Embezzlement and High Treason in Louis XIV's France: The Trial of Nicolas Fouquet. By Vincent J. Pitts.

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Pp. ix, 240. $44.95.

This smoothly written, readable book examines the trial of Nicolas Fouquet, the influential, experienced superintendent of finances whom King Louis XIV inherited when he began his personal reign in 1661. Elegant in style and manner, revered by his literary and artistic coterie, a wealthy man and ostentatious in his wealth, Fouquet fell like a meteor when the king had him arrested on 5 September 1661. He never knew another day of freedom, finally dying in 1680 in the Pinerolo fortress in northern Italy, then under French control. But the king had wanted him dead, either at the end of a rope or beneath the blade of an ax.

Fouquet had fallen to his main rival in the administration, the dogged Jean-Baptiste Colbert, now the king's ministerial favorite and thus victorious in this example of high-stakes office politics. In an ongoing display of malice and incompetence, the king and Colbert did their best to railroad their prisoner in a show trial, stacking the judicial deck (with apologies for these cliches). Colbert probably selected the twenty-eight judges of a special tribunal charged with the trial, serving judges who were committed to the royal administration or deemed likely to be influenced by it. (The length of the trial reduced the panel to twenty-two.) 

One of these was Colbert's uncle, Henri Pussort, an implacable exponent of the royal line; other Colbert clients shamelessly served as administrators for the panel. As the trial dragged on, the king and his loyalists tried to reinsure themselves, lobbying uncertain judges and threatening them with this or that or offering them professional advancement. At first, authorities kept Fouquet isolated and incommunicado in his prison, denying him counsel and access to his voluminous papers, all the while using those papers to build what became a largely circumstantial case against him. 

This was not difficult as Fouquet's main job had been to raise large sums of money for the government in wartime, and he had had to use freewheeling methods, not always observing all the formalities. Even so, royal agents had to tamper with the documents and bring false evidence into the court to help the case along.

The trial, including the preliminary interrogations, lasted from the autumn of 1661 until 20 December 1664, its very length an embarrassment for the king and Colbert. …

 

Pietro Ferrerio: Palazzo Vidoni Caffarelli (1600-1654)

 

An etching by Pietro Ferrerio showing the façade of Palazzo Vidoni Caffarelli, a building in the centre of Rome, executed possibly on Raphael's project, with the involvement of Lorenzo Lotti (Lorenzetto). This print is from the print series 'Palazzi di Roma', published by Giovanni Giacomo Rossi. An Italian inscription below the image explains the building's history and location. The print is lettered with a scale and is signed by the printmaker. Trimmed within the platemark.

Ruland (1876) specifies that this print shows the palace "with a front of only twelve windows" (see RCIN 854164 for a representation of the front of the palace with seventeen windows).  

This palace was commissioned by Bernardino Caffarelli and erected between 1515 and 1538, with the inclusion of other older buildings. In the 18th century the palace was bought by Cardinal Vidoni (hence its current name) who enlarged it and it was later acquired by the Giustiani Bandini family. The Palace is decorated with 16th century frescoes (in the Charles V room) possibly executed by the school of Perin del Vaga and with other frescoes by Roman artists of the 18th century.

Andrew and Agnes Ross

 

Saint Emerentiana and Saint Agnes

https://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j290sdEmerentiana_01_23.htm

 

Saint Emerentiana

 

Virgin and martyr, died at Rome in the third century. The old Itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs, after giving the place of burial on the Via Nomentana of St. Agnes, speak of St. Emerentiana. Over the grave of St. Emerentiana a church was built which, according to the Itineraries, was near the church erected over the place of burial of St. Agnes, and somewhat farther from the city wall. In reality Emerentiana was interred in the coemeterium majus located in this vicinity not far from the coemeterium Agnetis. Armellini believed that he had found the original burial chamber of St. Emerentiana in the former coemeterium. According to the legend of St. Agnes, Emerentiana was her foster-sister. Some days after the burial of St. Agnes Emerentiana, who was still a catechumen, went to the grave to pray, and while praying she was suddenly attacked by the pagans and killed with stones. Her feast is kept on January 23. In the “Martyrologium Hieronymianum” she is mentioned under September 16, with the statement: In coemeterio maiore. She is represented with stones in her lap, also with a palm or lily.

Rome et ses Monuments Guide, Du Voyageur Catholique, Par Ed. De Bleser

Rome and it`s Monuments Guide: The Catholic Traveller in the capital of the Christian world

I have paid very little attention to this blog lately. I finished my hand written book, Utopian Society. Now I am waiting for those words to become reality.

I am translating a french book called “The Catholic Traveller.” The book interprets Christian symbolism and person stories of the lives of saints in ancient Rome. The book was published in 1870 and written by Ed. De Bleser.

 I will share my thoughts and related stories about the art and the text. 

The catholic traveller: http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv36074651

Utopian Society 2nd edition

 I have finished the majority of my book. This is what I have been doing during this quarantine, an accomplishment. 

I’m not finished yet, but most of the book is written.