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The Will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini (ob. 1438)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Christopher S. Celenza
Christopher S. Celenza*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

There are many still unstudied aspects of the cultural history of early Quattrocento Rome, especially if we consider the years before 1443, the date of the more or less permanent re-entry into the civitas aeterna of Pope Eugenius IV. The nexus between the still ephemeral papacy and the emerging intellectual movement of Italian Renaissance humanism is one of these aspects. It is hoped that this study will shed some light on this problem by presenting a document that has hitherto not been completely edited: the original will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini. As we shall see, this important witness to the fifteenth century provides valuable information on many fronts, even on the structure of the old basilica of Saint Peter. The short introduction is in three parts. The first has a discussion of the cardinal's cultural milieu with a focus on the only contemporary treatise specifically about curial culture, Lapo da Castiglionchio's De curiae commodis. The second part addresses the textual history of the will as well as some misconceptions which have surrounded it. The third part contains a discussion of the will itself, along with some preliminary observations about what can be learned from the critical edition of the text here presented for the first time.

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Traditio , Volume 51 , 1996 , pp. 257 - 286
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Copyright © 1996 by Fordham University 

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References

I would like to thank especially two people: David Wright of the University of California at Berkeley, who drew my attention to the unedited will and kindly suggested the project of its publication, and Father Leonard Boyle, Prefect of the Vatican Library, who patiently helped with many paleographical problems and made helpful suggestions as to the structuring of the article. In addition, I thank Ronald G. Witt, Francis Newton, and John Monfasani, who read the article very closely and improved it greatly; I also thank Paul F. Grendler, Joseph Connors, Louise Rice, Norma Goldman, Antonio Ciaralli, and Gregory S. Bucher, who made a number of helpful suggestions. The work for this article was completed under the tenure of grants from the American Academy in Rome and the Graduiertenkolleg Textüberlieferung of the University of Hamburg. I thank those institutions for their generous support.Google Scholar

The following abbreviations will be used in this study: BAV = Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Canart = P. Canart, Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de l'archivio di San Pietro, Studi e Testi 246 (Vatican City, 1966); Celenza [or] ed. Celenza = “A Renaissance Humanist's View of his Intellectual and Cultural Environment in the Year 1438: Lapo da Castiglionchio Jr.'s De curie commodis” (PhD Dissertation, Duke University, 1995); ed. Harth, I = H. Harth, ed., Poggio Bracciolini: Lettere. I: Lettere a Niccolò Niccoli (Florence, 1984); ed. Harth, III = H. Harth, ed., Poggio Bracciolini: Lettere. III: Epistolarum familiarum libri. Secundum volumen (Florence, 1987); König = E. König, Kardinal Giordano Orsini + 1438. Ein Lebensbild aus der Zeit der groβen Konzilien und des Humanismus, Studien und Darstellungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte, vol. 5, pt. 1 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906); Lombardi and Onofri = G. Lombardi and F. Onofri, “La biblioteca di Giordano Orsini (c. 1360–1438),” in C. Bianca et al., eds., Scrittura, biblioteche e stampa a Roma nel Quattrocento, Aspetti e problemi: Atti del seminario 1–2 Giugno 1979 (Vatican City, 1980), 372–82; Questa = Cesare Questa, Per la storia del testo di Plauto nell'umanesimo (Rome, 1968).Google Scholar

page 257 note 1 A brief glance at recent historiography bears this out. In his The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington, Ind., 1985), Charles Stinger, L. chooses to begin the Roman Renaissance in 1443. He argues that the emergence of the Renaissance in Rome depended on two things: a united papacy, and a sufficient critical mass of humanists present in Rome (5–6). According to the study of John D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome (Baltimore, 1983), Renaissance humanism in Rome really gathers momentum during the papacy of Nicholas V (1447–55), and matures fully during the reign of Sixtus IV (1471–84); with the sack of 1527, humanism in Rome meets its doom. This thesis is repeated in its essential outlines in idem, “De dignitate et excellentia Curiae Romanae: Humanism and the Papal Curia,” in Brezzi, P. and de Panizza Lorch, Maristella, eds., Umanesimo a Roma nel Quattrocento: Atti del Convegno su “Umanesimo a Roma nel Quattrocento,” New York 1–4 dicembre 1981 (Rome/New York, 1984), 83–111; and idem, “Humanism in Rome,” in Albert Rabil, Jr., ed., Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1988), 1:264–95. See this last article for bibliography.Google Scholar

page 258 note 2 Still the main monographic treatment of Orsini is König. For an exemplary study of the cardinalate in the thirteenth century, see Paravicini Bagliani, A., Cardinali di curia e ‘familiae’ cardinalizie dal 1227–1254, 2 vols. (Padua, 1972).Google Scholar

page 258 note 3 See R Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne’ secoli XIV e XV, 2 vols. (1905 and 1914; repr. 2 vols. in 1 with revisions, Florence, 1967) 1:106–107.Google Scholar

page 258 note 4 On the cardinal as collector, see the notices in Wilson, N. G., ed., Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford, 1983), esp. 73, where BAV, Arch. Pietro, S. MS H.25 is discussed. This manuscript, collated by Poggio Bracciolini in 1428, was an important witness for the textual transmission of Cicero's speeches. It may have been one of the manuscripts discovered in Cologne by Nicholas of Cusa, who was in the cardinal's employ during his legatio of 1425 in Germany. In this same period, the cardinal acquired a copy of the Notitia Dignitatum, the fifth-century A.D. listing of Roman political notabilia (253). There is also the cardinal's famous Plautus codex, now BAV Vat. Lat. MS 3870 (D in the Plautus stemma) which is known as the Codex Ursinianus, because of the ownership of Cardinal Orsini. The excellent article of Tarrant, R. J. on the textual tradition of Plautus errs in stating that the manuscript was “later owned by Fulvio Orsini and hence called Ursinianus.” See Tarrant, R. J., “Plautus,” in Texts and Transmission, 302–307, at 304. Actually, Fulvio never owned the Codex Ursinianus; one can see this from the inventory of books that Fulvio left to the Vatican library, published in the study of Nolhac, P., La Bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini (Paris, 1887), 369 (the inventory is taken from BAV Vat. Lat. MS 7205). Here one reads that Fulvio did own a Plautus manuscript, which was not, however, the Ursinianus. The Plautus manuscript that Fulvio owned is identified as the present BAV Vat. Lat. MSS 3303 and 3304. See ibid., 192 n. 2, referring to Giordano Orsini: “C’était le propriétaire du célèbre Codex Ursinianus de Plaute, auj[ourd'hui] Vat.[Lat.] 3870.” See also Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici, 1:93, 107, 110, 111, 111 n. 21, 124 n. 38; and 2:201, 202, 203, 241, 255, 258.Google Scholar

page 259 note 5 On Nicholas of Cusa as a book collector, see Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici, 2:16–27.Google Scholar

page 259 note 6 These references are collected conveniently in Questa, C., Per la storia del testo di Plauto nell'umanesimo (Rome, 1968), 7–12. For the Poggio/Niccoli correspondence, see ed. Harth, I. The episode of the Plautus codex is thoroughly treated in König, at 89–97.Google Scholar

page 259 note 7 Ed Harth, I:39: “De Plauto nihil egi quod cuperem. Antequam cardinalis discederet rogavi, ut dimitteret librum; noluit. Non intelligo hominem; videtur sibi rem magnam fecisse. Cum tamen nihil operis sui attulerit ad eius inventionem sed id agit, ut per alium repertus occultetur ab eo, dixi et sibi et suis, me nunquam amplius librum illum petiturum ab eo, et ita fiet. Malo dediscere quod didici quam per eius libros aliquid discere.” Throughout the article all translations are my own.Google Scholar

page 260 note 8 See ed. Harth, III, letter 21, to Roberto Valturio, of 1454: “Bone memorie cardinalis de Ursinis, qui tempore Eugenii defunctus est in aula palatii sui …”Google Scholar

page 260 note 9 Florence, BN, Conv. Soppr. MS I.VI.10. See Ullman, B. L. and Stadter, P. A., The Public Library of Renaissance Florence (Padua, 1972), 102.Google Scholar

page 260 note 10 See König, chap. 11, “Giordano Orsinis Beziehungen zu Humanismus und Humanisten,” 82–103, as well as the “Exkurs. Zur Geschichte des literarischen Lebens in Rom,” 107–108. It is helpful now to check modern editions of these letters in the few cases where they exist. To offer just one example: König (86) reports the date of Poggio's first mention of the cardinal incorrectly as 1424. This was the date of the letter given in Tonelli's edition. In her edition, Harth, H. (ed. Harth, I:74) accepts the 1428 date proposed by Gordan, P. (Two Renaissance Book Hunters [London, 1974], 305). The new dating is based on the fact that Bruni is mentioned in the letter as chancellor, a post to which he was elected in 1427.Google Scholar

page 260 note 11 König mistakenly identifies Lapo as a Roman humanist (see König, 101: “… der römische Humanist Lapo da Castiglionchio …”). On Lapo, see Fubini, R., “Castiglionchio, Lapo da, detto il Giovane,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 22 (Rome, 1979), 44–51, at 50. There is a slightly more extensive treatment of Lapo's life and work in Celenza.Google Scholar

page 261 note 12 I have prepared an edition and translation of this text, which has hitherto never been adequately edited, including all known manuscript readings (see Celenza). My edition is based primarily on the Florentine autograph manuscript redacted two months before Lapo's death (Florence, BN MS Magl. XXIII, 126). There is a partial edition taken from this MS alone, which, however, only includes the first half, in Garin, E., ed., Prosatori Latini del Quattrocento (Milan, 1952), 169–211; see also the brief critical note on 1129. There is a transcription of the entire text in Scholz, R., “Eine humanistische Schilderung der Kurie aus dem Jahre 1438, herausgegeben aus einer vatikanischen Handschrift,” in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 16 (1914): 108–53, which is taken from the copy of the text in BAV Vat. Lat. MS 939. This MS, however, is not a wholly adequate representative of the text; moreover, Scholz's edition is unfortunately marred by many errors (see “Introduction to the Latin text” in Celenza (n. 1 above), where these errors are listed). Quotations in this article are taken from my edition and translation; section numbers are from my edition.Google Scholar

page 261 note 13 3.16: “Ubi enim tantum sacerdotum reperias numerum?”Google Scholar

page 262 note 14 The locus classicus of this anti-Donatist position stressing the efficacy of the sacraments (whatever the vessel of their transmisson) is found in Augustine's anti-Donatist works; see Augustine, Traités anti-Donatistes, 5 vols. (Paris, 1963–65), esp. De baptismo 6.4–5 (2:412–14).Google Scholar

page 262 note 15 3.18–20: “… Hoc unum affirmare non dubitem, primum, in parvo numero paucos esse bonos, etiam si omnes boni forent; ex magna vero multitudine probatissimos viros plurimos existere posse. [19] Quinetiam, quantum humano ingenio assequi possum, sic statuo ac iudico multitudinem non pessimam //70v// sacerdotum quam non optimam paucitatem Deo cariorem esse, cum acceperimus ex veteribus sacrarum historiarum monumentis illum a multitudine semper coli voluisse, siquidem cultus et honos (de nobis enim hominibus coniecturam facio) etiam a quovis habitus delectare solet, et nostris quoque divinis legibus sapientissime comparatum est, omne sacrificium, vel a sceleratissimo sacerdote, modo rite factum, verum, integrum, absolutum, intactum atque intemeratum sacrificium Deoque acceptum esse habendum…. [20] Quare dubitare non possumus colentium multitudinem, in qua plures esse bonos necesse est et sacrificia, cultus, cerimonias, frequentissime celebrari atque innovari, ipsi immortali Deo, in cuius haec honorem fiunt, esse gratissimam.”Google Scholar

page 262 note 16 Honoris causa he mentions two who were at that point lacking at the curia: Francesco Filelfo, his esteemed teacher and friend, and Leonardo Bruni.Google Scholar

page 263 note 17 See Celenza, chap. 3, for a wider discussion.Google Scholar

page 263 note 18 Ibid.Google Scholar

page 263 note 19 Ibid.Google Scholar

page 263 note 20 For a further elaboration of Lapo's style of reasoning in the De curiae commodis, see Celenza, chap. 1, second section, “Overview of the Dialogue.”Google Scholar

page 263 note 21 1.8: “Nam //66// cum post obitum summi principis Iordani Ursini, cardinalis integerrimi et religiosissimi viri, ex balneis Senensibus decedens, quo eram cum illo una profectus …”Google Scholar

page 263 note 22 1.9: “… et talem virum et talem amicum amisissem, quo vivo non dubitaret mihi mearum fortunarum patronum et honestandae dignitatis propugnatorem acerrimum numquam defuturum fuisse …”Google Scholar

page 264 note 23 Latin text from BAV Pal. Lat. MS 918, fols. 235v–236, in Lombardi and Onofri, 379–80 n. 28: “Siquidem unus tot iam seculis extitisti, qui latinam linguam attollere iacentem, amplificare, ornare, conatus es. Neque conatus es solum, sed magna iam ex parte perfecisti. Tu enim conparandorum librorum gratia, affectus etate, longissima itinera et difficillima, ad remotissimas regiones magnis sumptibus, labore, periculo suscepisti. Tu veteres permultos doctissimos viros, inventis eorum operibus quae ante ignorabantur ab oblivione hominum et silentio vendicasti.” On this text, see the literature in Lombardi and Onofri. There is also a German translation of the preface in König, at 102–103; see also the literature cited at 102 n.2.Google Scholar

page 264 note 24 Lombardi and Onofri, 380 n. 28: “Itaque tot iam solus libros, ut audio, in omni genere doctrine in tuam urbem undique contulisti, qui plurimis civitatibus ad legendum sufficerent, ut illis homines discendi cupidi sine labore, sine sumptu, sine molestia uterentur …”Google Scholar

page 264 note 25 The most recent theoretical approaches to Renaissance (and other) patronage are discussed in Robin, D., Filelfo in Milan: 1451–1477 (Princeton, 1991), 13–17 (with bibliography), passim.Google Scholar

page 265 note 26 See König, 82. In his Vorwort, König mentions that at the time of his writing the Orsini family archive was closed; his only source of information about the contents was a detailed inventory made available to him by Professor Paul Kehr. This also explains why König was able to cite the shelf mark of the original will and of other items in the private family archive of the Orsini without having seen them in vivo. Google Scholar

page 265 note 27 See Canart, 7 n. 3, and below n. 30.Google Scholar

page 265 note 28 See below, in the critical apparatus to sec. 57: “… ea que pertinebant ad dictam basilicam.”Google Scholar

page 265 note 29 See Mercati, G., Codici latini Pico Grimani Pio e di altra biblioteca ignota del secolo XVI e i codici greci Pio di Modena, con una digressione per la storia dei codici di Pietro, S. in Vaticano, Studi e Testi 75 (Vatican City, 1938): 144–68; Mercati published parts of the original will (161–64). Mercati (161–62) writes cryptically: “Quanto ho sopra argomentato dal poco che sapevo, posso ancora mettere fuori di dubbio col testamento stesso del Cardinale, di cui non avevo prima fatto ricerca persuaso che il König ne avesse comunicato tutte le disposizioni circa i libri, mentre ne ha trascurate due per noi importanti e non ha punto avvertito che nella disposizione a favore di Pietro, S. non tutti i numeri 1–111 (i mss. di Nerola) e 112–274 (i mss. di Formello) del catalogo pubblicato dal Cancellieri alle pp. 906–911 b, 11, sono compresi, ma ne mancano dei primi per lo meno due dozzine e una quindicina (o una ventina) dei secondi.” Mercati's point is, or should be, simply that König did not notice the following: that the books in the Nerula and Formello sections only, of the list published in Cancellieri, are not all in the will. (F. Cancellieri, De secretariis basilicae vaticanae veteris ac novae libri II … [Rome, 1786], 906–14). This is important because, as we shall see (n. 35 below), this statement probably served as a fons erroris in later historiography. In any case, how could Mercati claim that König had “comunicato tutte le disposizioni circa i libri,” when König did not, as he himself states, have access to the original will, and there are matters relating to books that are in the original and not in the copy? Perhaps this means that Mercati did not understand sufficiently that König took his edition from the copy, and had no access to the original; or perhaps Mercati, working straight from the original without much recourse to the copy, did not observe that there were significant differences between the copy and the original. Either way, the passage is odd, given König's explicit statement that he did not see the original.Google Scholar

page 266 note 30 See Canart, 5–14, on the history of the MSS fondi of the Archivio di San Pietro through its inventories. Canart deals with the will as a source for the reconstruction of the library (7–9). During the course of this section (5–14), Canart enumerates the different types of inventory sources; at 7 n. 3, he discusses the history of the will. Here he mentions that König published his monograph without having been able to consult the original will, and that the will was given by De Cupis to the basilica in 1909, when it was put in capsa 58, fasc. 206, “à côté de la copie partielle qui en avait été tirée, dès l'origine, à l'intention du chapitre …” He then writes, “C'est cette copie, certifiée authentique, que König publia dans son travail, en ommetant la liste des manuscrits légués à Saint-Pierre.” Here “copie, certifiée authentique” means the copy from which König took his copy of the will. Yet, in enumerating the different inventories, he writes (7): “4° Liste des mss. du cardinal Orsini, G. légués à la Basilique. Elle est commodément accessible dans la copie authentique du testament: Archivio di Pietro, S. (Perg.), capsa 58, fasc. 206.” Here, “la copie authentique” must mean “the original copy,” i.e., the original redaction of the will, in contrast to above, where “copie … authentique” meant the version which König used in his partial edition.Google Scholar

page 266 note 31 Cancellieri, De secretariis, 906–14.Google Scholar

page 266 note 32 Archivio di San Pietro (Arch.), Inventari 3, fols. 71–74v; see Canart, 8.Google Scholar

page 266 note 33 Canart, 8 n. 1: “Il y aurait lieu de refaire une comparaison serrée entre les listes du testament, de l'inventaire Cancellieri et de l'inventaire numero 5 (voir ci-dessous). Il faudrait aussi dater l'inventaire Cancellieri, dont il serait utile de savoir s'il est antérieur ou non au testament et à la mort du cardinal Orsini.” Parenthetically, Canart also brings to light the interesting pencil annotations of Monsignor LeGrelle, which appear in various of the Vatican inventories. These relate to the contents of the fondo Archivio di San Pietro, and on occasion they help to clear up some slight inaccuracies on the part of Mercati.Google Scholar

page 266 note 34 Questa, 19–22.Google Scholar

page 267 note 35 Lombardi and Onofri, sec. 2.2, “Il rotolo,” 374–76. This roll is stored in the same capsa as the will (Arch. Petr, S., caps. 58, fasc. 206). Mercati and Questa, as well as Lombardi and Onofri, realized the importance not only of this list of books (i.e., the list contained in Cancellieri, which is based on the roll), but also of the fact that the library of Cardinal Orsini contained many books that were not in the will — a fact realized much earlier by König, but with which he has not always been credited. In his partial edition of the will, König omits the list of books and refers the reader to Cancellieri, items 1–111, for the books in Nerula, and to Cancellieri, items 112–274, for the books in Formello (see König, 119). Then, he lists the books that Orsini kept in his own possession (“ista sunt apud me”), i.e. [from our edition, sec. 39]: “Novellam Johannis Andre?e〈, … Plautum in comediis XX, … Josephum Antiquitatum, … Vincentium istorial(em) in duobus voluminibus [ibid.].” It is true that, in his transcription of the will, König does not note that there are certain items in the Cancellieri list which do not appear in the will. If one reads the beginning of his chapter 12, “Giordano Orsinis Bibliothek,” however, one realizes that König must have been aware that Orsini possessed more books than were in the will: “Das äußere Bild, das wir auf Grund des noch vorhandenen Kataloges [i.e., Cancellieri] von ihr [i.e., der Bibliothek] bekommen, gestaltet sich etwa folgendermaßen: Die Sammlung enthielt über 350 [my emphasis] Bände und 7 Rollen” (103). Somewhat later, when discussing the fate of the cardinal's library, König gives the number 278 (i.e., 274 + 4 above) as the number of books left in the will (“sie [i.e., the Cardinal's Büchersammlung] umfaßte 278 Bände, über 70 kamen bis zu seinem Tode noch hinzu”). Because of this, it is difficult to see how Questa (19 n. 19) could have made the following accusation: “Il Koenig ha pubblicato una copia notarile coeva, parziale … ommettendo però la lista dei codici, per la quale rinvia a Cancellieri, F., … p. 912. Ma il Koenig è stato imprudente, non accorgendosi che occorreva distinguere tra codici posseduti da Orsini e quelli lasciati alla Basilica …” I cannot help but think that Mercati's comments (n. 29, above), were what led Questa down the wrong track.Google Scholar

page 267 note 36 Lombardi and Onofri, 374: “A nostro parere esso non può essere però di molto precedente o posteriore al testamento, come ci si può accorgere se si paragonano questi due documenti con gli inventari posteriori.” They even suggest the possibility that the list in the roll could predate the will, given that the list in the will is basically “una selezione ragionata del intero patrimonio librario dell’Orsini e tale selezione non poteva avvenire che sulla base di un inventorio completo di cui il rotolo può esser copia od originale stesso” (374–75). But they have not been able to find decisive proof for this.Google Scholar

page 267 note 37 Ibid. 376–77.Google Scholar

page 267 note 38 Ibid. 377–78.Google Scholar

page 268 note 39 Ibid. 371–72 n.2.Google Scholar

page 268 note 40 Ibid. 378–79.Google Scholar

page 268 note 41 Ibid. The texts are also identified as Armenian in König, chap. 12, “Giordano Orsinis Bibliothek,” 103–107, at 103, “… zwei in armenischer, …” Not irrelevant in this respect is the fact that the church which the cardinal planned to turn into a library, San Biagio (now in the Via Giulia), originally followed the Armenian rite.Google Scholar

page 268 note 42 A more extensive statement of the aims of the seminar project with which Lombardi and Onofri are involved (sponsored by the Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica), can be found in Lombardi, G., “Aspetti della produzione e circolazione del libro a Roma nel XV secolo,” in Brezzi and Lorch, eds., Umanesimo a Roma nel Quattrocento (n. 1 above), 67–80.Google Scholar

page 268 note 43 See edition below, ad fin. and König, 81–82.Google Scholar

page 268 note 44 See König, chap. 10, “Giordano Orsinis Güterbesitz, Bauten und Testament,” 79–82.Google Scholar

page 269 note 45 Could it be that these are not the cardinal's nephews but actually his sons, and that the “Jeronia” mentioned is the cardinal's mistress? This possibility was suggested to me and is presently being investigated by Prof. Katherine Gill, to whom I here record my thanks. König notes that the cardinal, in March 1435, gave to his nephew Giovanni the titular abbacy at the Benedictine cloister of Farsa, which the cardinal himself had held since 1420 (König, 79; see also the literature cited there). It is also mentioned that Latino, again identified by König as the cardinal's nephew, later came into possession of the Orsini palazzo on Monte Giordano, which the cardinal himself seems never to have owned but in which he lived for various periods (König, 80, n. 2; see the literature cited there). There is otherwise no other notice of the two nephews in König. Later in the will (sec. 41) the cardinal establishes his universal heirs (see discussion below); in so doing, he mentions the sons of his brother Carlo as his nephews without, however, giving the names Latinus (Latino) and Johannes (Giovanni).Google Scholar

page 269 note 46 These kinds of inheritance conditions were common. One example is that of the then cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Giacomo Savelli, in 1279 (six years later he would be elected Pope Honorius IV), who excluded women completely from inheritance unless all male descendants, including collateral ones, were failing. See Les Registres d’Honorius IV, ed. Prou, M. (Paris, 1888), 577–83, no. 823, cited in Brentano, R., Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome (1974; 2nd ed., Berkeley, 1991), 183–84.Google Scholar

page 269 note 47 And, one presumes, the ecclesiastical books which he has pledged unconditionally and explicitly to the monastery he will found (secs. 37–38), as well as those books which he implicitly pledges to the church of Sant’ Andrea in Galeria (in sec. 40).Google Scholar

page 270 note 48 See König, 82–103.Google Scholar

page 270 note 49 On the topic of dowries, see Kirshner, J. and Molho, A., “The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market in Early Quattrocento Florence,” Journal of Modern History 50 (1978): 403–38. In the De curiae commodis, Lapo da Castiglionchio, in a section defending the possession of wealth by curialists, describes “helping the poor and afflicted and giving them dowries so that their daughters can be properly placed” as “the duties of a holy and religious man.” (“Ea vero cum assint [i.e., divitiae], si ornentur copiis, magis elucescere et plus apud omnes gentes auctoritatis et admirationis habere, praesertim cum summa illis potestate permissa, ea proposita sint quae saepe sine maximis sumptibus recte administrari non possint, ut sublevare inopes et calamitosos dotesque illis ad filias locandas impendere, quae sancti religiosique viri officia sunt, edificare templa, collapsa instaurare et rebus omnibus exornare, cultus, sacra, ceremonias instituere, quae magnificentissimo semper apparatu ac pompa immortalem Deum fieri voluisse sacrae testantur historiae.”) See ed. Celenza, 8.27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 270 note 50 It should be explicitly emphasized that extensive identifications of the books contained in the will have been foregone here, for two reasons: first, Lombardi and Onofri have promised a study of the cardinal's library; second (and more importantly), the will is not the only, or even the most important, source for determining the contents of the cardinal's library (see the discussion of Lombardi and Onofri, n. 35 above). In addition, there is an overview of the cardinal's library in the unpublished Tesi di laurea of Antonio Ciaralli, “Biblioteche e scritture nella Roma del primo Umanesimo: Giordano Orsini e sui libri,” Università degli studi ‘La sapienza’ di Roma, anno academico 1989–90, in which many of the cardinal's books are tentatively identified; there is also a wealth of paleographical information pertaining to the codices which made up his library.Google Scholar

page 270 note 51 On the structure and use of late medieval libraries, see the intriguing observations of Armando Petrucci, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture, trans. Charles Radding, M. (New Haven, Conn., 1995), 209–35; the cited literature is an excellent selection of secondary materials pertinent to late medieval and Renaissance libraries. For the pontifical library during the schism, see M.-H. Jullien de Pommerol and J. Monfrin, La bibliothèque pontificale à Avignon et à Peñiscola pendant le grand schisme d'occident et sa dispersion. Inventaires et concordances, 2 vols. (Rome, 1991).Google Scholar

page 271 note 52 Cf. König, 105.Google Scholar

page 271 note 53 Petrarch conspicuously omitted his large library from his will, but he had previously considered leaving it to the government of Venice, where he had planned to move. In addition, in one of his Epistolae variae, he refers to the library he would have left to Venice as a bibliotheca publica. See Theodor Mommsen, E., Petrarch's Testament (Ithaca, N.Y., 1957), 43–50; reprinted as “The Last Will: A Personal Document of Petrarch's Old Age,” in Mommsen, T. E., Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Eugene Rice, F., Jr. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1959), 197–235, at 229–35; Berthold Ullman, L. and Stadter, Philip A., The Public Library of Renaissance Florence (Padua, 1972), 6, n. 2. For Salutati, see his De fato 2.6: “Let there be founded public libraries into which a copy of all books would be collected; let the most learned men be placed in charge of the libraries, who would revise the books with most diligent collation, and who would know how to remove all discord of their [textual] differences with the judgment of correct definition.” (“Constituantur bibliothecae publicae in quas omnium librorum copia congeratur, preponanturque viri peritissimi bibliothecis, qui libros diligentissima collatione revideant et omnem varietatem discordiam recte diffinitionis iudicio noverint removere” [ibid., 6 n. 3, for Latin text]). See also Ronald Witt, G., Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life and Works of Coluccio Salutati (Durham, N.C., 1983), 228, n. 5.Google Scholar

page 271 note 54 On the library of San Marco, see Ullman and Stadter, The Public Library. Google Scholar

page 271 note 55 On liturgical dress, see, in general: Wharton Marriott, B., Vestiarium Christianum (London, 1868), and Joseph Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient (Darmstadt, 1964).Google Scholar

page 272 note 56 König confused the initial “Y” of the word with an “I” and his mistake followed thence.Google Scholar

page 272 note 57 See König, 78 and 82.Google Scholar

page 272 note 58 See Cerrati, M. in Alpharanus, T., De Basilicae vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura, ed. Cerrati, M., 42–43 n. 4: “In prossimità di questo altare [i.e., Sancta Maria de Pregnantibus] stava nel secolo XV un altare di Giovanni, S. Battista: ce lo dimostra il testamento del Cardinale Giordano Orsini …,” and then he goes on to cite König's edition of the will, in which the mistake of “Ioannis” is included. I have been unable to find any indication of an altar of Saint Ivo in the accounts of the old basilica by Petrus Manlius and Maffeo Vegio. See Manlius, P., Historia Basilicae antiquae Apostoli, S. P. in Vaticano in AS Junii 7.2. 37–56; Vegius, M., De rebus antiquis memorabilibus Basilicae Petri Romae, S. in AS Junii 7.2. 61–85. The general location of the altar of Sancta Maria de Pregnantibus has itself not been a completely undisputed question. Even the editor of the two just-mentioned treatises in the Acta Sanctorum, in a commentary offered after them, proffers a Dissertatio intercalaris de situ sacelli et altaris, Mariae de Praegnantibus, S. appellati (see AS 7.2. 106–109).Google Scholar

page 273 note 59 König, 81–82, and 82 n.1.Google Scholar

page 275 note 1 Pregnantium] The abbreviation in A and C looks like preni; pregnantium Kön makes sense, since this refers to the Capella Sanctae Mariae de Pregnantibus in the old basilica, founded in 1330 by Giovanni Gaetani Orsini, which Giordano richly restored in 1434 (see König, 78).Google Scholar

page 280 note 2 Biblia] The cardinal here uses the nominative, although he had been using accusatives, as objects of relinquo in [24].Google Scholar

page 280 note 3 In the remainder of this portion of the list, the cardinal uses the nominative case to report the names of the books.Google Scholar

page 281 note 4 Ps.-Cicero's De re militari was a thirteenth-century epitome of Vegetius De re militari, which went occasionally under the name of Cicero. See Sabbadini, Le scoperte, 2:215. Here Sabbadini mentions that Petrarch sought this pseudo-Ciceronian work in vain (cf. Fam. 24.4; Rossi ed. 4:230) and that Sicco Polenton called it inauthentic. Sabbadini neglects to mention that Angelo Decembrio also condemned it as spurious in his De politia litteraria I, 10 (BAV, Vat. Lat. MS 1794, fol. 22v).Google Scholar

page 282 note 5 stant] stare (?)Google Scholar

page 283 note 6 Or perhaps istorial(ium), extended here to follow the syntax in other places.Google Scholar

page 284 note 7 salvo legato prescripto facto Basilice Sancti Petri] ie., “except the aforesaid donation made to the basilica of Saint Peter”; but in addition to the books left to the basilica of Saint Peter, the cardinal must also mean to except the ecclesiastical books mentioned explicitly in sections 37–38 (and destined for the monastery he wished to found) and implicitly in section 40 (from his daily chapel) destined for the church of Sant' Andrea in Galeria.Google Scholar

page 284 note 8 (prosequi)] Merc reads prepi; cf. 164, n.1 “parola dubbia; forse vollero scrivere ⟪et ipsii⟫. Dopo s'intenda: ⟪altrimenti no⟫.” The abbreviation, ppi with a line above it, is not a standard one for prosequi; I suggest it only because it seems to work in context.Google Scholar