Appropriating Sacred Space: Private-Chapel Patronage and Institutional Identity in Sixteenth-Century Rome—The Case of the Office of Ceremonies

Abstract

The author explores the efforts of papal ceremonialist Paris de' Grassi (1504-28) to transform the Office of Ceremonies from a group of semi-corporate, specialized papal attendants into a curial college with fixed regulations and social clout. The reform bull Pastoralis officii (1513) permanently reserved benefices at the Church of Ss. Celso and Giuliano in Rome, where de' Grassi served as archpriest. Between 1524 and 1551 ceremonialists endowed three private chapels at Ss. Celso and Giuliano; in 1578 another ceremonialist established a chapel at the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, where a personal monument did not reference or depend on de' Grassi's legacy. The construction of memorial chapels at Ss. Celso and Giuliano allowed ceremonialists to establish both individual and collected corporate identities and reveals the continued entwining of private and institutional goals in both patronage and the papal bureaucracy.