↗ Gerard Mercator, Atlas sive Cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura, Duisberg 1595

Historical background

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the papacy's knowledge of multi-denominational Europe passed through the mediation of a small number of men, prominent figures of papal diplomacy, who were the eyes of Rome even before being its arm. They communicated to the Roman court their perception of an 'other' world, where Catholics and heretics shared the same public space and where coexistence between different faiths was governed by peace of religion.

This crucial phase of papal diplomacy has usually been interpreted by historiography by projecting on it a missionary-conversionist paradigm of recatholization that actually prevailed only later, under the impulse of the radicalization of the conflicts that broke out in the Thirty Years' War (1618) and of the foundation of Propaganda Fide (1622), the congregation of cardinals to which the pope entrusted the government of the areas inhabited by heretics, infidels and schismatics. The result was to read the history of papal diplomacy in the aftermath of the peace of Augsburg (1555) as a coherent, top-down control action carried out by nuncios and regular orders, under the watchful eye of the Roman center.

A close examination of letters and private papers of papal representatives in the multi-denominational areas of the second half of the sixteenth century, however, reveals an extremely different reality, which tends to undermine this historiographical reading. This documentation, so far explored only occasionally, goes far beyond official dispatches, and brings out situations and contexts within which some papal envoys, while remaining in the framework of orthodoxy, benefited from a wide freedom of intervention, developing a unique autonomy of judgment towards the problem of religious diversity and its impact on European societies.

The Graziani Archive

In this context, a decisive importance must be attributed to the political archives that belonged to two great diplomats: the Venetian cardinal Giovanni Francesco Commendone (1524-1584), several times nuncio and then cardinal-legate in the Holy Roman Empire and in Poland, considered the expert in the Curia of the "matters of Germany", and his secretary Antonio Maria Graziani (1537-1611), in turn nuncio to Poland and Venice, as well as point of reference for a large group of diplomats and papal agents trained in the service of Commendone and linked to his intellectual and political heritage.

The private papers of Commendone and Graziani constitute an exceptional documentary complex, a precious mine of information on the difficult confrontation with the area of ​​multi-faith in a vast geopolitical space, extended to Central-Eastern Europe (Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Poland, and Grand-Duchy of Lithuania), with projections towards Russia and the Ottoman Empire. For this reason, the systematic study of their political archives, which have remained substantially unexplored up to now, appears extremely appropriate.

The extensive documentation covers the period between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the beginning of the Thirty Years War (1618). In addition to the diplomatic dispatches of Commendone and Graziani (published only in minimal part), the collection contains thousands of unpublished letters (originals from various incoming correspondents, copies of outgoing letters) related to either formal or informal different circles. In addition, the archives provide a wide range of descriptions, information, and insights, produced by the two diplomats in carrying out their duties, as well as various handwritten versions of Graziani's works, full of corrections and subsequent interventions due to censorship and self-censorship. These mostly unpublished writings, edited in a minimal portion after Graziani’s death (1611), include the biography of Commendone by Graziani, the impressive autobiography of the latter, several historical-political essays, systematic reflections on the role of diplomats, travel and ethnographic narratives.

This extraordinary heritage is now divided into two main sections: one preserved in Italy (Graziani Archive in Vada, Livorno, declared of cultural interest by the Italian State and registered in the Unified Information System for the Archival Superintendencies); the other in the United States (Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS). Other documentary material is found in several US libraries, including an important manuscript kept at the New York Public Library.

This mass of documents was only briefly described by Giuseppe Mazzatinti (Gli archivi della storia d’Italia, Rocca San Casciano, 1904) before the dismemberment of the collection (388 between manuscripts, files, and bundles of documents, in addition to 143 parchments). The new inventory that will be prepared within the project will provide scholars with an updated access tool to the documentation still in the possession of the Graziani family in Vada, connecting it with the portions that, following the twentieth-century dismemberments, are now in the United States.

Alongside the archive, the family book collection in Vada preserves the rich private library of A.M. Graziani identifiable thanks to ownership notes and handwritten annotations. The library, which offers a wealth of information useful for reconstructing the intellectual background of the two diplomats, has already been the subject of a provisional cataloging in the past, yet this work is to be duly revised and integrated.

↗ Vada, Archivio Graziani, b. 54

↗ Vada, Archivio Graziani, b. 14, c. VIr

↗ Uberto Foglietta, Opuscula nonnulla, Roma 1574 [handwritten annotations by Antonio Maria Graziani]

Project objectives

The project aims to enhance this exceptional and stratified private political archive through the creation of the Graziani Archives research portal, accessible online and in 'open access' mode, which will virtually unite the two sections of the archive (Italian and US), allowing an integrated use.

Through the systematic study of the Graziani Archive, the project will provide an innovative contribution to the understanding of the early stages of papal diplomacy in the aftermath of the Peace of Augsburg (1555), bringing to light an extraordinary and unexpected range of perceptions, knowledge and orientations developed by the Roman mediators in the face of heresy and the European multi-denominational space.

More precisely, starting from this exceptional base of new information, the research will investigate the projects promoted by the papal envoys and the awareness that they matured with respect to the practices of religious coexistence, even in areas where Catholicism was a minority.

Secondly, in line with the historiographical renewal that took place in the history of diplomacy, the formal and informal networks in which the envoys of Rome entered, as well as their role in the intellectual and artistic exchanges on both sides, will be reconstructed in their specific articulation beyond the Alps.

Thirdly, the research will explore the survival, re-elaboration and circulation - conveyed by the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century erudite tradition - of the peculiar models of approach to the European multi-denominational world placed at the center of the project.

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