A Roman Carnival (1601) Presented by: Brendan Dooley Research Coordinator The Medici Archive Project.

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DOCUMENT CITATION:

Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 4028, c. 23 (Entry 8198 in the "Documentary Sources" database.)

TRANSLATION:

Sunday morning [25 February]. . . Our Lord [Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini] came down to St. Peter’s to celebrate mass. Afterwards, assisted by Cardinals [Cesare] Baronio, [Roberto] Bellarmino, [Silvio] Antoniano and San Marcello [Paolo Emilio Zachia], he personally baptized a Jew from the Corcozzi [Corcos] family which is among the most prominent in the local ghetto. At the same time he christened a German heretic who had recently converted to the Catholic faith. His Holiness used words full of paternal and religious zeal with both of these and gave them some very valuable gifts. [. . .] The next morning [26 February], which was Monday, His Excellency Giovanni Francesco [Gian Francesco Aldobrandini] got permission from Our Lord [the Pope] for the people of this city to amuse themselves by going around in masks during these last few days of carnival. To encourage the others, the Prior [Salvestro Aldobrandini] and His Excellency’s other children [Giorgio and Ippolito] were the first to show themselves in the Corso with masks. And then the Jews were also allowed to begin running their races. On the following day [27 February], a set of very strict regulations was proclaimed in order to avoid scandalous occurrences of any sort, forbidding (among other things) that whores and ecclesiastics be present in the Corso on the day when races are run. All this week, beginning yesterday [2 March], is therefore dedicated to masking, games and carnival revels. Various comedies are also being performed and on Sunday [25 February] evening in particular there was a beautiful tragicomedy in the Collegio Clementino, performed in the presence of six cardinals. Another was performed in the house of the Duke of Zagarola [ie. Zagarolo; Marzio Colonna]. Then on Wednesday [28 February], the races of old men, young men and children were held. In the Corso, some transgressors of the above mentioned proclamation were publicly given the rope.

TRANSCRIPTION:

[. . .] Domenica mattina [. . .] Nostro Signore calò in San Pietro a celebrar messa, dopo la quale con l’assistenza dei SS.ri Car.li Baronio, Bellarmino, Antoniani [Antoniano] et San Marcello [Paolo Emilio Zachia], battezzò di propria mano uno hebreo della famiglia de Corcozzi principale di questo ghetto, et cresimò un heretico di Germania che ultimamente si è convertito alla fede cattolica, havendo all’uno et all’altro S. B. usato parole piene di paterno et religioso zelo, con alcuni regali di molto valore. [. . .] Quella mattina di Lunedì l’ecc.mo Sig. Giovanni Francesco [Aldobrandini] ottenne già da N. S., che questi pochi giorni di Carnevale per ricreatione di questa città si potessero far maschere, et così il giorno il Priore [Salvestro] et gli altri figli [Giorgio, Ippolito] di S. E., per assicurar gli altri, furno i primi a lasciarsi vedere per il Corso in maschera, et fu dato anco principio dalli Hebrei al correre delli pallii, sendosi il giorno seguente pubblicato bando rigoroso con bonissimi ordini afinchè non segua scandalo, prohibendosi tra le altre cose, che nel Corso, nel giorno che si corrono i pallii, non intervenghino nè religiosi nè meretrici, talche tutta questa settimana da hieri in poi si è atteso a far maschere et altre bagordi et giochi carnevaleschi; sendosi anco recitate diverse comedie et particolarmente domenica sera fu rappresentata una bellissima tragicomedia nel Collegio Clementino dove intervennero 6 cardinali, et un altra in casa del Duca di Zagarola, sendosi giovedì corsi li pallii dei vecchi, giovani et putti [. . .] et fu pubblicamente data la corda nel Corso ad alcuni trasgressori del sopradetto bando.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

This "avviso" describes the last and most intense phase of the Roman carnival season in the year 1601. Written on Saturday 3 March, the jollification still had another three days to run. Then came Ash Wednesday and the protracted penitential austerities of Lent.

In Rome, the inexorable succession of "Carnevale" and "Quaresima" was played out as an annual moral drama involving all of her inhabitants. During carnival—at least in theory—the customary rules of social, religious and political order were temporarily suspended. The lid came off the city’s collective inhibitions; tensions were released and presumably neutralized; then the lid went back in place and life went on much as ever.

As the unidentified author of the present "avviso" makes clear, "masks" played a crucial role in this licensed pursuit of carnival pleasures. While the mask disguised the user’s personal identity, a voluminous over-garment could also hide his or her social identity as expressed by their characteristic mode of dress. During carnival, the essential distinctions between master and servant, nobleman and artisan, priest and layman, Jew and gentile, whore and nun could thus be banished from sight if not from mind, leaving the anonymous reveler free to cross the accustomed social and moral boundaries without fear of repercussion—at least in theory.

In point of fact, the transgressive elements of carnival merrymaking were sometimes so tightly controlled by the authorities as to reduce them to symbolic performances. In 1601, for example, we see Gian Francesco Aldobrandini, a top official in the city government, requesting and receiving permission from his uncle Pope Clement VIII for the people to take to the streets in festive disguise. Then Salvestro (age 11), head of the Roman convocation of the Knights of Malta, along with Gian Francesco’s other children, Giorgio, and Ippolito, opened the event by appearing personally in the Corso (the long street running from Piazza del Popolo to the Capitoline Hill) which was the traditional setting for such celebrations. Though protective anonymity was the alleged function of the carnival mask, the author of the present "avviso" makes it clear that this Aldobrandini family outing was a carefully staged public event. The author also notes the unusual rush of theatrical entertainments ("comedies" and "tragicomedies"), probably also by special dispensation, since such spectacles were tightly controlled in papal Rome and during some reigns entirely banned.

If carnival was in fact an elaborate play on alternating levels of social order and disorder, there was no more effective moment for stylized dramas involving Protestants and Jews. In his report from 1601, the author of our "avviso" juxtaposed the grandiose conversion of two featured outsiders, a German heretic and a member of an eminent Roman Jewish family (at the hands of the Pope, in the Basilica of St. Peter’s, with opulent rewards) with the mandatory "palio degli ebrei" ("the race of the Jews") through a Corso thronged with potentially unruly revelers.

Anything that took place in the city of Rome was meant to be read as an exemplary lesson for the entire Christian world. The Pope’s Jews thus had a unique position in Roman society, quite unlike that in other cities in Italy or elsewhere in Europe. In historical terms, the Roman Jewish community was the oldest in existence, dating back to the first century BC. Though the Jews had survived many ups and downs in their relationship with the Catholic majority, the Counter Reformation brought a notable worsening of their situation. In 1555, Pope Paul IV Carafa mandated the establishment of a Roman ghetto on even more stringent terms than that created in Venice forty years earlier. Not only were the Jews forced to live in an enclosed community and assigned a distinctive mode of dress, their economic activities were limited to lending money and selling second-hand items. In 1566, Pius IV de’ Medici di Milano exacerbated the already grave overcrowding of the ghetto by excluding Jews from all other cities in the Papal states except the port of Ancona. By the time of our "avviso" of 1601, however, many of these restrictions had been lifted. Jews were allowed to exercise any profession, craft or trade, and the enclosed territory of the Ghetto was extended along the Tiber River. In these years, the population of the Roman Ghetto reached approximately 2300, all crammed into six and seven-story buildings rising above a few narrow streets.

According to the Popes, the best escape from this urban congestion was conversion to Catholicism. With this end in mind, Gregory XIII Boncompagni (1572-85) ordered the Jews to convene for evangelical sermons every Saturday at the church of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, right outside the Ghetto walls, and increased financing for the College of Neophytes to accomodate those who opted to enter the Christian fold. As we hear in the present "avviso", Clement VIII Aldobrandini (1592-1605) played a conspicuous public role in the conversion of prominent non-believers.

The "palio degli ebrei" or "race of the Jews" in the Corso had a long and peculiar history of its own predating the Counter Reformation by several centuries. At one point, Christian "jockeys" in the race rode Jews instead of horses. Another festive "game" of the season was to roll a Jew in a nailed barrel down the Testaccio Hill. By the mid-sixteenth century, there are accounts of the Pope personally watching "races of barbarians, buffaloes, donkeys and Jews," from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia (where four centuries later Mussolini made his most famous public appearances.) By the 1580s, the Jews are known to have run the race naked; later, they evidently began to assume elaborate costumes, thereby reversing the originally humiliating intention of the event. In 1668, Pope Clement IX Rospigliosi abolished the "palio degli ebrei", substituting an annual tax of 300 scudi for the festive decoration of the street and a stylized ceremony of homage to the Pope on the Capitoline Hill.

Though Carnival offered the populace many unusual and compelling spectacles, there was little real opportunity for subverting the established order. Indeed, in the context of the year, this brief "silly season" probably appeared as the exception that confirmed all of the set rules. The author of the "avviso" pointedly emphasized the steps taken to limit "scandalous occurences" and the immediate penalties for their trangression. Why were "whores and ecclesiastics" banned from the Corso while the races were being run? Would their presence have distracted from the exemplary spectacle? Or was there too much scope for moral confusion if they were allowed to mingle with the crowd (and each other) in carnival disguise?

Public punishments (capital, corporal and otherwise) traditionally functioned as both public entertainments and public lessons. They thus formed a highly suitable addition to the carnival show. What exactly was the punishment mandated by the Papal proclamation? Malefactors are recorded as having been "publicly given the rope." Most likely, they were corrected with the "strappado" - an excruciating if elegantly simple punishment. The offender’s hands were roped behind his back and he was then hoisted into the air, effectively dislocating several sets of joints.

"AVVISI", or anonymous handwritten news sheets, were one of the chief means of communicating current events throughout Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For another example from Rome half a century later, see "Nice Place When They Finish It" (February 2001 "Document of the Month".)

For another noteworthy case of Carnival merry-making, see
"Enter Fra Bernardo" (March 2000 "Document of the Month".)