Clemente VIII e il Sacro Collegio 1592-1605: Meccanismi istituzionali ed accentramento di governo (review)

Over the last couple of decades, the historiography of early modern Italian religious history has taken what might be termed "the inquisitorial turn." A leading protagonist here has been Massimo Firpo, whose massive editions of the inquisition trials of Cardinal Morone, Pietro Carnesecchi, and, most recently, Vittore Soranzo (the first two carried out with the archival collaboration of Dario Marcatto and the third with Sergio Pagano) have been deployed to argue that during the crisis decades of 1540–1560 the real event which was to determine the future of the Roman Catholic Church was not so much the deliberations of the Council of Trent but the internal struggle, within the Curia itself, for the body and soul of the sancta romana ecclesia between the spirituali and the zelanti. Won by the latter, in the persons of Gian Pietro Caraffa (Paul IV) and Michele Ghislieri (St. Pius V), this victory ensured, so this revisionist narrative runs, not only that the Tridentine reforms would be papally directed from the center, rather than diocese-driven, but also that the engine room of the Roman Curia was to be provided by the Holy Office.

The significant place of Clement VIII Aldobrandini's papacy in this story has already been well illustrated in two important studies by Gigliola Fragnito and Miguel Gotor. Both of these works have made good use of the recently reopened Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which possesses not only the much-depleted holdings of the Holy Office archives, but also the more complete records of the Congregation of the Index. The climax of Fragnito's study, La Bibbia al rogo. La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1997) [The Bible at the stake: ecclesiastical censorship and the vernacularization of scripture] was provided by a gripping account of the way in which the so-called Clementine Index of 1596 was effectively hijacked by the Holy Office at the eleventh hour—after the pope had approved its promulgation—so that the right of the ordinary to permit vernacular bibles (as enshrined in the Tridentine index of 1564) was reclaimed (and forbidden) by the Holy Office (a state of affairs first set out in the Index issued under the authority of Paul IV Caraffa in 1559). In I Beati del Papa. Santità, Inquisizione e obbedienza in età moderna [Blesseds of the Pope: sanctity, inquisition, and obedience in the early modern period] (2002) Gotor has recovered for the historian's attention the work and significance of the temporary, Inquisition-dominated "Congregazione dei Beati," founded by Clement VIII in 1602 for the specific purpose of controlling the cults of the beati moderni [modern blesseds] such as Ignatius Loyola and Philip Neri. This has forced historians, inter alia, to reassess the role of the Congregation of Rites and Ceremonies, the body that had been formally founded as recently as 1588 with specific responsibility for overseeing canonization trials.

It is useful for the reader to bear this background in mind when tackling Fattori's study, since her book's argument is buried under a prodigious number of lengthy footnotes (e.g., no. 37, pp. 313–315) and bereft of a proper conclusion, all of which makes for tough going. Nevertheless, the persevering scholar will be rewarded with a much firmer grasp of the detail and dynamics of this highly important papacy, which has for too long languished under the shadow of Sixtus V. Fattori is thus to be warmly complimented for having brought together between the covers of a single volume so much relevant information and material, which is unambiguous testament to her industry and thoroughness.

Fattori begins with an overview of the sources used. These consist not only of the frequently used newsletters (avvisi) compiled for the Duke of Urbino together with the equally popular Venetian ambassadorial reports (relazioni), but also of the memoranda of papal...