As declared on the dust jacket for The Possessions of a Cardinal: Politics, Piety, and Art, 1450–1700, “Cardinals occupied a unique place in the world of early modern Europe, their distinctive red hats the visible signs not only of impressive careers at the highest rank the pope could bestow, but also of their high social status and political influence on an international scale.” Often dismissed as a blip by both contemporaries and subsequent historians, the study of ecclesiastics has received limited scholarly attention (excepted for a few good essays and volumes), despite its interested appeal. This book, edited by Mary Hollingsworth and Carol M. Richardson, is a splendid exception.

As Hollingsworth and Richardson state in their acknowledgements; “We hope this book will answer some of the often paradoxical questions surrounding the politics, the piety, and art patronage of cardinals in the Renaissance and baroque periods, and provide a useful resource for those wishing to embark on the study on one of the many as yet unknown cardinals” (xv). The central theme of the volume is to move beyond the single ‘‘hero patron’’ of Francis Haskell’s classic Patrons and Painters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963) and to examine networks of agents and intermediaries that underlie the deeper social and conceptual structures of Renaissance and Baroque Italian cities, especially Rome. The essays focus on cardinal patrons, who they were, and why they felt the need to commission works of art.

First, a word about the title of this collection. The authors are well aware that the terms they use—politics, piety, and art—can be problematic. Nevertheless, these concepts are useful in conveying the kinds of questions asked about the church power in this period. The various authors have carefully mined the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the archive of the Pii Stabilimenti della Francia, etc., in their researches, which began as a project entitled “The Court Culture of Early Modern Rome” at the University of Edinburgh (the first results of this research were collected in Art and Identity in Early Modern Rome, edited by Jill Burke and Michael Bury [Burlington: Ashgate, 2008]). The Possessions of a Cardinal contains nearly four hundred pages with detailed analysis of the operations of the Roman curia amid fascinating events (e.g., the tricky reconciliation of Henri IV, King of France; the diplomatically complex transfer of the city of Ferrara back under papal control; the continuing implementation of the decrees of the Council of Trent; the life of Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini; etc.). The book also includes a comprehensive bibliography and a list of popes from the period, including their family connections, which aids the reader in understanding the essays. Moreover, the book’s section of color illustrations help further elucidate some of the contributions.

The Possessions of a Cardinal brings together a variety of analytic techniques displayed by famous academic researchers (e.g., David S. Chambers; in fact, few scholars possess as intimate a knowledge of the careers and worldly ambitions of Renaissance ecclesiastics as he does; Susan Butters; Pamela M. Jones; and Susan Russell), independent scholars (Hollingsworth), and emerging scholars (such as Angelica Pediconi). The collection is also distinguished by innovative methods and richness of content. The book’s three appendices contain a collection of important documents, the result of extended research in particular at Archivio di Stato (Venice) and Biblioteca Apostolica (Rome), even if the manuscript sources are not very clear and a minor fault can be found in the absence of the rules of transcription.

After a long introduction outlining the reasons for research, Hollingsworth and Richardson divide the collection into mostly chronologically focused chapters. Chapter 1, by Chambers, is wholly devoted to the Renaissance cardinalate (from Paolo Cortesi to the present) and sets out the history of the subject. Subsequent authors proceed to lead the reader through the complexities of Church and politics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The overview in the first two chapters is necessary for those unfamiliar with Roman culture and the cardinals’ biographies (see Hollingsworth’s monographic essay on Ippolito d’Este [chapter 8] or the study of the Cardinal Patrizi family by David R. Marshall [chapter 17]).

This insightful summary is complemented by Meredith J. Gill’s chapter (2) centered on Guillaume d’ Estouteville’s Italian journey; in it, she emphasizes that the cardinal (1400–1483) chaired the commission that proclaimed null and void the trial sentencing Joan of Arc to death. This research is the result of years of study by Gill (see, for example, her important article: “Death and the Cardinal: The Two Bodies of Guillaume d’Estouteville,” Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 2 [Summer 2001]: 347–88).

As one might suspect, The Possessions of a Cardinal covers the variety of the backgrounds the college contained. Some good chapters focus on the concept of nepotism. In general the volume combines different experiences, skills, and realities. Traditional and very good art-historical studies may be found in Sheryl Reiss’s “‘Per havere tutte le opere . . . da monsignor reverendissimo’: Artists Seeking the Favor of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici” (chapter 7) and Andrea Gáldy’s “Lost in Antiquities: Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici (1543–1562)” (chapter 9). In both cases, the authors present a careful analysis of historical, economic, artistic, and social contexts. This interest is also shown in the beautiful essay by Karin Wolfe. Her study, “Cardinal Antonio Barberini (1608–1671) and the Politics of Art in Baroque Rome” (chapter 14) sheds light on the relationship between economic dependence, ideas, creativity, and status symbol among the cardinal artists

For a Genoese art historian like me, this book is an occasion to learn something more about Italian history and art in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, even if a minor fault can be found in the almost total absence of references to Genoese cardinals and their relationship with Rome.

The Possessions of a Cardinal will be of great interest to historians of Italian art, to art literature scholars, and to specialists in the history of Church ecclesiastics. The book is interesting, informative, and fair, and offers something to the specialist as well as to the more general reader.