MAESTRO DEL SACRO PALAZZO. — Title of a dignitary of the Papal Court, whose duties have undergone various changes. Only modern studies conducted (by Denifle, Altaner, Ehrle, Creytens) on the authentic sources (the constitution Cuna de diversis of Innocent IV, repeated and abridged by Boniface VIII [2, V, 7, in VI], and the Vita d'Innocenzo IV of N. di Carbio) have shed full light on the origins and early development of this office, created by Innocent IV in the second year of his pontificate (1244–45). For the benefit of those who flocked to the Apostolic See from all over the world, as well as of the curials themselves, the pope established in his Court, then in Lyon, a general studium comprising theology, canon law, and civil (Roman) law; this studium followed the Court wherever it went.
The first known master to teach theology in this school was the Dominican Bartolomeo da Vicenza (also called da Breganza), who, upon being promoted in 1252 to bishop of Limassol (Cyprus), was succeeded by an archdeacon of Durham (England). In the relevant bulls they are called « regens » and « docens » apud sedem apostolicam. Indeed, in papal documents the title Magister S. Palatii appears only from the fourteenth century onward. Another title in the thirteenth century was lector (= professor) of the S. Palazzo, used for Giovanni Pecham and his successor Matteo d'Acquasparta, as well as for other Friars Minor. In the thirteenth century the holder did not yet belong to the body of curials forming the papal « family ». He continued to reside in his convent, and from the fifteenth century in the Vatican, occasionally in the Quirinal. From 1306 onward the office was, with some exceptions, generally entrusted to a master of the Dominican Order, to which it subsequently remained exclusively attached. After the school of the S. Palazzo ceased to exist in the early sixteenth century, other duties were assigned to its holders: from Leo X until 1925, he granted the Imprimatur to books printed in Rome; from as early as the fifteenth century he reviewed the sermons to be delivered on certain days by the procurators general of the mendicant Orders in the papal chapels; he was also president of the Theological College of Rome. Even today he is ex officio a member of the S. Ufficio, as well as an official prelate of the S. Congregazione dei Riti and a trusted theologian of the Holy Father.