Identity Building and the Personalization of Papal Liturgy, 1470–1534

As other scholars have discussed, the Catholic Church’s annual liturgical cycle followed the life of Jesus from birth to death and resurrection, and was buttressed in the parish by other festivities that celebrated a variety of local saints and cults. A favorite theme of modern historians of the sixteenth-century has been the tension between the Catholic center and periphery as Rome sought to establish a homogenous liturgy throughout the Church based on Roman practice. The existence of Agostino Patrizi’s liturgical guides describing Roman practice from the 1480s encourages the sense that papal liturgy, at least, was confirmed and immutable. However, although the backbone of the liturgical cycle remained consistent, there was a great deal of liturgical change from pontificate to pontificate. This presentation will explore how between 1470 and 1534 popes altered the liturgical cycle of the papal chapel in order to create identities based on spiritual, familial, and geographic connections that were visualized in Rome through liturgical rituals. The della Rovere popes, Sixtus IV and Julius II, cultivated liturgy and spaces linked to Petrine and Marian feasts, including feasts of the Assumption and St. Peter in Chains, and the churches of San Pietro in Vincoli and Santa Maria del Popolo. Whereas the family’s favor of St. Peter stemmed from its association with the titular church of San Pietro in Vincoli, the interest in expanding the Marian cult emerged from the family’s association with the Franciscan order. In contrast, the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII, strove to establish a deeper connection with their Florentine roots through the celebration in Rome of the feast of St. John the Baptist, Florence’s patron, and the feast of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, who had become the family’s own patron saints.