Ruling Peacefully: Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and Patrician Reform in Sixteenth-Century Italy. By Paul V. Murphy. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007. xxi + 290 pp. $79.95 cloth.

摘要

Ercole Gonzaga (1505–1563), bishop, cardinal, and regent of the duchy ofnMantua (1540–1556), is perhaps best remembered, Paul Murphy concedes,nin Tommaso Casselli’s description of “il vecchio pro forma” (42, 241). Innthis lucid, carefully crafted, and judicious study, Murphy draws on a wealthnof untapped personal correspondence and administrative records in thenMantuan archives to rescue Gonzaga from this cliché and to flesh out thenportrait of one of Italy’s most powerful, privileged, and—until the end—nrespected prelates.