Nuntiaturen des Giovanni Delfino und des Bartolomeo Portia (1577-1578) (review)

This volume deals with the first one and one-half years of the lengthy reign of Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612), whose father Maximilian II died on October 12, 1576. It contains the correspondence with the papal secretary of state, Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, from January 7, 1577, to April 25, 1578, of Giovanni Delfino, who had served as nuncio to the court of Vienna since 1571, and of the new nuncio, Bartolomeo Portia, from April 26 until his death on August 12, 1578. The volume constitutes a major source for papal and imperial policy at this crucial time of transition to the new reign. Both Delfino, son of a Venetian patrician, and Portia from a noble family of Friuli, had risen in the Roman bureaucracy with the assistance of Carlo Borromeo, to whose circle they belonged. In Vienna they maintained close contact with the Catholic party, especially the Spanish ambassador and the Jesuits, in particular the provincial Lorenzo Maggio, whose transfer from Vienna Delfino successfully opposed.

A major question that immediately arose with the ascent of Rudolf to the imperial dignity was a traditional declaration of obedience expected from him by Pope Gregory XIII. This issue dominates the first months of the correspondence when Rome and Vienna disagreed over the nature of this declaration and its tradition. Rudolf feared to compromise himself with the Protestant princes in the Empire, and Delfino recommended that the pope not force the issue. Eventually in negotiations with the imperial emissaries in Rome the pope had to content himself with Rudolf's declaration of obedience for his person but not for his position as emperor or ruler of the Habsburg lands.

The nuncios pursued an active policy of defense against the Protestants and of church reform. They regularly reported on the genuine piety of the young Rudolf. Delfino traveled with the emperor as in his first year he visited Prague, Bautzen, Breslau, Olmütz, and Pressburg to receive the homage of the various estates, and with respect to these hereditary lands, as opposed to the empire, he succeeded in persuading Rudolf to a less tolerant policy toward the Protestants than his father's. A side trip from Bautzen to the court of Elector August of Saxony in Dresden, for whose conversion there was hope in Rome, left him impressed with the magnificence of the Saxon city and court. Shortly after the arrival of Portia in Vienna, Rudolf after protracted urging from Delfino finally took firm measures against the Protestant preachers there. The riot at the Corpus Christi Procession at the end of May, 1578, the so-called "Milk War," revealed the degree of tension in the city. The nuncios supported the foundation or further expansion of Jesuit colleges in Neisse, Olmütz, and Brunn and seminaries in Vienna, Prague, Graz, and Ingolstadt, as well as a program of reform of the clergy drawn up by the Jesuits and endorsed by the emperor. Other items that drew their attention were the succession in the archbishopric of Cologne in 1577 and the start of the drawn-out dispute between the prince-bishop of Würzburg, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and the abbot of Fulda, Balthasar von Dernbach, who had resigned under pressure from the bishop and whom Rome generally supported. The conflict in the Netherlands, where Archduke Matthias, apparently without the emperor's consent accepted the governorship in October, 1577, the front against the Turks, and relations between the emperor and Stephen Báthory, King of Poland, all stand out as further themes of the correspondence.

Poignant is the complaint of Delfino that his long service and exhausting travel in Germany went unrecognized by his superiors in Rome after he had been passed over for the cardinalate and...