A analysis of nineteen century fraud and incompetence in the Papal States

What is it about?

The Papal States was a longstanding nation ruled by the Pope, the Head of the Roman Catholic Church. Its accountants included priests and laymen who were employed as bureaucrats. Despite an expectation that the finances would be carefully managed, this research from the mid-nineteenth century shows that incompetence and fraud dogged the Papal States’ latter years, contributing to it losing most of its territory in the Second War of Italian Independence from 1859, and its final demise in 1870. This prosopography of three men who held high bureaucratic positions, analyses their approach to accounting in the Papal States. It shows that waste and deficient accounting arose from individuals undertaking fraud and from organisational (and individual) incompetence. In doing so, it elucidates how the Papal States could be a ‘vehicle for fraud’, and in particular, how it was used as a shield to enable both fraud and incompetence to go unpunished.

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Why is it important?

Many studies analyse fraud from an audit point of view but this takes a systemic historical approach. Further, we allow for incompetence as a separate 'error' to add to fraud. We examine three important 'treasurers' in the Papal States' nineteenth century governance structure to highlight pitfalls that can help avert similar issues today.

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