A Conversation between the Devil, a Papal Courtier, & an Abbot

[Adrian VI, Pope (reg. 1522-23)] Gengenbach, Pamphilus (1482-1524/5)

Wie der Hailig Vatter Bapst Adrianus ein geritten ist zu Rom Auff den. XXVIII. Tag des Monats Augusti. Jm jar MDXXII. Darbey ain gesprech von dreyen personen

[Augsburg: Melchior Ramminger, 1522]

$3,500

Quarto: 19.6 x 14.8 cm. [8] pp. A4

Bound in 19th century roan. With a title page woodcut of an abbott on horseback, a papal courtier, and the devil dressed as a Dominican monk. The contents are in very good condition. The title is a little soiled.

One of six printings of this satirical conversation between an abbot of Trier, a papal courtier, and the devil. The conversation is held on August 28th, 1522, the day before the new pope-elect Adrian VI entered Rome for his coronation. The devil taunts, without discrimination, supporters of both the old and the new faith. He castigates the shameful goings on at the Roman court of the three most recent popes, including the lavish life and benefices of the courtiers. (See Clemen III, 5.)

"The hero of the piece is Pope Adrian VI, whose attempts to reform the papal court aroused complaints from the abbott and the courtier. Gengenbach scourged the papal court but he also criticized Luther for his lack of Christian humility and love of neighbor. Indeed, because of the misunderstanding that the common people had of his writing, Luther had become the servant of the devil. He had stirred up jealousy and envy and had set the secular authorities against the church. As a result, much blood would flow. The devil, in this case, would win."(Chrisman, Lay Propaganda Pamphlets, p. 117)

The Dutch Pope Adrian VI (born Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens), was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II. Although it lasted only 18 months is marked by few successes, Adrian's pontificate is of great historical significance. Adrian "sought to reorient the papacy from the secular direction that it had taken under his predecessors."(CoE). He embarked on a program of church reform, seeking advice from humanists (most notably his friend Erasmus) and churchmen (Campeggio, Cajetan) alike. However, rather than call for an ecumenical council, Adrian attempted to reform the church from the top down. In the end, it proved an impossible task for the 63 year old pope. In his attempts to reform the abuses of the church (the indulgence trade, for instance), Adrian was hampered by the cardinals, who defended their own entrenched interests. And while Adrian acknowledged that the nascent Reformation was the fault, in part, of corruption within the church, he saw the Reformers as heretics seeking to destroy the unity of the church. He sought to unify the Christian princes for a war against the Turks but, like Leo X before him, failed in this task and watched helplessly as the Turks took Rhodes in 1522. The Romans themselves never took to the foreign-born pope. As the one-time tutor to the Emperor Charles V, he was seen as a Spanish sympathizer. He was lampooned so often by the "talking statue" Pasquino that he considered throwing it in the Tiber. Instead, when Adrian died in 1523, the Romans proposed that another statue be erected, this time to the pope's physician with the inscription "Liberatori Patriae S.P.Q.R."

VD 16 G 1221; Panzer DA 1585; Clemen, Flugschriften III, 11, 3; Halle, Newe Zeitungen, 123 and plate 55; Kuczynski 29; Muther 005. Pegg 19