The Censorship and Fortuna of Platina's Lives of the Popes in the Sixteenth Century (review)

This is an excellent book on an important humanist, his rewriting of papal history, and the reception and censorship of this highly influential and often scandalous work. Platina's Lives of the Popes is the essential source for the fifteenth-century papacy and for humanist historiography of Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages. Although the author provides a nice summation and fresh analysis of Platina's oeuvre and fills in biographical details, Bauer focuses on the complicated and completely neglected history of the censorship of the Lives.

In 1999, Piero Scapecchi drew attention to a manuscript that contained Platina's autograph corrections for his presentation copy for Sixtus IV and the first printed edition of the Lives. This manuscript contains numerous factual additions and minor corrections to Platina's original text. The most interesting corrections are in Platina's notorious life of Paul II, who had Platina and other humanists arrested, tortured, and incarcerated for over a year on suspicion of conspiracy to murder the pope. Scholars have remarked that given all that Platina suffered under the pope, it is surprising that Platina was not more critical in his biography of Paul. Platina's corrections, however, reveal that he had originally been much more negative. Platina deleted comments about Paul's uncultivated mind, talent for deception, false kindness, small-mindedness, and avarice. Bauer does an excellent job of describing the editorial changes and placing them in a wider literary context. For example, in the final version when discussing Paul's passion for ancient coins, Platina says "in this he imitated the ancients rather than Peter, Anacletus, and Linus." In the original, he had "Tiberius rather than Peter, Claudius rather than Anacletus, Nero rather than Linus." Instead of imitating the first virtuous popes, Paul followed Roman emperors: each, in Leonardo Bruni's words (as Bauer points out), known for "cruelty, madness, and wicked behavior."

The remainder of the book is concerned with sixteenth-century proposals for the censorship of the Lives that Bauer uncovered in the archives of the Index of Prohibited Books stored in the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which were opened to scholars in 1998. Bauer concentrates on three censors: William Allen, Robert Bellarmine, and Pietro Galesini. Their suggested revisions to Platina's text and frequent disagreements reveal the dynamic role of the censor and the intricate workings of the Counter-Reformation Church. Their criticisms of Platina were centered on issues of morality and Church tradition. Platina often balances his praise for the early pontiffs with quips about the materialism, corruption, moral laxity, and arrogance of the Renaissance Church. Allen calls these kinds of comments "insults to the Church," but Bellarmine asserts that the Church's survival despite such blemishes demonstrates God's continued protection. The censors also condemn Platina's humanistic and ultimately Aristotelian idea of the bona fortunae as being too pagan. Allen further complains that Platina writes nothing about the Donation of Constantine and that he denies the emperor's miraculous curing of leprosy at baptism. Other points of contention are the numerous places in which Platina asserts the power of church councils over popes. Pius II's bull of 1460 formally banned it, but conciliarism lived on and gained new life in the hands of Protestant reformers. Among others, the deposition of Pope John XII in 964 served as a precedent for a council's authority over a pope. No one defended the corrupt pontiff: instead, Bellarmine, Baronio, and Allen denied the legitimacy of the council. These proposals for censoring Platina, however, were never implemented in Latin editions. Bauer is justly puzzled by this, though it demonstrates that even the censorship of this potentially damaging text was not straightforward. A similar mystery is the censored Italian translation of 1592. The censors had access to...