Aeneas redivivus: Piccolomini and Virgil

From Piccolomini to Pope Pius II: Musings on a Renaissance Holy Man Baylor University (Waco, Texas), Armstrong Browning Library, Treasure Room Friday, 27 April 2018 1 Fabio Stok (University of Rome Tor Vergata) Aeneas redivivus: Piccolomini and Virgil Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini was elected Pope on 3 September 1458 and chose the name Pius, becoming Pius II. The first Pope having this name was Pius I, in the 2nd Century. It is commonly assumed that Piccolomini chose the name Pius thinking not, as usual, of his predecessor, but of the formular epithet of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid. In this way Piccolomini was perhaps the only Pope who, in choosing a new name, also confirmed his old name, that is Aeneas Piccolomini’s choice raises some questions about its implications, its ideological and political significance, and also about his reception of Virgil. It was not usual, for a Pope, to adopt a name ispired by a pagan author. Although Piccolomini’s choice does not seem to have aroused critical reactions or remarks, in the 15th century reading Virgil had been criticized by some Christian theologians. Piccolomini knew these positions and in the Commentaries he recalls an episode of religious hostility towards Virgil, the destruction of a statue of the poet in Mantua, ordered in 1397 by Carlo Malatesta, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga’s tutor, “under the pretext of religion” (sub obtentu religionis), as he writes.[1] He mentions a letter of the humanist Pier Paolo Vergerio, and this was perhaps the source of his knowledge about the episode. 2 Vergerio discussed the charges against Virgil and argued that they were groundless. Another humanist, Coluccio Salutati, who commented on this episode in a letter, defended the legitimacy of poetry in Christian culture and recalled that Augustine used the pagan poets against the pagan religion. Pius, instead does not discuss the question, but simply attributes Malatesta’s decision to his roughness and ignorance and seems to consider the latter’s opinion that the statue of a pagan man would encourage the idolatry of the people to be ridiculous. Pius’s attitude reflectes the success of Humanism from the time of Vergerio and Salutati, and the revaluation of the classical authors that had occurred in the last decades, particularly under the pontificate of Nicolaus V. But it is in any case opportune to explore the implications of Piccolomini’s choice of the name “Pius” and to clarify what the choise of a Virgilian name implied. We can wonder, particularly, if by becoming Pius Piccolomini was suggesting a rejection of his previous identitity as Aeneas, emphasizing only the pietas, as a value coeherent with the Christian religion, or considered pius as a positive qualification of Aeneas, proposing himself as Aeneas the Pius. This alternative obviously regards the strategy of comunication used by the Pope, and how he wanted his new name to be interpreted. We can therefore reword the alternative in these terms: the name chosen by Piccolomini has to be interpreted as being in opposition to the previous name Aeneas, or as completive of it? It should be borne in mind that the pietas of Virgil’s Aeneas was also appreciated by Virgil’s Christian critics, for example by Lactantius, 3 who polemicized with Virgil not because Aeneas is called pius, but because the hero, in the poem, is not always pius, for example when he is killing Turnus. Both strategies, as we will see, were adopted by Piccolomini, in the different contexts of his political and rhetorical communication. The first one is the best known, thanks to his famous statement “reject Aeneas, accept Pius”, Aeneam reiicite, Pium suscipite. It was proposed in the Bulla Execrabilis, addressed in 1460 to the University of Cologne.[2] With this statement Pius was inviting people not to attribute to the Pope what he had written before his election: “our parents gave us a pagan name at birth, we took a Christian one in the apostolate». The juvenile works disowned in 1460 were perhaps also his literary works (for instance, the sexually hot novel Historia de duobus amantibus), but what Pius considered more problematic in his previous publishing activity was mostly the Libellus dialogorum de auctoritate Concilii, published in 1441. In this book Piccolomini was supporting the conciliarist position, that is the theory according to which the authority of the Council is higher than that of the Pope. During the Council of Basel Piccolomini supported this view, and in 1439, when the Council deposed Pope Eugenius IV, he became the secretary of the new Pope, Felix V. But, in the following years, Piccolimini modified his position and in 1445 he came to Rome and asked Eugenius for forgiveness. The Pope forgave him and entrusted to Aeneas a delicate mission in Germany, to obtain the submission of the German Princes to the Pope’s authority. The mission was successful and Aeneas was rewarded and in 1447 was appointed Bishop of Trieste. 4 In the following years Piccolomini’s opponents frequently used his old conciliarist position to denigrate him, and he was forced on various occasions to confirm his rejection of the conciliarist theory: in 1450 he published a revised history of the Council, De rebus Basileae gestis stante vel dissoluto Concilio, where the participle dissolutus underlines that Piccolomini considered that experience a totally closed chapter; in 1459 Papal authority was sanctioned by the Bulla Execrabilis, and again in 1463, in the above-mentioned Bulla Retractationis, Pius rejected the view he had held when he was young and wrote the statement I quoted above, “reject Aeneas, accept Pius”. A different strategy regarding the relation between Pius and Aeneas is adopted by Piccolomini in the work he wrote in the last years of his life, the Commentaries. It is a bulky autobiography, but also a history of the political events of his times, and it includes geographical, ethnographical and historical digressions. It is perhaps a coincidence that the Commentaries are divided into 12 Books, like the Aeneid. A Thirteenth Book was dictated by Piccolomini in the last months of his life, and concerns the events occurring in the first half of 1464 (the Twelfth Book ends by recounting the events up to 31 December 1463). We can only imagine that Piccolomini, when dictating the incomplete thirteenth Book, was thinking of the completion of the Aeneid written some decades before by Maffeus Vegius. In the Commentaries Virgil and the Aeneid are frequently echoed, and it is not possibile here to examine in detail the modalities of this reception. I prefer to focus on the overall Aeneadic inspiration of the autobiography: Aeneas Piccolomini, like 5 Virgil’s Aeneas, is the protagonist of a mission, and has a providential role. The role of Virgil’s Aeneas is to prepare the foundation of Rome and its Empire. The role of Aeneas Pius is to strenghten and refound the Roman Church. Rome is an important link between the two Aeneas. Both are connected with Rome and Piccolomini affirms this connection not only with his role as pope, but also by confirming his own Roman origin. In fact, in the first lines of the Commentaries we read that the Piccolimini family came from Rome: Familia Picolomineorum ex Roma in Senas translata.[3] Piccolomini was born in Siena, a city in Tuscany at that time a rival of Florence (it was conquered by the Florentines in 1555). The Piccolomini are known in the historical sources from the eleventh century and it is highly improbable that the family had a Roman origin. The biographers of Pius II state that the names Aeneas and Sylvius given to him by his parents were suggested by the name of a Florentine relative, Iulius Piccolominis Amideis, who claimed a Iulian ancestry. The Florentine Leonardo Dati wrote that the Pope’s ancestor was a certain Bacchus Piccolominis, an ally of the Etruscan King Porsenna, and other imaginative genealogies were proposed later. Piccolomini, in the Commentaries, is more prudent and, after the above-mentioned statement in the First Book, gives further information in the Fifth Book:[4] he confirms that the Piccolomini had migrated from Rome to Siena, and says that this origin is demonstrated by the frequence of the names Aeneas and Sylvius attributed to members of the family. 6 The Roman link between Pius and Virgil’s Aeneas highlights their common “Roman” mission. Both Aeneas began their mission with a trip: that from Troy to Italy told by Virgil, and the trip of the young Piccolimini to the Council of Basel. Both journeys are characterized by a deflection, geographical but also moral. In the Aeneid the storm pushes the Trojans to Africa, where Aeneas is seduced by Dido and for some time forgets his mission. Aeneas Piccolomini began his career as secretary of Cardinal Domenico Capranica and went with him to Basel, to take part in the Council. The land route from Siena was interrupted and they decided to go by ship from the Tuscan port of Piombino to Genua, across the Tyrrenian Sea. But the ship was caught in a violent storm and pushed towards Africa, in sight of the Lybian coast. Off Carthago, we can imagine. Shipwreck seemed inevitable, but a miraculous wind pushed the ship northwards and Piccolomini and the other passengers were able to reach Portum Veneris, not far from Genua.[5] Piccolomini had already described his trip many years earlier, in a letter written in 1432, but in it there is no mention of the storm. The adventure was clearly suggested by the Aeneid, to encourage the reader to make a comparison between Virgil’s Aeneas and Piccolomini. But what is the meaning of this comparison, and the consideration suggested by the author to his readers? The African sojourn and the love affair with Dido were usually considered by the Virgilian exegesis as an error committed by Aeneas, a deflection from his moral mission. In the case of Piccolomini, the error is probably the conciliarist view he had adopted in Basel, that he repudiated in the following years, as we have seen. The miracle which occurred to 7 Piccolimini, that avoided a shipwreck and the consequent capture by the Saracens, is the Christian equivalent of the protection accorded by Venus to Virgil’s Aeneas, and perhaps it is not insignificant that there should be the mention of Portum Veneris, where Piccolomini lands, a name which reminds the reader that Venus was Aeneas’ mother and that she watched over her son’s mission. The descent of Aeneas from Venus is mentioned by Piccolomini himself some chapters later, where he observes that his election as Pope assured peace for the Church and Rome, formerly troubled by conflicts, and he adopts Venus as symbol of peace, and Mars as that of war.[6] The first Aeneas mentioned is Piccolomini, the second is the hero of the Aeneid: the contiguity of the references reminds the reader not only of their homonymic similarity, but also of the similarity of their mission of peace, and invites him/her to read the whole of the Commentaries as a new Aeneid, an Aeneid of the 15th Century. There are in fact in the Commentaries several episodes similar to those of the Aeneid, that can be considered more or less directly allusive. One of them occurred during the Council of Basel. Aeneas caught the plague: he knew that physicians could not cure this illness, but he was saved by the pietas of God.[7] Pius echoes two episodes of the Aeneid: in the Third Book the Trojans are surprised by a plague in the island of Crete and leave it after the apparition of the Penates to Aeneas; in the Twelfth Aeneas is wounded, but the physician cannot cure his wound. The hero is instead healed by Venus. 8 There is another episode echoing the Aeneid. On two occasions Pius watches games. The first is the boat race in the Lake of Bolsena. The second is the horse and donkey race organized in Pienza, Piccolomini’s birthplace. The literary model is the games organized by Aeneas in the Fifth Book of the Aeneid. I will only give some examples of Piccolomini’s reprise of Virgil in the episode of the boat race.[8] The oarsmen are virtually naked, nudi omnes, praeter obscenas partes, moist with oil, oleo perfusi nitentes, their arms straining on the oars, extentiis ad remos brachiis, they are waiting for the starting signal, signum in transtris expectant. We read almost the same words in the Aeneid: [9] the oarsmen’s shoulders are naked and moist with oil (nudatosque umeros oleo perfusa), they man the thwarts (considunt transtris), have their arms straining on the oars (intentaque brachia remis), awaiting the signal (expectant signum). Piccolomini also draws from Virgil in the following line, [10] pulsat corda pavor et ingens arripit mentes cupido laudis, which echoes the following line of Virgil: corda pavor pulsans laudumque arrecta cupido. And so on in the whole episode. It is noteworthy that in both the episodes of the games the Pope watches them gladly and with pleasure, but in the meantime he is also looking after public affairs with the Cardinals.[11] Piccolomini seems to indicate, with these notations, his own idea of the relation between otium and negotia. The providential role of Piccolomini is also highlighted by several prodigies and miracles, such as those which occurred during the sea trip and the above-mentioned recovery from the plague. I will only give a few other exemples. The election of 9 Aeneas as Pope was predicted by a Cathelanus quidam,[12] a man of Catalonia, who before the election had dreamed that Aeneas would become pope. Another example: Pius had to visit a Franciscan monastery on an island in Lake Trasimeno. There was a storm, but when Pius approached the boat, the wind suddendly became calm, with a sort of miracle,[13] quasi divino nutu. A similar situation occurred during the celebration organized for the translation of the body of St. Andreas from Greece to Rome. On 11 April 1462 the body was brought near the Milvian bridge and Pius had organized, for the following day, a solemn procession to escort the Saint’s entry into the town. But it had been raining for several days and it had continued to rain during the night. In the morning the sky suddendly became serene and Pius, in commenting on the miracle, recalls two verses erroneusly attributed to Virgil, but at that time considered authentic:[14] Nocte pluit tota “It rained all night, the games return with the morning: Caesar has joint rulership with Jove”. Pius himself proposes on this occasion a Christian variation of the distich, where Caesar is substituted by God: Nox fuit acta hostis, lux erit ista Dei, giving the distich a marked allegorical meaning, according to which the night becoms a symbol of paganity, and the light represents the Christian Age. Pius himself adds another variation of Virgil’s distich, Humida praeteriit tempestas, and so on, less allegorically characterized. Here, Piccolomini seems to remind the reader that in 1443 he was crowned poet laureate in Germany by the Emperor Frederick III. Besides miracles the mission of Pius in the Commentaries is also characterized by prophecies. One of them regards the Congress of the Christian princes organized by 10 Pius in Mantua. The aim of the meeting was to prepare the Crusade against the Turks, who six years earlier had conquered Constantinople. Pius organized the meeting in North Italy to favour the arrival of the European princes and initially took into consideration two possible seats, Mantua and Udine, but he soon became sceptical about Udine, considering the ambiguous policies of Venice towards the Turks (Udine was in the territory of the Republic of Venice). But in choosing Mantua Pius of course bore in mind that it was Virgil’s birthplace. That the meeting had to be held in Mantua was foreseen, affirms Piccolomini,[15] in an “ancient prophecy” on the future Popes (in scriptis vatum pervetustis), where it was written that “Virgil of Mantua celebrated Aeneas of Troy, and that Aeneas of Siena will enrich the town of Virgil”. In the month of May 1459 Pius went to Mantua and first made a sort of pilgrinage to Virgil’s birthplace, which he saw from the boat:[16] the tumulus where he locates the home of Virgil was the so-called mons Virgilii, “mount of Virgil”, near the village of Pietole, identified by the medieval tradition with the ancient Andes mentioned by Donatus. The Congress of Mantua was the most important political initiative adopted by Pius to promote a crusade againts the Turks. The Christian states were rather prudent regarding the Pope’s initiative and in the Commentaries Pius frequently polemicizes with France, Florence, Venice and others. The relations between the Pope and the Republic of Venice were complicated by the latter’s expansionism in Central Italy, in territories owned by the Church. Moreover, the political relations offer Pius opportunities to use Virgil’s Aeneid: in the Eleventh Book he presents the Venetians 11 as the heirs of Antenor, who wanted to replace the Empire founded by the heirs of Aeneas with a new Antenorid empire.[17] Pius obviously knew of Virgil’s mention of Antenor in the First Book of the Aeneid and from the Virgilian commentaries he knew that Antenor was accused of having betrayed Troy and had agreed to escape from the city with the help of the Greeks. The descent of the Veneti from Antenor is also mentioned by Pius in the etnhografic digression about Venice.[18] The antagonism between Aeneas and Antenor in the Twelfth Book was reproposed by the Ambassador of Florence, who was contrary to the crusade. He warned Pius that the real winner of the crusade would be the Republic of Venice, the enemy of the other Italian states and of the Pope himself. He adds that the Venetians are the heirs of Antenor, rivals of the heirs of Aeneas.[19] It is difficult to know if the Ambassador really used this argument, or if the the speech was modified by Pius, as he frequently did in the Commentaries, imitating the usage of the ancient historians. The argument was in any case in line with Pius’s view, who at this time, however, showed a more positive attitude towards Venice, which was now more worried by the expansionism of the Turks in the Balkans and was organizing military operations against them in Greece. The alliance between Venice and the Pope was handled by Cardinal Bessarion and the Doge promised the Pope the ships necessary for the crusade. These developments justify Pius’s reply to the Florentine Ambassador: in fact, he responded that an improbable conquest of Italy by the Venetians would, in any case, be preferable to a conquest by the Turks.[20] 12 The choice of Mantua as the seat of the Congress gave Pius the opportunity to present himself not only as the heir of Aeneas, but even of Virgil himself. A comparison between Pius and Virgil had already been provided by the abovementioned prophecy of Pius enriching Mantua. Another indication of this identification is in the speech to the Cardinals delivered by Pius on 23 September 1463. In this speech he announced his intention to lead the crusade against the Turks himself, despite his old age: “we will embark – he said – and will sail to Greece and Asia,[21] in Graeciam et Asiam navigabimus. Pius is here echoing Donatus’s Life of Virgil regarding Virgil’s last voyage: statuit in Graeciam et in Asiam secedere, [22] “decided to sail to Greece and Asia”. Pius also foresees, in the same speech, his own death.[23] Donatus recounts that Virgil died after his return from Greece, in the port of Brindisi. Pius also died in a port, that of Ancona, on 14 August 1464. 13