A Jacobite Gazetteer - Lazio

Montefiascone

This town lies about sixty miles north of Rome. The episcopal palace and the cathedral contain a number of items related to King James III and VIII and Queen Clementina.

James and Clementina had officially been married by proxy May 19, 1719, but it was in the episcopal palace of this town that the couple renewed their marriage vows in person, September 3, 1719. The episcopal palace is situated directly across from the cathedral. The wedding ceremony took place in what is now the second room of the Cancelleria of the Curia Vescovile (episcopal offices) on the second floor (first floor above ground) of the episcopal palace (not "in an upstairs chapel of the cathedral" as is sometimes said). On the far wall of the room is a Latin inscription recording the fact:

AVTHORITATE ET AVSPICIIS
CLEMENTIS XI · PONT · MAX ·
IN HOC CVBICVLO
SEBASTIANVS POMPILIVS BONAVENTVRA
MONTIS FALISCI ET CORNETI EPISCOPVS
SACRO ECCLESIÆ RITV
IACOBVM III · MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ REGEM
ET MARIAM CLEMENTINAM SOBIESKI
INCLYT · MEM · IOANNIS III · POLONIÆ REGIS
EX IACOBO FILIO NEPTEM
CONNVBIO IVNXIT
KALENDIS SEPTEMBRIS ANNO SAL · MDCCXIX ·
ATQVE AD PERENNEM REI GESTÆ MEMORIAM
MONVMENTVM POSVIT ·

By the authority and order of
Pope Clement XI
in this room
Sebastiano Pompilio Bonaventura
Bishop of Montefiascone and Tarquinia
joined in matrimony
according to the rites of Holy Church
James III, King of Great Britain,
and Maria Clementina Sobieski
grandaughter, by his son James,
of John III, King of Poland, of celebrated memory,
September 3rd in the year of salvation 1719,
and placed [this] monument
to the perpetual memory of the things done.

A second Latin inscription immediately below records the fact that the Bishop of Montefiascone baptised the Prince of Wales (later King Charles III) in Rome the following year:

EORVMDEM REGIORVM CONIVGVM
FILIVM PRIMOGENITVM
PRÆDICTVS EPISCOPVS
INTER EFFVSAS EXVLTANTIS POPVLI GRATVLATIONES
IN ALMA VRBE
SACRIS BAPTISMI AQVIS ABLVIT
POSTREMA DIE ANNI MDCCXX ·

The aforenamed bishop
washed in the waters of holy baptism
the firstborn son
of the same royal couple
in the city of Rome
on the last day of the year 1720
amidst the widespread rejoicings of the exultant populace.

Inscriptions

It is difficult to reconcile the simplicity of the room as it appears today with the splendor of that shown in a painting of the wedding, now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.¹ At the centre of the painting can be seen Bishop Bonaventura blessing the royal couple who are kneeling before him. James wears the sash of the Order of the Garter. On a pillow on the floor beside him are a sceptre and three crowns, presumably for England, Scotland, and Ireland (or perhaps France). In the background are members of the Stuart court including James' Dominican confessor, John Brown (in profile standing immediately behind Queen Clementina).

Wedding of James and Clementina, Scottish National Portrait Gallery

James and Clementina spent a two month honeymoon in Montefiascone, before leaving for Rome at the end of October.² It would seem that they were lodged in the episcopal palace.³ According to one source the couple gave permission to the city authorities "to place their arms upon the Town Hall between the escutcheons of the Pope and of the Barberini cardinals, protectors of the city".⁴

James and Clementina visited Montefiascone several times later in life. In 1731 they presented the cathedral with "a magnificent set of pontifical [i.e. episcopal] gold and silver vestments, among them a cope and a chalice veil embroidered with Oriental pearls by the queen's own hands".⁵

Palazzo Episcopale, Montefiascone

Cathedral, Montefiascone

A number of vestments can still be seen in the sacristy of the cathedral. At the far end of the sacristy is a chest of drawers below a painting of Saint Margaret (to whom the cathedral is dedicated). On the second drawer from the top is a label, "Parato in quarto della Regina Clementina d'Inghilterra".⁶ The white silk vestments are embroidered with thread of gold in designs of English roses and lions rampant. The chalice veil is embroidered with the scene of the baptism of Christ surrounded by tiny pearls. There is also an altar frontal embroidered with the royal arms which is still used today on the feast of Saint Margaret.

Vestment embroidery: crowned lion rampant

Vestment embroidery: rose and lion rampant

Several letters from James and Clementina to the cathedral canons about these gifts are in the cathedral archives. "In affectionate return for these gifts, the dignitaries of the cathedral promised to found an annual mass to be sung for England on St. Edward's Day".⁷

Above the doorway of the sacristy is a slightly different version of the painting of James and Clementina's wedding from that in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. One source ascribes this version to Sebastiano Conca.⁸ In the Montefiascone painting there are four fewer figures in the background than in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery painting.⁹ The Montefiascone version is in a somewhat poor condition.

Wedding of James and Clementina, Cathedral of Montefiascone

Notes

¹ Helen Smailes, The Concise Catalogue of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (Edinburgh: Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland, 1990), 328, attributes the painting to Agostino Masucci (1691-1758) and dates it to about 1735. This painting is the same as that attributed to Carlo Maratti, displayed at the Stuart Exhibition in 1889, and formerly in the collection of the Earl of Northesk. Since Maratti died in 1713, he could hardly paint an event which took place in 1719. The editor of Exhibition of the Royal House of Stuart (London: New Gallery, 1889), 52, says that "this picture and the companion work [depicting the baptism of Charles III] . . . were painted for the Prince [i.e. James III and VIII] and presented by him to the Bishop of Montefiasconi [sic], though they appear to have been for a time in the palace of the Cardinal York. They remained in possession of the prelate's family, hanging in the Grand Saloon of the old Bonaventura Palace at Urbino. Gradually this ancient family died out, and, finally, when Olimpia and Ottavia, co-heiresses and last of the race, divided the remaining property, nearly all their art-possesssions were sold. The pictures were bought in 1845 by the eighth Earl of Northesk and brought to Scotland". It appears that the painting was purchased by the Earls of Rosebery some time before 1967, when it is placed in their collection by Bryan Bevan, King James the Third of England: A Study of Kingship in Exile (London: Robert Hale, 1967), 7. In 1977 the painting was acquired by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. In 2005 the Scottish National Portrait Gallery also acquired a pen and ink sketch of the painting.

² Alice Shield and Andrew Lang, The King over the Water (London: Longmans, Green, 1907), 343. Martin Haile, James Francis Edward, the Old Chevalier (London: J.M. Dent, 1907), 277.

³ Charles Wogan, Narratives of the Detention, Liberation and Marriage of Maria Clementina Stuart, Styled Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by John T. Gilbert (Dublin, Ireland: John Dollard, 1894), 104. According to one source "Cardinal Gualterio had prepared the house of one of his relations for their [wedding] reception" (Haile, 277); presumably Bishop Bonaventura was a relative of Cardinal Gualterio.

⁴ Shield and Lang, 339-340. There is no trace of this today (2002); it is likely that the arms were merely a temporary display.

⁵ Shield and Lang, 385. Peggy Miller, James (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), 255, says that James "gave to the cathedral, as a mark of his gratitude, episcopal vestments, insignia and an altar frontal embroidered in gold; and Clementina gave a chasuble adorned with priceless oriental pearls which had formed part of her Sobieski dowry."

⁶ A "parato in quarto" is the set of vestments used at high mass (a chasuble for the celebrating priest, a dalmatic for the deacon, a tunicle for the sub-deacon, and a cope for the assisting priest).

⁷ Shield and Lang, 385-386.

⁸ Wayland Kennet and Elizabeth Young, Northern Lazio: An Unknown Italy (London: John Murray, 1990). Sebastiano Conca was born in 1680 and died in 1764; he worked in Rome, and completed a number of commissions for the House of Savoy.

⁹ Missing from the Montefiascone version are the young boy climbing the column, a woman immediately below him, another woman immediately to the left of James, and a cleric to the right of Father John Brown.

Image 2 (Wedding of James and Clementina, Scottish National Portrait Gallery): Edward Corp, The King over the Water: Portraits of the Stuarts in Exile after 1689 (Edinburgh: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 2001), 73.

Image 4 (Cathedral, Montefiascone): http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/yulie/11/1254305490/tpod.html