ABSTRACT
Normally papal law dictated harsh punishments for the defamation of popes, but during the sede vacante, papal law ceased to function. Romans—in both word and deed—assaulted the pope’s memory in his death, particularly if he had raised taxes or ruled oppressively. This chapter will examine the ritual assaults directed against papal statues located in the Palace of the Conservators on the Capitoline Hill, the seat of Rome’s civic regime. It will also explore the deluge of criticism—in the form of pasquinades—that Romans directed at their deceased ruler. This chapter will argue that Romans used these ritual spaces and actions to criticize the bad government of deceased popes in a collective assessment of the popes judged to be tyrants. This collective action represented the moral economy of the Roman people. In the Roman context, this moral economy meant tying the pope to traditional notions of princely rule, which included keeping taxes low and the populace supplied with bread. Thus, the ritualized action of Romans recognized the pope as a political figure in the same way that other early modern European subjects viewed kings and princes. Romans then split the pope’s soul into two parts: a political soul which was judged in death and a spiritual soul that retained its numinous quality even as the people assaulted his statue and wrote invectives against his memory.
