Reviving the Eternal City: Rome and the Papal Court, 1420–1447 by Elizabeth McCahill (review)

McCahill begins her book with the statement that “Rome was and is a city of myth, a city whose aura and associations have, time and again, proven larger than her physical reality” (p. 1). She might just as accurately have written that Roman humanists and the popes Martin V and Eugenius IV existed in a similar mythical dimension in which their identities have been based on historiographic projections of success and failure rather than documented action and interaction. These two popes have been judged chiefly by association with the challenges and criticism of the period from 1420 to 1447, which included reconstruction, discontent, and exile. This study strives to change that. McCahill examines both humanist observers and papal patronage to offer a new understanding of Martin and Eugenius’ use of power in the context of the burgeoning humanist cultural milieu.

There are few monographs that treat the pontificates of these popes. Recent papal historiography has privileged the more exciting topics of religious reformation and abuse, or the crowd-pleasing pontificates of the Borgia or Medici families. Few historians have tried to transcend the struggles faced by Martin V and Eugenius IV to combat the occupation of Rome and conciliarism in order to situate papal achievements within contemporary expectations and values. McCahill has done an admirable job of drawing together diverse evidence that explores these pontificates politically, artistically, urbanistically, and ceremonially. Moreover, her efforts to contextualize the popes’ strategies and achievements by exploring the response of humanist observers, like Poggio, Alberti, Signorili, Lapo, Biondo, and Manetti, offers both complexity and verisimilitude. What might appear first to be a book of parts serves to underline the existence of multiple visions and cultures cohabiting and competing with each other within curial Rome.

Initially there is tension between the book’s two focus groups, popes and humanists, which emerged from the difficulty of acquiring a permanent job and the marginal role of humanist studies in the Curia newly returned to Rome. The popes’ struggles to gain political control, establish stability, and promote urban revival left little time for humanist study, and allowed the humanists substantial freedom. This seeming disregard for the glories of humanism encouraged some discontent and criticism of papal initiatives. At times this tension and the distance between popes and humanists suggests that McCahill should have written two books that could exist side by side territorially, but would be separated by exigencies. However, much as the Curia regained traction in the Eternal City after 1420, the concerns and cultural connections shared by Popes Martin and Eugenius and the humanists they employed become more apparent.

McCahill argues that social commentary and the exercise of humanist style preoccupied the attention of curial humanists. The challenge that McCahill meets is to dispel the old and inaccurate assumption that humanists had little care for religion and felt contempt for ecclesiastical bosses as traditionally inferred from Petrarch’s letter describing the Avignonese papal court. By exploring the institutional and social position of humanists at the curia and comparing humanist texts McCahill reveals how humanist agendas could be critical of individual actions while remaining loyal to the pontificate. Moreover, she successfully illustrates how the humanist vision of reform depended on public charity and good works, whereas Eugenius worked to establish observant monastic communities and considered the reform of institutions to be most beneficial to society. Notably McCahill concludes the discussion by stating that the humanist reform program never moved beyond the exhortative stage because humanist authors wrote only for a Latinate curial audience. Likewise, the pope’s initiatives were also local, reflecting Eugenius’ belief that true reform demanded a personal spiritual revival that no council could legislate or inspire.

While modern historians might consider these shortcomings in light of the threat of the Council of Basel, this tells us more about the curial community and its localized understanding of achievable reform. This is of great help in keeping...