Details

Subjects:

Paul III, Pope, 1468-1549.
Julius III, Pope, 1487-1555.
Accounting -- Italy -- 16th century.
Taxation, Papal -- Early works to 1800.
Monasticism and religious orders -- Taxation.
Monasticism and religious orders.
Taxation.
Taxation, Papal.
Accounting.
Italy.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Accounts.
Receipts.
Notarial documents.
Manuscripts, Italian.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Language:

Italian and Latin.

Summary:

Account of Vincenzo Spada, tax collector for the Papal States, for the years 1547-1551, possibly written by Martino Bernardinis. In 1547, Spada, who previously worked as a merchant in Lucca, was appointed by the Camera Apostolica to collect revenues for the pope from various parts of Italy after his predecessor, Benvenuto Oliverio, was fired from the job. Spada was in charge of collecting ordinary and extraordinary taxation first for Paul III and then for Julius III, from various parts of Italy (including Parma, Piacenza, Ferrara, Urbino, Pesaro, Napoli, Senigallia, and Camerino); from religious institutions and orders (e.g. the monasteries of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Vall'Ombrosa, San Girolamo, and San Giorgio in Alga, and orders of friars minor such as the Carthusians, the Camaldolese, the Celestines, and the Lateran Canons); and from individuals of a different fiscal status (such as Jews). The manuscript contains a number of copies of documents that record the changes that occurred over the years Spada was a collector in the papal taxation system, including tax increases and decreases and different policies related to tax matters. Accounts, sometimes itemized, are kept for the four years Spada was in service. Short memoranda that describe the circumstances that characterized collecting revenues in a diverse range of locations are also present. In certain cases, the payers leave their signature underneath Spada's annotations, confirming their name and the amount paid. Many of the passages that contain the guidelines issued by the Camera Apostolica are written in Latin (but are sometimes followed by a short summary in Italian) and written in a larger italic hand, whereas the passages where itemized accounts were transcribed are typically in Italian and written in a much faster and less careful hand.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Foliation: Paper, 150; 1-130, 151-170; contemporary foliation in ink, upper right recto.
Script: Written in a cursive script, by multiple hands.
Decoration: Notarial signet in ink (f. 106v).
Binding: Modern cloth.
Origin: Written in Italy between 1547 (f. 2r) and 1551 (f. 128v).
Forms part of: Gondi-Medici Business Records.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal, 1963.

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800: Supplement A (4), Library Chronicle 37 (1971), no. 1, p. 15 (Ms. Lea 532).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1504

Contributor:

Bernardinis, Martino, scribe.

OCLC:

320087683