The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, 15 May 1648
Spanish and Dutch delegates swearing the Treaty of Münster in the town hall on 15 May 1648, in a copy after Gerard ter Borch, who was present. No papal representative is in the room, and that absence is the point: the nuncio Fabio Chigi refused to take part in a settlement between a Catholic king and heretic rebels.
Innocent X condemned the Westphalian settlement in the bull Zelo domus Dei, declaring its religious clauses null and void. Nobody took any notice. The papacy had mediated at Münster through Chigi and had been steadily reduced to a spectator: the parties settled the standing of Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists among themselves, fixed 1624 as the year against which claims would be measured, and did so without asking Rome. The copy shown here is in the Rijksmuseum. See papal diplomacy at the Peace of Westphalia.
Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
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