Papal States - Early Modern Period II

  General Description   The papacy was victorious in the Second War of Castro (1649). This was only the denouement of a minor episode, however, and in general the Papal State was a political fossil, undertaking no reforms in the spirit of the Enlightenment, and increasingly irrelevant to European affairs. ^[1]
The first part of this period marked the definitive eclipse of the papacy as a power of any reckoning in international relations. Pope Urban VIII had annexed the Duchy of Urbino to the Papal States in 1631, thereby alienating the papacy from the other Italian powers. ^[2] The first war of Castro broke out in 1641 when Urban declared war on the Farnese, the ruling family of Parma, over the poor finances of Castro, a small fiefdom held by the Farnese just north of Rome. Tuscany, Modena and Venice joined the Farnese to resist the papacy, and inflicted humiliating defeats on the papal armies. ^[3] In 1644, the French imposed a peace settlement. Although Pope Innocent X’s troops took Castro and razed it to the ground in 1649, the papacy was now isolated internationally and increasingly irrelevant. The papacy took no part in the Peace of Westphalia, and it was also not consulted in the Franco-Spanish Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). ^[4] The papacy took no part in European wars for the rest of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The papacy’s irrelevance internationally can be seen as part of the decline of the Spanish empire, as had benefited from Spanish protection during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. ^[5] The French came to dominate European affairs during the reign of Louis XIV, but the struggle for power in Europe did not seriously affect the Papal State until the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Warfare ravaged the peninsula in the early eighteenth century, as the (Austrian) Habsburgs and French Bourbons battled to fill the vacuum created by Spain’s gradual eclipse. ^[6] These wars were external events imposed on the Italian states, and they took as little part as possible. Spanish attempts to recruit troops at Rome in the 1730s were met by serious riots, for example. ^[7] The War of the Austrian Succession devastated areas of the Marches and Romagna, but the papacy, it seems, was powerless to prevent foreign armies’ depredations. ^[7]
As the eighteenth century progressed, this weakness, even impotence, became ever more marked. Clement XI in 1720 and Clement XII called for an Italian league to expel northern rulers, but these appeals were meaningless because the papacy controlled no armies worth speaking of. ^[8] Thus, international relations between the papacy and the European powers during the later 18th century consisted of papal resistance to European states’ attempts to restrain the power of the Church. ^[9] This took its characteristic form in the French and Spanish expulsion of the Jesuit Order from their domains; in 1773, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the order. ^[10] As a reward, the French restored Avignon and the Spanish Benevento to the papacy. ^[11]
The papacy opposed the French Revolution from the beginning, and by 1792, there was a schism in France between Catholics who supported the Church sanctioned by the Revolutionary regime, and those who remained faithful to Rome. ^[12] Pius VI sympathized with the Habsburgs and the revolutionary regime’s enemies, and his successor was powerless in the face of Bonaparte’s 1796 invasion of the peninsula. ^[13] Indeed, the papal ambassador Zelada’s reply to British requests for papal approval of the war against the French was the following: ^[14] "’It is true that there was a time when the voice of the Roman Pontiff was heard, respected, and obeyed; now...it is scarcely listened ever listened to, and never has any effect.’" Although the British fleet had briefly protected the Papal States’ coasts from the French, by 1796 the British had withdrawn. ^[14] Napoleon did not initially invade the Papal States proper, only the Legation cities of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara; in the following peace treaty, the French annexed Ravenna, Bologna, Ancona, and the right of entry to all papal ports. ^[15] The papacy furthermore had to pay Napoleon 21 million crowns. War recommenced in 1797, and Bonaparte marched almost unopposed down the eastern coast of the peninsula, stealing whatever the papal government had not yet removed of the treasury at Loreto and forcing terms on the papacy at Tolentino in mid-February. ^[16] Refusing to acquiesce in French domination, Pius VI was arrested in February 1798 and bundled off to prison in Valence, France.
The second half the 1600s was marked by a renewal of "Christianization" efforts, i.e., to educate the laity and ensure a stricter adherence to post-Tridentine Catholicism. ^[17] The wars, famines, and epidemics between 1610 and the mid-1650s had disrupted these efforts, but there was a "Tridentine revival" in the second half of the century resulting in Jesuit missions to the Kingdom of Naples, and more frequent pastoral visits by bishops. ^[18] The Inquisition, which had been institutionalized as the Roman Inquisition in the sixteenth century, was still active, although it may not have burnt as many heretics and witches as authorities north of the Alps. ^[19] The Inquisition censored books, although it was not necessarily successful at preventing their spread. ^[19] Pilgrimage remained popular, especially in Jubilee years (in this period, 1725, 1750, and 1775), and confraternities showed remarkable staying power, especially in the duchy of Benevento and the kingdom of Naples. Baptism and the Mass remained little changed, although parish records became a standard part of the Church’s institutional machinery.
The seventeenth century was a period of major demographic and economic contraction, but by the mid-18th century, recovery had begun. ^[20] Gross has estimated that in 1684, the Papal States’ trade and payment deficit was five million scudi; in 1786, the Papal States’ imports exceeded their exports by three times. ^[21] Rome remained what it had long been, a parasitic drain on the Agro Romano. ^[22] The city consisted of a small plutocracy and a vast mass of artisans, courtiers, workers, and a major substratum of the permanently indigent; pilgrims added to the city’s population and its coffers periodically. Ancona, on the other hand, experienced revived prosperity in the mid-18th century following Clement XII’s decree making it a free port. ^[23] Bologna’s economy was in decline due to the implosion of the textile trade. ^[23] An important contribution to the future demographic and economic health of Lazio was the draining of the Pontine Marshes, carried out under Popes Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, and Pius VI. ^[24]

[1]: (Symcox 2002, 118) John M Marino, ed. 2002. Early Modern Italy, 1550-1796. Oxford: Oxford UP.

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

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

[4]: (Sella 1997, 11) Dominc Sella. 1997. Italy in the Seventeeth Century. London & New York: Longman.

[5]: (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

[6]: (Woolf 1979, 29) S J Woolf. 1979. A History of Italy 1700-1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change. 2nd Ed. London: Methuen.

[7]: (Woolf 1979, 35) S J Woolf. 1979. A History of Italy 1700-1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change. 2nd Ed. London: Methuen.

[8]: (Woolf 1979, 37) S J Woolf. 1979. A History of Italy 1700-1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change. 2nd Ed. London: Methuen.

[9]: (Hay 1975, 68) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[10]: (Hay 1975, 40) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[11]: (Hay 1975, 42) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[12]: (Hay 1975, 80) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[13]: (Hay 1975, 80-81) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[14]: (Hay 1975, 98) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[15]: (Hay 1975, 99) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[16]: (Hay 1975, 101) Denys Hay ed. 1975. The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge UP

[17]: (Sella 1997, 106-115) Dominc Sella. 1997. Italy in the Seventeeth Century. London & New York: Longman.

[18]: (Sella 1997, 107) Dominc Sella. 1997. Italy in the Seventeeth Century. London & New York: Longman.

[19]: (Sella 1997, 160) Dominc Sella. 1997. Italy in the Seventeeth Century. London & New York: Longman.

[20]: (Carpanetto and Recuperati 1987, 47) Dino Carpanetto. Giuseppe Ricuperati. 1987. Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685-1789. Trans. Caroline Higgit. London/New York: Oxford UP.

[21]: (Gross 1990, 88) Gross, Hanns. Rome in the Age of Enlightenment: The post-Tridentine syndrome and the ancien regime. Cambridge, CUP.

[22]: (Carpanetto and Recuperati 1987, 15) Dino Carpanetto. Giuseppe Ricuperati. 1987. Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685-1789. Trans. Caroline Higgit. London/New York: Oxford UP.

[23]: (Carpanetto and Recuperati 1987, 16) Dino Carpanetto. Giuseppe Ricuperati. 1987. Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685-1789. Trans. Caroline Higgit. London/New York: Oxford UP.

[24]: (Carpanetto and Recuperati 1987, 48) Dino Carpanetto. Giuseppe Ricuperati. 1987. Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685-1789. Trans. Caroline Higgit. London/New York: Oxford UP.