Patrons, Aristocratic Patrimonies and Finance: Reconsidering the Economic Foundations of Private Magnificence in Rome (c. 1650-1700)

Abstract

What were the economic foundations of aristocratic magnificence in the Rome of the Baroque period? With the aim of illuminating the material conditions of what was above all an art of spending well, this article analyses the patrimony of five key figures of Roman patronage in the second half of the seventeenth century: Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Giovanni Battista Borghese, Flavio Orsini, Gaetano Francesco Caetani and Flavio Chigi. Through examination of their account books, preserved in family archives in Rome, Vatican City and Subiaco, the present contribution examines their substantial, but varied assets and revenues, reconstructs their expenditures, considers the role of the latter in conferring social distinction and exercising seigniorial power, and discusses the necessary recourse to credit, as well as the dangers of debt, in order better to understand both the difficulties and the capacity for action of protagonists whose deployment of their patrimonies was at the heart of spectacular Roman events.