BENEDICT XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, 1675-1758, from 1740 Pope)

Engaging Autograph Note, unsigned, in his fine clear hand, in Italian with transcription and translation, to his French friend of forty years and privy chamberlain, Prior Jean Bouget, (1692, Saumur-1775, Rome), sending “the enclosed letter” [not present] from “Chevalier Cogollin”, (Joseph de Cuers-Cogolin, 1702-1760, of Cogolin in Provence, translator of Vergil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedium Amoris), “who has written a little Poem against the materialists, and has sent it to us. So will you send a courteous answer, thanking him for it, and say that as we have with Us a sublime French poet, called Monsieur Bouget, we will pass the Work to him to read and examine, and to come back to Us about it”, and ending “Which is all [for the moment] etc.”, old identification in the margin, 1 side folio, no place, 6th November small defect in blank left margin

Pope Benedict XIV, previously Archbishop of his native Bologna, was an accomplished scholar, always cheerful and wiity, but no less earnest and conscientious. He demanded more humane treatment for the Indians of Brazil and Paraguay, and rebuked the Jesuits for accommodating themselves to the Chinese devotion to their ancestors. He instigated the cataloguing of the Vatican Library, and his own collection of 25,000 volumes is now at Bologna.
<b>Jean Bouget,<b> reader in Hebrew at the seminary of the Propagation of the Faith, was of Benedict XIV’s inner circle of literary friends. The Pope was “strongly attracted to him on account of his consistently gay and witty character and his highly-refined culture; they frequently competed with each other in quoting from the classics. The abstemious Benedict was especially amused at Bouget’s lack of practical sense and of his weakness (though he was otherwise a good priest) for the pleasure of the table. There are numerous witty allusions to this in the Pope’s correspondence with [the French] Cardinal Tencin...” (Ludwig Pastor, History of the Popes, 1961, Vol. XXXV, page 9).
Autograph letters of Benedict XIV as Pope are rare on the market.
Provenance: Saffroy (Booksellers) of Paris, 1923.
We are informed by the previous owner that the handwriting has been authenticated by the Archivio di Stato of Bologna.
(Transcription)
Mandiamo a Monsignor Bouget l’annessa lettera del Cavaliere Cogollin [sic, Cogolin], che ha fatto una piccola Poema contra i materialisti, e ce lo ha mandato. Si faccia dunque una risposta cortese, ringraciandolo, e dicendogli, che essendo appresso di Noi un sublime Poeta Francese, che si chiama Monsignor Bouget, daremo a lui l’Opera, acciò la legga, l’esamini, e ce la riferisca. Che è quanto &c.
[Margin]
6. Novembre 1755.
a M[onsigno]r Bouget.
[In another hand]
biglietto di Benedetto XIV (Lambertini) a Monsignore Bouget
(Translation)
We send Monsignor Bouget the enclosed letter from Chevalier Cogolin, who has written a little Poem against the materialists, and has sent it to us. So will you send a courteous answer, thanking him for it, and saying that as we have with Us a sublime French poet, called Monsieur Bouget, we will pass the Work to him to read and examine, and to come back to Us about it. Which is all [for the moment] etc.

Item Date:  1755

Stock No:  42227      £1275

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