Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2016

The Papal Network: How the Roman Curia Was Informed about South-Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterranean (1645–1669)

Résumé

The chapter shows that between 1645 and 1669 the Roman Curia developed a dense, hierarchical, and partly informal news network to follow events in south-eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and the Mediterranean, especially in the context of the Cretan War. Centred on the Secretariat of State and papal nuncios but supported by cardinals, religious orders, and lay agents in key ports and frontier cities, this system combined official dispatches with semi-official and private letters, “avvisi,” and copied reports that circulated along overlapping routes linking Rome to Venice, Vienna, Ragusa, and Levantine hubs. Curial officials evaluated the credibility of this material by cross-checking sources, comparing versions, and scrutinizing the timing and repetition of news, turning raw reports into usable political and confessional knowledge. Information about Ottoman military movements, diplomatic negotiations, and Christian communities under Ottoman rule fed directly into papal diplomacy, missionary strategies, and resource allocation, allowing the papacy to act as a significant node within wider European information economies rather than merely a spiritual centre.

Dates et versions

hal-05407072 , version 1 (09-12-2025)

Identifiants

Citer

Johann Petitjean. The Papal Network: How the Roman Curia Was Informed about South-Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterranean (1645–1669). News Networks in Early Modern Europe, Brill, pp.178-192, 2016, Library of the Written Word, 47, 978-90-04-27719-9. ⟨10.1163/9789004277199_008⟩. ⟨hal-05407072⟩
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