Reiss - The Pontificate of Clement VII

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Copyright Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Rciss 2005

First published 2005 by Ashgate Publishing

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The pontificate of Clement VII : history, politics,
culture. (Catholic Christendom, 13001700)
1. Clement, VII, Pope 2. Papacy History 14471565 3. Art
patronage Italy Rome History 16th century 4. Art
patrons Italy Rome History 16th century 5. Rome
(Italy) History 14201798 6. Rome (Italy) Intellectual life 16th century
1. Gouwens, Kenneth II. Reiss, Sheryl E.
262.13092

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The pontificate of Clement VII : history, politics, culture / edited by
Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss.
p. cm. (Catholic Christendom, 13001700)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0754606805 (alk. paper)
1. Clement VII, Pope, 14781534.
I. Gouwens, Kenneth. II. Reiss, Sheryl E. III. Series.
BX1317.P662005
282.092dc22
2004047681

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-0680-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-7546-0680-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-3152-3767-1 (ebk)

Kenneth Gouwens

T. C. Price Zimmermann

Barbara McClung Hallman

Natalie Tomas

Patricia J. Osmond

Cecil H. Clough

Ivana Ait

Anna Esposito and Manuel Vaquero Pineiro

Anne Reynolds

Charles L. Stinger

William E. Wallace

Caroline Elam

Richard Sherr

Linda Wolk-Simon

Victor Anand Coelho

Julia Haig Gaisser

George L. Gorse (Appendix 2 by Naomi Sawelson)

Sheryl E. Re iss

W. David Myers

Alexander Nagel

Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of Pope Clement VII, ca. 1525, Naples, Museo Nazionale de Capodimonte.

The still-usual emphasis on medieval (or Catholic) and reformation (or Protestant) religious history has meant neglect of the middle ground, both chronological and ideological. As a result, continuities between the middle ages and early modern Europe have been overlooked in favor of emphasis on radical discontinuities. Further, especially in the later period, the identification of reformation with various kinds of Protestantism means that the vitality and creativity of the established church, whether in its Roman or local manifestations, has been left out of account. In the last few years, an upsurge of interest in the history of traditional (or catholic) religion makes these inadequacies in received scholarship even more glaring and in need of systematic correction. The series will attempt this by covering all varieties of religious behavior, broadly interpreted, not just (or even especially) traditional institutional and doctrinal church history. It will to the maximum degree possible be interdisciplinary, comparative and global, as well as non-confessional. The goal is to understand religion, primarily of the Catholic variety, as a broadly human phenomenon, rather than as a privileged mode of access to superhuman realms, even implicitly.

The period covered, 13001700, embraces the moment which saw an almost complete transformation of the place of religion in the life of Europeans, whether considered as a system of beliefs, as an institution, or as a set of social and cultural practices. In 1300, vast numbers of Europeans, from the pope down, fully expected Jesuss return and the beginning of His reign on earth. By 1700, very few Europeans, of whatever level of education, would have subscribed to such chiliastic beliefs. Pierre Bayles notorious sarcasms about signs and portents are not idiosyncratic. Likewise, in 1300 the vast majority of Europeans probably regarded the pope as their spiritual head; the institution he headed was probably the most tightly integrated and effective bureaucracy in Europe. Most Europeans were at least nominally Christian, and the pope had at least nominal knowledge of that fact. The papacy, as an institution, played a central role in high politics, and the clergy in general formed an integral part of most governments, whether central or local. By 1700, Europe was divided into a myriad of different religious allegiances, and even those areas officially subordinate to the pope were both more nominally Catholic in belief (despite colossal efforts at imposing uniformity) and also in allegiance than they had been four hundred years earlier. The pope had become only one political factor, and not one of the first rank. The clergy, for its part, had virtually disappeared from secular governments as well as losing much of its local authority. The stage was set for the Enlightenment.

Thomas F. Mayer,
Augustana College