Popes in RISM
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
On 8 May 2025, Robert Francis Prevost was elected the 267th head of the Roman Catholic Church. The new pope chose the name Leo XIV, and celebrated the inauguration mass of his pontificate on May 18.
Of the approximately 150,000 personal names in the RISM database, composers tend to receive the most attention. However, as is well known, RISM accounts for all the persons associated with the musical sources cataloged in its database, including lyricists, previous owners, dedicatees, performers, and so forth. In this light it comes as little surprise that no fewer than 52 popes also appear in RISM. Since they are all labeled as “pope” in the field for “profession of function,” it is also quite straightforward to find their names in the database. Here is a short list including all of them.
Of the popes with the name Leo, the RISM database only features four: Leo X, Leo XI, Leo XII, and Leo XIII.
Pope Leo X is in fact the only person in the above list who is also marked as a composer, since the chanson Cela sans plus et plus hola is attributed to him. A manuscript copy of this work has survived in a composite volume (RISM ID no. 1001178203 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online) created about 1520 and today kept in the Proskesche Musikabteilung of the Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek in Regensburg (D-Rp). But the composition also appeared in print in Venice in 1546 as part of the collection INTABULATURA | DI LAUTTO | LIBRO QUINTO (RISM ID no. 993104477 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online).
Leo XI (1535-1605) appears in RISM as a dedicatee, although at the time when Vincenzo Ruffo’s Salmi suavissimi et devotissimi (RISM ID no. 990056350 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online) were dedicated to him, he was still known as Alessandro dei Medici, Bishop of Pistoia. Indeed, his later term of office as pope lasted only 26 days.
Image: Papa Leo X., Cela sans plus et plus hola, Manuscript copy in D-Rp C 120, f. 26 (RISM ID no. 1001178203 - RISM Catalog | RISM Online). Available online (public domain).
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