Chapter 10 Language, Leadership, and Locations of Church Reform in the Libellus ad Leonem Decimum

Christopher M. Bellitto

The need to reform the church had long troubled and enthused critics through the late Middle Ages, but the impetus for reform that might have come from the top of her hierarchy had been subordinated to a papal fight for its very life against the conciliar challenge. Although the papacy emerged victorious in the middle of the fifteenth century, the energy expended to fight conciliarism had sapped its vigor for meaningful reform. The push for reform remained in indi- vidual hands on local levels and gathered some momentum in general coun- cils, although these meetings were now treated with distrust even by a papacy united after the Great .1 Two of those voices, the Paolo (Tomasso) and Pietro (Vincenzo) Querini, as heard in their Libellus ad Leonem Decimum (1513), offer the opportunity to explore the lan- guage, leaders, and locations of church reform submitted to Leo X during the time of the ineffective Fifth Lateran Council (1512–​17) in the moment be- fore Martin Luther. The Libellus was composed in the middle months of 1513, likely by the pri- mary hand of Giustiniani (1476–1528),​ with emendations by Querini (1479–​ 1514). Religious life had not been their first career path: the two were born into aristocratic Italian families and moved easily in high societal, diplomatic, and political circles within church and civil governments. They profited from a humanistic education at the University of Padua before their careers took Querini across Europe and Giustiniani to the Middle East. They both joined

1 Christopher M. Bellitto, “The Reform Context of the Great Western Schism,” in A Compan- ion to the Great Western Schism (1378–​1417), eds. Joëlle Rollo-​Koster and Thomas M. Izbicki (Leiden: 2009), pp. 303–31.​ For a contextualizing portrait of a long fifteenth century, see John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, Mass.: 2013), pp. 23–​48. On source material and historiography of the largely failed reform agendas contemporary to the Libellus, see Nelson H. Minnich, “Councils of the : A Historical Survey,” in The Church, the Councils, and Reform: The Legacy of the 15th Century, eds. Gerald Christian- son et al. (Washington, D.C.: 2008), pp. 27–59.​ I am indebted to the staffs of Kean University and Princeton Theological Seminary for research assistance, and especially to the latter for cheerful hospitality during summer research and writing.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004382411_​ 011​ 146 Bellitto the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine order in 1511.2 When their friend Giovanni de’Medici was elected in March 1513, they turned their ample experience and learning to sending him a comprehensive plan for church reform, having accomplished just such a task for their Camaldolese confreres. The Libellus was organized into six parts of quite unequal length.3 An open- ing chapter defers to papal authority, which we should not find out of char- acter given the authors’ relationship with the Medici family of Leo X, although as we shall see they find a place for conciliar efforts at reform as well. The next two chapters focus on other faiths: Jews, pagans, and Muslims. While the authors hope all three groups can be brought to Christianity, they reserve and even condone violence toward Muslims in a somewhat longer chapter on the subject. Giustiniani and Querini turn next to Christians—​seven nations to be specific—​in a bid to bring Eastern Greeks to obedience under Western papal governance. The longest chapter specifically treats church reform. A sixth advises the pope to annex territories controlled by “infidels.” Other scholars have provided overviews or looked at some of these specific aspects of the Libellus; I will concentrate on the language, leadership, and locations of church reform within the text.4

2 On their diplomatic careers and move to the , see Stephen D. Bowd, Reform Be- fore the Reformation: Vincenzo Querini and the Religious Renaissance in (Leiden: 2002), pp. 45–​101. 3 Annales Camaldulenses 9 (: 1773), vol. 9 cols. 612–719.​ An English translation made from a revision of this Latin is found in Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini, Libellus Addressed to Leo X, Supreme Pontiff, ed. and trans. Stephen M. Beall with Introduc- tion and Notes by John J. Schmitt (Milwaukee, Wis.: 2016), hereafter Libellus, which will be used for this article: even-​numbered pages refer to the Latin text, odd numbers to the En- glish translation. On the text’s composition, see Libellus, 11–12;​ on translation issues, 21–​22. For a codicological study, see Umberto Mazzone, “Libellus ad Leonem X: Note in margine all’edizione e alla storiografia le edizioni del testo,” Franciscan Studies 71 (2013), 19–​32. There is a recent Italian translation as well: Lorenzo Barletta, Un Eremita al servizio della chiesa: Scritti del Beato Paolo Giustiniani, vol. 3 (Milan: 2012). 4 Eugenio Massa, Una cristianità nell’alba del Rinascimento: Paolo Giustiniani e il “Libellus ad Leonem X” (1513) (: 2005). For specific topics, see Giuseppe Alberigo, “The Reform of the Episcopate in the Libellus to Leo X by the Camaldolese Vincenzo Querini and Tomasso Giustiniani,” in Reforming the Church Before Modernity: Patterns, Problems, and Ap- proaches, eds. Christopher M. Bellitto and Louis I. Hamilton (Aldershot: 2005), pp. 139–52;​ Ludovic Viallet, “Social Control, Regular Observance and Identity of a Religious Order: A Franciscan Interpretation of the Libellus ad Leonem,” Franciscan Studies 71 (2013), 33–51;​ Vin- cenzo Lavinia, “La lotte alle superstizioni: Obiettivi e discussioni dal Libellus al Concilio di Trento,” Franciscan Studies 71 (2013), 163–81.​ The Libellus was the subject of part of a 2012 conference at the Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni xxiii in Bologna titled “Plu- ralism and Identity Formation in the Catholic World from the Libellus ad Leonem (1513) to the