LEADWORKER OF THE APOSTOLIC CHANCERY. - Among the Chancery personnel assigned to the drafting and dispatch of papal bulls or to the collection of the related fees, the plumbator is properly the one who affixes the lead seal (v. BOLLA) and sees to the dispatch of the document. The first mention goes back to 1198, during the pontificate of Innocent III, with the title of bullator, referring to a single person.

From then on there were numerous variations, both in number (2 under Boniface VIII, first 3, then 2 in the pontificates of Benedict XII and Clement VI, 4 with Martin V, again 2 with Eugene IV), and in the appellation of the p. of the C. A.: bullatores (v.), throughout the 13th century, fratres de bulla in 1367 with Urban V, bullatores seu sigillatores in 1412 with Gregory XII, custodes bullae with Martin V, plumbatores with Paul II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and this title prevailed over the others and was preserved even when, between the end of the 15th century and the pontificate of Leo X, there appeared

(by courtesy of Mons. A. P. Frates)
LEADWORKER OF THE APOSTOLIC CHANCERY - The "vite perpetua" of Bramante for the bulls - Vatican Museums.

sporadically the terms fratres barbati bullantes (or plumbantes or de plumbo) and barbati plumbi.

Bibliography

BIBL.: v. BULLATORES, cf. also: Practica cancellariae apostolicae suculi XV executis, ed. L. Schmitz-Kallenberg, Münster 1904, pp. 32 ff., 68.

Alessandro Pratesi

@incollection{ec9_piombatore_della_cancelleria_a, author = {Pratesi, Alessandro}, title = {Piombatore della Cancelleria Apostolica}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1552--1553}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/piombatore-della-cancelleria-apostolica} }

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