Popes, officials and feudatories: Francesco Guicciardini and papal government, 1516-1534

This dissertation examines the career of Francesco Guicciardini in the administration of the papal states between 1516 and 1534. I have drawn from the daily correspondence written by Guicciardini from his various offices, as well as from the Archives of the Apostolic Secretariat in the Vatican, to expose the relationship which existed between papal officials and local feudatories, factions and malefactors. Based on my research I argue that Guicciardini's execution of his duties as papal governor in Modena, Reggio and Bologna, and as President in Romagna, embodied an attempt to impose a rational, "bureaucratic," mode of government in the papal territories at the expense of traditional, "patrimonial" practices. However, the imposition of one form of rule in place of another was not simply a bilateral process. It was a tripartite process characterized by conflict among different political cultures embodied in the figures of the ruler (the popes), his officials and the local feudatories.;The "Introduction" reviews the failure of recent historiographical approaches to the papal state and, more generally, the regional states in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to identify the conflict of political cultures at the heart of territorial rule during this period. The next three chapters, "Guicciardini in Emilia, 1516-1523," "Romagna and Rome: Guicciardini and the Presidency, 1524-1526," and "The Last 'Governo': Bologna, 1531-1534," are case studies showing Guicciardini in office. A pattern of rule is revealed in Guicciardini's efforts to establish his authority on the local level. He tried to undermine the existence of autonomous nuclei of power in the area under his jurisdiction, especially the possession by local feudatories of jurisdictional rights of their own; he tried to neutralize the power of factions and curtail the practice of vendetta. In each of his offices, Guicciardini endeavored to advance his program by associating his actions with the promotion of the interests of the ruler over all other interests. This strategy did not always succeed. Sometimes the pope objected to his actions, other times the local feudatories successfully petitioned against Guicciardini's practices to the pope. The narration of the exchanges among the pope, Guicciardini and the local feudatories serves to reinvigorate the otherwise sterile discussion of state formation in Italy in the early modern period.