Documenti rari e curiosi dell'Archivio Segreto Vaticano. Vol. 1: Gli statuti dei mazzieri pontifici del 1437-The statutes of the papal mace-bearers in 1437

The college of the servientes armorum (later called the sergentes armorum and then papal mace-bearers), one of the many offices or corps of the Papal Court, was probably established in the twelfth century. It became more important in the sixteenth century only to decline in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1968, the college was abolished by Pope Paul VI. The book contains the oldest statutes of the college of papal mace-bearers written around 1436 and approved in 1437 in Bologna by Pope Eugene IV. The manuscript of these statutes is housed in the Vatican Secret Archives as part of the Apostolic Palace collection. The parchment code, with its beautiful handwriting, provides us with important information about the college of mace-bearers. We could call it a "living" code, since it was certainly used during the swearing-in ceremony of the recruits from the end of the fifteenth century until the papacy of Pope Pius IX and perhaps even afterwards. This book presents a photographic version of the manuscript with an accurate "diplomatic" transcription of the text as well as a short introductory essay on the origins and history of the curial college.