Of Pope Pius II (11 December 1459, Mantova)
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Oration “Responsuri” of Pope Pius II (11 December 1459, Mantova). Edited and translated by Michael von Cotta-Schönberg. 7th version. (Orations of Enea Silvio Piccolomini / Pope Pius; 52) Michael Cotta-Schønberg To cite this version: Michael Cotta-Schønberg. Oration “Responsuri” of Pope Pius II (11 December 1459, Mantova). Edited and translated by Michael von Cotta-Schönberg. 7th version. (Orations of Enea Silvio Pic- colomini / Pope Pius; 52). 2019. hal-01201849 HAL Id: hal-01201849 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01201849 Submitted on 23 Nov 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. (Orations of Enea Silvio Piccolomini / Pope Pius; 52) 0 Oration “Responsuri” of Pope Pius II (11 December 1459, Mantova). Edited and translated by Michael von Cotta- Schönberg 7th version 2019 1 Abstract When a French embassy reached the Congress of Mantua in November 1459, it soon became evident that its primary aim was not to negotiate the French contribution to a crusade against the Turks, but to present the French complaints and objections concerning the investiture of Ferrante of Aragon as King of Naples and to demand that the pope invest René d’Anjou with the Kingdom instead, since – according to the French - it rightfully belonged to René. In his oration, the “Responsuri”, the pope defended himself against the French accusations, justifying his actions with the military situation at the time as well as with legal obligations incumbent on the papacy, and political pressures. Consequently, he denied the French claims, but declared his willingness to have the whole matter tried in court, with himself as judge. At the end of the oration, the pope severely criticized the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges from 1438, by which law the pope’s authority in French ecclesiastical matters and appointments had been greatly restricted. Keywords Enea Silvio Piccolomini; Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini; Æneas Silvius Piccolomini; Pope Pius II; Papa Pio II; Renaissance orations; Renaissance oratory; Renaissance rhetorics; 15th century; 1459; Kingdom of Naples; Kingdom of Sicily; Wars; Ferrante I of Naples; Ferrante I of Aragon; Ferdinand I of Naples; King Charles VII; King René d’Anjou; Jacopo Piccinino; Giacomo Piccinino; Papal States; Congress of Mantova; Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges 1438 Editor and translator Michael v. Cotta-Schönberg Mag. Art. (University of Copenhagen) Bachelier en Philosophie (Université de Louvain) Emeritus Deputy Director / The Royal Library, Copenhagen Emeritus University Librarian / University of Copenhagen ORCID identity: 000-001-8499-4142 e-mail: [email protected] 2 Foreword In 2007, I undertook a project of publishing the Latin texts with English translations of the orations of Enea Silvio Piccolomini / Pope Pius II. Altogether 801 orations (including papal responses to ambassadorial addresses) are extant today, though more may still be held, unrecognized, in libraries and archives. At a later stage the project was expanded to include ambassadors’ orations to the pope, of which about 40 are presently known. I do not, actually, plan to publish further versions of the present volume, but I do reserve the option in case I – during my future studies - come across other manuscripts containing interesting versions of the oration or if important new research data on the subject matter are published, making it appropriate to modify or expand the present text. It will therefore always be useful to check if a later version than the one the reader may have previously found via the Internet is available. I shall much appreciate to be notified by readers who discover errors and problems in the text and translation or unrecognized quotations. 12 September 2019 MCS 1 81 orations, if the ”Cum animadverto” is counted as a Piccolomini-oration, see oration “Quam laetus” [18], Appendix 3 Table of volumes in Collected Orations of Pope Pius II. 12 vols. Edited and translated by Michael von Cotta-Schönberg 1. Introduction 2. 1436-1444 (Orations 1-5) 3. 1445-1449 (Orations 6-13) 4. 1450-1453 (Orations 14-20) 5. 1454-1455 (Orations 21-25) 6. 1455-1457 (Orations 26-28) 7. 1458-1459 (Orations 29-42) 8. 1459-1459 (Orations 43-51) 9. 1459-1461 (Orations 52-63) 10. 1462-1464 (Orations 64-77) 11. 1454, 1459 (Orations 78-80). Orthographical profiles. Indices 12. Appendix: Ambassadors’ orations to Pope Pius II 4 Table of contents I. INTRODUCTION 1. Context 2. Themes 2.1. Kingdom of Naples 2.1.1. Military imperatives 2.1.2. Legal situation 2.1.3. Political agenda 2.2. France and the crusade 2.3. Genoa 2.4. Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 1438 2.5. Translation of the empire 3. Date, place, audience and format 4. Text 4.1. Early Version 4.1.1. Manuscripts 4.1.2. Editions 4.2. Final Version 4.3. Present edition 4.4. History of the text 5. Sources 6. Bibliography 7. Sigla and abbreviations II. TEXT AND TRANSLATION 0. Introduction [1-8] 1. Genoa [9] 2. Kingdom of Naples [10-59] 2.1. Rights of King René to Kingdom of Naples [10] 2.2. Merits of the French and of the Roman See [11-28] 2.2.1. Merits of the French towards the Roman See [11-13] 2.2.2. Merits of the Roman See towards the French [14-28] 2.2.2.1. In the spiritual domain [14-15] 5 2.2.2.2. In the secular domain [16-28] 2.2.2.2.1. Kingdom of the Franks [16] 2.2.2.2.2. Holy Roman Empire [17-18] 2.2.2.2.3. Kingdom of Naples [19-26] 2.2.2.2.4. Peace of Arras [27-28] 2.3. Wrongs allegedly done to the French by the Roman See [29-51] 2.3.1. Eugenius IV [30-35] 2.3.2. Nicolaus V [36-37] 2.3.3. Calixtus III [38] 2.3.4. Pius II [39-51] 2.3.4.1. Investiture and coronation of Ferrante of Aragon [41-46] 2.3.4.1.1. Military imperatives [41-43] 2.3.4.1.2. Legal situation [44-46] 2.3.4.2. Aquila affair [47] 2.3.4.3. Denial of transit through papal territories [48-49] 2.3.4.4. René’s campaign against the pope [50] 2.3.4.5. René’s attack against Ferrante [51] 2.4. Petitions of the French king [52-59] 2.4.1. Investiture of King René with Kingdom of Naples [52] 2.4.2. Right of transit through papal territories [53] 2.4.3. Conclusion [54] 3. French contribution to the crusade [55-59] 4. Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 1438 [60-63] Appendix 1: Oration “Responsurus” of Andrea de Santa Croce (1 December 1459, Mantua) Appendix 2: Memorandum of French ambassadors (beg. December 1459, Mantua) Appendix 3: Response “Jam certis lapsis diebus” of the French ambassadors (12 December 1459, Mantua) Appendix 4: Letters of Pius II to King Charles VII of 12 December 1459 and 10 January 1460 Appendix 5: Letter of King Ferrante I to Pope Pius II [undated] 6 I. INTRODUCTION 7 1. Context1 The political and strategic situation of Italy in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was conditioned by its division into, roughly, four regions: • Northern Italy, comprising the powerful, independent states of Milan, Venice, Genoa and Florence and a number of lesser principalities and communes. • Central Italy, mostly comprising the Papal States (or the lands of Saint Peter). The Papal States were basically a monarchy governed by the reigning pope. • Southern Italy, roughly comprising the Italian peninsula south of the Papal States, and forming, since 1282, the Kingdom of Naples2 (often just called “the Kingdom”, Il Regno, since there was only this one kingdom in all of mainland Italy). • The big and small islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, including Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Islands etc., mostly kingdoms under the Spanish Crown of Aragon. For the popes it was quite important who ruled the Kingdom of Naples, their big neighbour to the South. They managed to maintain some form of nominal, feudal sovereignty over the Kingdom, and they systematically pursued a balance of power so as to avoid that the Kingdom would become too strong in relation to the Papal State. In 1194, the Kingdom of Sicily (Southern Italy and Sicily), due to dynastic circumstances, passed from the French Norman dynasty to the German Imperial Hohenstaufen dynasty. In 1266, at the invitation of the papacy, Charles d’Anjou ousted the German Hohenstaufen dynasty from the Kingdom which thus passed to the French dynasty of Anjou. In 1288, the Island of Sicily rebelled against the Angevins (the Sicilian Vespers). The Island was conquered by Pedro III of the Spanish House of Aragon, and after that it remained under the Crown of Aragon while the French Angevins governed the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples. 1 CO, III, 36-40; Rainaldus, ad ann. 1459, nos. 68-70, pp. 210-211; Abulafia; Ady, pp. 176-178; Boulting, pp. 275-276; Du Fresne de Beaucourt, VI, ch. 12; Mitchell, 159-161; Paparelli, 224-228; Pastor, II, p. 64-66; Picotti, 258-261, 278- 286; Pilllinini, pp. 68-82; Reinhardt, p. 266; Stolf, p. 354; Voigt, IV, pp. 81-89 2 At the time called, confusingly, the Kingdom of Sicily 8 In 1442/1443, the King of Aragon, Alfonso V, after years of warfare, defeated King René d’Anjou and in his turn ousted the Angevins from the Kingdom of Naples which was then reunited with the Kingdom of Sicily.