Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Note on Transcriptions
- Note on Money
- Introduction
- 1 Humanism and Honour in the Making of Alessandro Farnese
- 2 Pathways to Honour
- 3 Tradition and Reform
- 4 The Consilium and Reform Constrained
- 5 Pax et Concordia – Politics and Reform
- 6 The Ottoman Threat
- 7 The Council of Trent
- 8 Reform in the Twilight Years
- About the Author
- Index
1 - Humanism and Honour in the Making of Alessandro Farnese
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Note on Transcriptions
- Note on Money
- Introduction
- 1 Humanism and Honour in the Making of Alessandro Farnese
- 2 Pathways to Honour
- 3 Tradition and Reform
- 4 The Consilium and Reform Constrained
- 5 Pax et Concordia – Politics and Reform
- 6 The Ottoman Threat
- 7 The Council of Trent
- 8 Reform in the Twilight Years
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Born into a noble family on the rise in Roman society, Alessandro Farnese's development was framed by cultural expectations in humanism and in the code of honour. Humanism provided the script and the classical skills for elite males to perform on the social stage of Rome, a ‘theatre society’. Honour, the foundation of social worth, was the prize that performance continually sought. The pervasive yet contested nature of honour is illustrated in texts that unfold an episode between the young Cardinal Farnese, Pope Alexander VI and his mistress, Giulia Farnese, the cardinal's sister. The episode shows how Alessandro Farnese understood honour and how it became a touchstone throughout his years as cardinal and pope.
Keywords: Farnese family; humanist court; social performance; contested values
Born on 28 February 1468, Alessandro Farnese entered a patrician family in the region of Lazio of which Rome had long been the capital. Over the course of the fifteenth century the Farnese family were rapidly on the rise in status and wealth. Originally small landowners around Lake Bolsena, they also held positions as condottieri (military leaders) in the revitalisation of the Papal States that followed the end of the Avignon Schism. In recognition of his service to the papacy, in the 1430s Ranuccio Farnese, Alessandro's grandfather, was invested with six local fiefs, including Montalto, Gradoli and Latera. His growing income and territorial lordship prompted Ranuccio to stake a greater claim of status among the Roman nobility by building a palace in Viterbo. This claim was consolidated when his son, Pierluigi, married Giovannella Caetani, daughter of one of Rome's oldest baronial families whose members had included six cardinals, one of whom, Benedetto Caetani, had become Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303). Pierluigi and Giovannella's aspirations for their son, Alessandro, his brother, Angelo, and two sisters, Geroloma and Giulia were that they would continue the family's rise in Roman society. Core to Alessandro's formation were humanism and honour.
Humanism
In common with many noble families, the Farnese parents covered the bases for advancement by steering their older son, Angelo, toward the military and the younger Alessandro toward a career at the centre of the Church.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pope Paul III and the Cultural Politics of Reform1534–1549, pp. 35 - 60Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020