Higher Education, ‘Soft Power’, and Catholic Identity: A Case Study from Early Modern Salamanca Harald E. Braun University of Liverpool In a letter from 20 August 1605, Gil González Dávila, historian and man of letters, praises Salamanca as “la ciudad imperial de las lettras”.1 His words capture local pride in Salamanca as not just the foremost place of higher learning in the Spanish Habsburg monarchy and one of the great European universities at the time, but as a busy centre of intellectual production, cultural exchange and political communication.2 González Dávila celebrates the ‘universitycity’ as a hub where diverse and sometimes conflicting cultures of knowledge and learning could meet and complement one another. In the view of the future cronista mayor de las Indias, Salamanca was a place where excellence in formal legal or theological instruction mingled with a vibrant and anything but provincial humanist culture. This “city of letters” existed within and at the same time transcended the actual universitas or corporate body of students and teachers both in terms of the opportunities it offered and of the traces it left on students’ memory and later lives.3 It was a place of intellectual endeavour, discovery and friendship as much as a place of formal instruction. What distinguished Salamanca even more in González Dávila’s eyes, though, was the imperial reach of this particularly happy union of estudios and letras. Salamanca was not only the place where future careers in state and church were forged. González Dávila regarded Salamanca rather than Madrid as the intellectual and cultural showcase of the Spanish monarchy, and as the place where cultural 1 British Library, Egerton Mss. 1875, fol. 209. The letter is addressed to the Jesuit theologian and fellow historian Juan De Mariana SJ (1535-1624). Gil González Dávila (1578-1658) - racionero of Salamanca cathedral and latterly cronista mayor de las Indias (1617) - used his historiographical expertise to exult university and city, for instance in his antiquarian polemic Declaración de la antigüedad del toro del puente de Salamanca (1596), or his history of Salamanca: Historia de las antigüedades de la ciudad de Salamanca (…) (Salamanca: Taberniel, 1606). On early modern Spanish historiography now Richard L. Kagan, Clio & the Crown. 2 On the University of Salamanca during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth century, see Luis Enrique Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares; also the illuminating study by Andrew Hegarty. On Iberian universities during the early modern period more widely, see now the contributions in Luis E. Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares and Juan Luis Polo Rodríguez. 3 For early modern Leiden as a useful comparison see Daniela Prögler. 1 and intellectual capital would turn into political currency. Salamanca, in other words, might have exerted something like ‘soft power’ - through various forms of cultural and intellectual exchange, communication, and networks - on foreign students and visitors.4 Recent scholarship tends to substantiate this impression of sixteenth and seventeenth century Salamanca as a Catholic, Spanish, and imperial space and “lecture hall of the Catholic monarchy”5. While students from the Iberian Peninsula and Castile in particular clearly dominated matriculation throughout the period, the student body to some degree at least reflected the political geography of the monarquía española.6 There was a regular and notable presence of students from the Italian territories under Spanish Habsburg rule (especially Milan and the viceroyalty of Naples) and the Americas (especially the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru). Salamanca also attracted students from territories not directly under Spanish Habsburg rule but within the Spanish imperial or hegemonic sphere especially Portugal and, again, Italy (Genoa, Florence, Naples, also the papal lands).7 A smaller number of students came to Salamanca from territories outside the Spanish hemisphere, mostly from France, also the Holy Roman Empire, and Ireland. If matriculations at Salamanca did reflect a general trend towards ‘regionalisation’ of universities during the early modern period, then, the city and university retained cosmopolitan colour and appeal nonetheless.8 4 For a working definition of soft power and a comparative approach to culture as a significant element in (contemporary) public diplomacy and strategic communication see, for instance, Craig Hayden. I do not suggest that monarchy or university consciously pursued a rhetoric or strategy of soft power exploiting Salamanca’s status as an international centre of Higher Education and humanist endeavour. At the same time, much of what happened ‘on the ground’ - in practical terms of education, cultural interaction, exchange and network building can, arguably, be described as a convergence of cultural and political influence. The problem of evaluating or measuring such influence does, of course, remain. 5 For an overview and summary analysis see now Ángel Weruaga Prieto. 6 For the relative size of the foreign contingents at Salamanca during the early modern period, see RodríguezSan Pedro Bezares, Historia de la universidad 2, 607-64. Weruaga provides a revised statistical profile of the provenance of students from outside the Iberian Peninsula. 7 For Italians in Salamanca, see the brief survey by Antonio Pérez Martin, and Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares, La universidad 3, 185-334, especially 195-98, 209-11. 8 See the general discussion in Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, especially 439-46; also Michel Bideaux and MarieMadeleine Fragonard. For Salamanca and Spanish universities, Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares and Polo Rodríguez. Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares, La Universidad 3, 195-96, estimates that non-peninsular students accounted for just over one per cent of total matriculations between 1598 and 1625, but for about ten percent of the “nobles-generosos” matriculated during that same period. He arrives at his estimate on the basis of snapshots of matriculations in the years 1604/5, 1614/15, and 1624/25. In the case of the Italians, he only counts students from families of a status comparable to that of Spanish grandees – the sons of the Medici, Spinola, or Gonzaga – among the “nobles-generosos”. Lower nobility and quasi-noble patricians like Da Sommaia are not included. 2 This picture is differentiated further by the fact that the Salamancan student body cannot easily be divided up and described in terms of ‘natives’ and ‘foreigners’. Students from the crowns of Castile and Aragon, the heartlands of the Spanish monarchy, did not share anything resembling a single cohesive notion of patria or nación.9 Students from Spanish Flanders, Milan, and the kingdom of Naples, on the other hand, did not even necessarily speak Spanish as their first language, yet would be likely to entertain a complex and varied sense of being part of the monarquía Española. Students, again, who arrived in Salamanca from territories within the Spanish hegemonic sphere but not under direct Spanish Habsburg rule brought with them connections, expectations and affinities that facilitated integration and interaction with a predominantly Castilian student body. The Irish at Salamanca provide a useful point of reference in this respect. The foundation of the Real Colegio de San Patricio de Nobles Irlandeses in 1592 established Salamanca as one of several educational and ideological centres of the Irish secular and clerical elite well into the seventeenth century.10 One of the more prominent members of the European network of Irish Colleges, the Real Colegio provided a focal point for Irish Catholic identity during turbulent periods in that country’s history - first as a seminary and bolthole for resistance to the Tudor state, subsequently as a hub for exiles and migrants making home somewhere in the Iberian world. The Irish came to Salamanca in the later sixteenth century in order to study, make useful contacts, and to ensure that the monarchy would continue to champion their cause. Their situation, though, was specific in several respects – they were political and religious exiles – and they are just one example for why young men of social standing who did not live under the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs came to Salamanca. Other members of the early modern European Catholic elite – such as the sons of leading families of Genoa or Milan - had less overtly political and pressing grounds to study at the university. Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares himself points out that “nobles-generosos” is a flexible category, and he explains how recalcitrant sources make it difficult to arrive at precise figures; La universidad 3, 72-184, 256-71. 9 On the long, uneven and unfinished road from regional, fragmented and multi-layered early modern notions of patria to the crystallisation of a Spanish national identity in eighteenth-century courtly Madrid, see I.A.A. Thompson; also Tamar Herzog or Veronika Ryjik. 10 On the Irish colleges in the peninsula see, for instance, Patricia O’Connell; on the early modern Irish diaspora more widely, see the contributions in Thomas O’Connor and Mary Ann Lyons. 3 The different, often related reasons that brought foreigners to Salamanca are reflected in the ways and the degree to which these students interacted not just with fellow students and the institution, but with Spanish culture and people more widely. Looking at such interactions, in turn, leads on to the closely related question of whether and how a period of study in Salamanca might have affected these students’ view of themselves as well as their view of Spain and the Spanish monarchy. In other words, is González Dávila’s praise mere hyperbole, or did the university-city inadvertently exert a degree of soft power. Did study at Salamanca foster something akin to a shared sense of elite cultural identity – Catholic, Baroque, and imperial - in some of its foreign alumni at least? Could time spent in Salamanca encourage a sense of a ‘republic of letters’ predicated upon Hispanic culture and intellectual life even in students from outside the monarchy? The question in how far study abroad lastingly affected the cultural identity, sense of self and political outlook of the non-Iberian, non-Habsburg Salamanca alumnus is extremely challenging. It is difficult to produce satisfying answers not least because of the relative paucity of life-writing and other autobiographical material that would allow the historian to reconstruct possible connections between study abroad and early modern identity. In the following, I try and make a small window into the experience of estudiantes extranjeros in early modern Salamanca – their many acts of communication and their decisions to engage with, embrace or reject a foreign environment. I gather and assemble impressions, observations and reflexions from the personal records of one foreign student in particular – the Florentine patrician Girolamo da Sommaia (1573-1635).11 The young Italian left us with a unique record of this time in Spain and of the features that characterised Salamanca as a place to experience and explore many facets of Hispanic life, culture and politics. His experience was one of a university and a city at the crucible of early modern Hispanic empire and culture. *** 11 The best source for information on Da Sommaia’s life is still George Haley, “Introducción”, 9-35. 4 Da Sommaia arrived in Salamanca in 1599 in order to study civil and canon law, a young man of twenty-one years, and one possessed of a lively intellect. He left the university and the country in 1607 a bachiller utroque iuri, after a comparatively long period of study. The young Florentine recommends himself as a witness for a number of reasons. While in Salamanca, he consciously and persistently sought to make use of what the place had to offer in terms of learning beyond the lecture hall and the textbook. Libraries, learned conversations, and many other kinds of intellectual endeavour took up a good part of his time. He returned to Italy a loyal connoisseur of Spanish thought and letters. We know this because Girolamo left us with a good number of excerpts from his Salamanca reading list and also with an extraordinary and possibly unique record: his diary covering the latter years of his stay (1602-1607).12 The Diario helps flesh out our knowledge of what brought wellconnected and well-off foreigners to Salamanca in the first instance, what more or less tangible benefits they expected from their stay, and how they experienced Salamanca and let it shape their perceptions and memories of Spain. Girolamo Da Sommaia’s Diario suggests that Salamanca appealed to some born and bred in the lap of Italian humanist culture and polities not least because of its ‘extracurriculum’.13 Much of what Da Sommaia learned and much of what left a Hispanic imprint on his likes and dislikes happened outside the lecture hall and was not included in the official syllabus. Some of it occurred in a kind of twilight zone, more or less removed from official and institutional control. This extracurricular formation happened during private tutorials, regular visits to the theatre, in conversations, or over a bottle of wine and playing cards and talking politics and literature well into the small hours. Reading was a crucial part of it. Girolamo was a voracious reader and a compiler of substantial personal anthologies with excerpt from works of Spanish history and politics, prose and poetry. In today’s parlance, what was particularly attractive to a student like Girolamo Da Sommaia was what it offered in terms of ‘added value’ - education and opportunity in terms of cultural and political capital Diario is George Haley’s summary title for the two autograph manuscripts with almost daily entries in Da Sommaia’s fondo in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Florencia (BNCF): MS. Magliabecchi VIII.29 and VIII.30. For a brief description, Haley, “Introducción”, 1, fn.1. 13 I borrow this fortunate term from Richard Kagan, “La Salamanca del Siglo de Oro”. See also Manuel Fernández Álvarez. Useful in terms of context is Kagan, Students and Society. 12 5 beyond or on top of the degree as such. The ambitious, sociable and scholarly student could combine the acquisition of specific expertise and professional qualification with the freedom to satisfy intellectual curiosity and ample opportunities to build or expand political and social networks. Salamanca offered the prospect of learning about Spanish culture and mentality and a means to strike friendships and establish networks relevant to a future career in Italian courts and states often firmly situated within the Hispanic sphere of influence.14 The decision to attend Salamanca rather than one of the Italian universities - the Medici studium in nearby Pisa would have been an obvious choice – would have involved not only Girolamo and his parents, but the social and family networks into which he had been born. The consorteria or kin community allowed individuals like Girolamo access to shared resources – human and financial, material and symbolic - on the understanding that their success would in turn replenish and enhance these resources and create opportunities for other members of the collective. Sending a young man to study at Salamanca was such a decision affecting communal resources – in terms of funds, contacts, and reputation, for instance – and therefore required the consent of the consorteria as a whole or its significant parts.15 It is not possible to reconstruct the process of consultation and discussion that brought Girolamo to Spain and Salamanca in any detail. Circumstantial evidence, however, indicates that this was a deployment of a member of the kin community grounded in hard-nosed political and social opportunism coupled with a sense of know-how concerning all things Spanish. In a nutshell, the motivation for sending the young man to Salamanca was to help secure his family’s future as functionaries of the Medici ducal government, open up new opportunities of patronage and employment, and enhance the cultural and material capital of the collective that way. Girolamo Da Sommaia was the scion of a patrician family already established in Medici Florence at the time of his birth. On his father’s side, the family hailed from old 14 Humanist networks and politics of friendship are the subject of a rich and growing literature. See, for instance, the essay by Peter Burke. On the many variations and conceptualisations of friendship, see the contributions in Albrecht Classen and Marilyn Sandidge. 15 Concerning the role of family and kinship in early modern Italian politics and commerce, see, for instance, Paul D. McLean. The ways in which families in the upper echelons of early modern Italian society sought to use diplomatic service and networks across Europe in the hope for collective profit serve as a good case in point. See the helpful article by Catherine Fletcher and Jennifer Mara DeSilva. 6 Lombard nobility and had been part of the elite pool of patrician families providing high officials or priori for the Republic during the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. 16 More importantly, the Da Sommaia were among the minority of patrician houses who successfully negotiated the transition from republic to Medici principate.17 Girolamo’s paternal grandfather and namesake held important positions in government and was made a senator by Cosimo I Medici in 1554. His son, Giovanni de Sommaia was awarded the same honour in 1588 by the new grand-duke Ferdinando I. Though the Da Sommaia could not quite compete with the leading patrician clans in terms of wealth, glory and political influence, their rank and status allowed them to intermarry with the grandi. In 1567, Giovanni Da Sommaia raised his family’s profile and consolidated their access to lucrative office and opportunities at the Medici court by marrying Costanza Guicciardini. The match closely aligned the Da Sommaia with one of the wealthiest and highprofile families in Florentine history and long-standing supporters of the Medici.18 It also opened the doors to the Guicciardini family archive. Managed by Costanza’s father Agnolo Guicciardini,19 the archive included the works and correspondence of Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), famous Florentine diplomat and historian, contemporary and critic of Machiavelli. Francesco’s first diplomatic mission, at the age of only twenty-three years, had taken him to Spain and the court of Ferdinand of Aragon at Logroño (1512).20 His Diario del viaggio in Spagna completed in the same year reflects less on the mission itself as on the thrill and adventure of travel. In subsequent reports and letters as well as in his Relazione di Spagna (1514), on the other hand, Guicciardini repeatedly analyses the complex, fluid, and always seminal relationships between the Spanish monarchs and the Italian powers. While he is no friend of Spain or Spanish culture, Guicciardini is a remarkably sober and analytical For Da Sommaia genealogy, see Haley, Diario, “Introducción”, 9-14. On the transformation of Florentine patrician houses into nobility and functionaries of Medici government see Robert Burr Litchfield, especially 24-51, 63-126. The Da Sommaia are among the limited number of families who made up the political and administrative core of the Medici court – gathered in the Senate and Order of St. Stephen. Unlike the wealthier and more powerful Guicciardini, the Da Sommaia never secured a fiefdom; see Appendix B, 362, 381. 18 See Richard A. Goldthwaite. On the Guicciardini, especially 109-56. 19 Employed in high office by the Medici and a very successful businessman, Agnolo Guicciardini still found time to pursue humanist projects. He prepared the first edition of his famous uncle’s Storia d’Italia (Amberes, 1561). 20 On Francesco Guicciardini’s experience as a diplomat, see Douglas Biow, 128-54. 16 17 7 observer of the politics of power and a quiet admirer-cum-critic of the political cunning and savvy of King Ferdinand I of Aragon.21 His father’s fortunate marriage made the writings of his illustrious maternal ancestor and in fact the extensive record of Guicciardini expertise in business, politics and diplomacy generally - an integral part of Girolamo’s upbringing. Such instruction became immediately relevant when Girolamo’s uncle, Francesco di Agnolo Guicciardini was made Medici ambassador to the Madrid court in 1593.22 The appointment of a close relative to the political and administrative centre of the European hegemon represented an opportunity not just for the individual, but for kith and kin as well. With Spain yet again a particularly prominent and promising feature in the career trajectory of a Guicciardini, the mentally agile Girolamo was chosen and provided with ample funds to build on the revival of his family’s ‘Spanish connection’. In the first instance, then, Girolamo Da Sommaia’s time in Salamanca was to build his career in a way that would best serve and further family interests. Study abroad was to continue and build on a process of grooming that had begun long before he actually went to Spain. The Guicciardini archive, family lore, and Florentine intellectual practice and tradition is likely to have framed the ways in which the young man would engage with the experience of Spain and things Spanish to some degree. This frame of mind included Italian and Florentine traditions of life-writing.23 During much of his time in Salamanca, Girolamo kept an increasingly detailed and wide-ranging record of his activities and contacts.24 Though originally conceived and used as an account book or “liber rationorum”, he significantly expanded its function and content during the latter half of his stay, especially from around the year 1605. Girolamo now conceived of it as “liber ad formam Ephimerides”: while still using 21 See, for instance, Guicciardini, Considerations, 1.29. Francesco di Agnolo Guicciardini, Medici ambassador to the Madrid court from 1593 to his death in 1602. His responsibilities included arrangements such as the import of Tuscan art and luxury goods discussed in Edward L. Goldberg. 23 See the overview by Martin McLaughlin; also Nicholas Spadaccini and Jenaro Talens. On the constitution of the early modern self in reading and writing, see the wide-ranging discussion in Kevin Sharpe. 24 The autograph manuscript is in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence: MS Magliabecchi VIII, 29 (1603-1605) and MS Magliabecchi VIII, 30 (1605-1608). See Haley, Diario, “Introducción”, especially 37-38; and María Teresa Cacho. 22 8 it to keep his accounts, he also sought to provide himself with a future record of “omnia acta diurna” while at Salamanca (307). The Diario became the place where he gave himself factual, often detailed accounts of his daily life – events witnessed, activities undertaken, and observations made, and encompassing his physical, political, intellectual and spiritual experience. The Diario is a meticulous account of official lectures, private tutorials, social gatherings, debts paid and alms given, as well as books bought, lent, borrowed, and read. Also, and with matching accuracy, it records transgressions of flesh and mind. This post-1605 diary is a tool aimed at enabling and facilitating accurate recollection at a much later date rather than self-analysis. It serves as a register of activities, experiences and contacts the diarist wanted to be able to remember and utilise in years to come. On these terms, it allows the modern reader a degree of access to the complex layers of exposure and experience that prompted Da Sommaia to record his Salamanca years in the first instance. One lasting legacy of the Salamanca years was his discovery of Seneca. Reading the Stoic profoundly influenced Girolamo’s view of life, and in fact initiated the expansion and transformation of the Diario in the first instance. Maxims drawn from the Senecan oeuvre, especially from the Epistolae ad Lucilium, trigger and steer the thought process that brought him to turn the diary from a libro de caja into an account of his personal conduct. In In early 1605, Girolamo makes Seneca the authority defining his personal ethics of time. He adopts the maxim “nulla dies sine linea” as his motto, and from then on subjects himself to daily, painstaking scrutiny of how he uses his time.25 It is possible, of course, that Girolamo read Seneca prior to his arrival in Spain, and perhaps he had done so. Undoubtedly though, it was in the context of his study abroad, as a result of ever more calls on his time, concentration, curiosity and conscience, and in the light of his reading and discussion of Seneca’s works that the Stoic became his silent teacher in life. The ‘Seneca-experience’ highlights an important facet of Da Sommaia’s experience and its record. The Diario is a composite source that mixes genres and objectives to a considerable degree. Entries range from the trivial to the deeply personal, encompassing 25 Epistolae ad Lucilium VIII, 28, 2. 9 personal hygiene, superstitious habits, health scares, frequent sexual encounters, and the meticulous listing of daily expenses. They also bear witness to the constitution of the self through reading, writing and the frequent debate and discussion of humanist matters. The Diario, in other words, defies easy categorisation in terms of literary as well as historiographical analysis. It is, of course, the expression and record of a number of more or less discernible discourses and languages. Yet perhaps its most valuable characteristic for the intellectual and cultural historian of early modern Europe is that it is removed from the immediate need to perform and appeal politically or socially. It was meant only ever to have one reader. Though constructed and regulated by contemporary conventions concerning the perception and writing of the self, it is still less likely to anticipate and respond directly to public expectations – unlike ambassadorial reports and official or even private letters, for instance. With the element of performance much reduced, and information recorded primarily as aide-mémoire, the diary is also less bound by conventions - not least specifically Italian conventions of constructing and describing the Spanish monarchy and the Spanish. Once in Salamanca, Girolamo had many opportunities to meet people and to make friends using family connections, in lectures and tutorials, or through student organisations like the cofradía de Aragon.26 The latter was one of several student corporations providing spiritual and charitable support as well as social and networking opportunities for students from outside Castile. In 1604, his fellow students and members of the confraternity elected him as one of its four officials. Girolamo’s membership and involvement with the cofradía is just one example for his social success. The Diario provides ample evidence to suggest that the young man quickly became a well-liked and respected member of the many intersecting communities and circles within the university. The composition of his body of friends and 26 The cofradía de Aragon had its own statutes and was run by four elected officials or mayordomos, one each representing students from the kingdom of Aragon, the principalities of Catalonia and Valencia, and the Balearic Isles. Da Sommaia was mayordomo for Aragon from 1604-1606. The Diario suggests that the cofradía’s reach extended well beyond the territories of the crown of Aragon and that its membership included students from across northern Italy. There is little substantive research on the cofradías. See the brief remarks in Luis Enrique Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares, La universidad 3, 436-39. 10 acquaintances, in turn, reflected the position of Salamanca as a cultural and political hub of the Hispanic monarchy as well as Catholic Europe more widely. His friends among local academics included intellectual luminaries like the grammarian Baltasar de Céspedes, the jurist Juan Solórzano de Pereira, and the Jesuits Gil González Dávila – whose eulogy opened this chapter - and Martín Antonio del Rio. Céspedes is a frequent partner in conversation and nurtured Girolamo’s understanding of Stoic philosophy, for instance through his 1605 lectures on Seneca. This passion for Seneca’s works also inspired his friendship with Del Rio. Bonding over humanist and literary interests in turn led to other shared activities. Girolamo not only attended Del Rio’s lectures on Scripture at the Jesuit colegio, but volunteered to serve as his unpaid assistant and helped prepare and deliver his friend’s teaching. His noticeable affinity for academic life included enjoyment of academic pomp and circumstance, too, partly because it interrupted the routine of lectures, partly because it provided him with an opportunity to understand the political workings of the university and gauge the status of individuals and groups. From the outset, the young Florentine is interested and active in university politics. The Diario is filled with observations and notes concerning the votes he and his friends canvassed and cast in the election of chairs. In December 1605, for instance, he notes his vote for his teacher and friend Juan Solórzano de Pereira, who was indeed elected as cátedratico de Digesto Viejo (439).27 Girolamo’s acquaintances and friends among fellow students come from different nations and are attached to different colégios, convents, and faculties. Italian contacts include fray Filippo Visconti, member of one of the most prominent Italian ruling families and future general of the Augustinian order, Ascanio Sforza, latterly count of Borgonuevo, fray Jacinto Petronio, the future general of the Neapolitan inquisition, as well as members of the Irish, English, and German Catholic nobility. Among the Spaniards we find many members of the colegios mayores such as Juan Chumacero y Carrillo, a future president of the Council of Castile, Juan de Salas y Valdés, a future oidor at the Real Chancillería de Granada, and Baltasar Navarro Arroyta, another man of letters and future bishop of Tarragona. A 27 Juan Solórzano de Pereira (1575-1668), humanist, professor of law in Salamanca, the leading Spanish jurisprudent of his generation, and distinguished servant of the crown of Castile in the peninsula and the Americas. See the political and intellectual biography by Enrique Garcia Hernan. 11 particularly close associate – feverish bibliophilia initiating a strong bond between them – is Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado.28 The two young men admire and discuss the works of Lipsius and other Stoic and neo–Stoic authors; they often dine together and talk into the small hours. Together they visit bullfights, plays, and the houses of their many friends and acquaintances. Yet churches, convents, and especially libraries also form a frequent and firm part of the two friends’ Salamancan itinerary. The Diario makes plain that much of what Girolamo wanted to remember about his time in Salamanca had to do with reading and with the mostly literary and political debate that inspired his reading and was in turn inspired by what he read. Reading and everything to do with books was clearly of immense importance to the young Florentine. Books, reading, and discussion were at the heart of his social and cultural activities and networks. He always carefully catalogues his library, and cataloguing techniques form a staple of his conversations with fellow bibliophiles. He befriends and regularly visits prominent Salamancan booksellers like the Frenchman Guillaume Pesnot. At times, the Diario resembles the catalogue of a private lending library and reading-room, with systematic entries on books and manuscripts received and read, taken out and returned by friends, on books bought, sold, or given as a present. What Girolamo read, how he came into possession of specific books and manuscripts, and with whom he shared his reading and his thoughts highlights Salamanca as a place of cultural exchange, and a place able to shape foreigners’ perceptions of early modern Spanish learning, culture and politics. Reading in private and exchanges in tutorials and over dinner with friends contributed as much and possibly more than academic study to his formation both as a connoisseur of things Spanish and as a Medici servant able to operate successfully across the Italo-Hispanic political sphere. Much of what Girolamo read while in Spain was common currency in the European republic of letters, of course, in terms of genre and languages as well as authors. Works of history are particularly prominent on his reading list - or history and politics rather, given the close relation between these two fields of inquiry in early modern learning and perception of 28 On the life and career of Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado, politician and official of the Holy Inquisition, humanist, friend of Lope de Vega and Luis de Góngora, and great collector of books and art, see Joaquín de Entrambasaguas. 12 the world. Girolamo ploughs his way through the Greeks and Romans, with particular attention to Plutarch, Dio Cassius, and Sextus Aurelius Victor. He frequently and enthusiastically returns to Tacitus – who would remain a major point of reference in terms of political nous – and ‘Tacitist’ authors more generally. Among the moderni, Italians and especially contemporary Florentine historians feature prominently. For instance, he reads and carefully compares Scipione Ammirato’s Istorie fiorentine with other works on Florentine history, and with particular regard to his family’s portrayal and reputation.29 His taste for historiography as the condensation of experience in public service is tangible. Much of what he reads, unsurprisingly, betrays a concern with future employ in government. In late 1606, for instance, he explores, and presumably discusses with his friends and acquaintances, some texts very much at the core of sixteenth century political debate. They include Machiavelli’s Il Principe, Bodin’s Six livres de la République, and a range of publications produced as a result of the war of words between the Republic of Venice and the papacy following the papal interdict (568).30 He compares these works – Il Principe already on both the Roman and the Spanish Index librorum prohibitorum, Bodin’s République a candidate for future inclusion - in order to learn about the zones of conflict and boundaries defining the relationship between secular and spiritual government.31 The young Italian felt obliged to report this particular set of texts – albeit in a cursory and summary fashion – to his Spanish confessor. There is no indication whatsoever that he incurred any spiritual penalty as a result. Attitudes towards heterodox or controversial texts including Machiavelli’s infamous political manual - varied considerably among Spanish clergy and laity, just as they did in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.32 Though Girolamo made this particular reading experience part of a confession, he did so by his own volition, possibly 29 This entry in the Miscellánea: BNCF MS. Magliabecchi, VIII, 27, 212v. On the Interdict of 1606-1607 as a crisis of the Venetian political system and crisis of communication, see Filippo De Vivo, especially chapters 5 and 6. 31 For the complex reception of Bodin in Italy and Spain, see Michaela Valente and Harald E. Braun. Il Principe was widely discussed and circulated in Spain, even after being put on the Roman (1559) and Spanish (1584/84) Indices; see Helena Puigdomenech; and the brief comparative survey by Humfrey C. Butters, 75-87, especially 80-83, and Appendices. 32 In 1596, the Roman Inquisition intervened to prevent the publication of expurgated versions of Il Principe and Boccacio’s Decameron spearheaded by Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici. The incident illustrates the prevailing atmosphere of intellectual inquiry and literary taste at the Medici court at the time. See Peter Godman, 327-29. 30 13 moved by his conscience, but not in obvious violation of laws and guidelines. He was not expected to seek a licence for reading Il Principe in the first instance – which is what he would have been expected to do back home in Florence. Likewise, he noted in his Diario that he had obtained and read a copy of Antonio Pérez’s Relaciones, printed in Paris in 1598. The ferocious, incriminating polemic of the disgraced and exiled secretary of Philip II was among the texts most offensive to Spanish officialdom.33 This in no way deterred Girolamo. In fact, as his autograph anthology testifies, he made Pérez a mainstay of his largely extracurricular and self-motivated exploration of the processes and gambits of early modern European politics.34 Censorship, mild reproach even, appear absent from the young Italian’s Salamancan experience, regardless of where his curiosity or desire, took him. In the view of the Florentine patrician as well as his teachers and fellow students, and possibly that of his confessor, too, Girolamo simply availed himself of the opportunity to widen his intellectual and moral horizon while at university. He clearly did his utmost to exploit the liberty to read whatever he thought might provide him with useful instruction and feed into fecund political debate. If history and law are staples on Da Sommaia’s bookshelves, so is literature. Latin and Italian vernacular prose and poetry attract him – namely Dante and Petrarch, Poliziano and Bembo. The Diario, however, also testifies to his growing taste and lasting interest in Spanish life and letters. Again, historical and political literature features prominently. Lodovici Guicciardini’s description of the Low Countries and don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza’s Guerra de Granada show Girolamo’s intention to gain better knowledge and understanding of the history and current affairs of the Spanish Habsburg monarchy.35 He worked his way through some standard works, such as Juan de Mariana’s multi-volume Historiae de rebus Hispaniae, Alfonso de Ullua’s vita of emperor Charles V, or Pero López 33 On the scandal, exile and subsequent polemic revolving around the person of Antonio Pérez, see the classic study by Gregorio Marañon. 34 There is a copious amount of material from Pérez’s works in Da Sommaia’s anthology of Spanish, mainly historical and political authors: MS Magliabecchi VIII, 26, especially 148-82v, 185-94, 204-10. 35 Descrittione di tutti I Paesi Bassi (Antwerp: Willem Silvius, 1567). Girolamo read Hurtado de Mendoza’s work – first published in Lisbon in 1627 – in manuscript. 14 de Ayala’s Crónica del rey don Pedro. Concerning the Americas, Peru and the accounts by Zárate and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega appear to have been of particular interest to him. In terms of literary prose and poetry, Góngora and Lope de Vega are his favourites by some distance. The interest in a spiritual exposition of the world is another constant, and attracts him to the neo-Platonic verse of Francesco Aldana and the conceptual poetry of Alonso de Ledesma. Spiritual literature, though, is always balanced by more wordly letters, such as Mateo Alemán’s Guzman de Alfarache or Francisco López de Úbeda’s La Picara Justina. The extent and quality of his connections and the extent of the trust and esteem he enjoyed is reflected in that he got his hands on many manuscripts that would take a while to make it to the printing press, such as Diego Hurtado de Mendoza’s or fray Luis de León’s poetry (432, 434).36 With his teacher and friend Solórzano Pereira – soon to be widely acknowledged as one of the leading legal thinkers of the seventeenth century – he debates juridical issues and sources, of course, but also literature. During private tutorials they work their way through Las Siete Partidas or the Nueva Recopilación – both legal compilations crucial to understanding how the Spanish monarchy actually worked, and neither of them part of the official syllabus. They then turn to the latest literary sensations such as a manuscript version of the first of Quevedo’s satirical sueños, El Sueño del Juicio Final (first published in 1627). Girolamo generally excelled in getting his hands on the latest literary sensation and disseminating it among his friends. Reading in early modern Salamanca, Girolamo combined private pleasure and conversation with humanist endeavour, conversation and network-building. His reading involved the exchange of books and manuscripts as well as regular and extensive discussions with a wide circle of friends of similar outlook and inclination. This was one way of cementing friendships and establishing connections for the future. His practice and experience of reading in Salamanca identify him as a passive member of the European ‘Republic of Letters’, yet also suggest that a period of study at Salamanca could stimulate a For a critical edition and analysis of Spanish poetry in Girolamo’s autograph anthology, see Francesca De Santis. 36 15 Hispanophile sense of intellectual and cultural belonging among members of the European Catholic elite. Girolamo Da Sommaia’s reading experience and the ways in which he made his reading an experience for others are manifold and diverse. They were not restricted to fellow students and tutors. He mentions, for instance, that he gifted his copy of Francisco López de Úbeda’s La Pícara Justina to a young woman called Maricca. The Diario leaves readers in little doubt that Maricca made a living by offering sexual favours in exchange for money or other gifts, and that Girolamo was a regular customer over a lengthy period of time. Did he read particularly entertaining and revealing passages from the book to his lover? Did they both enjoy the sarcasm and often vicious exposure of the vices and corruption of Spanish society? And did they reflect on their own lust and vice as well as that of their friends, acquaintances, and neighbours while doing so in the privacy of their room? Girolamo Da Sommaia surely read with passion, and he brought some passion to his reading of Spain. He even took his reading from gown to town. *** Sommaia had arrived in Salamanca in order to study civil and canon law, and to immerse himself in Spanish culture, politics and networks. This he achieved. He was successful academically, too, and he left Salamanca a member of a network of future high-ranking, mostly Spanish and Italian civil servants and humanist men of letters. After a brief interlude as a legal practitioner in Florence and a disillusioning spell at the apostolic chancery, he entered Medici service in 1612 and was made provveditore or governor of the studium in Pisa in 1614. The member of a family distinguished in Medici service, a person trusted and esteemed by the Grand Duke and an intellectual and humanist sympathetic to university life and matters he must have recommended himself for this position. As the Grand Duke’s man in Pisa, Da Sommaia kept the university in line with Medici politics, fought for funding from Medici coffers and defended its liberties against incursions, especially interventions on the part of episcopal or papal authority. His curiosity, maturity and the independence of mind 16 nurtured and evident already during his time at university would determine the way in which he handled the critique of the Medici court and the University of Pisa for keeping Galileo Galilei and his pupils in employ.37 Girolamo Da Sommaia’s diary provides the reader with a near-caleidoscopic view of academic, social and cultural, not least literary life in turn-of-the-century Salamanca. It helps explain why Catholic noble and aristocratic families from other parts of Europe might decide to send their offspring to Spain rather than a university nearer to home. The university-city was a place of learning and letters as well as a place to mix and mingle with other members of the European Catholic elite on a daily basis, a place to build career networks and hone the intellectual, social and political skills so eminently important for success in European princely courts and courts of law. Salamanca was a place to fathom the mechanics of power more generally and the mechanics of Hispanic empire in particular. From the Diario, Salamanca emerges as a place where the monarquía española, this possibly most complex of early modern body politics, appeared rooted and in fact able to transcend many of the challenges intrinsic to its structure. Da Sommaia’s experience of Salamanca was one of an imperial space open and exciting in terms of intellectual, social and sexual adventure. The Diario also testifies that he absorbed the culture and established friendships with many members of the Spanish political, academic and cultural elite. Girolamo’s perceptiveness and respect for Spanish life and culture contradicts the notion that “[n]o sixteenth-century Italian could be expected to forgive Spain for having conquered and for ruling over his country”.38 Spain was still well entrenched as the hegemon of Europe and dominated Italian political affairs in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Many Italians lived under one form or other of Spanish rule, often mediated through native rulers and officials. If this state of affairs continued to cause chagrin among many Italian observers, it also kept interest in all things Spanish on the boil. For the aspiring noble or patrician of Milanese, Genoese, Florentine or Neapolitan birth, first-hand knowledge of things Spanish was likely to be an asset. On Da Sommaia’s involvement with Galileo and the ‘Galileo affair’ still Haley, Diario, “Introduccion”, 2537. 38 Hillgarth, 128. 37 17 The young Florentine certainly appears to have arrived in Spain already in a more than forgiving mood. On the evidence before us, the years of study and encounter only confirmed and expanded this attitude. Girolamo neither arrived in 1599, nor did he leave Spain in 1607 with a view of his hosts as inferior to Italian culture and letters and in dire need of Italian “civilising” influence so common earlier in the century.39 His response to Spanish letters, libraries and theatre indicates that by the late 1600s at least, educated Italians no longer necessarily regarded their Spanish counterparts as “mere emulators of Italy”. He became and remained deeply interested in Spanish letters and culture more generally. Though difficult to gauge or quantify, it is clear that Spanish culture as experienced in Salamanca, inadvertently exercised something like soft power on the Florentine. If Da Sommaia stood out for his curiosity and for the open mind to go with it, the many layers of interaction and exchange between Spaniards, Italians and other Europeans suggest that he can have hardly been alone in his appreciation of Spain and Spanish letters. By the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth century, an Italian possessed of a pragmatic view of European political affairs and confident of his specific cultural and political heritage – Florentine, Genoese, or Neapolitan – was not necessarily compelled to approach Spain on dismissive and defensive terms. For Girolamo Da Sommaia, the sacco di Roma was not a point of reference in terms of cultural and political identity and memory. A curious and discriminating individual, he disregarded or overcame the stereotypes familiar from hostile ambassadorial reports, anti-Hispanic propaganda and the pan-European construct of the ‘black legend’.40 Girolamo took that opportunity, and returned home to Florence with a cherished trove of memories, Spanish literature, and many friends. 39 On Italian perceptions of Spain and the Spanish during the first half of the sixteenth century - with the Sacco di Roma a watershed - see Catherine Fletcher; also Hillgarth, especially 209-308. Hillgarth, 205, fn.154, refers to Da Sommaia only once and in passing as “this not particularly perceptive traveller”. His remarks may reflect the fact that the Diario does not offer punchy value judgements. Da Sommaia rarely offers these. Arguably, the sign of a good head and balance of judgement rather lack of perceptiveness. 40 On the “black legend” see Margaret R. Greer/Walter D. Mignolo/Maureen Quilligan, Rereading the Black Legend. The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007). What we now know about the circulation of scholars and students between Spain and Italy and the presence of Spanish scholars in European intellectual networks makes it difficult to maintain the notion that sixteenth century Spanish academic and intellectual life was subject to a process of “tibetización” in the wake of Philip II’s 1559 decision to limit Spanish students’ options for studying abroad. Philip merely exacerbated or consolidated existing trends in Catholic and international academic experience and exchange in an age of confessional conflict. 18 Bibliography Ayala, Francisco. Ideas políticas de Juan de Solórzano. Sevilla: Publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de la Universidad de Sevilla, 1946. Bideaux, Michel and Fragonard, Marie-Madeleine Fragonard, eds. Les échanges entre les Universités européennes à la Renaissance. Geneva: Libraire Droz, 2003. Biow, Douglas. Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002. Braun, H.E. “Making the Canon?: The Early Reception of the Six livres de la république in Castilian Political Thought.” The European Reception of Bodin. Ed. Howell A. Lloyd. Leiden: Brill. 2013. 257-92. Burke, Peter. “Humanism and Friendship in Sixteenth Century Europe.” Friendship in Medieval Europe. Ed. Julian Haseldine. Stroud: Sutton, 1999. 262-74. Butters, Humfrey C. “Conflicting Attitudes towards Machiavelli’s Works in Sixteenth- Century Spain, Rome, and Florence.” Communes and Despots in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Ed. John E. Law and Bernadette Paton. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. 75-87. Cacho, María Teresa. Manuscritos hispánicos en las bibliotecas de Florencia. 2 vols. Florence: Alinea Editrice, 2001. Cirot, George. Mariana historien: études sur l’historiographique espagnole:. Bordeaux: Feret et Fils, 1905. Classen, Albrecht, and Marilyn Sandidge, eds. Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: A Fundamental Ethical Discourse. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. Da Sommaia, Girolamo. Diario de un estudiante de Salamanca. La crónica inédita de Girolamo de Sommaia. Ed. and Introd. George Haley. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1977. 19 ———. “Miscellanea Spagnola”, an anthology of Spanish, mainly historical and political authors: MS Magliabecchi VIII, 26. De Santis, Francesca. “Manoscritto Magliabechiano VII-353. Edizione dei testi e studio.” PhD thesis, University of Pisa, 2005-2006. De Vivo, Filippo. Information and Communication in Venice. Rethinking Early Modern Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Entrambasaguas, Joaquín de. Una familia de ingenios: los Ramírez de Prado. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1943. Fernández Álvarez, Manuel. “El diario de un estudiante: la Salamanca del Barroco.” La sociedad española en el Siglo de Oro. Ed. Conrad Kent. 2 vols. Madrid: Gredos, 1989. 2: 818-47. Fletcher, Catherine. “Mere emulators of Italy: The Spanish in Italian diplomatic discourse, 1492-1550.” Renaissance Italy and the Idea of Spain. Ed. Piers Baker-Bates and Miles Pattenden. Farnham: Ashgate. Forthcoming. ———, and Jennifer Mara DeSilva. “Italian Ambassadorial Networks in Early Modern Europe – An Introduction.” Journal of Early Modern History 14 (2010): 505-12. García Hernán, Enrique. Consejero de ambos mundos. Vida y obra de Juan Solórzano Pereira. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2007. Godman, Peter. From Poliziano to Machiavelli. Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Goldberg, Edward L. “Artistic Relations between the Medici and the Spanish Courts, 15871621.” The Burlington Magazine 138.1115 (1996): 105-14; 138.1121 (1996): 529-40. Goldthwaite, Richard A. Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence. A Study of Four Families. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. Guicciardini, Francesco. Considerations, 1.29. Guicciardini, Ludovico. Descrittione di tutti I Paesi Bassi. Antwerp: Willem Silvius, 1567. Haley, George, ed. Diario de un estudiante de Salamanca. La crónica inédita de Girolamo de Sommaia. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1977. 20 ———. “Introducción.” Diario de un estudiante de Salamanca. La crónica inédita de Girolamo de Sommaia. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1977. 9-96. Hayden, Craig. The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2012. Hegarty, Andrew. “The Corporate University in the Age of Olivares: Salamanca c.1620– 1640.” D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. Herzog, Tamar. Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2003. Hillgarth, Jocelyn. The Mirror of Spain, 1500-1700. The Formation of a Myth. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000. Kagan, Richard L. Clio & the Crown. The Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. ———, and Geoffrey Parker, eds. Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World. Essays in Honour of John H. Elliott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ———. “La Salamanca del Siglo de Oro: el extracurriculum y el declive español.” Salamanca en la edad de oro. Ed. Conrad Kent. Salamanca: Libreria Cervantes, 1970. 287-305. ———. Students and Society in Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1974. Litchfield, Robert Burr. Emergence of a Bureaucracy. The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Marañon, Gregorio. Antonio Pérez. 2 vols. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1947. McLean, Paul D. The Art of the Network: Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. McLaughlin, Martin. “Biography and Autobiography in the Italian Renaissance.” Mapping Lives. The Uses of Biography. Ed. Peter France and William St Clair. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 137-66. 21 O’Connell, Patricia. “The Early Modern Irish College Network in Iberia, 1590-1800.” The Irish in Europe, 1580-1815. Ed. Thomas O’Connor. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001: 49-64. O’Connor, Thomas and Lyons, Mary Ann, eds. Irish Communities in Early Modern Europe. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006. Pérez Martin, Antonio. “Salamanca y las Italias, etapas medieval y renacentista.” Historia de la Universidad de Salamanca. Coord. Luis Enrique Rodríguez San Pedro Bezares. 3.2: 1163-73. Prögler, Daniela. English Students at Leiden University, 1575-1650. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Puigdomenech, Helena. Maquiavelo en España. Presencia de sus obras en los siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1988. Rereading the Black Legend. The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires. Ed. Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. Ridder-Symoens, Hilde de. “Mobility”. Ed. Idem. A History of the University in Europe. Vol. 2. Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800). Cambridge: CUP, 1996. 41648. Ryjik, Veronika. Lope de Vega en la invención de España. El drama histórico y la formación de la conciencia nacional. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2011. Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares, Luis Enrique. La universidad salmantina del Barroco, período 1598–1625. 3 vols. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1986. ———, coord. Historia de la Universidad de Salamanca. 4 vols. in 3. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2002-06. ———. and Polo Rodríguez, Juan Luis, eds. Historiografía y líneas de investigación en historia de las universidades Europa Mediterránea e Iberoamérica. Miscelánea Alfonso IX. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2011. Seneca. Epistolae ad Lucilium. Sharpe, Kevin. Reading Revolutions. The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000. 22 Spadaccini, Nicholas, and Jenaro Talens, ed. Autobiography in Early Modern Spain. Minneapolis: Prisma Institute, 1988. Thompson, I.A.A “Castile, Spain and the monarchy: the political community from patria natural to patria nacional.” Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World. Ed. Richard L. Kagan and Geoffrey Parker. 125-59. Valente, Michaela. “The Works of Bodin under the Lens of Roman Theologians and Inquisitors.” The European Reception of Bodin. Ed. Howell A. Lloyd. Leiden: Brill. 2013. 219-35. Weruaga Prieto, Ángel. “Aulas de la Monarquía Católica. Internacionalización y nobleza en la matrícula universitaria salmantina (siglos XVI-XVII).” Historiografía y líneas de investigación. Ed. Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares and Polo Rodríguez. 299-34. 23