important defensive measures during a period of regular warfare. That it chose instead to support a canonization bid confirms that saints were considered an essential good for the community in which they were venerated on par with, if not more important than, physical defense of the city.
Although it is not clear how all the money in Borromeo’s cause was spent, the well-documented expenses for Francesca Romana’s canonization (1608) give a great deal of information about the individual costs of saint-making in the early modern period. The price tag for her canonization, which seems to have represented only expenses from the apostolic phase of her process from 1604 to 1608, came to 19,000 scudi.81 In addition to this general expense, various gifts, gratuities, and bribes had to be given to those involved at the moment of canonization. As a gratuity for the canonization, the promoters paid 500 scudi to the pope and 200 scudi to Franciso Peña for his role as deacon of the Rota; each of the other two Rota judges involved received 100 scudi, and Cardinal Pinello, the head of the Congregation of Rites, was awarded 200 scudi.82 The list contains quite a few other people who were paid lesser sums: Giambattista Spada, the fiscal lawyer for the canonization, received twenty-five scudi, an unnamed papal physician received twelve, and even the Swiss Guards who attended the pope received four scudi each.83 For comparison, artisans in the city of Rome made about three scudi a month, while police officers made four.84 Thus, these “tips” were rather large financial awards with even the least payment equivalent to a whole month’s salary for many Romans.
In addition to monetary remuneration, many also received costly garments and accessories in thanks for their efforts on the canonization. The pope was given a stole for processions, as well as a silk cord to cinch it, another stole for saying masses, a taffeta shirt, sandals and socks, an apron, a bag, and a mat with which he could cover his desk.85 Others received silk garments, with a variety of embellishments depending on rank and status. The famous jurist Prospero Farinacci received a gown made of blue silk with a hood “like the consistorial lawyers wear.”86 The papal doctor was given a red garment with a hood.87 Thus, canonization required a wide array of goods and monies that only truly eminent and wealthy patrons could be expected to furnish.
Perhaps due to such additional costs that could spiral out of control, Pope Benedict XIV (1740–1758), more than a hundred years later, sought to fix prices for canonization.88 Benedict forbade the giving of gifts, even if they were only edible items, to those involved with canonization, and set the amount that could be given as a gratuity at a fairly low value.89 Furthermore, he specified how much individual pieces of the canonization ceremony should cost. The prices were still surprisingly high: the Bull and Decree of canonization cost a total of 1650 scudi—just for the document.90 Expenses for the festival to be held in Saint Peter’s to celebrate a saint’s election amounted to 20,400 scudi.91 Given these efforts at setting prices, which we might imagine could be circumvented when one wanted to press for a canonization, saint-making continued to be an enormously expensive endeavor well into the eighteenth century. These high prices and expensive bribes, furthermore, were a burden that continued to be shouldered by the promoters of the saint’s cause.
Patrons therefore acted as brokers for a saint’s cult in a number of ways. First, they translated the veneration that was occurring locally into a dossier, vouched for by their good name, that might be acceptable to Rome. Then, throughout the process the patron kept the canonization moving forward through a combination of financial incentives and political displays. In many ways, the patron helped, in the words of Simon Ditchfield, to “universalize the particular.”92 That is, the patron tried to ensure that local patterns of belief became part of the overall tapestry of Catholic faith. Canonization officials in Rome, though, had their own apparatus whereby they evaluated evidence that came from the parishes and sought to determine whether or not it was in accordance with the belief system of the universal Church.
VERIFYING SANCTITY
The Church’s increasingly rigorous attempt to demonstrate beyond all doubt that an individual should be recognized as a saint really began with the opening of the apostolic process of canonization.93 Although certainly the ordinary phase of the process sought to establish that a person lived a holy life and worked miracles, especially in the seventeenth century, the apostolic phase represented a much more rigorous and centrally directed procedure. The pope opened the apostolic phase by issuing remissorial and compulsorial letters, which designated three local officials to oversee the canonization process in each locale and that specified which questions should be asked.94 The letters required that a notary be present for all testimony to provide the stamp of law to the proceedings.95
The questions asked during the apostolic phase were carefully designed to establish whether certain criteria for holiness were met as well as to evaluate witness probity. The questions asked in the 1650 apostolic process in Valencia for Francisco de Borja are typical.96 At the outset, witnesses for Borgia were first warned that it is a grave sin to commit perjury.97 Following this initial admonition, the first round of questions sought to affirm the identity of the witness. Investigators asked witnesses for their first and last name, who their parents were, where they were from, how wealthy they were, and how they made their money.98 Next the officials sought to assess the witness’s probity: each was asked about his or her spiritual state, when and where they last confessed, if they received communion, and if they had ever been excommunicated. They also asked witnesses whether they had ever been convicted of a crime.99 Finally, the judges asked if the witness’s testimony had been coached in any way.100
Following the inquiry into the character of the witness, the judges then turned to questions about the saint. Frequently, these questions were open-ended. In the case of Borja, the judges asked a series of questions about his life that might lead to a range of answers, including whether the witness knew if Borja had a reputation for being a saint, what miracles he might have worked, and how the witness knew that what had occurred was actually a miracle.101 Again, this set of questions appears to have been standard and was routinely asked in apostolic phases of canonization.102 The motives behind such questioning were threefold: to ascertain whether the witness in fact knew the prospective saint, judged him to be holy, and understood what criteria were required to establish that an individual was a saint. Such distinctions were crucial since a witness’s reliability was predicated on his ability to effectively understand what was happening when a miracle occurred.103
Following these initial questions, the Rota judges then sought specific details about the saint. The letters regularly supplied lists of miracles and virtues that witnesses could potentially confirm. Rota judges drew this list from testimony given in the ordinary process or the in genere phase of the apostolic process. Officials did not require witnesses to speak about each point on a list, but to select the items which they knew something about. In the case of Maria Magdalene de’ Pazzi, this list for the Florentine phase of her apostolic process consisted of twenty items. The first group posited some basic facts about de’ Pazzi—for example, that she was born legitimately, the identity of her parents, the date of her baptism, and how she was educated.104 The next sections consisted of statements about her virtues. Testators were asked to affirm, for example, that “she had the greatest charity for her neighbor[s], longing for their salvation, and she cared for weak nuns, both looking after some novices, and instructing other nuns.”105 Finally, the investigators turned to miracles, including specific ones to be certified. For de’ Pazzi, they asked, for example, if “a fluid, similar to oil, emanated from her corpse and if a sweet odor came forth from her tomb.”106 Other topics, such as whether the deponent had witnessed many people attending the tomb of de’ Pazzi, also appeared in the list.107
The questions and then the list of virtues and miracles were part of the apparatus whereby canonization officials attempted to demonstrate that the prospective saint merited canonization. The idea here is that proof is cumulative in nature and that the weight of many reliable witnesses to an event provided the most effective
