Add MS 8288

COLLECTION of relazioni, tracts, wills and other papers relating to the history of the Church in Italy and Bavaria, and to the lives of Cardinals Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri, Reginald Pole, Alessandro Cesarini, and Flavio Chigi; circa 1542-1710. Italian and Latin. Copies, partly printed (ff. 192-203v). The collection contains (ff. 2-65) papers relating the dispute between Cardinal Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri degli Albertoni, nephew and prime minister of Pope Clement X (1670-1676), and the French ambassador Duc François Annibal II d'Estrées. Altieri was unpopular and had often been accused of concentrating power in his hands in order to increase his new, but already prodigious wealth. The dispute began with the issue of Altieri's edict on 11 Sept. 1674, which introduced an import duty on foreign goods and abolished all the diplomatic privileges. Estrées, who was already in financial difficulties, was enraged by the edict and secured the support of the ambassadors Pietro Mocenigo of Venice and Juan Everardo Nitardo of Spain, and the Imperial ambassador Cardinal Friedrich Landgraf of Hessen-Darmstadt in his dispute against the Cardinal Nepote. The dispute was settled only when Clement X revoked Altieri's edict. Other related collections in Add. 8336 (ff. 106-267v), 8378, and 8394. For Cardinal Altieri see DBI, 2 (1960), pp. 561-564. The MS. also includes: - (a) ff. 138-178v, papers and wills relating to Cardinal Alessandro Cesarini and relatives, circa 1542-1585, in Latin; - (b) ff. 179-191v, will of Cardinal Flavio Chigi, 1692, in Italian; - (c) ff. 204-244v, papers relating to the Benedictine Order in Bavaria, 16th-17th cent, in Latin. Table of contents (ff. 1-1v). 'D.V.9' and 'LXXX' in pencil, and stamp 'biblioth / h.f. / J770' on f. i: identifiable with Falconieri MS. 80 in Guilford's catalogue Add. 8220, f. 26v. Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. '290' in pencil at center of f. i. Purchased, together with Add. 8282-8287, 8289, 8344, 8358, 8433, 8688, 8788, and possibly 8416, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 290 (part).

Paper; ff. 245+i, plus one unfoliated blank after ff. 1, 18, 23, 24, 31, 50, 65, 121, 154, 190, 226, 244. Old foliation in ink '1-255' (ff. 2-245), including blanks. Composite volume. 281 x 205mm. Several Italian hands. Guilford binding of quarter vellum with decorated paper covers over pasteboards.

The MS. includes:

1. ff. 70-75v. 'Dell'Arco di Portogallo', short tract relating to the so-called Arco di Portogallo (Arch of Portugal) in Rome, demolished in 1662; 1662. Italian and Latin. Copy. Inc. 'Il passato mese di agosto mi d' ordine di Nostro Signore fatto scrivere quello ch'io sapeva'.

2. ff. 86-121v. 'De preparatione ad Mortem / Ex Cod. MS. in quo Domnus Joannes Bona Congregationis S. Bernardi Ordinis Cisterciensis Monachus (deinde Tit. S. Bernardi ad Termas S.R.E. Cardinalis) quotidiana sua exercitia spiritualia descripta habebat', posthumous theological tract by Cardinal Giovanni Bona (d. 1674); after 1674. Latin. Copy. Inc. 'De preparatione ad Mortem / § 1 / Stoliditas hominum non se preparantium ad Mortem / Quotidie morimus'. Text divided into nine chapters. With note (f. 86) 'Opus posthumum, et sermone impolitum', and table of contents (ff. 87-87v) added later.

3. ff. 122-137. 'Vita del Cardinal Polo fatta da Monsignor Ludovico Beccatello, Arcivescovo di Ragusa; vi si tratta di concetto di religione, dell'apostasia del Re d'Inghilterra, della creatione di Giulio 3o et altro con sentirvisimotti et argutie pie che Sua Signoria Illustrissima n'era pieno dicendole dottamente e spesso', life of Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500-1558) by Ludovico Beccadelli, Archbishop of Dubrovnik; circa 1561. Italian. Copy. Inc. 'A mia sodisfattione et a richiesta de molti'. Published as L. Beccadelli, 'Vita di Reginaldo Polo', in Monumenti di varia letteratura, vol. 2, edited by G.B. Morandi (Bologna, 1797-1804), pp 277-333; translated by Benjamin Pye as The Life of Cardinal Reginald Pole, Written Originally in Italian by Ludovico Beccadelli (London: Bathurst, 1766), B.L. copies 672.c.16, 295.l.17, and G.1352.

4. ff. 192-203. Testamento della chiara memoria di Donna Maria Pallavicini Rospigliosi Duchessa di Zagarolo. [Rome]. [Typis de Comitibus]. 1710. 4°. [12] leaves. 275 x 200mm. Italian. Printed.