A weekend in London and a chance to browse in yet more bookshops. On my way to one of my favourites - Jarndyce, opposite the entrance to the British Museum, I stopped off at Judd Books. I was very pleasantly surprised; essentially it was a 'posh' remainder store, with a tremendous selection of History and Literature. I could have spent a fortune. I purchased just one volume and read it at the Caledonian Club and on the train back to Derby.
First edition - 2018
I have long been attracted to both English and European nineteenth century history - some of my most admired individuals lived through those fascinating times: Gladstone and Disraeli, Napoleon III, Cavour, Garibaldi. I can't summon up the same interest in German (Prussian?) or Russian history as I can with British, French and Italian. The USA has yet to claim any serious attention.
This 474-page concentration on one of the most important popes of Roman Catholic history, certainly held my attention. Often dramatic, it brought to its pages the rabble-rousing Charles Bonaparte (Louis Napoleon's cousin); the fervent Italian nationalist Mazzini; the Austrian web-master Metternich; Ferdinand II, King of Naples, a suspicious, superstitious, despotic character; Charles Albert, King of Savoy and Sardinia; a variety of French, Austrian and Italian diplomats and aristocrats, all with meddling fingers in the maelstrom. At the centre of all this intrigue and self-seeking, was Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, born in 1792 and made Pope Pius IX in June 1846. Surrounded and advised by the usual mafiosi (usually referred to as cardinals), Pius moved from a youthful benevolence to a reactionary, dogmatic figure, who was responsible for elevating the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception to the central pivots of the faith. In this he was guided by Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, who would mastermind the retreat into reaction.
Pius IX 1792-1878 Cardinal Antonelli 1806-1876
The three Parts of the book are headed The Beloved, The Reviled, and The Feared. Too true. Whilst I have a certain sympathy with Pius, as he turned into a fearful, vengeful being, it is difficult to feel positive towards any of the variety of unsavoury, deceitful, self-seeking characters who were involved in this unappetising tale. Garibaldi, perhaps, comes nearest to a hero. The cardinals are, in some ways, even more unsavoury than the lay leaders - they are meant to be representatives of a peace-loving, magnanimous, even poor body. They are anything but. Their clerical garbs are mere cloaks for typical human behaviour. Like the present Ayatollahs, rank hypocrisy, deceitful and power grabbing (and holding onto power) machinations predominate.
The French get sucked in to besieging and then occupying Rome, on behalf of a Papacy they increasingly fail to identify with; the Austrians, with problems in keeping order nearer to home, spend their time, money and troops, propping up a decaying and unpopular regime; the British and American governments prate from afar. Whereas I have read quite a bit about the 1870 onward period in Italian/Papal history, I knew very little about the earlier nineteenth century. It opened my eyes and, I'm afraid to say, confirmed my prejudices. Pius, of course, excommunicated the leaders of the new Italian nation in 1870 and declared the Italian occupation of the Papal states null and void. "That they will leave Rome is a certainty" the Milan Catholic daily newspaper trumpeted. No. In fact, the popes did not set foot outside the Vatican city until 1929, when Pius XI reached a deal with Mussolini and Vatican City was formally created. Typically, Pope John Paul II beatified Pius IX in 2000 as an example of unconditional fidelity to the immutable deposit of revealed truths.
Kertzer ends his book, the story told in these pages recounts the death throes of the popes' thousand-year kingdom....with the fall of the pope-king, the rationale for people elsewhere to accept their humble places in society as God's will, their leaders as supernaturally sanctioned, could not long survive.
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