Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and His Germania

Abstract

The treatise Germania, which takes the form of a letter, bears in its printed form (1496) the title De ritu, situ, moribus et condicione Theutoniae descriptio (Description of the Situation, Customs and Conditions in Germany). The work, which was dated in Piccolomini’s hand to the 1^st of February 1458, was motivated by his correspondence with the secretary of the Bishop of Mainz, Martin Mayer, who informed Piccolomini of the criticisms of the Roman Curia. In fact this paper suggests that Piccolomini was probably aware of those criticisms already, as is indicated by the deliberate three-part structure of the treatise. Interweaving theological arguments with a defence of papal authority and a recognition of the growing role of national entities, Piccolomini’s work moves from individual concrete responses in the first book to a cultural-historical analysis of German space in the second, and to legal and procedural reflections in the third.

The second book is seemingly closely based on a minor work by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum (On the Origin and Situation of the Germans), yet the king of all historians only provides a cue for Piccolomini to take the opposite line: in Piccolomini’s Germania, Tacitus’ subversive praise of the ancient Germans becomes a critique of primitivism. Piccolomini’s geography of Theutonia, which explores the cultural, geographical and historical dimensions of the German nation, is a paean to the wealth, strength, moral and spiritual progress and omnipresence of modern German cities. It serves to kill off the unfounded accusations of gravamina, while at the same time emphasising the unity of Christendom as a counterbalance to internal and external divisions.

The paper places Piccolomini’s work in a slightly broader context, situating it between his speeches De Constantinopolitana clade and Cum bellum hodie, and finally his treatise De Europa, exploring how his engagement with classical texts and contemporary politics contributed to the formation of a subtle vision of European identity. Although his efforts to unite the Christian front against the Ottoman Empire failed, his work had a significant impact on the intellectual trajectory of nationalism and inter-European relations. These works, written after the fall of Constantinople, reflect Piccolomini’s vision of the necessary unity of the Christian world of states against the Turkish invasion, while at the same time revealing profound shifts in the understanding of the new national reality in which European proto-national identities were already taking shape.