Papal Banking in Renaissance Rome

Benvenuto Olivieri and Paul III, 1534–1549

Francesco Guidi Bruscoli

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351912945
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

Benvenuto Olivieri was a Florentine banker active in Rome during the first half of the sixteenth century. A self made man without any great family patrimony, he rose to prominence during the pontificate of Pope Paul III, becoming involved with a variety of papal enterprises which allowed him to get to the heart of the mechanisms governing the papal finances. Amassing a considerable fortune along the way, Olivieri soon built himself a role as co-ordinator of the appalti (revenue farms) and became one of the most powerful players in the complex network that connected bankers and the papal revenue. This book explores the indissoluble link that had developed between the papacy and bankers, illuminating how the Apostolic Chamber, increasingly in need of money, could not meet its debts, without farming out the rights to future income. Utilising documents from a rich corpus of unpublished sources in Florence and Rome, Guidi Bruscoli unravels the web of financial connections that bound together Florentine and Genoese bankers with the papacy, and looks at how money was raised and the appalti managed.

PART ONE
Rome, Florence and the Olivieri

CHAPTER 1

Florentines in Rome

Da poi che Costantin fece il presente,

per levarsi la lebbra da le spalle,

non fu più coltivata questa valle,

né venne a Roma mai cotanta gente.

Di Firenze, del papa ognun parente,

e’ vengono gridando palle palle,

per istaffetta, in ceste, in mazzi, in balle,

e lasson le lor donne malcontente.

Che pensa aver la barca e chi la rete,

o qualche gran ventura trafficando,

o per un beneficio farsi prete […]

(Pietro Aretino, Quando Leon X fu fatto papa)

Pietro Aretino’s sonnet satirizes the large numbers of Florentines who descended on Rome in 1513, the year the first Medici pope, Leo X, was elected, in the hope of obtaining favours and benefices from the papal court. While there was doubtless a basis of truth to this verse, it only captures a part of the nature of a much more complex phenomenon. The story begins, however, rather further back in time…

1. Foreigners in Rome during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

The return of the papal seat to Rome from Avignon restored vigour to a city that had become a mere shadow of its former self. The exact number of people living in Rome in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries can only be guessed at, as the first census of the Roman population was not carried out until the beginning of the sixteenth century, and there are no fiscal data relative to the previous years that provide reliable figures. Consequently, historians have given vague and at times conflicting estimates. In general, however, it is estimated that at the end of the fourteenth century there were 25,000 inhabitants, rising to 30-35,000 around 1450, to approximately 45,000 in 1480, reaching 55-60,000 in the 1520s, 75,000 in 1550, with the population reaching approximately 100,000 in 1600. This spurt in population growth was due in large part to the numerous immigrants who flocked to the city, and who, it should be pointed out, played a very significant role in various sectors of financial and commercial activity.

One important document for anyone wishing to study the demographic aspects of Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century, despite its occasionally approximate figures, is the census taken a few months before the Sack of 1527:¹ this census indicates that in that year the total population of Rome amounted to 53,689 people.² Among historians there is a debate on the place of origin of these inhabitants, and in particular on what could be considered as Roman. According to Delumeau, who bases his estimates on the 3,495 inhabitants (6.5% of the total) who have some reference to their place of origin next to their name, 16.4% of these were from Rome or the surrounding area, 63.6% came from other parts of Italy, while the remaining 20% were from outside Italy.³ Delumeau’s percentages are fairly similar to the figures given by Partner, who calculates that 23.8% of the Eternal City’s population were Romans, 57.6% were Italians from outside Rome, and 18.6% were non-Italians.⁴ Lee, on the other hand, gives the foreign element slightly less weight, by also including (unlike the others) in the category of ‘Romans’ those who ‘had reached some level of assimilation into Roman society’, thus raising the proportion of this group to 68.7%, and at the same time reducing the percentage of non-Roman Italians to 24% and foreigners to 7.3%.⁵

In any case, foreigners predominated to such an extent that only one of the Renaissance popes – Julius III Ciocchi del Monte – was actually born in Rome. Moreover, every non-Roman pope brought in his wake a new wave of immigrants to Rome, as his fellow countrymen followed him. The city’s appeal was clearly further heightened by its international character and the constant influx of people, ranging from businessmen to pilgrims. A further magnet for outsiders was the institution peculiar to Rome, the Curia, which had a continuous need for services and for people to work in its administration. It was undoubtedly the cardinals and functionaries of the Curia, together with merchants, bankers and artists, who left the most tangible signs on the city; or, as Lee describes them, ‘this dynamic élite of powerful, wealthy, creative and generally interesting foreigners was transforming a delapidated and culturally backward city into Europe’s first cité lumière’.⁶ Nevertheless, it was the general masses, consisting of skilled and unskilled workers, which made Rome one of the most cosmopolitan cities of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe.

Naturally, when a new pope was elected, the national group to which he belonged soared in number (this also happened, albeit to a lesser extent, when a new cardinal was appointed). The new arrivals, who invaded Rome en masse eager to take advantage of the privileges that the new pontiff would certainly concede, were, however, generally detested by the local population, and it frequently happened that on the death of the patron, the Romans would give vent to their hatred, unleashing a violent backlash against these foreigners.

Of those who came to Rome from beyond the Alps,⁷ the Spanish were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the largest group. Certainly their numerically strong presence owed much to the fact that in the second half of the previous century there had been two Spanish pontiffs, members of the Borgia family: Callistus III (1455-58) and Alexander VI (1492-1503). The next largest groups were the French and then the Germans. The French were, however, particularly hard hit by the Sack of 1527 and did not begin to increase in number again until the end of the century. The Germans, on the other hand, were at the height of their influence between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, holding key positions in the Curia, as well as in various sectors of the economy. Between 1495 and 1523, for example, the Fugger family, with their agents Johannes Zink and Engelhard Sclancz, played a very important part in the administration of the papal finances.⁸

As for the Italians from outside Rome, the most influential, and not only because of their numerical superiority, were the Tuscans; the fulcrum of this group, which was firmly established in Rome by the fourteenth century, was the Florentine colony. Relatively large numbers of outsiders also migrated to the city from Lombardy and from Venice and the Venetian hinterland (which at that time included the easternmost part of present-day Lombardy). Rather surprisingly, perhaps, given that three popes – Sixtus IV Della Rovere (1471-84), Innocent VIII Cibo (1484-92) and Julius II Della Rovere (1503-13) – hailed from Genoa, the Genoese colony of Rome was smaller than the above groups. Nevertheless, despite their numerical weakness, the Genoese merchant-bankers were held in high esteem, and in the second half of the sixteenth century they were to become the great financiers of the Papal State. During the Cinquecento, the Italians became increasingly influential not only in the city itself, but also at the papal court.⁹ Whereas in 1500 of 35 cardinals only 21 were Italians, by 1598 the number had risen to 46 out of 57.¹⁰ According to Pierre Hurtubise, who has studied the composition of a number of papal and cardinal courts of the first half of the sixteenth century, this marked ‘Italianization’ reached the ‘point of no return’ under the pontificate of Paul III (1534-49).¹¹

One of the characteristics of all the foreign communities in Rome was the strong sense of separate national identity that they maintained. This sense of identity typically manifested itself in separate hospitals, normally incorporated into churches or chapels, and the financially independent national confraternities, which also had totally autonomous administrations.¹² This ‘nationalism’ influenced the urban structure of Rome, with streets and entire neighbourhoods taking their names from the national groups that inhabited them.¹³ These groups dominated certain areas of the economy, and some of them even formed their own separate artisans’ guilds. This being said, however, although geographical endogamy certainly existed, affecting both matrimonial and also certain commercial transactions, its importance should not be overestimated. All the non-Romans, and perhaps particularly the non-Italians, had, in any case, to function in the everyday life of Rome, and therefore to constantly interact with the local reality.¹⁴

2. The Florentine merchant-bankers and the papal court

‘Pope Julius’, Cardinal San Giorgio pointed out to the Venetian ambassador, ‘used to give about 4,000 ducats per month to the tinello; this pope needs 8 or 9,000, because so many Florentines claiming to be his relatives come to the tinello to eat’.¹⁵ It was, in other words, believed that Leo X’s great extravagance resulted from his having to pander to the wishes of the large numbers of Florentines that, as his fellow countrymen, had flocked to Rome sure of his patronag...