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Competent to Rule?: Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato and a Secular View of Politics in Habsburg Dynastic History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2010

Maria Golubeva
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Extract

This article deals with an early modern court historian's judgments concerning the political competence and incompetence of his contemporaries. Although the phrase “political competence” may seem anachronistic when referring to the second half of the seventeenth century, hardly any historian today would deny that, at least since the late medieval period, European intellectuals belonging to political elites had developed their own understanding of what constitutes effective statesmanship. That understanding was not always normative, or based on exempla of the classical past—it could be practical and expressed through evaluations of current events. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the future Habsburg court historian Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato wrote about Oliver Cromwell: “And let it be noted from his extraordinary example, that not the nobility of birth, nor riches . . . qualify one for high office, as it usually solely happens, but that it is the opportunity that . . . wakes up the spirits, and sharpens the minds.” This article will deal with Priorato's judgments of political competence (and incompetence) in the works that he wrote while in the service of the Austrian Habsburgs.

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Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 41 , April 2010 , pp. 71 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2010

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References

1 Priorato, Galeazzo Gualdo, Vite et azioni di personaggi militari, e politici, 2nd ed., (Vienna, 1674), 245Google Scholar. (All translations are the author's.)

2 Christoph Kampmann, “Peace Impossible? The European State System, ‘Confessional Fundamentalism,’ and the Thirty Years' War” (lecture, the University of Bonn 15th Transatlantic Summer Academy, Bonn, Germany, 26 June 2008).

3 Nicolaus Vernulaeus (Nicolas Vernulz), 1583–1649, was a university professor at Leuven. He began as a teacher of rhetoric and eloquence at university colleges in the southern Netherlands and succeeded Erycius Puteanus as professor of history and politics at the Collegium Trilingue in Leuven. On Vernulaeus, see See Veronika Oberparleiter, “Nicolaus Vernulaeus” Darstellung der Habsburger: Apologia, Virtutes und Historia Austriaca, mit einem Exkurs über die Methodus legendi historias” in Humanistica Lovaniensia 56 (2008). On Lamormaini, see Bireley, Robert, Religion and Politics in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S. J., and the Formation of Imperial Policy (Chapel Hill, 1981)Google Scholar.

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5 Frantz Christoph Khevenhiller (sic), Annales Ferdinandei, oder Wahrhaffte Beschreibung Käysers Ferdinandi des andern, mildesten Gedächtniß, Geburth, Aufferziehung und bißhero in Krieg und Friedens-Zeiten vollbrachten Thaten, geführten Kriegen und vollzogenen hochwightigen Geschäfften. 12 vols. (Leipzig, 1716–1726).

6 On Habsburg historiography of the second part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, see Strohmeyer, Arno “Geschichtsbilder in Kulturtransfer: Die höfische Historiographie in Wien als Rezipient und Multiplikator,” in Metropolen und Kulturtransfer in Ostmitteleuropa, ed. Langer, Andrea and Michels, Georg (Stuttgart, 2000)Google Scholar and Brockmann, Thomas, “Das Bild des Hauses Habsburg in der dynastienahen Historiographie um 1700,” in Bourbon, Habsburg, Oranien. Konkurrierende Modelle im dynastischen Europa um 1700, ed. Kampmann, Christoph, Krause, Katharina, Krems, Eva-Bettina, and Tischer, Anuschka (Cologne, 2008), 27–57Google Scholar, as well as the classical study, Coreth, Anna, Österreichische Geschichtsschreibung in der Barockzeit: 1620–1740 (Vienna, 1950)Google Scholar.

7 An extensive biographical note on Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato is avialable in Rodinis, Giuliana Tosso, Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, un moralista Veneto alla Corte di Luigi XIV (Florence, 1968)Google Scholar.

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9 See, for example, Priorato, Galeazzo Gualdo, Il Teatro del Belgio (Vienna, 1673)Google Scholar.

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12 Vernulaeus, Nicolaus, Historia Austriaca (Louvain, 1651)Google Scholar; Lotichus, Johann Peter, Austrias Parva: id est, gloriae Austriacae, et belli nuper Germanici, sub divo Matthia, Ferdinandis II. et III. Impp. gesti, compendaria (Frankfurt, 1653)Google Scholar; Wassenberg, Eberhard, Panegyricus Sacratissimo Imperatori Ferdinando III. (Cologne, 1647)Google Scholar.

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14 The Italian is: “Sostennero gl' Imperatori Austriaci quasi continuamente grandissime guerre. Quanto più per gli Hereditati Regni, & amplissime Provincie divennero Prepotenti, tanto più risvegliarono l'invidia, e l'timore negl' altri Potentati di Europa. Dalla maggior parte di questi s' ordirono quelle machine solite esser mosse dalle gelosie di Stato, e dall' emulatione, che facilmente si convertono poco a poco in aperte, & irreconciliabili guerre.” Ibid., 1.

15 For example, Charles V was, according to Priorato, “constretto” to concede the freedom of consciousness to the Protestants merely because too many German princes had already embraced Luther's doctrine. Priorato, “Sommario,” Historia di Ferdinando.

16 Vernulaeus, Nicolaus, Historia Austriaca (Louvain, 1651), 59–0Google Scholar.

17 Priorato, “Sommario,” Historia di Ferdinando.

18 Ibid., 5.

19 Ibid., 6.

20 Ibid., 3.

21 The Italian is: “Mancato poi con la vicissitudine delle cose in esso quell' antico vigore di Virtù col quale fù fondato, à termine tale si ridussi, che perduta quasi la Maestà, disperse le richezze, corrotta la discpilina, controvertita la Politica, avvilita (or annilita) la Virtù, per l' interesse, per l' ambitione, e per l'ignoranza de particolari, che datisi in preda alla cupidigia de commodi, & interessi privati, e sbandita quella riputatione, ch' è lo splendore, e Gloria de Principati….” Ibid., 2.

22 Priorato, Galeazzo Gualdo, Historia di Leopoldo Cesare, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1670–1674)Google Scholar, 1:n.p.

23 On the critique of contemporary histories as a source of political information during the seventeenth century, see Dooley, Brendan, “News and Doubt in Early Modern Culture,” in The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe, ed. Dooley, B. and Baron, S. (London, 2001), 278–79Google Scholar.

24 Priorato, “A chi legge,” Historia di Leopoldo Cesare, 3:n.p.

25 Priorato, Galeazzo Gualdo, Il Guerriero prudente, e politico (Venice, 1640)Google Scholar.

26 Priorato, Galeazzo Gualdo, Vite et azioni di personaggi militari, e politici, 2nd ed. (Vienna, 1674)Google Scholar. The first edition was published in Augsburg, ca. 1658.

27 Tosso Rodinis, Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, un moralista Veneto, passim.

28 Priorato, Vite et azioni di personaggi militari, e politici.

29 Ibid., “A chi legge,” n.p.

30 Ibid.

31 Even before Machiavelli, civic humanists tended to prefer cardinal virtues, directly related to the government of commonwealths, over Christian virtues, and sometimes even opposed the two sets of virtues on the basis that Christian virtues, in the hands of ecclesiastical government, could be used as a cover for misuse of power; see, for example, Arjo Vanderjagt's discussion of the rhetoric of Stefano Porcari. Vanderjagt, Arjo J., Qui sa vertu anoblist: The Concepts of Noblesse and Chose Publique in Burgundian Political Thought (Groningen, 1981)Google Scholar.

32 Priorato, Vite et azioni di personaggi militari, e politici, 245.

33 Bracciolini, Poggio, Opera omnia (Basel, 1538), 80Google Scholar.

34 He writes, “Osservando, e facendo osservare nè suoi stati pontualmente I decreti de sommi Pontefici. . . .” Priorato, Historia di Ferdinando, 615.

35 The Italian: “Fà divenir i sudditi perversi, e sprezzatori di quelle leggi delle quali non paventano il rigore. . . .” Ibid., 616.

36 Ibid., “Sommario,” n.p.

37 The Italian is: “Le attioni d'un Imperatore non meno Giusto, Clemente, e Pio, ch' Invitto, Glorioso e Fortunat.” Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, “A chi legge,” Historia di Leopoldo Cesare 1:n.p.

38 Schumann, Jutta, Die andere Sonne. Kaiserbild und Medienstrategien im Zeitalter Leopolds I. (Berlin, 2004), 289Google Scholar.

39 Priorato, Historia di Leopoldo Cesare, 1:16.

40 Ibid., 1:17.

41 See Jorg Johann Berns and Thomas Rahn, eds., Zeremoniell als höfische Ästhetik in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Tübingen, 1995).

42 On the influence of court policy and censorship on Priorato's writing, see Moraw, Peter, “‘Kaiser und Geschichtsschreiber um 1700,” Die Welt als Geschichte 22 (1962), 184Google Scholar.

43 Priorato, Historia di Leopoldo Cesare, 3:36.

44 Ibid., 3:341.

45 Priorato, , Il Guerriero prudente, e politico (Venice, 1640), 3–4Google Scholar.

46 Vanderjagt, Qui sa vertu anoblist. See 31n, above.

47 Priorato, Galeazzo Gualdo, “A chi legge,” Continuatione della Historia di Leopoldo Cesare (Vienna, 1676)Google Scholar, n.p.

48 Priorato, Continuatione, 3.

49 Ibid.

50 John Spielman in Leopold I of Austria (London, 1977) simply speaks of the discontent of Hungarian nobles with the peace of Vasvar. Jean Bérenger describes the disillusionment of Hungarian nobles after the peace of Vasvár as so complete that they forgot their internal divisions, still very evident at the Diet of 1662. Leopold Ier fondateur de la puissance autrichienne (Paris, 2004), 276. “Le 9 decembre 1664, les conseillers hongrois appelés en consultation à Vienne manifestaient leur désaccord avec les termes du traité de Vasvár.” Ibid., 278.

51 Priorato, Continuatione, 5–6.

52 Ibid., 7.

53 Ibid., 8.

54 Ibid., 9.

55 Vanderjagt, Qui sa vertu anoblist.

56 Priorato, Continuatione, 8.

57 Ibid.

58 On the influence of the political topos of arcana imperii in Germany, see Schneider, F., Pressefreiheit und politische Öffentlichkeit. Studien zur politischen Geschichte Deutschlands bis 1848 (Neuwied, 1966), 56–59Google Scholar.

59 Priorato, Continuatione, 23–24.

60 Ibid., 25.

61 Ibid., 44.

62 Priorato, “A chi legge,” Vite et azioni di personaggi militari, e politici, n.p.

63 Robert Bireley, SJ, The Counter-Reformation Prince: Anti-Macchiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe, (Chapel Hill, 1990), 40Google Scholar.

64 Priorato, Continuatione, 66.

65 Ibid., 85.

66 Ibid., 138–39. On the portrayal of rebels and rebellion in Leopoldine court opera and other texts, see Goloubeva, Maria, Glorification of Emperor Leopold I (Mainz, 2000), chapter 7Google Scholar.

67 Priorato, Continuatione, 140–41.

68 Ibid., 9.

69 Ibid.

70 See, for example, the articles on the representation of German Catholic rulers in Repgen, Konrad, ed., DasHerrscherbild im 17. Jahrhumdert (Münster, 1991)Google Scholar.

71 For example, in the biography of Leopold I by Rinck: Rinck, Gottlieb Eucharius, Leopolds des Grossen Röm. Käysers, wunderwürdiges Leben und Thaten, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1713)Google Scholar.