Vaticinia Pontificum

Vaticinia Pontificum

The word Vaticinia is the Latin term for prophecies or predictions. The collection of documents with the title Vaticinia Pontificum is a unique manuscript that presents prophecies concerning the lives and works of the popes during the Middle Ages. The edition of the Vaticinia Pontificum presented before us is furnished with incomparably-beautiful illustrations. 46 unbelievably fanciful, colorful miniatures depict the popes from Nicolaus III to Eugene IV in portrait, along with allegorical animals and mythical creatures. Although the masterly work was ascribed to the Italian monk Joachim of Fiore for a long time, this assumption has admittedly been refuted by recent research.

A Mysterious Author

Joachim of Fiore – Gioacchino da Fiore in Italian – was an abbot and founder of an order in Calabria and a theological historian in the 12th century. The gifted scholar achieved fame above all because of his specific view of history and his salvation-historical worldview. His teachings were amalgamated under the name of the “Theory of the Three Ages”. He subdivided the history of the world and humanity in three historical eras, which he connected with the Holy Trinity. It was believed for a long time, because of his influential teachings from the 12th century, that the Vaticinia Pontificum with its salvation-historical worldview, was created by Joachim of Fiore. Since this assumption has been proven false by the most recent research, the actual author of the work cannot be determined, and so one now refers to the author of the Vaticiniaperforce as the Pseudo-Joachim. The dreamlike pictures were designed by the most gifted Italian court painters of the Middle Ages. Among them were the famous Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, who was employed at the court of Filippo Maria Visconti.

The Destiny of the Catholic Church

The Vaticinia are a series of prophecies about the popes who were invested into the highest office of the Catholic Church in the course of the 13th and 15th centuries. The allegorical, mythical text interpreted the influence of the popes at that time on the destiny of the Catholic community worldwide with the help of its metaphorically-charged illustrations. Pope Urban VI is described here as a devilish monster of the apocalypse. He was a pope during the time period that immediately followed the Avignon Papacy and resided in Rome, as his predecessor Gregory XI had already done. The dispute following his election unleashed a chain of adverse events that ultimately lead to the Great Western Schism. This was the greatest fault line to occur within the Catholic Church and went on for nearly 40 years. In the Vaticinia, Urban’s influence on this significant religious conflict is more closely discussed in mysterious visual language.

Significant Former Owners

In the course of history, the universally-coveted masterpiece found itself in the possession of numerous famous personalities. It belonged to the art collector Francesco Antonio Bonali for a long time, though the most famous owner of the precious text was indeed the Italian artist Pelagio Palagi. The painter, sculptor, and furniture designer from Turin was interested in Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman sculptures and was known worldwide as a book collector. The precious Vaticinia remained in his private library until the artist’s death. In his will, the book was left to the Biblioteca dell'Archiginnasio in the Italian art metropolis of Bologna, where it is housed today.