SUPPLICATION. - As a diplomatic term, it is the petition addressed to the sovereign in order to obtain a gracious concession. Even the concessions of various kinds made by the pope and the appointments to minor benefices reserved to the Holy See were preceded by a supplica.
At first the pontifical supplicae were drafted directly by the persons concerned, but already in the 12th century there is record of scribes who kept their desk at the Lateran Palace to prepare the supplicae, and in the 13th century there appear the first collections of formularies: they ordinarily begin with «Supplicat Sanctitati Vestrae devotus orator vester», which becomes their characteristic formula. In the 14th century the supplicae take on an official character, their text is drafted secundum stilum Curiae and the vice-chancellor himself or a referendary presents them to the pope, who approves them with the autograph formula «fiat ut petitur», followed by the initial of his baptismal name; the date is added, which marks the effective date of the concession. These particulars are interesting for the history of the Curia, because they mark the origin of offices that later developed independently: the referendaries of the Signatura and the datarius. With the 15th century the procedure became fixed, and was preserved until the 19th century; the text prepared according to the style by the procurator, who represented the interested party at the Curia, was examined and signed by a referendary, and then presented by him for approval, which could be given either by the pope with the now traditional formula, or, for certain matters, by the vice-chancellor, who used the formula «concessum ut petitur» followed by his signature, or by an authorized referendary, who however signed in the presence of the pope, adding «concessum in praesentia domini nostri Papae»; the datarius added the date.
The supplica therefore constitutes, after approval, the original of the concession, destined however for official use, because the dispatch of the definitive solemn act, that is a bull or a brief, was necessary. In certain cases the pope granted that the signatura alone, that is the supplica signed by him, should be valid as a definitive document, without the dispatch of the solemn document being necessary: these supplicae are distinguished by their careful external forms, are often decorated with miniatures and bear a special formula expressing their nature. Another type of supplica begins with the words motu proprio: with it recourse is had to a fictio iuris in order to grant procedural facilitations to the beneficiary, as though the concession were at the pope's initiative and not at his request. The supplicae were copied from the 14th century onward in registers of an official character, which today form in the Vatican Archives a series of 7,363 volumes, from the year 1342 to 1899. The apostolic nuncios too, by virtue of the faculties they received, approved supplicae following the custom of the popes and had their own registers.
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Giulio Battelli
