Nepotism

NEPOTISMO. – A term designating the excessive favour shown by certain pontiffs toward members of their own family through the granting of ecclesiastical dignities, privileges, temporal dominions, or ample revenues in the Papal States and elsewhere in Italy.

The practice, rooted in the human inclination toward one’s own relatives, also responded at certain historical moments to the need for defence against the intrigues of internal factions or foreign powers, by turning to capable members of one’s own family for support or by making them powerful for this purpose. Examples are found as early as the tenth century, and even Innocenzo III, although so austere, made use of the influence of his family, the Conti, and especially of his brother Riccardo, to restrain the commune of Rome, vehement in its claims against the papacy after the revolution of 1142. Dante’s angry invective against Niccolò III, «cupido in avanzar gli Orsatti», is too well known; but it is also true that in this the Pope was following a political plan for the pacification and reorganization of his State and of Italy. The same must be said of Bonifacio VIII, whom Dante so tragically associated with Niccolò III, and who sought among his relatives cardinals and men of government to carry out his plans and fight his opponents, particularly the Colonna.

N. flourished under some of the Avignonese popes, particularly Clemente V and Clemente VI, who aroused Petrarch’s indignation in the Epistulae sine titulo. Consequently, at the Conclave of 1352, a special capitulation sought to exclude the future pope’s relatives from the Curia and from the administration of the State. During the upheavals of the schism, however, Urbano VI turned to his relatives, the Prignano, and Bonifacio IX to his, the Tomacelli; likewise, Martino V received the assistance of the Colonna and their clients in the work of restoration and purification of Rome and its surroundings, and in keeping the mercenary commanders under control. Once the troubles of the schism and its consequences had ended, a group of pontiffs can be seen concerning themselves with placing their relatives in the Curia: thus Callisto III with the Borgia, summoned from Spain to Rome. Under Sisto IV a further step was taken, for he not only lavished favours on his relatives Della Rovere, Sansoni, and Basso, but also supported the ambitions of Girolamo Riario to establish a lordship for himself in Romagna at the expense of the region’s lords. N. then found its most notorious expression under Alessandro VI, who made his son Cesare Borgia gonfalonier of the Church and sought to create for him an eminent position, even to the point of establishing for him a hereditary State in central Italy, which Giulio II subsequently overthrew without mercy. Leone X endeavoured to acquire the duchy of Urbino, included in the Papal States, for his nephew Lorenzo de’ Medici, taking it from Francesco Maria della Rovere, and had even greater ambitions in northern Italy.

Paolo III was no less than he: he established for his son Pier Luigi a duchy at Castro, where the Farnese had their hereditary possessions, adding to it the perpetual governance of Nepi, Ronciglione, and Caprarola, and then in 1545 granted him in fief the lordship of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, which belonged to the Holy See but were exposed to the ambitious designs of the surrounding princes. With him this form of n. came to an end. Paolo IV took from his nephews Carafa what he had granted them when he realized their unworthiness. The reforming movement, by then powerful within Christendom, and the changed political conditions of Italy freed the Church from a tendency that was generally deplored; Pio V, by the bull Admonet nos (29 March 1567), prohibiting the investiture of papal dominions, legally prevented its return. More difficult to eradicate was what was called petty n., consisting in enlarging one’s family through ecclesiastical and civil dignities, revenues, and possessions. It assumed a particular form with the institution of the « cardinal nephew », also called « cardinal master », which appeared in the early sixteenth century and assumed its definitive form under Pio IV: a member of the family, usually a nephew, stood at the head of the papal secretariat and of the entire Curia, and was therefore the arbiter of papal favours. The Aldobrandini, the Borghese, the Barberini, and the Pamphili derived their fortunes from this; and the abuse provoked Innocenzo XI’s constitution Romanum decet pontificem, published by Innocenzo XII on 22 June 1692, by which it was intended to prevent the popes from enriching their relatives and offices and dignities hitherto reserved for them were abolished. Under Pio VI there was a momentary revival of n. in favour of the Braschi, but his successors succeeded in remaining aloof from II.