The oldest petition to the Pope from the collection of Nikolaj P. Likhachev. A polemic lasting 120 years
Abstract
The document is the oldest authentic petition addressed to the Apostolic Penitentiary. All other known examples, including copies in the registers, date back to the 15th century. The scholar colletor himself considered it the oldest authentic petition with a handwritten papal resolution. He published the text of the document with a commentary and gave a reproduction of both
sides, correctly identified the registration mark and the Recipe mark, and suggested as far as attributions of signatures with the staff of the papal curia (Likhachev N. P. Letter of Pope Pius V to Tsar Ivan the Terrible in connection with the question of papal brevets: Etude on Papal Diplomacy. St. Petersburg, 1906 [in Russian]). In his review, R. G. Salomon (1907) characterised the document as ‘perhaps the most interesting piece in Likhachev‘s collection’. He made a new edition of the text, correcting Likhachev‘s inaccuracies, and gave his own reading of the notes. He rejected Likhachev‘s idea that popes signed petitions with the initials of their secular names, and proposed to read another sign as a papal signature. E. Göller (1907) determined the petition as addressed to the Apostolic Penitentiary and attributed the signatures of the cardinal penitentiary and the papal chamberlain. U. Berlière (1908) and M. Tangl (1908) proposed their interpretation of the signature of the cardinal penitentiary. F. Bartoloni (1955) explained the completion of the signature of the cardinal penitentiary, which Salomon and Göller considered a possible papal signature, by a final punctuation mark. F. Tamburini (1973) restored the reading of the signature proposed by Göller. He also suggested several other variants of attribution of the addressee of the Recipe mark. M. Gastout (Suppliques et lettres d‘Urbain VI. 1976), unaware of Tamburini‘s publication, returned to the reading of the signature of the cardinal penitentiary proposed by Tangl. She also proposed an attribution to the author of the Recipe mark. The paper will propose a new reading of the crossed-out mark of the proctor and a new attribution to the author of the Recipe mark.
