Papal States - Early Modern Period I

  General Description   The polity period begins with the imperial sack of Rome (1527). This devastating sack at the hands of largely Protestant mercenaries-theoretically in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V-marks an absolute nadir of papal fortunes for the early modern period. The sack provoked the papacy to reform itself, take the Protestant revolt seriously, and initiate the Counter-Reformation (aka the Catholic Reformation). ^[1] The age of the Council of Trent (1543-1563) dramatically altered the Catholic Church, enhancing the papacy’s power within the Church and enhancing its ability to police the laity, with institutions such as the Roman Inquisition being established in 1542 by Paul III. ^[2] The index of banned books was established, tighter clerical control over canonization imposed, and in general the Catholic Church ratcheted down on orthodoxy in the face of the Protestant threat. ^[3]
The sack of Rome was compounded by malaria epidemics and food shortages, to drastically reduce the population of Rome to perhaps 10,000 in 1527-28. ^[4] Despite this, the city soon recovered and boomed in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the capital of a more or less stable Papal State, under Spanish protection. By the turn of the century, Rome’s population may have been around 100,000. ^[5] Marino has characterized the early modern city’s economy as parasitic, consuming and not producing wealth ^[6] ; Goldthwaite, similarly, describes late medieval and early modern Rome thus: "Rome, however, was a city that consumed but did not produce; in contrast to Avignon, it was not a regional export market of any importance." ^[5] A major part of this consumption was cultural: "Rome...exploded [in the sixteenth century] into an enormous market for luxury goods...." ^[5] Despite the sack, the most important papal building project of the early modern period, St. Peter’s Basilica, was completed in 1626. Spanish financial and military support was crucial to the survival of the Papal State; a famous letter of Charles V, written to his son Philip II between 1545 and 1558, declared that "’the states of the church are in the center of Italy, but [they are] surrounded by ours in such a way that one can say that they form one kingdom.’" ^[7] De facto Spanish hegemony over the Papal State would not be seriously challenged between the mid-16th century and the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623-44). ^[7]
By the sixteenth century, the papacy was firmly in control of the Papal State, and the polity was at peace after the end of the Great Italian Wars (1559). The Spanish alliance remained a cornerstone of papal policy into the early 18th century. ^[8] The papacy ruled Rome and the State through a sophisticated bureaucracy based on patronage, cronyism, and the purchase of offices. ^{[9] [10]} The feudal barons and nobles were subject to clerical officials appointed by the Papacy. ^[11] Although this bureaucracy was usually able to meet the basic requirements of government-collecting taxes, administering justice, and protecting subjects-this does not mean that the Papal State was free of violence, famine, and so forth. Banditry remained a major problem during the period and would straight through to the late nineteenth century. ^{[12] [13]}
After the end of the Wars, military action involving the papacy shifted to the Mediterranean. The Ottomans had begun raiding papal possessions on the Adriatic littoral from the mid-15th century, following the fall of Constantinople. These raids were not preludes to conquest, but were a serious disruption to trade and daily life in le Marche; in 1518, Selim I’s forces had torched Porto Recanati, the port for Loreto, site of a major shrine to the Virgin. This imminent threat, compounded with the papacy’s traditional role as organizer and propagandist of the crusade, resulted in deep papal involvement in the struggle against the Ottomans. Initially, these efforts were not successful. The major Turkish victory at Prevesa (1538) opened the Central Mediterranean to Turkish raiding and piracy; the Ottomans’ alliance with the French even allowed the Turkish fleet to winter in Toulon. ^[14] This ability of the Turks to winter in the western Mediterranean exposed the coast of Lazio to Turkish piracy; for example, Andrea Doria, leading a mixed papal-Genoese fleet, was defeated by Turks and North Africans off Terracina in 1552. ^[15]
Confronted with this Turkish menace, the papacy was crucial in organizing Christian campaigns against the Turks in North Africa and Greece, and in funding coastal defences for Lazio and the Kingdoms of Sicily & Naples. Pius V (1566-1572) was of particular importance in this effort, laying the groundwork for a papal fleet. ^[16] Pius granted major sources of ecclesiastical revenue to the Spanish Philip II, and was instrumental in organizing the councils and diplomatic wrangling that led to the creation of the Holy League in 1570, in particular convincing the Spanish to come to the aid of the Ventians. ^[17] The Holy League consisted of the Papacy, Spain, and Venice; by the final agreement, each party agreed to contributions for 3 years, for an annual expedition consisting of 200 galleys, 100 roundships, 50,000 infantry and 4,500 light infantry. ^[18] The Christian fleet met and decisively defeated a comparable Turkish squadron at Lepanto, off the Greek Ionian littoral, on 7 October 1571. It was the greatest battle in the Mediterranean in the 16th century, and it marked a substantive end to Turkish raiding on the papal lands and, more importantly, led to the division of the Mediterranean into a Turkish east and a Christian west. The papacy’s international prestige rose to new heights with the victory, as well, but declined during the seventeenth century due to the grasping annexation of the duchy of Urbino and Urban VIII’s foolish war of Castro in the early 1640s. ^[19]
Italy enjoyed several decades of peace following the peace of Cateau-Cambresis of 1559 between France and Spain. Yet economically and demographically, the 1590s and the first half of the seventeenth century were a period of general crisis in Italy. The "decline of Italy" is a venerable aspect of early modern historiography, but depends on a particular view of what counts in assessing quality of life: see Black, (2001, 32), for an approving echo of Braudel’s comments to the contrary ^[20] Papal revenues were aided by the popes’ ability to draw on Spanish ecclesiastical revenues. ^[21] Demographically, the first half of the seventeenth century was a succession of plagues and famines in many parts of the peninsula. ^[22] A particularly virulent plague cycle hit Rome in 1656, ^[23] dropping its population from 120,000 to 100,000. ^[22]

[1]: (Martin 2002, 39-42) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[2]: (Martin 2002, 42) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[3]: (Schutte 2002, 126-127) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[4]: (Black 2001, 9) Christopher F Black. 2001. Early modern Italy. A social history. London: Routledge.

[5]: (Goldthwaite 2009, 173) Richard A Goldthwaite. 2009. The economy of renaissance Florence. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2009.

[6]: (Marino 2002, 66) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[7]: (Dandelet 2003, 221) Thomas Dandelet. 2003. "The Spanish Foundations of Late Renaissance and Baroque Rome." In Beyond Florence. The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy.Paula Findlen, Michelle M. Fontaine, and Duane J. Osheim eds. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP. pp. 219-232

[8]: (Dandelet 2002, 29) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[9]: (Dandelet 2002, 20) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[10]: (Braudel 1973, 696-698) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[11]: (Symcox 2002, 114) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[12]: (Symcox 2002, 110) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

[13]: (Braudel 1973, 745-746) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[14]: (Braudel 1973, 906) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[15]: (Braudel 1973, 924) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[16]: (Braudel 1973, 1083) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[17]: (Braudel 1973, 1029) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[18]: (Braudel 1973, 1091) Fernand Braudel. 1973. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

[19]: (Sella 1997, 9-10) Dominc Sella. 1997. Italy in the Seventeeth Century. London & New York: Longman.

[20]: (Black 2001, 32) Christopher F Black. 2001. Early modern Italy. A social history. London: Routledge.

[21]: (Dandelet 2003, 219-232) Thomas Dandelet. 2003. "The Spanish Foundations of Late Renaissance and Baroque Rome." In Beyond Florence. The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy.Paula Findlen, Michelle M. Fontaine, and Duane J. Osheim eds. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP. pp. 219-232

[22]: (Black 2001, 23) Christopher F Black. 2001. Early modern Italy. A social history. London: Routledge.

[23]: (Cipolla 1981, 90) Carlo M Cipolla. 1981. Fighting the plague in Seventeenth-century Italy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.