The Opening of the Vatican Archives (1880-1881) and Irish Historical Research

The Opening of the Vatican Archives (1880-1881) and Irish Historical ResearchAuthor(s): Katherine WalshSource: Archivium Hibernicum, Vol. 36 (1981), pp. 34-43Published by: Catholic Historical Society of IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487434 .

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THE OPENING OF THE VATICAN ARCHIVES (1880-1881) AND IRISH HISTORICAL RESEARCH

by KATHERINE WALSH

On 4 and 5 June 1981 the 'Unione Internazionale degli Istituti di Archeologia, Storia e Storia dell'arte in Roma' organized in the library of Sixtus IV in the

Vatican Palace a symposium under the title 'L'Archivio Segreto Vaticano e le

ricerche storiche' to celebrate the centenary of the formal opening of the

Vatican Archives (Archivio Segreto Vaticano) to bona fide researchers of all

nations regardless of religious persuasion.1 This long-awaited opening had

been preceded by several decades of controversy, in which the Roman curia

weighed up the conflicting demands of historical truth and of a delicate

political situation, when Revolution, Liberalism, the loss of the papal states, and the strife surrounding the First Vatican Council and the 'Kulturkampf fostered defensive attitudes. During this period the policies of popes and

archivists wavered between leniency of access to the chosen few and uncom

promising insistence on the ban which prevented unauthorized persons from

entering the archive under pain of excommunication, combined with refusal

to permit archival material in the hands of anybody except the (minute) staff

of the archive itself.2 The crucial importance of these archives for the history of Europe over the

past thousand years, and the value of scholarly publications and editorial

projects based on Vatican archival material which have been sponsored by various national governments over the past century are well known and

require no introduction here.3 Furthermore the centenary which has just been celebrated has encouraged the representatives of those national projects ?

notably the Austrians, British, French, Germans and Spaniards ? to

reconsider the impact which the opening of the archives had on their respec tive historiographical traditions. It has provoked some consideration of the

implications of the event for the history of scholarship, for developments in

the study of history as an academic discipline, and it has encouraged inquiry into the history of those institutions which were established in Rome in order to cope with, and exploit the new situation.4

Nevertheless there are gaps in this approach, for two reasons: the first is

given in the nature of the symposium already mentioned, which was based

upon papers delivered by members of the international union of academies and scholarly institutes located in Rome, and dealing with the careers and researches of their own, largely government-sponsored predecessors. The second reason (of which the first is largely a reflection) arises out of the belief

? widespread in the years before 1880/1 and partly responsible for the

decisions of their respective governments to establish the ?cole francaise de Rome (1875), the Austrian Historical Institute (Istituto Austriaco di Studii Storici 1881), and the Prussian Historical Institute (Istituto Storico Prussiano

34



1887/8) ? that only those scholars who came as government representatives

to study the sources pertaining to their own countries would be granted admittance.5 As no Irish government ever established such an institution, Ireland was not directly represented at the recent symposium, and Irish

research in the Vatican archives was presented under 'Ricerche inglesi nell'

Archivio Segreto Vaticatio'.6 This approach naturally tends to ignore the 'freelancers', apart from the

more celebrated cases, such as Lord John Acton7 or Ludwig Pastor.8 However numerous individuals gained

? by one channel or another

? access

to archival material and made substantial contributions to historical scholar

ship independently of the nationally-sponsored projects, and they did so

many years before the official opening took place. Most of these early researchers were hampered by the survival of the rule that nobody except a

member of the archival staff could actually transcribe documents - the

researcher might consult volumes of registers, make notes and order particular documents to be transcribed for a fee. But the available staff was small, over

worked and underpaid, often without the necessary palaeographical training to decipher and copy medieval manuscripts. Still the archivists were jealous of their monopoly in this sphere and of the financial rewards which helped to

supplement their meagre income. Hence as the number of users and the

orders for transcripts increased, the system became overloaded, and we hear

of constant complaints that scholars waited months for transcripts of docu

ments, which were often inadequate when finally produced.9 The role of the freelancers is particularly important for Ireland and for

Irish historical research in Rome in the second half of the nineteenth century. Whereas in the course of the recent Roman symposium the labours of those

representatives of the Public Record Office in London, and especially of William Henry Bliss, which led to the series of 'Calendars of Entries in the

Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland' (London 1893 ff.), received due attention, the earliest Irish historians who gained access to

Vatican archival material slipped by almost unnoticed. It is perhaps no

accident that both of the scholars who can be identified as regular users of the Vatican Archives before the official opening were Roman Catholic priests, respectively the vice-rector of the Irish College in Rome, nephew of Cardinal

Paul Cullen and himself subsequently cardinal and archbishop of Sydney Patrick Francis Moran (1830-1911),10 and the Galway-born Dominican

Michael A. Costello (1824-1906) who spent some forty years in the commun

ity of San Clemente and whose De Annatis Hiberniae were published post

humously.11 As Leonard Boyle correctly pointed out,12 the archives of the

papal Camera which were used extensively by W. Maziere Brady for his

'Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland and Ireland'13 and also the

Annatae consulted and transcribed by Costello had belonged to curial depart ments scattered throughout Rome and therefore came under state control

after the Italian occupation of the city in 1870, thus making consultation

35



easier. However, as we shall see, Costello had - at least from the late 1870s

onwards ? apparently unrestricted access to an impressive range of materials

in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano itself. The slightly younger Moran gained access to these archives at an earlier

date than Costello, and his family connections doubtless helped. He had spent much of his early life as student and priest in Rome, where he was educated

at the Collegio Romano and Propaganda Fide, and ordained in 1853. He

taught Hebrew at Propaganda and acted as vice-rector of the Irish college from 1856 until 1866, when he returned to Ireland as secretary to Cullen,

recently created cardinal.14 His access to material in the Vatican Archives

dated back to the flexible days of the 1850s and 1860s when the scholarly Oratorian from Breslau, Augustin Theiner, created favourable conditions for

historical research on the basis of the materials under his care. Theiner

combined an energetic programme of personal publication with a willingness to make transcripts of documents available for others, and he maintained

friendly relations with the leaders of German historical scholarship as well as

with prominent ecclesiastics such as Cardinal (and Prince) Gustav Adolf von

Hohenlohe-Schillingfurst, who had been largely responsible for securing Theiner the job as archivist.15 At this stage, in the more relaxed climate

before frontiers were hardened over the 'Syllabus', the First Vatican Council

and above all over the proclamation of papal mfalhbility, Cullen was also

close to these circles. He encouraged Theiner's work, as is clear from the

dedication, dated 29 June 1864, which Theiner prefaced to his 'Vetera monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam illustrantia',16 and we know

from other sources that Cullen was favourable to suggestions that the treasures of the Vatican Archives be made more freely available to a scholarly public. Under such circumstances it is scarcely surprising that when Cullen's

nephew, then a rising young scholar at the Irish College, made application in

1862 and again in 1863 through the usual channels (i.e. through the Cardinal

Secretary of State Giacomo Antonelli,17 who invariably passed such requests on to the prefect of the archives) for permission to consult archival material, his application was not rejected.18

At this stage, when the ban on persons other than the archivists actually

entering the archives was still in force, Theiner's usual practice was to receive

those favoured visitors whose applications had been granted in his private apartment in the Torre de' Venti, permitting them to work there on the volumes of documents which they wished to consult. Later, after Theiner's fall from favour in the controversy over the release of documentation

concerning the order of business at the Council of Trent to the German (anti

infallibility) party at the Vatican Council, another compromise solution was

worked out for the representative of the French government who studied the registers of Innocent IV (1243-1254) at a remote corner table in the

Vatican Library19 from 1877 onwards.20 Recently discovered evidence however suggests that this compromise was not new when the French

36



ambassador negotiated it with Antonelli's successor as Cardinal Secretary of

State, Giovanni Simeoni21 ? it appears to have been Theiner's normal

method of dealing with the 'overflow' in the days of his greatest liberality, and it was certainly the solution found for Moran when he collected the

materials subsequently published in his 'History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin since the Reformation' and 'Spicilegium Ossoriense'.22 Although some of the documents published by Moran in his earlier work were drawn

from the Consistorial archive (Acta Camerarii) and may have been technically outside the Archivio Segreto Vaticano (they were housed in the courtyard of S. Damaso in the Vatican until 190723, others concerning the legateship of

Cardinal Reginald Pole and the appointment in 1554 of his former chaplain William Walsh as bishop of Meath were definitely drawn from within the

archives proper.24 In any case it is clear that Moran worked closely with

Theiner in these early stages, as at the beginning of the documentary

appendix to his 'History of the Catholic Archbishops' he mentioned that

since writing the preceding chapters he had learned from Theiner that the

latter intended to publish (at Cullen's urging) his series of documents

concerning the Irish church. Consequently Moran refrained from publishing a

number of documents which he had already collected for the present

appendix.25 Moran's reticence confirms the impression that Theiner's collec

tion was originally intended to go beyond the first volume, which included

documents only up to the end of the reign of Henry VIII. Moran's account on

the other hand does not begin until the mid-sixteenth century, and the over

lapping documents which both men had intended to publish must belong to

the period after 1547. It may be assumed that some of these documents were

those which subsequently appeared in the 'Spicilegium', when Moran was able

to collect the fruits of his researches in the Vatican and Barberini archives, in

Propaganda Fide and in the Irish Colleges of Rome and Salamanca.

Michael Costello became engaged in historical research by accident. After

profession in the Dominican order in Rome in 1844, further studies and

ordination, he held a number of teaching and administrative posts in his

order, until he became so deaf that such activities were no longer possible. As a result he lived in the Irish Dominican house in Rome, San Clemente, in a

position of early retirement from c. 1867 onwards and began to interest

himself in the search for historical material relating to the Irish church, more

or less as a pastime.26

Despite his relative personal obscurity, by comparison with the future

cardinal archbishop of Sydney, Costello's activities in the Vatican Archives

are more precisely documented, thanks to the survival of an unusual register which is part of an unofficial fond loosely termed 'Archivio dell'Archivio', and which the present writer was recently permitted to consult. This volume

is simply entitled 'Domande de' codici'27 and it covers the period from

10 December 1879 to 22 June 1886, though with a gap for the period 7

January 1881 until 5 November 1882 ? a fact which is noted on the fly-leaf

37



in the hand of Angelo Mercati, prefect of the archives 1925-1955 .^ However

the fact that the volume was ? apparently during Mercati's years in the

archive ? labelled as volume II of the 'Domande', there had clearly been an

earlier volume containing the requests granted prior to December 1879. At

the very beginning of this second volume the name of P. Michele Costello

appears on 13 December, when he received and signed for registers dating from the pontificates of Eugenius IV (1431-1447) and Nicholas V (1447

1455). In view of the fact that Costello appears as a regular user at the

beginning of volume II, it is a reasonable assumption that he had also been

there earlier and that he would have appeared at least in the concluding sections of volume I. On 13 January 1881 he extended his search to the

pontificate of Calixtus III (1455-1458), and on 17 January received some

volumes from the pontificates of Paul II (1464-1471) and Sixtus IV (1471 1484)

? the mtervening reign of the humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini as

Pius II (1458-1464) appears not to have interested him. After that he skipped back to Boniface DC (1389-1404), and then forward to the period of Julius III (1550-1555), on whose registers he worked for most of 1880. He may

have caught some of the excitement of scholars of other nations who were

then displaying a lively interest in the records of the period of the Council of

Trent,29 and he was still at work on Julius III when the 'Domande' break off

early in 1881. By the time this record resumes again in 1882 Costello had

jumped back to the middle ages once more and was consulting registers of

Martin IV (1281-1285) and Honorius TV (1285-1287); in 1883 he moved

forward once more to Boniface VIII (1294-1303) and John XXII (1317

1334), when his pace became noticeably slower, and he continued to work on

the registers of John XXII for the rest of 1883 and all of 1884.

Any modern researcher who knows the immense amount of time which can be spent not merely in searching through volumes of registers but, having found what one wants, in actually transcribing such documents might be

surprised at the speed with which Costello, especially in the period 1879

1882, moved through large quantities of material, at a time when neither the

microfilm nor the photocopy could be drawn upon for assistance. The

explanation for this is of course to be found in the rule which permitted the

researcher to inspect the volumes and make notes, but not to transcribe entire

documents, an activity which still remained the sole prerogative and financial

'perk' of the archival staff. The register 'Domande de' Codici' also yield evidence concerning this aspect of archival activity

? it contains a list of

documents transcribed, together with the names of those for whom the

transcripts were made. Among them we find record of the numerous tran

scripts made for Bliss, beginning in November-December 1879 with those

from the 'Nunziature d'Inghilterra,... di Francia,... e di Spagna'.

However there is no record of transcripts having been made for Costello, and in the light of his private status and mendicant vows this is not surprising.

38



But Costello managed to solve the problem in another way, as we learn from the records of the Secretariate of State. On 15 November 1882 the Dominican

cardinal and former rector of the Angelicum, Tommaso Maria Zigliara,30 wrote to the Cardinal Secretary of State Lodovico Jacobini,31 explaining his

confrere's problem: Costello had been at work for a number of years and

needed to copy in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano those bulls which pertained to the bishoprics, abbeys and other ecclesiastical matters in England, Ireland,

Scotland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway32 ?

clearly the cardinal, who was

a good Thomist but no historian, shared the same misconception about the

dimensions of the task as did Pope Piux DC, when he instructed Cardinal

Antonelli to have Theiner make an index of the Vatican Archives! However

Zigliara's main point was that Costello, as a mendicant religious, could not

afford to have copies made for him, and consequently Pope Leo XIII was to

be requested, through the Secretary of State, to permit the Irish Dominican

to make his transcripts in person. Jacobini referred the matter to Mgr Retro Balan, who was in good

standing with Leo XIII and had been appointed sub-archivist33 under the

general direction of Cardinal Josef Hergenrother.34 Balan had a personal axe

to grind in this matter, as he was one of the principal copyists who made

money out of the existing arrangements,35 but he raised no objection in this

case. Doubtless he was aware that Costello, as a friar engaged in private research, could not raise the same kind of fees as could scholars on govern

ment scholarships. He replied to Jacobini on 16 November, stipulating that

Costello might copy the relevant bulls in person, but that this privilege could

not be extended to any assistants which Costello might wish to bring with

him. It must be clearly understood that this was an exceptional case, and the

matter was to be treated with the utmost discretion so as not to offend the

archival staff ? who might naturally be sensitive to such loss of income.

Above all the permission was to be communicated to Costello verbally ? the

cautious archivist was careful not to leave any incriminating evidence which

diligent researchers from other countries might use as a precedent for future

demands.36 In accordance with these terms Jacobini replied to Zigliara on 18

November, informing him that the request had been placed before the pope, who also had no objection, and that therefore Costello might proceed with

the work of transcription as requested.37 This exchange between Jacobini and

Zigliara explains the change in Costello's work-pattern from 1883 onwards, as he spent much longer working on individual volumes when he was actually

transcribing documents than when he was simply making notes.

Costello was primarily a collector of material in the traditional manner, and he displayed no interest in publishing the documentation which he had laboriously collected over a period of more than 30 years. In view of his

uncontroversial character and of the relatively harmless nature of the material

which he was collecting, by comparison with some of the more spectacular researches of other nineteenth-century scholars,38 he was given considerable

39



freedom. Given his physical infirmity, it was understandable that he was

content to sit in archives and gather material in substantial quantities. The

surviving transcripts which he made ? those still unpublished are lodged in

the archives of the Irish Dominican house in Rome, Collegio San Clemente39 -

testify to the fact that he worked in other Roman archives as well. These

included the Archivio di Stato, the Biblioteca Casanatense, and the Lateran

archives at San Giovanni which then still housed the important series of

Registra Lateranensia. These latter had been made available to scholars after

the unseemly but amusing 'invasion' of this archive by the principal

Hungarian researcher in Rome Vilmos Fraknoi40 aided by the first director of

the Austrian Historical Institute in Rome, Theodor von Sickel 41 There is a

tragic irony in the fact that the elderly Dominican met his death after an

accident involving a Roman tram, while he was on his way between his convent and the archives to which he devoted the last decades of his life. There is however a further irony in the correspondence concerning him which

passed between the two cardinals in the period 1548 November 1882. In

view of the weeks and months which many highly-placed laymen had to wait

before securing access to the materials they required ?

despite interventions at ambassadorial level42 ? one cannot help feeling that in the case of this

apparently insignificant Irish Dominican, who had turned to historical

research when illness and increasing deafness made him ill-suited for pastoral or academic work within his order, the mills of the curia ground with remarkable speed.

FOOTNOTES

1. The proceedings of this symposium will be published in book form. Meanwhile

concerning the 'opening of the archives cf. Reinhard Elze, L'apertura dell' Archivio

Vaticano e gli istituti storici stranieri in Roma, Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia

Patria 100 (1977) 81-91; Giacomo Martina, L'apertura dell' Archivio Vaticano: claima

generale romano e problem!, ibid. 101-112; Charles Burns, Ricerche nell'Archivio

Vaticano sulla storia della Gran Bretagna e Irlanda, ibid. 135-141. The present author is

greatly indebted to Vice-Prefect Mgr Hermann Hoberg and to Don Ottavio Cavalleri of

the Archivio Segreto Vaticano for their generous assistance in the preparation of this

paper. 2. Cf. Owen Chadwick, Catholicism and History. The Opening of the Vatican

Archives (Cambridge 1978). 3. f e.g. France: Registres et Lettres des Papes du XIV* siecle, edited as Bibliotheque

des Ecoles Francaises d'Ath^nes et de Rome, serie 3 (Paris 1900 ff.); Germany: Reper torium Germanicum: Regesten aus den papstlichen Archiven zur Geschichte des

Deutschen Reiches und seiner Territorien im XIV. und XV. Jahrhundert, herausgegeben vom (KSniglichen Preussischen) Deutschen Historischen Institute in Rom (Berlin 1897

ff.). 4. Cf. the older studies: Philipp Dengel, Das Osterreichische Historische Institut in

Rom 1901-1913. Festgabg Ludwig Pastor zum 60. Geburtstag (Wien-Freiburg i. Br.

1914); Hans Kramer, Das Osterreichische Historische Institut in Rom, 1881-1931 (Roma 1932); Leo Santifaller, Das Osterreichische Historische Institut in Rom und die

Abteilung fur Historische Studien des Osterreichischen Kulturinstituts in Rom, Romische Historische Mitteilungen 1 (1956/7) 5-26; L'Histoire et Voeuvre deV6cole

40



francaise de Rome (= Melanges, Paris 1931). In the case of both the Austrian and the

German institutes, modern studies of the history of their institutions are in the course

of preparation. 5. Cf. the example" of Joseph Stevenson, who preceded William Henry Bliss as the

representative of the Public Record Office, Chadwick (as no. 2), pp. 77-90. 6. An informative survey under this title by Ian B. Cowan will appear in LArchivio

Segreto Vaticano e le ricerche storiche (forthcoming). 7. For Acton cf. Victor Conzemius, Ignaz von DMinger: Briefwechsel mit Lord

Acton, 3 Bde (Munchen 1963-71); Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past. The Study of the History of Historical Scholarship (Cambridge 1969) ad indicem; Chadwick (as no. 2),

ad indicem. The Acton Papers, now lodged in the University Library, Cambridge, gave the initial impetus to Chadwick's study. On Acton's uncle, Charles Januarius Edward,

Cardinal Acton (1803-1847) cf. Christoph Weber, Kardinale undPralaten in den letzten Jahrzehnten des Kirchenstaates (= Papste und Papsttum 13/MI, Stuttgart 1978), especially pp. 320-1, 425.

8. For Ludwig Pastor (after 1916 Ludwig Pastor, Freiherr von Campenhausen) cf.

Ludwig von Pastor, 1854-1928. Tagebucher -

Briefe -

Erinnerungen. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Wuhr (Heidelberg 1950); Heinrich Schmidinger, Pastor e la storia dei papi,

Archivio delta Societa Romana di Storia Patria, 100 (1977) 67-69; idem, Theodor von

Sickel e Ludwig von Pastor come protagonisti per Fapertura dell' Archivio Segreto Vaticano, L Archivio Segreto Vaticano (as no. 6).

9. Cf. Chadwick (as no. 2), pp. 81 ff. Ibid, pp. 22-23 for an early exception in 1822, the founding father of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Georg Heinrich Pertz, who

was permitted to make the transcriptions himself, though he was still required to pay the

obligatory fee for each document. For complaints about this system cf. Theodor von

Sickel, Romische Erinnerungen. Nebst erganzenden Briefen und AktenstUcken. Heraus

gegeben von Leon Santifaller (Wien 1947) pp. 61 ff.; Walter Goldinger, Osterreich und

die Eroffnung des Vatikanischen Archivs, Archivalische Zeitschrift 47 (1951) 23-52.

10. For Moran cf. Remigius Ritzier - Pirminus Sefrin, Hierarchia Catholica Mediiet

Recentioris Aevi, vol. VIII, 1846-1903 (Patavii 1979), especially pp. 32,430,530;^^ Catholic Encyclopedia IX, 1134; Dictionary of National Biography 2 (1901-11) 645

646.

11. For Costello cf. the biographical note by Ambrose Coleman, in Michael A.

Costello, O.P., De Annatis Hiberniae. A Calendar of the First Fruits * Fees levied on papal

appointments to Benefices in Ireland A.D. 1400 to 1535. Vol. I, Ulster, with introduc tion by Ambrose Coleman and supplementary notes by Grattan Flood (Dundalk 1909)

pp. xxx-xxxi. Further editions based on Costello's transcripts were published in Arch.

Hib. 2 (1913) 1-72; 10 (1943) 1-103; 104-162; 12 (1946) 1-14,15-61; 18 (1955) 1-15; 20(1957) 1-37; 21 (1958) 1-51; 52-74; 22 (1959) 1-27; 24 (1961) 1-30; 26 (1963) 56 117; 28 (1966) 1-32, 33-44; 29 (1970) 1-32, 33-44. 12. Leonard E. Boyle, A Survey of the Vatican Archives and of its Medieval Holdings (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto 1972) p. 42.

13. William Maziere Brady, The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland and

Ireland, A.D. 1400-1875, 3 vols (Roma 1875). 14. For Cullen cf. Ritzier - Sefrin (as no. 10), especially pp. 17, 122-123; John H.

Whyte, Political Problems 1850-60: Patrick J. Corish, Political Problems 1860-78 (= A History of Irish Catholicism, ed. Patrick J. Corish, vol. V, fasc. 2-3, Dublin -

Melbourne 1967); Weber (as no. 7) pp. 346, 689, 718, 738, 745-747, 762; Katherine

Walsh, The First Vatican Council, the Papal State and the Irish Hierarchy. Recent

research on the pontificate of Pope Piux IX, Studies (1981 -

forthcoming). Cf. also New

Catholic Encyclopedia (V, 521-522, and bibliography. 15. On Hohenlohe cf. Ritzier ~ Sefrin (as no. 10) ad indicem, and Weber (as no. 7)

ad indicem.

16. Augustinus Theiner, Vetera monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam

illustrantia, ab Honorio PP. Ill usque adPaulum PP. Ill (Roma 1864 pp. iii-iv), 17. For Antonelli (1806-1876), cf. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 3, 484-493;

Giuseppe De Marchi, Le Nunziature apostoliche dal 1800 al 1956 (= Sussidi eruditi 13, Roma 1957) pp. 11 f.; Weber (as no. 7) pp. 429-430. 18. Private communication.

41



19. It should be noted that the Vatican Library was a totally separate institution from

the Archives, and its holdings had been made available to scholars - historians, art

historians, classicists etc. - from a very much earlier date. Cf. Jeanne Bignami Odier, La Bibliothhque Vaticane de Sixte IV hPie XL Recherches surVHistoire des Collections

de Manuscrits, avec la collaboration de JosS Ruysschaert (= Studi e Testi 272, Citta del

Vaticano 1973). 20. The scholar in question was the Alsatian Huguenot Elie Berger, favourite pupil of

Leopold pelisle, who came to Rome in 1876 as one of the first scholars of the newly created Ecole francaise; cf. Chadwick (as no. 2), pp. 88-90; Andre* Vauchez, La Scuola

Francese di Roma e l'apertura dell' Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio della Societi

Romana di Storia Patria, 100(1977) 167-172.

21. For Giovanni Simeoni (1816-1892), Secretary of State (1876-1878), cf. De

Marchi (as no. 18), p. 12; Weber (as no. 7), pp. 520-521.

22. Published respectively Dublin 1864, and - in three volumes with the sub-title:

being a collection of Original Letters and Papers illustrative of the History of the Irish

Church from the Reformation to the year 1800 - Dublin 1874-84.

23. Boyle (as no. 12), p. 81.

24. Most recently for Pole's legatine activities cf. Nunziaturberichte aus Deutschland

nebst erganzenden Aktenstucken. Erste Abteilung 1533-1559. 15. Band: Friedenslega tion des Reginald Pole zu Kaiser Karl V. und Ktinig Heinrich II. (1553-1556), bearbeitet von Heinrich Lutz (Tubingen 1981). 25. Moran, History of the Catholic Archbishops, p. 412.

26. Cf. Coleman (as no. 11), pp. xxx-xxxi.

27. A plain bound volume, simply labelled as Vol. II (1879-1886), without shelf

mark.

28. For Mercati cf. Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche VII, 304; New Catholic

Encyclopedia IX, 668-669.

29. Among those notably Gustav Bickell, who worked exclusively on the records of

the Council of Trent from 1883 onwards. For Bickell (1836-1906), a convert and priest who held the chair of Christian Archaeology and Semitic Languages at the University of

Innsbruck from 1879 until he transferred to Vienna in 1891, cf. Ludwig von Pastor,

Tagebucher (as no. 8), ad indicem, and especially p. 179 for the high esteem in which he

was held by Pope Leo XIII.

30. For Zigliara (1833-1893), rector of the Angelicum from 1873 until he became a

cardinal in 1879 cf. Ritzier - Sefrin (as no. 10), 28, 45, 52, 54, 59; Lexikon Jur Theologie und Kirche2 X, 1370; Angelus Walz, / Cardinali Domenicani (Firenze

-

Roma) p. S^Enciclopedia Cattolica XII, 1797-1798.

31. For Lodovico Jacobini (1832-1887), Secretary of State (1880-1887), cf. De

Marchi (as no. 18), p. 13.

32. Seg. di Stato 1882, rub. 67 (Archiv.) fasc. unico, Prot 51204; \ .. II domenicano

P. Michele Costello, occupato da parecchi anni in lavori ecclesiastici, ha bisogno di

copiare nel l'Archivio Vaticano quelle Bolle Pontificie che riguardano le proviste delle

Chiese vescovili, abbaziali ed altre, in Inghilterra, Irlanda, Scozia, Danimarca, Svezia e

Norwegia. La sua condizione di religioso pero non lasciandogli possibility di fare spese

pei copisti porge alia Santita di N.S. Leone PP XIII felicemente Regnante, supplica per ottenere la grazia di trascrivere de se medesimo le suddette Bolle ...'

33. For Balan, who at the conclave of 1878 had been 'conclavista' to Cardinal Pecci

(who emerged from the conclave as Pope Leo XIII) cf. Dizionario Biografico degli

Italiani, 5, 308-311; Angelo Gambasin, Pietro Balan storiografo apologista del Papato

(1840-1893), Archivum Historiae Pontiflciae 4 (1966) 349-354. 34. For Hergenrother cf. Ritzier - Sefrin (as no. 10) ad indicem; Leo Santifaller,

Bemerkungen zu den 'Lebenserinnerungen' von Johannes Haller, Rdmische Historische

MitteUungen 5 (1961-62) 164-180, especially 170 f.;Sickel, Romische Erinnerungen (as no. 9) 36 ff., 466 f.

35. Goldinger (as no. 9) 47-48, prints documents concerning the arrangements made

between Sickel and Balan for transcriptions of documents 1881-1883.

36. Seg. di Stato 1882 (as no. 32): 'Eccellenza. II P. Castello (sic) puo andare senza difficolta all'Archivio [e copiare le bolle ma si prega concedere la cosa solo in via

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d'eccezione e di grazia per non parte precedenti e non offendere la suscettibilita di

qualche impiegato. II permesso sia a lui solo senza che possa unirisi altri aiutanti. La

ragione di cio potro d'arla a voce. P. Balan]'. The portion of the text [ ] was written in the hand of Balan himself, presumably in order to keep the permission as secret as

possible among the archive staff.

37. Seg. di Stato 1882 (as no. 32), Jacobini to Zigliara 18 Nov. 1882.

38. Cf. Chadwick (as no. 2) passim. 39. Conleth Kearns, Archives of the Irish Dominican College, San Clemente, Rome,

Arch. Hib., 18 (1955) 145-149, especially 148.

40. For Fraknoi (1843-1924) cf. Lajos Pdsztor, LTstituto storico ungherese a Roma e

il vescovo Vilmos Frakn6i, Archivio della Societh Romana di Storia Patria 100 (1977)

143-166, with extensive bibliographical details.

41. For an account of this episode cf. Sickel, R6*mische Erinnerungen (as no. 9) 210

214.

42. Cf. the numerous examples cited by Chadwick (as no. 2) passim.

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The Opening of the Vatican Archives (1880-1881) and Irish Historical Research

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