Establishing the Tudor Dynasty: The Role of Francesco Piccolomini in Rome as First Cardinal Protector of England
- Submitting institution
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Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32Z_OP_D0060
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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- Title of journal
- Royal Studies Journal
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 103
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 2057-6730
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
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- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
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https://www.rsj.winchester.ac.uk/articles/abstract/10.21039/rsj.v4i2.134/
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Between 1492 and 1503, Francesco Piccolomini (1439–1503) was the first officially-appointed Cardinal Protector of England. This article focuses on some of his activities for the first Tudor monarch, King Henry VII. Drawing particularly on two unpublished letters, the research elicits as much detail as possible from them to show how Piccolomini functioned in favour of the English sovereign. The reign of Henry VII suffers from a paucity of records. Also, it was only under his son, Henry VIII, that the renaissance obviously began to flourish in England. Similarly, Vatican records for the latter fifteenth century are slim. Piccolomini has likewise been eclipsed by his famous uncle, Pope Pius II. The research draws attention to the lesser-known Piccolomini and his connections with England, and to the fact that the vogue for Italianate taste, worn like a badge by Henry VIII, was actually inculcated by his father, Henry VII.
The article takes as its starting point two unpublished letters, one from Henry to his cardinal protector in Rome, the other from Henry’s consort Elizabeth of York. Translation and textual analysis of this correspondence, in combination with contextual historical research, illuminates the fine detail of Piccolomini’s function for Henry and his queen at the papal court. It employs recent scholarship on Italian merchant-bankers and diplomatic networks to update the seminal authority on cardinal protectors, William Wilkie (1974), proposing a revisionist interpretation of Piccolomini’s position. It also sheds light on Elizabeth’s patronage of St Katharine-by-the-Tower and the significance of this saint for London at this time.
One of the unpublished letters (Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, MS 1077, fol.13v) is transcribed in full as an appendix. <Royal Studies Journal> is published by Winchester University Press; the editor, Glenn Richardson, of this special edition, <Renaissance Cardinals>, is an internationally acclaimed historian of the Tudor dynasty.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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