When Bartolomeo Sacchi ('Platina', 1421-1481) wrote his Vitae pontificum
(Lives of the Popes) and presented it to Pope Sixtus IV in 1475, he
surely could not have imagined how influential it would become over the
centuries. His was the first papal history composed as a humanist Latin
narrative and, as such, marked a distinct breakthrough in relation to
the Liber pontificalis, the standard medieval chronicle of the papacy.
Whatever Platina's intentions for the book, it soon came to be regarded
as the official history of the Roman pontiffs. After the editio
princeps of Venice 1479, updated and extended editions continued to be
produced until late in the eighteenth century. The largely untold story
of Platina's Lives of the Popes and its fortuna is the focus of this
book. The Lives were particularly popular because of Platina's frank
criticisms of papal behaviour which did not live up to his humanist
moral values. He reminded the popes that they were mere human beings and
urged them not to indulge in luxury and nepotism. Catholics, whether or
not they agreed with such indictments, read the Lives eagerly, while
Protestants naturally appreciated Platina's fault-finding approach
towards the papacy. The role which censorship played in the reception of
the Lives was previously unknown. This book examines the censorship
process (1587-1592) in detail, including a critical edition of the
assessments and corrections by English and Italian censors newly
uncovered in the Vatican and in Milan.
