Lo Stato di Mantova e la Santa Sede alla luce della moderna diplomazia permanente

"Mantua and the Holy See in light of modern permanent diplomacy" Early modern Italy saw a new system of diplomacy and new techniques of diplomatic organisation arising from their efficient Renaissance states. In advance of the rest of Europe, the Italian practice of sending and receiving permanent diplomatic representatives was a result of the modern demand for maintaining a balance of power among the signorie or principalities of the Peninsula. From then on, the right of legation was attributed, unlike the medieval period, only to entities recognised as sovereign by the international community. Certainly the imperial fief of Mantua, a marquessdom from 1433 and afterwards a duchy from 1530, was ruled by a sovereign House, the Gonzaga, which established a steady network of diplomatic relations with other Italian states, the Holy Roman Empire, the great European monarchies, and of course with the Holy See. Specifically, if we consider the nature of the very close diplomatic relationship between the small but strategic and geopolitically pivotal state of Mantua and the central power of government of the universal Church, it appears that these relations were unilateral on the part of Mantua. The Duke of Mantua, indeed, constantly maintained an orator, namely an ambassador, at the Roman Court; while the Holy See – as well as all the other great powers – normally was used to sending a papal nuncio only to the main states of Italy and Europe. Moreover, a series of ten Cardinals from the Gonzaga dynasty, particularly during the sixteenth century, played the role of political “protectors” for the Mantuan state in Rome and some Cardinals of the ducal family were even charged with diplomatic tasks by the Pope, who must be represented concurrently as the head of the Catholic Church, the head of the Christianitas, and also the temporal ruler of the pontifical state. However, the high profile of Mantuan diplomacy, even throughout the long decline of the duchy in the seventeenth century, was no longer supported by real political power from the state whom it served: after the 1708, when the last Duke of the House of Gonzaga was eventually deposed by the Emperor, Mantua would no longer have a Court in its ducal palace and lost the place of actor on the international scene.