Legati e governatori dello Stato Pontificio (1550-1809) ed. by Christoph Weber (review)

696book reviews Early Modern European Legati e govematori dello Stato Pontificio (1550-1809). Edited by Christoph Weber. [PubbUcazioni degU Archivi di Stato, Sussidi 7.] (Rome: Ministero per i Beni CulturaU e AmbientaU, Ufficio Centrale per i Beni Archivistici. 1994. Pp. 989.) This volume represents a useful reference work and suggests interesting research avenues in the history of the early modern Church and of early modern Italian society. The volume consists of a chronology and prosopography of provincial and local clerical administrators Ui the Papal State from the midsixteenth century to the Napoleonic age. The work includes an introduction, lengthy descriptions of sources and bibUography, the chronology arranged by sixty cities and towns, and a prosopography including biographical and famUy information about 2,308 administrators. The famUy information adds data about another 3,420 individuals. Christoph Weber collected this information from archival series Ui the Vatican , Roman, and provincial archives, as weU as from a variety of previous compUations , the works of local erudites, printed annuaries, and genealogical coUections and treatises. WhUe the chronology is as complete as these sources permit, in the prosopographyWeber offers selections from the huge amounts of avaUable information. In particular he chose to provide limited information of better-known individuals, those for Instance who ascended to Important bishoprics or the cardinalate, to the advantage of the middle level of papal administrators ,whose careers spanned local government and the Curia offices and who represented the "backbone" (p. 31) of the Papal State. Weber also by and large excluded lay administrators from his research. This volume is, then, a useful and important reference tool for the history of the early modern Papal State. Weber also suggests, Ui his introduction and through the organization of his work, possible uses and ???efGe?^?????ß of this material. FUst, the progressive weakening of the many special administrations and arrangenrents ?Geße?? Ui various parts of ??e ß?3?e, and the waning ofnepotism by the late ße?e??ee??? century, show the ?G?eeßßeß of centraUzation and stataUzation that transformed papal administration, similarly to what happened in other early modern states. ??Ge??eG,Wèb8r's focus, in his prosopography, on the famUy context of the Uves and eßGeeGß ??e documents, points to the crucial role of the early modern bureaucracy as a link between state and society. The papal administrators came in fact often from local nobiUties and patriciates, and from a "civU" group trained in the law. The p?e??eGß of this pow8r e^e, monopolizing local administration and constituting a "bonding ground" (p. 26) for the Italian episcopate, helped the development of state power and control, but they also ensured the resistance and survival of traditional local aristocracies and eUtes into the ninetÎ8nth century. Weber's collected data,then, usefuUy add book reviews697 to debates on die bureaucratic state, on the relationship between center and periphery, and on early modern ItaUan eUtes. Tommaso Astarita Georgetown University Cajetan et Luther en 1518:Édition, traduction et commentaire des opuscules d'Augsbourg de Cajetan. Edited by Charles Morerod, O.P. 2 vols. [Cahiers Oecuméniques, 26.] (Fribourg: Éditions Universitäres. 1994. Pp. iv, 423, xvü; iv, 425-676. Fr. s. 95. paperback.) The meeting at Augsburg between Luther and Tommaso deVio has long been recognized as one of the decisive moments of Reformation history. The Dominican theologian, better known as Cajetan, was arguably the most profound Thomist ofhis generation. Luther, not yet under ecclesiastical censure,could explain and defend his theological views without the polemical rhetoric that would characterize his later work. Luther had a sufficientiy mature theological program for Cajetan later to declare that the Wittenberg Augustinian was creating an entirely new church. This is an important observation from a member of the Thomist tradition. The question of the relation of Luther to Thomistic theology was forcefully posed by Otto-Hermann Pesch Ui 1967, and recent studies have continued to explore subtleties and dtfficulties. Cajetan himself Ui the meanwhUe has been the subject of investigations by Jared Wicks and Barbara HaUensleben, among others, and as a result has acquUed a more prominent place in the canon ofcontroversial theologians. Although several dogmatic treatises have been published Ui the Leonine edition...