Between Conversion and Reconquest The Venerable English College between the Late 16th and 17th Centuries

Founded in the Middle Ages as a hospice for pilgrims, the Venerable English College was ‘refounded’ by Gregory XIII in 1579 and entrusted to the Jesuits to prepare priests for the confessional reconquest of ‘heretical’ England and to assist English Catholics fleeing persecution. The College also became the centre of observation for all English travellers arriving in Rome and the key link with the Holy Office, the Curia and the court, the Congregation de Propaganda Fide (from 1622) and, from the late 17th century, the Ospizio dei Convertendi. College authorities sought to identify the noble travellers who had arrived in the city and sailors who disembarked at Civitavecchia or Naples, passed through Rome and paused for their amusement or to learn some new skill. The sojourns of various ‘heretical’ noblemen – such as John Milton, a guest of the College and of Francesco Barberini – are well known, for in reality the Venerable College paid little attention to the confession of travellers, aristocrats and others, who stayed in Rome and visited the famous institution. Nevertheless, suspicion on the part of the authorities was not lacking. Who were the College’s guests? How could their identity be confirmed? And how was it possible to monitor the presence of heretics, spies sent to Rome by the enemies of the Church? This essay analyses the College’s role as intermediary in its dual function as a hospice for Englishmen, both Catholics and others, and a site of conversion and seminary for future missionaries between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, when the presence of the Stuart court in Rome drew and ever greater number of Englishmen to the city and the College. Travellers, artists, merchants and antiquaries all sought their fortune, hoping to benefit from the court in exile and papal favour towards the Old Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart, which consolidated the favourable position towards the dynasty that the College had already maintained during the Parliamentary Revolution.