The Natural and the Supernatural: Collecting, Interests and Trials of the Nuncio Francesco Vitelli in Venice (1632-1643)

The nunciatures papers have often been used to reconstruct diplomatic and political events, but rarely as a medium to understand social and cultural history. Between 1632 and 1643, Decio Francesco Vitelli, an erudite ecclesiastic with very heterogeneous interests, was nuncio in Venice. Vitelli was born in Bomarzo, and grew up in the Palazzo Orsini, overlooking the "Sacro Bosco" (now known as "Parco dei mostri"). Both the “Palazzo” and the “Sacro Bosco” were commissioned by Vicino Orsini and inspired by the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili”, thus being rich in epigraphs, gigantomachies and references to hermeticism as well as to classical culture, and belonging to a refined erudition, always set on the edge of scepticism. When appointed nuncio, Vitelli found in Venice an ideal place to satisfy his omnivorous desire for knowledge, stimulated by the environment he had grown up in. During over 11 years in the Lagoon, he was able to enlarge his collection of coins, medals, statues and paintings, as well as satisfy his naturalist interests (he used to keep animals with him: a dog and even a caged bear), and his bibliophilia. In fact, in his Venetian residence Vitelli created a "wunderkammer" in which he also jealously kept forbidden books. Among the over two hundred and fifty inquisitorial trials that he had to manage as nuncio, almost one hundred were trials for magic, necromancy, spells and witchcraft. But if, on the one hand, Vitelli inquired who owned, sold, read or used the grimoires, on the other he was himself a reader and owner of books such as the “Clavicula Salomonis”, to which he associated texts and collections of "non-conforming" authors, like Ulisse Aldrovandi or Pietro Aretino. Based on the inquisitorial trials managed by Vitelli, as well as on his collections and correspondence with the Secretary of the State and with other inquisitors, this article aims to stress how erudition and power were weapons that allowed Vitelli to escape the ecclesiastical jurisprudence. Besides, I propose some hypotheses about anti-magical trials as contexts in which ecclesiastics passionate about the natural and the supernatural as Vitelli could acquire new information, thus broadening the "dark side" of their culture and their private collections.