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The commentaries of Pope Pius II (1458-1464) and the crisis of the fifteenth-century papacy . By Emily O'Brien . Pp. xiii + 335. Toronto-London : University of Toronto Press , 2015. C$65. 978 1 4426 4763 3
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What should we make of Pope Pius ii's Commentarii? Pius dictated this substantial text between the summer of 1462 and the spring of 1464, and the paper codex, Vaticano Reginense Latino 1995, contains many subsequent changes made by the pope himself. In other words, at the height of a busy and tumultuous reign, Pius set aside valuable time - 'snatched from sleep' as he put it - to establish his own account of what he had so far done as pope and why he did it. Twelve books were completed, the thirteenth consisting of a fragment which was omitted from the fine parchment copy finished for the pope by Giovanni Gobellino in June 1464. Of course the Commentaries are tendentious, but they have proved irresistible to many historians of Pius' reign. In the first place, they constitute a unique source: a set of papal memoirs written during the heat of events - 'a view from within the eye of the storm', as Emily O'Brien puts it - as Pius struggled to bring about the central goal of his reign, a crusade against the Turks. And in the second place, they are consistently elegant, incisive and witty. It is as if Gore Vidal had become president of the United States and written his memoirs while still in the White House. How Vidal would have enjoyed Pius' putdown of Jacopo Tebaldi, 'small of stature, but smaller in mind'.
Pius' reason...