The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome. A Social History of the Papal Interregnum by John Hunt (review)

John Hunt's recent book lays bare the fascinating world of the papal interregnum that made its brief, fleeting appearance upon the death (or indeed suspicion of death) to the election of a new successor to the See of Saint Peter from the middle of the sixteenth century until the end of the seventeenth. This is social history of the best kind as Hunt fleshes out the daily life of Romans of all walks of life and the many forenses either permanently living in the city or having gone there as part of the complex machinations involved in the death of one pontiff and the choice of another. The book makes for a gripping, delightful read and asks many questions regarding popular political expression and consciousness in early modern Europe, ritualized violence and Rome itself. Drawing upon a staggering amount of published and unpublished sources of the period, the book successfully depicts this unique context in all of its complexity and contradiction.

The book takes up the scholarly paths already trod in part by medieval historians who work on Rome such as Joëlle Rollo-Koster and Andreas Rehberg and early modern historians such as Carlo Ginzburg and Laurie Nussdorfer who have considered the social dynamics at work in the chaos and ruckus which ensued after the death of a pope. His research deals thoroughly with those conversations and uses them to place the mayhem of the vacant see as on par with the carnivalesque behavior which also was shared in early modern Europe. Hunt proposes to "…examine a long-engrained mentalité among the Roman people that saw the vacant see as an opportunity to perform a variety of activities that were illicit during the sede plena. In this way, the vacant see resembled Carnival and other forms of festive misrule in early modern Europe" (19). The six chapters and conclusion which make up the book do a thorough job of describing and understanding a phenomenon which was not only spontaneous but also highly ritualized.

At the heart of the author's impressive presentation of this periodical event is of course Rome itself and all of the intricate social relations which allowed for, and indeed fomented, these actions. The dual nature of the papacy as elaborated by Paolo Prodi, the two souls that are shared by the same body, is akin to another duality which Hunt rightly considers in detail and which is at the heart of Rome itself in that period: it being the capital of an Italian state with its own centuries-old traditions of government and the seat of the Catholic Church. The book abounds in examples of the constant rivalry between the Popolo Romano which held the reigns of civic power for centuries and held steadfast to its symbolic expressions and its remaining trappings and the College of Cardinals, international and dominated by men from abroad. This is at the heart of chapter one (pp. 25–60), very aptly entitled "The Papal Hydra: The Politics of the Vacant See". Here he does an important job of clarifying the interplay, overlap, and conflict between both spheres as it played out in daily life, especially during the interregnum period.

The second chapter deals with the spread of information, its distortion, and manipulation by the many agents and forces at work in the particular interval which was the vacant see. "The Pope is Dead! Rumor and Ritual in the Vacant See" (pp. 61–90) masterfully describes the various ways in which news about the death of a pontiff was conveyed, often falsely or prematurely through word of mouth and well-established symbols and rituals. By drawing upon several papal interregna and how news of the death was made known he skillfully shows how at once spontaneous hearsay, based on a number of ulterior motives and time-honored rituals were at work throughout the period...