I. The Historical Relationship between the Catholic Church and Chocolate
The relationship between the Roman Catholic Church (henceforth referred to simply as the “Church”) and chocolate dates from the early sixteenth century with the Spanish conquests of Mesoamerica. There the cacao tree had traditionally played a large role in indigenous societies, in particular, for its gastronomic, medicinal, and even monetary value.Footnote 1 Cacao beans, that is, the kernels of seed extracted from the fuzzy pods, were a form of currency in many parts of Central America.Footnote 2 With Cortez's barbarous incursions into the area beginning in 1519, Spanish explorers and settlers in the New World were exposed to cacao for the first time.Footnote 3
Spanish churchmen in the new world were part of the initial group of men who adopted a taste for the new drink.Footnote 4 Dominicans, Capuchins, Franciscans, and Jesuits were the earliest missionaries in these lands and adopted some of the cultural practices of the native Indians, such as consuming chocolate, in order to win converts. Indeed, up until their suppression in the mid to late eighteenth century, Jesuits were involved in all aspects of the chocolate business, particularly in Paraguay and Brazil: from the production of cacao, to the oversight of haciendas or plantations, to its shipment to Europe.Footnote 5
Itinerant as they were, missionaries, along with merchants, introduced chocolate to Spain and eventually to the rest of Europe. They brought with them new world novelties, including cacao, on their visits. Dominican monks, for example, presented King Phillip II with chocolate in 1585.Footnote 6 It was this type of exchange that made it possible for Europeans to acquire a taste for the sweetened drink, which at that time was the only form (that is, liquid) it was consumed in.Footnote 7
As importation of the product grew, religious orders helped disseminate chocolate throughout Europe via their monastic networks. Much of the 3,500 tons of Venezuelan cacao sent to Spain annually around the turn of the eighteenth century was consumed locally.Footnote 8 However, monks travelling in Europe, often to their order's regional or general councils, presented chocolate to their hosts and confrères. It is thus no surprise that Italy developed a market in chocolate early on. One historian cites 1606 as Italy's inaugural foray into the world of chocolate, though earlier unrecorded instances no doubt occurred. Members of the Roman Curia and the Pope himself often found their way onto a visiting monk's gift list, as patronage and gift-giving were long an ecclesiastical tradition.Footnote 9 Diarist and English adventurer Thomas Gage references “boxes of curious Chocolate” destined for Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644).Footnote 10
So quickly had the consumption of chocolate grown in Italian lands that by the middle of seventeenth century a determination had to be made whether or not this practice violated Church fasts.Footnote 11 Did chocolate offer the requisite “nourishment and sensual satisfaction,” to be considered food? In 1662 Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio judged that it did not: “Liquidum non frangit jejunum” or “Liquids do not break the fast” was his oft-quoted response. Even earlier, in 1569, Pope Paul V declared that the consumption of chocolate during lent in New Spain was permissible.Footnote 12 This decision followed an appeal by the bishop of Mexico, who witnessed alarming levels of consumption by those in his diocese.Footnote 13 It was rumored that following Paul V's first taste of the (presumably unsweetened) drink, he was so disgusted that he believed that it in no way disturbed the fast.
Despite Paul's initial revulsion, privileged churchmen as well as Roman aristocracy quickly began including chocolate in their breakfast routine.Footnote 14 Commenting on the prevalence of chocolate in the mornings, French traveler Pierre-Jacques Bergeret de Grancourt, who was visiting Rome on January 26, 1774, wrote: “One finds at this ‘conversation’ all the most beautiful Roman princesses, and one is served a great deal of chocolate, very foamy, very well made and without Vanilla, simply cacao with cinnamon. The Italians think themselves ‘burned’ if they use vanilla. I didn't think I could get used to it, but I find it very good.”Footnote 15 In equal measure, cardinals consumed chocolate. In the extended conclave of 1740, thirty pounds of it were delivered to the Sistine Chapel.Footnote 16
In addition to Rome, Italian cities to the north—from Venice to Genoa—also rapidly developed a market for chocolate.Footnote 17 Connoisseurs benefitted from a break-up of the Spanish monopoly, as the seventeenth century witnessed more diverse trading across the Atlantic. With established trade routes to America and the Caribbean, the Dutch were key suppliers of cacao to major cities just across the Alps. Only Spain eclipsed the overall trade of the Dutch.Footnote 18 Of northern Italian chocolatiers, it was claimed that their recipes were popular throughout Europe.Footnote 19 Venice, Florence, and Torino also introduced some of the first European cafés.Footnote 20 These venues attracted the city's literati and the affluent of society, where not only coffee and tea, but also chocolate was served. Celebrated artists such as Antonio Canova, Giacomo Casanova, and even Lord Byron, frequented the Café Florian in Venice, which first opened in 1720.Footnote 21 Casanova was rumored to be particularly taken with chocolate.Footnote 22 By 1760, Venice held a sizeable trade in it.
However, with the inception of the European war into Italy in 1796, the chocolate market was affected. Traditional Atlantic shipping routes were by turns hindered, cut off, and rerouted, as many key ports experienced blockades at various times between 1796 and 1814, referred to in this article as the “Napoleonic era.” Interruptions in the European market more generally resulted in price increases.Footnote 23 As the price of chocolate rose, the Church, Italy's largest consumer of chocolate, became poorer.Footnote 24 The Treaty of Tolentino in 1797 may have halted French aggression temporarily, but the price paid by the Roman Church for this respite was dear. Millions of lire and other valuables were demanded from Rome in exchange for (temporary) peace. These financial burdens were in turn passed onto its affiliated institutions, especially religious orders. Special taxes were levied, land was confiscated and converted to cash, yet there was still a shortfall, which, ironically, only found a definitive solution when the French stripped the papacy of its dominions and began a nearly twenty-month period of direct rule under the Roman Republic (1798–1799).
Given these impecunious times for the Church, and given that chocolate was a preserve of the wealthy, in Italy at least, many churchmen no longer had the means to purchase this culinary delicacy—at least not on the scale that they had been accustomed to. Church coffers in Rome had been emptied. Hardest hit were religious orders. They bore the brunt of French aggression, as they represented the easiest targets to pillage. Monasteries were closed, their properties and assets taken and often resold; monks and nuns were secularized and, in most cases, forced to leave the monastery. These setbacks meant that even when religious orders restarted, as in Rome from 1800 to 1810 and after 1814, very few revenue streams were available for the men charged with overseeing them. In the midst of these uninviting circumstances, there were a handful of enterprising monks from one religious order who developed a chocolate trade in order to eke out an existence.
This essay will examine financial activities related to chocolate executed by a handful of members, including the future Pope Gregory XVI (born Bartalomeo Alberto [Mauro] Cappellari, r. 1831–1846), of the Camaldolese, a conservative, mendicant branch of the Benedictine order. This article will employ two archival sources, the Roman State Library and the archives of the Camaldolese order, which have hitherto lain unexplored. These monks resorted to dealing in cacao in an attempt to generate revenue at a time when few other options existed. The bulk of the transactions occurred between 1800 and 1809, the bleakest period for ecclesiastical institutions in Italy. They utilized their monastic contacts in order to locate clients. Resorting to such an unorthodox enterprise poignantly depicts the very desperate financial state in which the Church found itself during the Napoleonic period. However, despite this situation being well-understood in general terms, there has been virtually no discussion of the specific measures taken by individual clerics to cope with these circumstances. Instead, discussions of the general poor economic state of the Church, its specific financial policies and decrees, and the general financial effects on religious orders or confraternities, dominate the discourse.Footnote 25 What this article aims to do is to personalize the French Revolution and its deleterious effects on one segment of society and show (ironically) how the use of a luxury food item, namely chocolate, enabled members of a religious order committed to a life of poverty to survive. And while comprising only about two percent or so of the general population, religious clerics were a ubiquitous presence in Italy by virtue of their vast land holdings, ties to nobility, and overall wealth status.
II. Religious Orders and Economic Enterprise
This opportunity to look closely at the dealings of members of the Camaldolese order has benefitted from the order's peculiar practice related to finances. Traditionally, individual monks and their circumstances have remained hidden behind the institutional narratives of the period, as misfortune was expressed corporately.Footnote 26 However, the Camaldolese were an exception in this sense. Despite the rather ascetic reputation and cloistered pattern of life, they were, most unusually, given a free hand over the management of their individual finances. The order's historian, Anselmo Giabbani, was critical of this aspect of his order, maintaining that the monks were needlessly preoccupied with their own financial situation.Footnote 27 This was never more apparent than in the Napoleonic period.
It was not, in fact, uncommon for religious orders to involve themselves in a variety of enterprises unrelated to their primary spiritual mission. One of the major forms of income for many of the established orders and monasteries was that which was derived from rental properties. S. Apollinare in Classe, just outside Ravenna and one of the oldest Camaldolese monasteries, held sixty-eight agricultural properties in its vast portfolio when it was closed in 1798.Footnote 28 Vineyards were a valuable asset and source of important income. Many institutions, including not a few monasteries within the Camaldolese order, managed or leased their vineyards. However, in most cases, this was passive income, as religious orders either collected rents from leased properties or hired individuals from the outside to oversee directly their commercial enterprises.Footnote 29
On an individual level, offerings at mass—the alms—were, in normal times, a fairly modest revenue stream for the presiding cleric; however, during the Napoleonic era, these opportunities became rarer. Many monks, returning to their professions in Rome after 1800 and again after 1814, found that either their churches were badly damaged, with functioning altars in short supply, or the money earmarked for such special intentions by parishioners was significantly reduced, parishoners themselves having been adversely affected by the Revolution. Although the periods of suppression varied in length from one Italian region to the next, the same pattern held throughout.
Dealing in chocolate at this time was not an endeavor associated with the Camaldolese or any order outside of those with ties to New Spain or Brazil. Nor does any history of the Camaldolese order mention such a peculiar practice. In fact, there is very little known, ecclesiastical or otherwise, about “commercial networks [of cacao] in importing countries.”Footnote 30 In tracking how these monks attempted to derive income from the sale of chocolate, this essay will also provide more particulars about the actual chocolate trade and production, including geographical coverage of the trade, prices and types of chocolate, ingredients, modes of delivery, clientele, payment methods, and currencies employed. As has already been mentioned, the chocolate market in the North began in Venice and spread to other key Italian cities. It is thus no coincidence to find that the Camaldolese monks involved in the trading originated from the Venetian monastery of S. Michele in isola. Spearheaded by Mauro Cappellari, later Gregory XVI, and assisted by fellow monk Placido Zurla, a future cardinal (1823–1834), and others within the order, they acted as brokers in coordinating a geographically-wide network of trading chocolate.
Above all, their financial activity reveals the general preoccupation in these years with temporal and more immediate financial concerns. In discussing the plight of secular clerics or priests, historian Owen Chadwick notes in very general terms that meager income encouraged irregularities; parish ecclesiastical articles were “‘borrowed’ or misappropriated,” wealthy laity were given more attention, and the emphasis placed on the collection of offerings at mass was greater.Footnote 31 Such concerns, while not surprising considering the times, are asserted but rarely elaborated upon, nor are they normally associated with Cappellari and his order, who are known instead for their piety and erudition.Footnote 32 Such preoccupations highlight facets of a little or mis-understood pope and his order.
III. Financial Distress in Rome and the Papal States, 1800s
Interest in the chocolate trade among the Camaldolese began in earnest with their return to Rome in early 1800, following the end of the Roman Republic. Mauro Cappellari, the order's vice-procurator general, arrived in the eternal city around March 17, just days after Pope Pius VII's election as pope.Footnote 33 The conditions were worse than imagined: income-producing properties had been auctioned off, currencies disappeared or were reduced to small percentages of their pre-1798 value, and monasteries were in a state of dereliction.Footnote 34 The order's flagship monastery, S. Gregorio al Cielo, experienced multiple violations during the Republican period. The Roman weekly, Il Diario, described its ruined state: “it [S. Gregorio] has been so devastated that it would be difficult to believe if people did not visit it themselves and see with their own eyes the damage to the church and the monastery: altars stripped, pictures stolen, deposits broken, caskets opened . . . floors ruined, [and] the sacristy violated.”Footnote 35 Looting had indeed been rife; French General André Masséna despoiled the city over several days “without scruple.”Footnote 36 Generals and their commissaries helped themselves to Roman treasures and what little was left in ecclesiastical bank accounts.Footnote 37 All monasteries were suppressed, and their sacred objects pilfered, including all forms of valuable art. In addition, the city felt the weight of trying to accommodate the multitude of French troops, along with a much greater French civilian population, who were “trampling” on each other for riches. However, the accumulation of wealth was reserved for just a few, as soldiers went unpaid and officers were often seen clothed in rags.
If most of the French in Rome found the times difficult, the Romans found them even more so. The economic conditions in the summer of 1800 were miserable.Footnote 38 Crippled by the enormous payments to the French agreed to in the Treaty of Tolentino, along with the lavish spending on Pius VI's nephew and on non-essential projects throughout Pius's pontificate, the Papal government attempted drastic measures in order to wrest control of the situation. Government bonds issued from the early 1790s failed to address the real problem, as foreign investors bought up much of them and exchanged them in foreign markets where the rates of return were higher, effectively drying up the currency market in Rome. Gold and silver coins held their value, but for this reason were difficult to find. Coins in mixture or in copper were introduced, but suffered precipitous declines in their purchasing power, as inflation spiked; proof of the general financial chaos and uncertainty were the mind-boggling 150 kinds of specie in circulation.Footnote 39 When paper money (Roman scudo) flooded into the market, it soon lost its value, triggering defaults on loans.Footnote 40
Cappellari observed that, without the legations and the treasury, the Pontifical government lacked the resources to care for its own citizens.Footnote 41 Staple items such as oil, grain, and meat had to be imported almost entirely. And prices on essential food items experienced rather dramatic rises. Cappellari also noted that the growing disorder even threatened to delay Pius VII's return to Rome.Footnote 42 With burdensome taxes levied to meet the conditions of Tolentino,Footnote 43 and extra pensions for secularized clergy,Footnote 44 monasteries struggled to survive. A circular letter issued in May 1800 from the Vicar General told of the calamitous position of the Camaldolese: “With pain we report that the temporal state of the whole congregation is reduced to the worst of conditions. The cassa publica can hardly sustain these burdens, which all orders are facing. Meanwhile it has been decreed that taxes be extinguished and income be taken from the annual rents of each individual monastery. Executing these decrees, we call on Mauro Cappellari.”Footnote 45
IV. Economic Impact of Chocolate
It was in these conditions that the references to the sale of chocolate began. Less than four months into the first restoration of Rome, the first order of chocolate was made. In July 1800, Bishop Antonio Maria Gardini (1719–1800), of Crema, requested “a batch of good chocolate.Footnote 46 The order had been received by Zurla at his monastery in S. Michele in Venice and relayed to Cappellari in Rome. Cappellari and Zurla were brokers in the transactions. Brokers, of course, made money by arranging the sale and profiting from the difference in the cost of production and the retail price.Footnote 47 The monks divided their duties. Zurla and others within the order located buyers and arranged the sale, while Cappellari worked closely with the producers of the chocolate. He also coordinated the delivery of the product and dictated the financial terms of the transaction; it was then left to men like Zurla to collect the money. The following month (August 1800), Gardini's order was filled and Cappellari ensured delivery of the chocolate to the client;Footnote 48 he instructed Zurla on how much he should collect.
But involvement went beyond mediating sales of chocolate: Cappellari's order was also producing the chocolate. It is also not inconceivable that Cappellari actually had a hand, as it were, in the production. The context of Gardini's reference to Cappellari, that he should “prepare a batch of good chocolate,” suggests his great familiarity. Converting the imported cacao beans into chocolate was not so difficult: it involved sifting, roasting, unshelling, winnowing, crushing, and grinding, before adding sugar and, if desired, other spices, though it often arrived in Europe at least partially processed.Footnote 49 What is more, this production most likely took place at S. Romualdo, located in what is today Venice Plaza, where Cappellari and the other administrators of the order resided.Footnote 50 In 1803, a request was received from Tuscany, which read as follows: “[a certain] Father Zanenga wrote to me [one of the order's brokers] to get in touch with and have the Camerlengo make more of that chocolate.”Footnote 51 In this passage the “Camerlengo” refers to the monk who administers monastic property.Footnote 52 This responsibility was in fact Cappellari's, along with the Procurator General Michaelangelo Fumè, though neither man was normally referred to by that title. Both men lived at S. Romualdo. The context also suggests that Cappellari and his order had developed quite a reputation and association with quality chocolate, as orders were received from some distance.
Six years on, in 1809, this reputation for fine chocolate produced in-house endured and was closely associated with Cappellari. From distant Capodistria (today in southwestern Slovenia) a request was received. One of the order's brokers (and fellow monks) wrote, “Someone came to me to ask for chocolate. But not any chocolate but a particular chocolate that padre reverendissima [Cappellari] makes in his monastery. I did not know that you had ordered this chocolate for yourself. Had I known, I would have asked you for some of it—as it is sure to be of very good quality. And whenever you make more I ask you to give me about 20 lire worth, and if possible 25 is even better because many people have come to me asking for it.”Footnote 53 A short while later, another order was placed by the same contact, this time for a religious purpose: “The other day I got to know that it is my turn to serve snacks to all the priests on S. Romualdo day, but as before [please] prepare five pounds’ worth of chocolate. . . . At the first opportunity, send him [the unnamed person paying for the order] the price.”Footnote 54 The following month, in February 1809, Cappellari had produced enough chocolate to fill both orders, totaling thirty one lire, which was sent along to Treviso. The agent wrote to Cappellari, “I have received the Chocolate and am thankful from my heart, and am at all times at your service.”Footnote 55
Cappellari's familiarity with chocolate recipes was matched by his deep understanding of currency and exchange markets, a necessity at this time. Their volatility required diligent monitoring, especially since there were ten or so little nations in Italy each with its own currency, and each valued differently from its neighbor; on one occasion, Cappellari instructed Zurla on the exchange rate: “Their price is 9 paoli Romani which is equal to 10 Venetian lira.”Footnote 56 Cappellari also often insisted upon payment in silver: “Payment must be received in silver only.”Footnote 57 With other specie, such as copper, it was feared a decline in value could occur if any time lapsed before completing a transaction.
Cappellari was the most suitable person for this part of the business, as he held this responsibility within his order more generally, an overlooked aspect of his pre-papal career.Footnote 58 He had been sent to Rome in the summer of 1795 to assist the Procurator General in administering the financial aspects of his order. Early on he confirmed this new role: “I have begun to learn [about] the economy for the others.”Footnote 59 Already by November 1795, he understood the seriousness of the matter, as Italy lay on the verge of an invasion: “Fear continues with rumors of a currency [moneta] [crisis].”Footnote 60 By 1797 or so, Cappellari's greatest concerns were financial.Footnote 61 Cappellari kept apprised of the latest political turns to determine how they would affect the Italian economy, and ultimately, his order.
He lent this expertise to his side venture in chocolate. He was often found exhorting those in his order to use certain currencies depending on the location of the transaction and to execute it in the most expeditious manner in order to avoid unnecessary losses from sudden fluctuations in the exchange rate. When Cappellari discussed an outstanding payment in a letter, for example, he wrote, “Remind me to tell you how much money and in which denomination I am owed.”Footnote 62 “My credit with Monsignor Gardini for the chocolate,” he reminded Zurla in March 1802, “is in silver coinage.”Footnote 63 On another occasion, in 1802, Cappellari informed Zurla of the business: “From the deceased Gardini, I collected ten and a half scudi in moneta fina,” referring to gold or silver coins and not a mixed metal. He went on to write, “I collected eight scudi coins of the same value from the bishop of Capodistria [Bonifacio da Ponte], and the same for all the others.”Footnote 64
When one considers the price of chocolate at the time, it is easy to see how money could be generated from such an enterprise. “A batch” of chocolate was valued at around ten scudi retail (two to three months of average salary in Rome).Footnote 65 Based on a more precise transaction made in May 1801, in which twenty pounds was ordered, the total cost to the client was 105 lire.Footnote 66 How much the chocolate and other ingredients cost has eluded me; however, the monks were aware of expenses and profits and knew that producing larger quantities of chocolate lowered the cost of ingredients. One monk wrote, “It is good to make a batch, but it is better two; it is always good to make more because the ingredients are cheaper the more you buy.”Footnote 67
In terms of the relative importance that income from chocolate held in the overall finances of the congregation, it is difficult to assess, since the monasteries and non-ecclesiastical lands associated with the Camaldolese were in disarray. What is more, the various regions of the order were cut-off from one another, victims of the political dissecting by the French. It was forbidden to transfer money between provinces. This meant that the only revenue that the order's leadership saw was that which was created within the papal patrimony. Venice, Tuscany, and the Legations were, at one time or another, under French control and unable to assist the order's headquarters in Rome. Based on the pensions given to each member of the order during the Restoration, it is possible to assess the relative importance of chocolate sales. Pensions were distributed at the annual rate of fifty-four scudi per monk.Footnote 68 And if we compare that to the figures listed in the above paragraph, where scudi and lire were roughly equivalent, we can see that the amount of revenue generated from the sale of chocolate was significant.
Some of the income from the sale of chocolate was generated from the inheritance of deceased members of their own order. Camaldolese Bishop Gardini, whom we have already encountered, died in September 1800; yet, conspicuously, orders of chocolate continued on his behalf for another year and a half. It seems that such money given to a religious order could be used in various—even unconventional—ways. And the amounts under discussion were not insignificant. An order on his behalf in May 1801 was sizeable—twenty pounds of chocolate earmarked for a certain abbot Giuseppe Gropelli.Footnote 69 One can speculate as to the reasons for this liberality with Gardini's funds, assuming that Gardini did not specify in his will that his friends were to receive chocolate. The order had discretionary powers over the funds; there were provisions specifically earmarked for saying masses, but the expense for chocolate came from money whose purposes the deceased Gardini appeared not to specify.Footnote 70 In any case, the sale of chocolate was profitable, which would explain its prolonged use on Gardini's behalf; it was also shrewdly “given as gifts” (regalata) to men like Gropelli, no doubt to curry favor in other areas.Footnote 71 These allowances in Gardini's estate were applied in 1802 as well. In March, Cappellari held a credit allotment for chocolate.Footnote 72 Once again Gropelli was the recipient of this post-mortem act.
Chocolate as a gift made sense, and in fact, as mentioned earlier, this was the manner in which chocolate found a foothold in Europe. It had an association with privilege and an exclusive social milieu, in addition to its alluring taste. For example, thirty scudi of premium chocolate was used as a thank you for something unspecified done on Cappellari's behalf: “It is a lovely gift, a batch of chocolate. It will cost us, you are aware, about 30 scudi, making it all with Caracas chocolate. I will offer first some to the [unnamed] Monsignor, and the esteemed abbot Gropelli will be happy.”Footnote 73 Admittedly, it was not always clear whether the intentions were altruistic or whether an inducement—or bribe—was indirectly taking place; the line was at times indistinguishable.Footnote 74 An unrelated, contemporary example reveals this ambiguity. The rector of the Irish College in Rome, Luigi Cuccagni (r. 1773–1798), had been a major figure in conservative Roman theological circles in the 1780s and 1790s, as editor of the Church's key journal, Giornale Ecclesiastico di Roma. By the beginning of 1798, as the threat of a French takeover loomed, Cuccagni quickly attempted to curry favor with the new French-based publishing establishment. At the beginning of the Roman Republic in mid-February, Cuccagni presented Urbano Lampredi, the principal editor of Monitore di Roma and recent arrival to Rome, with chocolate.Footnote 75 Monitore was one of just a handful of journals allowed to publish during the Republican period,Footnote 76 and Cuccagni was hoping for the same privilege. Lampredi is purported to have said, “You favor me with the best [ottima] chocolate.”Footnote 77 It was not inconceivable that Cappellari himself was involved in this exchange, as the supplier of chocolate; Cuccagni served as his reader for his book, Il Trionfo della Santa Sede (The Triumph of the Holy See), published in 1799.
The well-known Roman poet, G. G. Belli, a lifelong satirist of the Church, suggested in one poem that clergy were easily taken in by chocolate.Footnote 78 In “La Porteria Der Convento” (The Porter of the Convent, December 1832), the porter refuses to allow a visitor to meet “padre Ilario” on account of his extremely busy schedule of spiritual obligations, saying mass and hearing confessions. However, once the visitor reveals that he had merely desired to present father Ilario with “a few pounds of chocolate,” suddenly the porter notifies the priest, who manages at once to find time to meet the young man.Footnote 79
But bribery was not the principle negative association of chocolate at the time.Footnote 80 Decadence held that honor.Footnote 81 Such was the stigma associated with chocolate in France prior to the French Revolution.Footnote 82 One historian, commenting on the period, writes, “Chocolate was associated with the idle clergy and nobility of Catholic and absolutist regimes. A popular motif for painters was the breakfast scene, in which a noble woman, often in bed and revealing much of her ample flesh, languidly took her morning chocolate in the company of a priest and assorted men.”Footnote 83 Venetian Peter Longhi's painting, La Cioccolata del Mattino (Chocolate in the Morning, circa 1775) depicts just such a scenario—a rather compromising bedroom scene in which a lady lies in bed surrounded by an abbot and two “gallants,” all imbibing chocolate.Footnote 84 In Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, the “Monseigneur,” in the second part of the novel, is portrayed as corrupt and elitist. This is symbolized by his drinking chocolate and requiring four men to assist him.Footnote 85
If the religious orders were as poor as this article has maintained, how was it that Camaldolese monks like Bishop Gardini were able to purchase vast quantities of chocolate? In fact, a look at the client list reveals other Camaldolese monks. Two of the biggest customers were Bonifacio Da Ponte (1726–1810) and Gardini (1738–1800). Both men had much in common in addition to their monastic heritage. They were both bishops and had, it seems, discretionary diocesan funds at their disposal with which to make purchases. By 1800, and the beginning of their orders of chocolate, they were already seasoned prelates: Da Ponte had been bishop of Capodistria since 1776, and Gardini of Crema since 1782. This experience and familiarity with the system seems to have afforded them some flexibility with diocesan funds.
In addition, dioceses generally fared much better than religious orders during the period of French occupation, as the French were very careful not to excite the populace to anger by upsetting the social fabric of Italian towns and cities. So despite being stripped of valuables deemed unessential to the performance of the mass, churches were not gutted, buildings were not repossessed and presiding (oath-taking) clerics were not told to leave the premises. In fact, the internal organization was left largely intact. Laymen, especially in the larger and northern dioceses, still wanted masses celebrated on their behalf, and, according to Chadwick, the bishop and his parishes “prospered again modestly,” provided bishops and priests toed the line politically in the areas held by the French.Footnote 86
An indication of the general well-being of dioceses was the type of chocolate ordered. Bishop Gardini spared no expense in July 1800 when he instructed: “Prepare a batch of good chocolate without vanilla but of choice quality with only Cacáo di caracca [sic].”Footnote 87 At the time, there were three basic categories of chocolate, “optimum, medium, and low.”Footnote 88 Chocolate from Caracas headed the list of six in the premium category.Footnote 89 According to one connoisseur, it was more oily and less bitter, which made it a favorite among the French and Spanish.Footnote 90 The Caracas cacao seed was also thicker than others.Footnote 91 This luxurious breakfast drink was normally served cold. However, the variations were innumerable; at times, the Camaldolese made theirs with vanilla; at other times, it was requested to leave out the vanilla, as with Gardini's order.
V. Geography and Shipping of Chocolate
Geographically, the order's known clientele conformed to the general trends of chocolate in the Italian market. Both bishops, Da Ponte and Gardini, were in the North, Capodistria and Crema respectively. Zurla and Cappellari both came from the North, in Crema and Belluno, and entered seminary in Venice. (Cappellari lived there between 1783 and 1795 and then again in 1798–1799 and 1806–1807.) In terms of business location, Venice, and the North more generally, was an opportune place to develop such a business, as the chocolate market there was the most mature and economic development outpaced the rest of Italy. Utilizing contacts from within their order, the monks also executed requests in Treviso, several other unknown destinations in Lombardy, and the Serenissima.
The order benefited as well from the fact that in the early nineteenth century there still was limited commercial development in the chocolate industry. Few public cafés from which one could purchase chocolate drinks were open—the café culture in Italy would not expand significantly until the middle of the nineteenth century. However, a person of means had no trouble securing the beverage. John Troy, future archbishop of Dublin, travelling in Italy in 1777, recorded his activities. On many days he enjoyed chocolate for breakfast.Footnote 92
The perplexing part of this arrangement is the inclusion of Cappellari, who lived in Rome for most of this period. Logistically, Rome was inconveniently far from most of the clients. The most probable reasons for this arrangement were that Cappellari was the brainchild or was otherwise important to the venture, was in need of money, and had access to talented confectioners and the best chocolate. Acquiring chocolate from Caracas, Venezuela seems to have been difficult, as Gardini's specific request from distant Crema makes clear;Footnote 93 Cappellari's access to it indicated privileged contacts with suppliers.
Supplies to Europe from Spanish America were affected by the vagaries of war, which had broken out in Europe in 1796. Prior to this, obtaining chocolate of any sort from America was relatively easy to do.Footnote 94 And in terms of Venezuelan chocolate, Caracas, the city and its chocolate, monopolized the Spanish market, shipping eighty percent to Old Spain.Footnote 95 La Guiara was the key port, adjacent to Caracas, handling about ninety percent of the shipments to the main Spanish port of Cadiz.
But how did Cappellari continue to get access to fine chocolate from Caracas after 1796? Historians have emphasized the dependence on alternative trade routes during the Napoleonic years. The Revolution loosened Spain's commercial monopoly, and as a result, the open market allowed for greater participation among traders and port cities: from Britain, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and even Barcelona, to Livorno and Genoa.Footnote 96 Despite this trend, most published statistics on the period between 1796 and 1802 appear to point to a dramatic decrease in overall exports from Caracas. A recent scholarly work devoted to the city for the period suggests that during these six years there was a “near cessation of trade between Spain and Caracas.”Footnote 97 The assessment is based on gaps in the shipping reports, resulting from British naval blockades in the Atlantic at this time.Footnote 98
However, Venezuelan exports as a whole to Europe actually remained relatively steady, peaking in 1802, explaining the order's dealings in Caracan chocolate between 1800 and 1802.Footnote 99 Total exports (for example, tobacco, coffee, cacao, and leather) reaching Spain actually increased by 250% in 1798 from the previous year; and the largest exporting year of the whole pre-revolutionary period was in fact 1802, at more than double pre-1796 levels.Footnote 100 British blockades between 1796 and 1809 mainly affected the Caribbean markets, especially Havana, Cuba, the largest port in New Spain.Footnote 101 So while Venezuela could not engage in cabotage with its northern neighbors, it was able to move its product across the Atlantic. This meant that Venezuelan exports of cacao were diverted from its former Caribbean markets to European ones, and in fact more cacao was sold from Venezuela to Europe than to any New World market.Footnote 102 Thus, the percentage of total exports to Europe rose dramatically, from forty-four to ninety-five percent.Footnote 103 Contraband, which has been highlighted in diverse studies, failed to impact the Venezuelan market much, as Caracas enjoyed good and open relations with Spain.Footnote 104 And given that Cappellari was in Rome, he most probably obtained his cacao from a Spanish port. Cadiz received eighty-six percent of Spanish imports from Venezuela.Footnote 105 A mere five percent of Venezuelan exports, of which a small percentage was cacao, were sent directly to Italy at this time, with Venezuelan exporters calling only at distant Livorno.Footnote 106
VI. Chocolate and Pope Gregory XVI
As Cappellari became a high-profile figure following his election as Pope Gregory XVI in 1831, tracking the legacy of this commercial enterprise throughout his life is easier. People and places associated with his early dealings in chocolate would resurface later in his life. Cappellari's initial foray into the world of chocolate was actually in 1795 and involved picking up a delivery from “padre Dandini” at San Callisto.Footnote 107 In 1826, when Cappellari was named cardinal, he was appointed to the same church, San Callisto, by Pope Leo XII.Footnote 108 In 1830, while at the conclave that would elect him Pope Gregory XVI, “padre Dandini,” now Cardinal Ercole Dandini, fell ill.Footnote 109 At that time Cappellari expressed concern for his friend.Footnote 110 And while Dandini did not initially support Cappellari in the conclave, he did eventually switch his vote near the end of it.Footnote 111
Cappellari, as Pope Gregory XVI, continued the practice of using chocolate as gifts. In April 1834, he observed the project to dredge and reroute the Aniene River in Tivoli. For their efforts in celebrating the completion of this project, the choir and its director were given five pounds of chocolate.Footnote 112 On another occasion, following the anniversary memorial mass of Pius VII in 1840, Gregory gave all bishops, as well as the presiding cleric, chocolate.Footnote 113
Cappellari retained his own sweet tooth throughout his life. Chocolate was often served at events in which he participated. In 1825, when Cappellari was hosting extended meetings for a Tyrolese group who came to Rome to discuss differences with its local clergy in Salzburg, breakfast consisted of “chocolates, lemonade, and farmer's biscuits.”Footnote 114 It was also rumored that Pope Gregory was among the well-known clientele who greatly enjoyed carote di Viterbo (carrot-leavened chocolate) during his visit to the city in 1841.Footnote 115 On the Pope's trip to Anagni, to the south of Rome, in 1843, he was provided with a breakfast that was no doubt to his liking, and perhaps one that he had pre-selected: “sweetened chocolate pastries.”Footnote 116
This affection for chocolate, however, did not always provide clerics with a pleasant aftertaste. Cardinal Benedetto Naro (1744–1832) narrowly missed being elected pope in 1823 on account of the drink. Often retold, his election seemed imminent, until someone inside the conclave witnessed him consuming chocolate on a day of “penitence”—September 17, 1823.Footnote 117 News spread and Naro's candidacy was derailed. Although it could have been worse—many initially believed that Pope Clement XIV's life was cut short by poisoned chocolate.Footnote 118
VII. Conclusion
Never was there a time in the modern era of the Church where there was less structure and accountability, more leeway and more exceptions made, than that which Italian churchmen experienced in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Desperation marked most institutions, exceptions were now the norm, and very little functioned as it had prior to 1796. This was a church, at one time privileged socially and financially, now brought to its knees, and forced into unorthodox practices in order to subsist. Forrest and Glick observe that changes in “food production or distribution . . . can illustrate a shift in another sphere, or spheres, of society.”Footnote 119 This was certainly the case where the Camaldolese were concerned. Such an intense focus on a luxurious sweet was inherently at odds with a religious order dedicated to prayer and fasting, yet the merger was necessitated in the absence of more traditional forms of revenue. In the process, it can be said that chocolate added another dimension to its already diversified number of uses. This new identity was the result of a convergence of needs and conditions. For the monks engaged in chocolate at this time, it was at once a financial tool, a culinary delight, and even a means of salvation, delivering them from their destitution and allowing them to carry on in their profession.
The chocolate market in Italy was very fragmented, and depended very much on personal contacts and connections, as well as the ability to procure and make fine chocolate. In each of these areas, the Camaldolese were adept. Such endeavors reveal how difficult it was to live out one's calling as a religious cleric during the Napoleonic period. The great focus on confectionary activities, and financial survival more generally, meant that at times temporal concerns predominated over other-worldly (or spiritual) issues.
The depiction of Cappellari, later Gregory XVI, is also noteworthy. He exhibited an industriousness and financial acumen that has hitherto not been fully accounted for in the historiography. To the extent that he is remembered at all, it is as someone withdrawn from the world and unable to deal with or properly understand the times. For example, Chadwick wrote, “What he [Gregory] could not understand was Europe and its politics.”Footnote 120 Yet, it has been shown here that he and his confreres were resilient. Rather than sink into a boggy depression at the onset of the French occupation of Rome, they displayed resolve and resourcefulness.
But even more striking than righting a misaligned historiography are the array of contrasts—or ironies—in this episode. The notion that a luxury product, imbued with unholy properties, was a source of much needed income for an impecunious order, whose individual members and most of society could not have regularly afforded the chocolate, cannot be overlooked. This curious dialectic of privilege and pauperism runs throughout this story. Similarly, chocolate was associated at this time with idle clergy and overindulgence in a world of sensual pleasures, a depiction at odds with the general, ascetic portrayal and calling of the Camaldolese. Furthermore, chocolate had acquired a reputation for being the panacea of all ills,Footnote 121 yet few would have envisioned it alleviating the financial stress of a handful of Italian monks.
The final irony is that Cappellari and his order bartered in a business built literally on the back of slave labor.Footnote 122 In 1839, Gregory XVI would condemn the slave trade (In Supremo Apostolatus), and according to many, slavery as an institution. The great time which elapsed between peddling chocolate and issuing an encyclical, to mention nothing of chocolate's great popularity, ensured that he would never have to answer for these inconsistencies.Footnote 123
Cappellari could conceivably have received his cacao from Simon Bolivar's family plantation; Bolivar's father, Juan Vicente, prior to his death in 1790, was owner of a sizeable agricultural concern, which included “two cacao plantations” in Caracas.Footnote 124 As the Bolivars prospered, so did Venezuela—at least until the impact of revolution took full effect in 1811. By 1810, Venezuela was producing half of the world's cacao.Footnote 125 For Bolivar and Cappellari, cacao was used in part as an economic base by which to further their main passions: a political independence movement for Bolivar, and a contemplative life for Cappellari. Money gained from cacao helped Bolivar launch a revolution, which would eventually free his country from Spain; while in Cappellari's case, the money earned from chocolate was merely to survive, victimized by revolution. (Cacao, incidentally, along with coffee, was popularly served in cafés, which were well-known entrepôts for the exchange of revolutionary ideas during Gregory's pontificate.) Under Pius VIII (r. 1829–1830), Bolivar appealed to Rome, requesting political recognition of his fledgling republic, as well as broad privileges for newly-planned metropolitans and bishops, all of whom would need to produce an oath of loyalty to Bolivar's government. The cardinal committee of five adjudicating the request included both Zurla and Cappellari, as well as two other Camaldolese, who offered negative opinions to the committee in their capacity as consultants. Little did others on the committee probably know that Caracas, and perhaps even Bolivar himself, had aided these monks during a critical phase of their religious career.Footnote 126
