Villani Stefano, «A guisa di quelli d’Inghilterra»

Le dimore di Pisa. L’arte di abitare i palazzi di una antica Repubblica Marinara dal Medioevo all’Unità d’Italia, Atti del Convegno di studi (Pisa, auditorium di Palazzo Blu, 6-9 ottobre 2009) edited by E. Daniele (Firenze: Alinea, 2010), series “Associazione Dimore Storiche Italiane”: 6): 173-180.

[The English Grand Tour in Pisa (17th-18th Centuries)]. This essay was published as part of the proceedings of the conference on The residences of Pisa. The art of living in the palaces of an ancient Maritime Republic from the Middle Ages to the Unification of Italy, held in Pisa in October 2009. The essay reconstructs the history of the Grand Tour in Tuscany, and Pisa in particular. After discussing the image of Pisa that emerges from the accounts of early travelers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Villani describes the British presence in the city in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The 1820s mark the years in which the residence of Shelley and Byron in Pisa would make the city “a little nest of singing birds.” The stay in Pisa of the Shelleys, Byron and their friends made it a something of a cult place in subsequent years.

[The Incogniti and England]. This essay investigates the relationship between the Academy of the Incogniti and England and discusses the numerous works written by Incogniti about Great Britain. The intellectuals of the Academy of the Incogniti paid extraordinary attention to contemporary English events in comparison to seventeenth-century Italian writers and historians working in other cultural environments. This attention lent itself to a certain sympathy for the British monarchy, to which the heritage of Paolo Sarpi’s season, of intense Anglo-Venetian relations, decisively contributed. In their estimation the English monarchy, with its mixture of republican and aristocratic elements, and the Church of England, optimistically regarded as a counterpoint to the religious extremism that tore Europe, were considered as possible political and religious models. This sympathy towards the Stuart monarchy and its religious policies in the 1640s and 1650s led to perception of the civil war as a tragedy and evoked a deep sympathy towards Charles I. Thus the evaluation of civil war and Interregnum failed to bring forth a pro-Republican vision from any of the authors. Even in the works in which there is no overt hostility toward Cromwells’s government this is due to foreign policy reasons and to the contingent international position of Britain in the conflict between the Spanish and French crowns. The dominant note of the Incogniti interest to British history in this span of forty years is therefore not only this focus on its history, but especially a strong criticism of the Republican experience of the Interregnum. Villani points out that along with historical works there are two ‘novels’ and a tragedy set against a British backdrop published between 1650 and 1677, the Rosalinda by Morando (1650), the Cromuele by Graziani (1671) and the Marchesa d’Hunsleij (‘Marchioness of Huntley’) by the Sicilian Antonio Lupis (1677), written by members of the Academy of the Incogniti, again indicating the particular interest that the English revolutionary years elicited in that milieu. The latter work – a fictionalized biography – was published twenty years after the Academy of the Incogniti’s dissolution but its author was a protégé of Loredano, the founder and ruler of the Academy, and his biographer. The publication of Lupis’ Marchesa d’Hunsleij in 1677 can perhaps be regarded as the final outcome of interest towards England by Loredano intellectual circle. Britain was considered exotic enough for the complicated and fictional events of the Rosalinda and to deal with unrestrained freedom with its history, as in the case of the Cromuele. The story of Mary Queen of Scots, told in a myriad of Italian works, and Rinuccini’s Cappuccino Scozzese of 1644 contributed in particular to make Scotland symbolic of the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism; it is in this vein that the Marchesa d’Hunsleij of Lupis is placed. The last part of the essay discusses the translations into English published in the seventeenth century of works written by the Incogniti. It is very significant that the interest paid in England towards the works of the Incogniti typically came from Royalist milieus.

Quaderni storici, 2008

[A Masked Identity in Seventeenth-century England: the Vicissitudes of the Hebraist Alessandro Amidei]. Reconstructs the strange vicissitudes of Alessandro Amidei, a Florentine, possibly Jewish, who moved to England in 1656. He apparently taught Hebrew at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the 1650s, and it is certain that he was professor on the same topic in Edinburgh in the 1670s. A singular figure with a shifting and elusive identity, Amidei presented himself as a Catholic ecclesiastic converted to Protestantism on his arrival in England but in following years professed to be a Jew converted to Christianity. In 1684 he was involved in what seems to have been a case of attempted murder to the damage of the sons of Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland. The duchess’s sons accused Amidei of having poisoned their wine, although this presumed conspiracy was probably their own invention, a strategy to put an end to the union between their mother and a most embarrassing lover, an actor, who was also accused but released. In spite of the reputation he gained in the affair, in the following years Amidei – a character of endless resources – maintained relations with the English intellectual milieu. In the 1690s he was again at Cambridge, where he wrote at least two letters in Italian to John Covel, prominent vice-chancellor of the university. Amidei was also the author of an unpublished Italian translation of the Book of Common Prayer, dated 1661. Amidei’s story is interesting for various reasons. Whatever his real religious identity, his case shows how in the philo-Semite England of those years he found it more convenient to present himself as a Jew than as a convert from Catholicism. His story is also paradigmatic of the bizarre world of destitute wretches, often unfrocked friars and priests, who moved about the Italian Protestant church of London, passing from one confession to the other in search of financial support.

Archivio storico italiano, 2008

"[English State Letters written to the Grand Duke of Tuscany between 1649 and 1659 and translated into Latin by John Milton]. Between 1652 and 1659 the English Council of State, the Parliament, and Oliver and Richard Cromwell wrote to the Grand Duke of Tuscany at least twenty official letters. Twelve of these letters were certainly translated by John Milton, who was secretary for foreign languages for the Council of State. For most of the letters of State translated into Latin by Milton, there are the English minutes prepared by the Council of State and the Latin copies available in manuscript or in the printed edition of 1676. Until now, only the original of one of these 12 letters was known. This article, which presents in an appendix the texts of all the English State letters written to the Grand Duke of Tuscany between 1652 and 1659, indicates for the first time the location of the originals of seven of these letters translated by Milton and preserved at the State Archives of Florence. In addition to providing a detailed reconstruction of the available sources, the article briefly reconstructs the history of diplomatic, political, and economic relations between Tuscany and England in these years and also discusses some aspects of the English attitude toward Medicean Tuscany. "

Nuovi Studi Livornesi, 2004

[The Consuls of the English Nation in Leghorn between 1665 and 1673: Joseph Kent, Thomas Clutterbuck and Ephraim Skinner]. Examining in detail the years 1665 to 1673 the article allows Villani to reconstruct the history of British consular presence in Livorno from the end of the 1500s. The author shows how the first two consuls – Raymond Dawkins and Thomas Hunt – were elected by Trinity House, a corporation of sea pilots, while only in 1621 the new consul, Richard Allen was elected by the Levant Company with the consent of the sovereign, James I. He has succeeded the Catholic Morgan Read, who had exercised the office from 1634 until his death in Livorno on May 29, 1665. After Read’s death Britain chose the enigmatic figure of Joseph Kent, which may have been the pseudonym of the Baronet John Abdy who adopted the name in order to mask his activities as a royalist spy during the Interregnum. Joseph Kent died in Rome on May 22, 1670 and was succeeded by Thomas Clutterbuck in 1669 and later Ephraim Skinner in 1671. These three consuls are interesting figures and their embassies were during a time when the litigious merchant community in Livorno experienced a marked increase in economic importance. The article also briefly outlines the work of other British consuls in the seventeenth century. The history of British consuls in the 1600s, along with their successors through to the eve of World War II, clearly shows Livorno’s important role in the political and diplomatic relations between Tuscany and England. In a important posthumous article on the English in Genoa between 1600s and 1700s published in Quaderni Storici Edoardo Grendi emphasized the importance consuls and envoys have for a nation “devoted to commerce.” He demonstrated how these “leading figures” not so much expressed relationships to the “community or national group of local settlement, but rather evolutions and dynamics of power associated with inter-state relations.” This essay is a detailed verification of this line of research.

Studi secenteschi, 2004

[The Religion of the English and the Voyage of the Prince. Notes on the Official Report of the travels of Cosmo de’ Medici in England (1669)]. The British stage of the European journey of Cosimo de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, began on 1 April 1669 and lasted for two and a half months. A precious, anonymous, handwritten “official report” of the entire journey, illustrated with a series of watercolors and a more ample manuscript copy, without illustrations, are preserved in Florence in two and four undated (but written around 1689) volumes at the Marucelliana and the National library. Villani recalls the interest the pages of this report regarding the English stage of the journey have always provoked among scholars as a first hand report of Restoration Britain. Villani also discusses another four sources of Cosimo’s travels: the journals by Lorenzo Magalotti (since 1660 secretary to the Academy of Cimento), marquis Filippo Corsini, physician Giovan Battista Gornia and abbot Filippo Marchetti, master of the household. The official report was a team effort and these journals were used to write the final text. Since Anna Maria Crinò studies, the inspiration was attributed to Lorenzo Magalotti, who was also conceived as the coordinator of the team who wrote the report. Villani contests this idea investigating the anachronistic use of Anthony Bruodin’s Veritatis Propugnaculum Catholicae, published in Prague in 1669, as the main source for the digression on religion in England found at the end of the “Official Report.” In his book Bruodin describes the religious situation of English in 1640s and 50s. The editor of the “official report” limited himself to translate what Bruodin wrote, sometimes verbatim and sometimes summarizing it. This means that the report did not describe the real state of religion in England at the time of the journey of Cosimo de’ Medici, rather providing a stereotypical and anachronistic image of the country as a land swarming with many heretical sects.

Archivio storico italiano, 2004

[On the Projected Edition of the Correspondence of the Tuscan Representatives to London: Amerigo Salvetti and Giovanni Salvetti Antelminelli during the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649-60]. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was the only Italian prince who maintained continuous diplomatic representation in London during the tumultuous years of the English Revolution. The dispatches and letters of Amerigo Salvetti, the Tuscan resident in England from the 1640s to his death in 1657, and his son, Giovanni Salvetti Antelminelli, who succeeded his father, are a valuable resource for studying Italian perceptions of political events in England during the period. The author’s transcripts of this correspondence and dispatches from Salvetti’s chaplain, Gilles Chaissy, from 1649 to 1660 at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, and the National Archives are to be published in forthcoming volumes.

Studi storici, 2008

[Conversion and Family in Two Italian Literary Texts of the Seventeenth Century]. In seventeenth Century Italy Scotland became one of the most powerful symbols of persecution of Catholics by Protestants. This was in large part thanks to the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots being related in a myriad of historical texts, tragedies, oratorios and poems. In this context two “biographies” were published in Italy in 1644 and 1677 that narrated the vicissitudes of the lives of two Scottish capuchins in which the topic of religious identity is closely intertwined with gender issues. The first, written by the Archbishop of Fermo Giambattista Rinuccini and entitled Cappuccino Scozzese (Scottish Capuchin) (1644) tells the story of the noble George Leslie (d. 1637) who, born into a Protestant family, after his conversion to Catholicism in France, entered the Capuchin Order in Rome. The second, written by the Sicilian writer Antonio Lupis and entitled Marchesa d’Hunsleij (Marchioness of Huntley) (1677), relates the story of John Forbes (1571–1606), son of a Catholic mother and a Protestant father who decides to follow his maternal religion. Both biographies, which enjoyed outstanding editorial success, are true stories though take some liberties with historical reality. The central themes of both biographies are conversion and family conflict. And in both biographies one of the main figures is the mother of the capuchin. In one case the child leads to his mother’s conversion while in the other the mother pushes her son to conversion. If Lupis’ book, as evidenced by the title, is actually the biography of Forbes’ mother, this is also the case of Rinuccini’s Cappuccino Scozzese where the fulcrum around which revolvs the story is really the conversion of Leslie’s mother. In the comparison between historical truth and fiction the essay investigates how the two authors have addressed the theme of “conversion” from a gender point of view.

Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa – Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, serie IV, 1999

[A Quaker in Lisbon: the Travels and the Writings of Ann Gargill]. Anne Gargill was born in Swine (East Riding) in 1625. In January 1656 she published the short pamphlet A Warning to all the World. Shortly afterwards she went to Plymouth with the intention of going to Spain to evangelise, writing a letter to Fox prior to her departure from London. Her ship Lisbon at the end of April and upon landing Gargill directed herself to the King’s palace, but when she discovered that he wasn’t there she returned to the ship. On 2 May, two Inquisition officials went aboard the ship and spoke with her. Three days later she was brought to the Inquisition palace in Lisbon and interrogated. The Inquisition decided to release her, fearing that her detention would cause diplomatic problems with England, but ordered her to set out for England with the first ship. In September 1656 Ann Gargill published A brief discovery of that which is called the Popish Religion. In 1659, Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers told the Maltese Inquisitor that Anne Gargill had founded Quaker congregations in Spain. In the spring of 1657 Anne Gargill was in Holland where she caused discord and dissent in the Quaker community of Amsterdam, and for this reason was disowned by the Quaker leaders. In the following months a small group formed around her in Amsterdam. A woman of strong spirituality and keen intelligence she probably opposed the process of organisation of Quakerism that followed Nayler’s entry into Bristol. The story of Gargill is extremely interesting because it symbolizes some of the contradictions of early Quakerism. A movement that emerged as the supreme instance of freedom of the Spirit, original Quakerism experienced in the protagonism of women as Gargill one of its characteristics. The organizational process, a direct result of increasing repression, forced the more reasonable leaders of the movement to abandon some of the characteristics of its early early days and to define a Quaker theology that would not limit itself to the enthusiastic action of the Spirit within every man and every woman. Some people of more intense spirituality opposed this development, and were marginalized or expelled by the movement; this was the case of Anne Gargill. It is significant that among those who opposed the hierarchicalization of the movement a significant number were those, like Gargill, had excelled in the missionary activity (Villani also cites Perrot who, after having been a prisoner of the Roman Inquisition would lead a schism among the Quakers on the issue of the freedom of the Spirit). For those who had risked their lives to preach the free gospel of Inner Light it was intolerable to think that their movement would progressively structure along the lines of other churches with a hierarchy, a Church discipline, and a defined credo. Gargill’s prudent and cautious responses to the Portuguese inquisitors – examined by Villani in the article – would suffice to prove that not everyone who can be considered part of this extreme wing of Quakerism were frantics, led by their intransigence to risky headlong rush. However, it is highly probable that if they had taken over the movement leadership and not the more prosaic common sence of George Fox and his supporters, the movement would hardly have escaped unscathed the storm of the Restoration. The price that Quakerism paid to the marginalizing and expulsion of these restless spirits, however, was undoubtedly that of a radical transformation. If at the beginning of the movement the only article of belief was that you had to listen to “that something of God” present in every man and woman, Quakerism gradually became a true Church to which members must conform, not to risk excommunication and expulsion. And so, it is not coincidental that among those who most vigorously opposed to this outcome there were people like Gargill who had risked their lives to assert the freedom of conscience in Catholic countries.

MARCELLA AGLIETTI (ed.), Nobildonne, monache e cavaliere dell’Ordine di Santo Stefano. Modelli e strategie femminili nella vita pubblica della Toscana granducale, Atti del convegno (Pisa, 22-23 maggio 2009) (Pisa: ETS, 2009), 215-234.

[The Marriage of a Princess: the Negotiations for the Wedding of Caterina of Ferdinando Medici with the Prince Henry of England]. This essay has been published among the proceedings of the international conference on Noblewomen, nuns and female knights of the Order of Saint Stephen. Female models and strategies in the public life of Grand-Ducal Tuscany held at Pisa in May 2009. In 1601, James VI of Scotland proposed the marriage of his son Henry, who was only seven years, to one of the princesses of the Medici family. The choice fell on Ferdinand’s third daughter, Catherine a year older than the Scottish prince. This project came to nought and new negotiations began in December 1610. If in 1601 the project was proposed by Scotland because the king, in weaving his web of alliances with the Catholic countries, was eagerly seeking some political support, this time the initiative came from Tuscany that now had an interest in marrying into the British royal family (James VI was by now James I, King of England). The negotiations for the marriage of a Catholic princess and a Protestant prince gave rise to an intense debate in Italy. In the summer of 1612 a text appeared that even in manuscript form had a very wide circulation and is scrutenized by Villani. The Risolutioni d’un Politico-Cattholico sopra il corrente dubbio se nostro Signore Paolo Quinto… debba… ammettere il Matrimonio tra la Sorella del Gran Duca di Toscana, cattholica, et il figliuolo del Re d’Inghilterra, heretico by Tarquinio Pinaoro (‘Risolutions of a Catholic-Politician on the current doubt whether Our Lordship Paul V… should… admit the marriage between the Catholic sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the heretic son of the King of England’). After the death of Prince Henry Stuart Catherine married Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Monferrato in 1617. However, had Henry lived it is unlikely the marriage transaction with the Catholic princess would have been completed.