CHAPTER 10

 

Italy and the Papal States

 

People so beset with saints, yet all but vile and vain:

Wild Irish are as civil as the Russies in their kind:

 

– George Turberville, 1568

 

 

THE IRISH AND ITALIAN CIVILITY

 

      In most cases, the Irish were accepted into the countries they emigrated to not only because of their allegiance and competence, but because of their Catholic religion which they shared with the large proportion of the population of these countries.  An exception to this was Italy, however.  Italy was the Catholic country of western Europe where the Irish émigrés had the least effect.  The basis of this went back to the difference between the Celtic Christians and the Roman Christians during the early days of Christianity.  Even at this early time, Rome had been the centre - and virtually the origin - of Roman Christianity.  Roman Christianity eventually became the dominant religion throughout western Europe; but nowhere was the Pope's political and spiritual power stronger or more immediate than in the Italian peninsula.  After the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the city-states and petty kingdoms of the peninsula identified with the Catholic religion and the Pope, encouraged papal sovereignty over territory in central Italy, and regarded themselves as protectors of Catholicism.

      While the differences between the two early versions of Christianity were the general, deeper reason for the very limited effect the Irish émigrés had on Italian society, there were also a number of specific historical and cultural reasons for this.  The principal historical reason for this limited impression was that Italy lagged behind the other major countries of western Europe in the formation of a comprehensive national state.  By the early Renaissance, when large number of Irish émigrés began arriving in Europe, France, Spain and other lands were well along in the process of creating nations from diverse peoples and widespread provinces.  The Italian peninsula, however, was still divided into many small kingdoms or city-states ruled over by autocratic leaders and dynastic families.  These numerous political entities were made of homogenous populations composed for the most of the descendants of various peoples who had migrated to Italy at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire and had not mingled with one another to a great degree.  In the process of the forming nations during the 16th and early 17th centuries, monarchs and the majority of their populations became used to interacting with varied types of people, accommodating their customs and viewpoints, and seeing their talents and characteristics as elements in the development of the nation.  The small kingdoms and the city-states of Italy, however, remained closed systems in which outsiders were not welcome.  The early Renaissance was the time of Machiavellian machinations and stratagems in the courts of the Italian rulers - and the Irish émigrés going to Italy found no place for themselves in such intrigues and power struggles.

      Besides the political fragmentation of the Italian peninsula and the Italian political practices of the time, the notion of "civility" in Italian culture was another reason Irish émigrés did not play a substantive or noteworthy part in Italian society and history.  The Italians regarded themselves as the most civilized people of Europe.  This perspective transcended the differences and contests among the diverse kingdoms and city-states.  As the city of Rome had been the centre of Roman civilization, which had dominated Europe, it was now regarded as the centre of Western civilization.  Because of their ancient connection to Rome, the city-states and kingdoms of Italy shared directly in this civilization.  With Italian culture as the standard of civility, the farther away a country was from Italy, the less civilized it was.  Since Ireland was distant from Italy, on the rim of Europe, the Irish were among the least civilized people of Europe.  The Italians viewed the Irish as half barbarous.

      The Italians saw the Irish primarily as rustics from a basically agricultural society.  This view towards the Irish was shared by the Popes and the Catholic Church hierarchy, although they did recognize the value of the strength of the faith and the industry of the Irish Catholic clergy in combating Protestantism.  But the Irish did not meet the Italian standard of civility because they came from a society whose cities would not compare with those in Italy for size, architecture or wealth.  Compared with Florence, Milan and other leading Italian cities, the Irish cities were little more than large towns.  Besides, the Irish seemed quarrelsome rather than refined or courtly.  That the Irish had never been able to govern themselves with a monarchy was evidence of their inherent refractoriness which kept them from becoming civilized.

      Italian scholars, writers and artists were leaders in the changes in Western society during the Renaissance.  Many of them were sought out by monarchs and wealthy persons of other countries to engage in work under their patronage.  Because of this self-awareness and recognition that their culture gave birth to the individuals and achievements representing the best of European culture, the Italians had no desire to change their society or political system.  This led to a parochial outlook which left the many Italian states reluctant to adapt to the historical developments that were occurring throughout the rest of Europe - and which inevitably came to affect Italy.  Unable or unwilling to adapt to the historical developments, the Italian states tried to defend themselves against change.  When faced with the imperialism of other European powers that was a vein of their nationalism and the large, well-organized armies making use of the latest technological developments, Italian states would have to seek alliances with major European powers in order to prevent their conquest by different European powers.  While such an alliance would save an Italian state from conquest by one imperialistic European power, it would usually result in the virtual submission of the state to the European power it had allied itself with.  Thus, in the two hundred years after the Renaissance, Genoa and Turin were controlled by France; Venice and Milan were controlled by Austria; and Naples and Sicily were controlled by Spain.  Rome and the Papal States associated with it remained autonomous because no Catholic country of the time dared to attack or occupy the seat and symbol of Catholicism.  It wasn't until King Victor Emmanuel I of the Italian city-state of Savoy, with the support of Giuseppe Garibaldi, led an Italian nationalist movement in 1859 that the patchwork of kingdoms and city-states of the Italian peninsula was swept away and in 1870, the peninsular became united into a modern nation.

      As they had in other countries of western Europe, Irish émigrés could have helped lead Italy into the modern world.  With their ingenuity, skills and loyalty, Irish émigrés could have served Italian rulers and made contributions to Italian society in the fields of medicine, military affairs, education, the status of women, agriculture and modern, democratic government.  But myopically concentrated on maintaining the bases of their own power, Italian rulers failed to make use of the ideas and talents of the Irish émigrés.  Thus, the relatively small number of émigrés who settled in Italy remained on the periphery of Italian society.  Émigrés who were members of the clergy, and were not sent back to Ireland to keep Catholicism alive there, found positions in the lower levels of the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy.  Émigrés who were farmers, merchants and artisans managed to establish themselves so they could maintain satisfactory lives.  But the preoccupation of the Italians with their cultural achievements and with maintaining their power in the patchwork of petty kingdoms and city-states of the Italian peninsula resulted in an indifference, and sometimes a resistance, to the capabilities and ingenuity of the Irish émigrés which relegated them to anonymity.

 

 

THE IRISH AND THE POPES

 

      Nowhere was the patronizing attitude of the Italians towards the Irish more conspicuous than in Rome.  The first of the Irish émigrés to arrive in the city were Catholic clergy in the late 16th century.  Like the Irish religious refugees arriving in France and Spain, they were searching for a place of refuge from Protestant persecution in their homeland.  As educated Catholic clergy, they expected to find employment in the service of the Vatican.

      The Popes received the Irish émigré clergy and praised their devotion to the Catholic faith.  But the Popes suggested that the Irish priests return to their homeland in secret to help keep the Catholic religion alive.  Many of the Irish were promoted to bishops and sent back to Ireland.  The few who stayed in Rome were given only minor tasks to perform for the Vatican curia.  They also discovered how difficult it was to live in Rome without the patronage of the Italian bishops and cardinals who controlled all aspects of life in the theocracy of the Papal States.  Their attempts to establish an Irish College met with procrastination.  It was not until 1625, after fifty years of petitioning the University of Rome, before the Irish received permission to form their own college affiliated with the University.

      The Popes and high-ranking clergy of the time were all Italian, and they held the view prevailing in their society that the Irish did not meet the Italian standard of civility.  But this was not the only reason the Popes and high-ranking clergy were cautious in their relationship with the Irish clergy.  Apart from this stereotype, the Popes and clergy believed that there was a considerable political risk in giving unqualified support to the Irish in their religious and political conflict with England.  For living in Rome at the close of the 16th century was an influential group of English Catholic aristocrats who hoped to someday re-establish the Catholic faith in England with the help of the Holy See.  Because the Popes believed that England was a more politically influential nation than Ireland, they were more concerned with re-establishing Catholicism in England than preserving the religion in Ireland.  If the Popes openly supported the Irish, the English émigrés could see this as aiding and abetting political rebels.  So in dealing with Irish émigrés the Popes often chose the middle ground of neither fully supporting nor completely rejecting the Irish émigrés.

      The Italian notion of civility also coloured the view of the Italian hierarchy towards Irish Catholic theology and religious practices.  Not only were the Irish from a wild and barbarous land scarcely able to grasp the principles of civilization, but also they had flirted for centuries with religious deviance, and could not be trusted to have purged pagan beliefs from their version of Catholicism.  The Irish continued to venerate many individuals they regarded as saints who had not passed the official process of Catholic canonization.  Unusual practices that remained in Irish Catholic ritual seemed suspiciously pagan to the Italian clergy.  Particularly suspect were outdoor services conducted near wells and small ponds with people walking in circles around the water as they prayed.  In theological discussions, the Irish point of view persistently echoed Pelagianism, the heresy that an individual could find redemption without divine intervention in the form of grace.  Although the Italian Popes never openly stated an official Church policy towards the Irish clergy, they kept close watch over Irish activities in Rome.

      During the decade of the 1660's, the reservations of the Catholic hierarchy towards the Irish intensified when a movement among both native and émigré Irish denied that the Popes should exercise power over worldly affairs.  This movement began with Charles II of England, the Stuart King who had recently been restored to the English throne after the English Civil War and the rule of Oliver Cromwell.  Unlike earlier English monarchs, Charles II was not hostile towards the Catholics under his rule, including those in Ireland.  However, Charles was aware that the Puritans and Anglicans who made up a significant proportion of his subjects and were influential in England believed that the rebellions frequently springing up in Ireland were encouraged, and perhaps even instigated, by the Pope.  In order to counter this belief, and bring greater harmony to his realm, Charles II requested that the Irish Franciscan Friar named Peter Walsh draw up a document stating that the Pope had no authority to interfere with the English civil government in Ireland.  The King picked Walsh to write such a document because Walsh was an outspoken loyalist who had written many letters to prominent Irish Catholics urging them to also openly pledge their loyalty to Charles.  Walsh was well-known among Irish Catholics for exposing an attempt by Bishop Edmund O'Reilly to betray Irish soldiers to Cromwell's forces because O'Reilly believed that Cromwell's victory in Ireland was inevitable and Catholics would be more favourably treated if they supported the new English government.  A considerable number of bishops and priests in Ireland and Irish émigrés abroad agreed that the Pope should not interfere with the English civil government in Ireland.  They supported the position stated in Walsh's document, which became known as the Irish Remonstrance of Peter Walsh.

      Pope Alexander VII saw this position as a threat that could potentially weaken his authority in the civil matters of Catholic nations.  Exiled Irish bishops and priests were scattered throughout the capitals of Europe.  Many of them were the confidants of monarchs and statesmen who would like to free themselves from the tradition of papal intervention in the affairs of their governments.  To discredit the Irish Remonstrance, the Pope gave approval for the Archbishop of Armagh to call a synod to denounce Walsh and the position he had taken.  The synod ordered Peter Walsh to go to the Franciscan priory at Louvain in France so his brother friars could watch him to ensure that he caused no further trouble for the Pope.  Walsh complied with the synod's order, but other Catholic countries began to reject papal involvement in their civil affairs.  For Alexander VII and his successors, Walsh's challenge to papal authority, which spread across Europe, further demonstrated how wild and unpredictable the Irish could be.

      Because the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was dominated by Italians, the disdainful attitude of the Italian Popes and Cardinals towards the Irish trickled downwards into the Catholic clergy in Europe.  Although the Irish were well-educated and staunchly Catholic, they did not contribute a cadre of clergymen who strongly influenced the doctrines and political development of the Catholic Church in early modern Europe.  Only in the monastic orders which operated quasi-independently from Rome and could set their own internal rules did Irish monks and priests achieve positions of influence and leadership.  The Irish clergy, however, was very successful in influencing Catholics as parish priests and as Jesuit, Dominican and Franciscan educators.

      The attitude of the Catholic hierarchy towards the Irish often spilled out of the religious arena and into politics.  Perhaps the most notable Irish émigré to be caught in the indecisiveness of the Vatican policies was Hugh O'Neill, the Early of Tyrone.  In 1605, he left Ireland along with several other nobles in what became known as the Flight of the Earls.  For many years, he had been engaged in rebellion against England.  With the aid of Spanish arms and soldiers, he had almost succeeded in winning political freedom for Ireland.  But many of the other Irish lords became impoverished during the protracted rebellion and abandoned the cause.  O'Neill ended his rebellion in exchange for a pardon from Queen Elizabeth just before her death.  Despite the pardon, the government of the new English King, James I, continued to harass O'Neill with lawsuits challenging the title to his lands and spies who openly watched his every move whenever he left his home.  When O'Neill was summoned to London to appear before James I to answer false charges brought against him claiming that he had plotted to seize Dublin Castle, O'Neill hastily fled to Europe rather than risk being imprisoned or even executed by the King if he could not refute these false charges.  In the dark of night, O'Neill boarded a ship in Lough Swilly harbour, sailed to France, and then travelled overland to Belgium, which was under the control of Spain at the time.  He was accompanied by his sons, John, Hugh and Henry; and by the Early of Fermanagh, who was also being threatened by English plots to seize his lands, and fifty other Irish men and women who feared similar reprisals for their part in the rebellion against England.

      Although the monarchs of France and Spain considered O'Neill the leader of the Irish people, they were no longer at war with England and were reluctant to start another conflict for Irish interests alone.  After a brief stay in Brussels, O'Neill, his son Hugh, and some of his Irish followers made their way to Rome to seek the assistance of Pope Paul V in forging a military alliance among the Catholic nations of Europe on behalf of the Irish.  O'Neill expected that hiss reputation and his deeds in defence of the Catholic faith would receive serious consideration from Pope Paul V.  At this time, however, the Pope was far more concerned with stifling the new movement towards separation of church and state in France, and saw little advantage in supporting Irish rebels.

      The Pope gave O'Neill an annual stipend and arranged for the King of Spain to give him additional funds.  O'Neill spent the remaining years of his life in Rome, ineffectively trying to win support of the political cause of the Irish among the Italian clergy that governed the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy.  His words fell on deaf ears.  He died in 1616, embittered and puzzled by Pope Paul V's apparent indifference to Irish issues.

      The people of Rome spurned the services of Hugh O'Neill and the other Irish émigrés who accompanied him.  As the centre of western Catholicism, the city was thronged with foreign pilgrims, religious refugees and adventurers.  The Irish were but one group among many.  In addition, because of the notions of civility which classified the Irish as barbarous, the Italians gave them little opportunity to demonstrate how they could contribute to their adopted land.  Most of the Irish who did come to Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries eventually continued their travels to pursue opportunities in other lands.

 

 

IRISH SOLDIERS IN ITALY

 

      With so much of Italy under the control of Spain, France and Austria during the 17th and 18th centuries, many Irish émigrés were temporarily in Italy serving as soldiers and government administrators for these countries.  The Irish Brigade of France frequently saw combat in the north-western Italian provinces of Piedmont and Savoy.  Many of the Irish generals of Austria gained their initial experience in military campaigns during Italian battles and skirmishes.  But the Irish soldiers and administrators were only temporary residents in Italy and left no permanent mark on Italian society.  Their primary allegiance was to the nations which had sent them to Italy.

      During the 19th century, a large number of Irish entered the Papal armies, but they too had little impact on Italian society.  In 1859, Napoleon III of France and the Italian kingdom of Piedmont waged war on Austria, hoping to evict the Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef, from northern Italy and annex his lands.  The coalition won the battles of Solferino and Magenta, but the threat of Prussian intervention on the side of Austria forced them to the negotiating table.  The peace treaty coming from this made Lombardy become part of Piedmont while Venice remained in the Austrian Empire.  The war, however, had sparked Italian nationalism, with Piedmont assuming leadership in the Italian unification movement.

      One of the primary forces opposing Italian unification was the Catholic Church.  In central Italy, the Popes exercised direct political control over the territory known as the Papal States, as they had since the time of the Renaissance.  In governing their lands, they behaved as any other ruler of their day, appointing administrators, collecting taxes and waging war.  Shortly after Piedmont gained control of Lombardy, King Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont invaded the Papal States from the north, a group of republican revolutionaries led by Giuseppe Garibaldi marched on Rome from the south, and many people of the Papal States rose in rebellion against Pope Pius IX.  The Pope refused to negotiate with King Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, scorning their suggestions of democratic reform. Victor Emmanuel's invading army quickly defeated Papal forces and surrounded the city of Rome, making the Pope a virtual prisoner in the Vatican.

      The momentum of the Italian unification movement alarmed the Austrian government.  Piedmont, with the aid of its French ally, had defeated Austria and annexed the prosperous city of Milan.  A unified Italy under the leadership of Piedmont would place a strong nation on the southern border, another potential enemy for the Austrian Empire, which was already bordered by hostile nations.  Besides, the Emperor Franz Josef was concerned with domestic problems and did not want to risk another war with Piedmont by aiding the Pope in hope of thwarting Italian unification.  So the Austrian Count Charles MacDonnell, the descendant of Colonel MacDonnell who had fought for Austria at Cremona in 1701, proposed a solution for Austria's dilemma.  He suggested that he go to Ireland to recruit a battalion of Irish soldiers to fight for the Pope's cause.  The troops would be financed and trained by Austria, but would be politically and militarily attached to the Papal States.  A contingent of Irish soldiers in Italy would provide the Pope with badly needed military support and stimulate other nations to send forces to the Papal armies.  Both the Austrian Emperor and Pope Pius IX approved the plan, and in 1860, Charles MacDonnell was dispatched to his ancestral homeland.

      MacDonnell appealed to the Irish as Catholics, asking them to fight in Italy for the sake of their religion.  He received an excellent response from young men eager to escape the grinding poverty of farm life while advancing the Catholic cause abroad.  In a short time, thousands of Irish volunteers arrived in Italy to defend the territory claimed by the Pope as his personal domain.

      When the Irish volunteers arrived at the city Macerata in west-central Italy where they would be stationed, they faced a politically and militarily chaotic situation.  The people in some of the cities and towns in the Papal States along with the remnants of the Papal army defeated by Victor Emmanuel's troops supported Pope Pius IX.  The people in other cities and towns - sometimes only a few miles from cities and towns supporting Pius IX - believed that the Pope's temporal power should end and Italy become united under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel.  Because of the revolutionary character of this conflict, the Irish could not know if the Italians around them were friends or enemies.  To make matters even more complex for the Irish, Emperor Louis Napoleon of France had agreed to send French forces to help Pius IX maintain control of the Papal States, but had secretly instructed the French generals not to oppose Victor Emmanuel's invasion.  Frequently the French troops and Italian supporters of Victor Emmanuel intercepted military supplies on their way to the Irish soldiers, creating critical shortages in ammunition and rifles.

 

      Due to the rapidly deteriorating political and military situation in the Papal States, neither the Austrians nor the Papal army provided the Irish Brigade with suitable leadership or training.  The men who were rustic labourers in Connaught and Munster lacked the discipline and experience to rapidly become effective soldiers.  They found themselves on the field of battle armed with unfamiliar weapons and led by foreign officers indifferent to the loss of Irish lives.  At the battles of Spoleto and Perugia, more than five hundred were taken prisoner.  Out of frustration and anger, they mutinied at Macerata, rampaging through the town.  In spite of the Irish efforts, the emerging nation of Italy eventually absorbed more of the Papal States except for the small territory of the Vatican.  Disillusioned by their foreign adventure, the Irish volunteers returned home, their brief and hapless intervention leaving no imprint on Italian society.

      Because of political conditions unique to Italy during the period of the Renaissance, when large numbers of Irish were emigrating to Europe, and the general disdain of the Italians towards the Irish because of their supposed cultural inferiority, the Irish had hardly any effect on Italian society or historical development.  Most of the Irish who went to Italy during the era did not stay long, and resumed their travels after realizing that there was no worthwhile or productive place for them in Italian society.  They continued on to join their fellow émigré countrymen in Spain, France and Austria - which held promise closed to them in Italy.