POV · Power, Otherness, Vision. Renaissance Cantari and the Making of a Global Papacy

At the dawn of the Modern Age, Italian squares resound with vernacular poems, weaving tales of wonder and memory. One of the most renowned voices belongs to Giuliano Dati (1445–1524), a Florentine, canon penitentiary of St. John Lateran in Rome, an active member of Roman confraternities, and a figure close to the papal Curia. Unlike most popular literature, Dati’s works are autograph, deliberately crafted to make contemporary events accessible to a broad audience. Merging a chivalric poetic style with preaching, these poems are not only sung but also printed and sold with vivid xylographs. His poems recount Atlantic discoveries, revive legendary figures such as Prester John, and reflect on politics and devotion. A single, precise aim unites all these diverse topics: to translate curial ideology into language understood by the people, making the theological concepts of papal power familiar and straightforward through a combination of poetry, preaching, and images. Dati advocates for a vision of a global papacy, where the Pope can exercise spiritual and temporal authority extending from Italy to the shores of the New World.Through an interdisciplinary approach combining the History of Christianity, Philology, Iconography, and engagement with current debates in Global Renaissance scholarship, POV examines for the first time as a whole the overlooked works of Dati and how he constructed the notion of papal power through popular literature, preaching, and images. By contextualising Dati’s corpus within Renaissance political theology (O1) and preaching (O2), analysing the iconological structure of the images (O3), and considering his role within the Roman confraternities (O4), POV sheds new light on cultural diversity, identity formation, and the circulation of ideas in early modern Europe and beyond.