Anastasio Germonio - A multi-talented renaissance man

Anastasio Germonio was a distant ancestor of an Italian American born and raised here in the Bay Area. He was one of the outstanding Europeans of the late15th and early 16th century - a law professor, a theologian, an author, a Papal Advisor, an Archbishop, and finally an Ambassador - truly a Renaissance man.

Germonio was born in 1551 in the village of Sale Langhe, near Cuneo in Piemonte. Born of a relatively well-off family in the Duchy of Savoy, today's Piemonte, he was a lackadaisical student until a visiting nobleman whetted his appetite for education. Slated for a military profession as the second son, he balked until his mother spent her dowry to send him to school. Evidently he became a brilliant student once he applied himself, quickly learning Latin and Greek and several other classical subjects.

At a young age he obtained a lucrative church position in Sale Langhe, and then enrolled in and graduated from the University of Torino with a canon law degree. With Piemonte at the geocgraphical and religious forefront of the Church's fight against the Protestant Reformation, Germonio became a strong, public advocate of the Counter Reformation through his writings. His reputation as a theologian called him to Rome where he gained a position as a minor Papal Advisor in the Curia, the Church Administration. It was there that he began to meet and become close friend with Cardinals and even Popes.

He advised on such issues as the devine right of total Papal Authority and the need to implement the Council of Trento recommendations which strengthened church administration, management and, above all, church doctrine.
As a representative of Duke Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, who was a loyal "soldier of the Pope", a somewhat reactionary feudal lord, and an always cantankerous leader looking out for Savoy and his Royal family, Germonio in Rome helped to make Cardinals, elect Popes, and arrange marriages to benefit the House of Savoy, which ruled Piemonte and later Italy for one thousand years, one of the longest-ever European reigns.

In 1607 he was named Archbishop in Tarantasia, an important Alpine mountain region on the Piemonte/ French/ Swiss border, close to the Protestant stronghold of Geneva.
Here he met St. Francis of Sales and together they worked to maintain their region loyal to the Pope. He was Archbishop for 15 years but he spent little time in Tarantasia although he visited it when possible and con- stantly kept in contact with his parishioners, counseling them to take "the right path". In fact the Protestants never made much inroads into that region.

He spent little time in Tarantasia because in 1612 he was named Savoyard Ambassador in Madrid, one of the Duke's most important diplomatic assignments, along with the envoys to England, France and the Vatican. Interestingly enough, the Duke of Savoy happened to be the brother-in-law of the King of Spain, which should have made the assignment an easy one. However that was not to be the case; the King and the Duke, who was technically the King's vassal under the feudal system, did not always see eye to eye on the major strategical issues of the day. In fact, Germonio first went to Madrid in 1614, only to be declared persona non grata after two months, when Spain and Savoy got into a shooting war involving greater European issues and conflicts.

The war was bloody, but ended quickly with the Savoy Duchy losing territory and prestige, and with the Duke still beholden to the King. But with relations re- established the Duke sent Germonio back to Madrid in 1619 where he lived for the next seven years until he died in 1627 in Madrid.

We don't know a lot about Germonio's personal life. He seemed to be serious, an intellectual, a man of thought more than action, extremely hard-working, and devoted to his parents and siblings. He apparently never married and there is no record of his having children. He lived in comfortable but not overly ostentatious houses in both Rome and Madrid; both can be seen today.

In addition to his official diplo- matic responsibilities, he was an obsessive shopper and collector. He was apparently always broke, both because of his shopping habit, and because the Duke often failed to send a paycheck, and Germonio's church income was not enough to bear the cost of a large staff, quarters, carriages, horses, and horsemen, entertaining, and the other expenses of a large Embassy on the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Much of his diplomatic correspondence was comprised of appeals to the Duke for his salary and negotia- tions for loans with his Genoese bankers.

With regard to his shopping, there are many accounts of he being first in line when the rich Spanish galleons returned with exotic products from Macao, Goa, and the Dutch Indies, and from the Americas where Spain ruled and which made Spain the richest country in Europe. Among his favorite purchases were furniture, tapestries, silver and silverware, spices, rare birds such as parrots and parakeets, etc. In fact, when he died, penniless one must add, the Savoy Government inspector assigned to terminate Germonio's mission, remarked that the house was a veritable museum.

His Ambassadorial mission had some interesting duties, other than trying to satisfy through normal diplomatic channels the Duke's insatiable interest in enlarging the prestige of Savoy and the Duke's family, or vice versa. For instance, he was a marriage broker for the House of Savoy, always on the look-out for suitable partners for the Duke's many legitimate and illegitimate children.

One hears that Germonio always had at the ready a photo album of the eligibles -and a query of what a potential suitor might bring to the aggrandizement of the House of Savoy. Once, he showed the album to the Polish Ambassador in Madrid, hoping for some match in Catholic Eastern Europe. In addition, he seemed to be a baby-sitter, given that the Duke had sent some of his sons to Madrid to study, some would say as diplomatic hostages. And, I almost forgot to mention, he did much of his shopping for the Duke, who also was a collector.

Other than the above somewhat esoteric duties, Germonio spent his time reporting on Spanish political events and the economy, developments in the rich Spanish Empire in the Americas, the prospects of war and conflict near and far, and even on actual shooting wars within Europe. He seems to have been an effective diplomat, being personable and having an impressive group of contacts and friends, but unfortunately he was usually unable to attain the Duke's unattainable goals.

Note: Our local Italian- American, four hundred years later became in his own right a US Ambassador, not to Spain but to one of the Spanish colonies from which Germonio purchased some of his collection. One wonders whether genes can pass through a family lineage over the period of twenty generation.

Robert Pastorini
contributor