ABSTRACT
The reign of Leo X (1513–1521) is famous as a period in which the languages and history of the Middle East became a feature of scholarship in Rome. However, this chapter argues that even during Leo’s reign the peripheries of the Catholic world possessed knowledge and resources that the metropole lacked. As well as demonstrating the impact of peripheries of the Catholic world on its centre, this chapter explores how Rome understood its far-flung possessions. We find that while Leo was aware that the Maronites did not follow all of Rome’s doctrines and rites, in 1515 he nonetheless confirmed the Maronite Patriarch Simon al-Hadathi in his office. In doing so, this chapter argues, Leo thereby accepted within the Catholic Church a people whose beliefs and customs he knew to differ from those of Rome – and all this just two years before the outbreak of the Reformation.
