“False Prophecies,” Scripture, and the Crisis of Mediation in Early Modern Rome: Sebastiano del Piombo’s Borgherini Chapel in San Pietro in Montorio

Abstract

THE ELEVENTH SESSION OF THE FIFTH LATERAN COUNCIL (1512–17), held on December 19, 1516, convened to address the subject of proper preaching in an attempt to suppress the proliferation of prophecies from clerics, mendicant preachers, and itinerant hermits claiming to have had a revelation from God. The council labeled such interpretations false prophecies, arguing that they misled laypeople and strayed from scripture. The decree Supernae majestatis praesidio stated: “Anumber of [preachers] are no longer preaching the way of the Lord in virtue and are not expounding the Gospel, as is their duty, but rather invented miracles, new and false prophecies and other frivolities hardly distinguishable from old wives’ tales.” Preachers’ claims to the status of modern prophets to sanction their heterodox views deeply disturbed the Roman curia. At the same time, churchmen such as Giles of Viterbo and Thomas Cajetan, who were involved in drafting the decree on preaching, believed in the reality of true prophecy. Thus, in its generalized attempt to rein in unauthorized biblical interpretation, the council pushed for preachers to