APOSTOLIC NUNCIATURE. — The active and passive right of legation (v.), that is, of sending and receiving diplomatic representatives, derives to the Holy See from the juridical perfection of the Church; the diplomatic representatives whom it sends to the various civil governments are called nuncios and internuncios.
As was seen in the treatment of the apocrisiarii (v.), from the time of St. Leo the Great the popes had their representatives at the imperial court of Constantinople, who, however, were competent not in political matters but only in religious ones. The papal envoys to the court of the Franks were also called apocrisiarii, but although, unlike the ancient ones, they dealt predominantly with political affairs, their mission did not possess that character of stability and continuity proper to modern nunciatures. The differences between the nunciatures and the ancient apostolic vicars and legates-natus are identical to those noted with regard to modern apostolic delegates (v.); it is also necessary to observe that both the apostolic vicars and the legates-natus represented the Supreme Pontiff before the Catholic communities of their respective territories, but not before the civil governments.
According to an opinion supported by sufficient grounds and data to be accepted, the origin of permanent nunciatures in various nations must be connected with the office of the nuncius collecter et commissarius decimarum.
Beginning in fact in the 13th century, the Roman Curia collected tithes and, in general, sums owed to it in various countries through special officials dependent on the Apostolic Camera. At first this office was entrusted to Curial officials, of Italian nationality or also from the country in which the assignment was to be carried out, but resident in Rome. Later, when the office acquired greater importance, it was also entrusted to high prelates. In France and Germany these collectors exercised their activity in one or two ecclesiastical provinces; in England, in the northern countries, and generally in nations distant from Rome, the assignment had a territorial extent equivalent to that of the respective state. In the countries where collectors of the first kind were found, the papal court sent legates to resolve political difficulties, including those connected with the collectors’ work. In the other countries, however, where, partly because of the distance, the dispatch of special legates presented greater difficulties, the collectors themselves were entrusted with diplomatic functions, resided near the sovereign, and served as intermediaries between him and the Holy See. The use of ambassadors, which had meanwhile been introduced among the States, induced the Apostolic See to make use of this new form of representation, perfecting in some cases the diplomatic attributes of the earlier collectorates, and in others proceeding to establish entirely new representations. The emergence of permanent nunciatures, although necessary and prepared by the Holy See with every precaution dictated by prudence, did not take place without the more or less open opposition of the local ecclesiastical hierarchies, especially the legates-natus, who saw in the new institution the end of their power. M. A. de Dominis, Richerius, and Febronius had already denied the Apostolic See the right to send permanent legates or nuncios, since this would constitute an abusive limitation of the rights of bishops. The advocates of Gallicanism had indeed gone so far as to assert that the pontiffs had no power to send their own representatives endowed with jurisdiction, even in extraordinary circumstances and for as long as those circumstances continued, except with the consent of the Most Christian King. Yet, as late as 1786, the establishment of the nunciature of Munich gave the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, Cologne, and Salzburg an opportunity to speak out once again and openly against apostolic nunciatures. Pius VI defended their institution with his supreme authority and with sound doctrine (v. EMESA, PUNZAZIONE di). The errors of the Gallicans were, however, also taken up in Italy by regalist and liberal thinkers, according to whom the establishment of nuncios, as well as the authorization of a legate to exercise individual acts of ecclesiastical government, depended on the pleasure of the governments of the respective States. In addition to what was said at the outset, it is necessary to point out that, because of the universal jurisdiction belonging to the Pontiff over the whole Church, his representatives, just as they are never sent into territory foreign to the Church, are likewise never sent into territory excluded from his supreme and spiritual authority. Consequently, the Supreme Pontiffs have the right to send their representatives anywhere, even without the authorization of the civil authority, with or without ecclesiastical jurisdiction (can. 265).
Nunciatures generally did not arise from an act or decree of foundation, but from the dispatch of an extraordinary representative with a specific assignment, who subsequently, before returning to Rome, received other assignments, and who, after his death or the termination of his mandate, was followed by another envoy, so that the representation changed from extraordinary to ordinary and from temporary to permanent. In other cases, however, a permanent representative was followed by an extraordinary envoy. It is therefore clearly impossible to establish, at least in general terms, the date of origin of permanent nunciatures; it may nevertheless be recognized that the new institution began to take shape in the middle of the 15th century. Some hold that Antonio Jacopo de Veneri, in Spain, under the pontificate of Nicholas V, should be considered one of the first nuncios in the modern sense; the initial permanence of that representation is, however, debatable. It is instead certain that A. Leonini was in Venice, in 1500, as a permanent nuncio with all the attributes of the Pope’s diplomatic representative. The nunciature of Germany, on the other hand, is traced back to Lorenzo Campeggi, sent by Leo X in 1513 to the emperor Maximilian. Subsequently, the Lutheran movement and the need to defend the very life of the Church in the various nations of Europe hastened the transformation of nunciatures from temporary into permanent institutions. The nunciature of Madrid, in addition to many extraordinary faculties, augmented in 1766 by Clement XIII, had attached to it the court of third instance, called the Rota of the Nuncio of Madrid (v. ROTA, SACRA ROMANA). Nevertheless, in October 1801 the Spanish government asked Pius VII that the nuncio be regarded as a mere ambassador of the Pope in his capacity as a temporal prince. On 9 January 1802 Cardinal Consalvi replied that His Holiness’s temporal sovereignty was purely secondary in comparison with his supreme apostolate. Since, in fact, the foundation of the Church’s international juridical personality is not, as in the case of States, territorial sovereignty but spiritual sovereignty, the Holy See continued to exercise its active and passive right of legation even when, between 1870 and 1929, territorial sovereignty was in fact prevented.
Leo X is regarded as the founder of modern papal diplomacy, whose work was subsequently continued by Pius IV with the assistance of his nephew, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. But the complete organization of the Holy See’s diplomatic representations is due to Gregory XIII, who not only considerably increased the number of nunciatures, bringing it to thirteen, but, through Tolomeo Gallio, defined their powers, distinguished their grades, and established their protocol.
At present, apostolic nunciatures are divided into first- and second-class nunciatures. Their diplomatic personnel, in addition to the nuncio (v.) or internuncio (v.) who directs them, consists of councillors (only in first-class nunciatures), auditors, and secretaries.
A. Giobbio, Diplomazia ecclesiastica, Roma 1899; id., Lezioni di diplomazia ecclesiastica, ivi 1904; P. Richard, Origines des nonciatures permanentes. La représentation pontificale au XVe siècle, in Rev. d'hist. eccl., 7 (1906), pp. 52 sgg., 317 sgg.; 11 (1910), pp. 56 sgg., 505 sgg.; id., Origines de la Nonciature de France. Nouces résidants avant Léon X, in Rev. des quest., hist., 34 (1905), p. 103 sgg.; 36 (1906), p. 112 sgg.; H. Blandet, Les nonciatures apostoliques permanentes jusqu'en 1648, in Etudes Romaines des annales de l'Acad. des scien. de Finlande, Helsinki 1910; L. Karturmen, Les nonciatures apostoliques permanentes de 1650 à 1800 (continuazione del precedente) in Etudes cit., Ginevra 1912; A. Wynen, Die Päpstliche Diplomatie, Friburgo in Br. 1922. Dino Staffa