For all of the criticism that Pope Gregory XVI (1831–1846) has attracted in the historiography for his severe, backward-thinking papal policies, such as condemning freedoms of speech and the press (Mirari vos; 1832) or his refusal to grant the construction of railroads, his reputation as a gifted theologian has remained untainted. Owen Chadwick called him “the best educated pope for nearly three-quarters of a century.”Footnote ¹ At the bottom of this assessment lies Gregory's only monograph, Il trionfo della Santa Sede (The triumph of the Holy See; 1799).Footnote ² Many have attempted to use this work to provide continuity or an appropriate backdrop to Gregory's later (papal) career. His order's own biographer has suggested that Il trionfo was responsible for his becoming cardinal.Footnote ³ Alan Reinerman has claimed that the work's “fervor and erudition won him the esteem of the Curia” since it was written “at one of the darkest moments in Papal history.” Il trionfo acquired for Mauro Cappellari (later Gregory XVI) “an honored name among apologists,” claimed lifelong doting barber-turned-assistant Gaetano Moroni.Footnote ⁵ Regarding its more immediate impact, Jean Leflon believed that Il trionfo caused Cappellari to be expelled from Rome.Footnote ⁶

The story of Il trionfo, however, has a great deal less import in Cappellari's career than has been supposed. While there is much to glean in Il trionfo about Cappellari's theological and ideological views, scholars have misplaced associations regarding the period in which the book was written as well as its role in supposedly elevating Cappellari's intellectual reputation. However, little in fact is known of Il trionfo—a clue to and cause of the misassociations so prevalent in the historiography. This article sets out to peel back the layers of myth surrounding the work, and accordingly, to cast Cappellari in a different light at the beginning of his monastic career; he struggled theologically in the early part of his career and would not have succeeded in getting published had it not been for the guidance and great assistance of his Camaldolese order, a branch of the Benedictines with an established scholarly tradition.

In showing how Cappellari was wholly dependent on the support of his religious order in seeing Il trionfo through to publication, this article first discusses the development of the work. The milieu of his order provided the inspiration for his topic, which deals to a large degree with church polity and the theological nature of the papacy. Entrenched as his superiors were in the so-called Jansenist controversies of the day, they provided fertile conditions for Cappellari's academic progress. Despite all of this support by his order and friends of the order, Cappellari was hamstrung by an inability to produce orthodox theology, which sidelined him from any real theological activity throughout the early 1790’s. Heterodoxy was not the only obstacle to publication for Cappellari; there were also concerns about his scholarship generally. Additionally, he had to contend with external factors, such as the invasion of the French and the subsequent altered publishing standards, a depressed economy, and a lack of personal funds needed to print his work.

A brief analysis of the work itself then follows and reveals Il trionfo as a vast tome covering much theological ground but uninventive, verbose, and brash, sharing many—too many—ideas with the Giornale ecclesiastico, the leading Roman theological journal of the day. Finally, this article will explore in some depth the work's (limited) reception, since this fact figures most prominently in determining the small effect Il trionfo had on Cappellari's career. This protracted, often frustrating, experience of seeing Il trionfo to completion, however, contained a silver lining: it allowed him time to refine thoroughly his theology and prepared him for a successful curial career as a consultant and theologian.

This article will also dispel the greatest myth surrounding Il trionfo—its association with the Napoleonic Wars. The book was not a product of the revolutionary period and the injustices associated with it; Il trionfo had largely been completed years earlier. Instead, it was the direct result of his order's theological engagement during relatively uneventful political times. The greatest impact of the revolution was on Cappellari personally, in that it permanently distracted him from scholarly pursuits, as more pressing, administrative needs of his order gradually required more of his attention.

The writings and academic interests of members in Cappellari's Camaldolese order played a critical role in the creation of Il trionfo. By the last third of the eighteenth century, the order was focused on theological polemics in Italy. In particular, it targeted so-called Italian Jansenism, which had gained a foothold in the Habsburg-governed provinces of Tuscany and Lombardy. The intellectual force behind the movement was Professor Peter Tamburini, who, through a series of monographs and pamphlets, was crusading against an autocratic, hierarchical church, advocating instead a more flattened ecclesiastical structure:Footnote ⁷ all bishops should be equal in importance, and priests and even laity should participate in their election. Tamburini also lobbied for more liberal reading practices, including the use of the vernacular Bible and some banned literature. The movement attracted Rome's full attention in 1786 after it held a ten-day synod in Pistoia organized by famed Bishop Scipione de’ Ricci. The 250 or so mainly sympathetic clergy who attended the event adopted the Gallican agenda set by Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II (1765–1790).

The church's response to these theological innovations contained a Camaldolese element. Michelangelo Fumè was part of a select team of theologians within the Holy Office that condemned the synod.Footnote ⁸ Additionally, he wrote an “excellent” work in 1789 defending the practice of indulgences, another area that drew Jansenist scorn, given Jansenism's narrow understanding of grace.Footnote ⁹ Giovanni Nani, bishop of Brescia, a very close friend of the Camaldolese order and Cappellari's thesis supervisor, censured both Tamburini and his colleague Giuseppe Zola for propagating Jansenist-like doctrine.Footnote ¹⁰ Elsewhere in northern Italy, coreligionists Federico Mandelli, Ambrosio Soldani, and Isidoro Bianchi all produced theological responses to aspects of the debate.Footnote ¹¹ Indeed, as one historian has observed, the Camaldolese alone could occupy a chapter in the story of Italian Jansenism for this period.Footnote ¹²

In Rome, the primary focus of theologians at this time was to refute Jansenism, and in particular, Tamburini.Footnote ¹³ Here too Cappellari's order led the way. One of the founding members of the Giornale ecclesiastico di Roma (1785–1798) was the Camaldolese Clemente Biagi. The journal immediately became the church's chief scholarly and polemical publication, defending ultramontanist causes against liberal teachings and enlisting the services of the church's foremost Roman theologians.Footnote ¹⁴ Many in the order assisted Biagi in its publication. Biagi and probably also Abbot Ludovico Nachi, Cappellari's theology teacher at seminary, wrote articles for it.Footnote ¹⁵ Cappellari's prior at San Michele, Mandelli, oversaw distribution of the Giornale in Venice with Cappellari assisting in this process until his move to Rome in July 1795.

Thus, the theological discussions of those close to Cappellari cannot have failed to motivate the young monk in his own studies. In a letter to Mandelli in 1793, Biagi elaborated upon a reply to Tamburini's Riposta, which was about to be published. It contained “rich, new theological material” and was executed in a “merciless” style.Footnote ¹⁶ Biagi's access to privileged information was evident when he told Mandelli, on another occasion in 1793, that at that very moment the church was requesting Bishop Ricci's letters.Footnote ¹⁷ From a different source—and still while Cappellari was writing Il trionfo—Mandelli was tipped off to a recent publication by Tamburini.Footnote ¹⁸

Cappellari was also directly included in this information network, given his assistance with the Giornale. Giuseppe Pignatelli described his involvement with it as “close.”Footnote ¹⁹ In 1793 Biagi sent copies of Abbot A. C. Idropolita's work on papal infallibility to both Mandelli and Cappellari.Footnote ²⁰ In Venice, Cappellari procured books for Biagi and sent them to Rome.Footnote ²¹ Even after he moved to the Eternal City in 1795, Cappellari continued to lend a hand.Footnote ²² This association helps to explain how he acquired academic materials before they were released to the general public. Cappellari remarked in late 1795 that Cardinal Hyacinthe Sigismund Gerdil, a respected ultramontane theologian, had prepared a rebuttal to a work criticizing the papal bull Auctorem fidei (1794), which condemned the Synod of Pistoia. Gerdil's work had been printed but not yet made public: “Secretly I saw Gerdil's apologia of the above-mentioned bull, responding to a certain [Jansenist] Belgian journalist, Feller.”Footnote ²³

In addition to being tipped off about happenings on the anti-Jansenist side, Cappellari also had privileged access to Jansenist materials. This required a papal dispensation and would have necessitated help by his order and its friends. Of course, in the writing of Il trionfo he had consulting privileges for the censored Jansenist works of Tamburini, Nicolas le Gros, and Jan Opstraet. Luigi Cuccagni, the main editor of the Giornale ecclesiastico, surely facilitated Cappellari's procuring a work by the famed Jansenist-leaning Irishman Luke Wadding.Footnote ²⁴ Cappellari's knowledge of correspondence between Tamburini and the above-mentioned Feller most likely originated with Cuccagni, who held a personal hatred for Tamburini in addition to misgivings over his theology.Footnote ²⁵

It is thus unsurprising that Cappellari's theological interests lay squarely inside the so-called Jansenist debate, chiefly targeting the ideas of Tamburini. In fact, many similarities among ideas and arguments exist between Il trionfo and the Giornale ecclesiastico, as Maria Chiarlo argues.Footnote ²⁶ Cuccagni, its editor in chief, had years earlier written in the preface of his own work, Vita di S. Pietro, ultramontane ideas that would permeate Il trionfo:

Within the Camaldolese order, Biagi espoused ideas on papal infallibility resembling those later put forward by Cappellari.Footnote ²⁸ A perusal of Vincenzo Bolgeni's L'Episcopato, in which he seeks to prove that ecclesiastical unity is inherent in the Roman pontificate, reveals ideas similar to those subsequently employed by Cappellari in the first half of Il trionfo.Footnote ²⁹

Not only did Cappellari's order inspire and shape his academic interests, it also attempted to facilitate the publication of his manuscript, which was especially helpful in light of the difficulties in publishing at this time. Two of the men enlisted to assist in this effort, Biagi and Cuccagni, were not only founding members of the Giornale ecclesiastico and well-known anti-Jansenists, they also possessed deep knowledge of the publishing industry in Rome.Footnote ³⁰ In early 1796, Cuccagni recommended that Cappellari dedicate his work to Pius VI, a request the pontiff accepted.Footnote ³¹ Dedications were crucial in gaining acceptance for publication. Cuccagni had helped other would-be writers at this time do just what he himself had done in 1778 with a papal dedication for his first book.Footnote ³² He was one of the acknowledged gatekeepers for theological publications in the 1790’s.Footnote ³³

For his part, Biagi had offered important suggestions in April 1795, warning Cappellari of problem areas in the text that might produce obstacles: “Biagi made me understand that the publication of my work might arouse suspicion.”Footnote ³⁴ The Giornale’s cofounder made so many suggestions and corrections to the text that Cappellari claimed it was “becoming pregnant.”Footnote ³⁵ Exasperated, he remarked on January 16, 1796, “I am somewhat confused by the printing of my manuscript; they have a thousand concerns.”Footnote ³⁶ His frustration may have been caused in part by his assumption that the manuscript was mainly complete prior to his coming to Rome (in July 1795), since it had received approval from Mandelli.Footnote ³⁷ However, on February 27, 1796 Cappellari reported to best friend and fellow Camaldolese Placido Zurla, in a relieved manner, that, after two days of intense discussions with Biagi, their differences were narrowing; Biagi no longer disapproved of having Il trionfo published.Footnote ³⁸ Despite Cappellari's calling it “his book” by June 1796, the completed draft would not be officially published for another three and a half years.Footnote ³⁹

Five reasons account for the delay in Il trionfo’s debut. First there were the uncertainties in gaining approval due to the sensitive political conditions. In northern Italy criticism of Jansenism or its supporters, now ostensibly under the cover of the French and their political ideology, got an author blacklisted. From Udine theologian Alessandro Stagni reported in 1795 that his work against Tamburini had been prohibited and that the fifty copies arriving in Venice would have to be returned.Footnote ⁴⁰ Within a month of Stagni's missive, a certain Giacomo Morelli reported from Venice on a general ban on books of any persuasion that dealt with the Jansenist controversy.Footnote ⁴¹ In Milan and Florence, Mandelli told of similar restrictions.Footnote ⁴² These facts provide some evidence as to why Cappellari sought to have his manuscript printed somewhere other than in Venice, which would otherwise have been the most logical choice: the manuscript was mainly finished and his contacts with the Venetian Holy Office were strong, since he had worked as a censor there prior to 1795.Footnote ⁴³ Unfortunately for Cappellari, Rome turned out to be little more promising, at least initially.

The lifting of papal restrictions on printing houses during the triennio (1796–1799) formed part of a movement towards greater liberties in publishing in Italian lands.Footnote ⁴⁴ In spite of this trend, however, there was a moratorium on books of Il trionfo’s sort. In his journal entry dated May 7, 1798, future cardinal and long-time Cappellari friend Giuseppe Sala noted,

Caution on the part of church officials affected Il trionfo. In early 1796, Cappellari was confident the work would go to print: “soon it will be printed.”Footnote ⁴⁶ But by January 1797 doubts over getting his work published were real: “I would be most disappointed to send it [the Il trionfo manuscript] to someone. . . and then it would not be published.”Footnote ⁴⁷ In an undated letter, Biagi seems to be referring to Il trionfo and provides reasoning as to why it could not be published: “The work against Tamburini is not able to be printed here. At first it was given permission but later revoked.”Footnote ⁴⁸ Later in the same letter, he hints at the litmus test applied to one successful piece: “There is nothing against the sovereigns, neither directly nor indirectly, nor even against Tamburini or [Nicola] Spedalieri.” Even Cuccagni's Giornale ecclesiastico softened its stance on democracy and republicanism. By early 1797 Cuccagni was using his journal as a vehicle of support for the French, attempting to curry favor;Footnote ⁴⁹ he expressed “respect for democratic governments.”Footnote ⁵⁰

The second, related reason that Cappellari encountered delays was that the papal apparatus to approve books was interrupted by the war. A manuscript by the theologian Cardinal Gerdil was not published until 1801 due to the distractions caused by the French invasion, as theologians at the time had “more pressing problems.”Footnote ⁵¹ What is more, the Holy Office, whose function it was to approve books for publication, was suppressed by May 1798; only the ministries of Dataria, Brevi, Penitenziaria, and Memoriali were allowed to remain open.Footnote ⁵²

Thirdly, the slump in the publishing market further complicated matters. Publishers struggled to make a profit. For a period they lost their largest customer, the church—those “great consumers of paper.”Footnote ⁵³ Inflation resulted in a dramatic rise in the price of paper between 1792 and 1797, creating shortages.Footnote ⁵⁴ Cappellari was stung by these concomitant negative trends: “The printing of my work has now come to a standstill for lack of paper. We shall see whether it [the printing of my manuscript] will happen in the coming week.”Footnote ⁵⁵ In the summer of 1796, Cappellari remarked that the introduction (discorso preliminare) that he had sent Zurla was in folio and had not been separated into pages due to the “lack of paper.”Footnote ⁵⁶ The next part was printed five months later, in January 1797: “I have prepared thirty or forty more sheets. . . in addition to the twelve already sent to you. In total, the work will have around sixty-two sheets.”Footnote ⁵⁷ By November he finally sent a completed, though unofficial, copy to Zurla, after more than a year since Zurla had received the introduction.Footnote ⁵⁸

The work was produced in installments not only because paper was hard to come by; Cappellari was financing the work himself and could not afford to print it all at once, especially given the rising paper costs. It seems that the concern for profitability on the part of publishers was the crux of the issue.Footnote ⁵⁹ Another anti-Jansenist writer, Bruno Bruni, encountered difficulties in getting published in March 1793 because publishers wanted to reprint books that “they [would] be sure to sell.”Footnote ⁶⁰ By early 1794, the unprofitable conditions of Cappellari's field evidently provoked changes in the industry, with the financial onus now on the author: “We do not have new works at the moment; many little things are published, but grand projects are not undertaken due to the expense of printing, which the author himself must shoulder.”Footnote ⁶¹ In August 1796, unaware of the delays that lay ahead, Cappellari was worried that the copies that he might print would not sell. He evidently desired to print only presold copies: “I am not in a hurry to go to the printers,” he wrote, “because of the chaos that might ensue in Rome, which would leave me holding unsold copies of the work.”Footnote ⁶² “The whole work,” he wrote in early 1797, “costs me very much.”Footnote ⁶³ In June 1797 he was still paying for the printing: “Having to make a trip, I find myself without a penny, [and] with a debt of 150 scudi for the printing.”Footnote ⁶⁴

Following publication, he was keen to unload his inventory of Il trionfo. This was because in Rome, he observed that “bookstores are almost bankrupt.”Footnote ⁶⁵ He also noted despairingly that even when books were available, the revolution had left readers with no money, time, or desire (to read).Footnote ⁶⁶ So in 1804, when his personal finances were at their bleakest, he asked to try to exchange his book for the right to preside over masses—a surer form of income.Footnote ⁶⁷ In June of the following year, he again asked Zurla to make any exchange for his book that he could: “if you find a good trade, make it.”Footnote ⁶⁸

The final and most serious reason early on that Cappellari was not able to get published was that some key individuals harbored private concerns about his orthodoxy and general scholarship. Beginning in the early 1790’s, the correspondence between Cuccagni and Nani reveals misgivings about Cappellari's orthodoxy in at least one key doctrinal area. They found themselves in a difficult situation, as a result. Commenting just after Cappellari's thesis defense in July 1790, Cuccagni had this to say:

What the problem was exactly is unknown. There exist only two extant, terse references to the defense itself. One talks of a “lively debate” on papal infallibility between Cappellari and a certain Father Giovanni Rado, oratorically gifted but “strange.”Footnote ⁷⁰ The other mentions that Venetian Ludovico Cardinal Flangini Giovanelli, who was the dedicatee of Cappellari's thesis, reportedly intervened during the defense and brought an end to the session, having been convinced by Cappellari's arguments.Footnote ⁷¹

While the exact nature of the problem is unknown, it was almost certainly of a Jansenist nature. By this time in his career, Cuccagni was singularly focused on refuting the writings of Peter Tamburini and snuffing out so called Jansenism from Italy. Very little else mattered to him. His position as rector at the Irish College in Rome was essentially a sinecure post, as he devoted the bulk of his efforts to the Giornale ecclesiastico. The journal was even printed on college premises, and he employed students to translate various English texts.

The Camaldolese order's great interest in assuring Cappellari's orthodoxy intensified after this, as it took a more active role in monitoring Cappellari's progress. At issue was more than just Cappellari by this point—he had teaching responsibilities at the seminary, which included supervising seminarians in theology.Footnote ⁷² Abbot Nachi, Cappellari's theological tutor at San Michele, notes in his memoirs the great caution exerted not to enter into theological errors such as Jansenism or Molinism, which tried to reconcile free will with God's omniscience, but to convey to his students approved doctrine.Footnote ⁷³ Mandelli, who was close friends with Cuccagni and would have known of the latter's reservations, penned a letter to Nani in November 1790, two months or so after Cuccagni's troubled missive, suggesting that he too was aware of the problem; he requested help in identifying any irregular theology found in Cappellari's writings: “if it [Cappellari's work] lacks something in any way. . . [or is] contrary to orthodoxy, then I ask you to pass the work along to some of the authors of the Giornale [ecclesiastico]; if they will also write to Mauro demonstrating to him the error and the correction. . . I would be very pleased.”Footnote ⁷⁴

Cappellari's theological progress was still being closely watched in the middle of 1792. Mandelli was providing Nani with updates, discussing on one occasion an unnamed doctrinal point still evidently garnering controversy: “I have received your [comments], and I tell you that I will reply to the friend that Cappellari defends that opinion as Catholic truth.”Footnote ⁷⁵ In March 1795, as Il trionfo was nearing completion, Nani received an update that Cappellari was receiving proper instruction in relation to the Jansenists: “Before I mention anything else, I would like to tell you that an eloquent reflection was made by the celebrated and learned [dotto] Monsignor Bishop. . . to our Padre Lettore Capellari.”Footnote ⁷⁶ And then in early 1796 a letter by Mandelli seems to have been written in order to put his correspondent at ease, as he discusses the Il trionfo manuscript:

But despite these assurances on the part of Mandelli, there was evidently more to the problem than just issues of heterodoxy. As noted earlier, Biagi had “a thousand concerns” about Cappellari's text in January 1796, which Mandelli's reassuring missive two weeks later, just mentioned, seems to be addressing.Footnote ⁷⁸ We learn from a reader of Cappellari's seminary thesis what some of these “concerns” might have been. After going through the thesis, the unnamed reader expressed a variety of concerns to Bishop Nani. The context suggests that this undated letter was penned prior to Cappellari's submission and defense in 1790. The anonymous reader submitted a thorough, stinging critique of Cappellari's scholarship that serves to substantiate the later criticisms of Biagi against Il trionfo itself. In it are concerns about basic flaws in Cappellari's scholarship.Footnote ⁷⁹ The examiner reported that he had read the thesis—the kernel from which Il trionfo would later developFootnote ⁸⁰—with proper attention and had made these observations: it was too broad with insufficient criteria; it was confusing; it contained collapses in logic; the wording was ambiguous; the text was haphazard in its laying out of theological ideas; and it did not use approved authors or reliable theologians. The anonymous source came forward in meekness at the outset of the letter because of Cappellari's “high intelligence,” which drew respect from his peers and fellow theologians. (His request that Nani burn the letter went unheeded.) The critic appeared to hold a minority opinion against an already formed consensus: “All that I might say is let it be secret. And although my opinion may be insignificant, I say it with sincerity and care.”Footnote ⁸¹

Nevertheless, by 1796, six years after his thesis defense, Cappellari and Biagi were nearing an agreement. Cappellari wrote in February, “My things with p. Ab. Biagi are going well. He does not disapprove of the printing, after two days of fiery litigation over one theological proof [dimostrazione].”Footnote ⁸² He believed that his manuscript would be published, according to a letter written around this same time.Footnote ⁸³ The number of criticisms had no doubt affected Cappellari, as he wrote gloomily to a friend at this time: “My miserable manuscript will be presented to the Master of the Sacred Palazzo next Monday.”Footnote ⁸⁴ And later, after the last reviser had finished reviewing the text: “I confess that with this reading I anticipate shame in having then to present my scoundrel [ribaldone] [text], which in the coming days will be returned by the last reader. With the publication of this unworthy book, even the printer's reputation will be dishonored.”Footnote ⁸⁵

These theological and scholarly concerns explain why Cappellari was conspicuously absent from the public and private Jansenist debates of the 1790’s despite his order's deep involvement in them. He never contributed an article to the Giornale ecclesiastico, even though his order partly organized its publication. Cardinal and leading ultramontane Giuseppe Garampi believed that the journal was “an excellent forum for introducing talented young ultramontanes. . . and for making their works known.”Footnote ⁸⁶ Yet Cappellari never published in it.

Just as noteworthy is his absence from the private correspondence of those in his field. There is no mention of Cappellari in any of the Jansenist or anti-Jansenist discussions from the 1790’s that this author perused. This takes into account more than a thousand contemporary letters contained in the large S. Gregorio collection in the Rome National Library and elsewhere in smaller depositories, which involve leading Catholic ultramontanes discussing the latest Jansenist and anti-Jansenist works. The hundreds of pieces of correspondence involving Bishop Nani, who, at least by 1790, knew of Cappellari's interest in publishing on papal infallibility, since he had served as his thesis supervisor, never refer to Cappellari, in spite of the fact that much of the space in Nani's letters was spent discussing this topic.Footnote ⁸⁷ Nani spoke highly of theologians Bruno Bruni and Bolgeni, yet never made reference to Cappellari. Cuccagni's letters from between 1788 and 1799 tell of his obsession with the whole Jansenist debate, but Cappellari's name fails to turn up in any of them, except where mentioned earlier, even though he had also known the young monk at least since 1790 and later served as a reader for his manuscript.Footnote ⁸⁸ The same holds true for the well-known ultramontane Barnabite monk Cardinal Gerdil and his written communication housed in his order's archive.Footnote ⁸⁹ Neither was Cappellari discussed by fellow Camaldolesi Gardini and Biagi in this capacity, though both men held a deep interest in the field.Footnote ⁹⁰ Indeed Cappellari's own observation on the work's reception, once published, verifies his absence from anti-Jansenist discussions. He noted to friend and historian Jacques Cretineau-Joly that Il trionfo failed to win the attention of anyone: “No one ever talked about it, not even those in my convent.”Footnote ⁹¹

The manuscript was finally published in 1799 as a hefty, one-volume work responding to so-called Italian Jansenism, which argued against an authoritative church monarchy and an infallible pope. Divided into two parts, Il trionfo first asserts that the church is an immutable monarchy instituted by Christ, whose form of government remained substantially unchanged. This directly contradicts Tamburini's assertions that sovereign power and infallibility should reside in the universal church and not in the person of the pope. For Cappellari, however, the promises Christ made to Peter in Matthew 16 were exclusive and immutable.

In the second part, Cappellari argues that the pontiff is infallible in matters of doctrine. He addresses common objections to this notion, taking aim at the Jansenists Jan Opstraet and Nicolas Le Gros, from whom Tamburini drew extensively in Vera idea della Santa Sede.Footnote ⁹² Cappellari's arguments are developed from Scripture, the writings of the church fathers, and councils and synods. He concludes that none of the examples given by the Jansenists—not even the council condemning Pope Honorius as a heretic—are conclusive in their opposition to papal infallibility, while many proofs exist in favor of it.

The strength of the work lies in its grasp of the main arguments on infallibility and church government. The few with an opinion of the work at the time and subsequently have admired Cappellari's thoroughness in treating the subject. The work, according to one informed historian, exhibits “lucid and coherent” principles of ultramontanism relative to the government of the church and supreme authority in matters of faith.Footnote ⁹³ One of the revisers appointed to approve the text wrote glowingly of the work: “Scripture, tradition, [church] fathers, reason, doctrine, and erudition of every period. . . adorn his reasonings.”Footnote ⁹⁴

While Cappellari amply grasped the contentious aspects of the ultramontanist-Jansenist debate, Il trionfo as a piece of scholarship fails in essential ways. Cappellari's work is, in parts, not very convincing. His curious syllogism, part of a larger effort to turn Jansenist arguments against themselves, is rather dubious. He begins with the proposition that church government is immutable and that Jansenists admit in their discussions that the present regime is a monarchy; therefore, the form of government founded by Christ is monarchical.Footnote ⁹⁵ Tellingly, section lxxxii, “Se il Papa è un vero Monarca, e dunque infallibile,” was evidently so problematic for the editor that he did not include it in the 1832 edition.Footnote ⁹⁶ Elsewhere, one wonders about the soundness of his argument on Pope Honorius; he draws the distinction between being excommunicated as “a fomenter of heresy,” as Honorius was, and being excommunicated as a formal heretic, which, according to Cappellari, he was not.Footnote ⁹⁷ Yves Congar reminds us that Catholic theologians at this time were not researchers but apologists; they did not search for historical truth but formed arguments around their personal convictions.Footnote ⁹⁸

The piece is, on the whole, not original, despite Mandelli's claim in 1792 that Cappellari's defense of papal infallibility would use new methods and “more rigorous demonstrations.”Footnote ⁹⁹ The work's supposedly novel method—employing Jansenist ideas and logic to confute themselves—had already been attempted in a similar work by theologian Peter Ballerini of Verona.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ In fact, Cappellari's ideas on papal primacy are almost identical to those of Ballerini, who devoted much of his time to showing how the primacy of Peter was divinely established for the maintenance of church unity and how this primacy went beyond honor to include authority.Footnote ¹⁰¹ It is worth repeating the central theme of Maria Chiarlo's thesis, which shows the many theological points in common between articles found in the Giornale ecclesiastico and those expounded upon later in Il trionfo.Footnote ¹⁰²

Biagi's notions on papal inerrancy and Giovanni Bolgeni's concept of the pontiff are also echoed in Cappellari's monograph.Footnote ¹⁰³ What is more, Cappellari's main opponent, Peter Tamburini, had already been thoroughly analyzed by Bolgeni in his work Esame della vera idea, published in 1784.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Cappellari's distinction between the authority given to bishops directly from God and that which is mediated through the pope has many correlations with Bolgeni's notions of universal jurisdiction (giurisdizione universale) and particular jurisdiction (giurisdizione particolare).Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Cappellari's style in Il trionfo is heavy and not always clear. Historians Domenico Federici and Vittorino Meneghin have called the text “bulky” and “stiff.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Both derived their comments from Cappellari himself, who stated to a friend a decade or so after its publication: “the arguments, which I have procured, are convincing, but I myself remark on the work's defect; it is wordy and obscure. If I were able to do it over again, I would use another method and another style.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ The working copy (1799) used to produce the second edition in 1832 reveals numerous corrections, filling the margins of most pages.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

The harsh tone of the work was another area that was greatly reworked in the second edition. The earlier edition's polemical style was evident, as the editors could be found on many occasions dampening the text's brashness. For instance, Cappellari wrote in 1799, “posso ora con sicurezza gridare vittoria” (viii, 1799). That was changed to “posso fin da ora con coraggio ripromettermi vittoria” (xi, 1832). On another occasion, “pseudotheologici” (v, 1799) was replaced with the more innocuous “novatori” (viii, 1832); “spietati nemici” (vii, 1832) was substituted for “spietati carnefici” (iii, 1799); “riprovati i loro deliramenti” (viii, 1799) became “riprovati i loro insegnamenti” (xi, 1832); and “l'esecrabile” in “è scoperto oggi di l'esecrabile loro scopo” (viii, 1799) was deleted in the later versions. According to Alberigo, such forceful language suggested a certain “carelessness.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹

Here too the influences of Cappellari's milieu are in evidence. This sardonic tone was a reflection of the discourse around him. Bishop Nani expressed his dislike of Jansenism by denying Tamburini the right to preside at masses in his diocese of Brescia.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Cuccagni, whom Cappellari referred to as “most enlightened” [chiarissimo], often used this highly emotive language when referring to Tamburini, his former prefect of studies at the Irish College during the 1770’s.Footnote ¹¹¹ In one letter to Nani, he crudely referred to a claim made by Tamburini as “a blatant lie” (bugia patente).Footnote ¹¹² On another occasion, Cuccagni was heartened at the prospects of Tamburini's downfall: “I would be most pleased if Professors Tamburini and Zola were removed from the positions at the University of Pavia.”Footnote ¹¹³ Cappellari assimilated this rhetoric fully in a letter to a close friend and fellow theologian: “I'm heartened by. . . [the] zeal of tracking down and upsetting [the designs] of the diabolical sect of Jansenism.”Footnote ¹¹⁴ However, this vitriol failed to elicit much interest.

Just how was Il trionfo received after publication? Recent scholarship has described the limits of the work, but only in the barest of terms.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Meneghin believed that it probably had a muted presence after its initial offering but felt it was inappropriate to explain more than that.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Hitherto, no one has shown why the work was so quickly forgotten or overlooked. Maria Chiarlo's initial inquiries offer the revealing conclusion that Il trionfo was poorly received since no one talked about it between 1799 and 1832.Footnote ¹¹⁷ She correctly notes that very few copies of the 1799 edition can be found in libraries today, a further testimony to the work's restricted circulation. A copy of the first edition can be found in the Vatican Library, but neither the National Library in Rome nor even the order's main archive depository in Camaldoli possesses it.

It is unknown exactly how many copies Cappellari had printed, but it was well below a hundred and only a small percentage of the fifteen hundred copies that were published in 1832 and that were traditionally allotted for a first printing.Footnote ¹¹⁸ This is hardly surprising given that Cappellari was financing the project himself. Many of the copies that were produced were earmarked for those Cappellari already knew. In the first batch, thirteen or fourteen were for friends and family in Venice, with only about six or seven left over for purchase.Footnote ¹¹⁹ Twenty-one were sent to his close friend Alessandro Stagni in Udine who presumably distributed some to friends and the rest to book providers. In November 1801 another fifteen copies were sent to Venice.Footnote ¹²⁰ “Many” exemplars were sent to Venice two years later in March 1803.Footnote ¹²¹ But after that, only one solitary request for a copy, in 1805, was made, by a certain Pierdamiani Bovari for a hardback copy for Father Sammartini of Belluno, Cappellari's hometown. By contrast, Zurla's work Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro was selling well in 1806 and even attracted interest in London with twenty-five copies being sent.Footnote ¹²² In 1823, Cappellari still held possession of at least one extra, presumably unsold, copy of his work; he presented it as a gift to Antonio Rosmini, on the talented young ordinand's first visit to Rome.Footnote ¹²³

The few copies in circulation garnered no interest from Jansenists, which is unusual for books of this genre. Tamburini, Il trionfo’s main adversary, published ripostes to the writings of Bolgeni, Stagni, Nani, and others but acknowledged neither Cappellari nor Il trionfo.Footnote ¹²⁴ Nor could this author find his name among correspondence sampled in the course of preparation for this article. In Pietro Savio's large contribution to Jansenist studies, in which he published more than a thousand pages of Jansenist correspondence during the period that concerns us, Cappellari's name never turns up.Footnote ¹²⁵

There are logical reasons for Il trionfo’s obscurity. For example, it made a late entry into the Jansenist discussion. It has already been noted that Tamburini's Vera idea, the work at which Cappellari took aim, had been thoroughly criticized by Bolgeni in 1784. This was, after all, a genre that was defined by rapid rejoinders to published works; it was not uncommon for Tamburini to publish a response in less than two months,Footnote ¹²⁶ whereas it took Cappellari fifteen years to respond to Vera idea. Furthermore, Il trionfo was published well after the papal bull Auctorem fide (August 28, 1794), which condemned the Synod of Pistoia and served to muffle the debate. Bishop Ricci, who had presided over the synod and was generally considered the symbol of Italian Jansenism, recanted, to the disappointment (or disbelief) of some of his followers, in the same year that Il trionfo was published. The absence of his stalwart protector, the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, now in Vienna to replace his deceased brother, no doubt contributed to his meekness. In addition, by 1799, Tamburini too had already moved on: “Here I find myself no longer in a war with Molinisti and Roman Curialists, but with atheists and with an array of unbelievers of every type.”Footnote ¹²⁷ Thus, when copies of Cappellari's book could finally have reached Tamburini and others in the north—in 1801, due to complications with the postal service caused by warFootnote ¹²⁸—they were, in effect, dead letters.

Given that Il trionfo failed to contribute much in his field of study, what role did it have on his career? If Il trionfo played any direct role at all in advancing Cappellari's career, it was felt immediately, facilitating his entrance into the Academy of Catholic Religion. Moroni certainly thought so, and Meneghin implied as much when he included Il trionfo in a list of factors that propelled Cappellari's career forward.Footnote ¹²⁹ Less than a year after Il trionfo was released, Cappellari was invited to one of the planning meetings for the Academy. Merely having a work published, as Cappellari did, brought with it some measure of respect, especially in such times when few others were publishing. Links between promotion and publication were not uncommon.Footnote ¹³⁰ What is more, the Academy, officially founded in early 1801, shared a similar purpose with Il trionfo: both opposed theological and philosophical positions at odds with ultramontanist teachings.Footnote ¹³¹

There were also, however, personal links between Cappellari and the Academy, which could just as easily explain his membership. He was friends with Alessandro Lazzarini, professor of ethics at the Roman College and one of the core members of the Academy. In 1798 Cappellari entrusted to him the care of San Romualdo—Cappellari's residence in Rome—during his forced departure along with the rest of the order's leadership.Footnote ¹³² Several months after Lazzarini's association with the Academy began, Cappellari (along with his friend Alessandro Stagni) was present at the meeting held on September 21, 1800.Footnote ¹³³

More importantly, the Academy provides a clue as to how Cappellari's talents would be put to use in the Roman Curia. Despite his giving six or so lectures over an eight-year period, his primary function was an administrative one. In September 1801 he was named one of the Academy's twelve censors.Footnote ¹³⁴ During the next three years he approved dissertations before they were presented, making valued observations and reflections; he also revised these writings prior to their going to print.Footnote ¹³⁵ His very thorough theological grounding developed during his seminary days and refined during the writing of Il trionfo was in evidence: he ensured that papers articulated correct doctrine before readers presented them.Footnote ¹³⁶

Indeed Cappellari had a knack for criticism. Colleague and fellow theologian Stagni referred to him in their correspondence as “a most judicious critic,” extolling on another occasion his “most luminous judgment.”Footnote ¹³⁷ Cappellari thought the new edition of Bolgeni's Fatti dommatici was repetitious and long-winded and that much superfluity could be omitted from it.Footnote ¹³⁸ He disapproved of certain aspects of theologian Giusto Fontanini's work, saying that at times it was difficult to follow.Footnote ¹³⁹ On another occasion, Cappellari spoke approvingly of Giovanni Bragadin's latest monograph, calling it a triumphant work in every way.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ And ironically, his own rather unflattering comments about Il trionfo, mentioned earlier in relation to his style and argumentation, testify to this skill, which would be called upon extensively by the Roman Curia after 1814 when he became a curial consultant.Footnote ¹⁴¹ His prodigious output of curial opinions, numbering into the thousands of pages, testifies to his skill and oft-employed theological talents.

Thus, the biggest legacy of Il trionfo was not the accolades associated with its publication, of which few took note and which added little to existing knowledge, but his comprehensive theological formation facilitated by his own order and those close to it, which brought him into contact with the church's most active and noted theologians. Il trionfo represented the culmination of nearly fifteen years of theological training, which began with his entrance into seminary in 1783, and which ultimately readied him for service in the Roman Curia, beginning with the Academy of Catholic Religion. And his struggles to attain orthodoxy meant that he would need all of this time in order to hone his skills and eliminate obvious theological gaps.

Cappellari's grasp of the full complement of orthodox ideologies was confirmed and amply evidenced later in his career. In 1814 the secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, Francisco Fontana, drew attention to Cappellari's “vast doctrine” and “incomparable discernment.”Footnote ¹⁴² By 1823, Cappelleri was a leading theologian in Rome, according to Antonio Bassich: “I am able to assure you that there is perhaps no other person in Rome who enjoys such fame for his doctrine as Father Cappellari.”Footnote ¹⁴³ At Cappellari's elevation to cardinal in March 1826, Pope Leo XII wrote that he was “most learned, especially in ecclesiastical subjects.”Footnote ¹⁴⁴ And by the time of his first conclave (1829), his status as front-runner (papabile), according to one contemporary, rested in part on his reputation as a “theologian, referee and counselor.”Footnote ¹⁴⁵

Even though he would become known as a trusted, dependable theologian, it would be misleading to call him a scholar, even for the standards of the eighteenth century. Il trionfo would be Cappellari's only published book, which is hardly enough for such a moniker; by comparison, confrère Zurla penned around seven books, Bolgeni a dozen, Biagi twenty, and Camaldolese historians Giovanni Benedetto Mittarelli and Anselmo Costadoni thirteen and twenty respectively.Footnote ¹⁴⁶

However, many have taken to heart the comments made by those very loyal to the church or to the pontiff personally, following the publication of the second edition in 1832, a year after his papal election. Contemporaries spoke in reverential tones about the work: seminarian Castellani called it “most erudite”;Footnote ¹⁴⁷ for Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, it was “profound”;Footnote ¹⁴⁸ and others referred to it as “immortal” and “celebrated.”Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Virtually no such remarks existed about the 1799 edition. To his credit, Cappellari remained levelheaded about the belated praise of Il trionfo: “after I became pope, everyone agreed that it was a magnificent work.”Footnote ¹⁵⁰ Later editions and translations into other languages were made only at the insistence of editor Giuseppe Battaggia, a close friend of Cappellari's, and above all, Gaetano Moroni.Footnote ¹⁵¹ The skeptical Pope Gregory did not feel there was a need for such an undertaking.Footnote ¹⁵²

As alluded to at the outset, Il trionfo is chiefly remembered today as a work that confronted—whether unthinkingly or heroically—the forces of French aggression. Chadwick's deduction that Cappellari's ideas in Il trionfo were proof that he was out of touch with the times leans heavily on his understanding of the political conditions in 1799.Footnote ¹⁵³ Federici credits Cappellari for the timing of his endeavor: “a courageous work for its ideas professed in an hour of perplexities [smarrimenti].”Footnote ¹⁵⁴ Giuseppe Alberigo's perception of Cappellari's monograph was also colored in this way when he wrote that Cappellari had written Il trionfo during the “dramatic events” of the revolution.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ Editor Battaggia reinforces this myth in his preface to Il trionfo (1832): “this. . . edition of this most learned work, which Monk Don Mauro Cappellari wrote in defense of the Apostolic See. . . in these most difficult times.”

Four facts have mistakenly helped forge this close link with the revolution. First, the date of publication was indeed 1799, but the text was mainly finished, as has been shown, by mid-1795 and was ready for publication the following year.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ This meant that most of the arguments and writing were finished well before the brunt of French incursions was felt, and before the order's views of the French soured—which began in late 1795 when Napoleon captured Venice and the Papal Legations; Cappellari commented in July, only after his draft had been preliminarily approved, that “those who discuss literature are derided; everyone is thinking about merely surviving.”Footnote ¹⁵⁷

Secondly, the dedication to Pius, which Federici claimed was a show of solidarity with the exiled pope,Footnote ¹⁵⁸ was actually conceived of in early 1796, well before Pius's exile. Moreover, the idea did not even originate with Cappellari and was devised in the hope of increasing the work's chances for publication.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ Finally, the title and the preface were later additions, with direct references to the French incursions. The confrontational title—Il trionfo della Santa Sede contro gli assalti dei novatori combattuti e respinti colle stesse loro armi—had replaced a decidedly theological one sometime after February 1796. At that time Mandelli referred to the manuscript by its original name, “Il Gansenismo sull'auntentà [sic] della Chiesa, e del Papa confutato coi suoi medessimi principi.”Footnote ¹⁶⁰ Likewise, the preface was added later, sometime after Pius VI's exile in February 1798, since he makes reference to Pius's fate. He wrote,

His preface also gave more immediacy to the work as it criticized the Church of France and its Gallican stance, claiming that it was disobedient to the holy pontiffs.Footnote ¹⁶² Further contributing to the confusion were the shared overlapping ideological aims between Jansenism and the revolution: both desired to alter the papal monarchy. Thus, at first glance, the new title and prefatory remarks could just as easily be read as a response to revolutionary France and its republicanism as it could to Tamburini and his so-called Jansenist theologies. This similarity has contributed to the misunderstanding in the historiography, which has endured for nearly two centuries.

The revolution did indeed influence Il trionfo and Cappellari, but not in the way traditionally understood. It did not aggravate the conditions under which Cappellari wrote his monograph, but it did determine how long it would take to get it published (a delay of more than three years) by tightening publishing standards, and it thinned readership of such literature by diverting readers’ attention to more immediate concerns.

But even more than on Il trionfo, the greatest influence of the revolution was on Cappellari himself. It hardened his attitudes towards the designs of the French and diverted his attention and time from anything resembling scholarly activities. Beginning in 1796 with the completion of his manuscript, his efforts were more and more focused on the paltry financial condition of his order, which resulted directly from French hostility.Footnote ¹⁶³ The following year he was appointed pro-cancelliere and was tasked with financial oversight of the monasteries in the Roman province.Footnote ¹⁶⁴ His scholarly phase was effectively over. He would often lament the business of his life, to the detriment of any serious study. In November 1801, he noted to Zurla, “Briefly, the Academy wants me to present another paper; I assure you that I will have to do it in the midst of so many financial problems.”Footnote ¹⁶⁵ His situation had worsened by 1803: “on 10 February they [the Academy] asked me to deliver a dissertation; I have a hundred thousand cares. . . you can imagine how much desire and time I have to study.”Footnote ¹⁶⁶

So if Il trionfo was no longer in the eye of the French-inspired storm, then other assessments that have this as its assumption need to be qualified. Historians have used the appellation “defender of the faith” in reference to Cappellari, resting this claim, in no small part, on the courageous penning of Il trionfo in the face of seemingly insurmountable political pressure.Footnote ¹⁶⁷ However true the description is of him generally—he was later consultant for the Holy Office and, more widely known, prefect of propaganda—the extent of Cappellari's fear and anxiety during this early period (1795–1798) belies such associations.

Lamentations began soon after his arrival to Rome in late 1795: “I am afflicted by the state of our monastery, but I am hopeful that peace will be achieved.”Footnote ¹⁶⁸ Cappellari blamed the French commissioners in the middle of 1796 for trying “to impoverish the sovereign [pope] and the city,” so that the population would have to depend on them for help: “We are in such extremes. In a short while we will see bread, oil and wine reserved only for people who can afford it, as is now the case with beef; such is the universal poverty!”Footnote ¹⁶⁹ By 1797, Cappellari's spirits were low: “Turbulence and disgrace to our treasury is born. . . I will have many troublesome thoughts.”Footnote ¹⁷⁰ The insufferable financial burden of his order produced a desire to quit the city.Footnote ¹⁷¹ He wrote, “I am being beaten from every side and am, therefore, most impatient for His mercy. . . . The command to leave here is imminent.”Footnote ¹⁷²

The unsettling feeling that evacuation might be necessary would linger until May of the following year and would be exacerbated by credible rumors of a traitor under their own roof who had hastened their removal.Footnote ¹⁷³ Meanwhile, Cappellari witnessed the brunt of the revolution in Rome, being located in the center of the city and near the Quirinal Palace, as San Romualdo was. He would have heard the continuous shouting of Roman patriots, who were “circling” Rome with tricolor flags (February 16); he would have felt the intrusive presence of the more than eight thousand French troops, who descended upon the city on February 19; and he would have been just as uneasy as G. A. Sala was on hearing of the “intractable” General Alexandre Berthier's arrival the following day—“bad news for us.”Footnote ¹⁷⁴ Cappellari displayed his feelings of frustration and sadness in separate ways in some of his last recorded thoughts of the period. He lashed out against the revolution in his reworked preface of Il trionfo, calling those fomenters of revolt “enemies.” But his feelings were probably best summed up in the laconic first line to Zurla in his final letter of the period: “Now you know everything,. . . oh what Purgatory!”Footnote ¹⁷⁵ This period had been a purgatory that Il trionfo could neither overcome nor assuage.