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Between the king and the pope: French cardinals in Rome (1495–1560)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2010

FLAMINIA BARDATI
FLAMINIA BARDATI*
Affiliation:
Equipe Histara, EPHE, Paris, France
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Abstract:

On account of their dual function as princes of the church and agents for the king of France, the French cardinals in Rome constitute a well-defined and self-contained community. They were governed by complex internal dynamics as well as by the need to present a unified front to the pope, in addition to the College of Cardinals and the citizenry of Rome. French cardinals present in Rome between 1490 and 1560 were mobile, as their physical presence in the city was not continuous: a number of them were stable residents in Rome, charged with diplomatic missions, while others only attended the conclaves. A special case is that of Jean du Bellay, who became fully integrated into the life of the city, established a literary salon open to artists and poets, and was involved in the study of Antiquities and the construction of a villa-garden complex, the Horti Bellayani.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 37 , Special Issue 3: Locating communities in the early modern Italian city , December 2010 , pp. 419 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 ‘Les Cardinaux non seulement eslisent les Papes, mais aussi la Dignité Suprême de Pape leur est particulièrement affectée et pourtant il est vray de dire, qu'ils participent par aptitude et par esperance à la souveraineté et spirituelle et temporelle du Saint-Siège, ainsi que les princes du Sang à la souveraineté de leur pays. C'est pourquoy ils sont tenus pour Princes de l'église, et marchent maintenant par tout en rang de princes. Aussi le formulaire de Pape en créant les Cardinaux est de leur dire Estote Fratres mei et principes mundi’, Loyseau, C., Traité des ordres et des simples dignités (Paris, 1613), 45Google Scholar.

2 Prelates who decided to stay permanently in Rome were normally very active in the French community, but were also very well integrated in Roman social life; see, for example, the case of Regis, Thomas, Bardati, F., ‘Un committente bretone a Roma: gli interventi di Thomas Regis nel rione Parione’, Quaderni dell'Istituto di Storia dell'Architettura, 31 (1998), 41–5Google Scholar.

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4 Only 2:4 French cardinals were present at the two conclaves of 1503 (Georges d'Amboise and Amanieu d'Albret); 1:5 at that of 1513 (Robert Guibé, although Guillaume Briçonnet and René de Prie had been excommunicated by Julius II); at the conclave of 1521–22 no French representatives were present. In 1523, for the election of Clement VII de’ Medici, with whom Francis I was to forge a close alliance, all the French cardinals were present (François de Clermont-Lodève, Louis de Bourbon and Jean de Lorraine), opening a phase of closer franco-papal relations in which an increasing number of French were present at conclaves: 6:9 for Paul III in 1534; 12:14 for Julius III in 1549–50; 11:12 for Marcellus II in 1555 and all 12 for Paul IV the same year; finally, 6:11 in 1559 for Pius IV.

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12 See Weil-Garris Brandt, ‘Michelangelo's Pietà’.

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19 Georges d'Armagnac and Charles de Guise donated ample money to complete the cloister and the choir near the dormitory (Balsamo, I., ‘Le mécénat des Guises dans l'église de la Trinité-des-Monts à Rome (1570–1630)’, Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Moyen Age – Temps Modernes, 94 (1982), 923–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar); for the burials see Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 68, 499.

20 Balsamo, ‘Le mécénat des Guises’.

21 A humanist in contact with Marguerite of Navarre and Guillaume Budé, du Bellay was primarily a diplomat for Francis I. Protected by Anne of Montmorency, he became bishop of Bayonne in 1524 and bishop of Paris in 1532. Created a cardinal in 1535, he spent long periods of time in Rome where he held important positions in the curia until he became dean of the College of Cardinals in 1555, see Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 284–95.

22 Finding temporary accommodation appropriate to a cardinal's status was a most difficult task in Rome. Between 1547 and 1554 Robert de Lenoncourt had at his disposal the titular palace of Sant'Apollinare, in the rione Ponte, close to some of the most important palaces and churches of Rome. This site was so prized that when Charles de Guise demanded that they exchange their titular churches, Lenoncourt accepted but on the condition that he might use the palace of Sant'Apollinare, situated on the eponymous square, until his death, see Eubel, C., Hierarchia Catholica medi et recentiori aevi: sive summorum pontificium, S.R.E. Cardinalium ecclesiarium antistitum series; e documrntis tabularii praesertim vaticani collecta, digesta, 8 vols. (Vatican City, 1898–1978), vol. III, 25, 61Google Scholar. For earlier examples of such problems see Chambers, D.S., ‘The housing problems of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 39 (1976), 21–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 In 1549, Caterina de’ Medici helped François de Tournon to rent the palazzo Fieschi-Sora in Parione, near the ancient and the new chanceries and the palazzo Farnese, see Burckardus, J., Liber Notarum, ed. Celani, E., coll. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 32 (Città di Castello, 1910), vol. I, 325Google Scholar. This was the same palace rented by Lagraulas in 1491 (ibid.). Returning to the city in 1552, however, Tournon found himself disappointed, since Caterina had already let palazzo Madama to Ippolito d'Este, see L. Romier, Les origines politiques des guerres des religion, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1974), vol. I, 119 n. 3. To be sure of a residence in Rome, after Jean du Bellay's death, François de Tournon hastened to rent the della Rovere palace in the Borgo (Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASR), Confraternita della SS. Annunziata, 233, c. 526r).

24 From 1540 to 1545 Georges d'Armagnac rented the palazzo Orsini in Montegiordano, a magnificent, perfectly located residence, see Bousquet, J., ‘Le cardinal d'Armagnac et les artistes’, Revue du Rouergue, 41 (1995), 14 n. 52Google Scholar. Although he later found a palace in the rione Campo Marzio, in the upper Corso near the ‘arco di Portogallo’, he chose to keep it on, even during the period of the religious wars, which obliged him to remain in France. All the same, he asked Cesare Pamphili, his agent in Rome, to sublet the palace, see Armagnac to Cesare Pamphili, Avignon, 3 Apr. 1578, in C. Samaran, Lettres inédites du Cardinal Georges d'Armagnac conservées à la Bibliothèque Barberini à Rome, in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire (1902), 121.

25 Bellayana discussionis, ASR, Corporazioni religiose femminili, S. Susanna, 4447, 2. For details on du Bellay's familia, see Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 120–3.

26 Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), MS Dupuy, 265, cc. 132r–8r; Svalduz, E., ‘Abitare e vivere nella capitale: Alberto e Rodolfo Pio da Carpi a Rome’, in Rossi, M. (ed.), Alberto III e Rodolfo Pio da Carpi collezionisti e mecenati (Carpi, 2004), 30–48Google Scholar; Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Arm. XLI, 59, c. 85r.

27 BNF, MS Fr. 5146, cc. 136r–v.

28 The residence is recorded in Rabelais, F., La Sciomachie & festins faits à Rome au palais de mon Seigneur reverendissime Cardinal du Bellay, pour l'heureuse naissance de mon Seigneur d'Orléans, le tout extrait d'une copie des lettres escrites à mon seigneur le reverendissime Cardinal de Guise, par François Rabelais, docteur en medicine (Lyon, Sebastien Gryphe, 1549), 6Google Scholar. For the excavations see Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 204–5.

29 ASR, Notai Tribunale dell'Auditor Camerae, L. Reydettus, prot. 6152/1550, c. 389r; Aldrovandi, Ulisse, Delle statue antiche, che per tutta Roma, in diversi luoghi, et case si veggono, [1551] (Venice, 1562), 188Google Scholar.

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34 INCHOABAT JO.C.HOSTE.SIBI ET AMICIS MCLV, as related by Etienne Dupérac in his map of Rome.

35 Joachim du Bellay was a member of the ‘Pleiade’, a group of poets that gathered around Pierre de Ronsard, for whom Greeek and Latin poetic models were employed to classicize the French language. François Rabelais, trained as a doctor but also a scholar of antiquity and an author, was a humanist whose interests spanned over many fields of enquiry.

36 Cortesi, Paolo, De cardinalatu (Castro Cortesio, Symeon Nicholaus Nardus, 1510)Google Scholar. See Weil-Garris, K. and D'Amico, J.F., ‘The Renaissance cardinal's ideal palace: a chapter from Cortesi's De cardinalatu’, in Millon, H. (ed.), Studies in Italian Art and Architecture 15th through 18th Centuries (Rome, 1980), 45–123Google Scholar.

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38 ‘Matière dont je m'empeche volontiers pource que j'en suys garny’, du Bellay to Anne de Montmorency, Rome, 15 Mar. 1534, in Scheurer, R., Correspondance du cardinal Jean du Bellay, 2 vols. (Paris, 1969), vol. I, 375Google Scholar.

39 Jestaz, B., ‘L'exportation des marbres de Rome de 1535 à 1571’, École française de Rome. Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, 75 (1963), 2, 415–66Google Scholar.

40 On the collection see Boissard, Romanae urbis topographiae, vol. I, 90, and Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 209–13. Du Bellay died literally submerged by debts and his creditors sold the principal pieces of the collection. Among the greedy purchasers of his antiquarian treasures can be found some of his worst enemies, such as Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, who in December 1560 finished paying for ‘li marmi statuarij havuti dall'eredità di monsignor illustrissimo di Bellay’, see Venturi, A., ‘Ricerche di antichità per Monte Giordano, Monte Cavallo e Tivoli nel secolo XVI’, Archivio storico dell'arte, 2 (1890), 198Google Scholar.

41 On Ligorio see Coffin, D.R., Pirro Ligorio: The Renaissance Artist, Architect and Antiquarian (University Park, PA, 2004)Google Scholar; Gaston, R.W., ‘Merely antiquarian: Pirro Ligorio and the critical tradition of antiquarian scholarship’, in Grieco, A. J., Rocke, M. and Superbi, F. Gioffredi (eds.), The Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century (Florence, 2002), 355–73Google Scholar. For references to Pirro Ligorio's manuscript discussion of excavations commissioned by du Bellay, see Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 199–209.

42 Cooper, R., Notice biographique, in J. du Bellay, Poemata (Paris, 1546)Google Scholar, ed. G. Demerson with the collaboration of R. Cooper (Paris, 2007), 19.

43 ASR, Notai dell'Auditor Camerae, Savius, prot. 6462/1556, cc. 46r–50v; Bellayana discussionis, c. 3v. On Pietro Stampa and his family see the essay of Barbara Furlotti in this volume.

44 Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 284–95.

45 C. Michon, ‘Les richesses de la faveur à la Renaissance: Jean de Lorraine (1498–1550) et François Ier’, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 50–3 (2003), 34–61.

46 Rabelais, La Sciomachie, 4–6. For an analysis of du Bellay's celebrations, see Bardati, ‘Hommes du roi’, 214–32.

47 Rabelais, La Sciomachie.

48 Among them, there were members of the Farnese, Fregoso, Anguillara, Serlupi, Massimo, Capizucchi, Cosciari, Orsini and Strozzi families.

49 Rabelais, La Sciomachia, 24–6.

50 Ibid., 24; Louis de France was duke of Orleans; du Bellay was bishop of Paris; Langey was the fief of Guillaume du Bellay.

51 Rebecchini, G., ‘After the Medici: the new Rome of Pope Paul III Farnese’, I Tatti Studies, 11 (2007), 147–200Google Scholar.

52 J. du Bellay, Les Regrets (1558), poema CXIX, vv. 2–4: ‘de ces rouges prelatz la pompeuse apparence, / Leurs mules, leurs habitz, leur longue reverence, / Qui se peult beaucoup mieulx representer que dire.’ On cardinals’ courts see Fragnito, G., ‘Cardinals’ courts in sixteenth-century Rome’, Journal of Modern History, 65 (1993), 26–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.