The ‘Good Bishop’ of Catholic Enlightenment: Benedict XIV’s Gifts to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Bologna

Abstract

Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini (reigned 1740–58), who was also Archbishop of Bologna for much of his papacy, was a prime example of what was known as a ‘good bishop’ in the eighteenth-century age of Catholic Enlightenment. As a ‘good bishop,’ he believed it was his duty to provision the Metropolitan Cathedral as splendidly as possible, and much of his activity as an art patron centred on annual gifts to Bologna. These objects and their historical record in recently discovered correspondence between Lambertini and his family’s agent in the city, Francesco Maria Mazzi, provide invaluable material with which to reconstruct an important aspect of ecclesiastical visual culture in an era in which religious art has long been undervalued by modern scholars. The value, rarity and visual appeal of the objects tell us much about ceremonial decorum at the most important church in north central Italy.