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GIFT AND DIPLOMACY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH ITALY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2008

DIANA CARRIÓ-INVERNIZZI*
Affiliation:
University of Barcelona
*
Departamento de Historia Moderna, Universidad de Barcelonac. Montalegre 6 08001 Barcelona[email protected]

Abstract

This article explains how the concept and the practice of gift-making evolved in Spanish Italy in connection with power. Contemporary chronicles, avvisi (newsletters), and letters enable us to reflect upon how gifts were seen, given, and received in the period at the Spanish embassy in Rome and in the viceroyalty of Naples. It aims to establish how the exchange of presents affected the wielding of power and how it contributed to shaping the political culture of the Spanish in Italy. The seventeenth century and Italy were the time and place that witnessed the greatest experimentation in gift-making practices. This experimentation and the polysemic nature of gifts can also be explained as a result of the low level of professionalization that still characterized diplomacy in seventeenth-century Europe.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Peter Burke, Melissa Calaresu, and Ivan Gaskell for all their valuable comments on this article. This text has been translated into English by Philip Banks.

References

1 Marcel Mauss, ‘Essai sur le don: forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés arcaiques', L'année sociologique, n.s., 1 (1923–4), pp. 30–186. English trans. by Ian Cunnison in 1969, and superseded by Marcel Mauss, The gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies, trans. W. D. Halls, foreword by Mary Douglas (New York, NY, and London, 1990). For a bibliographical assessment of this evolution, see the Introduction to the book: Natalie Zemon Davis, The gift in sixteenth-century France (Oxford, 2000).

2 For the former approach: Matthew Smith Anderson, The rise of modern diplomacy, 1450–1919 (London, New York, NY, 1993), pp. 49–52. Isabelle Richefort, ‘Presents diplomatiques et diffusion de l'image de Louis XIV’, in Lucien Bély, ed., L'invention de la diplomatie: moyen âge – temps modernes (Paris, 1998); for studies of the relationship between gifts and corruption, see, for example: Lucien Bély, Espions et ambassadeurs au temps de Louis XIV (Paris, 1990), pp. 163–71.

3 Alessandra Anselmi, ‘Arte, politica e diplomazia: Tiziano, Correggio, Raffaello, l'investitura di Piombino e notizie su agenti spagnoli a Roma’, in Elisabeth Cropper, ed., The diplomacy of art: artistic creation and politics in seicento Italy (Milan, 2000), pp. 101–20.

4 See ch. 6: ‘Gifts, bribes and kings’, in Zemon Davis, The gift.

5 Windler, Christian, ‘Tributes and presents in Franco-Tunisian diplomacy’, Journal of Early Modern History, 4 (2000), pp. 168–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also for reflection on gifts: Craig Clunas, Empire of great brightness: visual and material cultures of Ming China, 1368–1644 (London, 2007).

6 Christian Windler, ‘Tributes’.

7 Manuel Rivero, co-ord., Informe: Italia en la Monarquía Hispánica (siglos XVI–XVII), Studia historica, Historia moderna, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 26 (Salamanca, 2004); Giuseppe Galasso, Mezzogiorno spagnolo e austriaco (1622–1734), in his Storia del Regno di Napoli, xv (Turin, 2006).

8 Giuseppe Galasso and Carlos José Hernando, co-ords., El reino de Nápoles y la monarquía de España entre agregación y conquista, 1485–1535 (Madrid, 2004); Gaetano Sabatini, ‘Gastos militares y finanzas públicas en el Reino de Nápoles en el siglo XVII’, in Enrique García Hernán and Davide Maffi, co-ords., Guerra y sociedad en la monarquía hispánica: política, estrategia y cultura en la Europa moderna (1500–1700), ii (Madrid, 2006), pp. 257–92.

9 Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Gianvittorio Signorotto, eds., La Corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento ‘teatro’ della politica europea (Rome, 1998); Thomas J. Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500–1700 (New Haven, CT, and London, 2001); Maria Antonietta Visceglia, La città rituale: Roma e le sue cerimonie in età moderna (Rome, 2002).

10 For more extensive analysis see Diana Carrió-Invernizzi, El gobierno de las imágenes: ceremonial y mecenazgo en la Italia española de la segunda mitad del siglo XVII (Madrid, 2008).

11 Thomas J. Dandelet and John A. Marino, eds., Spain in Italy: politics, society and religion, 1500–1700 (Leiden, 2007).

12 Letter of the Count of Peñaranda sent from Barcelona on 21 October, 1664: ‘que el cardenal no vino francés ni lo seran el ni su tio; ni los favores que ha recivido en ceremonias borraran de su animo la memoria de los estrapazos de obra y de palabra que lo han hecho sentir franceses’ (‘the cardinal was not French on his arrival, and neither he nor his uncle will be so; neither will the favours that he has received in ceremonies erase from his soul the memory of the humiliation in word and deed that the French have made him feel’), Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Estado (E), 3287–111.

13 ‘tutta francese’, avviso from París of 8 Aug. 1664, Archivio Segreto Vaticano (ASV), Segreteria di Stato (SS), avvisi, MS 29, fo. 353.

14 For example, Jean Hotman, ‘De la charge et dignité de l'ambassadeur’, in Opuscles françoises (Paris, 1617), p. 499, qu. by Zemon Davis, The gift, p. 264. Trans. into English, The ambassador (London, 1603).

15 Charles Carter, ‘The ambassadors of early modern Europe’, in Charles Carter, ed., From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation: essays in honor of Garrett Mattingly (New York, NY, 1965), pp. 276–7. On Spanish diplomacy, see the fundamental work by Miguel Ángel Ochoa Brun, Historia de la diplomacia española (Madrid, 1990–2007). See also: Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, Diplomacia y relaciones exteriores en la Edad Moderna (Madrid, 2000).

16 From early December 1662 onwards, the Spanish ambassador Pascual de Aragón was assigned 22,264 silver escudos a year from the income of the viceroyalty of Naples as long as he lived in Rome. AGS, E-R, 3132.

17 In 1662, Pascual de Aragón wrote a letter to the king to explain the hardship in which he lived. AGS, E-R, 3035.

18 3,680 escudos.

19 ‘Mas doy en data 3.500 escudos que en diferentes ocasiones se han gastado en regalos y ayudas de costa que a diferente sujetos confidentes se han dado por mi mano’ (‘Furthermore, I confirm 3,500 escudos that have been spent by my hand on gifts and financial costs to different confidant subjects on different occasions’), AGS, E-R, 3040.

20 ‘Mas doy en data 2.560 escudos que han importado los gastos que se han hecho en las Audiencias de mi tiempo como son en bevidas, chocolates y dulces que se estilan dar a todos los que concurren al cortejo en que se incluyen las primeras visitas de los cardenales y las que ellos hacen al embajador’ (‘Furthermore, I confirm 2,560 escudos that the expenses made in the Audiences of my time amounted to, on such commodities as beverages, chocolates and sweetmeats that it is customary to give to all that attend the retinue, among which are included the first visits to the cardinals and those that the latter make to the ambassador’), ibid.

21 Martine Boiteaux, ‘L'hommage de la Chinea: Madrid–Naples–Rome’, in Carlos José Hernando, dir., Roma y España: un crisol de la cultura europea en la edad moderna (Madrid, 2008), ii, pp. 831–45. See also for the seventeenth-century chinea: Marcello Fagiolo dell'Arco and Silvia Carandini, L'effimero barocco: strutture della festa nella Roma del ‘600 (2 vols., Rome, 1977–8).

22 Pascual wrote to Flavio Chigi again from Toledo in March 1666 and once again reminded him of the importance that he attached to the gift of horses that he had made him before leaving: ‘El obsequio que tan de corazon le rindo en la que acompaña a esta, suplicando a Vuestra Eminencia supla por mi con la merced que me hace lo que yo no savre desempeñarme de otra suerte, y tambien devo decir a Vuestra Eminencia que me falta el alivio de poder repetir mas de cerca de Vuestra Eminencia mi obsequio y asegurarle lo que muchas veces ha oydo de mi sincera voluntad’ (‘The gift that I sincerely make you that accompanies this, begging Your Eminence that you should supply for me the favour that you do me which I will not know how to perform in any other way, and I must also tell Your Eminence that I lack the relief of being able to repeat my gift closer to Your Eminence and to ensure you (as regards) what you have often heard concerning my sincere will’), ASV, SS, Cardinali, vol. 30, fo. 27, Naples, 20 Mar.

23 Archivo de la Obra Pia, Archivo de la Embajada de España ante la Santa Sede, Códices, Catálogo de José Olarra. Códice 478, fos. 134–6, gifts made by Cardinal Aragón to the papal entourage before leaving for Naples in Aug. 1664.

24 ‘El otro servicio que hice a Vuestra Eminencia de los cavallos que consigne en mano de monseñor nuncio de Nápoles me logran repetidas y sumamente agradable para mi la memoria de Vuestra Eminencia en que yo me intereso afectuosísimamente con que aquella significación y observancia de mi voluntad vuelve con toda estimacion mia a obligar mi rendimiento a Vuestra Eminencia viendo el gusto que muestra en esta menudencia con que le servi’, ibid., fo. 62.

25 Cristobal Ruiz Franco de Pedrosa, Crónica del eminentísimo señor don Pascual de Aragón y Córdova, cardenal de la Santa Iglesia de Roma del título de la Santa Balbina, protector de España, Embajador en Roma, virrey de Nápoles, Ynquisidor General, Arzobispo de Toledo … (Madrid, 1689), Real Biblioteca, Palacio Real de Madrid, ii 1088.

26 ‘Furono regalati di diverse galanterie dal Signor Principe Pamphilio, il quale per fare regali a tempo e a proposito fece nascere le occasioni opportune, poi che dando egli il braccio alla signora ambasciatrice e convenendogli bene spesso, in riguardo di qualche passo cattivo, allontanarsi un po da Sua Eccellenza, e privarla in conseguenza di quel che sarebbe stato bene, che ella si fusse proveduta di un bastoncillo, en el cosìdire ne feci egli venire uno coperto di gioie, e lo dono alla sudetta ambasciatrice, e poco dopo domandando che ora era, ne trovando chi lo sapesse, fece comparire speditamente due bellissimi orologi, e ne regalòparimente la signora ambasciatrice medessima, ma questi regali parve poi al signor Principe, che gli fusseo mal pagati, perche essendo voluto andare il signor Ambasciatore a vedere gli Acquedotti della Villa Aldobrandina et havendo invitato il signor Principe a andar seco, fece venire la propria lettiga e se messe subito Sua Eccellenza nel primo luogo, onde convenne all'altro di farsi vedere in pubblico nel secondo con la sua mortificazione; se bene egli crede di non essersi progiudicato perche era nella villa sua, ancorche la lettiga fusse del Signor Ambasciatore’, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, MP, 3388. Letter from Carlo Rinucci to Bali Gondi in 1665.

27 ‘egli non volse … se non a lodarmi il regalo et magnificenze con le quali Nostro Signore l'ha fatto trattare a Civitavecchia et a Polidoro’ (he praised the gift and the magnificence with which he was treated by Our Lord in Civitavecchia and Polidoro'). ASV, SS, Francia, MS 123, fo. 348, from Paris, 30 June, 1662.

28 ‘la sua natural generosità ne trattamenti verso questo Regio Ministro’, ibid.

29 ‘era da credere che ancor egli dal canto suo debba corrispondere’ (‘it was to be expected that he, on his part, should correspond’), ibid.

30 ASV, SS, Francia, MS 123, fo. 348, from Paris, 30 June 1662.

31 ‘en una enfermedad que tuvo, para su regalo, en atención a lo afecto que era al servicio de Su Majestad’, AGS, E-R, 3040, list of the expenditure of Pascual de Aragón's ambassadorship.

32 ‘sabré quienes son los regalados y os lo avisaré’, AGS, E-R, 3037, letter from Pedro Antonio de Aragón dated 26 July 1664, ‘hanle venido ahora algunas curiosidades de Lisboa con que dize ha de regalar a sus amigos, sabre quienes son los regalados, y los avisare a V S’ (‘some curiosities have now reached him from Lisbon which he says he has to give to his friends, I shall discover who receives such gifts and inform Your Honour who they are’).

33 For diplomatic gifts as peace presents: Jansson, Maija, ‘Measured reciprocity: English ambassadorial gift exchange in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, Journal of Early Modern History, 9 (2005), pp. 348–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 ‘a dos personas que imbie desta corte en aguimento del Duque de Crequí y Francisco Manuel [nombres cifrados] quando salieron desta corte’, AGS, E-R, 3040, list of the expenditure of Pascual de Aragón's ambassadorship.

35 Pascual de Aragón, as viceroy, paid this pension from the Naples treasury: ‘Don Luis Gomez Borges, gentleman of Pascual de Aragón awards Don Manuel de Portugal, knight of the Order of Calatrava, 3,733 escudos’, Archivio Capitolino di Roma (ACR), Juan Cavallero, vol. 203. Subsequently, Pedro Antonio de Aragón increased the pension, sending Francisco Manuel 500 escudos ‘per conto della regia corte’ (‘at the expense of the royal court’), ACR, Jaime Redontay, vol. 630.

36 ‘sei picciol bellíssimi Gianetti tuti di diversi colori’, ASV, SS, avvisi, MS 122, from Paris dated 3 June 1665.

37 In other circumstances, Pedro Antonio made the same gift to Philip IV and to Charles II. In November 1662 the avvisi recorded a gift of eight horses from Cardenal Antonio Barberini to Louis XIV.

38 ‘1185 reales que se enviaron por el mes de enero de 1663 a Antonio Borgi, cónsul de la nación española e Liorna por los mismos que importó un regalo que se le ordenó hiciesse al embajador de Francia quando llegó a aquel puerto, de buelta de París’ (‘1185 reales that were sent in the month of January 1663 to Antonio Borgi, consul of the Spanish nation in Livorno, for the same amount that cost a gift that he was ordered to make to the ambassador of France when he arrived in that port, on his return from Paris’), AGS, E-R, 3036.

39 ‘por lo que puede influir a la razón de estado’, AGS, E-R, 3036, consultation of the Council of State of 15 Apr. 1663.

40 ‘por no ser dezente a su real grandeza’, ibid.

41 ‘due mute di sei bellissimi cavalli corsieri del regno quali sono stati molto graditi dalla maestàsua’, ASV, SS, avvisi di Roma, 20 Oct. 1663.

42 AGS, E-R, 3036, consultation of the Council of State of 15 Apr. 1663.

43 See also C. Dati, Dice ed Irene gemelle della Dea Temide Selva per la nuova concordia delle Corone di Francia e di Spagna. All'ill ecc sig Gio Batt Colbert ministro di stato e intendente generale delle finanze della maesta cristianissima (Florence, 1668).

44 José Luis Colomer, ‘Paz política y rivalidad suntuaria: Francia y España en la Isla de los Faisanes’, in José Luis Colomer, ed., Arte y diplomacia de la Monarquía Hispánica del siglo XVII (Madrid, 2003), pp. 61–89.

45 ‘Il signor ambasciatore di Francia che risiede appresso la Santità di nostro signore ha richiesto in due lettere particolari questo signore vicere d'un estratione di cavalli parte per servitio di sua maesta cristianisima e parte per suo proprio. Posta questa lettera in consulta e giudicatosi scritta per ogn'altro fine che per l'estrattione che si dimanda’ (‘The Lord Ambassador of France who resides [in Rome] close to the Holiness of Our Lord has made, in two private letters to the viceroy, a petition for horses, in part for the service of His Most Christian Majesty [the King of France] and in part for his own use. This letter was read carefully, and it was judged to have been written for any other reason than for obtaining the horses requested in it’), ASV, SS, Nápoles, MS 70, fo. 555, 30 June 1668.

46 Ivan Gaskell, ‘El Ayuntamiento de Ámsterdam ¿Poder político o poder del arte?’, in Juan Luis Palos and Diana Carrió-Invernizzi, dirs., La historia imaginada: construcciones visuales del pasado en la edad Moderna (Madrid, 2008).

47 Pascual had witnessed the gifts that the count of Peñaranda had received from the prince of Tarsia before leaving Naples: ‘Tra l'altri donativo avuti da particolari, il Principe di Tarsia, don Vincenzo Spinello, li mandó più gabbie pittate con infiniti faggiani pernici, starne e salami preggiatissimi; ma prima li mandó una gran tazza di cristallo di rocca, lavorata di gran freggi intagliati a bolino e altro ferro, cosa digna di un re, ch'era stata da suoi antenati più di cent'anni in sua casa’ (‘After the other donations received from private individuals, the Prince of Tarsia, Don Vincenzo Spinello, sent him more painted cages with an infinite number of most appreciated pheasants, partridges, grouse and prepared meats; but first he had sent him a great cup of rock crystal, decorated with rich materials, an object worthy of a king, which had belonged to his ancestors and had been in his line for more than one hundred years’), Innocenzo Fuidoro, Giornali di Napoli dal 1660 al 1680 (4 vols., Naples, 1934–43), i, ed. F. Schlizer (Naples, 1934), p. 245.

48 Pascual displayed signs of being aware of the standard practices of his predecessors as far as gifts were concerned and ‘los disgustos que padecían con los napolitanos que estavan enseñados a negociar de otra suerte en las cortes de los virreyes’ (‘the displeasure that they suffered with the Neapolitans, who had been educated to negotiate in another way in the Viceroys’ courts'), Ruiz Franco de Pedrosa, Crónica.

49 ‘desde el principio del gobierno, usó su eminencia de sus estimables prendas de agasaxar, y de su liberalidad, con que atraia asi las voluntades de todos’, ibid.

50 In the sense put forward by Peter Burke in his Varieties of cultural history (Cambridge, 1997); see also Gabriel Guarino, ‘The politics of appearances: state representations and images of power in Spanish Naples during the seventeenth century’ (D.Phil. thesis, Cambridge, 2004).

51 ‘[Pascual de Aragón] quiso gobernar su familia amonestando a todos sus criados obrasen con desinterés executando cada uno en los que tocaba, lo mesmo que tenia intención de obrar su eminencia; y esta prebención la havia echado tambien su eminencia en Roma antes de partir diciéndoles el desinteres con que pensaba obrar en el virreinato de Nápoles con la aiuda de Dios y que lo mismo abian de hazer todos sus Ministros y criados, advirtiéndoles con gran severidad que al que recibiese aunque fuera un platillo de igos o de ubas (que es la cosa de menor valor que podia ponderar) no le permitiria en su servicio’, Ruiz Franco de Pedrosa, Crónica.

52 ‘un donativo della manna che suole scaturire dal corpo di San Andrea e di molti fiaschi di acque odorifere … li quali erano ricamati di argento et oro filato, i quali gradi assai’. Fuidoro, Giornali di Napoli, ii, pp. 278–9.

53 Ibid., pp. 278–9.

54 ‘esta materia tan escrupulosa’, AGS, E-R, 3040.

55 ‘Que [yo, Pedro Antonio] no hallava gastos precisos mas que el de las celdas de los cardenales de la facción y de los que podrían importar las cortas dadivas que se reparten en aquellos sujetos’, ibid.

56 ‘Con el conocimiento que tengo de la corte de Roma y de los cardenales, tuve por conveniente al servicio de Dios y de Vuestra Majestad, reformar un abusso tan escandalosisimo y simoniaco que ha dado bien que discurrir a los herejes, con poco decoro de nuestra sagrada religión y del santo y catolico celo de Vuestra majestad’, ibid.

57 Archivio di Stato di Napoli (ASN), Segreterie del Vicerè (SV), Correspondenza estera (CE), vol. 1297 (1666–70).

58 Contemporary chroniclers used the term ‘virreina’ although the viceroy's wife did not receive this title. It is not an established term in the historical bibliography.

59 ‘[tableta de chocolate] di peso d'una libra, fu assai comentata l'avarizia di questa signora viceregnia, che fa tremare il marito, ch’è più avaro di lei', Fuidoro, Giornali di Napoli, ii, p. 129.

60 ‘guarnito con nobil disegno e vaghezza singolare fatto a lavori di cristalo di montagna’, ASV, SS, N, MS 70, letter from the nuncio Bernardino Rocci, fo. 26, Naples, 14 Jan. 1668.

61 Fuidoro, Giornali di Napoli, ii, p. 65.

62 ASN, SV, CE, vol. 1297 (1666–70). Letter from Pedro Antonio de Aragón in Naples, 18 Dec. 1666.

63 ASN, Consiglio Collaterale, Segreteria iv n° 36 Risoluzioni e Proposte n° 17 (1668), fo. 67, 2 May 1668, Melchor de Navarra.

64 ‘Li regali ch'ha portato alla viceregina sono: una statua di una dama che si fa vento, ch’è un orologio; una gran spasa di guante di Roma, diversi profumati con fettuccie o galani d'oro; medaglie papali ed altre de santi, così d'oro come d'argento; un corpo intiero di santo' (‘The gifts that he has brought the vicereine are: a clock that is a statue of a lady fanning herself; gloves from Rome, several perfumed, with gold ribbons or bows; papal medals and others of saints, both of gold and of silver; the entire body of a saint. All to the value of about 2000 ducats’). Fuidoro, Giornali di Napoli, ii, p. 77.

65 ‘camisa con botones de diamantes en Acafate de plata dorada y seis pares de guantes de ambar cubiertos con un tafetán’, AGS, E, 3290–201, Venida del Nepote del Papa Clemente Nono en esta ciudad de Nápoles, 20 May 1668.

66 ‘Sua Eccellenza l'ha rigalto di gran copia di cose di zuccaro, salami, vitelle, castrati ed altri rinfreescamenti per il viaggio del gran principe, oltre molte cose di conto. Vogliono communemente che, in regalare la corte del vicerè sia stato assai scarso al paragone di quello che convenida ad un suo pari’, Fuidoro, Giornali di Napoli, ii, p. 77.

67 ‘si portano da ministri togati regali a Sua Eccellenza di molta considerazione, così d'argento come d'altre simili materia’, ibid., p. 77.

68 ‘le toghe oggi comandano il tutto, e pare che questa reppublica di togati si gobernano bene con li errori de poveri litiganti e sono tanti dei’, ibid., ii, p. 120.

69 Ibid., p. 172.

70 For twelve years he was the lieutenant of the Sommaria until he retired in 1689. Between 1676 and 1677 he acted as regent in Madrid. Giuseppe Galasso, Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello. Politica, cultura e società (Florence, 1982), p. 245.

71 Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Nobleza, Frías, 1384, letter from Pedro Antonio de Aragón in Naples, 4 June 1669.

72 ‘infiniti ringraziamenti al Reggente che mandato l'aveva’, according to Renato Ruotolo, ‘Collezioni e mecenati napoletani del XVII secolo’, Napoli Nobilissima, 12 (May–June 1973), fasc. iii, p. 146.

73 ‘per farsi merito nella corte di Spagna’, Domenico de Dominici, Le vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, (Naples, 1979 [1742]), iii, p. 194, according to Renato Ruotolo, ibid., p. 148 n. 23. In spite of these anecdotes related by De Dominici, Renato Ruotolo believes that Carrillo's patronage was not only a result of political aims.