Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492-1700.

Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Visceglia, eds. Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492-1700.

Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. viii + 257 pp. index. $60. ISBN: 0-521-64146-2.

The authors whose essays are gathered in Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492-1700 take seriously the assertion of Ludovico Ludovisi, cardinal-nephew of Pope Gregory XV, that early modern Rome was "the world's theatre." They also, like Cardinal Ludovisi, suggest that this theater provided more than merely ostentatious pageantry masking rapidly declining political influence, as modern historians have often assumed. The essays in this volume argue that Rome from the fifteenth through the eighteenth century is a very crowded stage where one can observe the workings of great powers on an intimate scale: in the tight confines of the Roman cityscape, in the Curia, and especially in the claustrophobic quarters of the papal conclave. To use another metaphor deployed by the coeditors of the volume, Rome during the period in question served as a "political laboratory," where experiments were conducted in new ways of "doing politics," as well as theorizing and writing about politics. These experiments, the editors suggest, had wide repercussions, affecting the way politics was "done" far beyond the Curia.

The contributors to the volume insist that the unusual qualities of the papal monarchy do not make it so unique as to be irrelevant to considerations of larger European trends in politics and diplomacy; quite the opposite. Because it was an elective monarchy and because of the tendency to elect candidates "of great age and little life expectancy" (179), the papacy can offer a kind of time-lapse view of diplomatic maneuvering and political change. The Curia was a venue in which strong personalities could have great effect; at the same time, the frequent changes in administration often meant quick shifts in political direction and administrative style, from reform to reaction and back again. In place of cliches of hidebound continuity, this volume offers arguments for the volatile nature of the papal court and politics. In this changeable setting, various interests, from the great European powers to the local nobility to the city's gazetteers, were often compelled to be innovative in their political dealings.

This volume serves to display both the vast wealth of source material available to scholars of the early modern papal court and its often daunting complexity. Essays take advantage of letter collections, avvisi (handwritten and printed newsletters), ambassadors' reports, and political treatises. Many of the essays attempt to untangle and explicate the intricacies of the papal administration and the subtle shape-shifting of curial factions. Indeed, these essays make clear how completely intertwined office and faction were in the papal court and suggest the subtle scholarship that is necessary even to define the precise nature of papal offices.

The weaknesses of the volume are minor and are perhaps unavoidable in such an ambitious collection. Essays assume varying degrees of expertise and knowledge in their audiences. Irene Fosi's article on the ceremony of the possesso in the sixteenth century is as clear an introduction to papal ceremonial as one could wish and would be accessible to any interested reader. Mario Infelise's article on avissi and seventeenth-century information technology is both concise and innovative. On the other hand, Mario Rosa's article, "The 'world's theatre': the court of Rome and politics in the first half of the seventeenth century" is a richly discursive work which assumes a fair level of familiarity with early modern political theorizing. All the essays are united, however, by their passionate involvement with the (mostly archival) sources of papal and Roman history, and by their assertion that the early modern papacy is not just a worthwhile object of attention, but also a necessary element in any complete picture of European politics and diplomacy in the early modern period.

The editors and Cambridge University Press should be praised for making available such a wide-ranging and exciting series of studies to an English-speaking audience. Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492-1700 is an innovative book, showing the exciting directions in which Roman scholarship is moving, as well as the richness and relevancy of such scholarship for the history of early modern Europe as a whole. One can only hope that the display of such vast archival riches and such thoughtful and exacting scholarship will inspire others to enter the field.

JENNIFER A. HEINDL

University of California, Berkeley