Rome in the Age of Enlightment: the post-Tridentine syndrome and the ancien regime.

Rome in the Age of Enlightment: the post-Tridentine syndrome and the ancien regime. Gross, Hans. Rome in the Age of Enlightment: The post-Tridentinesyndrome and the ancien regime an��cien r����gime?n.1. The political and social system that existed in France before the Revolution of 1789.2. pl. an��ciens r����gimes A sociopolitical or other system that no longer exists. . New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). ,1990. Pp. x, 409. Illustrations. $54.50. Heroic Tridentine Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centurieswas a centre of religious and cultural dynamism whose activist zeal andartistic energies had significant effects in much of the world. Itsstory is well known to historians. In this welcome monograph, however,Hans Gross Hans Gro? (Gross, Grosz), or Hanns Gro? (December 12, 1847, Graz - December 9, 1915, Graz) was an Austrian criminal jurist and an examining magistrate. examines a city less familiar to English-speaking readers:eighteenth-century Rome, the city, as he puts it, of the "ancienregime." In many respects this is an account of anticlimax,decline, and decay, which finds its own climax fittingly at theintrusion of a powerful, dynamic and foreign force during the period ofthe French Revolution and Napoleon. To explain the entropy in the vitality and influence of Rome, theauthor tries to capture something ethereal. He calls this spirit, orperhaps loss of spirit, the "post-Tridentine syndrome," a"subtle malaise" in a city whose "clerical government hadlost its overall integrative vision and direction." After thisalmost Hegelian beginning, the book settles into the pattern that hasserved historians well: first we are given an analysis of the"material and institutional structures" of the city and thenan account of intellectual and cultural developments. In order tounderstand the mind and soul of Rome, we must first get a thoroughaccount of its physiology. This first section occupies about two thirdsof the book and is the more successful of the two. Gross begins with an architectural history This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.Please help recruit one or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details. of the city, in which heargues that Rome's building history in the eighteenth centuryreflects its general historical development. While there is a continuityfrom the religious past, an increasing emphasis on the secular needs ofits inhabitants blurs "the vision of what the cityrepresents." Although there were attempts to reproduce the vigorousendeavour of the Tridentine period, and an indigenous Roman rococo diddevelop, the direction of such efforts, whether hospitals, fountains orroads, was towards the satisfaction of the temporal rather thanspiritual needs of citizens. Ironically, those new ecclesiasticalbuilding projects that were completed (such as the sacristy of St.Peter's St. Peter's or similar terms may mean:Places St. Peter's, County Dublin, Republic of Ireland St Peter's, Guernsey St Peter's, Kent, United Kingdom St Peters, Leicester, Leicestershire, a suburb of Leicester, England ) simply added to the burden of debt that was part of thepost-Tridentine decline. Moreover, Gross suggests that aestheticimprovements in Rome were more a backdrop for wealthy tourists than aninspiration to pilgrims. After all that has been written aboutsecularization during this period, it seems appropriate that Rome wastransformed, in some elite minds, from a church into a museum. Theaccounts of Roman planning and architecture are fascinating and quitewell drawn, but marred by the reproduction of an eighteenth-century maptoo small to permit the reader to locate the projects described in thetext. In subsequent chapters of the first section, the Roman government,economy and population receive ample analysis, although somecontradictions are left unexplained. For example, on the one hand, weare told that, as in absolutist states, the municipal independence ofRome was steadily "dissipated" and by the eighteenth centurythe traditional rulers were papal appointees, usually outsiders who hadlittle "intimate feeling for the welfare of its people." Onthe other hand, it would have been interesting had Gross reconciled thisopinion with the evidence of continuing charity that gave ordinaryRomans a relatively easy subsistence. The demographic aspect of the post-Tridentine syndrome included areduction in the proportion of clerics in the population and an increasein the "demographic role of the female population." Thedecrease in the ecclesiastical presence, while not surprising in an ageof ecclesiastical decline, is nonetheless remarkable when considered inthe context of the unexpectedly small proportion of clerics in thegeneral population. This proportion reached a maximum for the 18thcentury of 7.41% (sic) in the period 1716-1720 and declined to 3.3% bythe beginning of the 19th century. By contrast, Rome's overallpopulation continued to grow until 1794. But the key to its growth,typical of other large cities of the period, was not indigenousfertility, for the death rate exceeded that of births; indeed the gapbetween them continued to grow. Rather, the Roman propensity to welcomeoutsiders assured continued demographic growth. Here the author is athis best, scrupulously documenting his analysis with extensive archivalevidence which makes his book an important source for scholars from awide range of fields. An interesting aspect of Gross's demographicchapter is his brief examination of Rome's Jews. Despite gradualimpoverishment and papal animosity towards the community, a low age ofmarriage, higher fertility and continual immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. compensated for thedecimation DECIMATION. The punishment of every tenth soldier by lot, was, among the Romans, called decimation. of its numbers by the diseases that were endemic to theinsalubrious insalubrious/in��sa��lu��bri��ous/ (in?sah-loo��bre-us) injurious to health. insalubriousinjurious to health. ghetto near the Tiber. The greatest egress See ingress. of Jews followedthe papal restoration of 1809, at the end of a century of antagonisticsymbiosis symbiosis(sĭmbēō`sĭs), the habitual living together of organisms of different species. The term is usually restricted to a dependent relationship that is beneficial to both participants (also called mutualism) but may be extended to between Jew and Catholic in Rome. The general loss of vigour and direction also characterized theRoman economy. In a demographic and cultural sense Rome had long been aninternational importer of persons and in Delumeau's phrase (quotedby Gross) an exporter of "truth" and "art". In themore narrowly economic sense, Rome was a capital city, and not unlikeother capitals a consumer rather than a producer. Moreover, it sufferedfrom a growing trade deficit for most of the 18th century. In additionto discussing Rome's economic disadvantages, such as the lack ofcapital investment and the primitive management of Roman industries,Gross discusses some interesting failed attempts to stimulate profitableenterprise. While his depiction of "post-Tridentine lassitude lassitude/las��si��tude/ (las��i-tldbomacd) weakness; exhaustion. las��si��tuden.A state or feeling of weariness, diminished energy, or listlessness. "is sufficient, and provides an interesting contrast to other Europeancities of the period, he goes on to devote an entire chapter to financeand currency. This chapter serves to explain the mismanagement mis��man��age?tr.v. mis��man��aged, mis��man��ag��ing, mis��man��ag��esTo manage badly or carelessly.mis��manage��ment n. of Romanfinance, and documents thoroughly a complex, antiquated system whichsuffered from incoherent policy and the loss of international churchrevenues. While symptomatic of the syndrome he wishes to describe, thesematters might have been discussed along with the Roman economy. In anyevent, several of the points he wishes to make could have beensummarized more clearly by means of graphs or charts. All the same areader cannot but admire the meticulous compilation of data involved inGross's fiscal analysis. Glimmers of Roman life and mentalities emerge when the author turnsto the subject of lotteries. Although its profits were expended to thebenefit of the Church and the city, Gross argues that the lotto haddeleterious effects on Romans of "all classes" and generallyon the economy of the city, where the substantial amounts expended mighthave been better used for investment. Moreover, he contends with arather northern fussiness that it simply "gave the Romans yet onemore excuse for doing no work while living in the expectation of themiracle that would make them wealthy overnight." Where, one istempted to ask, would it have been more fitting to wait for a miraclethan in Rome? And were not the expenditures of lotto profits sometimes aform of investment in a city where, in any event, it was difficult toprise capital from the relatively lightly taxed Roman citizen?Unfortunately, with this brief glance at Roman attitudes, the authortitillates the reader but goes no further along this line of inquiry. The chapters which follow continue the construction of argumentsand evidence for the post-Tridentine syndrome and in many cases they aremodels of scholarship. The description of the Agro Romano, on which Romehas depended in the past for its food supply, is well drawn and explainsclearly the official restrictions which led, after 1720, to theinsufficiency of the hinterland to meet the capital's needs, alsoputting into perspective the well-known attempts to make productive thePontine Marshes Pontine Marshes(pŏn`tēn, –tīn), Ital. Pontina, low-lying region, c.300 sq mi (780 sq km), in S Latium, central Italy, between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Apennine foothills; it is crossed by drainage canals. . (This section and others should be read with thebackground of Ricuperati and Carpanetto's general work, Italy inthe Age of Reason.) Thus even agriculture showed the continual ebb ofRoman vitality during the eighteenth century. Because of the Romansystem of food supply and the widespread and time-honoured tradition ofcharity, however, Romans were generally quite well fed by the standardsof the day. According to Gross, Roman charity was rightly considered agenerous tradition, although Rome's poor were not immune to thegrowing tendency (discussed by historians for a variety of places duringthis period) to distinguish between the "true" and"false" poor and to employ a harsher coercion in theirtreatment. Gross concludes paradoxically that Rome was losing itscharitable zeal, but that her charitable works were still too generousfor her "economic health." The subsequent chapter on crimecontains interesting possibilities, although the loss of socialresponsibility the author identifies is not altogether clear from theevidence presented in a somewhat unsystematic description ofcriminality. This chapter illustrates a problem which Gross does notovercome. Criminal justice records are among the most vivid historicaldescriptions of individual behaviour that we possess, but the book failsto give the reader a vivid sense of life in eighteenth-century Rome. Ina later and very interesting chapter on thought, he opines that"the religion of the people at times transformed itself into atissue of beliefs consisting of superstitious dross and unbridledemotions." At this, the reader is tempted to cry out: "give usmore dross! unbridle un��bri��dle?tr.v. un��bri��dled, un��bri��dling, un��bri��dles1. To free from restriction or restraint.2. To free from a bridle.Verb 1. the emotions!" That having been said however,Gross's careful scholarship and the thoroughness of hisdocumentation of Roman material civilization, learning and culturaltrends in transition make this excellent piece of scholarship a solidand essential contribution to the historiography of great cities. Malcolm Greenshields University of Lethbridge