Articulating Work and Family: Lay Papal Relatives in the Papal States, 1420–1549
Abstract In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries popes increasingly depended on clerical and lay kin to supervise the implementation of papal policy. This article argues that the charge of papal nepotism is a result of the continuing idealization of the pope as separate from the issues of work and family. By acknowledging that the preoccupations of the early modern pope extended beyond pastoral activities into a world of administration, legislation, militarism, and diplomacy, historians can better understand the pope’s use of and observers’ criticism of nepotism.