New project! We are very pleased to announce that research into the history of apostolic nunciatures and papal diplomacy in the early modern period will continue. Dr. Dorota Gregorowicz has received funding from the National Science Centre in the OPUS 28 programme for a project entitled The Subaltern Retinue: “Family” of the Early Modern Apostolic Nuncios (1559–1700).
The role of the ambassador’s ‘family’, or diplomatic retinue, was crucial to the mission’s effectiveness, prestige and recognition. This was particularly the case for the representation of a polity whose aspirations were based on a universalist ideology and on the moral and religious authority – the papacy. Although contemporary scholarship has paid limited attention to this issue, early diplomatic theorists – such as Alberico Gentili (1552–1608), Carlo Pasquale (1547–1625), Krzysztof Warszewicki (1543–1603), Juan Antonio de Vera y Figueroa (1585–1658) or Abraham de Wicquefort (1606–1682) – reflected extensively on the diplomatic entourage. The project aims to reconstruct the role and form of diplomatic retinue in light of the critical tenets of early modern political thought on the theory of diplomacy and consequently examine the diplomatic practice of the period through observations of the activities of the Holy See’s foreign representatives in three key outposts of the papacy’s activities in Central and Eastern Europe: the Republic of Venice, the Imperial Court, and Poland-Lithuania.
The project presents three main research tasks:
- To reconstruct the principles of the organisation and functioning of early modern diplomats’ retinues by examining diplomatic literature and its interpretations in scholarly discourse.
- To develop models for the analysis of the organisation and functioning of the diplomatic retinues of early modern apostolic nuncios, taking into account the peculiarities of the papal ‘two-souls’ profile, universalist aspirations, the interaction of the Roman diplomatic service with the peripheral structures of the Catholic Church, and its confessional nature.
- To compare the identified models against the hypothetical key determinants: the socio-economic status of the individual nuncios, the chronology and the geography of their missions.
The above objectives are interconnected, as the project’s ambition is to examine the specifics of the functioning of the lower personnel of the nunciatures against the backdrop of the broader diplomatic practice that was rapidly developing in Europe during the period under study. The project, therefore, aims to identify both the general and systematised features that placed the ‘families’ of nuncios within the norms of diplomatic practice at the time, as well as their distinctive elements in terms of religious, political, and representational aspects.
The project involves the creation of a research team including Prof. Ryszard Skowron (University of Silesia in Katowice), Prof. Francesco Vitali (Sapienza Università di Roma), Dr. Paweł Duda (University of Silesia in Katowice), Dr. Michał Nowakowski (Catholic University of Lublin) and Dr. Piotr Chmiel. The employment of a postdoctoral researcher is also planned. The project is scheduled to be implemented between 2025 and 2029.