# Oratio habita in decima sessione die quarta Maii M.D.XV. per R. P. D. Stephanum Archiepm Patracensem **Autore:** Tegliacci Stefano **Dati editoriali:** [Rome, Marcello Silber, after 4 May 1515] **Codice archivio:** 177 **Prezzo:** 1380.00 USD **Stato commerciale:** Disponibile **Link ufficiale:** https://www.govirarebooks.com/products/oratio-habita-in-decima-sessione-die-quarta-maii-m-d-xv-per-r-p-d-stephanum-archiepm-patracensem --- ## Descrizione accademica e analisi 4to (207x137 mm). [12] leaves. Collation: A-C4. The last leaf is a blank. Title printed in Gothic type within an elaborate woodcut floral border, incorporating stylized flowers, foliage, and ornamental columns. Text printed in Roman type. The final page of text concludes with Deo gratias, followed by four Latin verses addressed to the Archbishop of Patras. First edition of Stefano Taleazziss address to Pope Leo X and the fifth Lateran Council, advocating ecclesiastical reform, peace among christian rulers, and a united crusade against the ottoman empire. The oration was delivered on 4 May 1515, during the tenth session of the Fifth Lateran Council, by the Venetian ecclesiastic Stefano Taleazzi, also known as Stefano Tegliacci or Stephanus Thegliatius, Archbishop of Patras and Bishop of Torcello. Printed in Rome by Marcello Silber shortly after its delivery, the work represents the culmination of more than three decades of Taleazzi’s involvement in ecclesiastical reform and the promotion of military action against the Ottoman Empire. Born in Venice around 1445, Taleazzi entered the higher ecclesiastical hierarchy under Sixtus IV, who appointed him Archbishop of Antivari in 1473. He subsequently received the titular archbishopric of Patras and, in 1485, the bishopric of Torcello. Active in the Roman Curia under successive pontificates, he became an exceptionally prolific preacher, delivering numerous sermons before popes, cardinals, and ecclesiastical assemblies. His long-standing interest in the Ottoman question can be traced directly to the crisis caused by the Turkish occupation of Otranto in 1480. On 27 December of that year, he delivered his Sermo contra Turcorum persecutionem, subsequently published in two Roman editions. The sermon belonged to the widespread campaign of preaching and political mobilization prompted by the Ottoman invasion of southern Italy. Taleazzi would return repeatedly to the subject during the following decades. His concern was not limited to exhortation. He also developed detailed proposals for a Christian expedition against the Turks, examining the history of previous crusades, the military strength of the Ottoman Empire, the organization of Christian armies, and the financial resources necessary to sustain a campaign. Originally submitted to Alexander VI, three treatises on these questions were presented again to Leo X in 1513. The present oration must be understood against this intellectual and political background. Delivered two years before Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, it belongs to the late medieval and early Renaissance tradition of ecclesiastical reform in which the moral regeneration of Christendom, the restoration of papal authority, and the struggle against Islam were regarded as mutually dependent objectives. The opening sections present the Fifth Lateran Council as a providential opportunity to restore ecclesiastical discipline, reconcile the Christian powers, and renew the moral authority of the Church. Taleazzi praises Leo X as the legitimate spiritual head of Christendom, stressing the pontiff's responsibility to overcome the internal divisions that had weakened both the Roman Church and the political community of Christian princes. The discourse combines theological exposition with a defence of papal primacy and an urgent appeal for reform. The recent conciliar conflicts, the persistence of ecclesiastical abuses, and the rivalries of European rulers appear as different aspects of the same underlying disorder. For Taleazzi, the renewal of Christendom cannot be achieved through ecclesiastical legislation alone. The restoration of Christian unity requires both spiritual correction and political reconciliation. Only a morally reformed and politically united Christian society can successfully resist its external enemies. The oration develops these ideas through extensive biblical and prophetic imagery. The Church is represented as a universal spiritual community whose present afflictions must be understood within the providential history of salvation. Reform is consequently described not merely as the correction of institutional abuses, but as a necessary stage in the restoration of the Christian commonwealth. The most historically significant passages concern the advance of Ottoman power and the failure of Christian rulers to respond collectively. Taleazzi recalls the progressive loss of territories formerly belonging to the Christian world, referring to the Ottoman occupation of regions of southeastern Europe, including Greece and the Balkans. The devastation of Christian lands, the destruction of cities, the enslavement of populations, and the continuing danger to the Italian peninsula are presented as consequences of the military expansion of the Turks and the political fragmentation of Christendom. The memory of the Ottoman occupation of Otranto in 1480 is particularly important in understanding the author’s argument. That episode had shaped Taleazzi's early preaching against the Turks and continued to serve as a warning that the dangers previously experienced by southern Italy might return on a much wider scale. His interpretation of Ottoman expansion is explicitly theological and providential. The Turkish advance is represented as a chastisement permitted by God because of Christian disunity and sin, and as a persecution whose consequences might assume an apocalyptic significance. The prospect of a renewed Christian commonwealth, brought about through reform under papal leadership, is therefore linked to the possible transformation of this period of tribulation. The oration is consequently of particular value as evidence for the religious and political representation of the Ottoman Empire in early sixteenth-century Rome. It illustrates the ways in which the Ottoman threat was understood and employed by ecclesiastical authors to justify proposals for internal reform, reconciliation among European rulers, and renewed papal leadership. One of the most substantial political arguments developed in the oration is the necessity of ending the wars among Christian princes. Taleazzi condemns the rivalries that repeatedly diverted military resources away from the defence of Christendom. The ambitions of kings and princes, their territorial disputes, and their willingness to wage war against fellow Christians had, in his view, contributed directly to the success of Ottoman expansion. His proposed remedy is a general peace among Christian rulers, secured through the authority and mediation of Leo X. The appeal for an extended truce, conceived within the broader programme of crusading reform, is intended to provide the political stability required for the organization of a common expedition. Peace is therefore not presented as an independent or exclusively spiritual objective. It is the indispensable preliminary condition for an effective military response to the Ottoman Empire. The programme reveals the close relationship between conciliar reform and crusading ideology during the pontificate of Leo X. Ecclesiastical regeneration, obedience to the Roman pontiff, the reconciliation of Christian states, and military action against the Turks become successive stages in a single project for the renewal of Christendom. The final sections intensify the urgency of the appeal by invoking the suffering of Christian peoples under Ottoman rule and the possibility of further conquests. Taleazzi interprets the existing political crisis through a framework of biblical prophecy, presenting the conflict between Christianity and its enemies as part of the wider history of divine providence. The Ottoman persecutions are associated with the tribulations preceding a possible spiritual renewal and, in the author’s apocalyptic reading, the ultimate fulfilment of Christian history. This conception gives the discourse a significance extending beyond the immediate question of a military expedition. The Turkish menace becomes an argument for the transformation of Christian political and ecclesiastical life. Taleazzi’s appeal to Leo X accordingly combines the language of universal papal responsibility with that of collective Christian self-defence. The pope is called upon to act not simply as the spiritual authority presiding over the Council, but as the principal mediator capable of restoring unity among the Christian powers. The publication occupies an important position in the history of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517), whose reform proposals preceded the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation. It also documents the persistence of crusading projects in Renaissance papal politics and the role played by the Ottoman threat in debates concerning ecclesiastical discipline and Christian political unity. The address is especially significant as the last known printed oration by Taleazzi, who returned to Venice and died during the summer of 1515. Unlike his anti-Turkish sermon of 1480, delivered in the immediate aftermath of the Otranto crisis, the address of 1515 did not enjoy comparable contemporary success. Nevertheless, it preserves a mature synthesis of the religious, diplomatic, and military ideas developed throughout his career. --- ## Bibliografia di riferimento Feliciangeli, Bernardino, “Le proposte per la guerra contro i Turchi presentate da Stefano Taleazzi vescovo di Torcello a papa Alessandro VI,” Archivio della R. Società romana di storia patria, XL (1917), pp. 5-64. Minnich, Nelson H., “Concepts of Reform Proposed at the Fifth Lateran Council,” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, VII (1969), pp. 163-251, especially pp. 198–201. Setton, Kenneth M., The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571), vol. III, The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius III, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1984, pp. 154-155. Tinto, Alberto, Gli annali tipografici di Eucario e Marcello Silber (1501-1527), Firenze, Olschki, 1968, no. 201. Minnich, Nelson H., “The Reform Proposals (1513) of Stefano Taleazzi for the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17),” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, XXVII-XXVIII (1995-1996), pp. 543-570. Lodone, Michele, “Taleazzi, Stefano,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, XCIV (2019). British Museum, Index to the Early Printed Books, no. 12255. Edit 16, CNCE 51674. USTC, 858600. --- *Documento generato automaticamente dall'Archivio Govi Rare Books per finalità di ricerca e catalogazione.*