Oration “Quamvis grandes materias” by Enea Silvio Piccolomini (10 December 1450, Naples). Edited and translated by Michael von Cotta-Schönberg. (Orations of Pope Pius II; 14)

Published as part of project: Edition and Translation of the Orations of Pope Pius IIIn October 1450, Bishop Enea Silvio Piccolomini, high-ranking imperial diplomat and Bishop of Trieste, was sent by Emperor Friederich III to the Court of Naples. His mission was to negotiate the contract of marriage between the emperor and Princess Leonora of Portugal, sister of the King of Portugal, and niece of King Alfonso V of Aragon and Sicily. His oration, in the genre of the classical epithalamium, i.e. wedding oration, revived by the Italian Renaissance humanists, praised the two royal personages and their respective houses. Piccolomini also presented a view of women remarkable for its opposition to traditional misogynist views. And, finally, he praised marriage for its dignity as a God-given institution, for its utility for society and for the spouses themselves, and for its joys, including the comfort and love of one’s wife, the delights of women, and – remarkably - the pleasures of sex