TABLE OF CONTENTS

To search for text within this finding aid press Ctrl+F to open your web browser's search box.

Descriptive Summary

Historical Note

Scope and Contents

Arrangement

Restrictions

Administrative Information

Related Material

Index Terms

Bibliography

Detailed Description of the Collection

Series 1: Papal Autographs, 1578-1865

The Papal Autograph Collection

An inventory of the Papal Autograph Collection at The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives

Mailing Address: The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064

Telephone: 202-319-5065

Email: archives@mail.lib.cua.edu

URL: http://libraries.cua.edu/achrcua/index.html

Historical Note

The Papal States arose in the eighth century out of the conflict between the papacy and the Byzantine emperors. The state was originally under Frankish protection. From the early tenth century to the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh century, the papal state was dominated by factions of the Roman nobility. Meanwhile, the papacy laid foundations of its administrative independence. In the Middle Ages, papal rule in the Papal States fluctuated, being sometimes reduced to Rome; the popes allowed the formation of communes (autonomous municipalities)=2E In the fourteenth century, the absence of the popes in Avignon weakened the state. By mid-century, Cardinal Gil Albornoz overcame most communes' resistance to centralization, though many small tyrannies remained until the sixteenth century. Albornoz's work was largely undone by Great western Schism; fifteenth-century popes like Martin V and Nicholas V had to use far lesser political and financial resources to rebuild the Papal States.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the international weakening of the papacy went hand in hand with greater centralization, which only the largest local units (whether feudalities, communes, or tyrannies) could resist. Bologna, Perugia, the Este of Ferrara, the Montefeltrino of Urbino all became subject to the papacy. The penetration of state power resulted in the creation of parish registers and of the papal archives, and the organization of sacraments, the catechism, public help institutions like hospitals, and public accounting. However, this centralization was incomplete, as is shown by the very name "States of the Church." The Roman aristocracy amassed enormous wealth and power within the state, at the expense of central authority. Innocent XI ((Benedetto Odescalchi; 1676-1689) fought back by combatting nepotism and imposing fiscal measures.

Pius IV (Giovanni Angelo Medici; 1559-1565) also reduced the autonomy of the Roman nobility, notably the Carafa and Colonna families. The college of cardinals lost power; however, this decline ended up weakening the papacy itself, turning the Papal States into a pawn of conclave politics, which in turn were subject to external pressures, as the great powers intervened to exclude candidates who were not to their liking. Sixteenth-century Rome became more prosperous; and the population rose from 30,000 to 100,000 by the end of the century. Fortifications, construction, the building of roads, and the deployment of military and police, all resulted from a conception of the state as public order and monopoly of power used for the earthly and spiritual benefit of its subjects.

During the two centuries before the French invasion of 1796, the Papal States underwent a progressive decline; and they were temporarily wiped off the map in 1798. The army came in the seventeenth century to be used solely for internal matters. In the eighteenth century, France pressured Clement XIII and Clement XIV to suppress the Jesuits by severing diplomatic relations and occupying Avignon (then papal territory). The only major exception is that Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, under Clement XII (1730-1740) temporarily annexed San Marino. In 1768, Rome had 159,000 inhabitants; there were 2 million in the Papal States as a whole.

The French revolutionaries shook the Papal States, beginning with the annexation of Avignon (1791). Napoleon led the French invasion in 1796, and occupied the "legations" (Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna), though he governed prudently, knowing he might need papal co-operation in France. In 1797, Pius VI signed the treaty of Tolentino, ceding Avignon, Bologna, and Ferrara to France, and Romagna to the "Cisalpine Republic," a French satellite. After the murder of General Mathieu Duphot, the French seized Rome (1798) and proclaimed a Roman Republic; Pius VI died in prison in southern France. In the War of 2nd Coalition, France's defeat forced the French to evacuate Rome and restore the Papal States, except for the legations, in the treaty of Lun=E9ville (1801).

Pius VII (Barnaba Chiaramonti;1800-1823) sought to reorganize administration. His bull Post Diuturnas reflected two different approaches: that of the zelanti, traditionalists in internal politics who favored autonomy in foreign policy and "regarded all the recent French innovations as diabolical" (Jarry, Mori, and Coppa, 495) and those who wanted a fresh start from outmoded institutions. The pope mostly went with the conservatives, and the few changes he made were hindered by prelates' passive resistance. He did, however, open up some positions to laymen, provided they were also noblemen.

Meanwhile, relations with France remained difficult. When the pope refused to go along with the boycott of Britain, Napoleon occupied the Papal States (1805-1809) and kept the pope in captivity until 1814. Pius VII returned to Rome on May 24, 1814. Cardinal Consalvi, papal secretary of state, managed to persuade the Congress of Vienna to restore most of the Papal States, albeit with the permanent loss of Avignon (June 1815). Consalvi enacted a constitutional charter; but noble and ecclesiastical opposition prevented any effective reforms. This failure, along with economic deterioration, caused many lesser nobles and bourgeois to join secret societies like the Carbonari.

Popes Leo XII (Annibale Sermattei Della Genga; 1823-1829), Pius VIII (Francesco Saverio Castiglioni; 1829-1830), and Gregory XVI ((Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; in religion Mauro Cappellari, Camaldolese friar;1831-1846), remained opposed to reform. Inspired by the July Revolution in Paris (1830), insurrections erupted in Bologna and spread to Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches, giving rise to several provisional governments under Terenzio Mamiani. The revolt was crushed by France and Austria. The great powers (France, Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia) then sent Gregory XVI a list of measures needed to prevent further revolts, including admission of laity to higher positions, enforcement of the 1816 constitution, and the creation of local and provincial legislatures; the pope rejected almost all of these proposals. The papacy feared that limitations on temporal power would weaken its spiritual authority.

The election of the popular Pius IX (Giovanni Mastai Ferretti; 1846-1878), in the conclave of June 14-16 1846, strengthened the moderates' hands: "Rome esulta, alla notizia del nuovo eletto" ("Rome exults, at the news of the new pope-elect"; Caravale and Caracciolo, 642) The pope granted amnesty to political prisoners; authorized the creation of railroads; and received Jews in Rome without symbolic humiliation. True political newspapers came into being (from clandestine leaflets). Pius IX organized a lay Consulta di Stato (similar to Parliament) and a civil guard; and he cemented his popularity by protesting the Austrian occupation of Ferrara.

However, as head of the Catholic Church, the pope could not wage war against Austria as the liberals desired, so that relations with the legislature became sour. In November 1848, radicals assassinated Pius IX's prime minister Rossi, and subsequent revolts drove the pope from Rome; a Roman Republic was established in 1849.

The Austrians and French reinstated Pius IX in 1850. Henceforth the pope was dependent on foreign support. Resenting what he considered ingratitude, the pope abandoned his earlier liberal tendencies. Ten years later, the Papal States, bereft of foreign protection, lost the legations, the Marches, and Umbria to the new Kingdom of Italy, which proclaimed Rome to be its capital in 1861. The French reluctantly continued to protect what was left of the Papal States until the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 distracted them; Italy took advantage of the situation to annex Rome and put an end to the Papal States, although the Pope retained personal sovereignty.

Return to the Table of Contents

Scope and Contents

The collection spans the period between 1578 and 1865, and includes handwritten letters and other documents emanating from various popes and Vatican officials; some are of unknown origin. Contents are in chronological order by pontiff, but as some documents were written before elevation to papacy, the documents themselves are not always in chronological order. Popes include Gregory XIII (Ugo Boncompagni, 1572-1585; known for his anti-brigand campaign, he centralized assistance to the poor in Rome, and extended the rights of Jews); Sixtus V (Felice Perretti; 1585-1590);=20 Paul V (Camillo Borghese; 1605-1621; founded the "Secret Archives" and forbade the cardinals to dwell far from Rome without papal permission); Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini; 1623-1644; best known for the 1633 condemnation of Galileo, whom the pope had earlier supported; also annexed the duchies of Urbino and Castro e Ronciglione); Clement XI (GianFrancesco Albani; 1700-1721); Pius IX; and others, listed in the folder descriptions.

Most documents are related to administration of Papal States, and are legal or financial in nature; a few, however, are more personal.

Because the collection is small and documents are of similar character, there is only one series.

Legal and financial documents concern such subjects as payment of dues by the City of Borgo (probably either Borgo-San Donnino in the Province of Parma, or Borgo San Giacomo near Ferrara, where the popes had a fortress and park built); the readjustment of dues from Subiaco (a city near Rome containing a Benedictine abbey); relief for vassals of San Gregorio afflicted by the Plague of 1656 (San Gregorio may be the monastery of that name on the Coelian Hill in Rome [?]); instructions to Cardinal Cybo on the debts of Ostia (Alderano Cybo was Relator of the Office of the Apostolic Signature; Ostia was a port near Rome). Most noteworthy, perhaps, is a bull of 1737 restoring independence to San Marino, which had been annexed shortly before by Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. There are also two responses of Pius IX to petitions on liturgical matters, one from Vincenzo Vanutelli (subsequently Cardinal-Legate to Canada under Pius X), the other anonymous. Other documents concern criminal effects, infrastructure such as furnaces and granaries, and public and private correspondence. They give us a picture of the popes as closely involved in administration on a fairly minute level, and suggest how personalized the papal bureaucracy was.

Some of the documents do not come directly from the popes, or remain obscure as to origin or content. Examples include a sixteenth-century document by "Hieronymus Math=E6us Prothonotarius Publicus" (public prothonotary; a prothonotary, according to dictionary.com, is "[o]ne of a college of 12 ecclesiastics charged with the registry of important pontifical proceedings"); a barely legible French financial document from 1682; a portrait of Leo XII by F. (?) Pistrucci; signatures of Popes Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, and Pius IX; and a private letter from 1863 of Cardinal Luigi Ciacchi (mislabelled "Cerianti" on the folder), who had governed the Legation of Ferrara in 1846.

Documents are primarliy written in Latin and Italian, with one written in French. English translations are only available for a small number of the documents.

Return to the Table of Contents

Arrangement

The Papal Autograph Collection consists of one series.

Return to the Table of Contents

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Return to the Table of Contents

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

Donated by John D. Crimmins on April 26, 1914. Crimmins, a New York contractor and philanthropist, was a noted collector of books and manuscripts. He was also a trustee of Catholic University.

Processing Information

Processing completed in April 2006 by Nicholas J. Tussing. EAD markup completed in April 2006 by Nicholas J. Tussing.

Return to the Table of Contents

Related Material

The American Catholic Research Center and University Archives:

Italian Episcopal and Papal Conclave Letters and Pius IX/Risorgimento Collection

Vatican I Scrapbook

Return to the Table of Contents

Index Terms

This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.

Persons:

Organizations:

Places:

Subjects:

Return to the Table of Contents

Bibliography

Return to the Table of Contents

Detailed Description of the Collection

All contents copyright , The Catholic University Of America. All rights reserved.