96 CHAPTER 5: THE SUN POPE List of books lent, and to whom: Giuliano del Sig Cav. Bernini 1627 Diodoro siculo degli dei antichi Giuliano del Sig Cav. Bernini "" Scherno degli dei, Bracciolini Sig. Cav. Bernini "" Tito livio del Nardi Sig. Cav. Bernini "" geneologia degli dei Boccaccio ... (Morandi Trial, fol. Ir) In a typical week in January, 1627, visitors to the library of Santa Prassede included Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his fellow- sculptor and collaborator, Giuliano Finelli. The same week, Signora Candida Bracciolini, a relative of the Pistoiese poet Francesco now resident in Rome, stopped in; so did the famous Flemish lawyer, Theodore Ameyden. 1 Their tastes varied widely. Gian Lorenzo preferred the classics——ancient and modern. He checked out works like Jacopo Nardi's translation of Livy into Italian and Giuseppe Betussi's translation of Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gods.2 Giuliano Finelli's tastes, too, ran along classical lines: he borrowed Francesco Baldelli's translation of Diodorus Siculus's collection of ancient mythology; but he was also partial to modern poetry, and on that occasion he borrowed Francesco Bracciolini's poem The Scorn of the Gods, which was just then making the rounds of the Roman salons. Signora Candida borrowed the entertaining novels of Celio Malespina, full of alchemical and astrological lore. What all these visitors had in common, if not their tastes, were their connections to the court of Urban VIII——connections 97 that were shared by a considerable portion of the Santa Prassede circle. With any luck, some of the benefits of these high connections might extend to the monastery. So Orazio Morandi hoped, as he conceived of strategies for putting his own future on a more secure footing. At the very moment when he began reaching for the highest spheres of Roman society, however, his game became more dangerous. The more frequently the monastery circle intersected with Urban VIII's personal clientele, the more likely news about the monastery's more dangerous affairs was to reach the highest levels of authority in Rome. And as such news reached those with an axe to grind against Morandi, his fate was sealed. For discovering how high Morandi's aspirations soared before the final debacle, a remarkable document has survived. It is the library lending log, meticulously annotated by Morandi, a document unique in early modern book history. Following each name is the date on which books were lent out. The third column notes a book's return, sometimes with a date. The log showed Morandi's intense interest not only in comings and goings within the monastery, but in the monastery's many contacts with the world outside. There we discover the social role of a library in early modern Rome, and by implication, the social role of Morandi and his monks. There we discover how Morandi used the library to catapult himself from relative obscurity within the ranks of his order to a position of preeminence in Roman life. 98 Just ten years before, such a strategy would have been impossible. After he had squeezed the last drops of preferment from his Medici patrons in 1613, it was all Morandi could do, by astute maneuvering, to bring about the conditions for his own survival. When his appointment to the generalship of his order expired four years later, in 1616, he had settled down to a permanent position as the order's procurator at the papal court. 3 Under Paul V, Pope Urban VIII's predecessor but one, his Medici ties were unlikely to take him much further. He could scarcely hope for much assistance from Cardinal Carlo de' Medici, son of Ferdinando I and the reigning "Cardinale Fiorentino," who was hard pressed enough to find favor for more important Medici interests in Rome. And Morandi's cultural interests alone were not enough to gain the pope's attention. For Paul V failed to emulate the great Renaissance popes only in this regard——that he cared little about the arts and sciences per se, as the Florentine ambassador complained to the secretary of state on the eve of the anti-Copernican decree that was actually aimed at silencing Galileo. "This is no country for disputing about the moon," the ambassador ruefully reported, "nor, as things now stand, for sustaining or arguing new doctrines." 4 Not being an artist or an architect, Morandi could scarcely contribute to the projects that absorbed much of Paul V's energies, aimed at expressing the outward magnificence of the papacy and of the Borghese family——from the continuing works in the basilica of St. Peter's to the construction of the palace atop the Quirinale hill and the sprawling villa and park on the 99 outskirts of the city. Not being remotely related to the family, he could have no part in the pope's emphatically post-Tridentine plan to invest relatives with benefices, sinecures and incomes—— especially his nephew Scipione Borghese, who in this time became one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's earliest patrons. And not being a politician or a theologian, he could contribute nothing to the pope's paranoid vendettas against any European power that seemed to oppose his controversial definition of Church-state relations— —including a show-down with Venice that might have led to a dangerous armed conflict on Italian soil if not for some last- minute mediation by diplomats of king Henry IV of France. All this changed with the arrival of Urban VIII to power in 1624. Suddenly, under the new pope, knowledge and the arts became the preeminent modes of advancement. 5 Urban VIII's administration brought together a brilliant galaxy of cultural figures, attracted to Barberini patronage, as the wits had put it, referring to the family's coat of arms, "like bees to honey." Projects at St. Peter's and at Palazzo Barberini at Quattro Fontane were only the most visible effects of the program, calling upon the talents of the best painters, sculptors, and architects of the time——from Pietro da Cortona to Andrea Sacchi, from Pietro Bernini to Francesco Mochi, from Carlo Maderno to Francesco Borromini to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Reviewing the history of the decade ending in 1630, the papal librarian Leone Allacci enumerated no fewer than 476 scholars, writers and naturalists who had figured among the "Barberini bees," either directly supported by the family or merely drawn to 100 Rome during this remarkable age. 6 Morandi was not on the list, never having produced any published work. But his ties to those who were, and did, were strong and numerous. They ranged from acquaintance with a relative (Signora Candida) in the case of the poet Francesco Bracciolini, who became secretary to Cardinal Antonio Barberini, to friendship with a friend (Galileo) in the case of Giovanni Ciampoli, the learned Florentine amateur who became Secretary of the Papal Briefs. The Galileo connection may well have extended also to Benedetto Castelli, Galileo's student, hired in this period as a professor of mathematics in the university, while serving as tutor to the pope's nephew Taddeo Barberini, and as an advisor to the pope on land reclamation projects around the papal states. 7 Was there solidarity among librarians before modern interlibrary loan? Then we must mention another Allacci entry, surely known to Morandi, the Hamburg-born antiquary and geographer, Lucas Holstein, custodian of the the distinguished Barberini library. 8 From Morandi's point of view, the most auspicious sign of the new epoch and of its promise for the cultivation of the kind of knowledge he intended to put to use——the kind, in other words, that strayed far from conformity to orthodox or traditional standards——was Pope Urban VIII himself. Before ascending to the papacy, Maffeo Barberini celebrated in verse the accomplishments of some of his most prominent contemporaries——including Guido Reni ("you distinguish yourself as the undisputed master painter") and the poet Gabriele Chiabrera ("because of you, the Arno longs not for the swan in the glassy river of the songs of 101 Ismenis"). Of Ulisse Aldrovandi, author of an ambitious system of biological classification, he said: When your book all things specifies, So artfully, Aldovrandi, to the wise, Then the mind extracts and eye reveals The many forms of things that sea and air And ground give forth, and earth conceals. 9 To Galileo Galilei he sent a poem paying tribute to the discoveries of sunspots and the moons of Jupiter ("found by your glass, O wise Galileo")——the very discoveries whose heliocentric implications had provoked the condemnation of Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres during the previous papacy, in 1616. His papacy, by contrast, produced what Galileo referred to as a "remarkable conjunction," likely to put Copernicus' work back into circulation. 10 Morandi, Galileo's supporter and correspondent, must have heartily agreed. That Urban's protection might extend to the occult fields in which Morandi specialized seemed to be indicated by his relationship to Campanella, recently transferred to the prisons of the Holy Office in Rome from a jail in Naples. 11 How seriously Urban took Campanella's claim on his allegiance in the battle against Aristotle and other "pagan" philosophers is open to question. In any case, when Campanella informally conferred on him the role of the new "David," poet and leader, channel for divine inspiration among God's people on the road to salvation, he cordially accepted. When the exuberant philosopher furnished a 102 voluminous and erudite commentary on his poetry, lauding the new revelations about God's providence that were due to come from the new knowledge about the nature of the universe obtained under his aegis, he gave him the first provisional liberty from imprisonment in 27 years.