The Secret Archives of The Vatican PDF
Preview The Secret Archives of The Vatican
THE (0) (/ ARGHIVE ff In VAIICAN MARIA LUISA AMBROSINI WITH MARY WILLIS THE SECRET ARCHIVES OF THE VATICAN ws 4 by MARIA LUISA AMBROSINI with MARY WILLIS BOOKS NEWYORK Copyright © 1969 by Maria Luisa Boggeri Ambrosini. This edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc. by arrangement with Little Brown & Co. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher. 1996 Barnes & Noble Books ISBN 0-76070-125-3 Printed and bound in the United States of America. M98765432 FG Approach N the time that I have been working on this book, friends who are historians have asked me — sometimes in a spirit of amused incredu- lity — just how I went about researching such an extensive subject. With twenty-five miles of documents, partly explored and partly unex- plored, where does one begin? I had to answer that I had begun by following the method of trial and error. On my first visit to a large museum or archaeological site, I seldom take a guidebook, but wander for a while, led by curiosity and random interest. It is only later that I use a systematic approach. I began this study of the Secret Archives in the same way. I examined the indexes in the index room — or rather, those more easily deciphered — and made a long list, following a generally chronological plan, of documents that caught my interest, As time went on, the nature and structure of the Archives that lay behind the long shelves of indexes absorbed me more and more. The hundreds of documents that I had studied seemed like a few leaves fallen from the forest. I now did what a professional historian would have done in the first place, and examined what has been written on the Secret Archives and on their separate fondi. There are excellent works by Fink, Brom, Giusti, Battelli, Mercati, and Macfarlane, among others. Now and then, in these highly technical studies for the use of archivists and historians, there were glimpses of the history of the Secret Archives, glimpses that I found fascinating. I came to realize that the history of the Secret Archives was the history of the papacy, of the Church; that the Archives were a dark mirror of the world. The plan of my work finally began to take shape — it was to be an overview of the development of the Ar- chives as part of history, illustrated by close-ups of individual events viii Approach and documents. With the example of medieval manuscripts before me, I have not hesitated to decorate my margins. A book of this length cannot be inclusive, and I have tried to empha- size the periods most closely related to the history of the Secret Archives and the events that illuminate their times. Many subjects that would be part of a work on general history have been omitted. Most of my research has been done in the Secret Archives and in the Vatican Library. In the Secret Archives particular use has been made of the papal registers, the Archivum Arcis (the archives of Castel Sant’ Angelo), and the Miscellanea and Instrumenta Miscellanea fondi, which contain individual ancient documents. Since the indexes are incomplete, T have often found, in the large bound volumes that were brought to me, manuscripts not listed in the indexes, such as the legend of the re- pentance and death of Judas, which is quoted in Chapter 13. The Vatican Library was used for background, for examination of documents which in the past were part of the Secret Archives, and for published studies and translations by various historical institutes and by individual scholars. In background reading, and especially for the early historical periods, English and American as well as continental references have been used. Only selected notes are given. Complete documentation would greatly lengthen the book, and some references, such as works on the Secret Archives in general and works on Rome, run throughout the period covered. Also, some paragraphs, particularly those relating to the history of the Archives, have been built up from many fragmentary references and from personal inquiry. To simplify the matter I am giving a selected bibliography and, in the notes, pointing out some of the sources used. For Archives documents I have normally indicated the fondo or other source from which they were drawn, but have not always given the “Archivistic collocation,” roughly corresponding to a call number, since this book is not intended for the specialist. In some cases my collaborator, Mary Willis, and I have used material already in English, such as that quoted from Fremantle’s collections, but in large part the English translations are our own. They have been done freely, and are often greatly summarized. We have not used dots to indicate ellipses except when necessary to retain the meaning. Space was a consideration, and the number of ellipses required for these often verbose documents would have impeded the flow of thought and given a granulated appearance to the pages. My grateful acknowledgments are offered to the Secret Archives and to the Vatican Library, which have allowed me so many years of study Approach ix in an atmosphere of perfect freedom. I also extend my thanks to all who have helped me to locate material, and who, in informal conversations, have helped me to understand both the structure and the spirit of these institutions. The staff of the State Archives of Rome have been helpful in my study of the transition of these archives from Church to state control. I want, too, to thank the linguists who have helped me with Greek and Latin documents, and scholars who have given me of their experi- ence and knowledge. Among them are some whose names I do not know: students working in the Secret Archives and in the Vatican Library, who sat with me in the little garden and told me of their own illuminat- ing experiences in research. I should also like to thank my unusually permissive publishers, espe- cially my editor, Llewellyn Howland III, for generous encouragement and for compelling me to limit the extent of this study; Allison G. Self- ridge, copy editor, for valuable criticism and assistance; and Alan D. Williams, now of Viking Press, who introduced me to Little, Brown nearly a decade ago. Contents Approach Introduction The Caves of the Time-Stream L’Archivio Segreto Vaticano Between Legend and History The Church of the Firstborn The White Barbarians The Infrastructure Gregory the Great The Archives at the Tomb Disasters of This Night The Viatory Archives The Road to Exile Interlude at Avignon Son of the Sun and Moon, Pope of the Sea The Archives Under the Angel Greater than Europe and Africa The Avvisi and the Men Illicitly Curious Challenge and Response The Rebels Beatrice Cenci Scandalosa, Impia, Contra Verbum Dei The Tower of the Winds Top Secret The Queen of the Vandals Where Afric’s Sunny Fountains 245, 257 Contents The Conclaves The Saints I Am Charlemagne Fondi Gained and Lost Today and Tomorrow Chapter Notes Selected Bibliography Index 'HIS book is an attempt to give readers some idea of the treasure that humanity — not only the Church, but all mankind — possesses in the Secret Archives of the Vatican, and to tell a little of how this vast collection of knowledge came into being, how the letters of Saint Peter and Saint Paul grew into twenty-five miles of shelved documents. I am not an archivist; I am not a historian. I have not attempted to write the history of the Church nor to explain in detail the contents and structure of the Secret Archives. My plan has been to follow their story, so often like the Sisyphus legend, and to give a glimpse of what they contain, or may have contained, in the light of the times that produced them. Books must follow their own logic, and the interest I have taken in historical personages is not always proportional to their importance or to the strength of their ties to the Archives. While I am most grateful, in the human sense, for the discreet hospi- tality that has been offered me for so long in the Secret Archives, I must state that no official help was given to me and that what I have written is based on my own individual impressions and conclusions. In my research in the Archives I was left completely free. No information was refused me when I had technical difficulties to overcome, and no question was ever put to me, after the initial interview, as to the purpose of my study. I began this work with a certain boldness, and I am finishing it with a sense of humility, realizing the greatness of the task. At least I can say that it has been done with love. The Caves of the Time-Stream Y acquaintance with the Secret Archives of the Vatican came about almost by chance; I was looking for a sculptor three centuries dead. In the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo, within a hundred miles of Rome, enormous Oriental statues of elephants, tigers, goddesses, lie in a valley of the Italian countryside. Their origin is a mystery. In writing an article on them for an American magazine, it occurred to me that some clue might be found in the archives of the Borghese family, the last private owners of this monstrous sculpture garden. These archives had been pur- chased by the Vatican and were lodged in the Secret Archives. Thad no clear idea of what the Secret Archives were. I had been ac- quainted with the Vatican, from the outside, for many years. I had at- tended the great ceremonies at Saint Peter's, and small private audiences where the pope speaks from a human heart of our personal griefs and hopes, But I had heard of the Secret Archives only vaguely, in casual conversation and in the footnotes of historical works, In fact I had never cared for archives. They seemed like tombs of the past, tombs of ideas that no longer mattered. I felt for them the physical distaste that one feels for dusty old papers. Wondering how quickly I could get through with the Borghese ar- chives, I crossed the great square of Saint Peter’s, that place of stone and water, fountains and obelisk. I passed the Leonine walls, a last de- fense against the Saracens, and went through the Gate of Saint Anne into Vatican City. An arched road leads past the Osservatore Romano build- ing to the Court of the Belvedere, where the Secret Archives are housed next to the Vatican Library. Three successive Swiss Guards asked to see my pass before I reached the stairway to the Library and the Archives.
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