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From Jews to New Christians: Religious Minorities in the Making of Spanish Naples

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The New Christians of Spanish Naples 1528–1671

Part of the book series: Early Modern History: Society and Culture ((EMH))

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Abstract

Though Consalvo de Cordoba’s spectacular victories over the French at Cerignola and Garigliano in 1503 marked the beginning of the Spanish monarchy’s domination of the mainland of Southern Italy, this new territory did not come easily or immediately under the stable control of the crown. The first decades of the sixteenth century witnessed a level of warfare across Italy which destabilized all of the Italian states and left the population, including élites, in a continuous state of uncertainty while the French and Spanish armies attempted to gain the upper hand. For the entire reign of Ferdinand the Catholic, Naples served more as a base of military command and provisioning for continuing warfare in Northern Italy than as a center of government.1

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Notes

  1. On the conquest and its aftermath, see Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, El Reino de Nápoles en el Imperio de Carlos V. La Consolidación de la Conquista. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001) and Giuseppe Galasso and Carlos Jose Hernando Sanchez, eds. El Reino de Nápoles y la Monarquía de España: Entre Agregación y Conquista (1485–1535). (Madrid: Real Academia de España en Roma, 2004.

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  26. See in particular, the work by Marquez Villanueva cited above.

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  27. AGS, Estado, libro 58: “Sumario de lo que resulta de las informaciones de las ciudades, castillos, tierras, lugares y otros bienes burgensaticos y feudales tomados y pervenidos en poder de la regia corte y de otros terceros, por ella concedidos y alienados, y el precio, valor, rentas y qualidat de cada una d’ellos en la meior manera che hasta gora se ha podido haver....” transcribed in Nino Cortese, “Feudi e feudatari napoletani della prima metà del Cinquecento,” in Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane LIV. (1930), 5–150; LV (1931), 41–128; LVI (1931), 233–248, in particular LV, 89–97.

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  29. Roberto Mantelli, Burocrazia e Finanze Pubbliche a Napoli a Metà Cinquecento. (Naples: Pironti, 1981), 76, 126.

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  30. The full text of Camerario’s letter to Charles V is in Coniglio, Il Viceregno di don Pietro di Toledo., 80–89 (from 1536, undated, AGS Estado, Napoles 1025, 88); other letters regarding his investigation and the sentence for extortion are in ibid.., 114–153, 214–228, 559; see also Giovanni Muto, Le Finanze Pubbliche Napoletane tra Riforme e Restaurazione., 1520–1634. (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche, 1980), 39–40; for other examples of leniency towards corrupt officials, see Jean-Claude Waquet, Corruption: Ethics and Power in Florence, 1600–1770. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

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  32. The Neapolitan seggi. were aristocratic neighborhood organizations of purportedly ancient origins that were responsible for a limited number of legislative responsibilities.

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  33. “dinanzi a loro andava Alonso Sanchez giovane, General tesoriero del regno, portando inanzi cavallo due grandi borse di monete d’oro, e d’argento; e di seggio in seggio, e di luogo in luogo, come gli pareva, empieva il pugno di denari, e gli gettava alle turbe, ch’erano per le strade, in segno di liberalità e d’allegrezza.” Castaldo, 56–57, 137; the event is also cited, from a different source, in John Marino, Becoming Neapolitan: Citizen Culture in Early Modern Naples. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 77; for a discussion the Neapolitan ethic of liberality, see Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism: 14th to 18th Centuries., trans. Sian Reynolds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) 2: 489–491 and Hernando Sánchez, “Nobiltà e potere vicereale,” 151–152, 159.

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  35. AHN, OM, Santiago, exp.1584bis, cc.nn.; both Rafael Galzerano and Luigi Cruilles testified on Carafa’s behalf. Laudomia Villagut and Luigi Villagut, the auditor of the province of Otranto, were both investigated by the Holy Office in 1580s: ACDF, Decreta 1580–1581, f. 255r, 271v, 293v, 298v, 319v, 329v, 334v.

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  38. Ibid.. 137, f. 17v. Transcriptions of this document and of ASDN, Sant’Ufficio. 212, both currently unavailable at the archive, were kindly provided to me by Giovanni Romeo.

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  42. The bibliography on Juan de Valdés is extensive. For his activity in Naples, see in particular: José C. Nieto, Juan de Valdés and the Origins of the Spanish andItalian Reformations. (Geneva: Droz, 1970); Massimo Firpo, “The Italian Reformation and Juan de Valdés,” The Sixteenth Century Journal. XXVII (1996) 353–364; idem., “Reform of the Church and heresy in the age of Charles V: reflections of Spain in Italy,” in Spain in Italy: Politics, Society, and Religion, 1500–1700., eds. Thomas James Dandelet and John Marino (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 457–480. Pasquale Lopez, Il Movimento Valdesiano a Napoli: Mario Galeota e le sue Vicende col Sant’Uffizio. (Naples: Fiorentino, 1976) and Massimo Firpo and Sergio Pagano, eds. I Processi Inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi: 1557–1567., (Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 1998) contain references to Valdés’ circle of followers in Naples, including a deposition by Alfonso Sanchez dated August 21, 1560 in which he testifies that he knew Marcantonio Flaminio, Carnesecchi, and Valdés when they were in Naples. He considered them “persune da bene et honorate” who were held in esteem by Pedro de Toledo and the rest of the court: 1: 349–353.

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    Peter A. Mazur (Research Fellow)

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Mazur, P.A. (2013). From Jews to New Christians: Religious Minorities in the Making of Spanish Naples. In: The New Christians of Spanish Naples 1528–1671. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137295156_2

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