[UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA.] Privilegia Domini Bernardini Maggii Luganensis [Diploma in Arts and Medicine Issued to Bernardino Maggi of Lugano, 9 February 1607].

Countersigned by Galileo's Interlocutor in Medicean Debate

[UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA.] Privilegia Domini Bernardini Maggii Luganensis [Diploma in Arts and Medicine Issued to Bernardino Maggi of Lugano, 9 February 1607]. Bologna. 1608.

Manuscript on vellum, 4to. Contemporary Bolognese brown morocco, boards richly gilt to a panel design, floral roll-tooled border within single and double fillets, large foliate cornerpieces, central tool of crucified Christ to upper board, and of Virgin and Child to lower, each surrounded by vase of flowers and marguerite tools, spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges, spine lined with manuscript waste on vellum; ff. [20], calligraphed in a fine Italianate humanist hand in brown and gold ink, up to 14 lines to a page, all leaves excluding title-page surrounded by elaborate border in gold and brown (see contents below); light wear to spine and corners, spine slightly worn with chip at head, hole through lower inner corners and text block where tassel and university seal formerly affixed, traces of 4 pairs of red silk ties; first quire largely detached, light variable marginal staining; signature of Petrus Sementius Procancellarius of the University in ink to f. 10v; ink notarial sign ‘IBR’ of Iohannes Baptista Rusticelli to f. 11r; signatures of Antonius Gandulphus and Flaminius Papazzonius in ink (see below), and ink notarial sign ‘BA’ of Bartholomeus Albertinus to f. 19v; contemporary ink inscription ‘1607. die 9. Februarij Laurea Doctoralis Equestri Dignitatis Collatio’ to front free endpaper; early twentieth-century bookseller’s ticket ‘C. E. Rappaport … Rome’ to front pastedown.

A sumptuous Arts and Medicine diploma from the University of Bologna, handsomely illustrated and calligraphed throughout, and preserved in a contemporary richly gilt Bolognese binding.

In the medieval and early modern periods, university degree ceremonies followed a precise ritual: rigorous examination, collective approval, and finally the symbolic bestowal of books, a doctoral cap, and a gold ring – tokens binding the graduate to their discipline. The title carried real authority, granting the right to teach and practise across wide territories. As legal instruments countersigned by notaries, early diplomas took the form of large, handwritten sheets on parchment; later they evolved into more compact, bound booklets, often richly decorated with coats of arms, religious imagery, and gold illumination (cf. Maggiulli). This diploma confers a degree in Liberal Arts, Sacred Philosophy, and Medicine on Bernardino Maggi (Bernardinus Maggius or Madius in Latin), a citizen of Lugano. Granted on 9 February 1607, the manuscript was completed the following year, as recorded on the title-page. The Latin text comprises a description of the duties attached to his new status, testimonials by academic members of the university, and notarial attestations with stamps and signatures.

A surname common in Lombardy, the Maggi family is also recorded in Ticino, with a branch attaining some notability in Mendrisio (Oldelli, p. 105). In 1593, a Fabrizio Maggi of Lugano is documented among the contractors for the fortifications of Casal Monferrato on behalf of the Duke of Mantua (Bollettino storico della Svizzera Italiana 20–25 (1898), p. 181). As a native of Ticino, the southernmost canton of Switzerland, Bernardino belonged to the natio of the Citramontani (non-Bolognese Italians) rather than to the Ultramontani, the foreign students (French, English, Spanish, German, Polish, and Hungarian). His diploma, however, includes a portrait of Arnoldus, a fashionably dressed gentleman with a large white ruff, identified as the commander of the Swiss troops stationed in Bologna. Together with the depiction of the Swiss Confederacy’s Wappenbaum (cantonal tree), the portrait underscores Bernardino’s connection to the Confederacy. This fluidity between Italy and the Swiss Confederacy is further stressed by the arms of the Odescalchi family on the title-page likely alluding to the Italian family’s ties with Lugano: prominent bankers from Como, the Odescalchi maintained in fact close links with the region, much of which then fell under the diocese of Como. The presence of the arms of Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Castro (r. 1592–1622) may reflect his connection with the Collegio Ancarano of Bologna, where he studied and of which he later became ‘dominus ac patronus’ (see Lines, p. 111).

The Bolognese Aristotelian Flaminio Papazzoni (d. 1614), Prior of Philosophy at Bologna and one of the signatories of the diploma, later obtained a chair at the University of Pisa on the recommendation of Galileo Galilei. In 1612 he was required by the Medici to engage in a debate with Galileo on the question of floating bodies. Apparently reluctant to oppose his benefactor, Papazzoni lost the dispute and, after it attracted considerable attention, was required to repeat it at the Medici court in the presence of the Grand Duke and Duchess, and the cardinals Maffeo Barberini (who supported Galileo) and Ferdinando Gonzaga (who sided with Papazzoni).

Contents:
Title-page ‘Privilegia Domini Bernardini Maggii Luganensis. M.D.CIIX’, within an elegant gold cartouche surrounded by coats of arms, including the civic arms of Lugano, the arms of the Maggi family of Lugano (?) and those of the Odescalchi family of Como, flanked by four allegorical emblems, the whole within a magenta drape (f. 1r); portrait of Arnoldus (‘Duci Arnoldi Helvetiae stationis imago’) with Latin verses (f. 1v); Swiss Wappenbaum (displaying, from the top, the arms of Zürich, Bern, Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus, Basel-Stadt, Fribourg, Solothurn, and Schaffhausen), superimposed on a double-headed eagle and surmounted by a crown and treue Hände (loyal hands); blank aside the decorative frame (f. 2v); coat of arms of Ranuccio I Farnese, within an exuberant gold cartouche decorated with cornucopiae and encircled by the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece (f. 3r); ‘In Christi Nomine Amen’ with a large and finely historiated initial ‘G’ incorporating grotesque human and animal heads (f. 3v; cf. similar initial ‘C’ on f. 5v); f. 20 blank aside the decorative frame.

Provenance: From the Bibliotheca Altempsiana, formed by the Austrian cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps (Mark Sittich von Hohenems Altemps, 1533–1595), nephew of Pope Pius IV, and housed in Palazzo Altemps. In 1740, a substantial portion of the manuscripts entered the Vatican Library; the remainder, largely dispersed, was sold at auction in London in 1907 (Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge) and in Rome in 1908 (Rossi, Catalogue des livres et des manuscrits composant la bibliothèque des ducs d’Altemps; this manuscript lot 2838).

See Lines, The Dynamics of Learning in Early Modern Italy Arts and Medicine at the University of Bologna (2023); Maggiulli, ‘I diploma di laurea: una fonte per la storia dell’università’, DigItalia (2021); Montalbani, Notitia doctorum: sive catalogus doctorum qui in collegiis philosophiae et medicinae bononiae laureati fuerunt ab anno 1480 usque ad annum 1800 (1962), p. 112 [9 February 1607: D. Bernardinus Madius Luganensis in U.C. Acta 1605–1607, c. 32v]; Oldelli, Dizionario storico ragionato degli uomini illustri del Canton Ticino (1807).

SKU: 2123668