Add MS 8380

LIVES OF POPE INNOCENT XII AND CARDINALS DURING HIS PONTIFICATE; an account written by Count Orazio D'Elci; 1699-1701. Italian. Copy, engraved portrait (f. 1v). Main title of MS. (f. 2) 'Vita di Papa Innocenzo XII e de' signori cardinali viventi in quel ponteficato presentat'all'ill.mo et ecc.mo s.gre marchese Clemente Vitelli ambasciatore straordinario appresso detto Pontefice per Sua Altezza Reale il serenissimo Cosimo 3^o Gran Duca di Toscana dal conte Orazio Delci nobile senese l'anno 1699. Opera erudita...', followed by (f. 2v) an anti-Catholic sonnet addressed to the author praising him for his revelations of the cardinals' characters and the politics of the Roman Curia, 'All'autore delle vite de Cardinali [...] Le 7 Provincie Unite saluta'; title on second title-page (f. 3) 'Relazione della corte di Roma composta estemporaneamente da un cavaliere senese ...'. The first part of the work (ff. 3-29v) is an account of the papacy of Innocent XII (inc. 'Roma 16 luglio 1699. Il riverito commando di vostra Eccellenza', expl. è di poi restato egli indietro'), followed by accounts of Innocent's final illness and death: (ff. 31-37v) 'Relazione di quanto si è negoziato in questa lunga, e pericolosa infermità di Papa Innocenzio XII^o. Roma l'8 di dicembre 1699' (inc. 'Giunto appena l'avviso in Frascati', expl. 'tanto uno s'inganna (benchè accorto) nel proprio interesse') and (ff. 38v-40v) 'Dell'ultima infermità, e morte di Papa Innocenzo XII^o' (inc. 'Roma 25 settembre 1700. Havendo Sua Santità, dopo tanti altri patimenti'). The second part of the work (ff. 41-195v) comprises biographies of the sixty-four cardinals in the Sacred College under Innocent (indexed by their rank, i.e. 'vescovi', 'preti', 'diaconi', on ff. 30-30v, 'Nota di tutti li cardinali 64 viventi posti secondo il suo ordine',) beginning with Alderano Cybo 'Primo vescovo decano del Sacro Collegio' and ending (f. 191v) with Vincenzo Grimani. At the end of the text (ff. 196-196v) 'Protesta fatta fare all'autore delle vite di Innocenzo XII e de Cardinali', signed by the author and dated (from his deathbed) 13 April 1701, a retraction of his lives of the cardinals written 'con si poca verità, e si tanta passione', the phrasing of the title and marginal annotations implying that it was composed at the request of (or enforced by) the College of Cardinals, which is in turn followed by (f. 197) a sonnet praising him for this action 'Sopra la Christiana e lodevolissima dichiarazione fatta dal moribondo Conte Orazio d'Elci', inc. 'Langue Orazio, e il malor ch'ange la salma'. Immediately following the sonnet (ff. 197-197v) there is an 'Estratto dal testamento del fu cardinal Girolamo Casanatta' (died 1700), presumably intended as a supplement to the life of Casanate on ff. 66v-69. The biographies of the cardinals only, with some updated additions not by d'Elci, were published, apparently for the first time, in English translation in 1706: The present state of the court of Rome: or, the Lives of the present Pope Clement XI and of the present College of Cardinals. Written originally in Italian, by a gentleman belonging to the court of Rome, and newly translated into English from the Italian manuscript, never as yet made publick (London, s.n., 1706. BL copy 4863.ccc.1). Some details on d'Elci, this work and its contents and his consequent disgrace can be found in the publisher's preface to this edition. Other biographical information on d'Elci (but with no reference to this work) can be found in Notizie istoriche degli Arcadi morti, v. 1 (Rome, 1720). The text of the retraction Protestatio auctoris in Italian and Latin, with some differences from the text in the present MS. but with no further comment on the work itself, was printed at the end of the 5th vol. (covering the papacy of Innocent XII) of Giovanni Palazzi, Fasti cardinalium omnium sanctae ecclesiae romanae (Venice, 1703. BL copy 4570.k.1). The present MS. is listed in Palma di Cesnola, no. 1545, p. 122 (the author's name is mistranscribed as 'Dolci'). Another MS. copy of the text (of the lives of Innocent XII and the cardinals only, lacking the accompanying material on d'Elci found in the present volume) at BL Add. 33,754; Pastor in The History of the Popes, vol. 37 (London, 1957), p. 236, n. 1, refers to a MS. copy of Orazio d'Elce's [sic] Relatione on Innocent XII in the Stiftsbibliothek in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. Pasted down on f. 1v, Innocentius XII Pignatellus pontifex maximus, engraved portrait of Innocent XII, artist 'Ludovico David', engraver 'Hubertus Vincent'; circa 1691. [Rome]. Si vendono in Parione in bottega di Matteo Giudice. [1691?]. [1] leaf. Printed. Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. Purchased, together with Add. 8371, 8375, 8379, 8381, 8429, and 8472, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 556.

Paper; ff. 197+iii, plus one unfoliated blank after f. 46. Modern foliation in pencil '1-197' (followed here). Old pagination in ink '5-382', omitting pp. 93-98 and with final leaf (f. 197) unpaginated. Circa 283 x 215mm. One Italian hand. Full vellum binding.