Bauer uses the case of Onofrio Panvinio (1530–1568), an Augustinian friar, to shed light on the development of history writing in early modern Rome as well as on the historiography of the papacy. Panvinio, who left few published works but many manuscripts at his death, accomplished a remarkable amount of historical research during his short life and, as Bauer demonstrates, was an important innovator in historical method. The book’s title refers to Bauer’s thesis that Panvinio’s ambitious collection of primary source material, together with his source criticism and willingness to ask hard questions about the nature of change in the Church’s past, amounted to the invention of modern papal history.
The focus on Panvinio’s life also allows insight into the pressures and opportunities faced by historians of the sixteenth century in attempting to work on church history in general and papal history in particular. Indeed, ecclesiastical interest in history was...