The Apocalypsis Nova and early modern prophetic discourse

Abstract

At the beginning of the 16th century, some of the most important figures of Renaissance Rome gathered around a recent discovery. At the church of San Pietro in Montorio, the cardinal and ambassador de facto of the Spanish Catholic Kings, Bernardino López de Carvajal, and his most trusted acquaintances congregated in secret. There, after a private mass, the cardinal ordered to open and to read out the content of the freshly discovered manuscript. The sealed book contained the revelations allegedly given to a Franciscan friar of Portuguese origins, the so called Beato Amadeo Mendez da Silva (1420-1482), confessor of Pope Sixtus IV and a prominent member of the Franciscan order. His revelations, written in first person, are built around a series of raptures containing the conversation between Amadeo and the angel Gabriel about theological, exegetical and sacred history issues. The exact title and contents of that original manuscript are unknown: however, under the name of Apocalypsis Nova (“new revelation”), an alleged version of these raptures quickly gained great popularity and diffusion.