of Spanish courtesans. These ranged from the run-of-the-mill Ottavia, featured in one of the trials reproduced in Tom and Libby Cohen’s collection of early modern Roman court proceedings,2 to the truly exotic and highly unfortunate morisco (convert from Islam) who called himself “Spanish Barbara”, whose habit of parading through the city lavishly crossdressed as a woman led him to the stake in 1498.3 Aldonza was also merely the first among an impressive number of Iberian pícaros, both fictional and real, who lingered in Italy in search of fortune. The ranks of such rogues included near contemporaries of hers, such as the soldier-ruffians who starred in the Comedia Soldadesca of Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, a play set in contemporary Rome and whose text was first published in Naples in 1517.4 Torres himself was apparently the earliest among a line of Spanish soldiers who went on to write during, after, or about the time they spent in Italy. Others included, most notably, Miguel de Cervantes, as well as the protagonists of a number of military autobiographies, such as Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán, Alonso de Contreras, Diego Duque de Estrada, and Miguel de Castro. The best known of all was Catalina de Erauso, the Basque nun turned transvestite swashbuckler 1 In this connection Fernando de Rojas’ 1499 play La Celestina not only influenced La Lozana Andaluza, but also several well-known Italian texts of the sixteenth century. For one particularly clear instance, see N. Rizzi, “La VENIEXIANA: un nuovo esempio di letteratura celestinesca?”, Italica, 80, 2003, pp. 143–165. For the admittedly unusual case of an anonymous translator’s inserting Celestinesque motifs into the Spanish version of a widely-read Italian romance, see C. Griffin, “Giacomo Caviceo’s Libro del peregrino: the Fate of an Italian Wanderer in Spain”, in A. L. Lepschy et al., eds., Book Production and Letters in the Western European Renaissance: Essays in Honour of Conor Fahy (London, 1986), pp. 132–46. 2 See T. V. Cohen and E. S. Cohen, Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates (Toronto, 1993), pp. 74–75, 79, and 95. This Ottavia is not to be confused with Ottavia Rosignoli, who was seduced by her Spanish music teacher, Bernardino. In a truly native touch, the signal for them to elope was the clicking of castanets (see p. 123). 3 The case of Spanish Barbara was originally reported in the diary of the papal Master of Ceremonies Johannes Burchard. I found it cited in B. Talvacchia, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton, 1999), pp. 107–8 and 263. 4 Details in B. de Torres Naharro, Comedias: Soldadesca, Tinelaria, Himenea, ed. D. W. McPheeters (Madrid, 1973), especially pp. 10–15 and 23–24; the text of the play itself can be found on pp. 51–100.

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who, after returning from the New World visited Naples and Rome, where she met the Pope and was named a Roman citizen.5 Fictional counterparts comprised such classic anti-heroes as Guzmán de Alfarache, who in the eponymous novel of 1599–1604 by Mateo Alemán served as retainer and jester-clown first to a cardinal and then to the French ambassador in Rome, a city he found to be the paradise of false beggars like himself. (Note that much the same itinerary was covered by Tomás Rodaja, the inspired madman who was the hero of Cervantes’ exemplary novel El licenciado de vidriera, published in 1613). Finally, Rome was also the destination of a picaresque figure perched halfway between fiction and reality, Estebanillo González, who also touched the other major nodes of Spanish Italy, including Naples, where he served as an orderly in the Spanish Hospital de Santiago, as well as Lombardy and Sicily.6 Aldonza evoked a third cliché regarding Spaniards—that of the crypto-Jew. A considerable part of the humor of La lozana andaluza derives from its “Jewish jokes”, that is, insider hints to Aldonza’s Judaic background, with the expulsion of 1492 making her presence in Rome all the more likely. The wordplay begins on Aldonza’s first day in Rome, with her successful passing of a test to which two conversas, or converted Jewish women, submit her. When asked the question of whether to make a certain pastry with water (as Christians do) or with oil (as do Jews), she responds correctly, and thus is regarded as de nostris, that is, literally kosher.7 Thereafter ensue a

5 Libro de la vida y costumbres de Don Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán, ed. H. Keniston (Madrid, 1960); J. M. de Cossío, ed., Autobiografías de soldados (Siglo XVII) (Madrid, 1956); and R. de Vallbona, ed., Vida i sucesos de la Monja Alférez: autobiografía atribuida a Doña Catalina de Erauso (Tempe AZ, 1992). 6 M. Alemán, Primera y segunda parte de la vida de Guzmán de Alfarache (MadridLisbon, 1599–1604), Pt. I, lib. 3 and Pt. II, libs. 1–2; Vida y hechos de Estebanillo González, hombre de buen humor, compuesta por el mismo (Antwerp, 1646), Bk I, caps. 1–3. Also note the description of Rome in the anonymous picaresque dialogue Viaje de Turquía, I.13. 7 This episode takes place in Book I, mamotreto VIII. For background, see F. Márquez Villanueva, “El mundo converso de La lozana andaluza”, Archivo Hispalense, 56, 1973, pp. 87–97; S. Shepard, “Prostitutes and Pícaros in Inquisitional Spain”, Neohelicon, 1–2, 1975, pp. 367–72; A. MacKay, “The Whores of Babylon”, in M. E. Reeves, ed., Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance Period (Oxford-London, 1992), pp. 223–32; and J. Edwards, “The Culture of the Street: The Calle de la Feria in Córdoba, 1470–1520”, in A. Cowan, ed., Mediterranean Urban Culture, 1400–1700 (Exeter, 2000), pp. 69–82. This dialogue was hardly the only local literary text to indulge in this sort of humor. For the Roman setting of a play by Torres Naharro featuring Jewish (and Muslim) converts, see S. Gilman, “Retratos de conversos en la Comedia Jacinta de Torres Naharro”, Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 17, 1966, pp. 30–49.

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number of episodes involving Jews, converted and not, and above all religious hypocrites, in which Rome was not found lacking, and which found in Aldonza a hardy prototype. Aldonza’s was a fascinating tale, a latter-day Satyricon in which Rome comes across as precisely the sort of seedy and sordid place in which an enterprising and unscrupulous character such as herself could prosper. We know next to nothing about her creator, save that his name was Francisco Delicado, and that he was a priest born in Andalusia. At an unknown date he came to Rome, and sometime near or after the Sack of 1527 he moved to Venice, where he worked as a proofreader and editor of Spanish texts. There, in the prologues to his editions of chivalric novels such as Amadís de Gaula (1533), Delicado proclaimed himself a disciple of Antonio de Nebrija, the scholar and lexicographer who had studied in Bologna and who enjoyed a favorable reputation in Italy, despite the many ups and downs in his relations with Italian humanists.8 Delicado tells us much less about himself, and about his own doings with contemporary Italians. The latter issue has been the object of much speculation, for example, in regard to the parallels between his work and, say, the Raggionamenti of Aretino (1534), a similarly risqué author whose migrations between Rome and Venice paralleled his own.9 What is clear, however, is that Delicado made his living in the editing trade, and perhaps some others as well. Thus he distinguished himself as the author of one of the earliest texts to propose New World materia medica as a remedy for syphilis, while offering his own cure as an advertisement.10 As will immediately be seen, the linkage between

8

Delicado’s mention of Nebrija in connection with his praise of Andalusian as a “polished language” rivalling the Spanish spoken in Toledo produced an immediate and violent hiccup in Juan de Valdés’s Diálogo de la lengua (1535). For a brief but elegant analysis of this controversy, see E. Asensio, “Juan de Valdés contra Delicado: Fondo de una polémica”, in Homenaje a Dámaso Alonso (Madrid, 1960), pp. 101–13. 9 For the relations between these two texts, see pp. 19–20 of Damiani’s prologue to his edition of La lozana andaluza. For Aretino’s stays in Rome, see Talvacchia, Taking Positions, pp. 15–19 and 83–4. 10 El modo de adoperare el legno de India (Venice, 1529). José Pardo Tomás (personal communication, 29 March 2004) kindly brought to my attention that this book is a word-for-word plagiarism of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Toledo, 1526), and that Delicado doubtless obtained his source via the Navagero-Ramusio connection mentioned below. Venice and overseas materia medica also served as vectors for a later ItaloHispanic textual encounter, that of the Portuguese converso physician Cristóbal de Acosta and one of the most innovative writers in early modern Spanish medicine,

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publishing and the New World would prove to be a fruitful point of contact between Spain and Italy. Delicado’s involvement both as a writer and handyman in the book business serves to remind us that Venice, while not formally part of Spanish Italy, was nevertheless a crucial point of interest in, and diffusion of, Spanish culture. This was thanks above all to its long-term role as center for the publication of Spanish works both in their original language and in translation.11 Hence it comes as little surprise to find a Venetian, and one with close ties with the publishing world, forging the second link in our chain, this time by traveling in the opposite direction. The 1525–6 journey to Granada of the humanist and diplomat Andrea Navagero has long been celebrated in literary history for his having met there Juan Boscán, the Barcelonan patrician who played, along with his patron Garcilaso de la Vega, such a central role in the adaptation by Castilian-language poets of Italian forms, most famously the sonnet.12 But Navagero’s purpose in traveling so far Oliva Sabuco de Nantes. This connection was discovered by Gianna Pomata of the University of Bologna, who is currently preparing a translation into English of a selection of Sabuco’s work. 11 It has even been suggested that the most famous Spanish novel of the sixteenth century—Lazarillo de Tormes—had its first edition in Italy. See R. Navarro Durán, Alfonso de Valdés, autor del ‘Lazarillo de Tormes’ (Madrid, 2003), pp. 27 and 51n. If this is true, the most likely place of publication would have been Venice. The history of “Spanish” publishing in early modern Venice clearly merits more detailed study. A comprehensive overview would also need to include the activities of Venetian printers and booksellers in Spain, the most prominent of whom were various branches of the Giunti family. For details on their Spanish connection, see: P. F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540–1605 (Princeton, 1977), p. 6; J. Moll, De la imprenta al lector. Estudios sobre el libro español de los siglos XV al XVIII (Madrid, 1994), pp. 133–58; and W. Pettas, A Sixteenth-Century Spanish Bookstore: The Inventory of Juan de Junta (Philadelphia, 1995). For a recent summary of the increasingly difficult political relations between Venice and Spain, see P. Preto, “La Spagna nella cultura veneta”, in A. Musi, ed., Alle origini di una nazione. Antispagnolismo e identità italiana (Milan, 2003), pp. 201–226. 12 Some recent studies of literary and scholarly exchange between late medieval and early modern Italy and Iberia include: F. Meregalli, Presenza della letteratura spagnola in Italia (Florence, 1974); Présence et influence de l’Espagne dans la culture italienne de la Renaissance (Paris, 1978); S. Aguadé Nieto, Libro y cultura italianas en la Corona de Castilla durante la Edad Media (Madrid, 1992); F. Rico, El sueño del humanismo. De Petrarca a Erasmo (Madrid, 1993); A. Gómez Moreno, España y la Italia de los humanistas: primeros ecos (Madrid, 1994); D. L. Heiple, Garcilaso de la Vega and the Italian Renaissance (University Park, 1994); R. Recio, Petrarca en la Península Ibérica (Madrid, 1996); K. J. P. Lowe, ed., Cultural Links between Portugal and Italy in the Renaissance (New York, 2000); and I. Navarrete, “Francisco Sa de Miranda, Garcilaso de la Vega, and the Transfer of Italian Poetic Forms to Portugal and Spain”, Viator, 31, 2000, pp. 291–310.

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seems to have been a different one. It was something the Venetian government, among others in Italy, greatly desired: a more realistic assessment of the extent and consequences of Spanish expansion in what was beginning to be called the New World. From the very beginning, Italy was Spain’s most important interlocutor in regard to the “discovery” and colonization of the extra-European world. This privileged relation had its origins in the first generation of expansion in the later fifteenth century, which featured the contributions of entrepreneurial Italian explorers such as Columbus and Vespucci. It continued thereafter in the ongoing conceptual task of interpretation in which Italian humanists played such a distinctive role. I have in mind not only Pietro Martir d’Anghiera, whose epistles and chronicles did so much to help diffuse the earliest news about the Spanish expansion overseas, but also the editor of the first large collection of chronicles and reports of the New World, Giovanni Battista Ramusio.13 Mention of Ramusio—the recipient, by the way, of many of Navagero’s missives during his tour of Spain—brings us back to Venice, and to the arrival there in 1539 of one of the most singular Spaniards to have studied and lived in sixteenth-century Italy: Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. A member of the Granadan branch of a large and well-known aristocratic family, Hurtado de Mendoza spent the years 1539 to 1546 in Venice as Charles V’s ambassador. While not enjoying great success in politics, he did distinguish himself as a collector of books and manuscripts—his Greek holdings were so impressive that Philip II later persuaded their way into the Escorial Library— and more generally as a patron of literature and the arts. Somewhat more unusually, while in Venice he carried on a brief but intense affair with a local Jewish woman, most probably of Spanish descent. His letters to his protector (and relative through marriage) Francisco de los Cobos commented on the liason in joking terms—there is, for example, much back and forth about the relative merits of circumcision.

13

For a handy collection of the former’s epistles, see Pedro Mártir de Anglería’s Cartas sobre el Nuevo Mundo, trans. J. Bauzano and intro. R. Alba (Madrid, 1990). The first edition of Ramusio’s Delle navigationi et viaggi was published in Venice from 1550 to 1559. For the special role of Venice in watching and evaluating the Spaniards in the New World, see Antonello Gerbi’s Nature in the New World: From Christopher Columbus to Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, trans. J. Moyle (Pittsburgh, 1985; orig. ed. 1975), especially pp. 170–9, and in particular F. Ambrosini, Paesi e mari ignoti. America e colonialismo europeo nella cultura veneziana, secoli XVI–XVII (Venice, 1982).

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Needless to say, they help document one of the more unconventional episodes in Christian-Jewish relations within the Italian-Spanish context.14 While in Venice Hurtado de Mendoza rubbed shoulders with several other Spaniards. Of this small but intriguing colony, arguably the one who performed the greatest services to the cause of ItalianSpanish cultural relations was the all too mysterious Alfonso de Ulloa, who met a miserable death in 1570 in the dungeons of the Venetian Republic for reasons that are still obscure.15 Ulloa was a jack-of-alltrades: a soldier, possibly a spy (he stole at least a poem from Hurtado de Mendoza), certainly a scribe, translator, biographer, and all-round fixer in printshops, particularly that of Gabriele Giolito, who specialized in the production of Spanish books. He was also well connected with court circles, which helped him in his self-appointed task of diffusing a number of significant Spanish texts. These ranged from collections of the poetry of Garcilaso and Boscán, and an Italian translation of Fadrique Furio Ceriol’s manual on politics (Il Concilio, et Consiglieri del Principe), to historical works such as Hernando’s Colón’s biography of his father—once again the New World looms especially large in Venice—or the translation of the Odyssey Gonzalo Pérez prepared for Philip II. His was a book-based career that stood at the very center of the cultural connection between Italy and Spain, and brought him into contact with a wide range of writers, editors, and publishers. Some of these are well known to us; the identity of others can only be guessed at. Among the latter was a person with whom Ulloa shared a last name, as well as family origins in the city of Toro. Recently Fernando García Salinero has made a case for the attribution of one of the 14 For details, see E. Spivakovsky, Son of the Alhambra: Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1504 –1575 (Austin, 1970), pp. 103–14. Note also that while in Venice Hurtado de Mendoza was regularly attended by Jewish physicians of Spanish origin, in particular the renowned Amatus Lusitanus, who had settled in Ferrara. Stefania Pastore’s research in progress on the relations between Hurtado de Mendoza and heterodox Spaniards and Italians promises to shed much more light on a number of highly intriguing individuals, some of whom are mentioned below. 15 See O. Arróniz, “Alfonso de Ulloa, servidor de don Juan Hurtado de Mendoza”, Bulletin Hispanique, 70 (3–4), 1968, pp. 437–57, and A. Rumeu de Armas, Alfonso de Ulloa, introductor de la cultura española en Italia (Madrid, 1973), although much remains to be written about this colorful character. For example, his connections with prominent conversos and crypto-Jews, such as Joseph Nasi; there are interesting hints to this effect in C. H. Rose, Alonso Núñez de Reinoso: The Lament of a Sixteenth-Century Exile (Rutherford NJ, 1971), pp. 53–4.

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more unusual texts of sixteenth-century Spanish literature, the combination of travelogue, picaresque novel, and Erasmian critique of organized religion known as the Viaje a Turquía, to one Juan de Ulloa Pereyra, a resident of Toro and knight-commander of the Order of Malta (St John of Jerusalem).16 Be that as it may, what is certain is that Ulloa Pereira appeared in the 1559 auto de fe in Valladolid which saw the punishment of a large (for Spain) group of Protestants, many of whom were related, as was he, to the powerful RojasSarmiento family.17 Among the best-known of the Protestants executed was, interestingly enough, an Italian, Don Carlo de Seso. Seso was a man of mystery. He apparently hailed from a patrician family in Verona. He had spent some time not only in Cardinal Pole’s household but also at the first session of the Council of Trent, which Hurtado de Mendoza also attended in the capacity of imperial ambassador. Following his marriage to Isabel de Castilla, from a prominent converso family, he was appointed corregidor, or royal governor of Toro in 1554. From there he used his impressive connections and intellectual prestige to organize secret meetings of Protestant sympathizers, including the king’s preacher Agustín de Cazalla. The subsequent discovery of this “cell” by the Inquisition led to a major crackdown on all sorts of mystic and heterodox activity. The sudden ratcheting upward of repression found further reflection in the harshness of the 1559 Index of Prohibited Books, the third and final carried out under the supervision of the hard-line Inquisitor General Fernando de Valdés.18 Seso’s dramatic and impenitent end at the stake recalls that of another Italian who provided books and manuscripts for Spanish 16

Details in Viaje de Turquía: La odisea de Pedro de Urdemalas, ed. F. García Salinero (Madrid, 2000), especially pp. 64–73. 17 For a preliminary study of the kinship ties among the largely female and aristocratic defendants in this mass trial, see David Vázquez Santiago’s “Propedéutica de los autos de fe de Valladolid de 1559: Espiritualidad y poder en Castilla”, M.A. thesis, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 2000. 18 For Seso and the broader question of the other Spanish connections of Italian reformers, see, among the numerous studies of J. I. Tellechea Idígoras, his “Don Carlos de Seso y el Arzobispo Carranza. Un veronés introductor del protestantismo en España”, in his Tiempos recios (Salamanca, 1977), pp. 53–110, and “Don Carlos de Seso. Bienes y biblioteca confiscados por la Inquisición (1559)”, Revista Española de Teología, 43, 1983, pp. 193–7. Note also Massimo Firpo’s Dal Sacco di Roma all’Inquisizione: Studi su Juan de Valdes e la Riforma italiana (Alessandria, 1998), especially pp. 206–215. The raids in Valladolid turned up another Italian “luterano”, the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, but the intercession of Philip II got him off the hook; see F. Marías, El largo siglo XVI: los usos artísticos del Renacimiento español (Madrid, 1989), p. 360.

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heretics, the Sardinian Sigismundo Arquer. Arquer was a member of a well-off family from Cagliari who, following study in Pisa and Siena and a brief sojourn among Calvinists in Switzerland, began to preach evangelismo to a number of friends, especially in Sardinia and elsewhere in the crown of Aragon. After several trips to court, including stays in Madrid and Valladolid during which he may have met Seso and Cazalla and heard the sermons of archbishop Bartolomé Carranza, he was arrested and eventually executed on the basis of some letters to the Valencian aristocrat Don Gaspar de Centelles—formerly a crown official in Sardinia—in which he imprudently explained his heterodox beliefs.19 Together, the parallel lives of Seso and Arquer serve to illustrate the broader point that Italy played a leading role as a source of religious dissent in Spain, within a wide-ranging, two-way trade in spiritual ideas and practices. Some of that story took place, logically enough, in the cities of the north, such as Venice, where philo-Protestant and evangelical circles were strongest, or Bologna, where a number of Spanish students entered into contact with Lutheran and other heterodox currents.20 However, it was in Naples, the leading city of Spanish Italy, and in the circles of reformers that gathered around the charismatic figure of Juan de Valdés, that one finds the central nucleus for the conflation of Spanish and Italian spiritual experimentation—a point that we will return to in a moment. Spanish religious influence in Italy naturally included the orthodox as well as the suspect. The fuss over Valdés should not lead us to overlook the ongoing world of uninterrupted ecclesial exchange between Spain and Italy, which reached high levels of intensity well 19 See M. C. Cocco, Sigismondo Arquer: dagli studi giovanili all’autodafe. Con edizione critica delle Lettere e delle Coplas al imagen del Crucifixo (Cagliari, 1987), and S. Loi, Sigismondo Arquer un innocente sul rogo dell’Inquisizione. Cattolicesimo e protestantesimo in Sardegna e Spagna nel ’500 (Cagliari, 2003); my thanks to Bruno Anatra and Francesco Manconi for generously providing me copies of these two thorough studies. By way of footnote: Arquer was possibly a guest of Celio Secondo Curione during his stay in Basel. It has been suggested that it was probably Curione who used the Hispanic synonym “Alfonso Lincurio of Tarragona” to protest Calvin’s execution of Servetus in 1553. For this text, see Servet’s Obras completas. I. Vida, muerte y obra. La lucha por la libertad de conciencia. Documentos, ed. A. Alcalá (Zaragoza, 2003), vol. I, pp. 287–302. 20 For religious dissent in early modern Venice, see J. Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1993). For the (relatively mild) Bolognese episode, see A. Battistella, “Processi d’eresia nel Collegio di Spagna (1553–1554). Episodio di storia della Riforma in Bologna”, Atti e memorie della R. Deputazione di storia patria per le provincie di Romagna, 3rd ser., 19, 1901, pp. 138–87.

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before the Counter-Reformation and Spanish political hegemony were fully underway. By the reign of Philip II several different Spanish spiritual currents had become consolidated as lobbies in Rome. The best known of these was the Jesuit order, beginning with the generation of the founding fathers, the majority of whom were Spaniards.21 A different lineage of Iberian clerics culminated in the figure of Antonio Agustín, the most renowned member of a long line of Aragonese and Catalan humanists and jurists in Rome. Their numbers included not only the Barcelonan historian Jeroni Pau, but also the royal secretary Juan Verzosa, whose epistolary reads like a who’s who of Spaniards linked to papal and royal service abroad, and toward the end of the sixteenth century, the papal auditor of Aragonese origin, Francisco Peña.22 There were, to be sure, many other Spaniards in Rome at same time, and many purposes brought them there.23 Some followed the time-worn route to Italy in search of an education. Still others, with their degrees in hand, turned (or returned) to Italy as a land of opportunity for recognition and professional advancement. The latter was the case of the best known Spanish physician of the sixteenth century, Andrés de Laguna, who spent 1545 to 1554 partly in Rome and partly in Venice in the household of Hurtado de Mendoza. And it is telling that Juan Valverde de Hamusco, while preparing his famous anatomical treatise, coincided in Rome with several other Spanish doctors. These included the astrologist Juan de Aguilera who, like Valverde, was also in service to cardinal Juan Alvarez de Toledo, and who formed with his compatriots a sort of scientific tertulia at the Palazzo Colonna, the meetings of which we are informed about in the letters of the scholar Juan Páez de Castro.24 Their presence 21 For details on the Spanish background of the order, see W. V. Bangert and T. McCoog, Jerome Nadal, S.J.: Tracking the First Generation of Jesuits (Chicago, 1992), and J. W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, 1993). Perhaps the most detailed information on Spanish clerics in sixteenth-century Italy can be gleaned from the mass of data in C. Gutiérrez, SJ, Españoles en Trento (Valladolid, 1951). 22 For Pau, see the introduction to vol. I of his Obres, ed. M. A. Vilallonga (Barcelona, 1986), 2 vols.; for Verzosa, see the Epístolas de Juan Verzosa, ed. J. López de Toro (Madrid, 1945; orig. ed. 1575). On Peña’s origins, see E. M. Peters, “Editing Inquisitors’ Manuals in the Sixteenth Century: Francisco Peña and the Directorium Inquisitorum of Nicholas Eymeric”, Library Chronicle, 40, 1974, pp. 95–107 [97]. 23 As has been emphasized in Thomas J. Dandelet’s recent book, Spanish Rome, 1500 –1700 (New Haven, 2001). 24 See the introductory essay by Pedro Laín Entralgo to Juan Valverde de Hamusco’s Historia de la composición del cuerpo humano (Madrid, 1991; facs. orig. ed. 1556); C. J.

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serves to remind us that there were few physicians in sixteenthcentury Spain who did not look eastward to Italy as the main locus of medical authority—and this despite the relatively shallow roots of the new medical humanism in Spain itself, which was partly the result of the lingering strength of the medieval Arabic medical tradition native to Iberia.25 While Valverde and other Spanish physicians were studying and scaling professional ladders in Rome, Bologna, Padua, and other intellectual centers in Italy, a different sort of medical practitioner headed in the opposite direction. All too little is known about the brief stay of Leonardo Fioravanti, the famed medical empiric, in Philip II’s court in Madrid and the Escorial.26 Unfortunately, what little information we have tends to come from Fioravanti’s own books, which are not to be entirely trusted on this score. These writings show that he cut his teeth, so to speak, on Spanish clients in Italy well before journeying to Iberia. In particular his Tesoro della vita, a widely-read professional memoir covering the years 1549 to 1558, briefly mentions many of the persons whom he treated. These ranged from one “Sr Giovanni Simenes” and “Maricca de Toledo”, both of whom suffered from mal francese, to una vecchia spagnola in Messina, a Sr. Ramos de Alicante, and in Naples, a wounded Spaniard named Zamora, one “Carabasal di Córdoba”, and the viceroy himself, Don Pedro de Toledo.27 Fioravanti moreover served as protomédico in the 1551 Spanish-Italian naval expedition against the Barbary pirates. Similar service in the fleet ended, of course, the stay in the sister peninsula of Miguel de Cervantes, the most important early modern Spanish

Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI. El virrey Pedro de Toledo. Linaje, estado y cultura, 1532–1553 (Salamanca, 1994), p. 482n.; and the entries for Aguilera, Laguna, and Valverde in J. M. López Piñero et al., Diccionario histórico de la ciencia moderna en España (Barcelona, 1983). For another Spaniard (in this case a cleric) in Rome at the same time and seeking the patronage of the Cardinal of Burgos, see J. W. O’Malley, “Lutheranism in Rome, 1542–1543. The Treatise by Alfonso Zorrilla”, Thought, 54, 1979, pp. 262–73. 25 Not all historians of medicine would agree with this statement. See, for example, L. García Ballester, Historia social de la medicina en la España de los siglos XIII al XVI. Vol. I: La minoría musulmana y morisca (Madrid, 1976), pp. 88–97. 26 For Fioravanti’s stay in Spain, see the brief reference in W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, 1994), pp. 181–2. One looks forward to its being treated in greater detail in Eamon’s forthcoming book on this truly unusual character. 27 L. Fioravanti, Il tesoro della vita humana; dell’eccelente dottore & cavaliere M. Leonardo Fioravanti, Bolognese. Divisi in libri quattro (Venice, 1570), book II.

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writer to have spent time in Italy, and who always wrote of it with affection and respect.28 This intense cultural interchange was hardly limited to the literati evoked thus far. Much more visible in fact were the transfers of artistic and architectural talent. To be sure, the higher stars in this firmament did their best to stay in place. Titian, the court painter of Charles V, managed to put off going to Spain during his entire lifetime. The same could be said for Benvenuto Cellini and other Italian painters and sculptors whose works figured prominently in Spanish collections, and particularly in the Escorial and other royal residences.29 Their absence was made up for by others, however. Numerous painters, including Sofonisba Anguissola, Luca Cambiaso, Federico Zuccaro, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Bartolomé and Vicente Carducho, Giovan Battista Crescenzi, Francesco Rizi, and Luca Giordano; sculptors, such as Pompeo Leoni; architects and engineers, ranging from Juanelo Turiano to Francesco Paciotti: all these and others saw Spain as, if not a promised land of golden opportunity, certainly a market within which their taste, experience, and skills fetched a commanding price.30 Nor was this traffic all headed in the same direction. Spaniards too—albeit in smaller numbers—wound up making careers in the other peninsula.31 The best known case was that of Josep ( Jusepe) 28 Well, almost always. Note that a character in Don Quijote I.51 refers to Naples as “the richest and most vice-ridden (viciosa) delightful city in all the world”. On Cervantes’s stay in Italy, see J. Canavaggio, Cervantes, trans. M. Armiño (Madrid, 1987), pp. 49–71, and F. A. De Armas, “Cervantes and the Italian Renaissance”, in A. J. Cascardi, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 32–57. 29 Although Spaniards appeared occasionally in Cellini’s autobiography, especially in the early sections on his stay in Rome in the 1520s. 30 Details in: J. Brown, Painting in Spain, 1500–1700 (New Haven, 1998); R. Pane, “Gli scambi con la Spagna: scultori e architetti”, in Il potere e lo spazio. La scena del Principe (Florence, 1980), pp. 103–116; Los Leoni, 1509–1608. Escultores del Renacimiento italiano al servicio de la corte de España (Madrid, 1994); J. Escobar, The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 53, 122, and 200–2; and F. Marías, “La basílica de el Escorial y la arquitectura y los arquitectos italianos”, in Studi in onore di Renato Cevese (Vicenza, 2000), pp. 351–73, as well as his “La memoria española de Francesco Paciotti: de Urbino al Escorial”, Anuario del Departamento de Historia y Teoría del Arte, 13, 2001, pp. 97–106. See also J. A. Ramírez, “Guarino Guarini, Fray Juan Ricci and the ‘Complete Salomonic Order’ ”, Art History, 4 (2), 1981, pp. 175–85, and H. A. Meek, Guarino Guarini and his Architecture (New Haven, 1989), especially pp. 12–17, for discussion of the vexed question of Guarini’s possible journey to Spain. 31 For an overview see G. Mora, “The Image of Rome in Spain: Scholars, Artists and Architects in Italy in the 16th to 18th Centuries”, in R. Hingley, ed., Images of Rome: Perceptions of Ancient Rome in Europe and the United States in the Modern Age (Portsmouth RI, 2001), pp. 23–55.

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Ribera, who after training in Italy decided to stay on due to the higher regard for artists there than in his native land. (Of Spain he is reported to have said that he was proud to be its subject, and loath to be an inhabitant).32 A host of lesser characters also made their way into Italian artistic as well as cultural history.33 My personal favorite is the unclassifiable polymath Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz. A scholar, linguist, polemicist, theologian, musical theorist, and no mean architect, Caramuel wound up pensioned and pastured as the bishop in Vigevano, where he died in 1682 after having designed a new facade for its cathedral.34 He is one of the most singular Spaniards ever to have lived in Italy, or indeed to have breathed air during the seventeenth century. I for one hope to live long enough to write a book about him. * * * Needless to say, one could go on forever extending these chains of contacts and coincidences in every conceivable direction. However, it might be better now to step back and try to look at this picture as a whole. Without running any further risk of converting cultural contact into a game of ping pong, a few general observations may be ventured. Perhaps the most important—certainly the most obvious—question involves the issue of balance. The leading interpretations until now have emphasized a dual assymetry in the relations between early modern Spain and Italy. In terms of political power and the economic exploitation which made it possible, Spain was obviously the dominant partner. However, in terms of high culture, and particularly of the fine arts, Italy continued to exercise the role of leader initiated during the Renaissance, while Spain was assigned the lowly berth of follower.35 Thus Italian travellers to Spain did not hesitate to let 32

See Brown, Painting in Spain, pp. 147–63. For example, Juan Bautista de Toledo was a Spanish architect with long experience in Italy; he even served as Michelangelo’s assistant in the construction of St. Peter’s in Rome. For this period in his career, see J. J. Rivera Blanco, Juan Bautista de Toledo y Felipe II. La implantación del clasicismo en España (Valladolid, 1987), pp. 67–100. 34 Caramuel carried on a famous feud with his fellow architect (and cleric) Guarino Guarini. For details, see W. Oechslin, “Osservazioni su Guarino Guarini e Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz”, in Guarino Guarini e l’internazionalità del Barocco (Turin, 1970), pp. 573–95. It goes without saying that low-intensity conflict of this sort also played a significant role in the cultural interaction between Spain and Italy. 35 One gets a sense of the predominance of Italian art in early modern Spain by reviewing the contents and origins of artistic works that appeared in notarial inventories from seventeenth-century Madrid. While only a quarter of the items in 33

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everyone know that they were journeying to a literary and artistic boondocks. At the same time, they were aware, although they tended to be less vocal about it, that they were visiting the country that not only had the power of decision over their homeland, but that also, thanks to Spain’s acquisition of a vast overseas empire, could reasonably claim for itself the dominant position within Europe as a whole. Spaniards, of course, lived out the same paradox, albeit from the opposite direction. Their clear sense of political superiority was accompanied by an equally clear if attenuating sense of cultural inferiority. In other words, the terms of trade between Spain and Italy, while admittedly unequal, were nevertheless more or less balanced between the two planes of politics and culture. And in both planes, influence created anxiety, even as it generated new ideas, as well as forms for their literary and artistic expression. Our concern is, of course, with just one side of this equation, and with the sticky fact that while much of the cultural history of early modern Spain could be written with the question of its relations with Italy in mind, one can hardly say the same thing for Italy. In strictly cultural terms, its connection with Spain has long been seen as important, but far from determining. How much truth is there in the cliché of Italy’s playing Greece to Spain’s Rome? It goes without saying that it would not be difficult to put together a fat dossier of quotations from Italians about the relative lack of learning, good taste, and polish on the part of Spaniards. To cite merely one instance: Camillo Borghese, who visited Madrid in 1594 in his capacity as Papal Legate, was appalled by what he saw.36 All the residences of the leading families, he reported, are worse than what one finds in Italy (with a telling exception: the home of one Don Pietro de’ Medici). The palaces of grandees are well the data base of the Provenance Index of the Getty Information Institute are specifically attributed, among these there are twice as many attributions to Italian artists than to Spaniards. Moreover, a quick look at the index of artists shows the overwhelming predominance of Italians (followed by Flemings) among foreign artists. It would appear that in terms of both quantity and quality, the Italians passed the test; their presence was truly hegemonic. See M. B. Burke and P. Cherry, Collections of Paintings in Madrid, 1601–1755, ed. M. L. Gilbert (Los Angeles, 1992), 2 vols. Note also that in the private libraries of Spanish artists, among foreign books those of Italian origin predominated until the eighteenth century, when they began to give way to French competitors. See R. Soler i Fabregat, “Libros de arte en bibliotecas de artistas españoles (siglos XVI–XVIII): aproximación y bibliografía”, Locus Amoenus, 1, 1995, pp. 145–64 [154]. 36 Viajes de extranjeros por España y Portugal. Desde los tiempos más remotos hasta comienzos del siglo XX, ed. J. García Mercadal (Salamanca, 1999), vol. II, pp. 625–6.

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decorated with tapestries and silver plate, he wrote, but they live “poorly, without a minimum decency [ polizia]”. Entering their houses is the same as walking into stables. They eat without manners, and live in wretched style. At the table their meats are terribly seasoned (too many spices, one suspects), and they eat without forks or trenchards. They store their wine at home not in barrels but in skins, which give off a displeasing “odor distasteful to us Italians”. The last line says it all. Even when the criticism was not this forthright, there could be no mistaking the tone of condescension. Note the wording of Cassiano dal Pozzo’s description of Velázquez’s early equestrian portrait of Philip IV, which during his 1626 visit in the train of another papal legate, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he saw hanging in the Alcázar of Madrid opposite Titian’s portrait of Charles V at Mühlberg: that it showed “a pretty [background] landscape and deft hand for a Spanish painter”.37 A generation later, Lorenzo Magalotti, who accompanied Cosimo de’ Medici III on his 1668 tour of the Iberian peninsula, complimented the Jesuit church in Alcalá de Henares by noting that its facade was “without doubt the best architecture we saw in the whole journey through Spain, even if it too had some defects, which were nevertheless tolerable”.38 Not surprisingly, in 1655 the French tourist Antoine de Brunel registered how the Italians visiting the Escorial with him, including the Genoese Marquis of Serra, “could not stop laughing” at the ingenuousness and gullibility of the Spaniards, whose lack of taste made them pay ten times the normal price of art work.39 And so forth . . .

37 “pur di pittore spagnolo”, my emphasis. Cited in E. Harris, “Cassiano dal Pozzo on Diego Velázquez”, Burlington Magazine, 112, 1970, pp. 364–73 [368]. For more on the Barberini-Cassiano visit, see J. Simón Díaz, “La estancia del cardenal legado Francesco Barberini en Madrid en el año 1626”, Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, 17, 1980, pp. 159–213, and F. Marías and A. Bustamante, “De las Descalzas Reales a la Plaza Mayor: Dibujos madrileños en Windsor Castle de la colección de Cassiano dal Pozzo”, en Cinco siglos de arte en Madrid . . . III Jornadas de Arte . . . (Madrid, 1991), pp. 73–85. Alessandra Anselmi has recently edited the diary Cassiano wrote during this journey as Il diario del viaggio in Spagna del Cardenale Francesco Barberini scritto da Cassiano dal Pozzo (Aranjuez, 2004). 38 Cited in Alcalá de Henares vista por los viajeros extranjeros, siglos XVI–XIX, ed. P. L. Ballesteros Torres (Alcalá de Henares, 1989), p. 55. 39 Viajes de extranjeros, ed. García Mercadal, vol. III, pp. 285–6. The Italians were not the only ones to do this, of course. Rubens, in his 1603 letters from Madrid, poked fun at the crudity of local artists and the lack of taste among courtiers, as noted in Burke and Cherry, Collections of Paintings in Madrid, p. 5.

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Neither is it all that difficult to document the Spaniards themselves picking up and reproducing this skewed hierarchy of learning and taste. In an exercise of self-congratulation hardly unknown among Jesuits, one P. Diego de Avellaneda gushed about the excellence of classical studies in his order’s schools. Here, he wrote in a letter, we have created “a new Italy, in which Greek and Latin letters flourish. We now have a new generation of teachers and we have no reason to envy the nations on the other side of the Alps . . . Barbarism is disappearing, language is becoming polished and beautiful, and now foreigners do not make fun of us the way they used to, saying that we speaking a detestable Latin”.40 When all is said and done, Benedetto Croce seems to have been right: early modern Italians rendered toward their Spanish counterparts—and for that matter, virtually everyone else—a “severe judgment, not lacking a touch of contempt”.41 However, we might restore greater balance to this side of the Spanish-Italian relationship if we keep a half-dozen caveats in mind. 1. First, that there was a strategic component to this rhetoric. That is, there was often an impressive degree of, for lack of a better term, instrumentality in the cultural tug of war between Italy and Spain. Italian artists, intellectuals and educators were quite aware of the high purchase price of their goods and services in the rest of Europe, and Spain was no exception. Hence the many Italian cultural products that were specifically tailored to fit Spanish needs. For example, the ingenious forgeries of Annius of Viterbo, with their flattering reinvention of the early history of Iberia, come readily to mind.42 40 “Una nueva Italia, en que florecen las letras griegas y latinas. Ya tenemos una nueva generación de maestros y no tenemos nada que envidiar a las naciones transalpinas . . . La barbarie desaparece, la lengua se pule y hermosea, ya no se burlan, como antes, de nosotros los extranjeros, diciendo que hablamos un latín detestable”. Cited in L. E. Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares and J. L. Sánchez Lora, Los siglos XVI–XVII: cultura y vida cotidiana (Madrid, 2000), p. 255. 41 “Giudizio severo e non privo di una punta di dispregio”, in his La Spagna nella vita italiana durante la Rinascenza (Bari, 1949), p. 149. Much remains to be explored in regard to the complicated question of Croce’s view of Spanish Italy. Any fully rounded study would have to take into account the trip he made as a youth to Spain and Portugal. He kept a short but intriguing diary account of this journey; I have consulted the Spanish translation by Félix Fernández Murga, En la península ibérica: Cuaderno de viaje, 1889 (Seville, 1993). 42 For details, see A. Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, 1990), especially pp. 100–118.

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2. That some Italians recognized that rather than the direct confrontation of barbarism versus culture, part of this was simple difference in taste. The fascinating work that Edward Goldberg has been doing as of late in the Medici dukes’ correspondence spells out in eloquent detail the tension between what the Italians saw as their cosmopolitan values of artistic excellence, and the more parochial focus of the Spaniards on doctrinal correctness and exemplary devotion.43 The Tuscan embassy in Madrid was acutely conscious of the delicacy with which these questions needed to be treated, and sent detailed explanations back home to Florence of the differences between Tuscan and Spanish artistic preferences. A 1599 memorandum commented thus on the local specs for paintings: Spaniards, it warned, want tranquil poses, with no twisting and turning in the figures; above all, there must be no bare flesh, and postures must be “honest”. One can hear a few sighs in these sorts of reports, but what is more significant, I think, is that the Medici and their agents resisted the temptation to write this off as cultural rudeness. Rather, they saw very quickly that underneath, Spanish demands insisted on values they too recognized: decency, decorum, composure, as well as clarity, legibility, and opposition to distracting artistic invention. What emerges from correspondence of this sort is a keen contemporary awareness of differences in national tastes. The Florentines saw that the Spanish court had developed an ambiguous eclecticism, one that absorbed foreign artists and styles, but on its own terms. Lesser painters, such as Carducho and Cambiaso, adapted easily enough to these strictures. Greater ones, such as Velázquez, learned lessons from the sixteenthcentury Italian masters, but only up to a point. The result was a coherent, if singular synthesis between the two artistic traditions. 3. That there was considerably more balance in the Italian-Spanish equation when one included religious questions. The Italians themselves were willing to admit this. Note the remarks of Giovanni Botero—who did not hesitate to criticize Spaniards when he felt the urge—concerning their unflappable sense of devotion (“they show the highest reverence toward the Church and toward sacred things, especially the relics of saints and in particular of the Holy Virgin”).44 43 The rest of this paragraph reproduces Goldberg’s analysis in his “Circa 1600: Spanish Values and Tuscan Painting,” Renaissance Quarterly, 51 (3), 1998, 912–33. The text of the letter quoted from below is on pp. 916–917. 44 “Portano somma riverenza alla Chiesa, alle cose sacre, massime reliqui de’ Santi, e in particolare alla Beata Vergine”, cited in Meregalli, Presenza, p. 83. Federico Chabod briefly

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What is more, if in the later Middle Ages Spaniards looked eastward for models of piety—Catherine of Siena was without doubt the single most visible exemplar for Spanish beatas and nuns45—by the second half of the sixteenth century the flow had reversed. All of Catholic Europe was beginning to turn its eyes toward the Carmelite reform in central Castile, news of which was ably transmitted by the writings of St. John of the Cross, and in particular of Teresa of Avila, along with their allies in other orders, such as the Augustinian Luis de León, and the best-selling Dominican Luis de Granada, among others. In between there had been several episodes of extraordinary interest: first, the confluence of apocalyptic and millenarian thought between Italy and Spain encouraged by advances in the common crusade against Islam and the discovery of the New World, which has been studied by Ottavia Niccoli, Nelson Minnich, and Adriano Prosperi, among others;46 second, the consolidation of various circles around Juan de Valdés, the single most enigmatic figure in the religious exchange between early modern Spain and Italy.47 What is perhaps most striking about Valdés in regard to our interests is the eager absorption in Italy of a message specifically emerging out of and adapted to Spanish circumstances, circumstances that included, as Massimo Firpo has suggested, specifically Judaic leanings toward

mentions Botero’s stay in Spain (1603–6) in his lengthy essay on the Savoyard Jesuit in Scritti sul Rinascimento (Turin, 1967), pp. 352–5. 45 See G. T. W. Ahlgren, “Ecstasy, Prophecy, and Reform: Catherine of Siena as a Model for Holy Women of Sixteenth-Century Spain”, in R. Boenig, ed., The Mystical Gesture (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 53–65. 46 See O. Niccoli, Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy, trans. L. G. Cochrane (Princeton, 1990; orig. ed. 1987), along with N. H. Minnich, “The Role of Prophecy in the Career of the Enigmatic Bernardino López de Carvajal” and A. Prosperi, “New Heaven and New Earth: Prophecy and Propaganda at the Time of the Discovery and Conquest of the Americas”, both in Reeves, ed., Prophetic Rome, pp. 111–20 and 279–303 respectively. 47 For a succinct and up-to-date summary of Valdés’s beliefs and influence, see M. Firpo, “The Italian Reformation and Juan de Valdés”, Sixteenth Century Journal, 27 (2), 1996, pp. 353–64. Most recent work on Valdés—including numerous other studies by Firpo—tends to focus on the means of transmission and reception of his spiritual messages within the wide and diverse circles of his followers, in addition to the more traditional questions of the sources and contents of his theology. For early statements of this tendency, see C. Ginzburg and A. Prosperi, “Juan de Valdés e la Riforma in Italia: Proposte di ricerca”, in Doce Consideraciones sobre el mundo hispanoitaliano en tiempos de Alfonso y Juan de Valdés. Actas del Coloquio interdisciplinar, Bologna, 1976 (Rome, 1979), pp. 185–97, as well as A. Mazzocco, “The Italian Connection in Juan de Valdés’ Diálogo de la Lengua”, Historiographia Lingüística, 24 (3), 1977, pp. 267–83.

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anti-trinitarianism and nicodemism.48 Whatever their origins, however, the spiritual movements that consolidated in the 1520s and were branded as alumbrado or illuminist proved highly fertile. It could even be that they took deeper root in Italy than in Spain itself, where a much more effective Inquisition devoted major efforts to stamping them out. It is here that we see the origins of the early modern cliché of the harshness of the Holy Office in Spain, as opposed to the “pleasant [ piacevole]” nature of Italian tribunals, a difference to which Prosperi has recently drawn attention.49 The widespread sense that, even despite the efforts of the Roman Inquisition founded in 1542, religious thought and speech were freer in Italy than in Spain, emerged clearly in the course of the Carranza trial of the 1560s. Carranza, while arguably the leading cleric in mid-sixteenth century Spain— he was Archbishop of Toledo as well as court chaplain to Philip II—was nevertheless arrested by the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy in 1559. When deposing before the Inquisitors, Carranza admitted that during his conversations with Seso—the Veronese heretic we met above—he had warned the latter that he was not in Italy, where only obras or outward behavior was punished, but in Spain, where obras e las palabras—that is, speech as well as behavior—led to jeopardy. He also confessed that he had not denounced Seso to the Holy Office because he thought that Seso “was only speaking in that loose way to which they are accustomed in his homeland.” His ally the bishop of Orense took the same position, and judged Seso to be not a heretic “but a man who, with the liberty of an Italian, spoke without realizing what he said.” What got Seso in trouble was thus a cultural mistake. According to the Carranza circle, Seso was a “foreigner, and he must have thought that in Spain they have the same license to speak as in his own land.”50 48 Firpo, Entre alumbrados y ‘espirituales’: Estudios sobre Juan de Valdés y el valdesianismo en la crisis religiosa del ’500 italiano, trans. D. Bergonzi (Madrid, 2000; orig. ed. 1990), pp. 12 and 67–123. For alumbradismo as a main source of Valdés’s theology, see J. C. Nieto, Juan de Valdés and the Origins of the Spanish and Italian Reformations (Geneva, 1970), especially pp. 56–97; for his stay in Naples, see pp. 142–68. (Note that the appendices of the Spanish translation of this work include more detailed documentation, particularly in regard to the alumbrado question). 49 See his Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari (Turin, 1996), especially pp. 44 and 70. 50 “en él no había más de aquella soltura de hablar como la tienen en su tierra”;

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Finally, although there is unfortunately not enough time further to pursue this question, we should keep in mind that there was a Jewish, and even Muslim side to the same story of religious exchange. Spiritual interaction did not cease with the expulsion of 1492, but rather continued within the endlessly complex series of relations that brought Iberian conversos such as Isaac Cardoso into contact with practicing Jews in Venice, Rome, and elsewhere.51 4. It is also worth asking if there would not be a greater sense of balance if we focused on reading habits rather than artistic exchange and other spheres that were obviously stacked in Italy’s favor. Important work has been done on early modern reading preferences in both countries, although to my knowledge no one has undertaken systematic exploration of the penetration of one reading culture by the other.52 Such a study would, needless to say, focus not just on classic titles and the usual suspects in art and architectural theory. It would also have to keep in mind the second- and third-level tiers: the Bocchis and Boteros as well as the Boccaccios, the Gellis and Garzonis as well as the Guicciardinis. Studies such as Thomas Deutscher’s survey of the books owned by parish priests in seventeenth-century Novara—which came up with some interesting Spanish titles, including works by the Sevillan humanist Pedro Mexia in Italian translation, or of Vives in Latin—lead one to guess that, once again, we might find in these reading habits the same sort of balance, or indeed, perhaps a temporary leaning in Spain’s favor, that one finds in the linguistic sphere, wherein one intuits that there were more early modern Italians who knew Spanish than Spaniards who knew Italian.53 “sino hombre que con libertad de italiano hablaba en lo que no sabía”; “hombre estranjero e debe de pensar que en España tienen la mesma licencia de hablar que en su tierra”. Cited in Cocco, Sigismondo Arquer, pp. 136–8. 51 There is a large and growing bibliography on this subject; for the time being suffice it to cite the classic biography of Cardoso, Y. M. Yerushalmi’s From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso. A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics (Seattle, 1981, 2nd ed.; orig. ed. 1971). One pan-Mediterranean figure of great interest within the Islamic tradition is the Granadan-born scholar and historian Leo Africano, the subject of Natalie Z. Davis’s recent book, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York, 2006). 52 One starting point would be the sort of data available for the ownership of Italian books in early modern Barcelona presented in M. Peña, Cataluña en el Renacimiento: libros y lenguas, Barcelona, 1473–1600 (Lleida, 1996), pp. 268–71, and examined in greater depth in his El laberinto de los libros: Historia cultural de la Barcelona del Quinientos (Madrid, 1997), pp. 165–204. 53 T. B. Deutscher, “From Cicero to Tasso: Humanism and the Education of the Novarese Parish Clergy, 1565–1663”, Renaissance Quarterly, 55 (3), 2002, pp. 1005–27.

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5. We would also see more balance if we adopted a less formal and more anthropological approach to culture. In terms of dress, foodways, and other items of broad cultural consumption, the exchanges between Italy and Spain evened themselves out more. In terms of high fashion, for example, the leading role played by Italy during the Renaissance had by the sixteenth century shifted to Spain. The courts of both Charles V and Philip II dictated the norms of dress to elites throughout Italy, and Spain continued to set the rules for most of Europe until it was eclipsed by the emerging cultural as well as political power of France in the mid-seventeenth century.54 The same sort of complexity marked food exchanges between the two peninsulas. While there can be no gainsaying Italy’s prominence as the center of European gastronomy prior to the rise of French haute cuisine in the seventeenth century, the leading role Spain played in such crucial long-term transformations as the introduction of new food items from its overseas colonies tends to even out the overall balance of exchange.55 6. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that to much of the rest of Europe, there was little if any difference between Spaniards and Italians. I regret to report that this equation was not always intended as a compliment. The English writer, diplomat, and seasoned traveler James Howell put the two peoples together when he remarked that the Spaniard belonged to “a goatish race”, and was thus “a great servant of ladies”, though “not so smooth and oily as the Italian”.56 And speaking of olives: Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of

On the language question, see G. L. Beccaria, Spagnolo e spagnoli in Italia: riflessi ispanici sulla lingua italiana del Cinque e del Seicento (Turin, 1968), as well as the short but efficient survey in Meregalli, Presenza della letteratura spagnola. 54 For details, see Carmen Bernis Madrazo’s Trajes y modas en la España de los Reyes Católicos (Madrid, 1979), 2 vols., and her Indumentaria española en tiempos de Carlos V (Madrid, 1962). 55 Hence an interesting recent study by Giovanni Rebora, while seeming to find every innovation in medieval and early modern foodways originating in Liguria, nevertheless devotes substantial attention to the “Spanish connection”—that is, Spain’s role as diffuser in the rest of Europe of products from the New World. See his Culture of the Fork: A Brief History of Food in Europe, trans. A. Sonnenfeld (New York, 2001; orig. ed. 1998), especially pp. 115–127. For background, see J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari, eds., Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present, trans. A. Sonnenfeld (New York, 1999), especially pts V–VI. 56 Cited in D. Mitchell, Travellers in Spain: An Illustrated Anthology (London, 1990), p. 17. Was it an accident that James Boswell, while in Rome in 1765, wrote in his diary “Be Spaniard: girl every day”? See Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France, 1765–1766, eds. F. Brady and F. A. Pottle (New York, 1955), p. 51. Recall

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Melancholy (1621), noted that “Our Italians and Spaniards do make a whole dinner of herbs and sallets . . . qualified with oil”. He also remarked the common propensity of Spanish and Italian men to pathological jealousy; like the Turks, they locked up their women, who were “mewed up like hawks”.57 And by way of counterpoint to these Othellian clichés one should keep in mind the near complete overlap in the eighteenth-century custom of gallants attending on aristocratic women known in Italy as cicisbeo and in Spain as cortejo.58 The notion of a special resemblance or even equivalence between Italians and Spaniards moreover persisted into later times. It underlay such intriguing episodes as the rash of reported cases of tarantismo in La Mancha in the later eighteenth century. Tarantism was an illness involving deep depression that was attributed to spider bite and was cured by music and ecstatic dancing. That it managed to migrate to central Spain from its epicenter in Apulia in southeastern Italy is an especially interesting example of the transfer of culture-bound illness. In fact, it was, in terms of medical history, a unique example of transfer, in that Spain was the only other European country to take over tarantismo as a diagnosis, and to apply the same sort of cure.59 Cultural resonances of this sort help explain the sort of reasoning behind passages such as the following from Paolo Cortese’s 1510 treatise on cardinals. Cortese judged “people of the Spanish race” to be “ambitious, suave, curious, greedy, argumentative, stubborn, profligate, suspicious, clever, and they are usually said to be the most like Italians of all barbarians; this is why Pico, the most learned of all Italians, used to say that the difference between Spaniards and Italians was the difference between people who make discoveries and people who turn their ideas into reality . . . To the one race, that of the Spaniards, is given a quick spirit of inquiry; in the other, also Montaigne on the different national styles of sex; French men, he affirmed, were impatient, and go directly to orgasm, in contrast with “the lovemaking of the Spaniards and the Italians, more respectful and timid, more measured and veiled”. See “On Some Verses of Virgil”, in The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. D. M. Frame (Stanford, 1965), p. 671. 57 R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. H. Jackson, new intro. W. H. Gass (New York, 2001; orig. ed. 1621), pp. 221 and 345. 58 See C. Martín Gaite, Usos amorosos del dieciocho en España (Barcelona, 1981; orig. ed. 1972), especially pp. 7–19. 59 Details in P. León Sanz, “Medical Theories of Tarantism in Eighteenth-Century Spain”, in P. Horden, ed., Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 273–92. The classic study of tarantismo is Ernesto de Martino’s La terra del rimorso. Contributo alla storia religiosa del Sud (Milan, 1961).

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the Italian, there occurs a more healthy judgment in creating things.”60 In conclusion: I fear that we have crossed the Tyrhhenian so many times that we are now seasick. I am all too aware that I have merely skated over the surface of a history that has been written only in part. Much more could and should be said about all these points, and about other cultural matters as well, such as science, law, music, theatre, opera, printing, demonology—the list is endless. It is hard to imagine two non-adjoining countries in early modern Europe with closer cultural relations than those tying together Italy and Spain. Yet the story of the contacts and coincidences, comraderie and conflict, sharing and stealing between Italians and Spaniards is, I have hinted, something we are familiar with only in bits and pieces. The innumerable fragments of this story await not only synthesis, but also a new ordering. I have suggested that adoption of a broader thematic scope can help produce a more nuanced and above all balanced vision of the highly complex and dynamic relations between these two cultural and spiritual spheres. We have come a long way from Croce, who told the most influential tale of this relation. But some further travel between the two peninsulas is still required. For such is ever the way of cultural history, as it traces influences back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth again.

60 Cited in I. D. Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Cambridge, 1998), p. 45.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

REFORM OF THE CHURCH AND HERESY IN THE AGE OF CHARLES V: REFLECTIONS OF SPAIN IN ITALY* Massimo Firpo

1. A tenacious historiographical tradition, which in fact sprang out of the Holy Alliance between Philip II and the papacy in the 1560s and lasted until the late 1900s, has presented Spanish politics in the early modern age as constantly engaged in defending the Christian faith and Catholic orthodoxy. It is almost as if the strenuous and eventually losing battles fought on a variety of Protestant fronts in Calvinist Holland, Huguenot France, Elizabethan England, and in the Thirty Years’ War had emerged out of something resembling a historical vocation, rooted in the epic of the Spanish reconquista, the struggle against marranos and moriscos, the Christian defense against the Ottoman threat, and the later missionary successes overseas, all of which had flowed together into the myth of a necessary hispanidad drawn from the Catholic identity of Spain and from its calls to arms against all heterodoxos, internal and external. In reality, however, as Marcel Bataillon has shown in his summary of the question (to date unequaled),1 that totally ideological image ignores what occurred in the fifty years preceding the end of the Council of Trent and gives little insight into the feverish religious culture and the prophetic, reformist, and heretical ferments rampant throughout the Iberian Peninsula in the age of the alumbrados (“enlightened ones,” members of a movement of mystical and spiritual enthusiasm) and Cardinal

* Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 Marcel Bataillon, Erasme et l’Espagne, 2nd ed., text reviewed by Daniel Devoto, ed. Charles Amiel, 3 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 1991), but see also Eugenio Ascensio, “El erasmismo y las corrientes espirituales afines,” Revista de filolgía española, 36 (1952): 31–99; Miguel Avilés, Erasmo y la Inquisición: El Libelo de Valladolid y la Apología de Erasmo contra los frailes españoles (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1980); José Luis Abellán, El erasmismo español, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1982); El erasmismo en España, ed. Manuel Revuelta Sanudo and Ciriaco Morón Arroyo (Santander: Sociedad Menendez Pelayo, 1986).

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Cisneros, the archdeacon of Alcor and the Valdés brothers, the humanists of Alcalá and Bartolomé Carranza, up to Benito Arias Montano and José de Sigüenza. This is true not only of Spanish history, strictly speaking, but also of the significant European derivatives of that culture and those ferments, especially in Italy.2 I have attempted on another occasion to describe the close ties between the religious policy of Charles V in Italy and in Europe and demands for institutional and doctrinal renewal on the part of the so-called spirituali,3 connections that obviously did not arise from the personal theological orientations of the Habsburg monarchs, but rather from an objective convergence of interests that led them to side with members of the Roman Curia who were working for reforms and theological mediation to facilitate healing the Protestant fracture—a break that undermined not only the powers but the very concept of imperial authority in the Germanic world, as later history was to demonstrate. This explains the support that Charles V (and Philip II, until the 1559–60 turning point) always provided— in conclaves, in curial politics, in the diplomatic missions, and in sessions of the Council—to such prelates as Gasparo Contarini, Reginald Pole, Giovanni Morone, Ercole Gonzaga, Cristoforo Madruzzo, Pietro Bertano, and others, all of whom, at various times and circumstances, became the target of suspicions, accusations, and, in some cases, actual Inquisitorial trials. Conversely, it also explains the objective convergence of those cardinals’ religious options (although there were also many differences among them) in the orbit of imperial politics, as is suggested not only by the fundamental role that Contarini played in religious colloquies or by the pro-Habsburg moves of someone like Giovanni Morone, whose personal and family history should have led him into the opposing camp, but also by the opening up to the spirituality of the Beneficio di Cristo on the part of

2 See Doce consideraciones sobre el mundo hispano-italiano en tiempos de Alfonso y Juan de Valdés, Actas del coloquio interdisciplinar, Bologna, April 1976, ed. Francisco Ramos Ortega (Rome: Instituo Español de Lengua y Literatura, 1979). 3 Massimo Firpo, “Politica imperiale e vita religiosa in Italia nell’età di Carlo V,” in Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo politico en Europa (1530–1558), Acts of the Conference, Madrid, 3–6 July 2000, 4 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001), 197–211; also published in Studi Storici, 41 (2001): 245–61, now in Firpo, “Disputar di cose pertinente alla fede”: Studi sulla vita religiosa del Cinquecento italiano (Milan: UNICOPLI, 2003), 159–74.

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men like Gonzaga or Madruzzo, who had been promoted to the purple only by virtue of their rank as secular princes. A clear rebuttal is offered by the fact that the intransigenti under the leadership of Gian Pietro Carafa, who stood opposed to the spirituali, ultimately gravitated to the pro-French side, until the moment when the proHabsburg faction within the Sacred College broke ranks in the conclaves of the 1540s and 1550s, with the explicit defection of Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, Juan Alvarez de Toledo, and Girolamo Verallo. Their defection was motivated by reasons of conscience dictated by their role as inquisitors, thus defeating the imperial candidacies of Pole and Morone, arousing the wrath of Charles V, and guaranteeing the success of colorless and neutral popes such as Julius III or explicitly pro-French popes such as Marcellus II and Paul IV. Another consequence was renewed warfare between Rome and the House of Austria, a move that for a moment risked repeating the tragedy of 1527.4 In light of this, we need a more precise definition of the religious profile of some of the principal representatives of imperial politics in Italy. A prime example is don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the man to whom Bartolomé Carranza dedicated his history of Church councils and the papacy, Summa conciliorum et pontificum a Petro usque ad Paulum tertium (1546). At the time the Habsburg ambassador at Trent, Mendoza had sought in vain to promote a formulation of the decree on justification that would ease the way to reabsorbing the Protestant schism, a move bitterly opposed by Domingo de Soto. Even earlier, however, Mendoza had clear ties with persons whose orientations were out of phase with Catholic orthodoxy, all of whom fell, sooner or later, into the clutches of the Holy Office.5 In 1540, when Mendoza was ambassador to Venice, Antonio Brucioli dedicated a volume of commentaries on the Old Testament to him; in 1541 the jeweler Alessandro Caravia dedicated to him Il Sogno, a poem in Dantesque terza rima that reflected religious doubts that later evolved in the direction of Reformed thought; in 1545 Ludovico Domenichi dedicated to him his anthology of Rime in the vernacular,

4 See Firpo, “Politica imperiale,” and Firpo, Inquisizione romana e Controriforma: Studi sul cardinal Giovanni Morone e il suo processo d’eresia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992), 309ff. 5 I am repeating here some observations also found in Massimo Firpo, Artisti, gioiellieri, eretici: Il mondo di Lorenzo Lotto tra Riforma e Controriforma (Rome: Laterza, 2001), 189–90.

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a work not without heterodox implications; the same is true of the 1550 Florence edition of the Idea del theatro of another heterodox, Giulio Camillo. In Venice itself, at some time around 1546, Mendoza became friends with Pietro Carnesecchi, whom he had already met in the early 1540s in Valdesian circles in Naples, and with whom he had debated the “goodness and mercifulness of God in general.” As Carnesecchi later told the Roman inquisitors, on one occasion in particular, when the Spanish ambassador was ill, he told Carnesecchi that he had “had pleasure and consolation from being visited by me and from hearing me reason about the things of God.” Carnesecchi continued: “In this infirmity, almost as if he wanted to show me how much profit he had drawn from my reasonings, he almost always had by his bedside a nicely bound New Testament that I had given him several days before.”6 Even though he himself had duly expurgated it, the catalog of the rich book collection that don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza had gathered together offers unequivocal indications of his religious interests, as reflected in works by Girolamo Savonarola, Erasmus, Ulrich von Hutten, Giorgio Agricola, Theodor Bibliander, Giovan Battista Folengo, Marcantonio Flaminio, Isidoro Chiari, Alessandro Citolini, Aonio Paleario, and Guillaume Postel.7 During his stay in Rome, Mendoza’s secretary was a priest, Alfonso Zorrilla, who (in 1543) had published a patch-work of selections taken from works of Melanchthon and other Reformation theologians entitled De sacris concionibus recte formandis deque ratione theologiae dicendae, but luckily for him, no one was aware of the fact, and Zorrilla was able to go to Trent with the title of “apostolic preacher.”8

6 “Bontá et misericordia di Dio in generale”; “d’havere piacere et consolatione di esser visitato da me et di sentirmi ragionare delle cose di Dio”; “nella quale infirmità volendo quasi mostrarmi quanto profitto havesse fatto de’ miei ragionamenti, tenne quasi sempre sotto il capo un Testamento Nuovo ben ligato ch’io l’havevo donato alcuni giorni prima”: Massimo Firpo and Dario Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi (1557–1567): Edizione critica, 2 vols. (Vatican City: Archivio Vaticano, 1998–2000), henceforth cited as Processi Carnesecchi, 2: 1037–38. 7 Anthony Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their Books and Bindings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 86–87; for the great Spanish aristocrat and diplomat himself, see pp. 70ff. 8 John W. O’Malley, “Lutheranism in Rome, 1542–1543: The Treatise by Alfonso Zorrilla,” Thought 44 (1979): 262–73. See also Adriano Prosperi, L’eresia del Libro Grande: Storia di Giorgio Siculo e della sua setta (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000), which suggests that Siculo had sent a work to Zorilla.

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Two years later, in Rome on 24 December 1545, Diego de Enzinas sent a letter to Luther asking his opinion on the doctrine of the Eucharist in the name of the perpauci fideles gathered in the papal city.9 One of these was probably Guido Giannetti da Fano,10 a man who, along with other heterodox figures, had frequented the house of Pietro Antonio Di Capua in Rome and who was himself in correspondence with Luther.11 Diego’s brother, Francisco de Enzinas, working in Luther’s and Melanchton’s Wittenberg, had recently finished his translation into Castilian of the New Testament, a work that he dedicated to Charles V in 1543; but, he also counted on the support of prominent protectors that included the bishop of Jaen and don Francisco de Mendoza, the imperial chaplain.12 Another member of that large Spanish family was Cardinal Juan Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla, who was later to hold hard-line, intransigent positions, but whose close connections with the pro-Valdesian Benedetto Varchi in the 1550s are attested.13 These are only a few suggestions for future research aimed at reconstructing the connections between the religious and political

9 Diego de Enzinas, letter to Luther, in Pietro Tacchi Venturi, ed., Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Roma: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1950–51), vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 137–39. 10 Evidence for this resides in the fact that during his last trial in Rome Pietro Carnesecchi was asked “si ipse dominus constitutus cognovit vel aliquam notitiam habuit de Didaco d’Enzinas et Francisco qui Driander cognominabatur, et an audiverit fuisse amicos Guidi Gianetti,” to which Carnesecchi responded that he had not had “notitia niuna che mi ricordi, né de’ nomi né delle persone nominate di sopra” (Processi Carnesecchi, 2:1102). On Giannetti, see Aldo Stella, “Guido da Fano eretico del secolo XVI al servizio del re d’Inghilterra,” Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 13 (1959): 196–238. 11 See Giannetti’s letter to Luther, ca. 1542–44, transcribed in the codex belonging to Vittore Soranzo, the bishop of Bergamo, and now in Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 10775, cols. 113v–114r. This document is now published in Massimo Firpo and Sergio Pagano, I processi inquisitoriali di Vittore Soranzo (1550–1558), 2 vols. (Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2004). For a different attribution of the addressee of the letter, see Paolo Simoncelli, ‘Inquisizione romana e Riforma in Italia,” Rivista storica italiana, 100 (1988): 5–125, esp. pp. 16ff. 12 On the brothers Diego and Francisco de Enzinas (who preferred the Greek form of his name, “Dryander”), see, among others, Bataillon, Erasme et l’Espagne, 1:552–54; 590–91; Carlos Gilly, Spanien und der Basler Buchdruck bis 1600: Ein Querschnitt durch die spanische Geistesgeschichte aus der Sicht einer europäischen Buchdruckerstadt (Basel and Frankfurt-am-Main: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1985), 326ff.; and Francisco de Enzinas, Epistolario, critical edition, ed. Ignacio J. García Pinilla (Geneva: Droz: 1995). 13 See Marcel Bataillon, “Benedetto Varchi et le Cardinal de Burgos D. Francisco di Mendoza y Bobadilla,” Les Lettres romanes 13 (1969): 3–62.

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orientations of the leading representatives of the Habsburg court in Italy during the 1540s and 1550s and their relations with the men and groups involved in the religious dissent that was widespread throughout the Italian Peninsula. In investigating these connections one element that needs to be taken into account is the protection that the preceding generation of some families of the high aristocracy—the Mendoza and Manrique families, for example—had guaranteed to such leading figures in Spanish alumbradismo as Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz, María de Cazalla, and Antonio de Medrano.14 Aside from don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, one would do well to study a personage such as Juan Manrique de Lara, mayordomo mayor of Charles V, ambassador to Rome in the early 1550s, and later briefly viceroy of Naples (in 1558), a man whom Carnesecchi regarded with “affection,” as Carnesecchi himself records, “by which I mean that he was a friend of Cardinal Morone’s, and that he aided and much supported the archbishop of Otranto, Pietro Antonio Di Capua, in order to have him made a cardinal.”15 It was precisely Manrique’s “intimacy” with Cardinal Morone and the “special friendship” between the two that aroused the suspicions of Paul IV,16 who declared in May 1558 (as reported by the secretary to the Florentine ambassador, Bongianni Gianfigliazzi) that Manrique was a “rotten Lutheran” trained in Morone’s “school,”17 whose liberation Gianfigliazzi was soon to promote energetically.18 Analogous accusations were pointed at the new ambassador to Rome, don Juan de Figueroa, whom the pope refused to receive or accredit. Paul IV gave as a pretext “the acts of disobedience against the Apostolic See that he [Figueroa] made while he had the governance of Milan,” and the pope declared publicly in the Consistory “that he has proceedings against him for heresy” and that “if he comes, he will have him burned.” Another

14 In this connection, see Massimo Firpo, introduction to Juan de Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano: Domande e risposte: Della predestinazione: Catechismo, ed. Massimo Firpo (Turin: Einaudi, 1994), lxiii. 15 “Affettione . . . intendendo che era amico del cardinale Morone et che adiutava et favoriva molto l’arcivescovo d’Otranto per farlo fare cardinale”: Processi Carnesecchi, 1:340; see also p. 1145. 16 “Intrinsichezza”; “particulare amicitia”: Massimo Firpo and Dario Marcatto, Il processo inquisitoriale del cardinal Giovanni Morone: Edizione critica, 6 vols. (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1981–1995), (henceforth cited as Processo Morone), 5:231, 251. 17 “Luterano marcio”; “scuola”: ibid., 327. 18 See ibid., 471, 477, 504.

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informant, writing toward the end of November 1558, specifies that the pope “wanted to have him taken and burned for having been a heretic very long ago, as can be verified by the proceedings against him when His Holiness was a cardinal.”19 2. Beyond these inquisitorial suspicions leveled at some of the leading representatives of Habsburg politics in Italy, we also need to focus on the many heterodox ferments that linked Spain to Italy at the time, some of which were destined to leave a profound mark on the religious history of those years. As usual, politics and religion were closely connected, as seen, for example, in the Diálogo de las cosas occurridas en Roma of Alfonso de Valdés, the official report giving Charles V’s version of what had occurred in the atrocious sack of Rome in 1527. As is known, the episode is presented in this work as a sign of God’s justice, “which although slow, always arrives”— a justice that had finally descended on a Roman Babylonia in which “all manner of sins are practiced quite openly . . . sodomy, idolatry, simony, hypocrisy,” as one Spanish eyewitness to those horrors reported.20 But in his denunciation of the corruption, the infinite abuses, and the genuine betrayal of the Christian faith for which the papal curia had been responsible, Charles V’s secretary did not limit himself to evoking the reformist views of “that excellent Erasmus of Rotterdam, who, with splendid eloquence, with wise prudence, and with candid modesty, in various of his works” had denounced “the vices and deceptions of the Roman court and, generally, of all clerics,” but who had referred to Martin Luther himself as sent by God so that “openly and with no regard whatsoever he might manifest,

19

“Gl’atti di inobedienza contro la sede apostolica che egli ha fatto mentre che egl’ha hauto il governo di Milano”; “che ha un processo contro di lui di heresia”; “se viene lo farà abrusciare”; “lo voleva far pigliare et abrugiare per essere egli heretico molto tempo fa, sì come consta per i processi che li furono fatti contro mentre Sua Santità era cardinale”: ibid., 396. 20 “Que aunque tarda no olvida”; “se usaban todos los géneros de pecados muy descubiertamente . . . sodomía, idolatría, simonía, hipocresía”: Antonio Rodriguez Villa, Memorias para la historia del asalto y saqueo de Roma en 1527 por el ejército imperial (Madrid: Biblioteca de Instrucción y Recreo, 1875), 140. See also Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, El saco de Roma de 1527 por el ejército del Carlos V (Madrid: Hidalguía, 1974), 336–37; Ana Vian Herrero, El “Diálogo de Lactancio y un arcidiano” de Alfonso de Valdés: Obra de circunstancias y diálogo literario: Roma en el banquillo de Dios (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1994), 143ff.; Massimo Firpo, “Il sacco di Roma del 1527: Tra profezia, propaganda politica e riforma religiosa,” now in Firpo, Dal sacco di Roma all’Inquisizione: Studi su Juan de Valdés e la Riforma italiana (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1998), 7ff.

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make clear, and publish before the entire world the vices, the ribaldries, the iniquities, the tyrannies, and the thefts of the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, and the other prelates and clergy, but also that he might be the reason for many peoples of Germany removing themselves from obedience to their prelates.”21 The furious attacks of Baldassare Castiglione, his denunciation of that text as sesquilutheranum (Luther and a half ),22 and the institution of inquisitorial proceedings against its author were the direct result of these openly theological matrices of the bitter polemics regarding Valdesianism, which in fact wholly invested even such devotional “superstitions” as the cult of relics and saints’ images.23 As for Alfonso’s brother, Juan de Valdés, who was exiled after the condemnation of his Diálogo de doctrina cristiana and lived first in Rome (where his friends Mateo Pascual and Juan del Castillo, both under investigation by the Spanish Inquisition, had also found refuge), then, from 1535 to 1541 in Naples, it would in fact be difficult to overemphasize his role in Italy during the troubled period that served as a background, first for preparations for the Council of Trent, then for its convocations. It was around Juan de Valdés and his highly compromising religious message that the group of the so-called spirituali gathered, gradually defining its political and religious strategies. He attracted around him noble women such as Vittoria Colonna, Giulia Gonzaga, and Caterina Cibo; aristocrats and patricians such as Camillo Orsini, Ascanio Colonna, Pietro Carnesecchi, and Alvise Priuli; intellectuals such as Marcantonio Flaminio and Benedetto Varchi; but also universally admired preachers such as Bernardino

21 “Quello eccellente Erasmo rotherodamo, il quale con splendida eloquenza, con accorta prudenza et con candida modestia in diverse sue opere”; “i vitii et inganni della corte romana et generalmente di tutti i chierici”; “apertamente et senza alcun riguardo manifestasse, palesasse et publicasse a tutto il mondo i vitii, le ribaldarie, le sceleratezze, le tirannie et le ladrerie del papa, dei cardinali, dei vescovi et degli altri prelati et chierici, et oltre ciò fusse cagione che molti popoli della Alemagna se rimovessero dalla ubidienza dei loro prelati”: Alfonso de Valdés, Due dialoghi: Traduzione italiana del sec. XVI, ed. Giuseppe De Gennaro (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1968), 31ff.; 346–47. On Valdés, see also Dorothy Donald and Elena Lázaro, Alfonso de Valdés y su época (Cuenca: Diputación Provincial, 1983); Vian Herrero, El “Diálogo de Lactancio y un arcidiano,” 13ff. 22 See Fermín Caballero, Conquénses ilustres, 4 vols. (Madrid: El Colegio Nacional de Sordo-Mudos y de Ciegos, 1868–75), vol. 2, Vida del il.mo Melchor Cano (1871); vol. 4, Alonso y Juan de Valdés (1875), 432–34. 23 See Valdés, Due dialoghi, 403, 406, 409ff. See also Firpo, Dal sacco di Roma all’Inquisizione, 49ff., and Firpo, introduction to Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano, xvff.

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Ochino and Pietro Martire Vermigli; bishops working for pastoral renewal of their dioceses such as Vittore Soranzo; and high-ranking prelates such as Reginald Pole, Giovanni Morone, Pietro Antonio Di Capua, and many others, all of whom were to play an important role in curial and conciliar policies and some of whom arrived to within one step of the papal throne. Valdés served as an inspiration for the Beneficio di Cristo, a work that served as a genuine livre de chevet for other powerful cardinals such as Cristoforo Madruzzo and Gregorio Cortese, the clamorous success of which throughout Italy is attested not only by the work’s many editions, but above all by its constant presence, along with other Valdesian writings, in the memories of dozens and dozens of heterodox figures whose voices filter through the acts of the Inquisitorial trials. These were figures from all cultural and social levels, all of whom had found in the work a fundamental reference for their own religious experience. It is hardly surprising, then, that the Supreme Inquisitors in Rome became increasingly aware of Juan de Valdés, or that in their eyes he became a demon to be exorcized. As is evident from the major proceedings against Morone and Carnesecchi, they were not about to lose an opportunity to reconstruct both his elusive profile as an unequaled master in matters of faith and the underground routes through which—in person or through disciples and followers, beginning with the scola of Reginald Pole, the English cardinal—he had managed to “infect . . . all of Italy with heresy.”24 In the 1540s and ‘50s his catechism was transferred, point by point, into spectacular images frescoed by Jacopo Pontormo in the choir of the basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence, following an iconographic program presumably defined by Varchi, probably operating under the attentive eye of Cosimo de’ Medici, who was at the time tied, hands and feet, to the wagon of Habsburg politics and was engaged in a bitter conflict with Rome on several fronts.25 This offers an extraordinary

24 “Infectato . . . tutta Italia de heresia”: Pasquale Lopez, Il movimento valdesiano a Napoli: Mario Galeota e le sue vicende col Sant’Uffizio (Naples: Fiorentino, 1976), 152. In this connection, see also Firpo, introduction to Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano, and Firpo, Tra alumbrados e “spirituali”: Studi su Juan de Valdés e il valdesianesimo nella crisi religiosa del ‘500 italiano (Florence: Olschki, 1990); Firpo, Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento (Rome: Laterza, 1993), 115ff.; Firpo, Dal sacco di Roma all’Inquisizione, 61ff. 25 See Massimo Firpo, Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I (Turin: Einaudi, 1997).

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confirmation, to say the least, not only of a consensus to be found from one end of Italy to the other regarding the doctrines of the Spanish exile, but also regarding the concrete theological and political positions that, albeit for only a short time, those doctrines seemed to suggest and legitimate. This was a consensus that emerged from the serene calm of a religious message that avoided all explicit polemics and entrusted the reform of Christianity to the long term of gradual internal renewal and that safeguarded the external authority of the Church, even though in the most secret crannies of its esoteric pedagogy it undermined the very base of the magisterial role of the Church, opening the way to a more subversive spiritualist radicalism founded on the negation of the normative authority of the Church, liberty of conscience, Nicodemism, and tolerance. What must be stressed, and forcefully, is that Valdesian religious reflection, however we may evaluate it, cannot be reduced to (and is in some aspects even profoundly opposed to) Reformed theology, and that through Valdés some of the premises and demands of alumbradismo, which Antonio Marquez defined as “the only original and persistently Spanish heresy,” also found wide distribution in Italy.26 Only the demand for simplification imposed by the need to staunch the heretical flood that had risked submerging the Church induced the Spanish inquisitors to equate alumbrados with Lutherans. The text of one of Juan de Valdés’s “Considerations” on the illumination of the spirit, discovered among the papers of Bartolomé Carranza, was judged to be full of “many and diverse errors and heresies of Luther and Calvin,” but was also called “the work of those devils, the alumbrados.”27 Moreover, in 1559, in a paper censuring Carranza’s Comen26 “La única herejía original y persistentemente española”: Antonio Márquez, Los alumbrados: Orígenes y filosofía (1525–1559), 2nd ed. (Madrid: Taurus, 1980), 61; Márquez, “Juan Valdés, teólogo de los alumbrados,” La ciudad di Dios 189 (1971): 214–19, which contains a discussion of José C. Nieto, Juan de Valdés y los orígenes de la Reforma en España e Italia, 2d. Ed. (Mexico City, Madrid, and Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1979), 102ff., originally published as Juan de Valdés and the Origins of the Spanish and Italian Reformation (Geneva: Droz, 1970). Nieto was the first to highlight the close relationship between Valdesian thought and the preaching of Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz in the palace of the marquis di Villena in Escalona. In this connection, see the highly pertinent passage in Bataillon, Erasme et l’Espagne, 1:179ff., and the somewhat blander synthesis of Alastair Hamilton, Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth Century Spain: The Alumbrados (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1922). 27 “Muchos y diversos errores y herejías de Lutero y de Calvino”; “cosa de aquellos diablos de los alumbrados”: José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, El arzobispo Carranza y su tiempo, 2 vols. (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1968), 1:347ff., 350–51, 361, 380ff.

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tarios, Melchor Cano denounced the fundamental error of removing oneself from the “magisterium of the Church” to privilege inner certitudes guaranteed by an “evident experiential awareness” in the style of the alumbrados, which, although in a different mode, was equivalent to saying “for a deeply felt experience that would give promise within themselves of the faith and love of God,” but nonetheless ended up by their aligning themselves with “the Lutherans” in denying “that grace is certain only through the Catholic faith.”28 In reality, what Valdés had already entrusted to the pages of his Diálogo de doctrina cristiana and then to his writings in Italian was a complex and highly refined synthesis of Erasmian notions and alumbrado spiritualism. He obviously also takes the measure of Lutheran doctrines, in part using them in an original perspective and a different framework, but never adopting them wholesale, as even the Italian inquisitors long sought to believe, forcing the heresies of his followers and imitators into the straight-jacket of the Protestant Reformation. 3. Even though the political role of Juan de Valdés at the court of Pope Clement VII in the early 1530s, then in Naples until 1541, remains unclear, his correspondence with Francisco de los Cobos, with Granvelle, and with Ercole Gonzaga during the final years of his stay in Naples shows beyond a doubt both a conscious adaptation of his religious and ideological reflections with projects and initiatives of the Habsburg court,29 assigning to the emperor the task of “putting the world in order and reforming the Church,” and his own concrete acts in that direction within the framework of the intricate “situation in Italy,” where he writes with profound anger and indignation about the Roman Curia, the “tyranny” of the pope, and the latter’s nepotistic “impudence.”30 It is highly likely that such questions were at the center of his colloquy with Charles V toward the

28 “Magisterio de la Iglesia”; “evidente noticia experimental”; “por un sentido experimental que se prometían en sí mesmos de la ffe y del amor de Dio”; “los lutheranos”; “la certidumbre de la gracia por via de la ffe cathólica”: Melchor Cano’s Censura is published in Caballero, Conquénses ilustres, 2:536–615; see esp. pp. 557, 586. 29 Arturo Segre, “Un registro di lettere del cardinale Ercole Gonzaga (1535–36) con un’appendice di documenti inediti (1520–48),” Miscellanea di storia italiana, 3rd. series, vol. 16 (1913): 273–458; Cartas inéditas de Juan de Valdés al cardenal Gonzaga, ed. José F. Montesinos (Madrid: Aguirre, 1931); Giovanni di Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano: Dialogo con Giulia Gonzaga, ed. Benedetto Croce (Bari: Laterza, 1938), 152ff. 30 “Aconchiar el mundo y reformar la Iglesia”; “negocios de Italia”; “tyranía”; “impudencia”: Cartas inéditas de Juan de Valdés, 16, 20, 41, 63.

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end of 1535,31 and were also touched on in his frequent encounters with the viceroy of Naples, don Pedro de Toledo, with whom—as Cardinal Morone was to say—he was at the time “in great favor.”32 Don Placido di Sangro and don Alonso Sanchez state in their testimonies in defense of Pietro Carnesecchi, given in Naples in August 1560, that “Valdés was in high esteem and reputation with the most illustrious don Pedro de Toledo, at the time viceroy of Naples, and in similar fashion with his entire court,” and that Valdés was “most grateful to the most illustrious lord don Pedro de Toledo.”33 Many who had known him recalled, in the chambers of the Inquisition, that the Spanish exile “had a great reputation” in Naples,34 but his fame is also attested by the success of his preaching among the high nobility (as had also been the case with the Spanish alumbrados). These included Galeazzo Caracciolo, marquis di Vico, Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio, marquis d’Oria, Ferrante Sanseverino, prince of Salerno and his wife Isabella Villamarino, and, among the barons, Mario Galeota, Consalvo Bernaudo, Cesare Carduino, Placido di Sangro, Pompeo delli Monti, Leonardo de Cardines, Ferrante Brancaccio, Scipione Capece, and Giovan Francesco Alois. Moreover, as is known, in the preface to the editio princeps of the Cento e dieci divine considerazioni, published in Basel in 1550, Celio Secondo Curione speaks of Valdés as a “splendid knight of Christ” and a “teacher and pastor of noble and illustrious persons.”35 Nor should we neglect the concrete pastoral reflections in Valdés’s sermons, if it is true that in the 1540s—as Alois was to state during the course of his own trial—some eleven bishops and archbishops in the Kingdom of Naples (but others should be added to the list, such as Pietro Antonio Di Capua in Otranto and Giovan Francesco Verdura in Messina) are reported to have adopted “the justification

31

Ibid., 66. “In gran favore”: Processo Morone, 2:573. 33 “Il Valdesio era in grande estimatione et reputatione appresso l’illustrissimo don Petro de Toledo, alhora vicerré di Napoli, et cossì appresso tutta la corte sua”; “grato molto al signor illustrissimo don Petro de Toledo”: Processi Carnesecchi, 1:326–27, 352. See also, in general, pp. 131ff., which give the testimonies in his defense that Carnesecchi procured in Naples in 1560. 34 “Teneva molta reputatione”: Berti, Di Giovanni Valdés, 69. 35 “Splendido cavaliere di Cristo”; ‘dottore e pastore di persone nobili e illustri”: Celio Secondo Curione, preface to Juan de Valdés, Le cento e dieci divine considerazioni (1550), ed. Edmondo Cione (Milan: Fratelli Bocca, 1944), 527. 32

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as Valdés presented it.” Among these was also the bishop of Catania, Nicola Maria Caracciolo, “who kept on his person the Sermons of fra Bernardino da Siena, the Beneficio di Cristo, and other writings by Valdés.”36 The entire entourage of functionaries and courtiers who thronged to the viceregal palace in Naples would merit study in this religious perspective.37 Further research might help us to understand the reasons for the great success of Valdesian proselytism among such personages as Giovanni Tommaso Minadois, a well-known jurist, royal counselor, and count of Montoro; Sigismondo Mignoz, the president of the hospital for incurables and a distant relative of the imperial ambassador, don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, and Cardinal Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla;38 the royal treasurer Alonso Sanchez and his wife Brianda Ruiz; abate Bernardino Brisegna and his sister Isabella, the wife of the governor of Piacenza, don Giorgio Manrique; don Pedro de Castilla, chaplain to the viceroy, who had named him “deputy” governor of the church of San Francesco in Naples,39 a Valdesian meeting-place; and Juan de Villafranca, “intimate disciple” of Valdés40 and a man engaged in brisk propagandistic

36 “El punto de la justificación como lo tenía el Valdesio”; “que tenía en su poder los Sermones de fray Bernardino de Sena y el Beneficio de Cristo y otros scriptos de mano del Valdesio”: See the well-known letter of the viceroy of Naples, don Perafán de Ribera, dated 7 March 1564, published in appendix to Giovanni Valdesso [ Juan de Valdés], Le cento e dieci divine considerazioni, ed. Eduard Boehmer (Halle in Saxony: Anton, 1860), 599–603. 37 The problem is not posed in the passages that discuss religious life in Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo XVI: El virrey Pedro de Toledo: Linaje, estato y cultura (1532–1553) (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1994), 437ff. There is only a passing mention of Valdés in Hernando Sánchez, “El ‘Glorioso trivmfo’ de Carlos V en Nápoles y el humanismo de corte entre Italia y España,” in Carlo V Napoli e il Mediterraneo, Atti del convegno, Naples, 11–13 January 2001, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 99 (2001, published 2002): 447–521, esp. pp. 499–500. 38 Saverio Ricci, Il sommo inquisitore: Giulio Antonio Santori tra autobiografia e storia (1532–1602) (Rome: Salerno: 2002), 60. 39 Domenico Berti, “Di Giovanni Valdés e di taluni suoi discepoli secondo nuovi documenti tolti dall’Archivio veneto,” Atti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, vol. 265 (1877–78), series 3, Memorie della Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, vol. 2, pp. 61–81; 73–74. 40 “Discipolo intrinseco”: Lopez, Il movimento valdesiano a Napoli, 156; Berti, “Di Giovanni Valdés,” 69. Carnesecchi stated in 1567: “Of Villafranca I can state this: that while I was in Naples when Valdés was alive I saw him treating him very familiarly, and I remember having heard the said Valdés speak with much honor and affection of him, praising him as inclined to piety and very attentive to mortification. But other information I did not have of him while I was in Naples, nor have I seen him again or heard talk of him from that time to now if not that I

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activities that were rapidly moving in a pro-Reform, later an Anabaptist and antitrinitarian direction. We know little or nothing about Villafranca, but it is not impossible that both his adhesion to Valdesianism and his later antitrinitarianism sprang from the same converso matrices that had produced Spanish alumbradismo, developing the abandonment of the rigid prescriptions of Judaic ritualism to move toward the Christian’s definitive conquest of Pauline freedom—that “liberty of the soul, which man needs in order to love God,” as Isabel de la Cruz had stated.41 From this impassioned demand for the principle that “the servants of God must be free,”42 there sprang the new faith’s rejection of useless “little devotions,” of multiple “attachments” and ceremonial prescriptions, and of “outward works,”43 in order to move on to the “great things” and “subtleties of the spirit and hidden divinities” that only the few “understand well,” of which Juan de Valdés had spoken.44 This was also the source of the need to use appropriate Nicodemite precautions to mask an anomic radicalism, to live “in secret,”45 and to communicate thoughts to adepts with a prudent gradualism. Nicodemism itself, what is more, beginning with Valdés’s own practices and theories,46 found a basic premise in the converso tradition’s strategies of survival and compromise made necessary by inquisito-

heard—I think after my return from France—that a few years after signor Valdés’s death he had plunged into heresies and had become a Sacramentarian, but I do not remember very well from whom I heard it” (Di Villafranca posso ben affermare questo: che mentre ch’io era a Napoli in vita del Valdés lo vedevo praticare molto intrinsicamente seco, et mi ricordo havere sentito il detto Valdés parlare con molto honore et affettione di lui, lodandolo come inclinato alla pietà et che attendesse molto alla mortificatione. Ma altra notitia non hebbi di lui mentre stetti a Napoli, né d’allhora in qua non l’ho più visto né sentito parlare di lui se non che intesi— doppo credo il ritorno mio di Francia—che egli doppo la morte del signor Valdés qualche anno s’era ingolfato nelle heresie et che era deventato sacramentario: ma non mi ricordo bene da chi mi l’habbia inteso”: Firpo, Processi Carnesecchi, 2:1134. 41 “Libertad del alma, la cual el hombre necesita tener para el amor de Dios”: Márquez, Los alumbrados, 269. 42 “Los siervos de Dios avían de ser libres”: This is what Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz had preached: see ibid., 193. 43 “Deboncioncillas”; “ataduras”; “obras exteriores”: Ibid., 237, 252, 256, 271. 44 “Cosas grandes”; “sotilezas de espíritu y divinidades escondidas”; “entendían bien”: Milagros Ortega Costa, Proceso de la Inquisición contra Maria de Cazalla, ed. integra, crítica y anotada (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1978), 88, 188–89, 509. 45 “En secreto”: Ibid., 65. 46 See Marcel Bataillon, “Juan de Valdès nicodémite?” republished in his Erasme et l’Espagne, 2d ed., 3:313ff.

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rial surveillance and by the difficulty of rebuilding lacerated identities, both individual and collective. “In the Kingdom . . . there are a great number of heretics among those converted from Judaism,” many of whom, as Juan de Figueroa wrote in 1536, when he was regent of the Collateral Council, “are Christian in name only, and in all other ways they are, and they live, as Jews.”47 There is no doubt that even the dogma of the Trinity, to which Valdés made only fugitive and at times ambiguous references in his writings, struck something deep and idiosyncratic in Hebraic sensibility. Miguel Serveto, like Juan de Valdés, was of converso origin, and Girolamo Busale, whom Giorgio Biandrata later called a “Calabrian but of a Spanish father, a man of sound theological faculties second to none,”48 also moved in Valdesian circles. On the occasion of the so-called Synod of Venice in 1550, Busale together with his brothers Bruno and Matteo and the ex-Olivetan Lorenzo Tizzano, formerly Giulia Gonzaga’s chaplain in the convent of San Francesco delle Monache and a disciple of Villafranca’s, managed to orient Italian Anabaptism in an antitrinitarian direction (a unique occurrence in all of Europe).49 Also connected with the Valdesian world were such personages as Francesco Renato, an ex-Capuchin from Calabria who was expelled from the Grisons for Anabaptism in 1544, at which point he returned to Naples to expatiate on his “many chimerical interpretations and points of the Hebrew language”;50 Ambrogio da Pozzo, also an Anabaptist, who was convinced that Christ was “born of semen like all other men”; Matteo d’Aversa, like Tizzano, a former Olivetan, with whom he had immersed himself in biblical studies that had eventually brought him to the

47 “En el Reyno . . . ay gran numero de hereges de los convertidos de judios”; “solo el nombre tienen de christianos y en todo lo demas son y biben como judios”: Cited by David Abulafia, “Insediamenti, diaspora e tradizione ebraica: Gli ebrei del Regno di Napoli da Ferdinando il Cattolico a Carlo V,” in Carlo V Napoli e il Mediterraneo, 171–200, esp. p. 184. 48 “Calaber sed patre Hispano, vir integritate theologicaque facultate nemini secundus”: De falsa et vera unius Dei patris, filii et spiritus sancti cognitione: Libri duo (Albae Iuliae) 1568, facsimile edition, introduction by Antal Pirnát (Budapest: Akadémis Kiadó; Nieukoop: De Graaf, 1988), Eiiv. 49 For this and what follows, see Firpo, Tra alumbrados e “spirituali,” 90ff.; Firpo, introduction to Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano, cxxviiff. 50 “Molte chimere di interpretatione et di ponti de la lingua hebraica”: Aldo Stella, Anabattismo e antitrinitarismo in Italia nel XVI secolo: Nuove ricerche storiche (Padua: Liviana, 1969), 26ff.

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point of denying the divinity and the messianic role of Christ; Giovanni Laureto, another ex-Olivetan and a disciple of Busale’s,51 who had been persuaded to embrace Anabaptist and antitrinitarian doctrines; and Giulio Basalù, a cousin of Busale’s, who had reached the point of believing “only in what was in agreement in the one law and the other, that is, Hebrew and Christian.”52 This swarm of radical heresies would seem noticeably less significant if we failed to take into account their spread among prominent members of the Spanish “establishment.” Juan de Villafranca, a focal figure in Naples for those who “held against the divinity of Christ” and preached “that there was no Trinity, but one God alone, that Christ was not God, but that God inhabited in Christ” and that Christ’s kingdom was immanent and he would “reign for a thousand years,”53 was close to don Pedro de Toledo and died (in 1545) in the house of the Valdensian Isabella Brisegna, a house also frequented by Tizzano.54 The following year Isabella Brisegna moved to Piacenza to follow her husband, don Giorgio Manrique, when he was named governor of that city, where she welcomed Giovanni Laureto and enrolled as her secretary Girolamo Busale, who at that time was using his great knowledge “of the Hebrew and Greek languages” to “damage and overturn the Scriptures,” to the point of casting into doubt the divinity of Christ and the authenticity of the Gospels.55 Another visitor to Piacenza was the very young Aurelio Vergerio, the nephew of Pier Paolo Vergerio, to whom Isabella offered a sizable sum of money for the wedding of his sister, while don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, “son of the governor of Piacenza” helped him to move to Capodistria.56 51 “Nato di seme come tutti li altri huomini.” On Laureto, see Edouard Pommier, “L’itinéraire religieux d’un moine vagabond italien au XVIe siècle,” Mélanges d’archéologie de d’histoire, 66 (1954): 293–322. 52 “Solo quello che concordava nell’una et l’altra legge, cioè hebrea et christiana”: See Aldo Stella, Dall’anabattismo al socinianesimo nel Cinquecento veneto: Ricerche storiche (Padua: Livania, 1967), 33ff.; Stella, Anabattismo e antitrinitarismo, 30ff.; Luigi Amabile, Il Santo Officio della Inquisizione in Napoli, 2 vols. (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1892), 1:163. 53 “Tenevano contra la divinità di Christo”; “che non era la trinità, ma un solo Dio, che Christo non era Dio ma che Dio habitava in Christo”; “regnar mille anni”: Stella, Dall’anabattismo al socinianesimo, 34, 101. 54 Berti, “Di Giovanni Valdés,” 73. 55 “Nella lingua hebrea et greca”; “lezere et rivoltar le Scritture”: Stella, Anabattismo e antitrinitarismo, 30ff.; Pommier, “L’itinéraire,” 317ff. 56 “Fiol del governator di Piacenza”: Robert A. Pierce, Pier Paolo Vergerio the Propagandist (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2003), 60, 101–2.

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It is not surprising that in the early 1550s the ex-priest and Anabaptist Pietro Manelfi should speak of the presence in Naples of “a new sect of heretics in great multitude, and of Naples’s best, who, among their other heresies, hold Christ not to be God but a great prophet, and not to have come as messiah but as a prophet.” He adds, “They deny all of the New Testament, and they say it is the invention of Greeks and Gentiles, and that Paul understood nothing of the old Scriptures, especially concerning justification and resurrection.”57 Niccolò Balbani also recalls, in his Vita of Galeazzo Caracciolo, the “many Anabaptists and Arians,” who, during the 1540s, had spread “their heresies and diabolical opinions.”58 It is worth remembering that some of these men, when they were finally forced to flee to avoid the Inquisition, opted not to take the usual exile routes over the Alps to the world of the Reformation, but moved instead to the more exotic Levantine cities of Salonica, Alexandria, Damascus, and Constantinople, which had offered hospitality to the Sephardic diaspora and where—not coincidentally— Girolamo Busale had a number of relatives.59 The antitrinitarian outcome of the religious experience of Bernardo Ochino, the evocation of the name of Valdés among “those who demand the truth” in the pages of Giorgio Biandrata’s De falsa et vera unius Dei patris, filii et spiritus sancti cognitione, the raging invectives hurled at Valdés’s works by Theodore Beza all offer sure confirmation of the subversive and heretical implications, incompatible even with Reformed orthodoxies, that were lodged within Valdés’s radical spiritualism and in its distant alumbrado matrices.60 4. Following the many and various routes of the subterranean spread of Valdesianism in Italy and in Europe would carry us too far afield, but in the present context it is imperative to mention its

57 “Una nova set[t]a d’heretici in gran moltitudine, et de primi de Napoli, li quali tra le altre heresie loro tengono Christo non essere Dio ma gran propheta et non essere venuto come messia ma come propheta”; “negano tutto il Testamento novo et dicono essere inventione di greci et gentili et che Paolo non ha inteso niente delle Scritture vechie, maxime circa la giustificatione et resurrecione”: Carlo Ginzburg, I constituti di don Pietro Manelfi (Florence: Sansoni; Chicago: The Newberry Library, 1970), 68–69. 58 “Molti anabatisti e arriani”; “le loro heresie e diaboliche opinioni”: Nicolao Balbani, Historia della vita di Galeazzo Caracciolo, ed. Emilio Comba (Rome and Florence: Claudiana, 1875), 26. 59 See Stella, Anabattismo e antitrinitarismo, 30ff.; Pommier, L’itinéraire, 319–21. 60 See Firpo, introduction to Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano, cxxxviiff.

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Tridentine offshoots during the first session of the Council, which deliberated decisive theological questions, notably that of justification. The role that Reginald Pole played on that occasion is well known, although Pole himself met with serious defeat, as evidenced by his leaving Trent and by the striking absence of his signature at the bottom of the doctrinal decree emitted in January 1547. Among the familiars and collaborators who stood by him on that occasion, carrying on (among other tasks) the delicate role of intermediary with the other papal legates after his retreat to Treville, we should recall not only Carranza but another Spaniard, Juan Morillo, “a good friend . . . of the said Cardinal Pole, Flaminio, fra Bartolomé de Miranda, and Prioli” and a convinced supporter of the need to encourage use of the Bible in the vernacular.61 Carnesecchi is reported to have met Morillo again in France in the late 1540s, and during his last trial in Rome he mentions having gathered, during the course of several conversations with him on the eve of the Council, that he “understood” the doctrine of justification “in the Valdesian fashion,” given that “he attributed the remission of sins to the blood of Christ through faith . . . and of works he seemed not to make mention regarding merit.”62 In Paris, where by then he was known as being a “great heretic,” Morillo is reported to have responded to the first accusations against him, asserting “that if he were a heretic, Cardinal Pole of England and fra Bartolomé de Miranda had made him one.”63 Even Vergerio wrote that Morillo, a “man ornamented with much piety and doctrine,” had learned the truth in the “school” of Pole.64 On the eve of his flight to Frankfurt in 1554, where he served as pastor of the “foreigners’ church” and died soon after,65 Morillo handed over to the Sevillian Juan Pérez de Pineda, another 61 “Muy amigo . . . del dicho cardenal Polo e Flaminio e fray Bartolomé de Miranda e de Prioli”: José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, Fray Bartolomé Carranza: Documentos historicos, 7 vols. (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1963), 2:852. 62 “Intendesse alla valdesiana”; “attribuiva la remissione de’ peccati al sangue di Christo mediante la fede . . . et delle opere non pareva che facesse mentione per conto di merito”: Processi Carnesecchi, 2:1107–8. 63 “Grande herege”; “que si era herege, que el cardenal Polo de Inglaterra e fray Bartolomé de Miranda le avían hecho herege”: Tellechea Idígoras, Fray Bartolomé Carranza: Documentos historicos, 2:564. 64 “Huomo ornato di molta pietà et dottrina”; “scuola”: [Pier Paolo Vergerio], Giudicio sopra le lettere di tredeci huomini illustri pubblicate da M. Dionigi Atanagi et stampate in Venetia nell’anno 1554 (N.p., 1555), Bvv. 65 “Chiesa de’ forastieri”; On Morillo, see Gordon A. Kinder, “Juan Morillo: Catholic Theologian at Trent, Calvinist Elder in Frankfurt,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme

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Spanish heterodox who had spent some time in Italy, where he probably knew Juan de Valdés,66 the autograph manuscript in Castilian of Valdés’s commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans and the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, would have been printed in Geneva in 1556–57. We can trace the clandestine route of this manuscript from the hands of Valdés himself to Giulia Gonzaga, then to Flaminio, Pole, and Morillo, then to the Calvinist Pérez de Pineda, who judged the text to be useful for the evangelization of his homeland. Another figure who was probably linked to the spirituali was a certain “Ioannes Arnesius hispanus,” an apostate Dominican friar whom one witness for Cardinal Morone recalled as having put into the hands of Cardinal Alessandrino an autograph abjuration in which he admitted to having been “contaminated by the Lutheran heresy” and named his accomplices. Among these were “many important persons,” first among them Cardinal Pole, “who was called the head of the English school,” but also Renée of France, Morone, Ascanio Colonna, Marcantonio Flaminio, Alvise Priuli, Pietro Carnesecchi, Giovan Battista Scotti, Lattanzio Ragnoni, Vittoria Colonna, “and many other most important and noble men.”67 Another man who was connected with Carnesecchi for some time was the same Juan Ramirez who denounced him to the inquisitorial authorities in Venice in the mid 1540s, thus arousing the indignation of don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, who gave orders to his servants to punish Ramirez with a good thrashing, as Carnesecchi noted later, “seeming to him that my accuser had behaved like a coward—as he said—in repaying

et Renaissance, 38 (1976): 345–58; Kinder, “A Hitherto Unknown Group of Protestants in Sixteenth Century Aragon,” Cuadernos de historia de Jerónimo Zurita 51–52 (1985): 131–60. See also Processo Morone, 1:326, n. 174. 66 On Juan Pérez de Pineda, see Gordon A. Kinder, “Juan Pérez de Pineda (Pierius): A Spanish Calvinist Minister of the Gospel in Sixteenth Century Geneva,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 53 (1976): 283–300; Kinder, “Two Previously Unknown Letters of Juan Pérez de Pineda, Protestant of Seville in the Sixteenth Century,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 49 (1987): 111–20; Jean-François Gilmont, “La propagande protestante de Genève vers l’Espagne au XVIe siècle,” in El libro antiguo español, vol. 6, De libros, librerías, imprentas y lectores, ed. Pedro M. Cátedra and María Luisa López-Vidriero (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2002), 119–33, esp. 122ff. 67 “Contaminatum haeresi lutherana”; “multas graves personas”; “quem appellabat caput scholae Angelicae”; “et plerosque alios gravissimos et nobiles viros”: Processo Morone, 6:287–89; 2:640–41.

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me in that way for the hospitable love and courtesy that he had received from me.”68 It is probable that Ramirez can be identified as the “little Spaniard” referred to by the Valdesian Apollonio Merenda during the course of his interrogations in Rome in 1551. On that occasion Merenda recalled that during a voyage from Rome to Naples a man had talked to him also about the doctrine of justification: And, hearing that I held only for Christ, little by little he let me see that our salvation depended on that justification and that it overthrew everything else. And he put these things into my head, that is: that there was no purgatory; that indulgences are worthless; that our good works proceed only by the grace of God; that we have no free will except for evil; that we are certain of our salvation; that saints’ images should not be worshiped; that the saints cannot intercede for us, but only Christ; that one cannot make vows; that pilgrimages are unnecessary; that we can eat meat and other prohibited foodstuffs during Lent; that the cross should not be worshiped, nor anything made by men; that priests can take a wife; that confession to the priest is not de jure either divine or necessary; that the penitence given by the priest does not take away sins. And in order to confirm me in this, the little Spaniard gave me to read a small printed book entitled Doctrine old and new.69

The entire world of Spanish heresy in Italy, in other words, deserves to be studied in depth, reconstructing its ties with the Italian heterodox groups; with the high prelates, with aristocrats, and with intellectuals who adopted the positions of the spirituali; with the various representatives of Habsburg politics; and with the viceregal court of

68

“Parendoli che quel mio accusatore si fusse portato da vegliacco—come lui diceva—a rendermi tal contracambio della hospitale carità e cortesia che haveva ricevuto da me”: Processi Carnesecchi, 2:1037–38. 69 “Et, sentendo ch’io la teneva solo per Christo, a poco a poco mi fece vedere che da questa giustificatione dependeva la nostra salute et che gettava per terra ogn’altra cosa. Et mi pose nel capo queste cose, cioè: che non ci fosse purgatorio; che l’indulgentie non valevano niente; che l’opere nostre buone procedevan solo per la gratia di Dio; che non habbiamo libero arbitrio se non al male; che siamo certi della nostra salute; che le imagini de santi non si deveno adorare; che li santi non possino intercedere per noi, ma Christo solo; che non si possa far voti; che le peregrinationi non siano necessarie; che si possa mangiar la carne et altri cibi prohibiti la quaresima; che non si debba adorar la croce né cosa fatta da huomini; che li preti posson pigliar moglie; che la confessione al sacerdote non è de iure divino né necessaria; che la penitenza data dal sacerdote non toglie li peccati. Et per confermarmi in ciò il spagnuoletto mi diede a leggere un libretto stampato intitolato Dottrina antica et nova”: Processo Morone, 6:274–76.

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Naples. For example, what connections were there between the heretical movement in Bologna in the 1540s and the students of the Collegio di Spagna in that city who were investigated for Lutheran heresy, along with their chaplain, don Clemente Garcés, and Diego de Arnedo, who served as rector of the college in 1548–49?70 In 1561 Arnedo became bishop of Mallorca, where he earned a reputation as a strenuous “tridentine reformer,”71 but only two years earlier he had been accused of professing erroneous doctrine “in things of the faith and union with the Apostolic See,” doctrines that showed traces of the teachings of the antitrinitarian Giorgio Siculo.72 What early hints of their religious orientations had these Spaniards found in the works of Juan de Valdés, which had met with such success in Italy? And just who was the “fat-cheeked Spaniard “ mentioned in 1556 by the Franciscan preacher Bartolomeo Golfi della Pergola, at the time under investigation by the Holy Office in Rome, whom he claimed had made certain compromising statements: “He talked and I listened, and he spoke of these Lutheran matters.”?73 Much investigation remains to be done before we can respond to the more general questions that underlie these specific ones. Moreover, those more general questions need to be placed within the framework of the overall problem of the relations between Reform in Italy and Reform in Spain, and that overall problem in turn needs to be cast in terms of the influence of Italian Reform on its Spanish counterpart, beginning with the role of such personages as don Carlo de Seso, the mysterious Veronese who settled in Castile in the early 1540s,74 where he circulated among the heterodox of Valladolid not

70 Antonio Battistella, “Processi d’eresia nel Collegio di Spagna (1553–1554): Episodio di storia della Riforma in Bologna,” Atti e memorie della R. Deputazione di storia patria per le provincie di Romagna, series 3, vol. 19 (1901): 138–87. 71 “Reformador tridentino”: See Lorenzo Pérez Martínez, “Diego de Arnedo, obispo de Mallorca,” Anthologica annua, 6 (1958): 123–82. 72 “En cosas de la fe y union con la sede apostólica”: See Adriano Prosperi, “Ricerche sul Siculo e i suoi seguaci,” in Studi in onore di Armando Saitta dei suoi allievi pisani, ed. Regina Pozzi and Adriano Prosperi (Pisa: Giardini, 1989), 35–71, esp. pp. 56–61, subsequently included in Prosperi, L’eresia del Libro Grande, 165–66, 316ff., a volume that has contributed much to the topic. 73 “Spagnolo che haveva una gota alta de carne”; “Lui diceva et io ascoltava, et diceva de queste materie lutherane”: Rome, Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Stanza storica, S 5–c, c. 25v. 74 On this topic, see the fundamental studies of José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras: “Don Carlos de Seso y el arzobispo Carranza: Un veronés introductor del prote-

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only various works by Erasmus and German and Swiss Protestants, but also “many small books in Tuscan and other manuscripts” that he had brought back from trips to Italy in 1546–47 and in 1550–51. These texts included the Beneficio di Christo, some writings of Bernardino Ochino, the Rime spirituali of Vittoria Colonna, the Trattato della oratione of Federico Fregoso, not to mention selections from the Cento e dieci divine considerationi, with other Valdesian texts, in the Spanish retroversion by Juan Sánchez.75 Don Carlo de Seso, who was arrested in Valladolid in June 1558 and condemned to death in the autoda-fé of 8 October of the following year, stated that he had been a “disciple of . . . Valdés,” and Bartolomé Carranza, who had been a close collaborator of Cardinal Pole’s at the time of the failed Catholic Restoration in England, was aware of the fact that de Seso had been a person well known to “those of the house of the Lord Cardinal” in Trent, where he had been a frequent guest in 1546–47.76 Among the Italian works that Carlo de Seso distributed in Spain was a text identified only as by Giorgio Siculo, who, as we have seen, had found listeners and followers among the students of the Collegio di Spagna in Bologna. This was probably the same “strangely mysterious” text (undoubtedly Siculo’s lost Libro grande) that Benito Arias Montano lent to fra Luis de León in the late 1550s and that fra Luis attributed to an Italian Benedictine “of very saintly life.”77 During the long period of the Council of Trent the religious presence of Spain in Italy made itself felt not only through fra Domingo

stantismo en España (1559),” now in Tellechea Idígoras, Tiempos recios: Inquisición y heterodoxías (Salamanca: Sígueme, 1977), 53–110; Tellechea Idígoras, “Don Carlos de Seso: Bienes y biblioteca confiscados por la Inquisición (1559),” Revista española di teología 43 (1983): 193–97; Tellechea Idígoras, “Don Carlos de Seso, luterano en Castilla: Sentencia inédita de su proceso inquisitorial,” in Homenaje a Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez, 3 vols. (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1986), 1:295–307. See also Tellechea Idígoras: “Fray Luis de la Cruz O.P. y los protestantes de Valladolid (1559): La difusión de una “Consideración” de Juan de Valdés,” and “Fray Domingo de Rojas, O.P., y el auto de fe de Valladolid (1559): Una reconversión de última hora,” both now in his Tiempos recios, 157–93; 238–64. 75 “Muchos libritos en toscano e otros papeles escriptos de mano”: Las ciento diez divinas consideraciones: Recensión inédita del manuscrito de Juan Sánchez (1558), ed. José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia, 1975). 76 “Discípulo de el . . . Valdés”; “los de la casa del señor cardenal”: Ibid., 11. See also Tellechea Idígoras, Fray Bartolomé Carranza: Documentos historicos, vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 508–10; Firpo, introduction to Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano, cxxxvi–cxxxvii. 77 “Extrañamente misterioso”; “de muy sancta vida”: See Prosperi, L’eresia del Libro Grande, 382, and my review of that volume in Storica 6 (2000): 143–52, note 18.

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de Soto, Pedro Ortiz, Antonio Augustín, and Pedro Guerrero: there were also representatives of an irenic and Erasmian Spain, a heretical Spain, and the Spain of the alumbrados, currents that were gradually being side-lined, silenced, and persecuted in their own land of origin. Many events and many figures are still too little known for us to draw any general conclusions, but there is no doubt that this sizable and widespread political and cultural presence of Spain in Cinquecento Italy merits further study. One decisive question that should be looked into with fresh methods and new perspectives (also to escape, at long last, from the asphyxiating confines of an apologetic and edifying historiography that persists even to this day)78 is that of the rise and early establishment in Italy of the Society of Jesus, with its evident alumbrado matrices, its connections with the spirituali, its highly obvious reticence concerning its sources and its first historians, and its fleeting theorization about its “mode of speaking” and “mode of acting.” Research on this topic has barely begun,79 and the overall picture is still too murky to be able to hazard any sufficiently well-founded synthesis. We can look for unexpected results, however, even from early excavations in this terrain, results that will provide a new foundation for problems regarding the elusive religious identity of the disciples of Saint Ignatius, the Jesuits’ overwhelming success on the Italian peninsula, the order’s unique institutional structures and modes of operation, and even its historical evolution. In short, if we want to understand not only the special characteristics of the religious crisis of the Italian Cinquecento— which involves the great success of Valdesianism even in the highest reaches of the Church as well as the radicalism of the heretics beloved of Delio Cantimori—but also many decisive aspects of the Counter-Reformation reaction, beginning with the origins of the Roman Holy Office, we need to look at both the Protestant Reformation—Lutheran and Calvinist—and at the multiple heterodox tensions in the Spain of Charles V.

78

To cite only one work, see the disappointing study by John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1993). 79 In this connection, see Guido Mongini, “Le maschere dell’identità: Le origini della Compagnia di Gesù tra censura e memoria,” a tesi di dottorato presented, discussed, and successfully defended in 2004.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MALE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALY* Flavio Rurale

What I shall attempt to do is to define the character and the role of the male regular clergy, which many scholars of the early modern period have tended to identify and describe (perhaps too simplistically) as clerics in the service of the pope.1 I shall dwell, in particular, on the observance movement and on the new orders that emerged in the sixteenth century.2 Casting the male regular clergy in the role of papal servants is in fact perplexing on several counts. To cite two examples: it prevents us from understanding the success that many religious enjoyed in the courts of secular rulers (even in * Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Abbreviations ARSI Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu ASDMi Archivio Storico Diocesi di Milano ASV Archivio di Stato, Venezia BAMi Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana 1 For an overall synthesis of the topics treated in this paper, see Gaetano Greco, La Chiesa in Italia nell’età moderna (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1999), esp. chap. 4; Gigliola Fragnito, “Gli ordini religiosi tra Riforma e Controriforma,” in Clero e società nell’Italia moderna, ed. Mario Rosa (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1992), 115–205. Agostino Borromeo, “Il dissenso religioso tra il clero italiano e la prima attività del Sant’Ufficio,” in Per il Cinquecento religioso italiano, ed. Maurizio Sangalli, 2 vols. (Rome: Ateneo, 2003), 2:455–85; Elena Bonora, I conflitti della controriforma: Santità e obbedienza nell’esperienza dei primi barnabiti (Florence: Le Lettere, 1998). 2 See Kaspar Elm, “Riforme e osservanze nel XIV e XV secolo: Una sinossi,” in Ordini religiosi e società politica in Italia e in Germania nei secoli XIV e XV, ed. Giorgio Chittolini and Kaspar Elm (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001), 489–504, esp. pp. 498, 503; Sara Fasoli, “Tra riforme e nuove fondazioni: L’Osservanza domenicana nel ducato di Milano,” Nuova Rivista Storica, 26 (1992): 417–87, esp. pp. 417, 426, and Eadem, “I domenicani e i francesi: S. Eustorgio e S. Maria delle Grazie,” in Milano e Luigi XII: Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–1512), ed. Letizia Arcangeli (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2002), 411–29; Giancarlo Poidomani, Gli ordini religiosi nella Sicilia moderna: Patrimoni e rendite nel Seicento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2001), pp. 25, 28. Gabriela Zarri, “Aspetti dello sviluppo degli ordini religiosi in Italia tra Quattro e Cinquecento: Studi e problemi,” in Strutture ecclesiastiche in Italia e in Germania prima della Riforma, ed. Paolo Prodi and Peter Johanek (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1984), 207–56.

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a climate of bitter jurisdictional controversy); and it fails to explain why the Society of Jesus continued to play such an important role vis-à-vis Catholic sovereigns until the eighteenth century, persisting through such critical periods as the Jesuits’ expulsion from the Venetian Republic and strong opposition from such groups as the Jansenists.

The Historiographic Debate Today the study of religious orders in Italy has entered a new phase in several significant ways: 1) The number of lay scholars involved in the reconstruction of the historical events of the orders has resulted in the abandonment of apologetics and an appreciation of the complexity and contradictory nature of the orders’ origins; 2) Historians have moved beyond the anachronistic paradigms of the later political conflicts between state and church in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to investigate the specificity of ecclesiastical history of the early modern period on its own terms; 3) This paradigm shift has emphasized new interpretive grids (court, patronage, factions, etc.) and nuanced old ones by recognizing, for example, that the system of power and institutions of government, both civil and ecclesiastical, were both fragmented and plural. This new historiography means that the framework in which the present investigation is placed necessarily privileges the courtly sphere and its internal dynamics of kinship and patronage networks as the moving force in the socio-political relations of men and governments of the age. The central importance of faith in society of the ancien régime remains, nevertheless, an unequivocal cultural and anthropological datum. Aristocratic elites, merchant classes, and the lower classes (although with different modalities) shared a system of values and spiritual needs. These help to explain the gradual growth of what both the secular and regular clergy had to offer (as well as the latter’s originality and internal specificity), but also, precisely, the response to society’s new and varied requests for assistance and services. Aristocrats, urban communities, and confraternities, for example, welcomed new foundations of regular clergy in Sicily because the regulars provided devotions, means for salvation, cure of souls in feudal

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lands, public rituals of religious protection against calamities, the availability of a liturgical service generally on a higher level than was offered by the secular clergy. All of which was of course intermixed with more prosaic but no less important concerns about safeguarding honor.3 All of these considerations give meaning, pertinence, and clearer form to that autorevolezza (authority), discussed by Cesare Mozzarelli,4 that was widely recognized as rightfully ecclesiastical (which could mean the confessor, the spiritual director, or the parish priest, but also the living saint and the female mystic)—one sign of the distance separating sixteenth-century believers, who had not yet been shaken by the “crisis of conscience” of the late seventeenth century, and ourselves. But do we really believe that the priest of the ancien régime, whatever his function, had the primary task of imposing, controlling, supervising, repressing, punishing, and homogenizing (to use the vocabulary of much recent historical writing on such topics)? What are we to make of the documentation relative to petitions and protests on the part of inhabitants of small mountain communities who, faced with the absenteeism of parish priests, pleaded for a resident curate who could celebrate Holy Mass and the Eucharist, administer the sacraments, and bring consolation at the moment of death? Why did all governing authorities, from the emperor to the Milanese senator, from the great monarch to the most minor prince, need a confessor or theologian whom he could consult? Who imposed these needs on such heads of state if everything surrounding them and even their inner sentiments were set, as many scholars sustain, within a linear and gradual conquest of secularization and laicization in an open and continual opposition against the Church and its representatives? Stressing these aspects of the question does not by any means imply a lack of awareness of the other face of the coin, that is, the repression of expressions of faith taxed with heresy by officials chosen for the task both by Rome and by the Catholic monarchies. 3 Raffaele Manduca, “Uno spazio in movimento: Ordini e conventi in Sicilia fra Cinque e Seicento,” in Il Santo patrono e la città: San Benedetto il Moro: Culti, devozioni, strategie di età moderna, ed. Giovanna Fiume (Venice: Marsilio, 2000), 281–311; Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, “Entre ‘Napoli nobilissima’ y ‘Napoli sacra’: Las ordenes religiosas y el virrey Pedro de Toledo,” in I religiosi a corte: Teologia, politica e diplomazia in antico regime, ed. Flavio Rurale (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), 51–100. 4 Cesare Mozzarelli, Introduction, Chiesa romana e cultura europea in Antico Regime (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), also issued as “Antico Regime,” Cheiron, xiv, n. 27–28 (1997): 7–12.

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Rather, it takes into account the complexity of real situations.5 Recognition of the guidance role taken by priests and religious is directly proportional to their closeness to and intimacy with the individual believer. Thus, the latter would feel that the spiritual director of the confraternity of which he was a member was more authoritative than his own parish priest, and that the hired but resident chaplain was more authoritative than an absentee pievano or pastor. Theory and political practice invite further reflection. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ruler was not Niccolò Machiavelli’s secularized prince, but rather someone who stood in fear of the divine judgement invoked by Giovanni Botero: Christian reason of state imposed the presence of theologians at the side of the governor, acting as prudent counselors. The reason for this, as Bartolomé de Las Casas states, addressing the ministers of the Catholic Monarchy of Spain, is that “the king must render unto God a very rigorous accounting, more severe and more demanding than any king has ever given. . . . You will have no excuse if you lend faith to those [governors and interested informers], so that, aside from the sins of which you will be guilty, you will be obliged to restore all the goods and the wealth that others have stolen from those people, even if you have not kept so much as a penny in your own hands.”6 The learning of the religious and their areas of operation, another aspect that should be kept in mind, were both broad and expressed in sectors apparently detached from their profession. In fact, they

5 See the essays in I religiosi a corte; L.Guglielmo Esposito, “Immagini dei domenicani in Basilicata, Calabria e Puglia: Insediamenti, uomini e problemi aperti,” in Ordini religiosi e società nel Mezzogiorno, ed. B. Pellegrino e F. Gaudioso (Galatina, Congedo Editore, 1987), 33–102, esp. p. 53. For an overview of the Roman Inquisition, see Andrea Del Col, “Osservazioni preliminari sulla storiografia dell’Inquisizione romana,” in Cesare Mozzarelli, ed., Identità italiana e cattolicesimo: Una prospettiva storica (Rome: Carocci, 2003), 75–137. John Tedeschi states: “I have come to the conclusion that, while moral justice was impossible in a context where the Catholic Church felt, together with virtually all other secular and religious authorities on both sides of the Alps, that it had the right, even the duty to prosecute those who differed in their religious beliefs, legal justice in sixteenth-century terms was dispensed by the Roman Inquisition”: John Tedeschi, “A New Perspective on the Roman Inquisition,” in Cesare Mozzarelli and Danilo Zardin, eds., I tempi del Concilio: Religione, cultura e società nell’Europa tridentina (Rome: Bulzoni, 1997), 253–69, quotation, p. 256. 6 Cited in Francesca Cantù, “Bartolomé De Las Casas: La coscienza critica della conquista,” Dimensioni e Problemi della Ricerca Storica (1992): 129–52, esp. p. 140.

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also acted in fields of expertise as financial administration, military architecture, or the ballistics of firearms. This is clear from some of the institutional and governmental posts that they occupied. For example, in the Catholic Monarchy the king’s Dominican confessor was invested with ecclesiastical policy, but was also strongly involved in finances. He served as the inquisitor and sat on the ad hoc juntas that met periodically to consider various sorts of questions. This role seems to have been even broader in the American colonies, where, as in Brazil, European courts entrusted religious with delegated powers for the temporal governance of the indigenous population. It is worth stressing that in a system in which theology defines and legitimates political and economic behaviors and endows them with authority, theologians, confessors, preachers, and casuists were essential figures in nearly all institutions and for all authorities.7 Ideological and doctrinal discourse, that is, the construction of a historiography with apologetic and devotional aims and of strict Roman and papal observance,8 founded on the definition of the primacy of the papacy over the council, explicitly stated in publishing initiatives of the late sixteenth century such as the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius, all of which caused dissension with secular Catholic authorities, could not always be sure of a homogeneous common front when put into practice. This occurred, for example, in the doctrinal polemics that arose in certain contexts on the topics of

7 Santo Burgio, Teologia barocca: Il probabilismo in Sicilia nell’epoca di Filippo IV (Catania: Società di Storia Patria per la Sicilia Orientale, 1998). Charlotte de CastelnauL’Estoile and Carlos Alberto de Moura, “‘Una mission glorieuse et profitable.’ Réforme missionaire et économie sucrière dans la province jésuite du Brésil au début du XVIIe siècle”, Revue de Synthèse, 120, 1999 : 305–358. 8 On the role of the regular clergy in the cultural field, see Stefano Zen, “Oratorio filippino e formazione del clero italiano nel secondo Cinquecento,” in Per il Cinquecento religioso italiano, 291–312, esp. pp. 293, 296; Biblioteche e cultura nell’Italia del Cinque e Seicento, ed. Eugenio Barbieri and Danilo Zardin (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002), especially Roberto Rusconi, “Le biblioteche degli ordini religiosi in Italia attorno all’anno 1600 attraverso l’inchiesta della Congregazione dell’Indice: problemi e prospettive di ricerca”, 64–81; Antonella Barzazi, “Ordini religiosi e biblioteche a Venezia tra Cinque e Seicento”, in Annali dell’istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 21 (1995): 141–228. Marino Berengo, L’Europa delle città: Il volto della società urbana europea tra Medioevo ed Età moderna (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), 803, speaking about the historical reconstruction that took place within the Franciscan Order in the fifteenth century, notes that preceding alliances with the emperor were subject to criticism, not because they were anti-papal, but simply because they led to confusion between spiritual negotiations and political negotiations, a boundary that only the crisis of the late seventeenth and eighteenth-century culture would help to define.

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tyrannicide, the indirect power of the pope, and in jurisdictional conflicts. In debates and writings that marked the development of these disputes the regular clergy themselves might take positions contrary to Roman interests. The case of Venice and the interdict of 1606 seem the exception rather than the rule. Certainly, the struggle against Protestantism was the main influence in such relationships; and it is not by chance that it was Venice, which had always been inimical to the pope and a meeting place and nerve center for the diffusion of various faiths—even when these faiths were those of its bitter commercial rivals in the Adriatic—that went beyond any other state on the Italian Peninsula, reaching a contradictory and violent outcome in terms of loyalty and alliances between religious orders and the papacy.9 Carlo Fantappiè stresses later attempts on the part of Rome (subsequent to requests from both diocesan authorities and secular city authorities) to intervene to put order into the variety and multiplicity of “religions.”10 In my opinion this was indeed the problem. The question remained unresolved until the mid-seventeenth century and the reforms of the eighteenth century: “And this was one of the serious enterprises and great services of God that for many centuries no pope had eliminated, and the fruit [of it] will be much greater than obtaining great victories over the Turks.” Here we need to take into account papal interventions (those of Clement VIII, Paul V, and Gregory XV) and projects to suppress conventual institutions that were not founded canonically, establishing a limit to the number of religious per community, ascertaining the availability of revenues adequate to their maintenance, and creating stricter modalities of novices’ access to them. The Aldobrandini pope, Clement VIII, acted first in a local context, by means of pastoral visits in his capacity as

9 Adriano Prosperi, “‘L’altro coltello’: Libelli de lite di parte romana,” in I gesuiti e Venezia: Momenti e problemi di storia veneziana della Compagnia di Gesù, ed. Mario Zanardi (Padua: Gregoriana, 1994), 263–87. The most radical battle fell to the Society of Jesus, although “the other Orders were more divided or less influential”: Ibid., 282. See also Antonella Bilotto and Flavio Rurale, eds., Istoria del collegio di Mantova della Compagnia di Giesù scritta dal padre Giuseppe Gorzoni. Parte prima (Mantua: Gianluigi Arcari, 1997), p. 28., in regard to the concern, in December 1605, of the father general, Claudio Acquaviva, that it should be clear to all that the Jesuits “were particular servants of this Holy See.” 10 Carlo Fantappiè, Il monachesimo moderno tra ragion di chiesa e ragion di stato: Il caso toscano, XVI–XIX sec. (Florence: Olschki, 1993), chapter 1.

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bishop of Rome to show his intent to supervise the regular clergy present in his diocese. (The truth of the matter, however, is that he was operating efficiently as sovereign pontiff, given that elsewhere the relationship between the regular clergy and the bishops was quite different, in essence safeguarding the regulars’ autonomy).11 The point of departure for such moves lay in memoranda, debates, and polemical writings criticizing the large number and great variety of the religious orders instituted during the course of the sixteenth century (a fact that in itself was considered negative for the Church). The problem seemed to be one of orders and congregations whose foundations and functions slipped out of the hands of the organs of the curial organizations in Rome, thanks to the efforts and initiatives of lay and ecclesiastical authorities in the various territorial dominions. As the Libellus ad Leonem X (1513) had pointed out many decades earlier and as restated in the later Consilium de emendanda Ecclesia (1537), the many branches of the orders had to be reduced, and their intrusiveness in pastoral activity needed to be eliminated: the garden (the Church) had too many plants (the “religions”), making cuts and pruning necessary.12 For all of these reasons, the universe of post-Tridentine Catholicism was fragmented into a plurality of churches. What we need to do, then, is to get beyond the image of a Counter-Reformation Church “monolithically based on limpid doctrinal certitudes, and recover the ambiguities and the conflicts” that affected events deeply and for a long time.13

11 ASV, Vaticani latini, 5551 (report addressed to Clemente VIII), p. 56: “Et è questa una delle gravi imprese et de’ gran servigi di Dio che da molti secoli niun pontefice habbia tolto a fare, et il frutto sarà molto maggiore che l’ottenere grandi vittorie contra Turchi.” It was up to the pope to promote reform when the actions of the bishops, the superiors, and even the cardinal protectors of the orders had proven ineffectual (“many times neglecting their office”; “mancando molte volte all’officio loro”; p. 16). Also at issue were respect of enclosure, relations with the courts, the visitation of women, and confessions. See Diego Beggiao, La visita pastorale di Clemente VIII (1592–1600): Aspetti di reforma post-Tridentina a Roma (Rome: Libreria Editrice Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1978) and the question of the bull of 1599. 12 Aside from the memorandum cited in note 38, see Beggiao, La visita pastorale; Zarri, “Aspetti,” 207; Fragnito, “Gli ordini religiosi,” 115. 13 Bonora, I conflitti della controriforma, 14.

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As Sergio Bertelli remarks: “The Counter-Reformation, aiming at reinforcing the central authority, had strengthened and multiplied the religious orders, thus limiting and gradually diminishing the authority and the autonomy of the bishops. . . . Thus the CounterReformation saw the shattering of ecumenical efforts, and the Church was trapped within a series of orders (which were called “religions”), positioned one against the other in a competition for snatching souls and indulgences.”14 There is some truth in what Bertelli has to say, but there is also some obvious contradiction. To assert that the Counter-Reformation prompted the multiplication of religious orders now seems somewhat vague and meaningless, precisely because the terminology is generic; the religious orders can be presented as instrumental in reinforcing the papacy or as a reason for the crumbling of the Church of Rome. Bertelli reminds us, however, of another important fact; namely, that the bishops also figured among the protagonists (better, the victims) of what he nonetheless rightly judges to be a genuine conflict within the Church and within its institutions. The questions he raises help us to understand how beside the point it is to speak of the Roman Church in the singular.15 But to limit discussion to the Italian context: even there, after the decades of uncertainty and emergency (and once the central importance of Rome for safeguarding the interests of individual rulers was reconfirmed), the religious orders cannot be said to have constituted an army in the service of the pope against the secular power or local ecclesiastical structures (represented by a shifting array of rulers,

14 Sergio Bertelli, Ribelli, libertini e ortodossi nella storiografia barocca (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1973), 117. See also Fragnito, “Gli ordini religiosi,” 125. 15 See John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 317. Mario Rosa had already spoken of a “shattered institutional picture” in Mario Rosa, Religione e società nel Mezzogiorno tra Cinque e Seicento (Bari: De Donato, 1976), 284. What Henry Kamen says of sixteenth-century Spain can, in my opinion, by extended to other geographical areas and even to the seventeenth century: “The immense confusion of jurisdictions presented a major obstacle: churches, monasteries, orders, secular lords, bishops, towns, the Inquisition,” Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1985), 200.

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governors, viceroys, ministers, bishops, magistrates, and feudal lords). The service that the regular clergy performed for the papacy appears to have been in many ways similar to the services they rendered to the other Catholic rulers. To cite one example among many, the “missionary stations” of the Capuchins on the northern borders of Piedmont and Lombardy played a role of obvious socio-political relevance in the “containment of Reform infiltrations.”16 We might in fact compare the world of the religious orders to that of powerful interests and pressure groups,17 or, better, to political parties in modern democracies. In today’s society all the varying political positions have as a common denominator the sharing of basic values (which are never definitively acquired, but must always be defended and demanded!) that include freedom, individual rights, democratic discussion, and more. Political dialectic revolves around these values; according to the moment in history, they can be more or less in conflict, but anyone who rejects these democratic norms finds himself excluded by civil society and possibly charged with criminal behavior. In the ancien régime the obligatory reference was instead to faith and its dogmas. The confrontation between religious orders operated on the basis of a common baggage: they set themselves apart from one another (dividing, multiplying, as if by parthenogenesis), thanks to lively theological debate, until eventually they took clearly differentiated positions, not only on religious questions, but also on political and jurisdictional matters, although combating every excess and every heresy. Strong in their rule, their constitutions, their privileges, and their specificity, both theological and spiritual, the regular orders entered into competition with one another in every field of social life. As Marc Fumaroli states: “Each of these orders constitutes in fact a real church, in harmony with a particular religious sensibility. . . . In reality such orders were simply heresies exorcized and transformed into vital forces. . . . Competition, polemics, rivalry, and emulation thus turn Catholic unity into a conflictual variety that the magisterum and the diplomacy of Roma did their

16 Roberto Rusconi, “Gli ordini mendicanti tra Rinascimento e Controriforma: Eremi e riforme, conventi e città, missioni e campagne,” in Città italiane del Cinquecento tra Riforma e Controriforma, Acts of an international conference, Lucca 13–15 October 1983 (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 1988), 270. 17 This is an opinion that I share with Miguel Gotor: see M. Gotor, I beati del papa (Firenze, Olsckhi, 2002), 39.

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best to maintain in a relative equilibrium and keep from breaking apart.”18 The relations between the regular clergy and the Catholic courts of Europe, between the orders and the university centers (which represented the expression of original theological currents), and between individual fathers and particular court factions thus explain the complex network of loyalties within which even the regular clergy moved.19 Some obvious signs of this are treatises, theological and doctrinal but also political or jurisdictional, that were the cause of polemics and conflict and led to genuine “writings wars.” This is why postTridentine Catholic Europe saw the development of what we might define as a market of intellectuals (that is, theologians), who forced even Rome and the papacy to adopt a strategy of engaging the regular clergy to their employ based on “grazie,” favors, gifts, and clientage exchanges. It is interesting to note the extent to which Rome was aware of the importance of the role of court theologians and confessors and of their work at the side of the king, his favorites, and his ministers. The papal nuncios stated that they held such men in high consideration. It is even more interesting, however, to see Rome’s efforts to bring them on its side, to acquire their works (and their confidence), and to make sure of their support, almost as if they were “foreign” and potential enemies. The question exploded during the course of the seventeenth century, after the case of Paolo Sarpi, to involve the entire regular clergy. As we read in a memorandum that can be dated to 1641 or 1642: The trouble derives from the regulars themselves, who, drawn by the enormous stipends and favors that they receive from the secular princes, turned to the defense of their appetites and seek in a thousand ways to bring down the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. I might offer a thousand examples. One that will serve for all is that of fra Paolo Sarpi, Servite. Thus it is no longer, in my opinion, appropriate to leave the pursuit

18 Marc Fumaroli, L’école du silence: Le sentiment des images au XVIIe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), consulted in Italian translation as La scuola del silenzio (Milan: Adelphi, 1995), 22. 19 José Martínez Millán, “Trasformacion y crisis de la Compañía de Jesús (1578–1594”, in I religiosi a corte. Teologia, politica e diplomazia in antico regime, ed. Flavio Rurale (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), 101–129; Idem, “Fazioni politiche e correnti spirituali nel servizio dell’imperatore Carlo V,” in L’Italia di Carlo V: Guerra, religione e politica nel primo Cinquecento, ed. Francesca Cantù and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Acts of a conference, Rome 5–7 April 2001 (Rome: Viella, 2003), 3–39

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of such a serious matter so consistently to the regulars. But the most learned must be enticed either with dignities or with large stipends or by favoring their houses and their kin.20

The dynamics of these developments regarding the regular clergy were difficult to control, as the papal curia was well aware; they were a reality that the pope and his entourage were obliged to deal with constantly. “The protections that the cardinals have of them, the administration retained by the generals, the visits that they and other visitors make to them, and above all the superintendence of them that the popes have reserved directly to themselves have not, to date and as far as one can see, been sufficient . . . to reduce to some reasonable form and discipline many religious who otherwise with divine aid would be highly useful.”21 Carlo Borromeo’s requests for reform of the Society of Jesus (in 1579, but reform had been supported even earlier by some popes and cardinals, from within the Society, and by Philip II) and Clement VIII’s intervention toward the end of the century provide a good image of the uncertainty and unrest of those decades of dispute about Grace between the Jesuits and the Dominicans. People marveled at the pope’s peremptory actions in the 1590s, when he acted on expressions of concerns and criticism that had for some time surrounded the world of the regular clergy. Such criticism was aimed at the

20 “Il male ci deriva dai regolari medesimi, i quali, tratti da grossi stipendii e dai favori che ricevono dai principi secolari, si sono rivolti alla difesa dei loro appetiti, cercano in mille modi di atterrare la giurisdizione ecclesiastica. Potrei addurre mille esempi. Valga per tutti quello di fra Paolo Sarpi servita. Non è dunque al parer mio più al proposito lasciare la cura di così grave affare, così generalmente, ai regolari. Ma bisogna allettare i più dotti o con le dignità, o coi grossi stipendii o col favorire le loro case e i loro parenti”: see Flavio Rurale, “‘Modo suggerito al signor cardinale Barberino . . . per rispondere alle scritture . . . contro l’autorità del pontifice’: Note a margine,” Cheiron, 14 (1997): 235–54, quotation pp. 251–52. The ecclesiastical career of a regular might depend on his role as confessor, as was true in Naples in the early sixteenth century: see Hernando Sánchez, “Entre ‘Napoli nobilissima’,” 79. That regular clergy often became bishops (see Gigliola Fragnito, “Vescovi e ordini religiosi in Italia all’indomani del Concilio,” in I tempi del Consilio, 13–25, esp. pp. 19–20) can perhaps be read as a “reward” for loyalty to Rome or as a “grace” received from a penitent-prince. 21 “Le protettioni che ne hanno i cardinali, l’amministratione la quale retengono i generali, le visite che ne fanno et essi et altri visitatori, et inanti ad ogni altra cosa la soprintendenza che i pontefici immediatamente ne hanno reserbata non si vede che siano stati fin hora sufficienti . . . per ridurre a qualche ragionevole forma et disciplina molti religiosi i quali altrimenti col divino aiuto riuscirebbero utilissimi”: BAV, Urbinati latini, 860, fols. 525–526, “Modo di aiutar le religioni cadute.”

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increase in the number of “religions” and of monasteries and friaries, large and small, that had organized by congregations, as in the old orders; vocations that were not always sincere; the defense of private interests; the abandonment of living in common and of poverty.22 Next the bishop of Rome issued decrees aimed at reform that concerned recital of prayers in common; obligatory examination of conscience in every community; observance of enclosure; proper administration of goods and properties; poverty in food and clothing; the need to have sufficient revenues for the maintenance of a reasonable number of brothers; control over new admissions on the part of the general of the order and the cardinal protector; and the obligation to submit to examiners, like the secular clergy. It should be pointed out that once these demands left Rome to be applied (application was achieved only in the mid-seventeenth century and even then only in part), they met with quite varied results. Seemingly useless and superfluous in an order such as the Jesuits, given the modernity of their administration and the privileges that they enjoyed,23 these measures fell instead “with particular violence” on the mendicant orders and on the “fabric of the regular organization in the Mezzogiorno,” where an abnormal increase in the number of religious had taken place earlier in the century.24 The religious climate of the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century was thus one of extremely heated debate. The solutions devised to overcome the religious orders’ problems (and not only the organizational ones) were highly diverse;

22 Beggiao, La visita pastorale; Zarri, “Aspetti,” 207 (on concern in Venice regarding the expansion of ecclesiastical institutions in the early sixteenth century). 23 In this manner, the problem of the reform of the Society of Jesus, heatedly advocated by others, remained unresolved. The Jesuits (along with the Capuchins and the Minims) were not struck by specific provisions in Clement VIII’s decrees: see Beggiao, La visita pastorale, 92, note 49. The punishments specified for the possession of profane books or musical instruments are interesting, as are those for having a private store of foodstuffs in the monastic cell. Diego Beggaio explains the length of time between the reform decrees and the bull confirming them as a probable consequence of difficulties that had been raised and appeals that were filed, outside of Italy in particular. The provisions coincided with an inquiry into the libraries of the regular orders, on which, see Edoardo Barbieri and Danilo Zardin, eds, Libri, Biblioteche e cultura nell’Italia del Cinque e Seicento (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002). 24 Mario Rosa, “La Chiesa meridionale nell’età della Controriforma,” in Storia d’Italia, Annali, vol. 9, 291–345, esp. 328–32.

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polemics and clashes raged at a high level, both within individual orders and between one order and another. The need for a closer relationship with the pope was reiterated (thus eliciting concerns that relations with secular rulers might deteriorate), and the Roman Curia felt the need for “literati to help at the holy see”: “The religious orders must be kept united and devoted to the Holy Apostolic See and all things must be connected to the high pontiff, not to secular princes, who think to separate them from it . . . rather than see them united.”25

The Regular Orders: A Cultural, Juridical, Economic, and Political Microcosm What follows summarizes recent lines of investigation regarding the religious orders, but it also proposes a methodological focus for studies dealing with foundations, monasteries, professed houses, and colleges set up by the regular clergy. A religious order, by its Constitutions, by the relation that it establishes with the city and the municipal authorities, and in general by the impact that it has in the region,26 is a microcosm that is, in itself, not only a synthesis of religious elements, but also of the complexity of society as a whole. That societal complexity includes political, economic, and juridical attributes, the institutional pulverization typical of the ancien régime, and the jurisdictional conflict by means of which the history of Catholic society has long been read as a

25 “Si manteneriano le religioni unite e devote alla santa sede apostolica e tutte le cose loro verriano al sommo pontefice, e non a prencipi secolari, quali piuttosto pensano d’appartarle da questa . . . che di univerle”: ASV, Fondo Borghese, series III, 56, fols. 29–30 (from the early 1600s). 26 For the variety of associative forms found in the religious orders; the rules governing their organization and activities; the thick network of relations into which an order was inserted; the articulation of its management and administration (its economic patrimony in particular—and here we need to think of the problem of poverty for the mendicants, a problem that was in fact annulled with the Tridentine approval of the ownership of common goods, except among the Observants and the Capuchins—and the lively debate about the professed houses of the Jesuits living on charitable donations, see Fiorenzo Landi, Il paradiso dei monaci: Accumulazione d dissluzione dei patrimoni del clero regolare in età moderna (Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1996), 23; Berengo, L’Europa delle città, chap. 13; Flavio Rurale, “I gesuiti a Milano: Amministrazione e finanze,” Società e storia, 12 (1989): 567–617; and Andenna, “Aspetti politici.”

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daily confrontation between the post-Tridentine Church, on the one hand, and the other actors in political life, on the other. Although that history is often reduced to a modern conflict between church and state, in reality the alliances created and recreated by disputes and conflicts—in which benefactors, communities, and noble houses worked both for and against the reform of friaries, convents, and monasteries—were by no means linear, given that they relied on networks of kinship and clientage relations, on varying interests, and on occasion on specific spiritual affinities that spread through both the ecclesiastical and secular components of society. The Economic Realm Every religious community owned property, produced goods that it offered for sale, and invested its money through the city banks (with modalities that differed from one order to another and according to geographic location but, above all, that varied enormously in their organizational and productive outcomes). Credit relations also existed between the houses or colleges of the same congregation, among these and the urban community (that is, with individual benefactors, patrons, tenants, and confraternity members), and at times also with the diocesan ordinary. Every individual institution (abbey, convent, monastery, friary, residence, college) was an economic enterprise— even considering their differences as institutions and the different ways in which they administered their movable goods (possessions of various sorts, pensions, loans, investments in public funds) and their accumulating immovable goods (concentrated in extensive land holdings or in small and medium-sized plots, rented out or exploited by the community itself ), not to mention cases in which an institution held genuine feudal and jurisdictional powers.27 27 Fiorenzo Landi, “Introduction,” in Accumulation and Dissolution of Large Estates of the Regular Clergy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Fiorenzo Landi (Rimini: Guaraldi, 1999), 15–24, rightly emphasizes the “extraordinary economic, social, and cultural power” of the religious orders, both male and female. For questions of method and remarks summarizing the question of the “patrimony” of the Church, see Giorgio Chittolini, “Un problema aperto: La crisi della proprietà ecclesiastica fra Quattrocento e Cinquecento,” Rivista Storica Italiana, 85 (1973): 53–93; Giovanni Cherubini, “La proprietà fondiaria in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI nella storiografia italiana,” Società e storia 1 (1978): 9–34; Gaetano Greco, “Ecclesiastici e benefici in Pisa alla fine dell’antico regime,” Società e storia 3 (1980): 299–338; Enrico Stumpo, “Il consolidamento della grande proprietà ecclesiastica,” 266–67, 271–82; and Stumpo, Il capitale

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As an economic enterprise, the religious institution was called upon to respect fiscal obligations (toward Rome and its Apostolic Chamber, obviously, but also toward the other states). Those obligations varied by geographic location, given that amounts were determined by relations of force, contractual arrangements, and the Roman interests of courts and the patriciate. The privileges enjoyed by the regular clergy over clergy with cure of souls emerge in the debate of 1606–1607 regarding the subsidy for the expense of fortifications that the governor of Milan, Enriquez de Acevedo, count of Fuentes, had requested (in vain) of the ecclesiastics. The secular clergy were already paying personal and temporal contributions that the religious did not pay, but above all secular priests carried on their role through prayer, preaching, and the administration of the sacraments, according to the ancient and still valid division of tasks among the three estates of society. Further protests, discussions, and compromises arose when Rome imposed extraordinary contributions. As Massimo Giannini states, “The mechanism of reaching an agreement had a central role in this fiscal area. Ecclesiastics showed themselves to be no less riotous as contributors than the laity, ready to defend their revenues with long suits before the papal courts.”28 Nonetheless, the regular clergy enjoyed some immunities, a fact that made them a privileged body in comparison with the secular clergy, who also begrudged them their role in collecting tithes for

finanziario a Roma fra Cinque e Seicento: Contributo alla storia della fiscalità pontificia in età moderna (1570–1660) (Milan: Giuffrè, 1985), 193–201. Regarding regular clergy in Milan, see Luigi Faccini, La Lombardia fra ’600 e ’700: Riconversione economica e mutamenti sociali (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988); Rurale, “I gesuiti a Milano: Amministrazione e finanze”; for Sicily, see Poidomani, Gli ordini religiosi nella Sicilia moderna, passim. On property owned by individual religious, see Boaga, “I carmelitani,” 135, 156–58; Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 762ff.; and the essays in Ordini religiosi e società nel Mezzogiorno. For the chiese ricettizie (beneficed vicarages) as an economic venture, for the problem of small congregations, and for the role of friars who often served as administrators of rural holdings, see Luigi Donvito, Società meridionale e istituzioni ecclesiastiche nel Cinque e Seicento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1987), 101. 28 Massimo Carlo Giannini, “Clero regolare e clero secolare nella definizione di uno spazio fiscale italiano della Santa Sede: Il caso dello stato di Milano (XVI–XVII secolo),” in Accumulation and Dissolution of Large Estates, 331–69, esp. 339. Two questions at issue were the economic rivalry between the secular clergy and the regular clergy, that shifted economic resources to the regulars, (see Landi, Il paradiso dei monaci, 38); and, the contributions in the form of tithes, which were paid to Rome even by the twelve congregations that were exempt (see Ibid., 74). See also, Massimo Carlo Giannini, L’oro e la tiara: La costruzione dello spazio fiscale italiano della Santa Sede (1560 –1620) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003).

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the war against the Turks. Certain religious orders held more privileges than others: twelve congregations enjoyed particular conditions (which did not safeguard them from having to give contributions that could at times be sizable); some—the mendicants, for example—long retaining their exemption even when their revenues had clearly risen.29 Above and beyond attempts at taxation on the part of secular powers (the panorama is varied here, as we have seen, in respect to the amounts involved),30 and aside from contributions sent to Rome and the complaints of the lay communities, both urban and rural, about properties that became immune from taxation once they had passed to the Church, some bishops demanded the right to review the account books of churches, confraternities, and sacred sites (to which religious orders had acquired title). This would involve a right of visitation, thus in effect allowing them, should they exercise that right, to hold powers of control that in theory (but rarely in reality) could lead to the right of tithing over the order’s holdings in the interest of other and secular ecclesiastical institutions.31 Finally, there are economic implications connected with the male monasteries’ role of guidance over female houses. Rome contested the notion that the nuns’ goods and properties could be alienated (as was probably the case in some places) on the initiative of the superiors of the order, and Archbishop Borromeo’s agent in Rome sought to “divert the attempt of that don Gratiano to introduce lifetime incomes in the monasteries.”32 Stumpo, Il capitale finanziario, 197–99; Giannini, L’oro e la tiara, 28. Stumpo, “Il consolidamento,” 281. For example, there was the question of the porzione colonica—a special contribution for lodging the military—that from 1594 on was a point of dispute in relations between the secular and religious authorities in Milan and ended up extending to surveying, both civil and ecclesiastical (on occasion, even touching lands the religious owned outright), and to their tenant farmers (for the portion of the earnings they had a right to retain, the true nub of the question): see Flavio Rurale, “Questioni di politica ecclesiastica tra Roma e Milano nell’età di Federico Borromeo,” Studia Borromaica, 18 (2004): 63–95. 31 The government of Venice was clearly the one that intervened the quickest on the legislative level (during the course of the sixteenth century and in the early seventeenth century) regarding the transfer of lay lands to ecclesiastical property. It is clear from events in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that these laws were not always applied. Still on the conflict between the secular clergy and the regular clergy regarding the collection of tithes, see Giannini, L’oro e la tiara, 82, 87. 32 “Divertir il tentativo di quel don Gratiano per l’introduttione de’ censi vitalitii ne’ monasteri”: ASDMi, IX, Carteggio ufficiale, 49, vol. 110, 28 May 1627. See also BAMi, G 217 inf., Carteggio di Federico Borromeo, fol. 656, letter of 7 June 1614. 29 30

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Even the concept of alms had very different connotations from the ones we attribute to the term today. It appears to have been much more nuanced, leaving undefined the distinction, which seems clear to us, between voluntary and coerced transfer of wealth from an individual to the Church. In the sixteenth century, in fact, an offering to the preacher was part of the obligations of a parish community; it was also expected to finance the restoration of sacred buildings, and at times a small offering accompanied serving the sacrament of confession.33 For all of these reasons the charitable (and contributive) capacities of the inhabitants of a given territory could not be left up to chance by being entrusted to the regular clergy (usually, but not always, the Observant and Reformed Friars Minor and the Capuchins), who used the proceeds for their own maintenance. What was needed was an organized and rational system of collections and bequests: “The main problem was always locating the needed means of sustenance. . . . A growing number of mendicants would have subjected them all to a diminution in the necessary and regular flow of alms.”34 This was also why new foundations were required to respect a certain distance from the houses and monasteries of orders already in the area, although some new institutions enjoyed special privileges. Gregory XIII exempted the Jesuits, for example, from the obligation to keep a minimal distance of 140 canne (a bit more than 200 meters) from other establishments.35 Finally, when the regulars

33 BAV, Ferrajoli, 612, fol. 31, 3 July 1590; to the papal nuncio of Naples: “Le università non manchino l’elemosina solita darsi a’ predicatori” (May the universities not fail to offer the alms usually given to preachers). See also Ibid., fol. 136, on the decree of 1587 relative to the obligation of parish members to finance the costs of ecclesiastical buildings. 34 V. Criscuolo, ed., I Cappuccini e la Congregazione Romana dei vescovi e regolari, 8 vols. (Roma, Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1999), 8:19. Competition for alms led to the Tridentine decree (not always observed) that a house have no more resident brothers than its revenues could maintain. Suits and quarrels also arose regarding efforts to maintain water fountains, buildings, bridges, and, above all, about the management of water within the confines of the various orders’ land holdings: see the suits brought by the Jesuits against the Carthusians in Pavia in 1599 and by the Jesuits against the Inquisition in ARSI, Fondo gesuitico, 470, fols. 33–34, 133. See also Vitolo, “Ordini mendicanti,” 145. 35 In 1265 the required distance between religious establishments was double this figure: 300 canne, or 450 meters: Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 848–49. It was reduced to 140 canne three years later. Berengo states: “Insistence on the canne . . . seems to me to be instrumental: what they wanted to obtain was not to have a new conventual house move a block or so away or one street over, but to persuade it to

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officiated at funerals, specific rules indicated the share of expenses that they were expected to pay for wax (known to be among the highest costs of the liturgy and religious celebrations). The economic aspects of artistic commissions (for buildings, paintings, sculpture, and music) are part of this same picture. Richard Goldthwaite states: “This spiritual restlessness among the laity at the end of the Middle Ages impinged mightily on the demand for all those things that constitute the material culture of religion in late medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Italy.”36 The Pastoral and Educational Realm The regulars, often in competition with the secular clergy, also participated in strictly pastoral activities and events (cure of souls,37 preaching, celebration of the Eucharist, hearing confession, making processions, funerals, the direction of confraternities, missions), and well into the post-Tridentine age their participation in these areas was, if not predominant, at least sizable. Marino Berengo has recently stressed the Tridentine shift toward a truce between secular and

give up the idea of establishing a house in the city.” On conflicts between Conventual and Observant Franciscans in the fifteenth century, see the case of L’Aquila in Vitolo, “Ordini mendicanti.” See also the bull of Clement VIII (1603), Bullarum diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum romanorum pontificum, 25 vols. (Turin: A. Vecco et Sociis, 1857–72), vol. 11 (1867), pp. 21–22; and Flavio Rurale, I gesuiti a Milano: Religione e politica nel secondo Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1992), 109–13. Rules, prohibitions, and privileges explain this rivalry; for example, papal bulls and regulations, reiterated on several occasions, prohibited the construction or formation of new monasteries without the permission of the other orders present in the area. See the Jesuits’ priviliges given in Institutum Societatis Iesu, 3 vols. (Florence: Ex Typographia a SS. Conceptione, 1892–93), Compendium privilegiorum, passim. 36 Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 1300 –1600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 130. 37 For a typical case, see Elena Brambilla, “Politica, chiesa e comunità locale in Lombardia: L’abbazia di Civate nella prima età moderna (1500–1700),” Nuova rivista storica, 71 (1987): 71–114, esp. 99–100, “From the beginning, the cure of souls in Civate was an apple of discord between the monks and the archepiscopal jurisdiction.” Even Federico Borromeo’s attempt to transfer the monks’ spiritual jurisdiction to the perpetual vicar, as the parish priest of the community, failed because the secular vicar was still obligated, in the mid-seventeenth century, to “beg the use of the church from the monks.” See also Roberto Rusconi, “Circolazione del libro religioso e pastorale ecclesiastica negli ultimi decenni del secolo XVI,” in Per il Cinquecento religioso, 160–61, and, Luciano Allegra, “La construzione dei confini sociali della parrocchia nel Cinquecento,” in Ibid., 239–42. See also Elena Brambilla, “Le riforme giuseppine,” Rivista Storica Italiana, 109 (1997): 602–27.

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regular clergy, stating that there was “a substantially definitive truce and in some cases an understanding and an agreement that represented one of the strong points of the Counter-Reformation.”38 This almost completely disagrees with the older but more convincing analysis of Mario Rosa, who is well aware that the solution of that conflict had to wait for eighteenth-century reforms and the decisive role of royal authority in strengthening the parish organization. Cultural and liturgical offerings specific to the regular clergy (the cult of new saints, the use of music) and a rhetorical style and an original practice of piety also attracted the laity to its churches and away from their parish churches, as did a new spiritual sensibility. These also enabled the regulars to attract the laity into devotional confraternity under their direction. The Tridentine project to reinforce the parish organization and the role of the secular clergy thus faced strong resistance in spite of the efforts of Innocent X and, earlier (in 1604) of Clement VIII against what Mario Rosa has called “the overwhelming extra-parochial load” and the “disorganized proliferation” of the lay confraternities, efforts that had the obvious aim of paring down the connections of various forms of urban associationism with “one religious order or another.”39 In that same context, the regulars inevitably came into conflict with the bishops’ powers of control. Clement VIII’s decree (cited above) was aimed at placing confraternities under papal administration. Later the diocesan ordinary held powers of control over preachers from the religious orders (with or without their approval, and only when they were preaching in churches not of their order) and over religious who heard confession.40 38 Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 755. For a totally different analysis, see Rosa, Religione e società, 306, where he states that a solution to the conflict had to wait for the reform movements of the eighteenth century. 39 Rosa, Religione e società, 278. 40 See ASDMi, IX, Carteggio ufficiale, 31, vol. 68, the letter of 13 March 1607 of Cardinal Antonio Maria Gallo to Federico Borromeo states: “Potrà vostra signoria illustrissima nella sua città e diocesi far osservare et esseguire” (Would your most illustrious lordship please have observed and carried out in your city) the resolution taken by the congregation of the Council to the effect that “gli ordinarii, se le pare ispediente, possino essaminare li regolari prima che gli concedino licenza di predicare nelle chiese che non sono de’ suoi ordini” (the ordinaries, if such seems to them convenient, examine the regulars before granting them permission to preach in the churches that do not belong to their orders). See also I Cappuccini e la Congregazione Romana, 8:49, 50, and Michele Mancino, Licentia confitendi: Selezione e controllo dei confessori a Napoli in età moderna (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2000), 55, where

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The orders’ activities and the use and the work of their members were affected by relations inherent in the court system, with its clientage networks and its demands for loyalty. In similar fashion, the orders were influenced by their economic ties, in particular with individual benefactors and their families. Relations with Rome (with the papacy, the cardinal protectors, the congregations of cardinals) further complicated the regulars’ organization in urban areas and their relations with the bishop, who had to deal with the privileged status of not only an individual father who might be the confidant or the intimate of a prominent personality—king and queen, governor and duchess, ministers, magistrates, nobles, feudal lords, etc.—but also with privileges held by the community and its leaders, who might have a direct connection not only with its benefactors (the urban community, the governing authority, the pope, bishops, private citizens, etc.) but also with Rome itself. The extremely important topic of confession, which I will simply mention here, belongs within this same picture. A topic that later prompted interventions on the part of the superiors general, the bishops, and the papal curia, confession inspired increasing numbers of provisions between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, a period marked by grave problems and equally serious decisions. One of these (and it is a topic to which I shall return) was the controversial relation of the regular clergy and the Roman and Spanish Inquisition; another was demands for the reform of the Society of Jesus; yet another lay in the profound differences among the Jesuits regarding missionary strategies.41 The question of confession (and of spiritual guidance in general) not only presented organizational problems connected with traditional sacramental practice, but also had important political repercussions. A wide range of topics were discussed and measures proposed: the competition between the regular

the author states, in connection with the Jesuits, that “elsewhere as in Naples it is the Society of Jesus that leads the front lines of the religious orders who balk at subjecting their own candidates to overly tight diocesan controls.” Relations with the bishops were particularly strained regarding such topics as the approval of preachers and confessors and the recognition of casi riservati. 41 On this last question, see Giuseppe Piras, Martin de Funes S.I. (1560–1611) e gli inizi delle riduzioni dei gesuiti nel Paraguay (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1998); Giovanni Anello Oliva S.I., Historia del Reino y provincias del Perù y vidas de los varones insignes de la Compañia de Jesús, ed. Carlos M. Gálvez Peña (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perù, 1998).

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and the secular clergy in the administration of the sacrament; the rulers’ and their ministers’ free and autonomous choice of a personal confessor (a topic on which the general of the Society of Jesus, Claudio Acquaviva, had much to say in the late 1500s and in 1602 in particular); the involvement of confessors in secular negotiations; the Capuchins’ abstention from confession (until 1602, when the prohibition imposed by Gregory XIV in 1591 was abrogated, thus contributing to a broader spread of the order among city dwellers); the spiritual direction of female monastics and of women in general (and the question of sollicitatio ad turpia); the complex relationship among spiritual direction, mysticism, and political activism; and, finally, the controversial relation between individual conscience ( foro interno) and courts of law ( foro esterno), that is, between confession and the Inquisition.42 The local development of the orders and the organization of their activities, as is obvious, often ended up depending on factors that had little to do with the bishops’ authority and at times even that of the papal curia itself.43 Berengo reminds us, however, that the founders of religious institutions (and their families) did not always conserve their original prerogatives and their influence, and that it was “always the order” that remained the “true propulsive center” of choices and strategies. This is true, for example, of the Society of Jesus in Milan, which refused to recognize Carlo Borromeo as its founder (because the revenues made available to the archbishop were considered ecclesiastical), and of the behavior of the Jesuit fathers of the communities of Brera and San Fedele, who in many cases had

42

On these topics, see the studies of Adriano Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari (Turin: Einaudi, 1996), 576–77; Brambilla, Alle origini del Sant’Uffizio, 469–93; and Mancino, Licentia confitendi. See also Miriam Turrini, La coscienza e le leggi: Morale e diritto nei testi per la confessione della prima età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991). 43 For the success of the Franciscan Observance in Germany, where, by the end of the reform process, friars were much more dependent on their patrons, see Nyhus, The Franciscans in South Germany. See Zarri, “Aspetti,” on the role of various levels of society in the affirmation of the Observance. On the Franciscan movement in Sicily (where the Capuchins were particularly well represented), see Manduca, “Uno spazio in movimento.” In the Mezzogiorno religious faced the problem of relations with the barons and their interference in the choice of priors, confessors, and others and their length of tenure. See Esposito, “Immagini dei domenicani,” 37–39, where he stresses the presence of a large number of Dominicans in the continental South and comments on the lack, until just a few decades ago, of studies on Dominicans in the modern period.

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ties and alliances with the urban patriciate and the Spanish authorities.44 Berengo considers the role of the pope and his power to revoke exemptions and privileges to have been of central importance. Still, the pope’s alternating and often contradictory decisions in regard to the regulars (for example, regarding the Society of Jesus, or concerning the autonomy and liberty of movement conceded to some Jesuit and Dominican fathers against the opinions of the curias of their generals and in spite of the scandals involving them)45 shows once more how controls were not so much an exercise of a clear and coherent strategy, but rather a response to a specific political situations or to alliances of the moment, partisan interests, and times even to jealousies, blackmail, and vendettas. Scholarly debate regarding the role of the regular clergy in cure of souls in both urban and rural areas sheds further light on these problems. Here differences in development between northern and southern Italy play a role. In the northern cities jealousies and conflict were the order of the day, involving competing cults, confraternities addressed to various social levels, growing numbers of religious that threatened to upset a time-honored equilibrium among neighborhood organizations, and the roles of examiners and tithe collectors, tasks often given to regular preachers.46 In rural areas, where missionary work among the people formed a large part of pastoral care, the secular clergy seems to have dominated in offering religious services.47 Small-sized regular communities spread throughout the outlying areas of the Mezzogiorno deserve mention, as does the Franciscan 44 Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 785; Rurale, I gesuiti a Milano. After Archbishop Borromeo’s first moves, the Milanese nobility gradually increased its participation in the foundation, using bequests and donations to make the college almost a city institution. For the complex mix of juridical and social interests and spiritual needs connecting patrons and religious in Naples, see Hernando Sánchez,“Entre ‘Napoli nobilissima’.” 45 To cite two exemplary cases, that of Clement VIII and Paul V regarding father Fernando Mendoza, the Jesuit confessor of the countess of Lemos; and Urban VIII’s struggles with the Dominican father, Michele Mazzarino, the brother of Cardinal Giulio Mazzrino, see Daniel Antonin Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux de l’Ordre des frères prêcheurs, 6 vols. and index (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1911), 6: 437; Rurale, “Modo suggerito,” 243. 46 See Fasoli, “Tra riforme e nuove fondazioni”; Vitolo, “Ordini mendicanti”; Andenna, “Aspetti politici,” 369; Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 810–12. 47 The conquest of country areas seems in fact to have been largely a phenomenon of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: see Louis Châtellier, L’Europe des dévots (Paris: Flammarion, 1987), in English translation as The Europe of the Devout: The Catholic Reformation and the Formation of a New Society, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge

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(and Capuchin) hegemony in rural Sicily in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.48 The religious took responsibility for organizing the social life of the lay and ecclesiastical communities in other sectors as well. Above all, they were involved in schooling at all levels—elementary and superior, pre-university and university—yet another cause for conflict with the secular clergy (especially in the phase of the establishment of new orders in the sixteenth century), but also with the medieval tradition of public studies. The role of the new “teaching” orders in the post-Tridentine period is well known. They headed schools on various levels and for a diversified clientele, academies, and in some cases universities as well, and they established a monopolistic system that privileged some religious orders over the others.49 It should be kept in mind, however that some lay and ecclesiastical founders

and New York: Campridge University Press; Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1989); Châtellier, “Rinnovamento della pastorale e società dopo il concilio di Trento,” in Il concilio di Trento, 137–58, esp. p. 154. On the Domenicans, see Esposito, “Immagine dei domenicani.” There is a striking near absence of regulars in rural Piedmont: see Angelo Torre, Il consumo di devozioni: Religione e comunità nelle campagne dell’Ancien Régime (Venice: Marsilio, 1995). In general, the prevalence of the secular clergy in peripheral areas, especially mountainous and hard-to-reach ones: see Emilia Zinzi, “I monasteri cistercensi di Calabria e Basilicata tra Cinque e Seicento,” in Ordini religiosi e società nel Mezzogiorno, 489–512, esp. pp. 494–95. On the same line of thought, see also Carla Russo’s contributions to the round table reported at the end of that same volume, where discussion returned to the role of the parish and the clergy, both secular and regular, in city and country and Mario Rosa’s theses (pp. 593–95). I share Russo’s opinion (also on the basis of research that I am conducting on a pieve in the Carnica area). See also that same volume, pp. 595–98 on the relationship between confraternities and parish churches in the late sixteenth century (see also Torre, Il consumo di devozioni, pt. 2). Secular clergy seem to have been more prevalent than the regulars (in the exercise of the sacrament of confession) in the villages: see Mancino, Licentia confitendi, 126. 48 See E. Novi Chavarria, “Insediamento e consistenza patrimoniale dei carmelitani in Calabria e in Puglia attraverso l’inchiesta innocenziana”, in Ordini religiosi e società nel Mezzogiorno, pp. 203–230, esp. 208; Marcella Campanelli, “Gli agostiniani scalzi nell’Italia meridionale attraverso l’inchiesta innocenziana”, in Ordini religiosi e società nel Mezzogiorno, pp. 231–256 (also on their role in cure of souls). In Puglia in the 1570s, the Minims made something of a specialty of cure of souls, in fact: see Manduca, ‘Uno spazio in movimento.” 49 For the case of Mantua, see Flavio Rurale, “Milano e Mantova: Conflitti politici e culturali nei collegi-università della Compagnia di Gesù,” in Gesuiti e università in Europa, secoli 16.–18., ed. Gian Paolo Brizzi and Roberto Greci, Acts of a Conference, Parma 13–15 December 2001 (Bologna: CLUEB, 2002), 53–68. For an overall view of schools founded in Lombardy and the role of the religious orders in education, see Xenio Toscani, “Seminari e collegi nello Stato di Milano fra Cinque e Seicento,” in Per il Cinquecento religioso, 313–61. For a synthesis over the long term, see Simona

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of schools had rights of patronage, and that often the bishop took an interest in programs, discipline, and proper behavior in colleges and seminaries. In the college of Brera some—including Federico Borromeo—expressed doubts and perplexities concerning the education that the Jesuits were giving to their seminarians: even after a first reform in 1596, the problem persisted of a discipline put at risk by the seminary students’ daily contact with lay students. In 1618 Federico Borromeo declared that for that reason he was ready to set up schools for seminarians who were currently in the Jesuit schools because the Jesuits had not heeded his demands for changes.50 Jurisdiction: Religious Orders and the Inquisition A religious order enjoyed judicial privileges ( privilegi di foro) that removed its members from the reach of both secular justice—obviously—and ecclesiastical justice (of local bishops; of Rome); it had the right to judge and punish many abuses and crimes committed by its members, including those involved in scandalous situations such as one that occurred among the Observant Friars Minor in Milan in1606, a case that was resolved by severe punishments inflicted by the superior (who was obliged, under threat of censure, to inform the criminal court of the sentence meted out).51 In certain regions (of the Mezzogiorno in particular) personal immunity was extended to lay members (Capuchin brothers, Dominican oblates), “simple and illiterate men who entrusted themselves to the monastery” and who lived side by side with the novices and the lay brothers. This was another aspect of the phenomenon of hermit religious, which was probably encouraged and given broader diffusion by easier access to

Negruzzo, Collegij a forma di seminario: Il sistema di formazione teologica nello Stato di Milano in età spagnola (Brescia: La Scuola, 2001). 50 Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, IV, cols. 295–97, decree of 7 October 1596 regarding language, clothing, bearing firearms, and theatrical activities. See BAMi, G 230 inf., Carteggio di Federico Borromeo, fol. 520, letter to Papirio Bartoli of 8 October 1618. The same problem arose in 1607: ARSI, Mediolanensis, 23 I, fol. 93. On that occasion it was the Jesuits who worried that Federico Borromeo might acquire jurisdiction over them thanks to the punishments that he inflicted on unruly seminarists. A new quarrel with the Jesuits arose about the direction of the Swiss college, which the Somaschi were obliged to turn down, due to the “low number of pupils” (puoco numero di soggetti) in 1594: see BAMi, G, 162 inf., fol. 283, 17 May, the father general of the Somaschi to Federico Borromeo. 51 ASDMi, XII, Carteggio ufficiale, 34, fols. 112–13, memorandum of 30 May 1606.

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the regular clergy as a career choice than was true of the secular clergy.52 Even when laymen were accused of crimes against the religious, their familiars, or the goods of their community, the cases were processed in privileged ways, for example by being remanded to the so-called giudici conservatori, judges chosen by the regulars for the circumstance. Should the ecclesiastical courts (diocesan or Roman) choose to meddle in a case, the regular clergy could also appeal to the royal courts, as was the case in Sicily of the regia monarchia.53 The giudici conservatori not only provide an interesting aspect of the picture but also figured in disputes. In August 1607 Paul V, responding to a request for a clarification from the Carmelite father procurator, Basilio Anguissola, regarding the custom of Spanish bishops to call regular clergy before their own tribunals, confirmed their right to appear instead before conservators of their own choice (only regulars who had quit the order became juridically subject to the ordinary). The full seriousness of the question was clear in Milan, where the Provincial Synod of 1609 emitted decrees against the regulars, precisely for innovations in the way that the giudice conservatore was chosen (up to that point, even judges serving in the secular courts might be appointed). Rome was slow to approve these provisions because they involved cardinals who held abbeys in commendam in Lombardy and were thus in a position, should the question arise, to avoid judgment by the local diocesan courts (which were considered to be clearly partial). Individual religious also demanded the prerogative of absolving the sins of the faithful even in cases reserved to the pope, and exceptionally even in accusations of heresy. There was significant change in this domain, as is known, in the period that extends from the Mare magnum of Sixtus IV (1474)—which, in practical terms, gave the friars powers of absolution in both sacramental and judicial foro that removed the penitent from inquisitorial procedure—to the papal dispositions of the late 1500s.54

52

Rosa, “La Chiesa meridionale,” 337. Poidomani, Gli ordini religiosi, 45. 54 Elena Brambilla, “Manuali di confessione, scumuniche e casi riservati in Lombardia tra fine ’400 e primo ’500,” in Milano e Luigi XII: Ricerche sul primo dominio francese in Lombardia (1499–1512), ed. Letizia Arcangeli (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2002), 53

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Members of religious orders acted as arbitrators in private disputes (in the “long term of solutions to typically infra-judicial conflicts”);55 they also participated in activities of institutions outside their orders. Examples of such institutions include the Inquisition, the Penitentiary, and the congregations of cardinals in which they played a role as cardinals or counselors. In such cases the jurisdictional opponent was often the bishop, a judge who had his own tribunal, his own police force, and his own prisons, who had power to handle reserved cases, and who was usually eager to impose rules, exert autonomous powers of censorship, and contest privileges. The problem arose above all in relations with the Holy Office, or else when the superiors of the order, to public scandal, neglected to punish members of their orders who had committed serious crimes. Thus, bishops found themselves obliged to admit to acts that did not always coincide with the inconsistent dictates of the papal curia.56 Between the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century, with the institution of the Spanish Suprema and the Roman Holy Office, relations between the religious and the Inquisition changed. Above all, the control that for centuries the Dominicans had exerted over its organization weakened,57 especially with the institution of a special congregation of cardinals, under the control of the pope, that

369–409; Brambilla, Alle origini del Sant’Uffizio: Penitenza, confessione e giustizia spirituale dal Medioevo al 16. Secolo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000), 347. 55 Marco Bellabarba, “Pace pubblica e pace privata: Linguaggi e istituzioni processuali nell’Italia moderna,” in Criminalità e giustizia in Germania e in Italia: Pratiche giudiziarie e linguaggi giuridici tra tardo Medioevo ed età moderna, Acts of a Conference, Trent, 21–23 October 1999, ed. Marco Bellabarba, Gerd Schwerhoff, and Andrea Zorzi (Bologna: Il Mulino; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), 189–213. 56 For Federico Borromeo’s complaint in 1599 to Claudio Acquaviva, father general of the Sociey of Jesus, that Jesuit confessors were absolving government officials of sins reserved to the ordinary, see Flavio Rurale, “Clemente VIII, I gesuiti e la controversia giurisdizionale milanese,” in La corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento, 323–366, esp. 351. In 1596 the congregation of the bishops and the regulars informed the bishop of Como that the regular confessors of the confraternities held the privilege of absolution in reserved cases: BAV, Ferrajoli, 612, 25 May. These were matters in which the various orders enjoyed a wide range of privileges, and for that very reason, “there was no room for battles common to all the regulars”: Mancino, Licentia confitendi, 154. Barring a legislative act, negotiation was the rule, along with the contractual rights that the individual orders had established with the bishop: see Maria Mariotti, “Rapporti tra vescovi e religiosi in Calabria (attraverso i sinodi diocesani, 1574–1795)”, in Ordini religiosi e società nel Mezzogiorno, pp. 269–324, esp. 312–13 (also for the specific role of the Jesuits in this context). 57 Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux, vol. 5.

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involved other religious, according to times and means that were to be clarified. (Here the participation of cardinals who were members of the regular orders and served in the Holy Office would repay further investigation pinpointing various historical moments and focusing on hegemonic political contexts within the papal curia.) Relations with the various “Inquisitions” also followed models that differ according to the orders in question and the Holy Office of the time. The privileges enjoyed by the new congregations of regular clergy in the sixteenth century, the Jesuits in particular, are well known. They enabled those congregations not only to avoid the control of the local bishop (and in many cases that of the Holy Office), but also to participate directly in the functions and the powers of the bishops and the inquisitors (the power to judge reserved cases, to give absolution to the individual conscience, exemption from the obligation to denounce cases of heresy, the privilege of resolving cases pertaining to members of the order within the order itself ). Still in connection with this relationship, we should not forget the original position enjoyed by the Jesuits and their connections in court and with the nobility in general. As confessors and spiritual directors, they carved out for themselves an autonomous area that removed their penitents from the normal inquisitorial procedures. The process of fraterna correctio seems to have been specific to the Society of Jesus, as Stefania Pastore reminds us, although it sometimes appears in arguments from the opposing camp (and in denunciations), as the sign of the superposition of inquisitorial action and exercise of the sacraments.58 These topics have been amply treated in recent historiography (for example, in the works of Adriano Prospei, Elena Brambilla, Miriam Turrini, Michele Mancino, and Roberto Rusconi) though with divergent opinions, in particular regarding the complicated relations between the foro interno and the foro esterno. As Henry Kamen states: “The struggle went on intermittently until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when papal briefs of 1592 and 1606

58 Stefania Pastore, “Esercizi di carità, esercizi di inquisizione: Siviglia 1558–1564,” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa (2001): 231–58, esp. p. 257; Id., “A proposito di Matteo 18,15: Correctio fraterna e Inquisizione nella Spagna del Cinquecento,” Rivista Storica Italiana, 113 (2001): 323–68. See also Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza, 576–77; Brambilla, Alle origini del Sant’Uffizio, 469–93. On the correctio fraterna, see Mario Scaduto, “Tra inquisitori e riformati: Le missioni dei gesuiti tra Valdesi della Calabria e delle Puglie,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 15 (1946), pp. 1–76.

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decided entirely in favour of the Inquisition. . . . One of the liberties questioned by the Inquisition was the Jesuit privilege of not having to denounce heretics to anyone but their own superior in the order.” Still—leaving these decisions to one side—privileges and favored treatment did not assure that there would be any coherence between norms and practice.59 Relations between the Jesuits and the Spanish Inquisition were quite special, in particular regarding the question of limpieza de sangre (“purity of blood”). The difficult relations of the Society of Jesus with Madrid in the 1580s, which were also a consequence of the weakening of the court faction that had supported them from their beginnings, imposed a new process of re-hispanization, precisely thanks to the subordination of the Suprema and the acceptance of the principle of limpieza decreed during the Fifth General Congregation (which fits into a more general situation of the gradual “nationalization” of the Society that influenced relations with the papal curia as well).60 For some criminals (those accused of sollicitatio ad turpia and heresy), the Jesuits eventually had to align themselves with the judgments of the Inquisition, but there were still cases that display conditions of privilege, which permitted the transfer of the trial to Rome or even referral of the case to the order itself.61 The Political Realm During the course of the late Middle Ages monasteries and friaries were the locus of conflicts between factions, lay parties, and even militias ready for armed conflict. What interests me here is the participation of the regular clergy in political debate as experts in theology, preachers, counselors, and more. One might well ask, for example, how coherent, in any one situation, were the choices, the projects, and the interests of the diocesan ordinary, on the one hand, and the religious, on the other. The conflicts that often marked their

59

Kamen, Inquisition and Society, 154–55. See also Tedeschi, “A New Perspective,” 254. Among the innovations in the reorganization of the Inquisition there was “the annulment of privileges exempting from prosecution regular clergy who previously had to answer only to their superiors in the religious orders,” Mancino, Licentia confitendi, 28–33. 60 Martínez Millán, “Transformacion y crisis.” 61 See the account of the trial of father Giulio Mazzarino in Rurale, I gesuiti a Milano.

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relations had a long (and durable) tradition, with results that often included alliances, for example, between cities and regular clergy against the secular power of the bishop in the Middle Ages.62 The jurisdictional controversy that was long typical of relations between the archbishops of Milan and the Spanish governors and Senate in the early modern period included confessors, preachers, and theologians who often rendered opposing opinions and held views that contrasted strongly with those of the agents that the archbishop periodically sent to Madrid. Even in this case, the confrontation with Rome (not only and not so much with the pope as with the generals of the orders) did not always produce the desired effects. Complicating these differences were the interests and demands of monarchs, governors, and ministers. Under Federico Borromeo’s tenure as archbishop some Jesuits—Carlo Mastrilli and Gian Francesco Vipera—returned to the quarrels of the age of his cousin Carlo (for example, in the controversy regarding fathers Giulio Mazzarino and Francesco Adorno). The Jesuits and the archbishop found themselves on opposing sides in heated disputes after the archbishop forbade confessors to give absolution to the royal ministers in 1596, a move that divided the Milanese clergy on the question of the legitimacy of the decree and disconcerted many of the regular clergy involved, also because obedience to it implied recognition of the authority of the ordinary.63

Old and New Orders: The Originality of the Jesuits The enormous development of the regular clergy, both before and after the Council of Trent, is evidence of emergent needs within the orders themselves, but also in civil society (among the governing forces, the nobility, and the lower classes), and in the Church of Rome. New saints’ cults and new cultural offering attracted different

62 Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 809, 832. The confines of the monastery long remained a political space, hence a place for rebellion, encounters, and dissent among various parties and factions. 63 On these events, see Rurale, “Clemente VIII, I gesuiti,” 353 and note 70; Berengo, L’Europa delle città, 809.

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levels of society, amply broadening the picture of the presence of the regular clergy between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Socio-political motivations (those of a ruler sensitive to ecclesiastical matters, of emergent social groups, of the newly rich, who found in religious foundations an opportunity to set themselves off from the old noble houses)64 do not always explain the growth of religious communities all over Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for at times even the old orders also rose to the challenge of satisfying new needs.65 One thing seems true everywhere; namely, the demand arising from the levels of society that provided the “devotional clientele” of the latter half of the sixteenth century and in the following century placed a premium on the “service activities” of the new “teaching” orders.66 Regarding that success (and that of Saint Ignatius’s Societas in particular), recent studies have shown, within the context of the encouragement that the Spanish gave to Jesuit foundations in Milan, Naples, and Sicily (but Florence under the Medici should also be mentioned), the importance of a female patronage that often worked with the aid of confessors and theologians linked to court circles.67 It is interesting that this should occur in the tormented beginning phase of the Society’s history and in a religious climate (at least until the late 1550s) still favorable to debate, exchange of opinion and the exposure of competing positions, or that at least fostered friendships and interpersonal relations (between legate and rulers, royal ministers, cardinals, and bishops) who held different religious and spiritual ideals and who would soon be in opposing camps. This occurred at a moment in time when opinion was still unsure about the new orders,

64

Zarri, “Aspetti”; Fasoli, “Tra riforme.” This point is stressed in Vitolo, “Ordini mendicanti,” 145, 147. 66 Stumpo, “Il consolidamento,” 289; Fragnito, “Gli ordini religiosi,” 141. 67 Olwen H. Hufton, “Altruism and Reciprocity: The Early Jesuits and their Female Patrons,” Renaissance Studies, 15 (2003): 328–53. See also the role of the viceroy in Sicily: Poidomani, Gli orgini religiosi, 77–78, in particular for Jesuit foundations. Carlos José Hernando Sánchez (“Entre ‘Napoli nobilissima’,” 91) emphasizes the role of intellectuals (who were fascinated by a certain type of preaching) and confraternities (that of the Bianchi in particular). See also Giampiero Brunelli, “Tra eretici e gesuiti: I primi anni di Margherita a Roma,” in Margherita d’Austria (1522–1586): Costruzioni politiche e diplomazia, tra corte Farnese e Monarchia spagnola, ed. Silvia Mantini (Rome: Bulzoni, 2003), 65–83. 65

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before final judgement had been passed on them. Various elements entered into the picture:68 1) Suspicions on the part of the Inquisition regarding the founders and members of the new orders; 2) Prudence on the part of Rome, which limited their development (as in the case of the Capuchins); 3) Evident uncertainty regarding the temporary fusion (or projects for the unification) of orders of different origins (Theatines and Somaschi, Barnabites and Jesuits) and the uneven course of the process of approval of their institution. This was particularly true of the Jesuits, whose progress was marked by repeated demands for reform; 4) The uncertainties and divisions that accompanied dispute about the organizational form that Oratorians of Philip Neri should take; 5) Evidence, at least until the 1570s and 1580s, that demonstrates a scanty acquaintance with the physiognomy of the new orders and their activities (aside from the Jesuits’ reputation, earned early on, for skill in political negotiation). The Jesuits had strong if contrasting connections with the Catholic courts of Europe. These connections were based on organizational modalities that at times even required loyalty oaths—conditions and constrictions, that is, that went in the opposite direction from the universalism that the Jesuits sought. For example, it became customary for heads of state to request that communities be made up of “naturals”—their own citizens—and that circumscriptions of regulars coincide, as far as possible, with the geographic borders of their states these conditions often countered the order’s own Constitutions, the decrees of their General Congregations, and the order’s vows of obedience to the pope. Areas of autonomous action were already provided for (and exploited efficiently). John O’Malley states, regarding

68

For a summary of this question, see Fragnito, “Gli ordini religiosi,” 118–20, 135–38. See also Rurale, I gesuiti a Milano, chap. 1. On Naples, an emblematic case thanks to a strong interconnection of ideas and men there, see Hernando Sánchez, “Entre ‘Napoli nobilissima’.”

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Juan de Polanco’s position on whether Jesuit fathers should or should not accept charges as prelates (it seems to me, however, that his reflections have a more general valence): “Nadal . . . clearly showed that Jesuit promptitude in obeying the pope ‘regarding missions’ was not understood to extend to every area where papal authority might possibly reach.”69 Its close and privileged relations with the power elites was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the success of the Society of Jesus and contributed to its ability to effect a compromise between papal policy and the secular authorities’ need for a loyal clergy. The originality of the Society of Jesus emerged clearly and on a number of levels, prompting jealousies, polemics, and conflicts (which explain both the difficulties to come and the Society’s ability to assert itself and to last). Debate centered on five topics: 1. Innovations in its Constitutions (the system of grades or levels, hierarchy, the father general’s length of office, the timing of professions). These questions also prompted growing dissension within the Society; 2. The process for defining the organization of the Society and its action. The order was young, and varied opinions were expressed, even in spiritual matters; 3. Openness of information: when the Constitutions attracted a good deal of criticism, it seemed inevitable that the father general should keep certain information (the text of the Constitutions and the norms regulating life within the communities) from falling into lay hands; 4. Reforms: as we have seen, conflict was in the air. The originality of the Jesuits and of the regular clergy in general led to envy, jealousies, polemics, and clashes, to the point that sixteenth-century popes alternated—in the case of the Society of Jesus—between calling for or introducing reforms and renewing the contested privileges. Pius IV abolished the reforms of Paul IV; Pius V con-

69

347.

O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 310. See also Rurale, “Clemente VIII”, I gesuiti,

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tested not only the priestly ordination that preceded profession among the Jesuits and individual reading of the canonical hours, but also the modalities and economic criteria of the new foundations, that is, the formula acceptandorum collegiorum that permitted the Jesuits to refuse requests for foundations that were not supported by adequate revenues. The Society’s privileges were reconfirmed by Gregory XIII on the advice of a commission of cardinals (which included Carlo Borromeo) that a few years later— as a result of difficult relations in Milan, where important figures from the Jesuit community sided with the city’s nobility and its governors against the policies of the archbishop—sought to impose a candidate of its own to head the Society and eventually spoke out in favor of its organizational reform, threatening “a schism” within the Church. Sixtus V had barely enough time to realize any such reforms.70 Repeated papal confirmation of the Society of Jesus provide a clear indication of the innovations in its Constitutions and of the new roles within this new religious order. Those same novelties also explain the sour dispositions of some pontiffs, many bishops, and the other regular orders, beginning with the Dominicans. In particular, the Jesuits were accused of being mixed up in secular matters and affairs of state (their familiarity with political, diplomatic, economic, and even military activities is well known). Above all, others contested their habit of open debate—despite the prudence counseled by Rome—of such topics as the nature of sovereignty, the right of resistance, relations between temporal and ecclesiastical powers, and the limits of papal intervention in temporal affairs. Relations with secular courts and with the benefactors of houses and colleges also had obvious repercussions for obedience, a hotly debated and highly inconsistent topic.71

70 On Sisto V see now Silvia Mostaccio, “Gerarchie dell’obbedienza e contrasti istituzionali nella Compagnia di Gesù all’epoca di Sisto V”, Rivista di storia del critianesimo, 1, 2004: 109–127. 71 This phenomenon is even clearer in the Jesuit missions in Asia and America. I am thinking here of the consequences of Matteo Ricci’s strategies and of the projects for the “reduction” of some Jesuit missionaries in Latin America in the late sixteenth century studied by Giuseppe Piras. Both questions illustrate the debate, even the struggle, that was occurring between groups of Jesuits and their allies in parties under the Spanish court against the papal court and the curia of the general: see Piras, Martín de Funes.

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5. The worldliness of the Society and the Jesuits’ aspiration to live “in the world.” For an elite of the order this policy translated into a genuine imitation of the behaviors, customs, and values of the nobility and into an adherence to the civil and urbane models of the aristocratic culture of the age. One event that seems to me emblematic of this attitude is the transfer of Palazzo Sanseverino to the Jesuits such that the palace, its external architectonic forms left unchanged, signaled the union between “sacred” Naples and nobilissima Naples.72 Five significant details should be kept in mind regarding the Jesuits’ worldliness: 1) the material conditions of their lives (as in the cases of fathers Giulio Mazzarino, who served as a preacher in Brera (Milan) in 1579, and Fernando Mendoza, confessor of the countess of Lemos, both of whom wore silk shirts, rode in a carriage, lived at court, and dined with persons close to the king); 2) the Jesuits’ defense of the economic interests of the merchant class; 3) an educational program consonant with the expectations of the nobility; 4) political and religious strategies and choices that at times backed the secular power in jurisdictional controversies; and 5) the social background of many of the Jesuits of the first decades of the Society, who were by birth close to the nobility.73 The Society’s strategic decision to develop colleges rather than professed houses demonstrates their (partial) solution to the problem of economic competition with the other orders (more professed communities would have involved a vow of poverty, living on alms, and restricting the numbers of urban religious in general), of their interest in safeguarding the educative demands of the nobility, and of the intellectual ministry of some Jesuit fathers. As Rivka Feldhay states, there was a path to salvation and to the Lord through studies: “Polanco found it necessary to differentiate between different ways of loving God: through oration and contemplation on the one hand, and through studies on the other. The separation of the way 72

Hernando Sánchez “Entre ‘Napoli nobilissima’.” The position of the followers of St. Philip Neri was quite different: the Oratorians were divided in the early seventeenth century on the question of whether to pursue the construction of their headquarters, which some of their number considered unnecessary: see Antonio Cistellini, San Filippo Neri: L’Oratorio e la Congregazione oratoriana: Storia e spiritualità, 3 vols. (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1989), 3:2277. 73 Thomas V. Cohen, “Molteplicità dell’esperienza religiosa tra i primi 1259 gesuiti, 1540–1560,” Annali Accademici Canadesi, 1 (1985): 7–25.

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of studies from the divine way to salvation obviously granted a certain autonomy to the intellectual mission.”74 Such conditions explain the Jesuits’ ability to remain important figures in the Republic of Letters during the seventeenth century, and even to make available to eighteenth-century culture decisive contributions to knowledge and scientific progress.

74 Rivka Feldhay, “Knowledge and Salvation in Jesuit Culture,” Science in Context, 2 (1987): 195–213, quotation, p. 200.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE CROWN AND THE CHURCH IN SPANISH ITALY IN THE REIGNS OF PHILIP II AND PHILIP III* Agostino Borromeo

In the current state of scholarship, to seek to describe, even summarily, the complex web of relations between the royal power and the ecclesiastical power in the Spanish dominions of Italy during the reigns of Philip II and Philip III is an arduous enterprise. The immense mass of documents distributed among local archives and central archives, the lack of homogeneity—both quantitative and qualitative—in studies regarding the relations between the two powers in the various territorial entities, and the sizeable lacunae in our knowledge in several of the geographical areas concerned, present serious hindrances to a balanced reconstruction.1 A more realistic enterprise, and perhaps one that responds better to the aims of the present volume, is to attempt to identify the guidelines of the ecclesiastical policy of the Spanish crown in its Italian dominions. This is what I propose to do here, within the limits that space requirements impose on a topic that is both vast and partially unexplored.

General Political Assumptions First, we need to keep in mind that, beginning in the age of the Catholic Kings Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the ecclesiastical policy of Spain—and not only on the Italian Peninsula—

* Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. 1 For an introductory bibliography, see the painstaking study of Flavio Rurale, “Stato e Chiesa nell’Italia spagnola: Un dibattito aperto,” Cheiron 9, nos. 17–18 (1992): 357–30. Also useful is Anthony D. Wright, “Relations between Church and State: Catholic Developments in Spanish-Ruled Italy of the Counter-Reformation,” History of European Ideas 9, no. 4 (1988): 385–403; and Idem, Catholicism and Spanish Society under the Reign of Philip II, 1555–1598, and Philip III, 1598–1621, Studies in Religion and Society, 27 (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1991).

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was inspired by principles of regalism. Regalism refers to a system of relations between church and state characteristic of Catholic lands in the modern era in which the state power claimed specific rights of intervention in the sphere of ecclesiastical power.2 In the case of Spain, as was true of other Catholic monarchies, these relations might involve the Crown and the Holy See, the Crown and local ecclesiastical authorities, or all three.3 The rights of intervention, on the other hand, derived either from explicit pontifical concessions or from custom, a long-standing use of tacit consent on the part of local ecclesiastical authorities or the Holy See.4 Second, it should be kept in mind that even under Philip II’s predecessors, the Crown insisted that the incorporation of new territories within the possessions of the Catholic Monarchy was to be accompanied by the maintenance of the local administrative structures and local legislation regarding customary norms, uses, and traditions inherited from pre-existent state entities. In practice, this meant that the sovereigns reigned over their European possessions, from the Low Countries to Sicily, not as rulers of Spanish kingdoms, but, in each instance, as rulers of the various individual states, in observance of the legislation particular to each province and in respect of the privileges and prerogatives of the various cities and social bodies. Spanish sovereigns governed the Kingdom of Naples as kings of Naples, the State of Milan as dukes of Milan, and so forth. The most eloquent example of this policy is perhaps that of Portugal, where, after its annexation in 1580, the Spanish sovereigns agreed to change the ordinal number added to their names, so that Philip II of Spain became Philip I of Portugal, and Philip III of Spain became Philip II of Portugal.5 Obviously, the actions taken by the

2 Agostino Borromeo, “Felipe II y la tradición regalista de la Corona española,” in Felipe II (1527–1598): Europa y la Monarquía Católica, ed. José Martínez Millán, 5 vols. (Madrid: Parteluz, 1998), 3:111–137, esp. p. 111. 3 Agostino Borromeo, “Filippo II e il papato,” in Filippo II e il Mediterraneo, ed. Luigi Lotti and Rosario Villari, Percorsi, 42 (Rome and Bari: GLF Laterza, 2003), 477–535, esp. pp. 507–13. 4 Agostino Borromeo, “Istruzioni generali e corrispondenza ordinaria dei nunzi: Obiettivi prioritari e risultati concreti della politica spagnola di Clemente VIII,” in Das Papsttum, die Christenheit und die Staaten Europas, 1592–1605: Forschungen zu den Hauptinstruktionen Clemens VIII, ed. Georg Lutz, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 66 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994), 119–233, esp. p. 180. 5 When the cortes called together in Tomar in 1581 acclaimed the new king, it obtained—among other concessions—an explicit promise to respect the fori (laws),

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Crown in the various dominions necessarily had to be inserted into the context of an over-all strategy in tune with the general objectives of the Catholic Monarchy. That did not prevent the administrative policy put into effect in each individual dominion from having its own characteristics and aims. Moreover, what was true of administrative policy was also true, mutatis mutandis, for ecclesiastical policy, in that the regalist aims of the crown regarding the Church necessarily had to be worked out on the basis of pontifical concessions or the usages particular to each of the Italian dominions. In other words, if, on the one hand, it is possible to trace the guiding lines of an ecclesiastical policy common to all four of Spain’s Italian possessions, we should not forget, on the other hand, that in practice the Spanish Crown was constrained to shape its actions to the various ecclesiastical situations that had developed in each of these areas through time. Thus the Crown necessarily had to adapt the general principles of its overall policy to specific local situations. Third, the recurrent fear of possible anti-Spanish revolts had a significant effect on the orientation of Spanish ecclesiastical policy between the latter half of the sixteenth century and the first two decades of the eighteenth century. Naturally, the Spanish authorities were aware that complications and delays were involved in all aspects of their method of governance. They were also aware of how unpopular the introduction of innovations in a time-honored system would be. One emblematic example can be seen in the words of the viceroy of Sicily, the duke of Feria, writing to Philip III in 1603 about the need to reform the Great Court of Palermo. He observes that although many reasons favored provisions aimed at making Sicilian institutions conform to those of “other provinces of Your Majesty’s monarchy,” one would also have to consider that “all manner of people

liberties, privileges, and uses and customs of the Kingdom of Portugal, as well as to maintain the legislation in effect and the conservation of Portugese coinage, see Pedro Soares Martínez, História diplomática de Portugal (n.p.: Editorial Verbo, 1986), 119. Similarly, in the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries, the modes for exercising sovereignty (first on the part of Charles V, then, after 1555, of Philip II) varied from one province to another and at times from one city to another within a given province, see J. J. Woltjier, “Quelques remarques sur la législation et l’administration de la République des Provinces-Unies,” in España y Holanda, Ponencias de los coloquios hispano-holandeses de historiadores, 1984–1988, ed. Hugo de Schepper and Peter J. A. N. Rietbergen (Madrid: Comité Española de Ciencias Históricas; Nijmegen: Intituut voor Nieuwe Geschiedenis, 1993), 118–37, esp. p. 119.

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would tend to take offense at the idea, and for this as well as other reasons, I am more inclined to leave things as they are.”6 Among those “other reasons” that the viceroy does not specify there very probably was a concern that radical changes in long-standing administrative practices might set off uncontrollable forms of popular protest. There is a historiographic tradition going back to the nineteenth century that has passed on the image of Spain as a great power well able to maintain solid control of its Italian possessions, ward off eventual external threats, and quell budding internal revolts.7 A study of the sources shows a very different reality, however. During the reigns of Philip II and Philip III in particular, governments in lands bordering the Spanish territories were aware of how vulnerable the Italian dominions were, both to a French attempt to take over the State of Milan and to recurrent Turkish threats along the Mediterranean coasts. Insecurity in face of external dangers, linked to the lack of an effective military force and the inadequacy of the coastal defense system,8 quite naturally increased fears of the internal danger of popular uprisings. This means that the Spanish, ever fearful

6 Archivo General de Simancas, Secretarías Provinciales (henceforth abbreviated as AGS, Secr. Prov.), leg. 1496, unnumbered fols., Viceroy the Duke of Feria to Philip III (Palermo, 21 July 1603): “demas provincias de la Monarquia de V. M.d”; “la general inclinación de todos los estados de gentes aborrecería esto de manera que, juntado con otras razones, mas me inclino a sentir que se quede aquesto en el estado presente.” 7 Cesare Cantù, for example, insists on the action of the governors of Milan who sought to “make sure that the king dominated his subjects without resistance,” who saw to it that justice would be administrated “with atrocious and ignorant severity” and who insisted that “insanely exorbitant penalties” be meted out: Cesare Cantù, Sulla storia lombarda del secolo XVII: Ragionamenti per commento ai “Promessi Sposi” di Alessandro Manzoni (Milan, A. F. Stella, 1832), 5, 9. See also Gabriele Pepe, Il Mezzogiorno d’Italia sotto gli spagnoli: La tradizione storiographica, Biblioteca Storica Sansoni, Nuova Serie, 19 (Florence: Sansoni, 1952), 32ff. 8 Luis Ribot García, “Milano, piazza d’armi della Monarchia spagnola,” in “Millain the Great”: Milano nelle brume del Seicento, ed. Aldo De Maddalena (Milan: Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde, 1989), 349–63, esp. pp. 350–51; José Ramón Soraluce Blond, Las fortificaciones españolas de Sicilia en el Renacimiento (La Coruña: Universidad de La Coruña, 1998), 21ff.; Giuseppe Mele, “La difesa del Regno di Sardegna nella seconda metà del Cinquecento,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Filippo II, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Storici nel IV centenario della morte di Filippo II, Cagliari, 5–7 November 1998, ed. Bruno Anatra and Francesco Manconi, Agorà 10 (Cagliari: AD&M, 1999), 337–47; Antonello Mattone, “Il Regno di Sardegna nell’età di Filippo II: Difesa del territorio e accentramento statale,” in Filippo II e il Mediterraneo, 147–222, esp. pp. 154ff.; Orazio Cancilla, “Filppo II e la Sicilia,” in Ibid., 125–45, esp. pp. 132–33.

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of possible revolts in their Italian dominions, were well aware of the clergy’s ability to sway popular opinion when it so desired, even in matters outside the strictly spiritual domain: ecclesiastics had “such power to sway the sentiments and inclinations of the people,” as we can read in a consulta (opinion) that the Council of Italy presented to Philip IV in 1632.9 Indeed, a clergy animated by anti-Spanish sentiment could have helped to create a widespread climate of aversion to the Spanish Crown. The destabilizing consequences of that not totally unlikely situation were all the more easily imaginable the more the Spanish authorities became persuaded that there was a widespread desire among the Italian populations to “throw out the foreigners.”10

Religious Rationale In light of these facts, it is quite understandable that the principal aim of Spanish regalist policy should be to exert various forms of control over the activities of the Church—in the Italian dominions, but also in other parts of the Hispanic Monarchy—to the extent that recognition of the autonomy of the canonical order and the supreme authority of the Holy See would permit. Underlying this general aim were motivations of a political nature, but also more specifically religious motivations. On the one hand, as we have seen, there was the continual fear that the eventual anti-Spanish inclinations of the clergy and those of the episcopal hierarchy might endanger the peaceful possession of the Italian dominions; on the other hand, Philip II and Philip III felt themselves invested, as Catholic sovereigns, with responsibilities in the struggle against heresy and— especially in the decades immediately preceding and following the end of the Council of Trent—in the reform of ecclesiastical and religious life.11 One thing that should be emphasized from the outset is 9 Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid (henceforth abbreviated as AHNM), Estado, leg. 1937, unnumbered folios: Consulta of the Council of Italy to Philip IV (Madrid, 9 January 1632), “tan poderosos para mover los afectos y las inclinaciones del pueblo.” 10 AGS, Estado, leg. 1294, no. 49: Sobre los puntos que ha dado don Juan Vives por el conde de Fuentes, (1605, with no day or month), is a report presented to Philip III in 1604–5 by don Juan Vives in the name of the governor of Milan, Pedro Enriquez Acevedo, count of Fuentes; “echar forasteros fuera.” 11 Federico Chabod, “Per la storia religiosa dello Stato di Milano durante il dominio di Carlo V: Note e documenti,” in Chabod, Lo Stato e la vita religiosa a

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the importance of motivations of a religious nature as the inspiration for Spanish religious policies. In order to understand those policies, it is important to recall that in the mind-set of Philip II and his successors, not to mention their ministers and counselors, political ends and religious ends were indissolubly mixed. The introductory statements of all instructions given to viceroys, governors, and ambassadors to Catholic powers contain solemn reaffirmations that the primary end of acts of government is the “service of God,” meaning the defense of the faith and the triumph of the Catholic cause, and that the satisfaction of other, more immediate and contingent interests is secondary to that first aim.12 This particular politico-religious conception of power—inherited from medieval tradition and reinforced as the spirit of the CounterReformation began to take root—implied, among other things, that those who thwarted the achievement of the objectives of Spanish policies in any way were considered to be weakening support of the Catholic cause. Anyone who hindered acts of sovereign governance by aiding the enemies of the Hispanic Monarchy or by attacking the rights and prerogatives (actual or presumptive) of the Crown must, for that very reason, be inexorably combated. Translated into terms of ecclesiastical policy, that principle implied that it was legitimate for the royal power to do two things: first, to exert forms of control over the nomination of ecclesiastical offices (in particular, over nominations to episcopal sees) in the interest of preventing such posts from falling to persons who were unworthy or in some way politically unwelcome; second, to oppose any and all attempts on the part of ecclesiastics to amplify the jurisdiction of the

Milano nell’epoca di Carlo V, new ed., Biblioteca di Cultura Storica 113 (Turin: Einaudi, 1971), 278ff.; Agostino Borromeo, “Archbishop Carlo Borromeo and the Ecclesiastical Policy of Philip II in the State of Milan,” in San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, ed. John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro (Washington: Folger Shakespeare Library; London: Associated University Presses, 1988), 85–111, esp. p. 93. 12 Borromeo, “Filippo II e il papato,” 478–84. The same principles are formulated in the instructions that Philip II had drawn up in 1603 for the new ambassador to the Holy See, Juan Fernández Pacheco, marquis of Villena and duke of Escalona, AGS, Estado leg. 977, unnumbered fols., Instructión para el duque de Escalona para la embaxada de Roma (Lerma, 8 June 1603), “mi fin no es otro que endereçar las cosas publicas y las particulares mias al servicio de Nuestro Señor derecha y puramente [. . .]” (“my aim is no other than to straighten public affairs and my particular [interests] in the service of Our Lord, rightfully and purely . . .”).

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spiritual power or extend the privileges of immunity of the clergy that impinged on the rights (founded or unfounded) of royal jurisdiction.13 The regalist policy of the sovereigns of the House of Habsburg, thus, was substantially based on the dual orientation of control of nominations to ecclesiastical office (especially bishops) and containment of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Before examining those two aspects separately, however, it may be opportune to consider how they fit within a more general context. Although I have stressed the regalist aims of Spanish ecclesiastical policy, that does not mean that the position of Philip II and Philip III concerning the Church in Spain’s Italian dominions was guided exclusively by a determination to exert powers of control over the ecclesiastical hierarchy and over the clergy. As we have seen, the Spanish Crown had religious motivations for political action, and what is true on the more general level is true a fortiori in the area of relations between royal power and spiritual power, in Spanish Italy as in the rest of the Hispanic Monarchy. If it is undeniable that the regalist policies of the sovereigns of the House of Habsburg generated opposition, not to say open conflict, from the local ecclesiastical authorities and even with the Holy See, it is also undeniable that those moments of tension occurred in the more general context of policies aimed at guaranteeing the Church and the papacy the greatest possible support.14 The pontiffs of the

13 Agostino Borromeo, “La Chiesa milanese del Seicento e la corte di Madrid,” in “Millain the Great ”, 93–108, esp. pp. 94–96; Borromeo, “Filippo II e il papato,” 485ff. 14 In May 1585, for example, Philip II charged his ambassador to Rome with assuring the newly elected Sixtus V that the forces of the Catholic Monarchy were at his disposal “para todo lo que fuera ayuda y defensa de la Iglesia y dessa Sancta Sede” (“to aid and defend the Church and the Holy See in every possible way”): AGS, Estado leg. 1870 no. 28, Philip II to Enrique de Guzmán, count of Olivares (Barcellona, 17 May 1585) Similarly, in a memorandum passed on to Sixtus V in February 1590, Philip II assured he pope that all of his efforts were directed at the “service of God,” consequently were operating for the “benefit of the public cause”: Archivio Secreto Vaticano (henceforth abbreviated ASV), Segr. Stato, Principi, 46, fols. 21r–22v: Memorandum in Italian given to Sixtus V by ambassador Olivares, 22 February 1590. Likewise instructions drawn up for the duke of Osuna as viceroy of Naples, AGS, Sec. Prov. lib. 654, fols. 23v–74r: Instructión de lo que vos, el III.e Duque de Ossuna, mi primo, haveis de hazer en lo de la administración del cargo de visorrey, lugarteniente y Capitán General en el mi Reyno de Nápoles para el qual os he elegido (Lisbon, 22 December 1581) included the injunction to “honrrar, acatar y servir” (“honor, obey, and serve”) the pope and the Holy See, to “tener muy particular cuydado en lo que lo de la Religion vaya sempre adelante (“take particular pains to ensure that

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latter half of the sixteenth century and the early decades of the seventeenth century were well aware that Spain was the leading power on which they could count should internal or external problems arise in the Catholic world. On the other hand, as temporal sovereigns, the popes were aware of how important it was to cooperate with the Spanish authorities in order to satisfy Rome’s need for regular shipments of Sicilian grain and to maintain an efficacious control of banditry along the borders between the Pontifical State and the Kingdom of Naples.15 The Holy See always worked to prevent clashes from becoming worse and to promote a search for compromise solutions.16 Within the Spanish dominions in Italy, the sector in which cooperation with the papacy (and more in general, with ecclesiastical power) seems the most evident is the struggle against heresy. Both in Sicily and Sardinia, where the Spanish Inquisition operated, Philip II tried to see to it that the courts of Sassari and Palermo had an adequately dignified setting, even though, in the case of Palermo, the royal decision met with opposition from the civil authorities.17 In the case of the Inquisition in Sardinia in 1583, Philip II, with energetic support from Gregory XIII, provided a remedy for the tribunal’s endemic lack of funds by assigning perpetual pension payments to the Holy Office extracted from the diocesan revenues of Sassari, Cagliari, Oristano, and Ampurias.18

the Religion is always advanced”), to encourage all the ministers and officials to work for “la conservaçión y aumento de la Fee Católica” (“the conservation and advancement of the Catholic Faith”), and to be vigilant in seeing that upper-echelon ecclesiastics enforce respect of the norms of the Council of Trent in questions of ecclesiastical discipline: Similarly, see Philip III’s instructions for the count of Lemos some twenty years later: Ibid., fols 135r–173v: Instructión de lo que vos, el Ill.e Conde de Lemos, mi primo, aveys de hazer en la administración del cargo de Visorrey, Lugarteniente y Cap.an G.ral en el mi Reyno de Nápoles para el qual os he elegido (Valencia, 20 April 1599). 15 Wright, “Relations between Church and State,” 387. 16 Borromeo, “Filippo II e il papato,” 484, 499. 17 AHNM, Inq. lib. 874, fol. 52r–v: Philip II to the viceroy of Sicily, duke of Medina Sidonia (London, 20 May 1557); Ibid., lib. 766, fol. 230r–v: Philip II to the viceroy of Sardinia, Álvaro de Madrigal, Monzón (30 September 1563); Carlo Alberto Garufi, Contributo alla storia dell’inquisizione di Sicilia nei secoli XVI e XVII: Note ed appunti dagli archivi di Spagna (Palermo: Boccone del Povero, 1920), 366; Agostino Borromeo, “L’inquisizione,” in La società sarda in età spagnola, ed. Francesco Manconi, La civiltà del popolo sardo 4 (Cagliari: Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna 1992), 142–51, esp. pp. 2, 5. 18 Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid (henceforth abbreviated

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In Naples, where only the diocesan inquisition operated,19 the civil authorities lent their collaboration to facilitate the task of a special commissioner who resided in the city of Naples and operated in the name of the Cardinals’ Congregation of the Inquisition to provide (on request from the Roman authorities) for the arrest, imprisonment, and extradition to the Pontifical State of persons facing specific charges. The support of the temporal power was determinant in the bloody campaign to suppress the Waldensian heresy in Calabria in 1561.20 It was perhaps in the State of Milan that the Catholic Crown’s determination to combat heresy was most evident. Because of its geographical location, Spanish Lombardy was the territory most exposed to penetration by heterodox doctrines, in particular, from the neighboring territories of Protestant Switzerland. This is why Philip II, hoping to erect a more secure barrier to the spread of heresy, attempted in 1563 (in vain, as it happened) to introduce among the Milanese the tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition, thought to be more efficient than the inquisitional forces dependent on the Roman Congregation of the Holy Office. In the years that followed, when popular opposition among the sovereign’s Milanese subjects caused the initiative to fail, Philip II offered all possible support to the papal Inquisition that operated in that area. That support took the concrete form of measures aimed at preventing foreign heretics from entering the State of Milan and blocking the circulation of

as AMAEM), S. Sede, leg. 39, fol. 107r: Philip II to the ambassador in Rome, don Juan de Zúñiga (El Pardo, 15 October 1575); fols. 172r–173r: Philip II to Count Olivares (El Pardo, 26 November 1583); fol. 174r: Philip II to Olivares (Aranjuez, 13 January 1584). See Agostino Borromeo, “L’inquisizione spagnola nell’Italia di Filippo II: Strutture e organzzazione,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani, 391–413, esp. p. 411. 19 See Agostino Borromeo, “Contributo allo studio dell’inquisizione e dei suoi rapporti con il potere episcopale nell’Italia spagnola del Cinquecento,” Annuario dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, nos. 29–30 (1977–78): 219–276, esp. pp. 220–21, 228–33. 20 Luigi Amabile, Il Santo Officio della Inquisizione in Napoli, 2 vols. (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1892), 1:221ff.; Mario Scaduto, “Tra inquisitori e riformati: Le missioni dei gesuiti tra Valdesi della Calabria e delle Puglie: Con un carteggio inedito del card. Alessandrino (Pio V), 1561–1566,” Archivium Historicum Societatis Iesu 15 (1946): 1–76; Ernesto Pontieri, “A proposito della ‘Crociata’ contro i valdesi della Calabria nel 1561,” in Pontieri, Nei tempi grigi della storia d’Italia, 3rd ed. (Naples: Morano: 1966), 159–96; Giovanni Romeo, L’inquisizione nell’Italia moderna, Biblioteca Essenziale Laterza 48 (Rome: Laterza, 2002), 14–15.

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prohibited books. Occasionally it also took the form of financial aid to the institution, for example in 1568, when the king gave the court of the Inquisition of Milan the sizeable sum of 400 scudi. When requested to do so, the governors of Milan did not fail to furnish every possible collaboration, transferring to Rome persons accused of crimes of faith, as the Roman Congregation of the Holy Office was obliged to recognize in 1573.21

Control of Nominations to Ecclesiastical Office Understood, then, that the regalist policies of Philip II and Philip III developed within a more general context of agreement in relations between Spain and the Holy See, we can turn to the first aspect of those policies, control of nominations to ecclesiastical office in the Italian dominions. The need to have the highest ecclesiastical posts—bishoprics in particular—filled by persons that the sovereigns found politically trustworthy (or at least not hostile) had been felt by all rulers from the beginning of the modern era. We need only recall the concordat between Pope Leo X and Francis I in 1516, which reserved to the sovereign the right to present candidates to dioceses of the Kingdom of France.22 From the age of the Catholic Kings, royal power had worked to obtain the concession of the same privilege. In the age of Philip II the papacy recognized the Spanish kings’ privilege, in the context of

21 AGS, Secr. Prov. lib. 1156, fol. 320r, Philip II to the governor Gabriel de la Cueva, duke of Alburquerque (Madrid, 7 March 1568); Estado leg. 1223 no. 67, Fra’ Angelo, Inquisitor of Milan, to Philip II (Milan, 9 April 1568); Estado leg. 1236 no. 119, Governor don Luis de Requeséns, Comendador Mayor de Castilla, to Philip II (Milan, 26 May 1573). See Borromeo, “Archbishop Carlo Borromeo,” 102; Massimo Carlo Giannini, “Tra autonomia politica e ortodossia religiosa: Il tentativo d’introdurre l’inquisizione ‘al modo di Spagna’ nello Stato di Milano (1558–1566),” Società e Storia 24 (2001): 79–134. 22 Francesco Ruffini, Relazioni tra Stato e Chiesa: Lineamenti storici e sistematici, ed. Francesco Margiotta Broglio (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1974), 90–91; Jean Gaudemet, “Un point de rencontre entre les pouvoirs politiques et l’Église (schéma pour une enquête),” in État et Église dans la genèse de l’État moderne, Actes du Colloque organisé par le Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique et la Casa de Velázquez, Madrid 30 November–1 December 1984, ed. Jean Philippe Genet and Bernard Vincent, Bibliothèque de la Casa de Velázquez 1 (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1986), 279–93; Cesare Marongiu Buonaiuti, Chiese e Stati: Dall’età dell’Illuminismo alla Prima Guerra Mondiale, 2d ed. (Rome: NIS, 1997), 32–33.

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the juridical institution known as patronato real, for the dioceses of the West Indies between 1508 and 1511 and for mainland Spain in 1523.23 The situation was far from homogeneous regarding the regal right of presentation of bishops in the Spanish dominions in Italy. In Sicily and Sardinia, the Crown exercised such a right in all the dioceses and monasteries of the two islands beginning under Charles V in 1531.24 Two years earlier, in 1529, the emperor had obtained the right of presentation for six archdioceses and eighteen dioceses (out of a total of one hundred twenty-three) in the Kingdom of Naples.25 Only one of the nine dioceses of the State of Milan, Vigevano, the smallest of them all, was under royal patronage. In this case the Crown had taken over rights of ecclesiastical patronage acquired by the last Sforza duke, Francesco II, to whom Clement

23 For essential bibliography on royal patronage privileges, see Agostino Borromeo, “Patronato Real,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, 4 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3:227–28. See also, for the interests of the present essay, Ignasi Fernández Terricabras, “Por una geografia del Patronato Real: Téologos y juristas en las presentaciones episcopales de Felipe II,” in Iglesia y Sociedad en el Antiguo Régimen, III Reunión Cientifica, Asociación Española de Historia Moderna, ed. Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Vicente Suárez Grimón, (Gran Canaria: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1994), 302–53. 24 The concessions to Charles V were formalized by means of a privilege ad personam of Clement VII of 16 September 1531, see Raimondo Turtas, “La politica ecclesiastica di Filippo II in Sardegna,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani, 469–84, esp. p. 470. Given that the concession was attributed to Charles V in person and valid only for his reign, Philip II, after exhausting negotiations with the Holy See, managed to obtain from Sixtus V the brief Sincerae devotionis affectus, with which the right of presentation was extended to cover the reigns of Philip II and his son, the future Philip III: AGS, Patronato Real, 38–58 (I): Brief of Sixtus V Sincerae devotionis affectus, 10 September 1586. The privilege was extended again in favor of later rulers with briefs of Paul V (7 April 1600) and Gregory XV (15 April 1621), see Christian Hermann, L’Église d’Espagne sous le patronage royal (1476–1834): Essai d’ecclésiologie politique, Bibliothèque de la Casa de Velázquez 3 (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1988), 46, n. 3. 25 Giovanni Brancaccio, “Arcivescovati, vescovati, abbazie: Benefici ecclesiastici di giuspatronato regio nel Mezzogiorno spagnolo,” in Brancaccio, Il trono, la fede, l’altare: Istituzioni ecclesiastiche e vita religiosa nel Mezzogiorno moderno (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1996), 225–56; Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi sive Summorum Pontificum, S. R. E. Cardinalium, ecclesiarum antistites series, vol. 3, ed. Wilhelm Heinrich Hubert Gulik, Conrad Eubel, and Ludwig Schmitz-Kallenberg (Monasterii: sumptibus et typis Librariae Regensbergianae, 1923), 348. See also Mario Rosa , “Diocesi e vescovi del Mezzogiorno durante il viceregno spagnolo: Capitanata, Terra di Bari e Terra d’Otranto dal 1545 al 1714,” in Studi in onore di Gabriele Pepe (Bari, 1969), 531–80.

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VII had granted the right to erect and endow the diocese in 1530.26 Naturally, the kings of Spain exercised ecclesiastical patronage rights over a number of smaller benefices in Sicily, Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, and the State of Milan, some of which produced only insignificant revenues.27 Whatever the case may be, the prerogative of naming the titleholders to a conspicuous number of dioceses and other major benefices under royal patronage in Spanish Italy guaranteed the Crown an opportunity to place clerics it favored in some of the key posts in the ecclesiastical structure. Such men were chosen for their preparation and their religious and moral qualities,28 but above all for their loyalty to the Hispanic Monarchy (one word that recurs constantly in the sources is confidentes—persons in whom one can have utter confidence).29 That loyalty might also be attested by personal

26 Hierarchia Catholica, vo. 3, ed. Patrick Gauchat (Patavii 1967), 334. For the history of the origins of the diocese, see Alberto Ascani, “Dagli inizi (1530) alla sua ‘rifondazione’ (1817),” in Diocesi di Vigevano, ed. Adriano Caprioli, Antonio Rimoldi, and Luciano Vaccaro, Storia religiosa della Lombardia 12 (Brescia Editrice La Scuola, 1978), 21. 27 For the Kingdom of Naples, see AGS, Secr. Prov., lib. 92, unnumbered fols., De ecclesiis et beneficiis ad Regis praesentationem vel collationem (undated). For the State of Milan, see AHNM, Estado, leg. 1991, unnumbered fols., Relación de los officios perpetuos, biennales y annuales del Estado de Milán . . . juntamente con los beneficios eclesiásticos del padronadgo [sic] real y la cantidad de su renta (Madrid, 1635). See also Agostino Borromeo, “La Corona spagnola e le nomine agli uffici ecclesiastici nello Stato di Milano da Filippo II a Filippo IV,” in Lombardia borromaica, Lombardia spagnola 1554 –1659, ed. Paolo Pissavino and Gianvittorio Signorotto, 2 vols., Biblioteca del Cinquecento 63 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 2: 553–78, esp. p. 559. 28 In presenting the names of candidates for ecclesiastical posts, their religious and moral qualities were emphasized. Thus, in 1625, the Council of Aragon, in its presentation to Philip IV of names of possible candidates for the archbishopric of Cagliari, a position that was vacant at the time, specified that the archbishop of Oristano, Lorenzo Nieto, the former abbot of Montserrat, was both religious and expert “sumamente a proposito para reformar aquella Iglesia” (“extremely well prepared to reform that church”); the archbishop of Sassari, Diego de Pasamar, was presented as a man of exemplary conduct; the bishop of Alghero, Fra Ambrosio Machin, formerly the general of the Order of the Mercedarians, was a “predicador eminentissimo y de muchas letras” (“a highly eminent and educated preacher”); and the bishop of Ales, Gavino Manconi, was a personality of great distinction. In contrast, when it came to the bishop of Bosa, Juan Atzeri, the Council limited its remarks to saying that he was a man “muy aficionado al real sericio de V. M.d” (“very dedicated to the royal service of Your Highness”), see AHNM, Consejos, leg. 19874, no. 3: Consulta of the Council of Aragon to Philip IV (Madrid, 3 July 1625). This document completes the information to be found in Hierarchia Catholica, vol. 4, ed. Gauchat (1967), 129. 29 Borromeo, “La Corona spagnola,” 560.

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merits acquired in earlier service in civil or ecclesiastical responsibilities,30 by services rendered by other members of the family,31 or by recommendation to the sovereign by some prominent personage.32 To have been born a subject of the king of Spain—that is, to be a “native” (naturale) of the dominion in which the diocese or the benefice to be assigned was located—was presumed to be a prerequisite for anyone aspiring to such a post. According to the thinking of the time, it was taken for granted that subjects contracted, by birth, the moral obligation of loyalty to the sovereign; in contrast, the outsider was always viewed with diffidence, because analogous ties bound him to another ruler whose interests might oppose, or even just not coincide with, those of the Catholic Monarchy.33 The opportunity to use mechanisms connected with the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage rights to place trusted persons in some key posts did not resolve the more general problem of assuring the loyalty of the clergy in the Italian dominions as a whole. Most of the dioceses of the State of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples were in fact subject to pontifical appointments, among them, those of the two principal cities of Spanish Italy and the capitals of their respective territories, Milan and Naples, both sees of a Cardinal archbishop. But if the Crown did not enjoy the right to present episcopal 30 In 1607, for example, the governor of Milan, the count of Fuentes, warmly supported the candidacy of Giulio Della Torre, a canon, for the post of provost of Santa Maria della Scala (a benefice that fell under the royal patronage) for the sole reason that he was the “persona mas confidente que Su Mag.d tiene en el Estado di Milán” (“most trustworthy person that Your Majesty has in the State of Milan”): AGS, Estado leg. 1296 no. 167: Memorandum of the governor don Pedro de Acevedo, count of Fuentes (n.d., but 1607). Among his other qualities, Della Torre had been one of the negotiators of the specifications of the agreement between Spain and the Catholic Swiss Cantons signed in 1604: Borromeo, “La Chiesa milanese,” 106n24. 31 Thus in soliciting Madrid to be named Abate Commendatario (Abbot) of the Abbey of La Santissima Trinità of Sacargia, the deacon of the cathedral of Cagliari, don Vicente Bacallar, argued the merits of his deceased uncle, Andrés Bacallar, the former archbishop of Sassari, and those of his father, who had been a council member in the two most recent Parliaments: AHNM, Consejos leg. 19887 no. 1: Memorandum of don Vicente Baccallar (undated, but in the early decades of the seventeenth century). 32 AGS, Segr. Prov. lib. 776, fols. 12v–134: Consulta of the Council of Italy of 30 July 1618. This document tells us that the candidacy of Erasmo Paravicino as archbishop of Monreale, in Sicily, was warmly supported by the king of Bohemia (the future Emperor Ferdinand II). On Paravicino, see Le istruzioni generali di Paolo V ai diplomatici pontifici, 1605–1621, 3 vols., ed. Silvano Giordano (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2003), 1:213. 33 Borromeo, “La Corona spagnola,” 561.

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candidates, it did claim the right to concede or deny its assent to the Holy See’s nominations, using the juridical instruments of the placet (for dioceses and benefices under pontifical collation in the State of Milan) and of exequatur (for dioceses and benefices of the Kingdom of Naples). The juridical nature of those two institutions was radically different, however. The right of placet, which subjected the acts of ecclesiastical authorities to civil approval, was founded on the formal agreement drawn up in 1529 between Clement and Duke Francesco II Sforza, which remained in effect under the Spanish sovereigns. It stipulated that no holder of a bishop’s see or other benefice conceded by the Holy See could take possession of it without having obtained royal assent through the release of the appropriate document—precisely, the placet. When a see or a benefice remained vacant, the collection and administration of its income and goods were entrusted to an ecclesiastic, given the title of “Economo Generale dello Stato,” whose nomination by the sovereign had to be confirmed by the pope. It is obvious that an eventual negation of the placet did not annul the papal nomination, but it made it difficult, if not impossible, for the person so named to take possession of his ecclesiastical office, given that withholding the placet prohibited the person to reside within the State or exercise control over the temporal holdings connected with the office.34 The exequatur was of a quite different juridical nature. That institution, the origins of which seem to go back to the Aragonese period, did not arise, as did the placet, from a formal agreement between the royal power and the Holy See. Rather, it was based on a unilateral claim on the part of the Crown to which (especially beginning in the second half of the sixteenth century) Rome presented decisive objections, judging the institution to be without juridical foundation. There could not have been a clearer difference of opinion between the two parties. Whereas the secular power claimed that without previous royal assent, formalized by means of the exequatur and an explicit permission to that effect by the Collateral Council, no pontifical disposition—hence not only nominations to bishoprics 34

Andrea Galante, Il diritto di placitazione e l’economato dei benefici vacanti in Lombardia: Studio storico-giuridico sulle relazione tra lo Stato e la Chiesa (Milan, 1973), 71ff., 178ff. Luigi Prosdocimi, Il diritto ecclesiastico dello Stato di Milano dall’inizio della Signoria Viscontea al periodo tridentino (sec. XIII–XVI) (Milan: Edizioni de “L’Arte,” 1941), photographic reprint (Milan: Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1973), 71ff., 178ff.

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and other benefices—could take effect in the Kingdom of Naples, the papacy denied the very existence of any such prerogative of the Crown and regarded the exequatur as a simple abuse.35 In spite of the fact that the Spanish authorities themselves acknowledged the absence of a formal concession of that right by the Holy See, basing their claim on custom established from time immemorial, thus implied a form of tacit papal consent.36 In a certain sense this claim was even well founded, given that in 1568 Pius V had declared that it was not his intention to eliminate the institution but only to limit the extensive use that the lay power was making of it.37 While claiming the legitimacy of the institution, the Spanish administration was nonetheless aware that the refusal the exequatur, even though it was an extremely serious political gesture, in practical reality could not prevent a bishop named by the Holy See to take possession of his diocese, as was instead the case in Milan.38 This explains the sometimes complex diplomatic negotiations entered into by the court of

35 On the institution of the exequatur, see Francesco Scaduto, Stato e Chiesa nelle Due Sicilie, 2 vols. (Palermo: Edizioni della Regione Siciliana, 1969), 1:45; Ruffini, Relazioni tra Stato e Chiesa, 222; Agostino Lauro, Il giurisdizionalismo pregiannoniano nel Regno di Napoli: Problema e bibliografia (1563–1723), Sussidi Eruditi 27 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1974), 80–81; Wright, “Relations between Church and State,” 389. 36 A papal memorandum of 1569 stated that the royal ministers did not claim “to have any privilege or concession of the Apostolic See over [the exequatur], but only claim an immemorial custom that should more accurately be called a corruption”: “Memorial sobre abusos contra la jurisdicción eclesiástica,” a document attached to a letter dated Rome, 25 April 1569, written by the Cardinal Nephew Michele Bonelli to the nuncio in Spain, Giovanni Battista Castagna and published in Correspondencia diplomática entre España y la Santa Sede durante el pontificado de S. Pio V, ed. Luciano Serrano, O.S.B., 4 vols. (Madrid, 1914), 3:64–67. 37 In August, 1568 Bonelli explained that what the pope could not countenance was “the way in which the royal ministers ordinarily make use of it, because on many occasions not only do they prevent the execution of apostolic orders and bulls, which concern the public good, but they offer no reason for so doing,” Bonelli to Castagna (Rome, 17 August 1568), in Correspondencia diplomática, 3:444–46. 38 In the consulta of the Council of State of 8 June 1605 one of the council members, the count of Chinchón,. stated, “. . . que en el Reyno de Nápoles, en cosas semejantes, se puede conseguir la posessión sin el exequatur . . .” (“that in similar matters, in the Kingdom of Naples one can take possession without the exequatur”): AGS, Estado, leg. 1858 no. 25. The count did not explain the basis for his statement, but he may have been alluding to the Milanese practice of keeping ecclesiastical temporal revenues and possessions under the control of the Economo Generale of the State, which contrasted with the Neapolitan practice of entrusting the administration of the archiepiscopal revenues to the cathedral chapter, as the Council of Trent had dictated.

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Madrid, preceding and accompanying the new provision to a diocese and, in particular, as we shall see immediately, when they concerned the archiepiscopal see of Naples. With these preliminary notions in place, we can turn to an examination of questions regarding provisions for benefices in the State of Milan and in the Kingdom of Naples. In Lombardy, the possibility of denying the placet to a candidate was, as can easily be imagined, an efficient deterrent to unwelcome pontifical nominations, especially those concerning episcopal sees. This was a double-edged sword, however. On the one hand, as can be seen in a consulta of the Council of Italy of 1632, it enabled the sovereigns to reject “individuals they suspected or feared might reveal secrets to the enemy or conspire against their persons and disturb the tranquility of their rule,” a statement that attributes an exclusively political thrust to the right to render a placet.39 On the other hand, a rejection that had not been carefully pondered risked generating tensions with the Holy See, having a bishop likely to be promoted cardinal, or turning one who was already a cardinal against the Crown, which might have unpredictable consequences at a future conclave. For these reasons the Crown withheld the concession of a placet only in extreme cases, such as that of Archbishop Filippo Archinto. When Paul IV named him to the seat of Milan in 1556, Philip II denied him the royal placet on the basis of information sent to him by the authorities in Milan, who attributed pro-French inclinations to Archinto.40 Where possible, the Spanish authorities avoided taking a position publicly, however. Thus, in 1573, Philip II found informal ways to 39 AHNM, Estado leg. 1937, unnumbered fols., Consulta of the Council of Italy to Philip IV (9 January 1632): “personas que les fuesen sospechosas, de quien pudiesen temer que havian de revelar los secretos a sus enemigos o machinar contra sus personas y turbar la tranquilidad de su gobierno.” The document, which summarizes principles and practices traditionally followed in the exercise of the right of the placet, was drawn up at a time in which some forces in Madrid were attempting to prevent the rumored nomination of Cardinal Gerolamo Colonna as archbishop of Milan. 40 On this affair, see Massimo Carlo Giannini, “Una Chiesa senza arcivescovo: Identità e tensioni politiche nel governo ecclesiastico a Milano (1546–1560),” in Carlos V y la quiebra del umanismo politico en Europa (1530–1560), Congreso Internacional, ed. José Martínez Millán, Jesús Bravo Lozano, and Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, 4 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001), 227–79, esp. 248–57.

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advise Bishop Ferdinando Ferrero—who had petitioned Pope Gregory XIII for a transfer from the diocese of Ivrea, in the Duchy of Savoy, to Novara—that, should he be successful in his attempt, he would not receive the royal placet. The only reason for the refusal, determinate but obviously not explicitly stated, was that Ferrero was the son and brother of gentlemen who were or had been in the service of the French.41 Refusing the placet to Ferrero undoubtedly was also affected by the fact that the diocese of Novara bordered on the Duchy of Savoy, the Swiss, and the Grisons, which gave the city a vital strategic importance to the State of Milan. The need to have the diocese in the hands of a person of absolute loyalty explains why, under similar conditions, the candidacy of Cardinal Pietro Campori was rejected in 1619. Campori had sounded out the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See to see whether Philip III was disposed to grant him the placet should he succeed in obtaining the papal nomination to Novara. Spain looked with a jaundiced eye on his appointment for two reasons. First: since Campori was Modenese by adoption, he was not a naturale—that is, a native of the State of Milan, hence a “vassal” of the king of Spain—but rather the subject of another ruler, the duke of Modena.42 The second reason derived from a prejudice against cardinals as candidates for diocesan posts in the State of Milan, where the Spanish authorities presupposed that the greater prestige of a cardinal and his greater authority might make him more combative than a simple bishop in his support of arguments for ecclesiastical jurisdiction against royal jurisdiction.43 Philip III was not forced to the explicit denial of a placet—an extreme measure that the Spanish sought to avoid wherever possible—because in the

41 AGS, Secr. Prov., 1157, fol. 306v, Philip II to the governor Antonio de Guzmán, Marquis of Ayamonte (Aranjuez, 4 February 1574). See also Ibid., fol. 284v, Philip II to Ayamonte (Madrid, 30 October 1573), and two letters from the sovereign to the ambassador to the Holy See, don Juan de Zùñiga, Ibid. fol. 304v (El Pardo, 22 January 1574) and Ibid., fol. 307r (Aranjuez, 4 February 1574. On the entire affair, see Borromeo, “La corona spagnola,” 566–67. 42 For a biographical sketch of the cardinal, see Rotraut Becker, “Campori (Campora), Pietro” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 18 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1974), 602–4. 43 The thesis that, in as far as possible, it was opportune to avoid the naming of cardinals to head dioceses in the Italian dominion is formulated in a 1607 consulta of the Council of State, AHNM, Estado, leg. 1937, unnumbered fols. (11 November 1607).

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meantime the nomination of a more welcome candidate, the archbishop of Chieti, Volpiano Volpi, had been negotiated. The Campori case seemed definitively closed, but two years later, in February 1621, the cardinal returned to the charge, this time to see whether he might eventually be given the placet for the diocese of Cremona. Once again, this was a diocese on the borders of the state, which was reason enough for the Spanish to raise the same issues opposing his candidacy as before: that he was a cardinal and was not “native-born.” This time, however, things went differently. In the conclave that followed the death of Pope Paul V on 28 January 1621, Campori had received active support (without success, however) as a candidate for the papal tiara. Philip IV, who succeeded Philip III on 31 March 1621, found himself in an impossible situation; he could not deny the placet for the diocese of Cremona to a cardinal that his own father had attempted to have elected pope only a few weeks earlier. Thus it was that Cardinal Campori, despite all the arguments opposing his candidacy, obtained the placet that he yearned for when Gregory XV named him bishop of Cremona on 17 May 1621.44 As these cases show, the court of Madrid generally sought to avoid frontal clashes for a number of reasons, one of which lay in the negative effects on its image as a Catholic power. In instances in which the Catholic Monarchy found the candidate not fully to its liking but stopped short of considering him hostile, the authorities in Madrid did their best not to make known the reasons for its reservations. Elementary rules of political prudence suggested assuring that the interested parties—and, ultimately, the Holy See—remained in the dark about the circumstances of any specific episcopal designation and the reasons for which the sovereign might not have been fully pleased with the candidate in the interests of not prejudicing future relations with the newly installed bishop or archbishop and, ultimately, with the pope who had named him. The election of Cardinal Federico Borromeo as archbishop of Milan is a case in point. On 12 January 1595 Archbishop Gaspare Visconti died after a decade in office, during which time jurisdic-

44 For a detailed account of these events, see Borromeo, “La Corona spagnola,” 567–70.

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tional conflict with the lay powers had been almost nonexistent.45 At his death disagreement arose between the chapter of the Duomo of Milan and the civil authorities regarding the administration of the revenues of the archdiocese; the question was resolved in favor of the chapter thanks to the direct intervention of the Holy See.46 In this climate of tension, Clement VIII named Cardinal Federico Borromeo, just thirty years old at the time, as archbishop. The move apparently caught Spanish diplomacy by surprise. The duke of Sessa, the ambassador, had no choice but to manifest his gratitude to the pope; Borromeo was a person of outstanding religious and moral qualities, and on several occasions he had acted as a loyal vassal of the Crown.47 In reality, however, the Spanish had reason to be concerned. Sessa expressed his reservations in a confidential letter to one of Philip II’s secretaries. To his mind, Clement VIII had chosen a cardinal because recent conflicts had persuaded him that an archbishop who was also a cardinal would defend the rights of the Church with greater authority. The ambassador reiterated his opinion regarding Borromeo’s indisputable intellectual and moral qualities, but added that there was a risk, given his relative youth and his inexperience, that excessive zeal might induce him to follow the path of his predecessor and cousin, Carlo Borromeo, who had given the Spanish authorities a good deal of trouble about jurisdictional matters. Sessa took care not to express his reservations publicly, not only because Clement VIII would have denied their validity, but also because the pope would have been all the more persuaded that Borromeo was just the man to defend the rights of the Church against the claims of the secular power.48 The ambassador ended his 45 See Agostino Borromeo, “Gaspare Visconti, arcivescovo di Milano, e la Curia romana (1584–1595), Studia Borromaica 1 (1987): 9–44, esp. pp. 15ff. 46 See Agostino Borromeo, “Le controversie giurisdizionali tra potere laico e potere ecclesiastico nella Milano spagnola sul finire del Cinquecento,” Atti dell’Accademia di San Carlo; Inaugurazione del IV Anno Accademico (Milan, 1981), 43–89, esp. pp. 56–59. 47 AGS, Estado, leg. 965 unnumbered fols., Ambassador Antonio Folch y Cardona, duke of Sessa to Philip II (Rome, 26 April 1595). For bibliography on Cardinal Federico Borromeo, see Agostino Borromeo, “Alle origini dell’Ambrosiana: Il mondo culturale del giovane cardinale Federico Borromeo,” in Storia dell’Ambrosiana, 4 vols, vol. 1, Il Seicento (Milan: Cariplo, 1992), 21–24, esp. p. 24. On Borromeo’s nomination as archbishop of Milan, see also Anthony D. Wright, Federico Borromeo and Baronius: A Turning-Point in the Development of the Counter-Reformation Church, Centre for the Advanced Study of Italian Society, Occasional Papers, 6 (Reading: University of Reading, Department of Italian Studies, 1974), 19; Maria Teresa Fattori, Clemente VIII e il Sacro Collegio, 1592–1605. Meccanismic istituzionali ed accentramento di governo, Päpaste una Papsttum, 33 (Stuttgart: Anton Hierseman, 2004), 230–234. 48 AGS, Estado, leg. 965, unnumbered fols., Sessa to the Secretary of State

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letter with a recommendation that the placet be extended, so as to avoid giving the pope and the cardinal any hint that the nomination was not fully welcome to the court in Madrid. His suggestion was adopted and Philip II accorded the placet with ample expressions of enthusiasm.49 The whole situation confirms what has already been stated. Although the right of the placet was an efficacious instrument for blocking undesirable nominations, it had to be wielded with subtle skill, because refusal of the placet—no matter how justifiable the move may have been from the Spanish point of view—risked producing negative repercussions in relations with the ecclesiastical authorities, and even with the pope. It is interesting to note, moreover, that if political concerns (whether the candidate was pro-French or not) had previously weighed more heavily in an evaluation of a candidate, toward the end of the reign of Phillip II and in that of Phillip III the Spanish authorities were mainly concerned with avoiding jurisdictional disputes in the appointment of bishops. Spanish diplomacy shows similar preoccupations regarding the nomination of bishops in the Kingdom of Naples, archbishops of Naples in particular. As we have seen, here the Spanish Crown did not have an instrument as efficacious as the placet, which was all the more reason for the agents of Spanish diplomacy in Rome to follow the question with close attention. Between late 1595 and the beginning of 1596, for example, the Spanish ambassador in Rome succeeded in turning aside the designation of Ottavio Acquaviva (suspected of pro-French leanings) and persuading Clement VIII to name Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo as archbishop of Naples.50 Gesualdo , a member of an aristocratic fam-

Francisco de Idiáquez (Rome, 26 April 1595). See also Wright, Federico Borromeo, 18–19; Borromeo “Le controversie giuisdizionali,” 60–61. 49 The placet was conceded on 2 June 1595, AGS, Secr. Prov., lib. 1160, fol. 109v, Philip II to the Governor ad interim don Pedro de Padilla (Madrid, 2 June 1595); see also Padilla’s letter to Philip II (Milan, 30 April 1595), Ibid., leg. 1278 no. 65. After the decision had been finalized the king received a letter from the governor of Milan, Juan Fernàndez de Velasco, Constable of Castile (at the time engaged in military operations in Burgundy), who expressed his decidedly negative opinion of conceding royal approval for the very same reasons that Sessa, with diplomatic prudence, had attempted to conceal from Clement VIII, Ibid., no. 87, Velasco to Philip II (Campo di Bisu [Bessou?], 30 May 1595). 50 AGS, Estado, leg. 965, unnumbered fols., Sessa to Philip II (Rome, 16 November 1595); Ibid., leg. 967, unnumbered fols., Sessa to Philip II (Rome, 18 February

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ily, had spent long years in the Roman Curia, where he had rendered conspicuous services to the Spanish Crown and its representatives.51 Gesualdo was viewed with such high esteem and confidence in Madrid that Philip II had included his name on the list of cardinals he would be happy to see as candidates to the papacy in the four conclaves that were held between 1590 and 1592.52 The diplomatic maneuver could not have had a more satisfactory result, even though, in the course of his long tenure as cardinal archbishop of Naples, Gesualdo became enmired in a vexing jurisdictional struggle with Viceroy Olivares.53 The problem of Acquaviva’s candidacy to the see of Naples arose again a decade later, however. Clement VIII died on 3 March 1605, when the diocese of Naples had been vacant for over two years.54 One of the first acts of his successor, Cardinal Alessandro de’ Medici, who was elected to the papacy on the night of 1 April, taking the name of Leo XI, was to name Acquaviva archbishop of Naples.55 The Spanish administration

1596). Philip II’s instructions are given on the back of the letter: “Aprobar el proceder del duque y la persona del elegido y que se le de el exequatur luego.” (“The duke’s action and the person chosen approved: Proceed.”) See also, Ibid., leg. 967, unnumbered fols., the letter of Sessa to Philip II (Rome 14 May 1596). 51 In 1588 Olivares, the ambassador, stated, “Gesualdo es hombre de mucha bontad y buen vassallo de V. M.d” (“Gesualdo is a good man and a good vassal of Your Majesty”), AGS, Estado, leg. 950 nos. 17–18, Olivares to Philip II (Rome 5 February 1588). In 1590 the sovereign himself thanked the cardinal for his “afición a mi servicio y los buenos officios que siempre vais haziendo para el bien de las cosas públicas” (“enthusiasm in serving me and for the good work that you always do in public matters”): Ibid., leg. 955, unnumbered fols., Philip II to Gesualdo (Madrid 28 January 1590). For the cardinal’s response, in which he reiterates his devotion and loyalty, see Ibid., unnumbered fols. For his part, Gesualdo himself declared in a memorandum not sent to Philip II that he had been “taken as too partial by some cardinals and princes of Italy and even by the popes” for his attachment to the Spanish Crown: MAEM, S. Sede, leg. 44, fols. 211r–214v. See also Borromeo, “Istruzioni generali,” 143, 203. 52 Agostino Borromeo, “España y el problema de la elección papal de 1592,” Cuadernos de Investigación Histórica 2 (1978): 174–200, esp. p. 193. For biographical information on Gesualdo, see Simona Feci, “Gesualdo, Alfonso ” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 43 (1999), 488–92; Fattori, Clemente VIII e il sacro collegio, 237. 53 This was the same Olivares who had praised Gesualdo a decade earlier, when he served as ambassador in Rome. 54 Gesualdo died on 14 February 1603: Hierarchia Catholica, 3: 39, 175; 4: 254. 55 Cardinal Acquaviva notified the viceroy of Naples of his appointment by the newly elected pope as early as 5 April: AGS, Estado, leg. 1102, no. 84 [I], the Count of Benavente to the ambassador to the Holy See, the duke of Escalona (Naples, 13 April 1605). The unsigned entry, “Acquaviva d’Aragona, Ottavio” in Dizionario biografico degli italiana, vol. 1 (Rome, 1960), 198, states that Leo XI named

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was known for its long memory, and the ambassador to the Holy See was well aware that Acquaviva was not well looked on by the court at Madrid, but since the appointment had been announced publicly, he thought it better not to express opposition so as to avoid “sospecha y desconfiança” (“suspicion and mistrust”) in the new archbishop.56 The viceroy of Naples did not agree. In his opinion, the ambassador should express his opposition to the appointment, first, because experience had demonstrated that when archbishops were invested with the dignity of the cardinalcy, they were more pugnacious in their defense of the jurisdictional sphere of the Church; and second, because Acquaviva, who had been rejected for the same office on the earlier occasion, could not now be approved without an express order to that effect on the part of Philip III.57 The sudden death of Leo XI on 27 April seemed to reopen the entire question. Acquaviva had no intention of giving up, however, and obtained Paul V’s confirmation of his predecessor’s decision. This time the ambassador was armed with explicit instructions, and he made a formal request that Decio Carafa, a person well known to the Spanish court because he had served as Collector in Portugal, be named instead of Acquaviva.58 Paul V showed no sign of ceding, however. After laborious negotiations between the pope and the ambassador, a singular (in fact, unheard-of ) agreement was reached; the pope guaranteed that the cardinal would act as a “good and quiet vassal and an exemplary prelate,” and, should this not prove the case, he would remove him from office. The ambassador noted that this pontifical guarantee regarded only the cardinal’s political loyalty concerning “matters of reason of state”; for the rest, however, the pope himself reminded the cardinal of his duty to defend ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In other words, the pope had drawn a clear distinction between the two aspects of pastoral care that, from the

Acquaviva archbishop of Naples on 1 April, immediately following his own election, while the College of Cardinals was still gathered in conclave. 56 AGS, Estado, leg. 1102 no. 84 (II), Escalona to the Count of Benavente (Rome, 15 April 1605). 57 Ibid., (I), Benavente to Escalona (Naples, 13 April 1605). 58 On Carafa, see the detailed information in Georg Lutz, “Carafa (Caraffa), Decio” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani vol. 19 (Rome, 1976), 521–24; Klaus Jaitner, “Enleitung,” in Die Hauptinstruktionen Clemens’ VII. für die Nuntien und Legaten an den europäischen Fürstenhöfen, 1592–1605, 2 vols., ed. Klaus Jaitner (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984), 1:clxxxv–clxxxvi; Le istruzioni generali, ed. Giordano, 1:165–167.

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Spanish point of view, were one and the same: the obligation to profess personal loyalty to the legitimate sovereign and the obligation to fulfill one’s duties to the Church.59 The seed of discord had been planted, and Acquaviva was soon embroiled in a conflict with the royal administration. Paul V, under the watchful eye of Philip III’s diplomacy, honored the agreement to some extent. Rather than removing Acquaviva from office, however, he more diplomatically called him to Rome, where he remained for more than three years, waiting for the situation to calm down.60 When Acquaviva died on 5 December 1612, Paul V, apparently remembering what the court in Madrid had said, named as his successor Decio Carafa, who in the meantime had become a cardinal. If the pope’s intention—as everything seems to indicate—was to make an appointment that the court in Madrid would welcome with enthusiasm, he was gravely mistaken. After being Collector in Portugal, Carafa had served as the papal nuncio in Brussels and in Madrid, where he had shown himself to be a firm supporter of the rights of the Church, which, in Spanish logic, was a sufficient reason for judging him inappropriate for the archdiocese of Naples. It would have been unthinkable, however, to oppose a candidacy that had previously received warm support, given that such a move would offend both the pope and a cardinal “vassal” whose services might be necessary in a future conclave. The Madrid court had to grin and bear it. Philip III approved Carafa’s nomination in March 1613, but at the same time he forwarded peremptory instructions to Rome: in the future, any time the archdiocese of Naples or any other major diocese in the Kingdom of Naples should become vacant, the representative of the Spanish Crown must work to know the pope’s intentions ahead of time, thus permitting the sovereign to express his opinion regarding any candidate before his nomination became public knowledge.61

59 The terms of the pope’s promises are reported in a consulta of the Council of State approving Escalona’s efforts: AGS, Estado, leg. 1102 no. 288, Consulta of the Council of State, (Valladolid, October 1605): “bueno y quieto vassallo y exemplar prelado”; “cosas de razón de Estado.” 60 See below, n. 87. 61 AGS, Estado, leg. 999, unnumbered fols.: two letters of Philip III to the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, don Francisco de Castro (25 March 1613). Despite the precautions that the Spanish authorities always took in cases such as this, word of their reservations regarding Carafa had reached his ears; see the letter from

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These instructions are significant in two ways. On the one hand, they show that since the Crown did not possess juridical instruments adequate to the task of preventing nominations it did like, its only recourse was to seek to use diplomatic channels to reach a previous agreement with the reigning pontiff. On the other hand, they confirm the notion that by now the Spanish were predominantly concerned with preventing the designation of bishops capable of provoking jurisdictional disputes.

Containment of Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions As we have seen, one of the main objectives of regalist Spanish policy was to prevent the spread of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in contrast to the rights (or the presumed rights) of the Crown. In and of itself, this attitude in support of the status quo should not have generated any particular tension. However, if there was anything consistent in the relations between the royal power and the ecclesiastical power it was precisely the recurrent jurisdictional controversies between the two types of authority and an uncertainty concerning what was in fact the status quo. In theory the ecclesiastical jurisdictional sphere was clearly marked off from that of the secular power. Beginning in the twelfth century, the Church had managed to impose recognition of two principles that had for centuries formed the basis of its claims: the superiority of the spiritual authority over the temporal and the independence of the Church from the lay power (an independence summarized in the classical expression, libertas Ecclesiae). These two principles implied, on the practical level, the Church’s right to operate in full autonomy to reach its own ends (the sanctification and salvation of souls); an exclusive right to use the episcopal courts to judge ecclesiastics (but also to adjudicate cases between ecclesiastics and lay persons when ecclesiastics were the accused) in light of the juridical principle of actor sequitur forum rei; exclusive competence in cases directly or indirectly regarding spiritual or moral questions, independent of

Carafa to Philip III in which he declares himself willing to give up the nomination if it proved unwelcome to the king: Ibid., unnumbered fols., Carafa to Philip III (Rome, 23 April 1613).

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whether the infraction was ecclesiastical or lay; and the immunity of ecclesiastical holdings from all forms of tribute or taxation imposed by the civil authorities. The separation between the two jurisdictions was not as clear in practice as it was in theory, however. Beginning in the Middle Ages, princes considered the Church in their domains as a national institution. Without denying the superiority of the Church as a universal institution, they held that the exercise of temporal sovereignty legitimates a claim to certain rights and powers (iura circa sacra) over the collectivity that we might call, in modern terms, the local Church and over the jurisdiction exercised by that local Church.62 The Spanish regalist policies took inspiration from this fundamental principle, both in Spain itself and in Spain’s Italian dominions. We have seen how, with time, the Crown succeeded in getting the Holy See to recognize such special prerogatives as the right of patronato real in Sicily and Sardinia or the right of the placet in the State of Milan. There were instead instances of discord between the two powers in connection with other institutions: the exequatur in the Kingdom of Naples is one example; the complex of rights known as the Legazia Apostolica (or the Monarchia Sicula) is another. The latter rights originated in a 1098 bull of Urban II, who conceded to Roger II of Sicily and to the Norman kings who succeeded him the right to exercise the powers of papal legate on the island. The regalist authors who rediscovered this document in the early sixteenth century derived from it a complex of powers over ecclesiastical matters that devolved to the kings of Spain, successors to the Norman kings, but were contested on several occasions in the post-Tridentine period. In the regalist interpretation of the bull, the authenticity of which Rome repeatedly denied, the Holy See was enjoined not to send papal legates to Sicily, thus effectively and in perpetuity transferring the legate’s functions to the sovereign and reserving to the Crown questions normally reserved to the supreme pontiff. In particular, the kings of Spain claimed jurisdiction over all cases, including those touching on spiritual matters such as matrimonial suits, both in the first instance (exercised by the special tribunal of the monarchy) and in the last instance (with no possibility of appeal to Rome).63 62 Ruffini, ed., Relazioni tra Stato e Chiesa, 87ff.; Marongiu Buonaiuti, Chiese e Stati, 32–35. 63 For the older bibliography regarding the Legazia Apostolica, see Agostino

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There were thus reasons for dissension between the Crown and the Holy See, and they led to further controversies at a later date. During the first half of the sixteenth century and in the early years of the reign of Philip II, that dissension was aggravated by the absenteeism of many bishops who showed little inclination to fulfill their obligation to reside in their sees and by a negligence on the part of the popes that enabled the civil authorities in Spain’s Italian dominions to meddle in religious matters. The secular power had thus encountered little resistance in arrogating to itself competence in the sphere of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, establishing provisions for the discipline of the clergy, or intervening in the proceedings of the courts of the Inquisition.64 After the Council of Trent had reinforced doctrinal and disciplinary unity, the Church even more energetically reasserted the traditional rights of religious authority. Tridentine debate had in fact emphasized the importance of the bishops’ exercise of jurisdiction in carrying out their pastoral responsibilities and of the need for explicit justification of that jurisdiction in contentious judiciary situations.65 Before the Council came to a close on 4 December 1563, the conciliar fathers had exhorted princes to respect the norms that guar-

Borromeo, “Il cardinale Cesare Baronio e la Corona spagnola,” in Baronio storico e la Controriforma, ed. Romeo de Maio, Luigi Gulia, and Aldo Mazzacane, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Sora, 6–10 October 1979 (Sora: Centro di Studi “Vincenzo Patriarca,” 1982), 55–173, esp. pp. 111–12. Aside from the titles cited there, see Anthony D. Wright, “‘Medievalism’ in Counter-Reformation Sicily,” in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to John Taylor, ed. Ian Wood and G. A. Loud (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), 236–49; La Legazia Apostolica: Chiesa, potere e società in Sicilia in età medievale e moderna, ed. Salvatore Vacca, Storia e cultura di Sicilia, 1 (Caltanisetta and Rome: Sciascia, 2000). 64 In 1572 Gregory XIII reminded the papal nuncio in Naples that the rights claimed by the lay authorities were founded only on the “usurpation of the royal ministers, caused by the bad conditions of the times, because when the bishops did not reside in their dioceses, His Majesty’s officials could do what they wanted to, because the vicars [the bishops] were unable to stand up to them: Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio to the nuncio, Alessandro Simonetta (Rome, 13 August 1572), in Nunziature di Napoli, vol. 1, 26 luglio 1570–24 maggio 1577, ed. Pasquale Villani, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, no. 56 (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1962). 114–16. For interference in ecclesiastical affairs in the State of Milan, see Chabod, “Per la storia religiosa,” 274ff.; Borromeo, “Contributo allo studio dell’inquisizione,” 234–35, 239–41. 65 See Giuseppe Alberigo, “Le potestà episcopali nei dibattiti tridentini,” in Il Concilio di Trento e la riforma tridentina, Atti del Convegno storico internazionale, Trent, 2–6 September 1963, 2 vols. (Rome: Herder, 1965), 2:471–523, esp. pp. 499–500.

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anteed the liberty of the Church and to punish any who might attack its “liberty, immunity, and jurisdiction.”66 In light of these events, it is clear that a wide gap existed between the contending parties when Philip II came to the throne. The Holy See was intent on recuperating lost ground; Spain was working to defend the rights it had acquired, even though that acquisition had occurred through a de facto situation, protracted through time, that had never received formal papal recognition. In short, while Rome was trying to revive a status quo ante—either directly or locally, through its support to the bishops—Madrid was striving to maintain the status quo. A memorandum presented to Philip II in Brussels between late 1557 and early 1558 by Carlo Carafa, nephew and cardinal legate of the severe Paul IV, outlines the papacy’s new attitude. The document is a long list of grievances regarding lay interference in ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Spain’s Italian domains. In particular, it complains that the civil power was involving itself unduly in the operations of the Inquisition; that in the Kingdom of Naples it was not permitting the execution of certain pontifical provisions without previous grant of the exequatur; that lay magistrates were claiming the power to judge ecclesiastical cases that fell wholly into the sphere of the diocesan courts; that those same magistrates were imprisoning clerics; that in Milan the Economo Generale was abusing his power; that clergy were being forced to pay unlawful taxes and customs duties; and that in Sicily lay magistrates, basing their actions on the presumed privileges of the Monarchia Sicula, were even bringing bishops before the courts and treating ecclesiastics as if they were simple laity.67 Similarly, the notes for a response to this document indicates the position that Spain was to adopt: the king claimed the right to all 66 Concilium Tridentinum, sessio XXV: Decretum de reformatione generali, caput XX, in Conciliorum Oecumenicorum decreta, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo et al., 3rd ed. (Bologna: Istituto per le Scienze Religiose, 1973), 795–96. 67 AGS, Patronato Real, 18–13, fol. 30r: “Ricordo delle provisioni che si ricercano per la Sancta Inquisitione nel Regno di Napoli e Stato di Milano”; Ibid., fol. 30r–v, “Aggravi che si fanno nel Regno di Napoli contra la libertà et giurisdittione ecclesiastica”; Ibid., fol. 30v., “Per il Regno di Sicilia,” fols. 30f–31v; Ibid., “Aggravii che si fanno nello Stato di Milano contra la libertà ecclesiastica.” The reverse of the latter document bears the inscription, “Los agravios que pretenden los de Su Sd recibir en los estados de Su M.d ” (undated, but between December 1557 and March 1558).

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provisions that lent support to Spain’s attempt to “expunge its errors and maintain religious purity in its states.” The document mentions some of the abuses that had been denounced, declares itself unaware of others, but states that should they prove accurate, they would be corrected. The response given to the question of the Monarchia Sicula is even more to the point: “His Majesty’s predecessors have rightfully invoked the Monarchia [Sicula], so there is nothing new in his Majesty’s doing the same.”68 In other words, it was the Holy See that was making new claims, because the Crown had always operated within the limits of its acquired rights and had introduced no innovations. The position that Philip II and Philip III consistently maintained regarding the recurrent jurisdictional controversies was to describe the attitude of the secular power as a purely defensive reaction against novedades (“innovations”) introduced by the ecclesiastics.69 Moreover, in many cases the lack of a clear distinction between the two jurisdictions reinforced the Madrid authorities’ conviction that they were in the right, also because the reports they received from officials in outlying administrative offices (who were always ready to support regalist privileges and their own power and prestige) were unanimous in pointing to unfounded ecclesiastical demands as the primary cause of the conflicts.70 There was nothing new about the ecclesiastics’ claims; what was new was the overall climate of opinion and the reformist spirit that inspired post-Tridentine popes, beginning with Pius V, and the leading figures in an episcopacy whose ranks were gradually being renewed with men eager to defend the jurisdictional and coercive powers of

68

For these notes for a response to the complaints of Cardinal Legate Carafa, see Ibid., fols. 32r–v: “expurgar los errores y sostener la puridad de la religión en sus estados”; “De la Monarchia han usado los pasados de Su M.d devidamente y assí lo haze Su M.d sin hazer en esto novedad.” 69 In 1573 Philip II declared that from the Spanish point of view, “no se ha hecho . . . ninguna novedad, sono continuando la possessión antigua en que hasta aqui havemos estado” (“there has been no innovation; we merely continue to maintain the position that we have always held”): AGS, Sec. Prov., lib. 1156, fols. 276v–277r: Philip II to the ambassador to the Holy See, don Juan de Zúñiga (El Pardo, 1 October 1571); Philip III reiterated much the same sentiments in the early years of his reign: Ibid., lib 430, fols. 31v–33r: Philip III to the viceroy of Naples, Pedro Fernándo de Castro, count of Lemos, (Madrid, 1 December 1600). 70 “Los eclesiásticos quieren por fuerça o por derecho lo que no les toca” (“the ecclesiastics want to take by force or by law what does not belong to them”): The governor of Milan, Juan Fernández de Velasco, Constable of Castile to Philip III (Milan, 29 January 1599); Velasco to Philip III (Genoa, 12 February 1599).

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the bishops as an indispensable tool for putting into effect the program for ecclesiastical renewal outlined in the Council’s decrees. The apostolic visits instituted by Rome in the years following the close of the Council had already generated bitter controversies, in particular regarding the enlargement of the powers of inspection invested in the apostolic visitors.71 The ecclesiastical offensive to reassert the ancient prerogatives of the Church spread like a stain. The most clamorous conflicts took place in Milan when Cardinal Carlo Borromeo took over the diocese in 1566. From the start the new archbishop—basing his argument on a long-standing custom particular to the Milanese Church that the Spanish authorities held to be inadequately proven—demanded the right of the archbishop’s court to hear all cases involving both clergy and laity. He added to this first demand another that was even less to the liking of the lay authorities: the right of the archbishop to make use of his own corps of armed guards (known as the famiglia armata) to capture and sentence criminals.72 In the Kingdom of Naples, where a papal representative with the formal title of nuncio had resided since 1569, the royal ministers claimed that by ancient custom they had the exclusive right to try lay persons in mixed cases—cases, that is, regarding crimes under either canon law or civil law that might fall under the competence of one court or the other, depending on where the case had first been brought to trial.73 In both Milan and Naples, moreover, one of the main objectives of Spanish ecclesiastical policy was to restrict

71

Pasquale Villani, “La visita apostolica di Tommaso Orfini nel Regno di Napoli (1566–1568): Documenti per la storia dell’applicazione del Concilio di Trento,” Annuario dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea 8 (1956): 5–79; Villani, “Una visita apostolica nel regno di Napoli (1566–1568): Conflitti giurisdizionali e condizioni del clero,” in Studi in onore di Riccardo Filangieri, 3 vols. (Naples: L’Arte, 1959), 2: 433–46; Angelo Giorgio Ghezzi, “Conflitti giurisdizionali nella Milano di Carlo Borromeo: La visita apostolica di Gerolamo Ragazzone nel 1575–1576,” Archivio Storico Lombardo 108–109 (1982–1983): 193–237. 72 See Agostino Borromeo, “L’arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo, la Corona spagnola e le controversie giurisdizionali a Milano,” in Carlo Borromeo e l’opera della “Grande Riforma”: Cultura, religione e arti del governo nella Milano del pieno Cinquecento, ed. Franco Buzi and Danilo Zardin (Milan: Silvana, 1997), 257–72, esp. pp. 260–64. 73 Such “mixed cases” (delicta mixta) included accusations of blasphemy, sacrilege, infanticide, assassination, adultery, homicide, bigamy, kidnapping, rape, sodomy, incest, robbery, theft, usury, forgery, perjury, witchcraft, and more. See Prosdocimi, Il diritto ecclesiastico, 291 n. 18.

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ecclesiastical jurisdiction over lay subjects, working within the context of the local situation. Obstacles put to the nuncio’s role as apostolic collector generated further controversy. Part of the duties of the papal representative was to take possession of the goods and the revenues of deceased clergy (known as spogli ) and administer them for the Apostolic Chamber. When such cases came to trial, the civil power contested the right of the nuncio’s court to adjudicate the rights of any eventual lay heirs, proprietors, or creditors.74 The institution of the Monarchia Sicula also prompted recriminations on the part of the Holy See, to the point that, according to the ambassador to the Holy See, Pius V had complained to him that in Sicily the pope “had no more power than he did in Germany, because whenever he made a decision, there he would find another Pius V, imposed by the Monarchia Sicula, who would reverse it.”75 The pope’s highly realistic observation that he had no more power in Sicily than he would in Lutheran Germany is an eloquent expression of Rome’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of an institution that for some time had been under dispute.76 Another crisis moment occurred in 1567–68 with the publication of the famous bull In Coena Domini, which derived its title from the

74 In 1572 the nuncio, Antonio Sauli, asserted that the royal ministers “do not want—and say so openly—the bishops to have jurisdiction over lay persons, and this includes the nuncio,” Sauli to Gallio (Naples, 29 December 1572), in Nunziature di Napoli 1:151–52. The same day Sauli informed the pope that the viceroy had inserted restrictive clauses to his powers as nuncio and collector in the document with which he conceded the exequatur: Sauli to Gregory XIII (Naples, 29 November 1572), Ibid., 152–55. The pope had to intervene directly with the viceroy, Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, in order to make sure that the nuncio could make free use of his powers, Gallio to Sauli (Rome, 10 June 1572), Ibid., 1: 166. See also Lauro, Il giurisdizionalismo pregiannoniano, 80 n. 3 and, more generally, Mario Rosa, “La Chiesa meridionale nell’età della Controriforma,” in Storia d’Italia, Annali, vol. 9, Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli, eds., La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea (Turin: Einaudi, 1986), 291–345, esp. pp. 295–99. 75 Requeséns to Philip II (Rome, 10 December 1568), in Correspondencia diplomática, 2:512–15: “él no tenía mas que hazer que en Alemania, porque quando provehia alguna cosa hallava allá otro Pio Quinto puesto por la Monarchia, que lo revocava.” 76 See above, note 64. In 1563, during the final sessions of the Council of Trent, the Sicilian bishops who were attending the Council sent Philip II a memorandum in which they requested that he move decisively to correct abuses that had been perpetrated by means of the contested instrument: see Gaetano Zito, “La Legazia Apostolica nel Cinquecento: Avvio delle controversie e delle polemiche,” in La Legazia Apostolica, 151–52.

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fact that it was read publicly on Good Friday. Its origins reach back to the Middle Ages, and the Holy See used it to threaten with excommunication those who had committed particularly grave crimes, which in the mid-sixteenth century included violations of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and ecclesiastical immunity.77 Pius V, following the tendency of the post-Tridentine papacy to reassert the ancient rights of the Church, added new clauses to the version of this bull that was published in 1567 and in 1568. One of these threatened with excommunication all secular authorities that imposed new taxes or gabelles. It is quite understandable that the publication of this bull (which, in Naples, was not preceded by any request for the exequatur) prompted bitter remonstrances from Philip II. What the sovereign feared was that in Spain’s Italian possessions, where the bishops usually showed a more obsequious obedience to papal directives than was the case in the rest of the Spanish Monarchy, the ecclesiastical authorities would excommunicate members of the Spanish administration who imposed new gabelles or were responsible for collecting those already in force.78 The sovereign had no intention of recognizing supreme pontifical authority in questions of taxation, which he considered the exclusive province of the sovereign temporal power. Madrid feared not only that this papal initiative would throw into crisis the entire Spanish system of government in Italy and perhaps foment anti-tax revolts among the population, but also that it would prove a first step in a more generalized papal offensive against the regalist institutions of the Spanish Crown.79

77

The earliest draft of the bull In Coena Domini that has come down to us is the bull Consueverunt Romani Pontifices of Julius II, 1 March 1511: Bullarium Romanum: Bullarum, diplomatum et previlegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum Taurinensis editio, 24 vols. (Augustae Taurinorum, 1857–72), 5:490–93. 78 For repercussions in the Italians dominions from the publication of this bull, see Mario Bendiscioli “‘In Coena Domini’ e la sua pubblicazione a Milano nel 1568,” Archivio Storico Lombardo 54 (1927): 381–99; Raffaele Giura Longo, “La bolla ‘In Coena Domini’ e le franchigie del clero meridionale,” Archivio Storico per la Calabria e la Lucania 22 (1963): 278–79; M. Canepa, “La bolla ‘In Coena Domini’ del 1567 in un memoriale del viceré spagnolo di Sardegna,” Archivio Storico Sardo 29 (1967): 134–37; Adolfo Ravà, L’applicazione della bolla “In Coena Domini” nel Regno di Napoli (1567–1584) (Siena, 1967); Josefina Mateu Ibars, “Los Enríquez de Ribera, virreyes de Nápoles y su diplomacia con la Santa Sede sobre el ‘regio exequatur,’ la bula ‘In Coena Domini’ y la inquisición,” Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane 93 (1975): 119–21. 79 See Borromeo, “Filippo II e il papato,” 503.

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Where the Italian dominions of Spain were concerned, these worries were not unfounded. In Vigevano, in the State of Milan, and in a number of dioceses of the Kingdom of Naples (Chieti, Bitonto, Lavello, Venosa, Melfi, and Cava in particular) the bishops had threatened to pronounce or had actually pronounced the excommunication of members of the municipal administration under the accusation of having imposed new gabelles. The situation had become incandescent: in 1568 the governor of Milan instituted provisions for the incarceration of members of the local administration who failed to collect taxes for fear of excommunication; in Naples in 1569 the viceroy moved to sequester the temporal goods of certain ecclesiastics, a bishop and an archbishop among them. As all this was happening, Philip II launched an urgent diplomatic offensive, within the broader context of the jurisdictional quarrel already in course, that included a request that the bull be modified. In 1569 he obtained an assurance from Pius V that the bull would no longer be read in public, but only communicated to clergy with cure of souls and to confessors. This did not resolve the entire question, but at least it removed its most dangerous aspect—that of public readings of the bull, often in the local tongue.80 The bitterest confrontations that took place in the years that followed occurred in Milan, where they culminated in Cardinal Borromeo’s excommunication of the governor of the State, don Luis de Requeséns, when he published laws that the archbishop judged to be prejudicial to his own archiepiscopal prerogatives regarding the highly controversial famiglia armata. On this particular occasion Philip II succeeded in obtaining an absolution for Requeséns from Gregory XIII with the argument that in the meantime he had been named governor of the Low Countries, where his arrival under excommunication would have prompted undue scandal.81 The sovereign did not underestimate the danger that a demonstration of hostility toward the ecclesiastical authorities in Milan on

80 Massimo Carlo Giannini, “Tra politica, fiscalità e religione: Filippo II di Spagna e la pubblicazione della bolla ‘In Coena Domini’ (1567–1570),” Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-germanico in Trento 23 (1997): 83–152, esp. p. 97. 81 Borromeo, “L’arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo e la Corona spagnola,” 266. See also José M. March, El Comendador Mayor de Castilla don Luis de Requeséns en el gobierno di Milán: Estudio y narración documentada de fuentes inéditas (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores relaciones culturales, 1943), 257–308.

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the part of representatives of the Spanish Crown would present to the maintenance of public order in the State of Milan, the most important of Spain’s Italian dominions for its strategic location. This was precisely why the Crown initiated negotiations with the Holy See to attempt to find a solution to the entire jurisdictional question for all of Spain’s Italian holdings. Negotiations began only in 1578, after a series of contretemps, but the very fact that Philip II was willing to send his plenipotentiaries to Rome shows the extent to which he was aware that the pope should have the last word in questions of jurisdictional controversy. After three years of discussion, the Spanish broke off the talks; Philip II preferred to give up the attempt to reach an agreement in which secular power stood to lose more than it would gain, and his original reason for seeking a negotiated agreement had dissipated. The situation in Milan had calmed because Cardinal Borromeo, by sending the Barnabite Carlo Bascapè to Madrid to argue his cause,82 had managed to persuade Philip II of his loyalty to the Crown and of the exclusively pastoral motivation behind his demands for broader episcopal jurisdiction.83 If Milan enjoyed fifteen years of relative calm, the same was not true of the Kingdom of Naples, where tension was heightened by the rigid attitude frequently assumed by Sixtus V toward lay initiatives thought to threaten the rights of the Church. Periodic conflict arose concerning extensive use of the exequatur, obstacles put to the collection of apostolic dues, and the refusal of some ecclesiastics (notably Antonio Maria Manzoli, the bishop of Gravina and his clergy) to pay certain gabelles.84

82 Bascapè, Borromeo’s collaborator, became bishop of Novara in 1595, see Agostino Borromeo, “Carlo Bascapè nella storiografia,” in Carlo Bascapè sulle orme del Borromeo: Coscienza e azione pastorale in un vescovo di fine Cinquecento, Atti dei convegni di studio di Novara, Orta e Varallo Sesia (Novara: Interlinea; Diocesi di Novara, 1993), 145–74. 83 Gaetano Catalano, “Controversie giurisdizionali fra Chiesa e Stato nell’età di Gregorio XIII e di Filippo II,” in Atti dell’Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti di Palermo, series IV, vol. 15, part II (1954–55): 5–306; Paolo Prodi, “San Carlo Borromeo e le trattative tra Gregorio XIII e Filippo II sulla giurisdizione ecclesiastica,” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 11 (1957): 195–240, esp. p. 200; Borromeo, “L’arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo e la Corona Spagnola,” 267. 84 The nuncio in Naples, Giulio Rossini, the archbishop of Amalfi, to Cardinal Gerolamo Rusticucci, secretary to Sixtus V (Naples 23, August 1585), in Nunziature di Napoli, vol. 2, (1969), 363; Rusticucci to Rossini (Rome, 11 October 1586), Ibid., p. 441; Rossini to Rusticucci (Naples, 17 October 1586), Ibid., 442. See also Wright, “Relations between Church and State,” 390; Rosa, “La Chiesa meridionale,” 297.

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Conflict flared again in both dominions after 1595, after the nominations of Federico Borromeo as archbishop of Milan (which the Spanish authorities opposed) and of Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo as archbishop of Naples (which they not only welcomed, but warmly supported).85 In the capital city of the State of Milan Federico Borromeo, the new archbishop, followed the path laid out by his cousin and predecessor, prompting new controversies concerning the old question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the laity. One particular question was whether lay persons who held tenancy of ecclesiastical holdings should be obligated to observe the laws of the civil authorities regarding agricultural landholdings or were instead subject to ecclesiastical authority alone.86 In Naples, on the other hand, Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo, whose loyalty to the Crown was unquestioned, had quarreled with the viceroy, the Count of Olivares, because the cardinal had extended to monasteries under patronato real provisions for religious reform without obtaining the previous consent of the sovereign or even requesting the exequatur.87 Tension grew so strong that Clement VIII felt it necessary to intervene personally, sending Philip II a heart-felt autograph letter in which he reproached Philip for obstacles put to the free exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in both Milan and Naples.88 With the death of Philip II in 1598 and the ascension to the throne of Philip III, tension between the two powers relaxed some-

85

See above, notes 46–50. See Borromeo, “Le controversie giurisdizionali,” 65ff. 87 Some of the relevant documents are transcribed in AGS, Secr. Prov., lib. 60, unnumbered fols.: Lo que ha pasado por el monasterio de Santa Clara y los demas monasterios de monjas desta ciudad de Nápoles. For further documentation, see Ibid., Estado, leg. 1064, no. 259, Olivares to Clement VIII (Naples, 25 September 1596); Ibid., leg. 968, unnumbered fols., Clement to Olivares (copy) (Rome, 4 October 1596); Ibid., Secr. Prov. lib. 429, fol. 718r–v, Philip II to Gesualdo (Madrid, 5 January 1597); Ibid., fols. 772r–773r, Philip II to Olivares (San Lorenzo de El Escurial, 1 October 1597). See Ludwig von Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste sei dem Ausgang des Mittelalters Storia dei papi, 11:736–39; The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, 40 vols (N. P.: Consortium Books, 1977); Borromeo, “Il cardinale Cesare Baronio,” 98; Wright, “Relations between Church and State,” 390. 88 AGS, Estado, leg. 966, unnumbered fols.: Autograph letter of Clement VIII to Philip II (Frascati, 15 October 1596). For copies of this letter in Italian and Spanish, see Ibid., leg. 967, unnumbered fols. The letter was published in Pastor, Storia dei papi, 11:736–39 on the basis of a copy in the Vatican Library (now lost) and, on the basis of the original conserved in the Archivo General de Simancas, by José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, El papado y Felipe II: Colección de breves pontificios, 3 vols. (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1999–2002), 3:252–53. 86

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what, thanks to the more conciliatory policy toward the Church of the new sovereign and his valido (court favorite), the Marquis of Denia (later Duke of Lerma). One clamorous episode occurred in spite of improved relations, however. In volume 11 of his Annales Ecclesiastici, published early in 1605, Cardinal Cesare Baronio inserted a lengthy dissertation attacking the foundations of the Monarchia Sicula. He cast doubt on the authenticity of the bull of Urban II, or at least on its faithfulness to the original text. Philip III retaliated, first by opposing Baronio’s election to the papacy (considered a near certainty) not once but twice (in the two conclaves of 1605), and then by publishing an edict banning Baronio’s book in all the kingdoms and dominions of the Spanish Monarchy.89 This was the first time that the work of a famous scholar and a prominent cardinal had figured on the Spanish Index of Prohibited Books. The Court of Madrid got its point across, however. For the entire seventeenth century the Holy See abstained from further moves concerning this hotly contested question. Where other matters were concerned, the more moderate attitude of the court of Madrid and the desire of Paul V, elected in 1605, to reach some form of solution to the jurisdictional contention in Spanish Italy seemed to make it possible to reopen discussion.90 The hope of renewed negotiations explains the court of Madrid’s unusual openness to requests from Rome. In 1604 one of the regents of the Consiglio Collaterale of Naples, Giovanni Francesco de Ponte, had been excommunicated for having impeded the action of the archiepiscopal court in a case involving a bigamist suspected of heresy. In 1606 the pope demanded that Philip III constrain the regent to sign a humiliating petition for absolution recognizing that he had been at fault, which he in fact did.91 89 Borromeo, “Il cardinale Cesare Baronio,” 111–63; see also Zito, “La Legazia Apostolica nel Cinquecento,” 161–65. 90 In June 1605 the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, the Duke of Escalona, reported to Philip III that the pope had told him that “en ningún tiempo podrían tomar estas cosas mejor asiento que en el suio” (“at no other time could these controversies be resolved more easily than the present”), AGS, Estado, leg. 980, unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 12 July 1605). See also the following dispatches, Ibid., unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III, Rome (2 July 1605); Ibid., unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 26 July 1605); Ibid., unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 12 August 1605); Ibid., leg. 981, unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 19 October 1605). 91 Silvio Zotta, G. Francesco de Ponte: Il giurista politico, Storia e Diritto, Studi, 19 (Naples: Jovene, 1987), 139–48.

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Spanish expectations regarding new negotiations soon vanished, however, and a new incident disturbed relations between the secular power and the ecclesiastical power in Naples. In July 1606 Cardinal Acquaviva, in obedience to the norms of the Council of Trent regarding sacred images in inappropriate places, ordered the elimination of a depiction of the city’s patron saints on the walls of a structure in the marketplace. By coincidence, the construction housed the collection office for an unpopular gabelle on fruit that had recently been instituted. The cancellation of the image, which took place in the middle of the day, set off a riot, in the course of which some raised their voices in praise of the cardinal, supposing that the move was part of an ecclesiastical protest against the new commodities tax.92 The Spanish authorities quite naturally protested, demanding that Cardinal Acquaviva provide for an exemplary punishment for the ecclesiastical authorities responsible for the offense.93 When the cardinal failed to act, Philip III, in an unusual move, requested that Paul V provide for the removal of Acquaviva and the nomination of a new archbishop.94 As we have already seen, the pope preferred less drastic measures, taking over the case personally and transferring Acquaviva to Rome for three years, at the end of which feelings had calmed down in the diocese and Philip III agreed to his return to Naples.95

92 The viceroy, Juan Alonso Pimentel de Herrera, count of Benavente, sent Paul V a detailed account of these events: AGS, Estado, leg. 1103 no. 170, Benavente to Paul V (Naples, 26 July 1606). 93 AGS, Estado, leg. 986, unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 25 July 1607); Ibid., leg. 1103 no. 162, Benavente to Philip III (Naples, 30 July 1606); Ibid., no. 184, Benavente to Philip III (Naples, 27 September 1606). 94 AGS, Estado, leg. 986, unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 2 June 1607); Ibid., unnumbered fols., Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 24 April 1607. 95 In order to obtain Philip III’s assent to Acquaviva’s return to Naples, Paul V pointed out that the arrival of a new viceroy, don Pedro Fernández de Castro, count of Lemos, permitted the establishment of new bases for relations between the secular and the ecclesiastical authorities, as stated in a dispatch from the ambassador in Rome, AGS, Estado, leg. 993, unnumbered fols., Francisco de Castro to Philip III (2 March 1610). See also Ibid., leg. 986, unnumbered fols., two letters from Ambassador Escalona to Philip III (Rome, 24 April and 2 June 1607); Ibid., leg. 994, unnumbered fols., Cardinal Acquaviva to Philip III (Rome, 2 March 1610); Ibid., unnumbered fols., Consulta of the Council (19 June 1610); Ibid., leg. 1862, unnumbered fols., Philip III to Acquaviva (El Pardo, 19 November 1610); Ibid., leg. 1106, no. 98, the count of Lemos to Philip III (Rome, 4 January 1610).

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This episode clearly demonstrates the will that existed at the summits of power—here the Spanish Crown and the Holy See—to prevent local controversies from deteriorating relations between Spain and the papacy regarding major questions of common interest. This convergence of interests produced results in another geographical area as well, the State of Milan, where intensive negotiations began in 1602 to resolve, once and for all, the various points of dissension between the lay and the ecclesiastical powers. After the elaboration of a series of provisory texts,96 the two forces approved the Concordia iurisdictionalis, signed in 1615 by Cardinal Borromeo and don Pedro de Toledo de Osorio, the governor of Milan, subsequently ratified by Paul V and Philip III in 1617, and published in Milan the following year. The range of this document was more restricted than had been hoped, both because the agreement failed to resolve all pending questions and because it regarded only the diocese of Milan. It did manage to resolve the most controversial aspects of this longstanding conflict, however.97

Conclusion: Conflict with Collaboration Jurisdictional conflicts were one of the principal sore points in relations between the Spanish Crown and the Church in Spanish Italy

96 AGS, Estado, leg. 1898, no. 66, Consulta of the Council of Italy (20 December 1602); Ibid., leg. 1292, no. 2: the governor, the count of Fuentes to Philip III (Milan, 31 May 1603); Ibid., leg. 1301, no. 407, Consulta of the special junta for jurisdiction matters (18 September 1605); Ibid., leg. 1295, no. 44, Consulta of the Council of State, (December 1605); AGS, Sec. Prov., leg. 992, unnumbered fols., Consulta of the Council of Italy (28 September 1610); AGS, Estado, leg. 1900, no. 277 [bis], Consulta of the Council of Italy (2 May 1611); Ibid., leg. 1301, no. 466, Consulta of the Council of State (8 October 1611); Ibid., leg. 1306, no. 65, Consulta of the Council of Italy (Madrid, 11 March 1616); Ibid., no 62, Consulta of the Council of State (Madrid, 28 June 1616). See also Wright, “Relations between Church and State,” 391; Flavio Rurale, “Clemente VIII, i gesuiti e la controversia giurisdizionale milanese,” in La Corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento, “teatro” della politica europea, ed. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Biblioteca del Cinquecento, 84 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998), 323–366. 97 The text of the Concordia iurisdictionalis inter forum ecclesiasticum et forum saeculare Mediolanensis has been published on a number of occasions. See Aristide Sala, Documenti circa la vita e le gesta di San Carlo Borromeo, 3 vols. (Milan: Brasca, 1857–61), 2:97–100; Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, ed. Achille Ratti, II–IV (Mediolani: Ex typographia Pontificia Sancti Josephi, 1890–97), 4:494–506; Raccolta di concordati su materie ecclesiastiche tra la Santa Sede e le autorità civili, ed. Angelo Mercati (Rome: Tipografia

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during the reigns of Philip II and Philip III. As we have seen, however, those conflicts occurred within the broader context of an overall climate of collaboration between Spain and the Holy See. It is thus within that more general climate that the controversies should be evaluated, bearing in mind, however, that they expressed two opposing historical tendencies. On the one hand, there was the Church, which, as it emerged reinforced and renewed from the Council of Trent, conceived of its privileges and prerogatives as an absolutely necessary instrument for the pursuit of the mission to which it had been entrusted. On the other hand, there was the royal authority, which not only intended to assert its exclusive sovereignty in certain temporal spheres ( jurisdiction over the laity, taxation), but also intended to make tenacious use of its regalist policies to assert its claims to specific rights over the collectivity of which the local Church and its institutions was one expression. It also should be stressed that in defending their rights—no matter how well founded they might be juridically—the Spanish authorities operated within a context in which the rights of the Church, papal authority, and the supremacy of the Holy See were broadly recognized. In fact, lay intervention into the Church’s sphere of competence was justified, depending on the individual instance, either by an appeal to a specific pontifical concession (which might be contested, as it was in the case of the privilege of the Legazia Apostolica in Sicily), or by an appeal to rights acquired by immemorial custom (as in the case of the exequatur in the Kingdom of Naples). In other words, the ecclesiastical policies of Philip II and Philip III always developed in harmony with principles on which the papacy itself founded its relationship with state power, In this regard, if one can speak—as it seems to have been established—of a regalism typical of the sovereigns of the House of Habsburg, it must be clear that this was a phenomenon strikingly different from the later Spanish regalism under the Bourbons. The first type of regalism lacks what was most characteristic of the second: the elaboration of a doctrinal basis for the Crown’s legitimate exercise of its regalia, or prerogatives in the ecclesiastical sphere inherent to and original to the absolute monarchy of divine right.

Poliglotta Vaticana, 1919), 262–66. For an analysis of the content and the effect of the Concordia, see Prosdocimi, Il diritto ecclesiastico, 319–324.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE POLITICS OF COUNTER-REFORMATION ICONOGRAPHY AND A QUEST FOR THE SPANISHNESS OF NEAPOLITAN ART Sebastian Schütze

In early modern Europe politics and religion are insoluble parts of a binary system, and so are political and religious iconography. The two categories were simply not conceived as two distinguished or even distinguishable ones. The fusion between political and religious iconography is nowhere more evident than with the Spanish Hapsburgs. Key issues of Counter-Reformation theology and pillars of Catholic orthodoxy—such as the Eucharist, the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception—were adopted and indeed incorporated into the dynastic imagery of the Catholic Kings, representing their piety and devotion, and, therefore, undisputed role as foremost defenders of the Catholic faith and legitimate rulers of the world. It might be sufficient here to recall such emblematic images as Charles V and his wife Isabella adoring the Trinity in Titian’s monumental Gloria for the emperor’s private oratory in Yuste, Rubens’ spectacular series of Eucharist-Tapestries commissioned by Isabella Clara Eugenia d’Austria for the Monastery of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid or Claudio Coello’s scenographic Sagrada Forma for the sacristy of the Escorial, showing Charles II kneeling in front of the miraculous host (Figure 19.1).1

1 The present contribution retains the format of the initial paper presented at the American Academy in Rome, with the addition of endnotes restricted nonetheless to basic and most recent bibliography. I would like to thank Thomas Dandelet, John Marino, and Ingrid Rowland for their kind invitation to the conference, as well as their encouragement and help throughout the preparation of this paper. For Titian’s painting see Harold E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian. Complete Edition, 3 vols. (London, 1969–1975), 1:165–167, no. 149; Alfonso Rodríguez G. de Ceballos, “Carlos V paradigma de pietas austriaca,” in Carlos V: las armas y las letras, catalogue of the exhibition, ed. by Fernando Marías e Felipe Pereda (Madrid, 2000), pp. 243–260; Christian Hecht, Die Glorie: Begriff, Thema, Bildelement in der europäischen Sakralkunst vom Mittelalter bis zum Ausgang des Barock (Regensburg, 2003), pp. 347–351. For Rubens’ tapestries see Nora De Poorter, The Eucharist Series, Corpus

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The iconography of the Catholic Kings was indeed dominated by religious imagery and widely diffused through painted copies and a myriad of printed images. Some of the most explicit representations were in fact printed images, such as Rubens’ monumental thesis illustration of St. Francis Seraphicus Atlas, supporting the Immaculate Conception (Figure 19.2).2 The highly elaborate iconography presents St. Francis, the Franciscan Order and the Spanish Hapsburgs as the main supporters of the cause of the Immaculate Conception, including images of the reigning king Philip IV and his family, as well as those of his ancestors Charles V, Philip II and Philip III. In Pedro Villafranca’s 1672 engraving of Charles II and his mother Mariana d’Austria, the transfer of the regency occurs under the guidance and protection of the Immaculate Conception, Patrona Hispaniae, and the Eucharist, Patrocinium Austriacum (Figure 19.3).3 The following considerations address questions that have been mostly avoided in art historical literature: whether and how the politics of Counter-Reformation iconography in Hapsburg Spain had an impact on Naples and the Spanish dominions in Southern Italy, and also how far the production and consumption of art was, directly or indirectly, shaped by these politics. Considering the range and complexity of the problems encompassed, it is the intention here to define the field of investigation and provide a methodological framework rather than to come to any definite conclusions. Naples has been described as the “real capital of the CounterReformation.”4 The core of the city was dominated by an ever-growing number of churches, convents, and confraternities and a vast num-

Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard II, 2 vols. (London and Philadelphia, 1978). For Coello’s altarpiece see Edward J. Sullivan, Baroque painting in Madrid: the contribution of Claudio Coello with a catalogue raisonné of his works (Columbia [MO], 1986), pp. 215–217. For the Eucharist in Hapsburg iconography in general see also Marie Tanner, The Last Descendant of Aeneas. The Hapsburgs and the mythic image of the emperor (New Haven/London, 1993), pp. 207–222. 2 For this large scale thesis, engraved by Paulus Pontius, see J. Richard Judson and Carl Van De Velde, Book Illustrations and Title-Pages, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XXI, 2 vols. (London and Philadelphia, 1978), pp. 349–355, No. 85. 3 For Villafranca see Mark P. McDonald, “Pedro Perret and Pedro de Villafranca: printmakers to the Spanish Hapsburgs,” Melbourne Art Journal (2000), pp. 37–51. 4 Romeo De Maio, Pittura e Controriforma a Napoli, (Rome and Bari 1983), pp. 23–38; for a summary in English see Romeo De Maio, “The Counter-Reformation and Painting in Naples,” in Painting in Naples from Caravaggio to Giordano, catalogue of the exhibition, ed. by Clovis Whitfield and Jane Martineau (London, 1982), pp. 31–35.

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ber of clerics. The huge Neapolitan population was known for its fervent piety and devotion, often susceptible to superstition and constantly threatened by natural disasters, such as the plague or the eruption of mount Vesuvius, and therefore always in desperate need for “miracles.” Religion, no doubt, had to be a major issue for the Spanish Hapsburgs, in their attempt to rule the dominions in Southern Italy, a powerful instrument of social and political control, but also a means of integration to create consensus and identity.5 How deeply these attempts affected the mentality of Neapolitans with regard to their spirituality and religious beliefs has been a matter of controversial debate. If Romeo De Maio is convinced that the anarchic genius of the Neapolitans ultimately resisted all such attempts,6 recently Jean-Michel Sallmann has argued, and in my view more convincingly so, that the Counter-Reformation caused indeed a “profound cultural revolution” in Naples.7 The Immaculate Conception was arguably one of the most controversial theological debates during the Counter-Reformation, and a particularly hazardous one, because it created such violent tensions, rivalries, and conflicts within the Catholic world itself and had such wide ranging political implications.8 The kings of Aragon had promoted the cause of the Immaculate Conception since the early thirteenth century, and so did Ferdinand and Isabella during the final years of their reign. But it is with the Spanish Hapsburgs, and in particular in the early seventeenth century, that the dogma became a central issue of Spanish royal politics. During the reign of Philip III, Philip IV, and Charles II the survival of the declining monarchy was in fact almost “existentially” linked to the cause of the Immaculate Conception. In 1616 the first Real Junta de la Inmaculada

5 Giuseppe Galasso, “Society in Naples in the Seicento,” in Painting in Naples from Caravaggio to Giordano, pp. 24–30, see p. 28: religion was “not only a determining element in the formation of the new identity of Naples, but acted also as a link for integration and cultural communication between the various levels of a complex and varied society.” 6 De Maio, 1983, pp. 30–33. 7 Jean-Michel Sallmann, Santi Barocchi. Modelli di santità, pratiche devozionali e comportamenti religiosi nel regno di Napoli dal 1540 al 1750 (Lecce, 1996; Fr. ed., Paris 1994), p. 13 “profonda rivoluzione culturale.” 8 For the following see especially Edward D. O’Connor, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: history and significance (Notre Dame, 1958); and Suzanne L. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (Cambridge, 1994).

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Conception, a congregation of prelates and theologians, was established to promote the dogma and to lobby for its declaration at the papal court in Rome. Further Juntas were formed in 1617, 1618 and 1643.9 Paradoxically the cause of the Immaculate Conception became so political, and indeed so predominantly Spanish, that it finally prevented Paul V (1605–1621) from declaring the dogma. The Borghese Pope was himself a fervent devotee of the Virgin and defender of her Immaculate Conception. He promoted her cult in Rome and erected a monumental column in her honor in front of S. Maria Maggiore, taken from the Basilica of Maxentius and crowned by a bronze statue of the Immaculate Conception. He also commissioned important decorative programs, such as Guido Reni’s Cappella dell’Annunziata in the Quirinal Palace, Domenico Passignano’s fresco cycle for the sacristy of S. Maria Maggiore and, the most important of all, Cigoli’s dome for the Cappella Paolina, showing the triumphant Virgin above the moon, the stunning morphology of which represents Galilei’s most recent findings.10 If the Pope decided ultimately to put the promulgation of the dogma on hold, his decision reflected in the first place the fact that it had become too much of a Spanish cause. Or to put it the other way, he could not declare the dogma without heavily disturbing his foreign policy, which aimed to keep the papacy in a balanced position between the two leading powers of France and Spain. And he was certainly hesitating also, because to declare the dogma under these circumstances would have been interpreted by most observers as a success of Spanish politics alone, calling into question the spiritual sovereignty of the papacy in this matter of foremost importance. On the other hand, papal reservations and the final refusal to declare the dogma did inflame Spanish enthusiasm even more so and turned the cause definitely into a quest of royal and ultimately

9 Juan Meseguer Fernández, “La Real Junta de la Inmaculada Concepcíon,” Archivo Ibero-Americano XV (1955): 3–248; Stratton 1994, pp. 73–75, 78–87, 98–104. 10 Judith W. Mann, “The Annunciation Chapel in the Quirinal Palace, Rome: Paul V, Guido Reni, and the Virgin Mary,” Art Bulletin 75 (1993): 113–134; for Passignano’s sacristy see Joan L. Nissmann, “Domenico Cresti (Il Passignano) 1559–1638. A Tuscan Painter in Florence and Rome,” Ph.D., Columbia University, 1979, pp. 150–161, 319–322; for Cigoli’s dome, Galilei, and the complex implications of its design cfr. Eileen Reeves, Painting the Heavens. Art and Science in the Age of Galileo (Princeton, 1997), pp. 138–172.

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Spanish identity. Over the next few decades Philip IV continued to urge the papacy for a definition of the dogma, but it would only be Pope Alexander VII who would satisfy the Spanish claims, at least in part. In 1661 he issued the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum in favor of the Immaculate Conception. In 1664 Spain was granted the privilege to celebrate mass and recite the office in her honor, a privilege that was extended in 1665 to the Spanish possessions in Southern Italy.11 This was widely acclaimed as a victory of the Spanish cause, although the dogma proper would be declared only in 1854; and contemporary representations, including a large picture in S. Maria la Nuova in Naples, celebrate the aging Philip IV receiving the bull from the Chigi Pope.12 Many thanksgiving processions were held all over Spain, and a large scale painting, by an anonymous seventeenth-century master, documents, for example, the triumphal procession held at Seville Cathedral in 1662.13 The widespread popular cult and devotion of the Immaculate Conception caused inevitably an ever growing need for images, and the golden age of Spanish painting has produced not only the largest number, but the most extraordinary range of representations of the highest artistic qualities: from El Greco’s ecstatic visions and the intimate realism of Diego Velázquez, Alonso Cano, and Francisco Zurbarán, to the highly emotional, triumphant images of Bartolomeo Murillo, Juan Carreño, and José Antolinez.14 But the same is true for Naples and the Spanish dominions in Southern Italy, where, not only on statistical grounds, an impressive number of representations was created throughout the seventeenth century, including masterpieces by Bernardo Cavallino, Jusepe de Ribera, Pietro Novelli, and Luca Giordano (Figure 19.4).15 11

Stratton, 1994, pp. 103–104. For the anonymous picture in S. Maria la Nuova see Annamaria Laneri, “L’iconografia dell’Immacolata Concezione a Napoli tra ’500 e ’600,” Arte Cristiana 79 (1991): 195–206, p. 203. See also the title-page of the Solemnes fiestas a la Inmaculada Concepción designed by Andrés Marzo and published in Valencia in 1663; Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Museo del Prado—Catalogo de Dibujos. Dibujos Espanoles, Siglos XV–XVII, I, (Madrid, 1972), pp. 104–105; Stratton 1994, pp. 104–105. 13 For the picture, preserved in Seville Cathedral, see Inmaculada: 150 años de la proclamación del dogma, catalogue of the exhibition (Seville, 2004), pp. 276–279. This recent, large celebrative exhibition was held, and naturally so, under the auspices of the Spanish king. 14 For an overview of the most important representations see Stratton 1994; Inmaculada: 150 años de la proclamación del dogma. 15 There is no systematic study to date, but see Laneri, 1991; see also Helen 12

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But how much was the popular and widespread cult of the Immaculate Conception strategically implemented by the Spanish Hapsburgs and instrumental to their political dominion in Southern Italy? Where, when, and under which circumstances were altars, chapels, confraternities, and churches dedicated to the Immaculate Conception? Can specific Spanish interests be detected and how can these be defined? Obviously complex and wide-ranging questions such as these call for long term investigations, and more specifically for systematic studies of Spanish patronage in Naples and Southern Italy. Most importantly Spanish patronage has to be broadly defined and has to include various layers of Spanishness, ranging from documented royal commissions to those where Spanish interests are involved, but are possibly interwoven with or bound by a variety of other interests. In order to pursue such a larger perspective, a vast number of individuals and social groups have to be taken into consideration: Spanish viceroys in Naples and their wives, members of their court, of its bureaucracy and administration, Spanish institutions such as confraternities, predominantly Spanish orders, like the Jesuits of Ignatius of Loyola or the reformed Carmelites of Teresa of Avila, and in general all those individuals or social groups that were part of the widespread Spanish clientele system. This broader definition necessarily includes large numbers of Italians, and specifically all those nobles, ecclesiastics, lawyers, and merchants, that were involved in Spanish affairs and benefited from them in social, political, or economic ways, and even certain foreigners living in Naples. Spanish patronage in Southern Italy under Hapsburg rule has been traditionally addressed from a very partial, indeed almost “colonialist” perspective and dominated by the supposition that Spanish viceroys would acquire and commission in the first place works of art for Spain, works they could take to their home countries once their administrative term in Naples ended, and that they had very little interest in patronizing “permanent” art in Naples. This unilateral perspective is still predominant and has been changing only in

Hills, “The Immaculate Conception in Seventeenth-Century Palermitan Iconography,” Archivio Storico Siciliano ser. 4, XX (1994): 181–229. For the Spanish dominions in northern Italy see Edith W. Kirsch, “The Madonna del Coazzone and the cult of the Virgin Immaculate in Milan and Pavia,” in IL60: Essays Honoring Irving Lavin on his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (New York, 1990), pp. 45–62.

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recent years.16 Many viceroys did in fact patronize religious institutions in Naples and commissioned important works of art for them, and so did their wives, as well as courtiers and members of their vast clientele network. Recent historical studies have defined and analyzed in great detail structures and means of these clientele networks in Spanish Italy and offer hence important clues for the study of their respective art patronage as well.17 The key example for a Spanish politics of Counter-Reformation iconography in Naples is, above all, the Gesù Nuovo and its dedication to the Immaculate Conception (Figure 19.5).18 In 1584 the Jesuits acquired for 45,000 ducats in the core of the city the Palazzo Sanseverino, arguably the most sumptuous Neapolitan fifteenth-century residence. The palace had been confiscated from Ferrante Sanseverino, who, accused of heresy and anti Spanish conspiracy, fled to France in 1552, where he supposedly embraced the Calvinist faith and died in exile. The Jesuit’s intentions, to transform the palace 16 On Spanish patronage in Naples see for example Edoardo Nappi, “I vicerè e l’arte a Napoli,” Napoli Nobilissima XXII (1983): 41–57. Recent studies are mostly dedicated to the Spanish patronage of viceroys, see for example Vincente Lleo Canal, “The painter and the diplomat: Luca Giordano and the viceroy, Count of Santisteban,” in The Diplomacy of Art. Artistic creation and politics in Seicento Italy, ed. by Elizabeth Cropper (Milan, 2002), pp. 121–151; Leticia de Frutos and Salvador Salort Pons, “La colección artística de don Pedro Antonio de Aragón, virrey de Nápoles (1666–1672),” Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano (2002): 47–110; Gabriele Finaldi, “Ribera, the Viceroys of Naples and the King. Some observations on their relations,” in Arte y Diplomacia de la Monarquía Hispánica en el siglo XVII, ed. by José Luis Colomer (Madrid, 2003), pp. 379–387. 17 See for example Vittor Ivo Comparato, Uffici e Società a Napoli (1600–1647). Aspetti della ideologia del magistrato in età moderna (Florence, 1974); G. Labrot, Baroni in città. Residenze e comportamenti dell’aristocrazia napoletana (Naples, 1979) and see also the enlarged edition Palazzi Napoletani. Storie di nobili e cortigiani 1520–1750 (Naples, 1993); Gerard Delille, Famiglia e proprietà nel Regno di Napoli (Turin, 1988; Fr. ed., Paris/Rome, 1985); Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Il bisogno di eternità. I comportamenti aristocratici a Napoli in età moderna (Naples, 1988); Aurelio Musi, Amministrazione, razionalità statale, formazione del ceto politico: i funzionari spagnoli nel regno di Napoli (Naples, 1993); Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Identità sociali. La nobiltà napoletana nella prima età moderna (Milan, 1998). 18 For the history of the Gesù Nuovo and its decoration cfr. Renzo U. Montini, La Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo (Naples, 1956); Richard Bösel, Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien (1540 –1773), Vol. I, Die Baudenkmäler der römischen und neapoletanischen Ordensprovinz, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1986), pp. 405–421; Thomas Willette and Maria Ann Conelli, “The Tribune Vault of the Gesù Nuovo in Naples: Stanzione’s Frescos and the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception,” Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano (1989), pp. 169–213; Carlo De Frede, Il Principe di Salerno Roberto Sanseverino e il suo palazzo in Napoli a punte di diamante (Naples, 2000); Eduardo Nappi, “I Gesuiti a Napoli: nuovi documenti,” Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano (2002), pp. 111–133.

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into yet another large church and convent, met with animated opposition in the city, where opponents argued that the massive presence of churches and convents in the center of Naples was already oppressive, and that one of the most celebrated Renaissance buildings and its magnificent façade “a punta di diamante” had to be preserved. After years of controversial discussions, the Spanish viceroy, Pedro Téllez Girón, Duke of Osuna, on behalf of the Council of Italy, nonetheless, granted the permission imposing one decisive condition: the Jesuits had to dedicate the new church to the Immaculate Conception. The following year Osuna placed in person the first stone of the Gesù Nuovo. Its ambitious design, which programmatically imitates St. Peter’s in Rome and the basilica of the royal monastery at El Escorial, its monumental scale and its lavish decorations left no doubt in regard to the intentions behind this powerful alliance between the Jesuits and the Spanish crown. To be sure, the order had very close and obvious ties with Spain and had long embraced the cause of the Immaculate Conception. But the foundation of the Gesù Nuovo and its dedication to the Immaculate Conception present a rather unique case of straight-forward alliance, which allowed the order a monumental presence in the center of Naples and the Spanish Hapsburgs to promote their image as defenders of the Catholic faith and legitimate rulers on a totally new scale. Just how close ties between politics and religion were is underpinned by two further episodes. On 8 December 1618 the viceroy Pedro Téllez Girón, Duke of Osuna, convoked the urban elites to the Gesù Nuovo for a public ceremony and “with great solemnity and in the presence of a multitude of believers he vowed to defend with his own life the cause of the Immaculate Conception,” intending at the same time that “magistrates and nobles, as well as doctors and professors from the university, swore likewise to embrace the doctrine of the Immaculata.”19 In 1702–1705 finally, just before the fall of the Spanish empire in Southern Italy, a monumental equestrian statue of Philip V, designed by Lorenzo e Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, was erected in front of the Gesú Nuovo, only to

19 Cited by Laneri, 1991, p. 203: “solennemente giurò, in presenza di una moltitudine di fedeli, di difendere colla sua vita la dottrina dell’Immacolata Concezione”, intending that “i magistrati, i baroni, i dottori e professori dello Studio avessero giurato di aderire alla dottrina dell’Immaculata.”

terminal histories and arthurian solutions

ILLUSTRATIONS 19.1 – 19.10

31

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19.1. Titian, Gloria, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

31

19.2. Peter Paul Rubens, St. Francis Seraphicus Atlas, supporting the Immaculate Conception, engraved by Paulus Pontius.

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19.3. Pedro Villafranca, Mariana d´Austria transferring the regency to Charles II, engraving.

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19.4. Bernardo Cavallino, Immaculate Conception, Brera, Milan.

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19.5. Gesù Nuovo, Naples.

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19.6. Jusepe de Ribera, Immaculate Conception, Las Augustinas de Monterrey, Salamanca.

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19.7. Massimo Stanzione, Madonna of the Rosary, Cappella Cacace, S. Lorenzo Maggiore, Naples.

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19.8. Luca Giordano, St. Peter of Alcantara confessing St. Teresa of Avila, S. Teresa a Chiaia, Naples.

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19.9. Luca Giordano, Holy Family with symbols of the passion, S. Giuseppe delle Scalze a Pontecorvo, Naples (in deposit at the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte).

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19.10. Jusepe de Ribera, St. Mary Egyptiaca, Musée Fabre, Montpellier.

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be destroyed in 1707.20 Almost emblematically the last monument of the staggering Spanish monarchy in Naples called again upon the Immaculate Conception. In 1622 the Jesuits founded yet another church, S. Francesco Saverio, today S. Ferdinando, on the northwest corner of the city, close to the Quartieri Spagnoli and just in front of the newly erected Palazzo Reale designed by Domenico Fontana.21 This strategic location was meant to further strengthen and publicly represent the close ties between the order and the Spanish monarchy. Thanks to a generous endowment of 30,000 ducats, offered by Catelina de la Cerda y Sandoval, widow of the former viceroy Pedro Fernández de Castro, Count of Lemos, already in 1626 plans for a larger church were made. In the left transept a monumental altar was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and finally adorned with an altarpiece by Cesare Fracanzano in 1641.22 For the Palazzo Reale itself the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, Duke of Medina de las Torres, commissioned in 1640 a new royal chapel designed by Cosimo Fanzago. The altar of the chapel was adorned initially with a now lost painting of the Immaculate Conception by Ribera, substituted in around 1650 by a marble statue by Fanzago.23 Another viceroy, Manuel de Guzmán, Conde de Monterrey, commissioned during his tenure the most extraordinary Neapolitan monument in Spain, the church and convent “de las Augustinas de Monterrey” for his hometown Salamanca.24 Designed by Bartolomeo Picchiatti and Fanzago, who also executed part of the precious marble decorations comprising the high altar and the pulpit, the whole building was adorned with Neapolitan altarpieces, including such

20 Two small bronze models of the equestrian monument are preserved in the Prado in Madrid; see Vincenzo Rizzo, Lorenzo e Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. Apoteosi di un binomio (Naples, 2001), pp. 82–85, 229–231. 21 Bösel, 1986, pp. 435–447; Nappi, 2002, pp. 112–114. 22 Payments recently published by Nappi, 2002, pp. 113, 129. 23 The statue by Fanzago is preserved at the Seminario Maggiore di Capodimonte; Gennaro Aspreno Galante, Guida Sacra della Città di Napoli, commented edition, ed. by Nicola Spinosa (1872; Naples, 1985), pp. 251, 259; Gaetana Cantone, Napoli Barocca e Cosimo Fanzago (Naples, 1984), p. 37. The chapel was inaugurated only in 1668 by the viceroy Pedro Antonio de Aragón. 24 Angela Madruga Real, Arquitectura Barroca Salmantina: Las Augustians de Monterrey (Salamanca, 1983); Angela Madruga Real, “Ribera, Monterrey y las Augustinas de Salamanca,” in Ribera 1591–1652, catalogue of the exhibition, ed. by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez (Madrid, 1992), pp. 107–113.

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renowned painters as Giovanni Lanfranco and Massimo Stanzione. The high altar was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and adorned with a spectacular masterpiece by Ribera, signed and dated 1635, which would exercise a decisive influence on the future iconography of the Immaculate Conception in Spain (Figure 19.6).25 Monterrey had already in the 1620s, as Spanish ambassador in Rome, been directly involved in the diplomatic negotiations between the Spanish court and the papacy regarding the cause of the Immaculate Conception. His choice to dedicate the high altar of the church in Salamanca, located right in front of the family palace, to the Immaculate Conception effectively underscored his fervent devotion and personal involvement in her cause, as well as his strong ties with Philip IV and the Spanish Hapsburgs. The cult of the Immaculate Conception, the Patrona Hispaniae, was, no doubt, strategically implemented in Naples, and just how successfully it was promoted and diffused is shown by the votive paintings and sculptures the city commissioned on the occasion of the plague in 1656. As an act of gratitude Mattia Preti painted images of the patron saints of Naples on the city gates, and the sculptor Nicolo Perci executed sculptural images of the same. The images included St. Rosalia, St. Francis Xavier, and San Gennaro, but also the Immaculate Conception, whose intervention and “power of purification” had so effectively helped to end the epidemic disease.26 Another Counter-Reformation iconography with insoluble ties to the Spanish Hapsburgs was the Madonna of the Rosary, particularly since the Holy League under the command of Don Juan of Austria defeated the Ottoman Turks in the battle of Lepanto on 8 December 1571.27 Pope Pius V had invoked the assistance of the

25 For Ribera’s painting see Ribera 1591–1652, catalogue of the exhibition, ed. by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez (Madrid, 1992), pp. 284–286, No. 66; Michael ScholzHänsel, Jusepe de Ribera 1591–1652 (Cologne, 2000), pp. 72–73, 108–113; N. Spinosa, Ribera. L’opera completa (Naples, 2003), pp. 162–167, 296, no. A149. 26 James Clifton, “Jesuits, Theatines, and Mattia Preti’s frescoes for the city gates of Naples,” Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano (1986): 103–110; John T. Spike, Mattia Preti. Catalogo raggionato dei dipinti (Florence, 1999), pp. 194–199, n. 111. The “Semper Virgo Dei Genitrix Immaculata” was of cause already prominently displayed also in Domenichino’s frescoes for the Real Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro; see Richard E. Spear, Domenichino, 2 vols. (New Haven/London, 1982), pp. 286–302; Domenichino. Storia di un restauro (Naples, 1987). 27 See the important contribution by Mario Rosa, Religione e Società nel Mezzogiorno tra Cinque e Seicento (Bari, 1976), pp. 217–243.

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Virgin before the battle, and to her decisive intervention was attributed the glorious victory of the Christian forces. The Madonna of the Rosary was almost immediately incorporated into the iconography of the Spanish Hapsburgs as a powerful expression of their primary role as defenders of the Catholic faith. Often Don Juan of Austria, but also Philip II and Anne of Austria, are in fact included in representations of the Madonna of the Rosary. The promotion and diffusion of the cult in southern Italy stills needs further study and consideration. But the sheer quantity of altars, chapels and confraternities that were dedicated to her during the later part of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century strongly suggests strategic planning behind it. A good example is provided by those confraternities dedicated to the Madonna of the Rosary in Puglia, recently studied by Clara Gelao.28 Already in 1572 a small church in Naples was dedicated to S. Maria della Vittoria, which then was renovated and enlarged in 1628 and again in 1646 on behalf of a daughter and a granddaughter of Don Juan of Austria respectively.29 And a decisively Spanish interest was certainly involved when Camillo Cacace redecorated his family chapel in S. Lorenzo Maggiore in Naples.30 The chapel, which he inherited from his mother, Vittoria de Caro, was dedicated to the Madonna of the Rosary, a rather unusual choice for a Franciscan church. In the 1640s Cacace decided to turn the chapel into one of the most sumptuous family chapels in Naples, commissioning its magnificent decorations to Fanzago, Stanzione, and Andrea Bolgi (Figure 19.7). In order to accommodate the Dominican subject in the Franciscan setting, Stanzione had to combine both Franciscan and Dominican saints in his altarpiece. The chapel represented Cacace’s status and prestige, and his close ties with the Spanish crown, his role as a high ranking official of the Spanish court, most notably

28

Clara Gelao, “Confraternite, arte e devozione in Puglia dal Quattrocento al Settecento,” Confraternite, arte e devozione in Puglia dal Quattrocento al Settecento, catalogue of the exhibition, ed. by Clara Gelao (Bari, 1994), pp. 43–93, cfr. pp. 70–74. 29 Galante, 1985, p. 254. 30 Vincenzo Pacelli, “La cappella Cacace in San Lorenzo Maggiore: un complesso barocco in una basilica gotica,” Ricerche sul ’600 napoletano (1986): 171–200; Sebastian Schütze and Thomas Willette, Massimo Stanzione. L’opera completa (Naples, 1992), pp. 233–234, No. A87.

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as one of the ten presidents of the Regia Camera della Sommaria. In the very same years, Dorothea Orsini commissioned an altarpiece from Francesco Guarino for the church of S. Domenico in Solofra. Portraits of Pius V, of Fabrizio Savelli, the archbishop of Salerno, and of the princess herself were prominently displayed in the picture.31 This choice of iconography allowed her to express her extraordinary devotion and piety, as well as the loyalty and strong ties to the papacy and the Spanish crown the Orsini had professed for centuries. Yet another important aspect of Spanish patronage and politics in Naples, and indeed the whole of Southern Italy, was the promotion and diffusion of the cult of Spanish saints and their respective orders. Thomas Dandelet has described in detail how strategically the Spanish Hapsburgs were engaged in seventeenth-century “saintmaking.”32 Apart from the Jesuits, St. Teresa of Avila and her Discalced Carmelites present the most important case in point in Naples.33 Teresa was elevated to the altars by Gregory XV, as part of the memorable five-saint-canonization in St. Peter’s in 1622, together with Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Philip Neri, and Isidore. She was acclaimed for her Spanishness and seen as the incarnation of Spanish sainthood.34 Her neo-mysticism met with great favor in popular devotion and elite circles alike, and decisively influenced the spirituality and devotional practices of her age. The new convent of S. Teresa a Chiaia, erected by Fanzago from 1650 onwards, was patronized by two successive viceroys, Inigo Vélez de Guevara y Tassis, Count of Oñate, and Gaspar de Bracamonte, Count of Peñaranda.35 Luca Giordano was commissioned to execute a number of altarpieces for the new church. His representation of the newly canonized St. Peter

31 Riccardo Lattuada, Francesco Guarino da Solofra nella pittura napoletana del Seicento (1611–1651) (Naples, 2000), pp. 238–240, No. E60. 32 Thomas J. Dandelet, Spanish Rome 1500–1700 (New Haven and London, 2001), pp. 170–187. 33 For St. Teresa and the Discalced Carmelites see Valentino Macca, “Carmelitane Scalze,” in Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione, 10 vols. (Rome, 1974–2003), II, coll. 523–602, and Ludovico Saggi and Eulogio Pacho, “S. Teresa di Gesù,” in Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione, IX, coll. 952–967; see also Jodi Bilinkoff, The Avila of Saint Teresa. Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City (Ithaca/London, 1989); Santa Teresa y la Literatura Mistica Hispanica, ed. by Manuel Criado De Val (Madrid, 1984). 34 Carlos M. N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory. The art and craft of dying in sixteenthcentury Spain (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 379–380. 35 For S. Teresa a Chiaia see Cantone, 1984, pp. 155–163.

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of Alcantara, confessing St. Teresa of Avila is one of the most powerful expressions of Carmelite mysticism and spirituality (Figure 19.8).36 The Count of Peñaranda patronized in the early 1660s the erection of yet another Carmelite convent in Naples designed again by Fanzago, S. Giuseppe delle Scalze a Pontecorvo.37 The high altar of the church was adorned with a visionary painting by Giordano, representing the Holy Family with symbols of the passion (Figure 19.9).38 He also founded a large Carmelite convent in his hometown Peñaranda de Bracamonte, for which Andrea Vaccaro and Giordano executed a series of pictures.39 The viceroy was surely moved by deep personal devotion to St. Teresa, as well as the desire to promote the cult of Spanish saints in Naples and thereby the city’s “hispanization.” The institution of new convents in Naples promoted a widespread and popular devotion of Teresa and her fellow Carmelites and a particular image of Spanish sainthood. Their neo-mystic spirituality and devotional practices had a large impact on contemporary piety, which obviously required also a specific type of devotional images and thus had a decisive influence on Neapolitan religious imagery as most emblematically expressed in Giordano’s altarpieces. This is true also for the cult and devotion of hermit saints. These were particularly popular in Spain, and are a typical expression of the “reinforced individual ascetic tendencies of the Counter-Reformation.”40 In the park of the Buen Retiro Palace, for example, the new suburban residence of Philip IV in Madrid, a large number of Hermitages were erected, and a famous series of hermit landscapes was commissioned from Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, and Gaspar Dughet in Rome for its decoration.41 Images such as Ribera’s St. Mary Egyptiaca

36 Oreste Ferrari and Giuseppe Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. L’opera completa, 2 vols. (Naples, 1992), pp. 275–276, n. A159, p. 284, n. A206; Oreste Ferrari and Giuseppe Scavizzi, Luca Giordano: nuove ricerche ed inediti (Naples, 2003), p. 121. 37 For S. Giuseppe delle Scalze a Pontecorvo see Cantone, 1984, pp. 149–155. For his Neapolitan patronage see also Helen Hills, Invisible City. The architecture of devotion in seventeenth-century Neapolitan convents (Oxford, 2004), pp. 32–33. 38 Ferrari and Scavizzi, 1992, p. 273, n. A147; Ferrari and Scavizzi 2003, p. 44, no. A073. 39 For Vaccaro’s painting see Pintura Napolitana de Caravaggio a Giordano, catalogue of the exhibition (Madrid, 1985), pp. 334–335, n. 148. For Giordano’s paintings see Madrid, 1985, pp. 180–183, nn. 64, 65; Ferrari and Scavizzi, 1992, pp. 37–38, 274, nn. A151, A152; Ferrari and Scavizzi, 2003, p. 121. 40 Rosa, 1976, p. 223 “rafforzate tendenze ascetiche individuali della Controriforma.” 41 For the Buen Retiro Palace see Jonathan Brown and John H. Elliott, A Palace

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in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, his St. Paul in the Louvre in Paris or Giordano’s St. Onophrius in S. Francesco di Paola in Naples interpret this specific type of spirituality, documenting yet another important aspect of the Spanish impact on the production and consumption of religious images in Counter-Reformation Naples (Figure 19.10).42 Spanish art patronage in Naples, whether destined for the capital itself, the provincial dominions in southern Italy, or the Spanish homelands, presents a telling example of the fusion between politics and religion. Spanish art patronage decisively reshaped the profile of Neapolitan culture in the early modern period by promoting Spanish cults such as the Immaculate Conception or the Madonna of the Rosary, Spanish saints, and specific models of sainthood. The precise topography of Spanish patronage in Naples has yet to be delineated, but there can be no doubt about its wide ranging political, social, religious, economic, and cultural implications.

for a King. The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (New Haven/London, 1980), in particular pp. 77–81, 125–127, 217. 42 For Ribera’s paintings see Naples 1992, p. 252, n. 1.85, pp. 252–254, n. 1.86, p. 273, n. 1.98; Spinosa, 2003, p. 325, no. A245, p. 341, no. A297. For Giordano see Ferrari and Scavizzi, 1992, p. 251, n. A2; Ferrari and Scavizzi, 2003, p. 28, no. A08. And, of course, many other examples in Ribera’s and Giordano’s oeuvre could be cited.

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

The names of persons and authors are included, with the exception of references to Charles V, Phillip II, Phillip III, and Phillip IV. Abellán, José Luis, 457 n.1 Abulafia, David, 471 n.47 Accolti, Benedetto, Cardinal of Ravenna, 164 Acciaiuoli, Rafael, 173 Acerbi, Giacomo (fl. 1581), 322 Acerbi, Giacomo (d. 1657), 323 Acosta, Cristóbal de, 436 n.10 Acquaviva, Adriano, Count of Conversano, 419 Acquaviva, Claudio, 486 n.9, 501, 506 n.56 Acquaviva, Ottavio, Cardinal, Archbishop of Naples, 536, 537 & n., 538, 539, 552 & n. Adda, Giovanni Antonio d’, 321 Adelman, Howard, 336 n.37 Adorni Braccesi, Simonetta, 214 n.19 Adorno, Francesco, 509 Adrian of Utrecht see Adrian VI Adrian VI, Pope (Adrian of Utrecht), 83 Adriani, Giovan Battista, 144 n.20, 154 & n., 168 n.103 Africano, Leo, 452 n.51 Ago, Renata, 327 n.7, 333 n. 23, 334 n.28, 347 n.82 Agricola, Giorgio, 460 Aguadé Nieto, S., 437 n.12 Águila, Diego del, 103 n.11 Aguilera, Juan de, 442 Aguilar, Marquis of, 142, 144 Ahlgren, G. T. W., 450 n.45 Aiello, Lucia, 316 n.61, 336 n.38 Ajello, Raffaele, 282 n.68, 292 n.94 Alagón, 71, 71 n.54 Alagon, Blasco de, 31 Alamos de Barrientos, Baltasar, 255 & n., 256 n.11 Alarcon, Francisco de, 370 n.16 Alba, Duke of (Álvarez de Toledo, Fernando), 107 & n., 110, 136, 160, 161, 172 n.114, 178, 179, 197, 198, 369

Albéri, Eugenio, 4 n.5, 9 n.9 Alberigo, Giuseppe, 542 n.65, 543 n.66 Alberto, Archduke, 119 Alcalá, Duke of, Viceroy Naples, 371, 408 Alcalá, A., 441 n.19 Alcantara, Saint Peter of, 566 Alcaraz, Pedro Ruiz de, 462 Aldana, Antonio de, 146, 158 n.61, 173 Aldana, Francisco, 158 n.61 Aldobrandini, Giovanni Francesco, 419 Alessandrino, Cardinal, 475 Alfonso V, King of Aragon (also Alfonso I, King of Naples), “the Magnanimous,” 1, 2, 48, 75 Aleo, Jorge, 64 n.42 Alepus, Archbishop of Sassari, 60 Alexander VI, Pope, (Rodrigo Borgia), 2 Alexander VII, Pope, 193, 559 Alemán, Mateo, 435 & n. Alfarache, Guzmán de, 435 Alicarnaseo, Filonico, 160 n.71 Allegra, Luciano, 498 n.37 Allen, R. C., 392 & n., 393 n.27, 394 n.30, 401 Alois, Giovan Francesco, 468 Altamira, Count of, 143 Álvarez de Toledo, Fernando see Alba, Duke of Alba Alvarez de Toledo, Juan, 442, 459 Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, Antonio, 6, 9, 99 & n., 105 n.17, 109 n.27, 111 n.30, 112 n.31, 113 n.36, 124 n.54, 127 n.56, 151 n.42, 177 n.128, 299 n.1 Alviano, Bartolomeo d’, 309 Amabile, Luigi, 472 n.52, 525 n.20 Ambrosini, Federica, 327 n.6, 438 n.13 Amelang, James, 16, 16 n.15, 89, 433 Amiel, Charles, 457 n.1 Ammirato, Scipione, 148 n.35, 150 & n., 168 n.103, 175 & n, 176 n.125

570

index of proper names

Anatra, Bruno, 50 n.9, 55 n.23, 57 n.28, 62 n.38, 63 n.40, 65 n.43, 70 n.52, 200 n.6, 300 & n., 441 n.19, 520 n.8 Andalusa, Losana see Lozana andaluza Andenna, 493, 502 n.46 Andretta, Stefano, 338 n.45 Angeli, Ubaldo, 147 n.34 Anghiera, Peter Martyr d’, 102, 117, 438 & n. Angiolini, F., 329 n.12, 385 n.7, 401 Angoulême, Duke of, 106 Anguissola, Sofonisba, 117, 345, 444 Annoni, Gian Pietro, 319 Añon, C., 173 n. 116 Anselmi, Alessandri, 447 n.37 Antolinez, José, 559 Aprile, Francesco, 289 n.85 Aragón, Ana de, 10 Aragón, Antonio de, 145 n.25 Aragon, Catherine of, Queen of England, 150 Aragón, Ottavio de, 27 Aragón, Pedro de see Pedro de Aragón Aragón, Pedro Antonio de, Viceroy of Naples, 561 n.16, 563 n.23 Aragona, Tullia d’, 344 n.73, 345 Aranda, Count of, 143 Arbona, Giovanni Carlo, 316 n.59 Arbona, Giovanni Pietro, 316 n.59 Arcangeli, Letizia, 99 n.2, 302 n.7, 304 n.16, 481 n.2, 505 n.54 Archinto, Filippo, Archbishop, 532 Arese, Bartolomeo, 127, 128 Arese, Franco, 115 & n., 270 n.38, 271 n.43 Arese Lucini, Felice, 315 n.51 Aretino, Pietro, 436 Arias Montano, Benito, 478 Aristotle, 37, 38 Arias Montano, Benito, 458 Armiño, M., 444 n.28 Armitage, David, 248 n.44 Arnedo, Diego de, 477 & n. Arquer, Sigismondo, 59, 59 n.33, 441 Arrieta Alberdi, Jon, 53 n.17 Arrivo, Georgia, 343 n.69 Ascani, Alberto, 528 n.26 Ascensio, Augenio, 457 n.1 Asch, Ronald G., 295 n.99 Ascheri, Mario, 214 n.19 Ascona, Tarsicio de, 189 n.18 Asensio, E., 436 n. 8 Assante, F., 427 n.52

Astarita, Tommaso, 314 n.48, 347 & n., 421 & n. Astorga, Marquis of, 173 n. 120 Atzeri, Juan, Bishop of Bosa, 528 n.28 Augustín, Antonio, 144 n.22, 442, 479 Augustus Caesar, 147, 149 Avalle-Arce, J. B., 136 n.2 Avellaneda, Diego de, 448 Austria, Anne of, 565 Austria, Catalina Michaela of, 10, 353 Austria, Isabella Clara Eugenia d’, 555 Austria, Juan de, natural son of Charles V, 216, 564, 565 Austria, Juan José de, natural son of Philip IV, 43, 126, 127 Austria, Margaret of (Margaret of Parma), natural daughter of Charles V, 100, 138, 141 & n, 142, 144, 145, 159, 166 n. 93, 177, 510 n.67 Austria, Mariana de, Queen of Spain, wife of Philip IV and regent, 42, 43, 67, 124, 126, 556 Aversa, Matteo d’, 471 Avilés, Miguel, 457 n.1 Aymard, Maurice, 267 n.32, 293 n.96, 295 n.99, 376 n.28, 384 n.4, 401, 417 & n. Ayora, Gonzalo de, 102 Aytona, Count of, 216 Bacallar, Andrés, Archbishop of Sassari, 529 n.31 Bacallar, Vicente, 529 n.31 Baia, A., 145 n.24 & 25, 147 n.33 Bairoch, P., 391, 401 Baitelli, Angelica, 344 n.73 Balbani, Niccolò, 473 & n. Baldini, Baccio, 145 n.24, 160 n.70 Ballesteros Torres, P. L., 447 n.38 Balsamo-Crivelli, Gustavo, 306 n.22 Bandello, Matteo, 306 & n. Bandini, Giovanni, 147 n.34 Bangert, W. V., 442 n.21 Barahona, Juan de, 111, 112 Barbagli, Marzio, 351 n.94 Barberini, Francesco, Cardinal, 447 & n. Barberini, Olimpia, 336 Barberis, Walter, 304 n.13 Barbiano di Belgioioso, Carlo, Count, 321, 323 Barbiano di Belgioioso, Galeazzo, Count, 322

index of proper names Barbiano di Belgioioso, Giovan Francesco, 322 Barbieri, Edoardo, 485 n.8, 492 n.23 Barbisi, Gennato, 270 n.40 Baronio, Cesare, Cardinal, 542 n.63, 551 Baronius, 485 Bartoletto, Silvana, 381 n.39 Barzaghi, Antonio, 341 n.62 Barzazi, Antonella, 485 n.8 Basalù, Giulio, 472 Bascapé, Carlo, Bishop of Novara, 549 & n. Bascape, Marco G., 316 n.61 Bassanese, Fiora, 345 n.78 Bassi, Laura, 345 n.76 Basso, Michele, 188 n.13, 194 n.36 Bataillon, Marcel, 457 & n., 461 n.12, 466 n.26, 470 n.46 Batal-Batal, Carlos, 309 n.30 Batllori, Miquel, 60 n.34 Batou, J., 391, 401 Battistella, Antonio, 441 n.20, 477 n.70 Battistini, F., 389 n.20, 401 Bauzano, J., 438 n.13 Baviera Albanese, Adelaide, 26 n.8, 26 n.10, 257 n.13 Bayard, Françoise, 375 n.27 Bazzano, Nicoletta, 35 n.31 Beccaria, Gian Luigi, 251 n.1, 453 n.53 Becker, Rotraut, 533 n.42 Bedmar, Marquis of, 246 Beggiao, Diego, 487 n.11, 492 n.22 Belcredi, Giovanni Battista, 128 Belenguer Cebriá, Ernest, 35 n.30, 51 n.10, 53 n.17, 54 n.19, 175 n.124, 200 n.6, 284 n.70 Beloch, K. J., 387 & n., 401 Bell, Rudolph, 335 n.31 Bellabarba, Marco, 302 n.7, 506 n.55 Bellavitis, Anna, 333 n. 23, 340 n.56 Belli, Pierino, 309, 309 n.32 Beltrano, Ottavio, 263 n.25 Benadusi, Giovanna, 333 n. 23, 334 n.25 Benaglio, G., 116 n.39 Benassar, Bartolomé, 379 n.35 Benavente, Count of see Pimentel de Herrera, Juan Alonso Bendiscioli, Mario, 547 n.78 Benigno, Francesco, 5, 9, 23, 24 n.3, 25 n.5, 26 n.9, 33 n.27, 34 n.28, 34 n.29, 35 n. 30, 35 n.32, 35 n.34,

571

36 n.35, 40 n.48, 42 n.51, 43 n.52, 88, 89, 90 n.27, 287 n.80, 290 n.88, 299 n.1 Benítez i Riera, Josep M., 60 n.34 Bennet, J., 335 n.30 Bentini, Jadranka, 345 n.77 Beonio-Brocchieri, Vittorio, 260 n.17, 261 n.19, 262 n.21 Bercé, Yves-Marie, 413 n.18 Berengo, Marino, 227 n.1, 485 n.8, 493 n.26, 495 n.27, 497 n.35, 498, 499 n.38, 501, 502 n.44, 509 n.62 Bernard, Vincent, 376 n.29 Bernardo Arés, J. M. de, 173 n. 117 Bernaudo, Consalvo, 468 Bernis Madrazo, Carmen, 453 n.54 Bernstein, P. Renée, 338 & n. Bertano, Pietro, 458 Bertelli, Sergio, 295 n.99, 301 n.5, 303 n.12, 488 & n. Berthe, Maurice, 379 n.35 Berti, Domenico, 469 n.39, 472 n.54 Berti, L., 178 n. 130, 180 n.132 Bescapè, Sinodoro, 322 Beza, Theodore, 473 Bianchini, Lodovico, 262, 263 n.24 Biandrata, Giorgio, 471, 473 Bibiena, Bernardo da, 187 n.10 Bibliander, Theodor, 460 Bidelli, Giambattista, 320 Biella, F., 317 n.61 Bigli, Antonio, Count, 323 Bilinkoff, Jodi, 566 n.33 Bilotto, Antonella, 314 n.48, 486 n.9 Biondi, A., 144 n.20 Biondi, G., 342 n.66 Birke, Adolf M., 295 n.99 Birrell, Jean, 502 n.47 Bisaccioni, Maiolino, 311 n.38 Bitelo, Bartolomeo, (also known as “Martello”) 419 Bitossi, Carlo, 215 n.23, 253 n.6 Bizzocchi, Roberto, 309 n.29 Blanco, Emilio, 255 n.9 Blickle, Peter, 89 Blüher, K. A., 151 n.42 Boaga, Emanuele, 495 n.27 Boehmer, Eduard, 469 n.36 Bognetti, G. P., 99 n.2 Bolea, Bernardo de, 110 n.29 Bolgi, Andrea, 565 Boniface VIII, Pope, 45 Bonifacio, Giovanni Bernardino, 468 Bonney, Richard, 25 n.4

572

index of proper names

Bonora, Elena, 481 n.1, 487 n.13 Bordone, Renato, 301 n.4 Borello, Benedetta, 347 n.82 Borgia, Girolamo, 163, 305 & n., 306 Borgia, Rodrigo see Alexander VI Borghese, Camillo, 446 Borghesi, Vilma, 201 n.8 Borja, Alonso de see Calixtus III Borromeo, Agostino, 16, 481 n.1, 517, 518 n.2, 522 n.11, 523 n.13, 524 n.16, 525 n.18, 526 n.21, 527 n.23, 528 n.27, 529 n.30, 533 n.41, 534 n.44, 535 n.45, 536 n.48, 537 n.51, 541 n.63, 542 n.64, 545 n.72, 547 n.79, 548 n.81, 549 n.82, 550 n.86, 551 n.89 Borromeo, Carlo, Cardinal, Archbishop of Milan, 94, 491, 501, 512, 522 n.11, 535, 545 & n., 548 & n., 549 & n. Borromeo, Federico, Cardinal, Archbishop of Milan, 10, 496 & n., 498 n.37, 499 n.40, 504 & n., 506 n.56, 509, 535, 536 n.48, 550, 553 Borromeo, Giulio Cesare, Count, 323 Boscán, Juan, 437 Bocolo, A., 102 n.9 Boenig, R., 450 n.45 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 248 Bonelli, Michele, 531 n.36 Bösel, Richard, 561 n.18, 563 n.21 Boswell, James, 453 n.56 Botero, Giovanni, 449, 450 n.44, 484 Bourbon, Duke of, 103 Bouwsma, William J., 232 n.8 Bowers, Jane, 345 n.77 Bracamonte, Alfonso de, 161 Bracamonte, Gaspar de, Count of Penaranda, 566, 567 Bracciolini, Poggio, 274 & n., 300, 301, 308 Bracewell, Catherine Wendy, 245 n.38 Brady, F., 453 n.56 Bramante, Donato, 186 Brambilla, Elena, 113 n.36, 254 n.8, 270 n.40, 299 n.1, 498 n.37, 505 n.54, 506 n.54, 507 & n. Brancaccio, Ferrante, 468 Brancaccio, Giovanni, 527 n.25 Brancaccio, Lelio, 311 n.39 Brancaccio, Tiberio, 198 n.3 Braudel, Fernand, 173 n. 120, 181, 199 n.6, 242 & n., 383, 401

Bravo Lozano, Jesús, 198 n.2, 532 n.40 Bresc, Henri, 267 n.32, 285 & n. Breschi, M., 387 n.16, 401 Brevaglieri, Sabina, 328 n.8 Bridenthal, R., 350 n.90 Brisegna, Bernardino, 469 Brisegna, Isabella, 469, 472 Brivio, Luigi, 322 Brizzi, Gian Paolo, 503 n.49 Bronzino, Angiolo, 138, 139, 154 Brown, Jonathan, 444 n.30, 445 n.32, 567 n.41 Brown, Judith, 327 n.5, 332 n.19, 339 n.50, 340 n.57 Brucioli, Antonio, 459 Brucker, Gene, 330 n.14 Brunel, Antoine de, 447 Brunelli, Giampiero, 311 n.38, 510 n.67 Bullard, Melissa M., 176 n. 126 Buonarotti, Michelangelo, 191, 193, 445 n.33 Burchard, Johannes, 434 n.3 Burchard, Ludwig, 556 n.1 Burckhardt, Jacob, 303 Burgio, Santo, 37 n.37, 485 n.7 Burke, M. B., 446 n.35, 447 n.39 Burke, Peter, 304 n.13 Burkholder, Mark A., 130 n.59 Burton, Robert, 453, 454 n.57 Busale, Girolamo, 471, 472 Bussetti, Nicolò, 323 Bustamente, A., 447 n.37 Butera, Prince of, Count of Mazzarino, 31, 41 Buyreu Juan, Jordi, 54 n.19 Buzi, Franco, 545 n.72 Caballero, Fermín, 464 n.22, 467 n.28 Cabibbo, Sara, 33 n.25, 37 n.39, 334 n.29 Cacace, Camillo, 565 Caccini, Francesca, 345 & n. Cadden, Joan, 343 n.68 Cadenas y Vicent, Vicente de, 463 n.20 Cagliari, Archbishop of, 528 n.28 Caizzi, Bruno, 236 n. 19, 384 & n., 401 Calabria, Antonio, 14, 14 n.14, 15, 78 n.4, 230 n.5, 375 n.27, 385 n.10, 402, 408 n.5, 412 n.15, 414 n.22, 417 n.29, 427 n.53, 428 n.58

index of proper names Calixtus III, Pope (Alonso de Borja), 2 Calvi, Felice, 270 n.38, 271 n.42 Calvi, Giulia, 330 n.13, 333 n. 23, 336 & n., 341 n.60, 353 & n. Calvin, John, 441 n.19, 466 Cámara, Alicia, 58 n.30 Camarasa, Marquis of, Viceroy of Sardinia, 68, 71, 72 Cambiaso, Luca, 444, 449 Camerano, Alessandra, 342 n.63 Camillo, Giulio, 460 Campanella, Tommaso, 252, 253 n.4 Campanelli, Marcella, 336 n.38, 503 n.48 Campenni, Francesco, 313 n.44 Campori (Campora), Pietro, Cardinal, Bishop of Cremona, 533 & n., 534 Canavaggio, J., 444 n.28 Cancilla, Orazio, 520 n.8 Canellas Anoz, M., 101 n.7 Canellas López, A., 101 n.7 Canepa, M., 547 n.78 Canestrini, G., 171 n.113 Canet Aparisi, Teresa, 55 n.24 Canfora, Davide, 274 n.51, 300 n.2 Cano, Alonso, 559 Cano, Melchor, 467 & n. Canopolo, Bishop, 60 Canossa, Lodovico da, 304 Cantimori, Delio, 479 Cantone, Gaetana, 563 n.23, 566 n.35, 567 n.37 Cantú, Cesare, 243 n.34, 520 n.7 Cantú, Francesca, 109 n.27, 276 n.55, 300 n.1, 484 n.6, 490 n.19 Capaccio, Giulio Cesare, 149 & n., 291, 292 n.91 Capece, Scipione, 468 Capra, Carlo, 273 n.50 Caprioli, Adriano, 528 n.26 Caracciolo, Alberto, 384 n.3, 402 Caracciolo, Galeazzo, 468, 473 Caracciolo, Marino, Cardinal, Ambassador to Milan, Governor of Milan, 106, 107, 142, 143, 284 Caracciola, Nicola Maria, 469 Caracena, Marquis of, 123 & n. Carafa, Carlo, Cardinal Legate, 543, 544 n.68 Carafa, Decio, 538, 538 n.58, 539 & n., 540 n.61 Carafa, Gian Pietro see Paul IV Caramuel de Lobkowitz, Juan, 445 & n.

573

Carande, Ramón, 79, 79 n.7, 199 n.6 Caravaggio, 567 n.39 Caravia, Alessandro, 459 Carbonnel, Jordi, 63 n.39 Carcano, Donato, 322 Cardines, Leonardo de, 468 Cardini, Franco, 295 n.99 Cardona, Duke of, 102 n.10 Cardoso, Isaac, 452 & n. Carducho, 449 Carducho, Bartolomé, 444 Carducho, Vicente, 444 Carduino, Cesare, 468 Carlini of Pescia, Benedetta, 338 Carlo Emmanuele of Savoy, 10, 353 Carlos Morale, Carlos J. de, 199 n.6, 200 n.6, 532 n.40 Carocci, Sandro, 302 n.7 Carnesecchi, Pietro, 460, 461 n.10, 462, 464, 465, 468 & n., 469 n.40, 474, 475 Carpio, Marquis of, 127 Carranza, Bartolomé, Archbishop, 440 n.18, 441, 451, 458, 459, 466, 474 & n., 477 n.74, 478 & n. Carreño, Juan, 559 Carrère, Claude, 46 n.1, 49 n.7 Carrillo, Juan, 102 n.10 Casati, Alfonso, 322 Casati, Darnese, 126 Casati, Gabrielle, Regent of Milan, 112 Casati, Matteo, 322 Cascardi, A. J., 444 n.28 Casella, Laura, 31 n.19 Cassol, Alessandro, 310 n.37 Castaldo, A., 141 n.11 Castagna, Giovanni Battista, 531 n.36 Castelnau-L’Estoile, Charlotte de, 485 n.7 Castelnuovo, Guido, 301 n.4, 303 n.11 Castelvetrano, Prince of, 31 Castelví, Agustín de, Marquis of Laconi, 68, 71 Castelví, Jaime Artal de, 68 Castelví, Jorge, 71, 71 n.54 Castiglione, Alessandro, 322 Castiglione, Baldassare, 252 & n., 303, 304 & n., 464 Castiglione, Caroline, 242 n.31, 336 n.36, 412 n.16 Castilla, Isabel de, 440 Castilla, Pedro, 469 Castilla, Luis de, 114

574

index of proper names

Castillo, Antonio del, 162 & n. Castillo, Jéronimo del, 162 Castillo, Juan de, 464 Castillo, S., 177 n.128 Castriota, Costantino, 145 n.25 Castrillo, Count of, Viceroy of Naples, 419 Castro, Francisco de, 539 n.61, 552 n.95 Castro, Miguel de, 434 Castro, Scipio di, 39, 39 n. 44, 289 & n. Castro, Pedro Fernándo de, Count of Lemos, Viceroy of Naples, 544 n.69, 552 n.95 Castrovillari, Duke of, 145 n.25, 160, 161 n.76 Catalano, Gaetano, 28 n.14, 549 n.83 Cátedra, Pedro M., 475 n.66 Cavaciocchi, Simonetta, 340 n.54 Cavaglieri, Arrigo, 309 n.32 Cavagna, Anna Giulia, 270 n.38 Cavalchini, Antonio Guidoboni, Baron, 323 Cavalchini, Ottaviano Guidoboni, 323 Cavallera, Marina, 262 n.23 Cavalli, M., 262 & n. Cavallino, Bernardo, 559 Cavallo, Sandra, 327 n.7, 333 n. 23, 334 n.29, 342 n.67, 343 n.69 Caviceo, Giacomo, 434 n.1 Cazalla, Agustín de, 440, 441 Cazalla, María de, 462 Cazzamini Mussi, F., 104 n.15 Celestre, Pietro, 27 n.11, 28, 28 n.13, 30 n.17, 257 n.13 Cellini, Benvenuto, 172 n. 117, 444 & n. Centelles, Gaspar de, 441 Cereta, Laura, 344 n.73 Cerina, Giovanna, 62 n.38 Cerutti, Simona, 343 n.69 Cervantes, Miguel de, 434, 443, 444 n.28 Cervelli, Innocenzo, 303 n.9 Ceva, Febus de, 304 Chabod, Federico, 107 n.22, 229, 238 n.23, 449 n.44, 521 n.11, 542 n.64 Chabot, Isabelle, 333 n. 23, 334 n.29, 335 n.32 Châlon, Philibert of, Prince of Orange, Viceroy of Naples, 140 Chamoux, Marie-Noëlle, 379 n.35 Chandler, D. S., 130 n.59

Charles II, King of Spain, 70, 72, 125, 129, 130, 131, 184 Charles III, (Charles of Bourbon), King of the Two Sicilies, 254 n.8 Charles III (“King of Spain” assumed title of Emperor Charles VI), 130 Charles VIII, King of France, 2, 140 Charles IX, King of France, 207 Châtellier, Louis, 502 n.47, 503 n.47 Checa Cremades, F., 148 n.34, 172 n. 117 Cherchi, Paolo, 151 n.43 Cherry, P., 446 n.35, 447 n.39 Cherubini, Giovanni, 416 n.27, 428 n.57, 494 n.27 Chèvre, P., 391, 401 Chiari, Isidoro, 460 Chiosi, Elvira, 276 n.55 Chittolini, Giorgio, 73 n.1, 229, 230 n.3, 259 & n., 261 n.20, 302 n.7, 309 n.29, 385 n.12, 402, 481 n.2, 494 n.27, 546 n.74 Chojnacka, Monica, 332 n.20, 335 n.30, 341 n.58 Chojnacki, Stanley, 327 n.5 Christiansen, Keith, 344 n.74 Cerda y Sandoval, Catelina de la, 563 Ciammitti, Luisa, 339 n.53, 340 n.54 Cibo, Cardinal, 156 Cibo, Caterina, 464 Cicero, 452 n.53 Cicogna, Alessandro, Count, 322 Cifuentes, Count of, 102 n.10, 142, 144 Cigoli, Ludovico Cardi da, 558 & n. Cione, Edmondo, 468 n.35 Cipolla, Carlo M., 383 & n., 388 n.18, 402, 422 Cipriani, G., 148 n.34 Cisneros, Francisco Ximenez de, Cardinal, 187, 457 Cisneros, Pedro de, 31, 31 n.20, 257 n.13 Cistellini, Antonio, 513 n.72 Citolini, Alessandro, 460 Clara Eugenia, Archduchess, 119 Claro, Giulio, Regent of Milan, 112 Claver, Juan, 103 n.11 Clement VII, Pope (Giulio de’ Medici), 105, 141, 187, 188, 195, 233, 467, 527 & n., 530 Clement VIII, Pope, 11, 419, 486, 487 n.11, 491, 492 n.23, 498 n.35., 499,

index of proper names 502 n.45, 506 n.56, 511 n.69, 535, 536 & n., 537, 550 & n., 553 n.96 Clerici, Carlo, 317, 318 Clerici, Francesco, 317 & n., 318 n.62 Clerici, Giorgio, 317 & n., 318 n.62 Clerici, Giorgio Pietro (son of Giorgio Clerici), 318 n.62 Clerici, Giovan Pietro, 317 & n. Clerici, Ludovico, 317 & n., 318 n.62 Clifton, James, 564 n.26 Clough, Cecil, 345 n.76 Cobos, Francisco de los, 78, 160, 161, 438, 467 Cocco, M. C., 441 n.19, 452 n.50 Coello, Claudio, 555, 556 n.1 Cochrane, Lydia G., 517 n. Cohen, Elizabeth S., 13, 331 n.17, 342 n.63, 343 n.69, 434 & n.2 Cohen, Sherrill, 328 n.11 Cohn, Samuel Jr., 332 n.19 Cohen, Thomas V., 434 & n.2, 514 n.75 Colleoni, Bartolomeo, 229 Coloma, Antonio, Count of Elda, 54 n.22 Colomer, José Luis, 561 n.16 Colón, Hernando, 439 Colonna, Ascanio, 157, 159, 464, 475 Colonna, Fabrizio, 303 Colonna, Gerolamo, Cardinal, 532 n.39 Colonna, Marcantonio, Viceroy of Sicily, 6, 7, 8, 28, 31, 35, 35 n.31, 39, 39 n. 44, 39 n.45, 198 n.4 Colonna, Prospero, 307 Colonna, Vittoria, 8, 179, 464, 475, 478 Columbus, Christopher, 438 Colussi, Roberta, 358 n.2 Comba, Emilio, 473 n.58 Comparato, Vittor Ivo, 91, 91 n.31, 561 n.17 Conato, Luigi Giuseppe, 235 n.15 Concini, ambassador, 171 n.113 Conde y Delgado de Molina, Rafael, 46 n.2 Conelli, Maria Ann, 561 n.18 Coniglio, G., 140 n. 10, 141 n.11, 394 n.29, 400 n.38, 402, 427 n.52 Consonni, Giambattista, 314 n.50 Constantine the Great, 182 Contamine, Philippe, 309 n.29 Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal, 218 & n., 222 & n., 229, 23, 458

575

Contarini, Nicolò, Doge of Venice, 232 Contarini, Tomaso, 10 Conti Odorisio, Ginevra, 346 n.80 Conti, Vittorio, 214 n.21, 222 n. 42 Contini, Alessandra, 151 n.44 Continisio, Ch., 151 n.42 Contreras, Alonso de, 434 Conzato, Antonio, 312 n.40 Corazzini, O., 148 n.34 Córdoba, Carabasal di, 443 Corio, Bernardino, 120 & n. 123 n.52 Corio, Carlo, Marquis, 323 Cornaro, Cardinal, 172 Cornaro Piscopia, Eleonara, 345 Cornasole, 167, 168 n.99 Coronas Gonzalez, Santos Manuel, 364 n.7 Coronata, Bartolomeo, 204 n.12 Corradi, Bartolomeo, 322 Corradi, Lancellotto, 323 Corrao, Pietro, 25 n.5, 37 n.40 Corsetto, Pietro, 37, 37 n.41, 38, 38 n. 42, 39, 39 n.45, 297 & n. Corsi, D., 329 n.12 Cortese, Gregorio, 465 Cortese, Paolo, 454 Cossío, José María de, 310 n.37, 435 n.5 Costantini, Claudio, 215 n.23 Costanzo, Fulvio de, 368, 371, 374 n.26 Costo, Tomaso, 415 Cotta, Fabrizio, 321 Cotta, Innocente, 324 Cova, Alberto, 380 n.37 Cowan, Alexander, 335 n.30, 435 n.7 Cox, Virginia, 346 n.80 Cozzi, Gaetano, 232 n.8, 235 n.16, 239, 242 n.29, 245 & n. Cremonini, Cinzia, 127 n.56, 314 n.50 Crabb, Ann, 334 n.29 Crescenzi, Giovan Battista, 444 Crespí di Valldaura, Cristóbal, 69 Criscuolo, V., 497 n.34 Crivella, Alfonso, 257 n.13, 227 n.31, 287 n.79 Croce, Barnabò, infantry captain, 316 Croce, Benedetto, 3, 12, 252 & n., 293 n.97, 302 & n., 311 n.38, 448, 467 n.29 Croce, Federico, 324 Croce, Giovanni Battista, Knight of Malta and infantry captain, 316

576

index of proper names

Croce, Giovanni Battista, captain (nephew to Giovanni Battista, Knight of Malta), 316 Croce, Giuseppe, militia auditore generale, 316, 317 n.61 Croce, Odoardo, decurion, 316 Croce, Odoardo, ensign (grandson of Odoardo Croce, decurion), 316 Cromwell, Thomas, 78 Crouzet-Pavan, Elisabeth, 227 n.1 Cruz, Isabel de la, 470 Cruz, Luis de la, 478 n.74 Cueva, Andrés de la, 113, 114 Cueva, Gabriel de la, Duke of Albuquerque, Governor of Milan, 526 n.21 Cuevas, Cardinal, 171 Curione, Celio Secondo, 441 n.19, 468 & n. Cusani, Alessandro, 322 Cusani, Ferdinando, 323 Cusani, Ottavio, 323 Cusick, Suzanne, 345 n.77 Cutelli, Mario, 289 n.86 Cutrera, Antonio, 341 n.62 D’Agostino, Guido, 1 n.1 D’Alessandro, Vincenzo, 35 n.30 D’Amelia, Marina, 325 n.1, 335 n.30, 336 & n., 340 n.54, 347 n.82 D’Amico, Stefano, 329 n.11, 341 n.63 D’Andrea, Francesco, 277 n.58, 281 & n. D’Aragona y Tagliavia, Carlo, Duke of Terranova, 27 D’Aragona, Giovanna, 8 D’Aragona, Giovanni, Count of Ripacorsa, Viceroy of Naples, 77 D’Avalos, Alfonso, Marquis of Vasto, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 143, 159, 284, 309 D’Avalos, Francesco Ferdinando, Marquis of Pescara, 105, 284 Da Molin, Giovanna, 332 n.20 Damiani, 436 n.9 Dandelet, Thomas James, 1, 11, 11 n.13, 181, 185, 189 n.16, 232 n.10, 253 n.6, 442 n.23, 555 n.1, 566 & n. Daverio, Giovan Antonio, 322 Davis, James C., 230 n.5, 411 n.12, 414 n.21 Davis, John C., 4 n.5, 9 n.9

Davis, Natalie Z., 325 n.1, 452 n.51 Davis, Robert, 327 n.5, 336 n.37 Day, John, 70 n.52 Dayton, Cornelia, 331 n.16 De Armas, F. A., 444 n.28 De Caro, Gaspare, 311 n.39 De Consoli, Claudio, 310 n.34 De Frede, Carlo, 561 n.18 De Gennaro, Giuseppe, 464 n.21 De Giorgio, Michela, 325 n.1 De Hoyo, Luis, 42 De La Roncière, C. M., 394 n.28, 402 De Luca, Giuseppe, 310 n.36, 376 n.30 De Luna, G., 328 n.10 De Maddalena, Aldo, 199 n.6, 207 n.15, 270 n.40, 292 n.95, 394 n.28, 402 De Maio, Romeo, 350 n.91, 556 n.4, 557 & n. De Marco, D., 427 n.52 De Martino, Ernesto, 454 n.59 De Mello, Francisco, 36, 36 n.36 De Michelis Pintacuda, Fiorella, 214 n.19 De Poorter, Nora, 555 n.1 De Rosa, Luigi, 263 n.24, 377 n.32 De Sanctis Mangeli, Arturo, 418 n.33 De Seta, Cesare, 275 n.55, 409 n.6 Dean, Trevor, 295 n.99, 333 n. 21 Dehouve, Danièle, 379 n.35 Del Carretto, Alfonso, 218 Del Col, Andrea, 330 n.14 Del Negro, Piero, 313 n.45, 314 n.48 Del Treppo, Mario, 45 n.2, 46, 49 n.7, 309 n.29 Della Torre, Giulio, 529 n.30 Deleidi, Laura, 333 n. 23 Delfino, Flaminio, 419 Delicado, Francisco, 352 n.95, 436 & n., 437 Delille, Gérard, 93 & n, 94, 95, 96, 97, 275 n.54, 332 n.20, 333 n.24, 380 n.38, 422 & n., 428 & n., 561 n.17 Della Pergola, P., 139 n.7 Delumeau, Jean, 181 & n. Denmark, Cristina of, 106 Denia, Marquis of, (later Duke of Lerma), 551 Dessert, Daniel, 375 n.27 Deutscher, Thomas B., 452 & n.. Devoto, Daniel, 457 n.1

index of proper names Devries, Jan, 391, 403, 423 n.46, 425 n.50 Di Capua, Pietro Antonio, 461, 462, 465, 468 Di Cori, Paola, 326 n.4 Di Giovanni, Vincenzo, 288 & n. Di Pasquale, Armando, 267 n.30 Di Simplicio, Oscar, 341 n.59 Diana, Antonio, 37 Dickens, A. G., 294 n.99 Dillenberger, John, 183 n.3 Dipper, Christof, 152 n.44 Doglio, M. L., 150 n.39 Domenichi, Ludovico, 459 Donà, Lorenzo, 238, 239, 241 Donado, Lorenzo, 235 n.16, 237 n.20, 238 n.22, 239 n.25, 241 n.28 Donald, Dorothy, 464 n.21 Donald, M., 342 n.67 Donati, Claudio, 9, 13, 57 n.29, 299, 304 n.15, 312 n.42, 315 n.51, 320 n.69 Donsi Gentile, I., 142 n.15 Donvito, Luigi, 495 n.27 Doria, Andrea, Prince of Melfi, 8, 144, 197, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 208, 213, 218, 219, 220 Doria, Giorgio, 199 n.6, 206 n.14, 396 n.33, 402 Doria, Giovanni Andrea, Prince of Melfi, 8, 200, 201 & n., 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210, 211, 213 Dornberg, Vito, 210 Doussinague, J. M., 103 n.11 Dughet, Gaspar, 567 Durini, Giacomo, Count, 324 Eamon, W., 443 n.26 Earle, Peter, 383 n.2 Edelstein, Bruce L., 151 n.44 Edwards, J., 435 n.7 Eire, Carlos M. N., 566 n.34 Eisenach, Emlyn, 333 n. 22 Eisenbichler, Konrad, 151 n.44, 353 n.96 Elias, Norbert, 342 Elias de Tejada, Francisco, 254 n.8 Elliott, J. H., 26 n.7, 53 n.18, 63 n.41, 70 n.53, 80 n.11, 88, 88 n.24, 89, 89 n.27, 117 & n., 295 n.99, 313 n.47, 376 n.28, 567 n.41 Elm, Kaspar, 481 n.2 Elton, G. R., 78, 78 n.5

577

Enriquez de Acevedo, Pedro, Count of Fuentes, Governor of Milan, 115 & n., 284 n.71, 495, 521 n.10, 529 n.30, 553 n.96 Enriquez de Cabrera, Juan Alfonso, Admiral of Castile, Viceroy of Sicily, 40 Enríquez de Guzmán, Alonso, 434, 435 n.5 Enzinas, Diego de, 461 & n. Enzinas, Francisco de, 461 & n. Epstein, S. R., 423 n.46, 428 n.59 Erasmus, Desiderius, 150, 460, 463 Erauso, Catalina de, 434, 435 n.5 Erler, M., 347 n.81 Ernst, Germana, 253 n.4 Escalona, Duke of, 537 n.55, 538 n.56, 551 n.90, 552 n.93 Escobar, J., 444 n.30 Escobedo, Juan, 217 n.28 Escrivá, Nofre, 27 Esposito, L. Guglielmo, 484 n.5, 501 n.43, 503 n.47 Estrada, Duke of, Diego, 434 Eubel, Conrad, 527 n.25 Eustorgio, S., 481 n.2 Evangelisti, Silvia, 338 n.47, 344 n.73 Facchiano, A., 336 n.38 Faccini, Luigi, 495 n.27 Fagnani, Angelo, 323 Fantappiè, Carlo, 486 & n. Fantoni, G., 102 n.9 Fantoni, M., 179 n. 131 Fanzago, Cosimo, 563 & n., 565, 566, 567 Farge, Arlette, 325 n.1 Farinacci, Prospero, 333 n. 23 Farinelli, Giuseppe, 338 n.49 Farnese, Alessandro, Cardinal, 170 Farnese, Elisabetta, 347 Farnese, Ottavio, 142, 170 n.106 Fasano Guarini, Elena, 214 n.20, 215 n.22, 229, 230 n.3, 292 n.93 Fasoli, Sara, 502 n.46, 510 n.64 Fattori, Maria Teresa, 535 n.47, 537 n.52 Fazio, Ida, 333 n. 23 Feci, Simona, 537 n.52 Fedele, Cassandra, 344 n.73 Federico, King of Naples, 75 Federico, G., 392 & n., 397 n.37, 402 Feldhay, Rivka, 514 & n.

578

index of proper names

Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor, 79 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, 529 n.32 Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon, 8, 47, 48, 49, 50, 74, 75, 76, 77, 101, 102, 103, 184, 186, 253, 357, 517, 557 Ferdinand I of Aragon, (also called Ferrante I), King of Naples, 2, 75, 140 Ferdinand II of Aragon, (also called Ferrante II and Ferrandino), King of Naples, 75 Ferdinand, Archduke of Styria, 245 Ferdinand Bonaventura I, Count of Harrach, 129 n.57 Feria, Duke of, 116, 520 n.6 Feria, Duke of, Viceroy of Sicily, 519 Fernández Albaladejo, Pedro, 72 n.55, 83, 83 n.16 Fernández Álvarez, M., 118 n.40, 175 n.123 Fernández de Castro, Pedro, 563 Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo, “the Great Captain,” 1, 74, 137 Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo, 136 & n., 436 n.10 Fernández de Velasco, Juan, Governor of Milan, 536 n.49, 544 n.70 Fernández Murga, Félix, 448 n.41 Fernández Pacheco, Juan, Marquis of Villena, Duke of Escalona, 522 n.12 Fernández-Santamaría, J. A., 255 n.9 Fernández Terricabras, Ignasi, 527 n.23 Ferrandina, Duke of, 166 Ferrante, Lucia, 328 n.11, 331 n.15, 339 n.50, 343 & n. Ferrari, Oreste, 567 n.36, 568 n.42 Ferraris, Iolito de, 151 n.43 Ferraro, Joanne, 334 n.26 Ferrazzi, Cecilia, 330 n.14 Ferrero, Fernandino, Bishop, 533 Fiesole, Monsignor de, 109 Figliodoni, Danese, 111 Figueroa, Spanish ambassador to Genoa, 207, 208 & n. Figueroa, Fernando, 110 n.29 Figueroa, Juan de, 143, 164, 462, 471 Filiberto, Emanuele, Viceroy of Sicily, 37 Filippini, Nadia Maria, 333 n. 23, 341 n.60

Finaldi, Gabriele, 561 n.16 Findlen, Paula, 345 n.76 Fiorani, Luigi, 336 n.38 Fiorato, Adelin Charles, 307 n.23 Fioravanti, Leonardo, 443 & n. Firenzuola, Angelo, 152 n.45, 153 n.45 Firpo, Luigi, 310 n.35 Firpo, Massimo, 16, 150 n.41, 292 n.93, 305 n.17, 337 n.43, 440 n.18, 450 & n., 451 n.48, 457, 458 n.3, 459 n.4, 460 n.6, 461 n.11, 462 n.14, 463 n.20, 464 n.23, 465 n.24, 470 n.40, 471 n.49, 473 n.60 Fitz-James Stuart, J., 107 n.21 Fiume, Giovanna, 37 n.39, 483 n.3 Flaminio, Marcantonio, Cardinal 460, 474, 475 Flandrin, J. L., 453 n.55 Flores Sellés, C., 144 n.22 Fodale, Salvatore, 28 n.14 Foglietta, Oberto, 218 & n., 219 & n., 220 & n., 221 & n., 223 & n. Folengo, Giovan Battista, 460 Folch de Cardona, Antón, Viceroy of Sardinia, 52, 53 Folch de Cardona, Ramón, Count of Albento, Viceroy of Naples, 77, 101, 140 Folch y Cardona, Antonio, Duke of Sessa, Ambassador, 535 & n., 536 n.49, 537 n.50 Fonseca y Claver, Juan, 103 n.11 Font i Rius, José María, 47 n.4 Fontana, Alejo, 60 Fontana, Domenico, 563 Fontana, Josep, 379 n.35 Fontana, Lavinia, 345 & n. Fontaine, Laurence, 379 n.35 Fonte, Moderata, 344 n.73, 346 Fornaro, Ferrante, regent of Naples, 373 n.22 Fortunati, Vera, 345 n.77 Fortunato, Francesco, 26, 27, 38 Fossani, Giuseppe, 323 Fossani, Raffaele, 322 Foscari, Francesco, Doge of Venice, 234, 241 Foucault, Michel, 342 Fracanzano, Cesare, 563 Fragnito, Gigliola, 481 n.1, 487 n.12, 488 n.14, 491 n.20, 510 n.66 Frame, Donald M., 454 n.56 France, Reneé of, 475 Franceshini, G., 99 n.2

index of proper names Francia, Ennio, 183 n.2, 185, 186 n.7, 187 n.9 Francioni, Giovanni, 214 n.19 Francis, Saint, 556 Francis I, King of France, 103 & n., 104, 106, 108, 138, 141, 164, 183, 306, 526 Franco, Francisco, 3 Franco, Veronica, 344 n.73, 345 Fregoso, Cesare, 307, 309 Fregoso, Federico, 304, 478 Frenaye, Frances, 302 n.8 Frezza, Fabio, 291 n.90 Frick, Carole, 342 n.66 Frigo, D., 178 n.129 Froide, A., 335 n.30 Frutos, Leticia de, 561 n.16 Fubini Leuzzi, Maria, 380 n.38 Fulin, Rinaldo, 233 n.11 Fumaroli, Marc, 489, 490 n.18 Funes y Muñoz, Gerónimo, 370 n.16 Furió Ceriol, Fadrique, 439 Fusco, Ascanio, 417 Fusco Girard, L., 140 n.9 Gagliano, Antonio de, 141 n.12 Galante, Andrea, 530 n.34, 565 n.29 Galante, Gennaro Aspreno, 563 n.23 Galanti, Giuseppe Maria, 423 & n., 427 n.52 Galasso, Giuseppe, 4 n.4, 24 n.2, 70 n.52, 77 n.4, 78 n.5, 80, 80 n.10, 81 n.12, 82, 82 n.13, 83, 84 n.17, 88, 89, 90 n.27, 97, 105 n.17, 139 n.6, 200 n.7, 265 n.27, 276 n.55, 277 n.57, 299 n.1, 358 n.2, 423 n.47, 427 & n., 429 & n., 557 n.5 Galeota, Mario, 297 n.101, 468 Galimberti, Paolo M., 316 n.61 Galilei, Galileo, 558 & n. Galilei, Virginia, 344 n.73 Gallio, Tolomeo, Cardinal, 542 n.64, 546 n.74 Gallo, Antonio Maria, Cardinal, 499 n.40 Gallo, Francesca, 41 n. 50 Galloway, P., 402 Galluzzi, R., 145 n.26, 148 n.34, 155 n.50, 157 n.58, 159 n.65, 169 n.106, 170 n.107, 338 n.44 Gálvez Peña, Carlos M., 500 n.41 Gambacorta, Carlo, 419 Gambarana, Gerolamo, 128 Garbero Zorzi, Elvira, 295 n.99

579

Garcés, Clemente, 477 Gandía, Duke of, 210, 216 García Ballester, L., 443 n.25 García García, Bernardo J., 78 n.6, 127 n.56, 176 n.127, 257 n.13, 416 n.28 García Hernán, David, 308 n.28, 310 n.34 García Mercadal, J., 102 n.10, 446 n.36, 447 n.39 García Pinilla, Ignacio J., 461 n.12 García Salinero, Fernando, 439, 440 n.16 García Sanz, Ángel, 63 n.41, 376 n.28 García Villoslada, Ricardo, 189 n.18 Garriga Acosta, Carlos, 362 n.4, 364 n.6 Garrard, Mary, 344 n.74 Garuti, Carlo Alberto, 524 n.17 Gass, W. H., 454 n.57 Gattinara, Mercurino di, 78, 104 n.14, 292 Gauchat, Patrick, 528 n.26 Gaudemet, Jean, 526 n.22 Gaudioso, F., 484 n.5 Gelao, Clara, 565 & n. Gelli, Gian Battista, 151 n.43 Genet, Jean Philippe, 526 n.22 Gennaro, Saint, 564 Gennaro, Cesare di, 146 Gentilcore, David, 341 n.60, 347 n.85 Gentile, Marco, 302 n.7 Gentileschi, Artemesia, 344 n.74 Gerbi, Antonello, 438 n.13 Gesualdo, Alfonso, Cardinal, Archbishop of Naples, 536, 537 & n., 550 & n. Ghezzi, Angelo Giorgio, 545 n.71 Ghinato, Angela, 341 n.58 Giambullari, P. F., 147 n.34 Gianetti, Anna, 409 n.6 Gianetti da Fano, Guido, 461 & n. Gianfigliazzi, Bongianni, 462 Giannini, Massimo Carlo, 113 n.36, 260 n.18, 262 n.22, 495 & n., 496 n.29, 526 n.21, 532 n.40, 548 n.80 Giarrizzo, Giuseppe, 35 n. 30 Gibbs, G. C., 292 n.93 Gil Pujol, Xavier, 63 n.41, 72 n.55, 216 n. 25 Gilbert, Felix, 231 n.7, 305 & n. Gilbert, M. L., 446 n.35 Gill, Katherine, 339 n.51

580

index of proper names

Gillo y Marignacio, Juan Gavino, 62, 62 n.37 Gilly, Carlos, 461 n.12 Gilman, S., 435 n.7 Gilmont, Jean-Françoise, 475 n.66 Ginzburg, Carlo, 245 n.36, 450 n.47, 473 n.57 Giolito, Gabriele, 439 Giordano, Luca, 444, 559, 566, 567 & n., 568 & n. Giordano, Silvano, 529 n.32, 538 n.58 Giovio, Paolo, 3, 144 n.20, 149, 150 & n., 306 n.21 Giura Longo, Raffaele, 547 n.78 Giurato, Simona, 32 n.21, 37 n.40 Giustiani, Stefano, 221, 223 Gleason, Elisabeth G., 231 n.7, 233 Glixon, Beth, 345 n.77 Goldberg, E. S. L., 172 n. 117 Goldberg, Edward, 449 & n. Goldthwaite, Richard, 498 & n. Golfi della Pergola, Bartolomeo, 477 Gómez Moreno, A., 437 n.12 Gomez Rivas, L., 162 n.78 Gómez de Silva, Rui, 173 n. 120 Goñi Gaztimbide, Jose, 186 n.8, 187 n.11, 189 n.17 Gonfalonieri, Corrado, 284 n.71 Gonzaga, Aloisio, 307 Gonzaga, Ercole, Cardinal, 170, 171, 458, 459, 467 Gonzaga, Ferdinando, Prince of Castiglione, 118 n.42 Gonzaga, Ferrante, Prince of Molfetta, Governor of Milan, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 169 & n., 309 Gonzaga, Giulia, 464, 471, 475 Gonzaga, Vespasiano, 10 Gonzáles de Mendoza, Pedro, 27, 472 González, Estebanillo, 435 Gonzales Palencia, A., 170 n.107 Goodman, Jordan, 340 n.57 Gorzoni, Giuseppe, 486 n.9 Gotor, Miguel, 489 n. 17 Gouy-Gilbert, Cécile, 379 n.35 Grafton, Anthony, 448 n.42 Granada, Luis de, 450 Grandi, Giovanni, 418 Granvelle, Antoine Perrenot de, Cardinal, 109, 110, 546 n.74 Granvelle, Nicolas Perrenot de, 78, 159, 160, 164, 172 n. 114, 467 Graziosi, Marina, 333 n. 23

Grassi, L., 139 n.7 Grazzini, Anton Francesco, “Il Lasca,” 148 &n. Greci, Roberto, 340 n.56, 503 n.49 Greco, El, 559 Greco, Gaetano, 481 n.1, 494 n.27 Gregory XIII, Pope, 210, 497, 512, 524, 533, 542 n.64, 546 n.74, 548 Gregory XIV, Pope, 501 Gregory XV, Pope, 486, 534 Gregory, H., 344 n.73 Grendi, Edoardo, 327 n.6, 330 Grendler, Paul F., 437 n.11 Grieco, Sara Matthews, 328 n.8, 342 & n. Griffin, C., 434 n.1 Grippo, M., 141 n.12 Grolier, Jean, 460 n.7 Groppi, Angela, 325 n.1, 329 n.11, 340 n.54 Guarini, Guarino, 444 n.30, 445 n.34 Guarino, Francesco, 566 & n. Guarnieri, R., 337 n.39 Guasco, Annibal, 353 n.97 Guazzo, Marco, 147 n.32 & 33 Guenzi, Alberto, 340 n.57 Guerrero, Pedro, 479 Guevara, Antonio de, 255 n.9 Guicardi, Francesco, 3 Guicciardini, Francesco, 76, 77 n.3, 305 Guillamón Álvarez, Francisco Javier, 262 n.22 Gulik, Wilhelm Heinrich Hubert, 527 n.25 Gulia, Luigi, 542 n.63 Gunther, H., 303 n.10 Gutiérrez, C., 442 n.21 Guttiérrez de Cuéllar, Francisco de, 200 n.6 Guzmán, Antonio de, Marquis of Ayamonte, 533 n.41 Guzmán, Enriquez de, Count of Olivares, Viceroy of Naples, Viceroy of Sicily, 35, 36, 40, 43, 372 n.22, 405, 417, 523 n.14, 525 n.18, 537 & n., 538, 550 & n. Guzmán, Gaspar de see Olivares, Count-Duke of Guzmán, Lope de, 373 n.22 Guzmán, Manuel de, Count of Monterrey, 563, 564 Guzmán, Ramiro de, Duke of Medina de las Torres, 563

index of proper names Hacke, Daniela, 334 n.26 Hale, John. R., 233, 234 n.13, 235 n.14, 246 n.39, 310 n.34 Hamilton, Alastair, 466 n.26 Hanlon, Gregory, 312 n.40, 313 & n., 424 n.49 Harris, E., 447 n.37 Haro, Luís de, 40 Harrington, James, 248 Head, Randolph C., 243 n.33 Headley, John M., 522 n.11 Hecht, Christian, 555 n.1 Heipel, D. L., 437 n.12 Henderson, J., 329 n.11 Herlihy, David, 332 n.18 Hernando Sánchez, Carlos José, 4 n.4, 8, 31 n.19, 79, 79 n.8, 80, 101 n.6, 105 n.17, 110 n.29, 135, 136 n.3, 143 n.19, 150 n.41, 158 n.62, 173 n.116, 175 n.124, 177 n. 127, 177 n.128, 276 n.55, 300 n.1, 443 n.24, 469 n.37, 483 n.3, 491 n.20, 502 n.44, 510 n.67, 511 n.68, 513 n.72 Herrera, Leonardo de, 112 Herrera, Melchior de, 199 n.6 Herrero Sánchez, Manuel, 200 n.6 Hersche, Peter, 299 n.1, 312 & n. Hespanha, Antonio M., 151 n.42 Henry II, King of France, 110, 176 Henry IV, King of France, 11 Henry VIII, King of England, 183 Hermann, Christian, 527 n.24 Hillerbrand, Hans J., 527 n.23, . Hills, Helen, 559 n.15, 567 n.37 Hingley, R., 444 n.31 Hobson, Anthony, 460 n.7 Hoffman, Philip T., 406 & n. Honess, Claire, 336 n.37 Horace, 102 n.10 Horden, Peregrine, 329 n.11, 454 n.59 Howell, James, 453 Howell, Martha, 346 n.81 Hufton, Olwen H., 510 n.67 Hughes, Diane Owen, 342 & n. Hughes, H. Stuart, 302 n.8 Hurcombe, L., 342 n.67 Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, 170, 171, 173 n.120, 174, 438, 439, 440, 442, 459, 460 & n., 462, 469, 475 Hutten, Ulrich von, 460 Ianziti, Gary, 120 n.47 Ibarra, Francisco, 10 Idiáquez, Alonso de, 164

581

Idiáquez, Francisco de, 536 n.48 Idiáquez, Juan de, 201 & n., 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213 Ignatius, Saint, 479, 510, 566 Imperiale, Andrea, 173 Innocent VIII, Pope, 2 Innocent X, 499 Intorcia, Gaetana, 9 n.8, 92 n.34, 283 n.69 Isabella I, Queen of Spain, 101, 184, 517, 557 Isidore, Saint, 566 Jackson, H., 454 n.57 Jacoviello, M., 140 n.9 James II, King of Aragon, 45 Javier, Jean, 241 n.26 Jaitner, Klaus, 538 n.58 Johanek, Peter, 481 n.2 John of the Cross, Saint, 450 Johnson, G., 328 n.8 Jones, Iris, 185 n.6 Jones, Verina, 336 n.37 Jover Zamora, J. M., 106 n.18 Juana, Queen of Spain, 52, 53 n.15 Judson, J. Richard, 556 n.2 Julius II, Pope (Giuliano della Rovere), 2, 182, 183 & n, 186, 187, 547 n.77 Julius III, Pope (Giovan Maria Ciocchi del Monte), 109, 166, 170, 172 n.114, 174, 191, 459 Juvenal, 102 n.10 Kamen, Henry, 231 n.6, 236 n. 18, 488 n.15, 507, 508 n.59 Kaufman, H. W., 147 n.34 Kellenbenz, Herman, 199 n.6, 207 n.15, 292 n.95 Kelly-Gadol, Joan, 349 & n. Kendrick, Robert, 337 n.41 Keniston, H., 435 n.5 Kinder, Gordon A., 474 n.65, 475 n.66 Kindleberger, C. P., 385 n.11, 402 King, Catherine, 344 n.72 King, Margaret, 328 n.9, 345 n.75 Kirsch, Edith W., 560 n.15 Kirshner, Julius, 295 n.99, 333 n. 22 Kittel, E., 335 n.30, 343 n.70 Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, 325 n.1, 328 & n., 332 n.18, 335 n.31, 341 n.59 Klep, P. M. M., 391, 402 Knecht, R. J., 106 n.19.

582

index of proper names

Koenigsberger, H. G., 29 n.16, 41 n.49, 290 n.88 Kohler, Alfred, 78, 78 n.6 Kowaleski, M., 347 n.81 Kristeller, Paul, 345 n.76 Kuehn, Thomas, 330 n.14, 333 n. 22 Kurzel-Runtscheiner, Monica, 341 n.63 Labrot, Gérard, 33 n.24, 33 n.26, 421, 422 n.44, 561 n.17 Laconi, Marquis of, 64 Ladero Quesada, Miguel Ángel, 379 n.35 Lario-Ramirez, Dámaso de, 63 n.41 Laguna, Andrés de, 442 Laín Entralgo, Pedro, 442 n.24 Landi, Fiorenzo, 493 n.26, 494 n.27 Landino, Cristoforo, 274, 275 n.52 Lane, Frederic C., 248 n.44 Laneri, Annamaria, 559 n.12, 562 n.19 Lanfranco, Giovanni, 564 Lanz, Miguel, 112 Lapini, A., 148 n.34 Larner, John, 302 n.7 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 484 & n. Lattuada, Riccardo, 566 n.31 Laureto, Giovanni, 472 & n. Lauro, Agostino, 531 n.35, 546 n.74 Lautrec, Governor, 103 Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg, 560 n.15 Lavinio, Cristina, 62 n.38 Lázaro, Elena, 464 n.21 Lea, Henry Charles, 28 n.15 Lehalleur, Marielle Pepin, 379 n.35 Lemos, Count of, 67, 256 n.12, 382, 524 n.14 Lemos, Countess of, 502 n.45, 514 Lepschy, A. L., 434 n.1 Leo X, Pope, (Giovanni de’ Medici), 140, 183 & n, 187, 526 Leo XI, Pope, (Alessandro de’ Medici), 537 & n., 538 León, Luis de, 450, 478 León Sanz, P., 454 n.59 Leoni, Leone, 117 Leoni, Pompeo, 440 n.18, 444 Lercari, Giovan Battista, 173, 199 n.5 Lerma, Duke of, 88, 551 Leva, G. de, 171 n.113 Levi, Eugenia, 246 n.41 Levin, Michael J., 7 n.7 Leydi, S., 101 n.5 Leyva, Antonio de, Prince of Ascoli, 105, 106

Liaci, Maria Teresa, 275 n.52 Ligresti, Domenico, 25 n.5, 28 n.12, 34 n.29, 286 n.74 Lincoln, Evelyn, 341 n.61.. Lincurio of Tarragona, Alfonso, 441 n.19 Litta, Francesco, 102 n.9 Litta, Pompeo, 315 n.51 Lleo Canal, Vincente, 561 n.16 Llorente, A., 70 n.52 Loi, S., 441 n.19 Lombarda, Julia, 341 n.62 Lombardi, Daniela, 328 n.11, 341 n.59 Lonati, Pietro Antonio, 322 Lopez, Pasquale, 465 n.24, 469 n.40 Lopez, Roberto S., 388 n.18, 389 n.18, 402 López de Carvajal, Bernardino, 450 n.46 López de Montenegro, Vicente, 111 López de Toro, J., 102 n.10, 442 n.22 López Gutiérrez, A. J., 101 n.7 López Madera, Gregorio, 25 n.7 López Piñero, J. M., 443 n.24 López-Vidriero, Maria Luisa, 475 n.66 Lorrain, Claude, 567 Lotti, Luigi, 518 n.3 Lotto, Lorenzo, 459 n.5 Loud, G. A., 542 n.63 Louis XII, King of France, 99, 100, 235 Louis XIII, King of France, 30, 77 Lowe, K. J. P., 333 n. 21, 344 n.73, 437 n.12 Loyola, Ignatius of, 560 Lozana andaluza (Aldonza), 352, 433, 435 Lumia, G., 333 n. 23 Luna, Fabricio, 141 n.12 Luna, Isabella de, 352 Luna, Juan de, 110 n.29, 156 Luna, Pietro de, Duke of Bivona, Marquis of Giarantara, 31 Lunardi, G., 336 n.38 Luther, Martin, 183, 461 & n., 466 Lutz, Georg, 518 n.4, 538 n.58 Lynch, Christopher, 303 n.12 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 223 & n., 234, 275 & n., 301, 302, 303, 305, 308, 484 Machin, Ambrosio, Bishop of Aleghero, 528 n.28 MacKay, Angus, 379 n.35, 435 n.7

index of proper names Mackenney, Richard, 246 n.41 Maclean, Ian, 343 n.68 MacNeil, Anne, 345 n.77 Macca, Valentino, 566 n.33 Macri, Geltrude, 288 n.82 Madden, Thomas, 333 n. 22, 335 n.30, 343 n.70 Madrigal, Álvaro de, Viceroy of Sardinia, 52, 524 n.17 Madruga Real, Angela, 563 n.24 Madruzzo, Cristoforo, Cardinal, Governor of Milan, 309, 458, 459, 465 Mafrici, Mirella, 347 n.83 Maffi, Davide, 316 n.60 Maidalchini Pamphilj, Olimpia, 347 n.82 Mainoni, P., 102 n.9 Maio, Romeo de, 542 n.63 Magalotti, Lorenzo, 447 Magdaleno, Ricardo, 10 n.10 Magni, C., 116 n.39, 272 & n., 273 n.49 Malanima, Paolo, 15, 383, 384 n.4, 386 n.13, 387 n.16, 388 n.17, 389 & n., 390 n.21, 392 & n., 393 n.26, 397 n.35, 401, 402, 406, 428 n.57, 429 Mallett, Michael, 309 n.29, 310 n.34 Maltby, William S., 107 n.21, 171 n.113 Manca, Ciro, 45 n.1, 46 n.3 Mancino, Michele, 499 n.40, 501 n.42, 503 n.47, 506 n.56, 507, 508 n.59 Manconi, Francesco, 5, 6, 9, 45, 46 n.3, 47 n.4, 51 n.10, 52 n.13, 54 n.21, 55 n.23, 55 n.26, 58 n.31, 63 n.39 & 40, 64 n.42, 66 n.47, 68 n.49, 200 n.6, 300 & n., 441 n.19, 520 n.8, 524 n.17 Manconi, Gavino, Bishop of Ales, 528 n.28 Mango di Casalgerardo, Antonio, 284 n.73 Manduca, Raffaele, 483 n.3, 501 n.43, 503 n.48 Manelfi, Pietro, 473 Mangone, Benedetto, 417 Mann, Judith, 344 n.74, 558 n.10 Manrique, Giorgio, 469, 472 Manrique de Lara, Juan, 462 Manriquez, Francesco, 322 Manriquez, Francesco, Marquis, 323

583

Manriquez, Garzia, Count, 323 Mantelli, Roberto, 91, 91 n.31, 377 n.33, 378 n.34 Mantini, Silvia, 325 n.1 Mantua, Duke of, 118 Manuel, King of Portugal, 186, 187 Manzoli, Antonio Maria, Bishop of Gravina, 549 Maqueda, Duke of, 39 Maravall, José Antonio, 87, 87 n.22 Marcatto, Dario, 460 n.6, 462 n.16 Marcellus II, Pope, 459 March, José M., 548 n.81 Marcus Aurelius, 255 n.9 Marcuzzo, M. C., 326 n.4 Mardones, Lope de, 167 n.98 Mardones, Sancho de, 167 n.98 Margarita, Princess, 116 Margiotta Broglio, Francesco, 526 n.22 Maria delle Grazie, S., 481 n.2 Maria Theresa, Empress and Archduchess of Austria, 132 Marías, F., 440 n.18, 444 n.30, 447 n.37 Marías, Fernando, 555 n.1 Mariani, R., 336 n.38 Marinella, Lucrezia, 344 n.73, 346 Marino, John A., 1, 15, 78 n.4, 232 n.10, 333 n. 21, 408 n.5, 412 n.13, 413 n.19, 414 n.20, 417 n.30, 420 n.41, 427 n.53, 428 n.56, 555 n.1 Mariotti, Maria, 345 n.78, 506 n.56 Marland, H., 341 n.60 Marliani, Luigi, 100, 101 Marongiu, Antonio, 48 n.5 Marongiu Buonaiuti, Cesare, 526 n.22, 541 n.62 Márquez, Antonio, 466 & n., 470 n.41 Márquez Villanueva, F., 435 n.7 Marramaldo, Fabrizio, 146 Marrone, Antonino, 287 n.78 Marrone, Pirro, 96 Marsh, David, 300 n.2 Martelli, Niccoló, 162 n. 80 Martin, Brigitte, 423 n.46. Martin, John Jeffries, 12, 227, 230 n.3, 231 n.7, 336 n.37, 351 n.92, 441 n.20 Martín Gaite, C., 454 n.58 Martineau, Jean, 556 n.4 Martínez Ferrando, J. E., 141 n. 10 Martínez López-Cano, María del Pilar, 379 n.35

584

index of proper names

Martínez Millán, José, 178 n.129, 198 n.4., 205 n.13, 295 n.99, 490 n.19, 508 n.60, 518 n.2, 532 n.40 Martínez Ruiz, Enrique, 527 n.23 Marzo, Andrés, 559 n.12 Mastrilli, Carlo, 509 Mateu Ibars, Josefina, 547 n.78 Matter, E. Ann, 338 n.44 Mattone, Antonello, 57 n. 28, 520 n.8. Maurice, Duke of Saxony, 109 Maurici, Ferdinando, 267 n.32 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, 77, 100, 101, 103 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, 111 Mazzacane, Aldo, 542 n.63 Mazzarino, Giulio, Cardinal, 502 n.45, 508 n.60, 509, 514 Mazzarino, Michele, 502 n.45 Mazzocco, A., 450 n.47 McCoog, T., 442 n.21 McDonald, Mark P., 556 n.3 McPheeters, D. W., 434 n.4 Medici, Alessandro de’, Cardinal see Pope Leo XI Medici, Alessandro de’, Duke of Florence, 138, 139, 140, 141 & n., 143, 144, 145, 159, 177 Medici, Catherine de’, Queen of France, 176 Medici, Cosimo de’, “Il Vecchio,” 300 Medici, Cosimo I de’, Duke of Florence, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 2, 8, 136, 138, 139, 142 & n., 143, 144, 145 & n., 146 &n., 147 n.34, 148, 149, 150, 154 n.47, 155 & n., 156 & n., 157 & n., 158 & n., 159, 160 & n., 161 & n, 162 & n., 163 & n., 164 & n., 165 &n., 166 & n., 167 & n., 168, 169 & n., 170 & n., 171 & n., 172, 176, 178, 179, 180, 465 Medici, Cosimo III de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 447 Medici, Fernando I de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cardinal 154, 175, 176, 180 Medici, Francesco I de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 145 n.24, 154, 158, 170 n.107, 175, 176, 178, 180 & n. Medici, Giovanni de’ see Leo X Medici, Giulio de’ see Clement VII Medici, Jacopo de’, 145 & n. Medici, Joanna de’, Archduchess of Tuscany, 175

Medici, Juan de’, Cardinal, 162 Medici Lorenzino de’, 142 Medici, Lorenzo de’, “the Magnificent,” 138, 139, 140 Medici, Lorenzo de’, (brother of Cosimo “Il Vecchio”), 300 Medici, Pedro de’, 180 Medici, Pietro de’, 446 Medina Sidonia, Duke of, Viceroy of Sicily, 524 n.17 Medinaceli, Duke of, 32, 126 Medioli, Francesca, 338 n.48 Medrano, Antonio de, 462 Meek, H. A., 444 n.30 Melancthon, Philip, 460, 461 Mele, E., 170 n.107 Mele, Giuseppe, 58 n.30, 520 n.8 Mellini, Angela, 339 n.53 Meloni, M. G., 65 n.43 Melzi, Ludovico, 319, 322 Mendoza, Bernardino, 173 n. 120 Mendoza, Fernando, 502 n.45, 514 Mendoza, Francisco de, 461 Mendoza, Pedro de, 102 n.10 Mendoza y Bobadilla, Juan Francisco de, Cardinal of Burgos, 461 & n., 469 Mercati, Angelo, 553 n.97 Meregalli, F., 437 n.12, 449 n.44, 453 n.53 Merenda, Apollonio, 476 Merlin, P., 178, n.129 Merzario, Raul, 330 n.14 Meseguer Fernández, Juan, 558 n.9 Messana, Maria Sofia, 341 n.60 Mexia, Pedro, 452 Mezzabarba, Bartolomeo, 321 Miccio, Scipione, 155 n.49 Miccoli, Giovanni, 546 n.74 Migiel, M., 327 n.6 Mignoz, Sigismondo, 469 Minadois, Giovanni Tommaso, 469 Mineo, E. Igor, 31 n.20 Minnich, Nelson H., 450 & n. Minor, A., 147 n.34 Miskimin, H. A., 388 n.18, 389 n.18, 402 Miranda, Bartolomé de, 474 & n. Miranda, Count of see Zuñiga, Juan de Mitchell, A., 147 n.34 Mitchell, B., 147 n.34 Mitchell, D., 453 n.56 Modena, Duke of, 123 Módena, Lauro de, 150

index of proper names Modica Vasta, Marilena, 33 n.25, 339 n.53 Modignani, Giovanni Battista, Count, 129 & n. Mohlo, Anthony, 73 n.1 Molas Ribalta, Pedro, 55 n.24 Moles, Francisco, 93 Molho, Anthony, 233 n.12, 309 n.29, 333 n. 22 Moltenik, Barbara, 259 n.16 Moll, J., 437 n.11 Moncada, Francesco, 31 Moncada, Luigi, Viceroy of Sicily, Prince of Paternò, 39, 40 Mongini, Guido, 479 n.79 Monson, Craig, 337 n.41, 338 n.44 Montaigne, Michel de, 454 n.56 Montanari, M. 453 n.55 Monte, Giovan Maria Ciocchi del, Cardinal see Julius III Monte, Pedro del, 166 Montesinos, José F., 467 n.29 Monti, Pompeo delli, 468 Montini, Renzo U., 561 n.18 Mora, G., 444 n.31 Morassi, Luciana, 341 n.58 Morata, Olimpia, 336 n.37 Moreschi, Emilio, 241 n.26 Morillo, Juan, 474 & n., 475 Morisi Guerra, A., 120 n.48 Morón Arroyo, Ciriaco, 457 n.1 Morone, Gerolamo, 104, 307 Morone, Giovanni, Cardinal, 170, 210, 216, 217, 458, 459 & n., 462, 465, 468, 475 Morosini, Francesco, 310 Mortier, Daniel Antonin, 502 n.45, 506 n.57 Mostaccio, Silvia, 513 n.70 Mottola Molfino, Alessandra, 340 n.55 Moura, Carlos Alberto de, 485 n.7 Moyle, J., 438 n.13 Mozzarelli, Cesare, 113 n.36, 151 n.42, 294 n.99, 307 n.25, 314 n.48, 483 & n., 484 n.5 Muir, Edward, 244, 245 n.36, 247 & n. Mulas, Luisa, 62 n.38 Mulcahy, R., 173 n. 117 Münzer, Jerónimo, 102 n.10 Murillo, Bartolomeo, 559 Murphy, Caroline, 334 n.28, 345 n.77 Murgia, Giovanni, 63 n.40

585

Musefilo, Pirro, 155 n.50, 156 & n., 157 & n., 158 & n., 159, 160 n.68 Musi, Aurelio, 3 n.2, 3 n.3, 6, 9, 43 n.52, 50 n.9, 73, 73 n.1, 74 n.2, 78 n.5, 80 n.10, 82 n.14, 83 n.15, 84 n.18, 87 n.23, 89 n.25, 89, 90 n.27, 91, 91 n.31, 92 n.33, 93 n.35, 139 n.6, 200 n.7, 254 n.8, 276 n.55, 299 n.1, 300 n.1, 423 n.46, 437 n.11, 561 n.17 Muto, Giovanni, 9, 13, 88, 91, 91 n.31, 93 n.35, 113 n.36, 251, 254 n.8, 265 n.28, 275 n.55, 276 n.55, 279 n.63, 280 n.64, 284 n.70, 299 n.1, 304 n.16, 308 n.26, 314 n.48, 370 n.16, 380 n.36, 415, 416 n.27 Muzzarelli, M. G., 341 n.58 Nadal, Jerome, 442 n.21 Nadal i Farreras, Joaquim, 72 n.56 Nagler, A. M., 148 n.34 Nappi, Edoardo, 560 n.16, 561 n.18, 563 n.22 Narbona, Eugenio de, 258 & n. Navagero, Andrea, 437, 438 Navarrete, I., 437 n.12 Navarro Durán, R., 437 n.11 Nebrija, Antonio de, 62, 436 & n. Negri, Antonia Paola, 338 Negruzzo, Simona, 504 n.49 Nelson, Jonathan, 337 n.41 Neri, Philip, Saint, 511, 513 n.72, 514 n.72, 566 Neuburg, Mariana of, Queen of Spain, 129 Niccoli, Niccolò, 300 Niccoli, Ottavia, 330 n.13, 343 n.68, 450 & n. Niccolini, Agnolo, 145 & n., 170 n.107 Nieto, José C., 451 n.48, 466 n.26 Nieto, Lorenzo, Archbishop of Oristano, 528 n.28 Nissmann, Joan L., 558 n.10 Nithard, Father, 42 Nizzola da Trezzo, Giacomo, 117 Nola, Countess de, 161 n.75 Norwich, John Julius, 246 n.40 Novelli, Pietro, 559 Novi Chiavarria, Elisa, 336 n.38, 338 & n., 351, 503 n.48 Nyhus, 501 n.43 O’Brien, Patrick, 392 n.25, 402. O’Connor, Edward D., 557 n.8

586

index of proper names

O’Malley, John W., 442 n.21, 443 n.24, 460 n.8, 479 n.78, 488 n.15, 511 & n. Occhielli, Milena, 259 n.16 Ochoa Brun, M. A., 103 n.11 Ochino, Bernardino, 306, 464, 473 Odoardo, Duke of Parma, 119 Oechslin, W., 445 n.34 Oliva, Giovanni Anello, 500 n.41 Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of, 63, 64, 70, 88, 117, 120, 123, 313 Olmi, Giuseppe, 294 n.99 Onnis, Giacobbe, Palmira, 59 n.33 Onophrius, Saint, 568 Origoni, Scipione, 321 Oresko, Robert, 292 n.93 Orleáns, Duke of, 106, 108 Orsi Landini, R., 151 n.44 Orsini, Camillo, 464 Orsini, Dorothea, 566 Orsini de’ Medici, Alfonsina, 347 n.84 Ortega Costa, Milagros, 470 n.44 Ortiz, Pedro, 479 Osau y Tobar, Joseph Pellicer de, 71 n.54 Osborn, P., 353 n.97 Osorio Pimentel, María, 143, 156 Osuna, Duke of see Tellez de Girón, Pedro Paccagnini, Ermanno, 338 n.49 Pace, Giacomo, 287 n.77, 289 n.85 Pacelli, Vincenzo, 565 n.30 Pacho, Eulogio, 566 n.33 Pacini, Arturo, 12, 197 & n., 198 n.2, 307 n.24 Paciotti, Francesco, 444 & n. Pacheco, Pedro, Bishop and Cardinal, 143, 170, 171, 179 Padilla, Pedro de, 536 n.49 Padilla, Sancho de, 217 Páez de Castro, Juan, 442 Pagano, Sergio, 461 n.11 Pagni, Lorenzo, 147 n.33, 170 n.107 Palavicino, Gaspare, 304 Paleario, Aonio, 460 Palermo, Francesco, 279 n.62 Palos Penarroya, Juan L., 89, 89 n.27 Pane, R., 444 n.30 Palumbo, G., 339 n.53 Panciera, Walter, 340 n.57 Panigarola, Francesco, Count, 318

Panigarola, Giambattista, 318 & n., 323 Panizza, Letizia, 333 n. 23, 344 n.73 Paolin, Giovanna, 337 n.40 Paravicini, Gerolamo, 323 Paravicino, Erasmo, Archbishop of Monreale, 529 n.32 Pardo Tomás, José, 436 n.10 Parenti, G., 394 n.28, 395 n.32, 396 n.33, 402 Park, Katherine, 343 n.68 Parker, Deborah, 341 n.61 Parker, Geoffrey, 85 n.20, 236 n. 17, 243 n.32, 244 n.35, 310 n.36, 383 n.2 Parker, H., 336 n.37 Parma, Duke of, 118, 119 Parma, Margaret of see Austria, Margaret of Parragues de Castillejo, Antonio, Archbishop of Cagliari, 59 Partner, Peter, 181 n.1, 184 & n. Paruta, Paolo, 232 Pasamar, Diego de, Archbishop of Sassari, 528 n.28 Pascual, Mateo, 464 Passignano, Domenico, 558 Pastor, Ludwig von, 181, 187 n.9, 550 n.87 Pastore, Stefania, 507 & n. Paterni, P., 333 n. 23 Paternò di Raddusa, Vicenzo, 32 n.21 Patino, Antonio, 93 Patrizi, G., 177 n.128 Pau, Jeroni, 442 & n. Paul III, Pope, 108, 142, 144 n.21, 157, 168, 169, 170 n.108, 189, 190, 191, 306 Paul IV, Pope, (Gian Pietro Carafa), 11, 179, 191, 459, 512, 532, 543 Paul V, Pope, 193, 194, 486, 502 n.45, 534, 538, 539, 551, 552 & n., 553, 558 & n. Paul, Saint, 568 Pazzi, Maria Maddalena de’, 338 n.44 Pedicino, Carla, 93 Pedro de Aragón (Peter III), King of Aragon, 31 Pedulà, Gabriele, 214 n.21 Pellegrino, B., 484 n.5 Pèlissier, L. G., 99 n.1 Peña, Francisco, 442 & n. Peña, M., 452 n.52

index of proper names Penya, Feliu de la, 72 Pepe, Gabriele, 520 n.7 Perci, Nicolo, 564 Pèrcopo, E., 136 n.1, 151 n.43 Pereda, Felipe, 555 n.1 Pérez, Diego, 146 Pérez, Gonzalo, 107 n.21, 439 Pérez, Julián, 146 Pérez de Pineda, Juan, 474, 475 & n. Pérez Martínez, Lorenzo, 477 n.71 Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso E., 559 n.12, 563 n.24, 564 n.25 Perligieri, Ilya, 345 n.77 Perondini, Pietro, 154 & n. Peruta, Franco della, 380 n.38 Pertusati, Nicolo, jester, 116 Peter III, King of Aragon see Pedro de Aragón Peter IV the Ceremonious, King of Aragon, 48 Peters, E. M., 442 n.22 Petronio, Ugo, 269 n.35, 270 n.40, 273 n.47 Petrucci, Franca, 303 n.12 Pettas, W., 437 n.11 Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna, 317 n.61 Peytavin, Mireille, 13, 14, 355 & n., 376 n.29, 379 n.35 Pezzolo, Luciano, 377 n.31 Philip the Fair, 101 Philip V, 72, 129, 254 n.8 Picchiatti, Bartolomeo, 563 Piccolomini, Alfonso, 418 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 454 Pierce, Robert A., 472 n.56 Pighner, P., 148 n.35 Pignatelli, Ettore, Count of Monteleone, Viceroy of Sicily, 284 Pignone, Marcello, Marquis d’Oriolo, General Visitor in Sicily, 284, 369 Pilati, Renata, 282 n.67 Pimentel, Alonso de, 116 n.39 Pimentel de Herrera, Juan Alonso, Count of Benavente, Viceroy of Naples, 537 n.55, 538 n.56, 552 n.92 Pinelli, Agostino, 223 Pinelli, Antonio, 185 n.6 Pinto Crespo, Virgilio, 198 n.4 Pinto, G., 394 n.28, 402 Pio da Carpi, Rodolfo, 459 Piras, Giuseppe, 500 n.41, 513 n.71 Pirnát, Antal, 471 n.48

587

Pirrota, N., 147 n.34 Pirovano, Giacomo, 109 Pissavino, Paolo, 81 n.12, 113 n.36, 118 n.42, 200 n.7, 270 n.38, 299 n.1, 365 n.9, 528 n.27 Pius IV, Pope, 191, 192, 512 Pius V, Pope, 192, 512, 531, 544, 546, 547, 548, 564, 566 Pizan, Christine de, 344 Pizzetti, Silvia, 270 n.38 Plaisance, M., 148 n.35 Poidomani, Giancarlo, 481 n.2, 495 n.27, 505 n.53, 510 n.67 Polanco, Juan de, 511, 514 Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, 170, 440, 458, 459, 465, 474, 475, 478 Politi, Giorgio, 270 n.38, 299 n.1, 380 n.38 Pomata, Gianna, 332 n.21, 437 n.10 Pommier, Edouard, 472 n.51, 473 n.59 Ponce de Leon, Andrés, 111 Ponte, Giovanni Francesco de, 551 Ponte, Nicolò da, Doge of Venice, 232 Pontieri, Ernesto, 525 n.20 Pontius, Paulus, 556 n.2 Pontormo, Jacopo, 465 & n. Porqueddu, Chiara, 259 n.16, 270 n.38 Porta, Camillo, 323 Porzio, Simone, 167 Postel, Guillaume, 460 Postel-Vinay, Gilles, 379 n.35 Pottle, F. A., 453 n.56 Poussin, Nicolas, 567 Povoleda, Elena, 147 n.34 Povolo, Claudio, 245 & n. Pozzi, Giovan Francesco, 324 Pozzi, Regina, 477 n.72 Pozzo, Ambrogio, 471 Pozzo, Cassiano dal, 447 & n. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 392 n.25, 402 Prata, Bartolomeo, 324 Preti, Mattia, 564 & n. Preto, P., 437 n.11 Previtali, G., 139 n.7 Prioli, de, 474 & n. Priuli, Alvise, 464, 475 Prodi, Paolo, 481 n.2, 549 n.83 Prosdocimi, Luigi, 530 n.34, 545 n.73, 554 n.97 Prosperi, Adriano, 17 n.16, 337 n.39, 337 n.42, 450 & n., 460 n.8,

588

index of proper names

477 n.72, 478 n.77, 486 n.9, 501 n.42, 507 & n. Pucci, Pandolfo di Roberto, 161 n.75 Puddu, Raffaele, 310 n.37 Pugliese, Salvatore, 384 & n., 396 n.33, 403 Pulci, Antonia, 344 n.73 Pullan, Brian, 232 & n. Putnam, Robert, 412 & n. Quaglioni, Diego, 309 n.33, 334 n.26 Quatrefages, René, 309 n.30 Queller, Donald, 333 n.22 Quondam, Amadeo, 177 n.128, 252 n.3, 304 n.13 Rabb, Theodore K., 403 Rabil, Albert Jr., 345 n.76 Racalmuto, Count of, 41 Radke, Gary, 337 n.41 Ragazzone, Gerolamo, 545 n.71 Ragnoni, Lattanzio, 475 Ram, Luis, 93 Ramírez Fariñas, Fernando, 367 Ramírez, J. A., 444 n.30 Ramirez, Juan, 475, 476 Ramos Ortega, Francisco, 458 n.2 Ramusio, Giovanni Battista, 438 Raniero, Cola, 420 Ranke, Leopold von, 181 Rapp, Richard T., 248 n.43, 384 n.4, 403 Rasini, Claudio, Prince, 324 Ratti, Achille, 553 n.97 Ravá, Adolfo, 547 n.78 Ravid, B., 336 n.37 Rebora, Giovanni, 453 n.55 Rebora, Sergio, 316 n.61 Recio, R., 437 n.12 Reeves, Eileen, 558 n.10 Reeves, Marjorie E., 435 n.7, 450 Reggiani, Flores, 341 n.59 Reiss, Sheryl E., 151 n.44 Renato, Francesco, 471 Renda, Francesco, 29 n.15 Reni, Guido, 558 & n. Requeséns, Luis de, Governor of Milan, 526 n.21, 546 n.75, 548 Reverter, Francisco, 93 Revuelta, Sañuda, Manuel, 457 n.1 Ribera, Josep ( Jusepe), 444, 559, 561 n.16, 563, 564 & n., 567, 568 n.42

Ribera, Perafan de, 469 n.36 Ribot García, Luis Antonio, 36 n.35, 89, 90 n.27, 91, 125 n.55, 177 n.128, 300 n.1, 310 n.36, 376 n.28, 520 n.8 Riccardi, Antonio, 338 n.44 Ricci, Juan, Fray, 444 n.30 Ricci, Matteo, 513 n.71 Ricci, Saverio, 469 n.38 Riccio, Pier Francesco, 146, 147 n.33 Rice, Louise, 188 n.13 Richardson, Brian, 301 n.5 Richelieu, Cardinal, 30, 117 Rico, F., 437 n.12 Ridolfi, Cardinal, 172 Ridolfi, Luigi, 145, 146 n.26 Rietbergen, Peter J. A. N., 519 n.3 Riley, Christopher, 85 n.19, 370 n.16 Rimoldi, Antonio, 528 n.26 Rinne, Katherine, 341 n.59 Rivera Blanco, J. J., 445 n.33 Rivero Rodriguez, Manuel, 104 n.14, 112 n.31, 177 n. 127, 198 n.4, 294 n.98, 295 n.100, 365 n.8 Rizzi, Francesco, 444 Rizzi, N., 434 n.1 Rizzo, Mario, 85 n.19, 310 n.36, 315 n.53, 365 n.9, 376 n.30, 385 n.9, 403 Rizzo, Vincenzo, 563 n.20 Rocco, Cola María, 159 n.66 Rocke, Michael, 327 n.5 Rodaja, Tomás, 435 Ródenas Vilar, R., 118 n.40 Rodríguez G. de Ceballos, Alfonso, 555 n.1 Rodríguez-Salgado, M. J., 52 n.14, 107 n.20., 110 n.28, 309 n.31 Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares, L. E., 448 n.40 Rodriguez Villa, Antonio, 463 n.20 Roger II, King of Sicily, 541 Rojas, Domingo de, 478 n.74 Rojas, Fernando de, 434 n.1 Romani, Marzio A., 144 n.20, 295 n.99 Romano, Dennis, 231 n.7, 341 n.59, 349 n.88, 351 n.92 Romano, Franca, 341 n.60, 347 n.85 Romano, Ruggiero, 383 & n., 397 & n., 400 n.38, 401, 403, 422 Romei, Rosario, 358 n.2 Romeo, Giovanni, 525 n.20

index of proper names Romeo, Rosario, 284 n.72 Roqueta, Geronimo dela, 419 Rosa, Mario, 152 n.44, 338 n.44, 380 n.38, 481 n.1, 488 n.15, 492 n.24, 499 & n., 503 n.47, 505 n.52, 527 n.25, 546 n.74, 549 n.84, 564 n.27, 567 n.40 Rosalia, Saint, 564 Rosenthal, Elaine, 101 n.4, 334 n.29 Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 379 n.35 Rosenthal, Margaret, 345 n.78 Rosignoli, Ottavia, 434 n.2 Rossi-Doria, A., 326 n.4 Rossini, Giulio, Archbishop of Amalfi, 549 n.84 Rosso, jester at the court of Pedro de Toledo, 159 n.66 Rosso, G., 141 n.11. Rotberg, R. I., 403 Rotelli, Ettore, 270 n.40 Roveda, Enrico, 271 n.44 Rovere Orsini, Felice della, 334 Rovere, Giuliano della see Julius II Rovito, Pier Luigi, 92 n.32 Rowland, Ingrid D., 455 n.60, 555 n.1 Rubens, Peter Paul, 555, 556 Rubiés i Mirabet, Joan Pau, 52 n.12 Rubinstein, Nicolai, 235 n.14 Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 210 Ruffini Francesco, 526 n.22, 531 n.35, 541n.62 Ruggiero, Guido, 343 & n., 350 n.90 Ruiz, Brianda, 469 Ruiz de Alcaraz, Pedro, 470 n.42 Ruiz de Laguna, Juan, 119, 120, 121 Ruiz Ibáñez, José Javier, 262 n.22, 376 n.30, 385 n.9, 403 Ruíz Martín, Felipe, 173 n. 120, 199 n.6 Rurale, Flavio, 16, 481, 483 n.3, 486 n.9, 490 n.19, 491 n.20, 493 n.26, 495 n.27. 496 n.30, 498 n.35, 502 n.44, 503 n.49, 506 n.56, 508 n.61, 509 n.63, 510 n.68, 511 n.69 Rusconi, Roberto, 485 n.8, 489 n. 16, 498 n.37, 507, 517 n.1, 553 n.96 Russell, Joycelyn G., 237 n.20 Russi, Vittorio Sciuti, 25 n.6, 27 n.11, 28 n.15, 31 n. 20, 34 n.29, 37 n.41, 131 n.60, 257 n.13, 289 n.86, 290 n.88, 291 n.89, 359 n.3 Russo, Carla, 503 n.47

589

Rusticucci, Gerolamo, Cardinal, 549 n.84 Rye, Monsignor, 109 Rystad, Göran, 318 n.63 Sabatini, Gaetano, 376 n.30, 385 n.9, 403, 408 & n., 409 n.8, 411 & n., 417 & n. Sabean, David, 421 & n. Sabuco de Nantes, Oliva, 437 n.10 Sacchi, Matteo, 316 n.59 Saggi, Ludovico, 566 n.33 Sahlins, Peter, 230 n.4, 238 & n. Sáinz Rodríguez, Pedro, 478 n.74 Saitta, A., 39 n.44, 289 n.87 Sala, Aristide, 553 n.97 Salazar, Diego de, 111, 112, 116 n.39 Sallman, Jean-Michel, 17 n.16, 339 & n., 557 & n. Salomoni, A., 100 n.3 Salort Pons, Salvador, 561 n.16 Saltillo, Marqués del, 168 n.100 Salvador, Emilia, 49 n.7 Salvatorelli, Franco, 305 n.18 Salvetti, Sergio, 241 n.27 Salviati, Alamanno, 147 n.33 Salviati, Cardinal, 170 Salviati, Piero, 147 n.33 San Gallo, A. Marucelli da, 146 n.27 San Gallo, Bastiano da, (also called “Aristotile”), 139 n.7 Sanchez, Alonso, 468, 469 Sánchez, Juan, 478 Sánchez Lora, J. L., 448 n.40 Sancho, J. L., 172 n. 116 Sangalli, Maurizio, 481 n.1 Sangallo, Antonio, 191 Sangro, Placido di, 468 Sanseverino, Ferrante, Prince of Salerno, 143, 468, 561 Santa Christiana, Marquis of, 420 Santore, Cathy, 341 n.62 Sanuto, Marino, 233 & n. Sarpi, Paolo, 246 n.41, 490, 491 n.20 Sarti, Raffaella, 329 n.12 Savelli, Fabrizio, 566 Savelli, Rodolfo, 197 n.2, 201 n.8, 204 n. 12, 207 n.15, 215 n.23, 223, 307 n.24 Savonarola, Girolamo, 460 Savoy, Duke of, 115, 118 Savoy, Eugene of, Prince, 130 Savoy, Tomasso of, Prince, 123

590

index of proper names

Sauli, Antonio, 546 n.74 Sauli, Marcantonio, 197, 199 n5, 208, 216, 217, 218 Scaduto, Francesco, 531 n.35 Scaduto, Mario, 507 n.58, 525 n.20 Scalze a Pontecorvo, San Giuseppe delle, 567 & n. Scavizzi, Giuseppe, 567 n.36, 568 n.42 Schaub, Jean-Frédéric, 23 n. 1, 89, 89 n.27 Schena, O., 65 n.43 Schepper, Hugo de, 519 n.3 Schiera, Pierangelo, 73 n.1, 307 n.25, 309 n.29 Schiesari, J., 327 n.6 Schmitz-Kallenberg, Ludwig, 527 n.25 Scholz-Hänsel, Michael, 564 n.25 Schulte, E., 332 n.20 Schütze, Sebastian, 16, 353, 555, 565 n.30 Schutte, Anne, 335 n.32, 337 n.42, 339 & n. Schwerhoff, Gerd, 506 n.55 Scalisi, Lina, 35 n.33 Scaraffia, Lucetta, 70 n.52, 325 n.1 Schiaffinati, Agostino, 322 Sciarra, Marco, 417, 418 Scipio, 172 Sciulio, Giorgio, 477, 478 Scott, H. M., 292 n.93 Scotti, Giovan Battista, 475 Scrivano, Riccardo, 218 Seeff, A., 343 n.68 Segni, B., 142 n.13, 144 n.21, 145 n.26, 147 n.34, 155 n.49 Segre, Arturo, 467 n.29 Seidel Menchi, Silvana, 77 n.3, 326 n.4, 334 n.26, 348 n.87 Sella, Domenico, 236 n. 19, 242 n.31, 273 n.48, 384 n.4, 385 n.7., 394 n.28, 403 Seneca, 151 Serbelloni, Gabrio, 321 Serbelloni, Giovan Paolo di Gabrio, 321 Serra, Marquis of, 447 Serrano, Luciano, 531 n.36 Servetus, Michael, 441 n.19, 471 Servais, Paul, 379 n.35 Seso, Carlo de, 440 & n., 441, 477 & n., 478 & n., 451 Sessa, Agostino Nifo da, 415 & n. Sessa, Duke of, Governor of Milan, 112, 198 & n., 309

Sforza Visconti, Ascanio, Cardinal, 102 n.10 Sforza, Bianca Maria, 100 Sforza, Ercole Massimiliano, 100, 101, 103 Sforza, Francesco, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 120 n.47 Sforza, Francesco II, Duke of Milan, 527, 530 Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, 120 n.47 Sforza, Ludovico, “il Moro,” Duke of Milan, 100, 102 & n., 103 n.11, 120 n.47, 306 Sforza, Massimiliano, 103 n.12 Shemek, Deanna, 352 n.95 Shepard, S., 435 n.7 Siciliano, Anna, 41 n.49 Siena, Bernardino da, 469 & n. Siena, Catherine of, 450 Signorotto, Gianvittorio, 25 n.5, 81 n.12, 113 n.36, 118 n.40, 123 n.152, 177 n.129, 200 n.7, 254 n.8, 270 n.38, 284 n.71, 299 n.1, 314 n.49, 315 n.54, 339 n.53, 365 n.9, 528 n.27, 553 n.96 Sigüenza, José de, 458 Silvano, G., 222 n. 42 Simenes, Giovanni, 443 Simón Díaz, J., 447 n.37 Simon i Tarrés, Antoni, 63 n.41 Simoncelli, Paolo, 461 n.11 Simonetta, Alessandro, 542 n.64 Sirani, Elisabetta, 345 & n. Sitoni di Scozia, Giovanni, 315 n.50 Sirtori, Giambattista, 324 Sixtus IV, Pope, 2 Sixtus V, Pope, 193, 418, 513 & n., 523 n.14, 527 n.24, 549 & n. Skinner, Quentin, 214 n.21 Smith, Leslie, 383 n.2 Smith, R., 329 n.11 Soares Martínez, Pedro, 519 n.3 Sodini, Carla, 312 n.40 Solana Villamor, M. C., 102 n.10 Solano Camón, Enrique, 63 n.41 Soler i Fabregat, R., 446 n.35 Somaini, Francesco, 302 n.6 Sonnini, Eugenio, 329 n.11 Soraluce Blond, José Ramón, 520 n.8 Soranzo, Vittore, Bishop of Bergamo, 461 n.11, 465 Sormani, Alessandro, 323 Sormani, Antonio, 321 Sormani, Francesco, 320

index of proper names Sonnenfeld, A., 453 n.55 Soto, Domingo de, 459, 478 Soto, Juan de, 371 Spaccini, Giovanni Battista, 342 n.66 Spagnoletti, Angelantonio, 88, 178 n. 131, 275 n.55, 292 n.92, 295 n.99, 308 n.27, 311 n.38, 312 n.41, 314 n.48 Spear, Richard E., 564 n.26 Sperling, Jutta, 328 & n. Spike, John T., 564 n.26 Spinelli, Carlo, 418 Spini, Giorgio, 142 n. 16, 144 n.22, 145 n.26, 146 n.26, 164 n.87 Spinola, Andrea, 215 & n., 253 n.6 Spinola Colonna, Carlo Filippo, Marquis of Los Balbases, 131 Spinosa, Nicola, 563 n.23, 564 n.25., 568 n.42 Spruyt, Hendryk, 229 n.2 Stampa, Ermes, 323 Stanzione, Massimo, 564, 565 Starace, Giovan Vincenzo, 408, 409 Stearns, Peter, 328 n.11 Stella, Aldo, 461 n.10, 471 n.50, 472 n.52, 473 n.59 Storey, Tessa, 342 n.63 Stow, Kenneth, 336 n.37 Stow, Sandra Debenedetti, 336 n.37 Stratton, Suzanne L., 557 n.8, 559 n.11 Strocchia, Sharon, 327 n.6, 328 n.8 Strong, Roy, 147 n.34 Strozzi, Alessandra, 344 n.73 Strozzi, Barbara, 345 n.77 Strozzi, Filippo, 141 n.12, 142 Stuard, Susan, 329 n.12 Stumpo, Enrico, 494 n.27, 496 n.29, 510 n.66 Suárez de Figueroa, Gómez, 202 n.11 Suárez Grimón, Vicente, 527 n.23 Sullivan, Edward J., 556 n.1 Suppa, Silvio, 291 n.90 Suriano, Michele, 4, 5, 15, 411, 414, 415 Tacchi Venturi, Pietro, 461 n.9 Tacitus, 291 Talvacchia, B., 434 n.3, 436 n.9 Tanner, Marie, 556 n.1 Tansillo, Luigi, 135, 136, 137, 148, 151 n.43, 159 n.66, 162 & n. Tapia, Carlo, 368, 382, 408 & n., 410, 411, 415, 417

591

Tarabotti, Arcangela, 344 n.73, 346 Tasso, Torquato, 452 n.53 Tavilla, Carmelo E., 32 n.22 Tedeschi, John A., 233 n.12, 484 n.5, 508 n.59 Tellechea Idígoras, José Ignacio, 440 n.18, 466 n.27, 474 n.61, 477 n.74, 478 n.74, 550 n.88 Téllez de Girón, Pedro, Duke of Osuna, Viceroy of Sicily, Viceroy of Naples, 27, 28, 34, 246, 523 n.14, 562 Téllez de Silva, Fernando de, Marquis of Favara, 32 Tendilla, Count of, 102 n.10 Teresa of Avila, 450, 566 & n, 567 Terpstra, Nicholas, 328 n.11 Terranova, Duke of, 31 Tetzel, Johannes, 183 n.2 Thermes, Cenza, 59 n. 33 Thompson, I. A. A., 308 n.28, 310 n.36 Tibaldi, Pellegrino, 444 Tinagli, Paola, 328 n.8 Titian, 447, 555 & n. Titone, Virgilio, 254 n.8 Tizzano, Lorenzo, 471 Tocco, V. di, 180 n.132 Tognarini, Ivan, 86 n. 21 Tognetti, S., 394 n.28, 396 n.33, 403 Toledo, Ana de, 143 Toledo, Eleonora of, Duchess of Florence, 2, 8, 136, 138, 145, 146, 149 & n., 150 & n., 151 & n., 152 n. 45, 153 n. 46, 154 & n., 155, 158 & n., 159, 160, 161, 162 & n., 165 n.90, 167, 173, 177, 180, 353 Toledo, Eleonora, daughter of García de Toledo, 180 Toledo, Fadrique de, 156 n.54, 161, 163 Toledo, Francisco de, 161, 166, 168, 169 n.104, 179 Toledo, Garcia de, 35, 146, 159, 161 & n., 163, 166, 167, 170 n.107, 173, 180 Toledo, Gutierre de, 146 Toledo, Isabel (Isabella) de, 145 & n., 161 n.76, 162 n.76 Toledo, Juan de, Cardinal of Burgos, 158, 159, 161, 165 & n., 166 & n., 167, 170 & n., 171, 172 n.114, 180 Toledo, Juan Bautista de, 445 n.33 Toledo, Juana de, 143

592

index of proper names

Toledo, Luis de, 160, 161 & n, 163, 173 & n., 179 Toledo, Maricca de, 443 Toledo, Pedro de, Viceroy of Naples, Marquis of Villafranca, 79, 80, 110, 126, 136, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145 & n., 148, 150, 151 & n., 155 & n., 156 & n, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 168 & n., 170 & n., 171, 172 & n., 173, 179, 282, 293 n.97, 443, 468 & n., 472, 483 n.3 Toledo, Pedro de, cousin to Eleonora de Toledo, 146, 151, 162 &n., 170 & n. Toledo de Osorio, Pedro de, Governor of Milan, 553 Tomaro, John B., 522 n.11 Tomas, Natalie, 347 n.84 Tomizza, Fulvio, 330 n.14 Tore, Gianfranco, 65 n.43, 66 n.45 Tornabuoni de’ Medici, Lucrezia, 344 n.73 Torras i Ribe, Josep Maria, 47 n.4, 49 n.6 Torre, Angelo, 503 n.47 Torrentini, Lorenzo, 151 n.43 Torres Naharro, Bartolomé, 434 & n., 435 n.7 Torres i Sans, Xavier, 67 n.48 Torrisi, Claudio, 24 n.3, 25 n.5, 43 n.52 Toscani, Xenio, 503 n.49 Toscano, T. R. 136 n.1, 141 n.12, 293 n.97 Tosi, Gerolamo, 323 Tracy, James D., 78 n.4 Tranfaglia, Nicola, 292 n.93 Trexler, Richard, 328 n.11 Trinchieri Camiz, Franca, 337 n.41 Trivulzio, Giovan Giacomo, Prince and Cardinal, 322 Trivulzio, Giovanni Antonio, 315 n.50 Trivulzio, Teodoro, Cardinal, 118 n.42 Trognaesio, Gioachimo, 319 Trotti, Galeazzo, 322 Trotti, Luigi, 322 Tucca, Paolo, 159 n.66 Tudor, Mary, Queen of England, 112 Turchi, L., 333 n. 23 Turriano, Juanelo, 117, 444 Turrini, Miriam, 507 Turtas, Raimondo, 57 n.28, 58 n.32, 60 n.34, 61 n.35, 62 n.36, 527 n.24

Ucedo, Sebastián de, 121 n.51 Ulloa, Alfonso de, 439 Ulloa Pereira, Juan de, 440 Ulloa, Modesto, 199 n.6 Urban II, Pope, 541, 551 Urban VIII, Pope, 11, 193, 502 n.45 Urrea, Jerónimo de, 153, 154 n.47 Urrías, Federico, 110 n.29, 142 & n., 146 Vacca, Salvatore, 542 n.63 Vaccaro, Andrea, 567 & n. Vaccaro, Domenico Antonio, 562 Vaccaro, Lorenzo, 562 Vaccaro, Luciano, 528 n.26 Valdés, Alfonso, 187, 437 n.11, 440, 451 n.48, 458 n.2, 463 & n., 464 n.21 Valdés, Juan de, 150, 436 n. 8, 440 n.18, 441, 450 & n., 458 n.2, 462 n.14, 463 n.20, 464, 465 & n., 466 & n., 467 n.29, 468 & n., 469 & n., 470 & n., 471 & n., 473 n.60, 475, 477, 478 n.74 Valeri, Elena, 305 n.19 Valenzuela, Fernando, 42 Vallbona, R. de, 435 n.5 Valle Pavori, Guillermina del, 379 n.35 Valone, Carolyn, 344 n.72 Valverde de Hamusco, Juan, 442 & n., 443 Van De Velde, Carl, 556 n.2 Van Gelderen, Martin, 214 n.21 Van Kessel, P., 332 n.20 Varanini, Gian Maria, 301 n.4 Varchi, Benedetto, 151 & n, 153, 154, 158 n.64, 461 & n., 464, 465 Varesi, Oliverio, Count, 321 Vargas-Hidalgo, Rafael, 201 n.8 Vasari, Giorgio, 138, 139 & n., 149 & n., 172 Vásquez Santiago, David, 440 n.17 Vega, Juan de, Imperial Ambassador in Rome, Viceroy of Sicily, 27, 31, 107, 167 & n., 255 Vega, Garcilaso de la, 437 Vega, Juan de la, poet, 152 Velázquez, Diego, 447 & n., 449, 559 Vélez de Guevara y Tassis, Inigo, Count of Oñate, Viceroy of Naples, 90, 92, 126, 566 Ventura, Angelo, 227 n.1 Venturelli, Paola, 342 n.66 Veralli, Maria Spada, 334 & n.

index of proper names Verallo, Girolamo, 459 Verdura, Giovan Francesco, 468 Verga, E., 103 n.12 Verga, Marcello, 266 n.29 Vergerio, Aurelio, 472 Vergerio, Pier Paolo, 472, 474 & 64 Vermigli, Pietro Martire, 465 Verri, Pietro, 384 Verzosa, Juan, 442 & n. Vespucci, Amerigo, 438 Vettori, Pier, 154 & n. Vian Herrero, Ana, 463 n.20, 464 n.21 Vicens Vives, Jaume (also Jaime), 46, 49 n.6, 49 n.8, 87 Vico, Francisco, 55 n.25 Vico y Artea, Francisco Ángel, 63 Vico, Gaspar, 60 Vico, Pedro, Archbishop of Cagliari, 67, 68, 69 n.51, 70 Vidal, Josep Juan, 56 n.27 Vidal de Noya, Francisco, 103 n.11 Vigiano, Valentina, 33 n.23, 287 n.81 Viglione, Abbot, 129 Vigo, Giovanni, 259 n.16, 385 n.8, 403 Vilallonga, M. A., 442 n.22 Vilar, Pierre, 72 n.56 Villafranca, Juan de, 469 & n., 472 Villafranca, Pedro, 556 & n. Villahermosa, Duke of, 102 n.10 Villamarino, Isabella, 468 Villani, Pasquale, 542 n.64, 545 n.71 Villari, Rosario, 24 n.2, 37 n. 38, 88, 89, 90 n.27, 279 n.63, 281 & n., 299 n.1, 338 n.44, 405 & n., 409 n.7, 417 & n., 518 n.3 Villasor, Marquis of, 64 Vincent, Bernard, 526 n.22 Vinci, Leonardo da, 235 Vipera, Gian Francesco, 509 Virgil, 454 n.56 Viroli, Maurizio, 214 n.19 Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, 34 n.28, 91, 91 n.31, 109 n.27, 276 n.55, 280 n.64, 300 n.1, 302 n.7, 314 n.48, 328 n.8, 333 n. 24, 347 n.82, 380 n.36, 490 n.19, 553 n.96, 561 n.16 Visconti, A., 103 n.12 Visconti, Alessandro, 110 Visconti, Annibale, 129 Visconti, Carlo, Count, 128 Visconti, Fabrizio, 322

593

Visconti, Filippo Maria, Duke, 272 Visconti, Francesco, 323 Visconti, Gaspare, Archbishop, 534, 535 n.45 Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, 120 Visconti, Giovan Ambrogio, 321 Visconti, Pirro, Marquis of Borgoratto, 129 & n., 130, 131 Visconti di Massino, Antonio, 322 Vitale, Giuliana, 275 n.55 Viterbo, Annius of, 448 Vitolo, 497 n.34, 502 n.46, 510 n.65 Vitolo, Giovanni, 265 n.28 Vivanti, Corrado, 275 n.53, 336 n.37, 401 Vives, Juan Luis, 150, 151 n.43, 452, 521 n.10 Van Zanden, J. L., 393 n.27, 397 & n., 403 Volpi, Volpiano, Archbishop of Chieti, 534 Von Pölniz, G. F., 164 n.86 Walker, Leslie J., 301 n.5 Watkins, Renée Neu, 300 n.2 Wall, R., 329 n.11 Warner, L., 334 n.29 Weaver, Elissa, 337 n.41 Wenceslas, Emperor, 120, 121, 122 Wethy, Harold E., 555 n.1 Whitehead, B., 328 n.8 Whitfield, Clovis, 556 n.4 Winkelmes, Mary-Ann, 344 n.72 Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, 326 n.4, 349 n.89 Willette, Thomas, 561 n.18, 565 n.30 Wilkins, David G., 151 n.44 Wilson, Stephen, 336 n.33 Wood, Isan, 542 n.63 Wood, Sharon, 344 n.73 Wolff, Philippe, 72 n.56 Woltjier, J. J., 519 n.3 Wright, Anthony D., 517 n.1, 524 n.15, 531 n.35, 535 n.47, 536 n.48, 542 n.63, 549 n.84, 550 n.87, 553 n.96 Wrigley, E. A., 391, 403 Xavier, Francis, Saint, 564, 566 Yerushalmi, Y. M., 452 n.51 Zaffuto Rovello, Rosanna, 40 n.47 Zamagni, Vera, 394 n.31, 403

594

index of proper names

Zamperetti, Sergio, 245 n.37 Zanardi, Mario, 486 n.9 Zanetti, Dante, 270 n.38, 271 n.43, 315 n.51, 332 n.19. 394 n.28, 403 Zanoboni, Maria Paolo, 340 n.58 Zardin, Danilo, 338 n.45, 484 n.5, 485 n.8, 492 n.23, 545 n.72 Zarri, Gabriella, 325 n.1, 327 n.8, 328 & n., 336 n.38, 337 & n., 339 n.51, 481 n.2, 487 n.12, 501 n.43, 510 n.64 Zen, Stefano, 485 n.8 Zenobi, Brandino Giacomo, 307 n.25 Zinzi, Emilia, 503 n.47

Zimmermann, T. C. Price, 306 n.21 Zito, Gaetano, 546 n.76 Zorrilla, Alfonso, 443 n.24, 460 & n. Zorzi, Andrea, 506 n.55 Zotta, Silvio, 408 & n., 412, 551 n.91 Zuccaro, Federico, 444 Zuñiga, Juan de, Count of Miranda, Viceroy of Naples, 372, 373 n.22, 405, 407, 411, 413, 415, 417, 525 n.18, 533 n.41, 544 n.69.. Zuñiga, Juan de, Prince of Pietraperzia, 31 Zurbarán, Francisco, 559 Zurita, J. 101 n.7.