'Incredibly rare' conclave documents held at Scots library

The Herald Scotland

11-05-2025

The 69-year-old was elevated to pontiff relatively quickly, after just two days of conclave, but the inner workings of the election remain opaque despite renewed interest following 2024's Oscar winning film on the subject.
Research by a scholar at the University of St Andrews has shed light on documents dating back to the 1655 conclave, including unused ballots which would usually be incinerated.
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Katherine Tycz, a Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the Universal Short Title Catalogue, tells The Herald: "It's incredibly rare, I think this collection is probably one of the best-preserved and largest collections of print produced by the Vatican in this period outside of Italy.
'To have conclave documents is incredibly rare, they were burning them from at least the 15th Century. The smoke signal came a bit later, but they were burning the ballots to preserve secrecy from an early period.
"I think the reason they do survive is they were either extras or they were samples, because they're not filled out. They must have kept some extras around for when they needed to print them again so they'd know what they should look like.
'They would have been using a hand press and having to set the bed of it with the movable type, the different designs that you see on the ballot would have had to have the lines set with individual pieces of type, so it was quite a laborious process. A tally sheet from the 1655 papal conclave featuring the Latin names of the cardinals. Crawford.B.16(3). Reproduced with permission from materials on loan to the National Library of Scotland from the Balcarres Heritage Trust (Image: National Library of Scotland)
'These are just single sheet items so they'd have been printed fairly quickly, but the use of the two colours on the tally sheet was another step to the process you'd have to print each colour individually unless you were a very skilled printer. You can see they wanted to make these look nice even if they were going to be burned.
'It's a very special thing to have these survive – talking about something that has happened in the conclave is punishable by excommunication, so to have any surviving evidence is really special.'
The 1655 conclave was an impactful one, even allowing a woman, Olimpia Maidalchini, to address the cardinals.
The favourite to be elected was Giulio Cesare Sacchetti, France's preferred candidate, but his papacy was opposed by Spain and by the people of Rome who devised a ditty: "Non fate Papa Sacchetti, se no Roma sarà a pezzetti" - don't make Sacchetti pope or Rome will be in pieces.
He'd failed to be elected in the conclave of 1644 and 11 years later could not get past 33 votes from the 64 cardinals, well short of the two-thirds majority he needed.
As a result the conclave went on for close to three months, with some younger cardinals resorting to pranks for their own amusement.
This would prove to have tragic consequences when a younger cardinal, who had dressed himself as a ghost, frightened cardinal Pier Luigi Carafa so badly that he collapsed on the cold marble floor and, allegedly, developed the pneumonia which would kill him.
Sachetti eventually realised he could not win and urged electors loyal to France to vote for Fabio Chigi, Pope Alexander VII, instead as a compromise candidate.
The ballots at the National Library of Scotland reflect the lengthy process, featuring as they do space for election by accessus.
A now discontinued 'second preference' way of voting which would allow cardinals to change their choice in the second round, it was abandoned at the 1903 conclave as it eliminated the secrecy of the first ballot.
Four voting slips for the election of a pope, with space for the name and their signa. B.41 (15). Reproduced with permission from materials on loan to the National Library of Scotland from the Balcarres Heritage Trust (Image: National Library of Scotland) Dr Tycz explains: "They would write their names on it and it would be folded over so they wouldn't be immediately visible, but it would have their name and a phrase that would identify them, called the signa.
'In the first round of voting, which was called the 'scrutiny', they would write their signa on the ballot and in the next round they'd match them up to make sure someone wasn't giving a candidate an extra vote. The accessus would be a changed vote, and that was the way to confirm it was a changed vote.
'That was what the ballot sheet was for, there would have been a slightly different version for the first round which doesn't survive in great quantities and is very difficult to find images of."
Given how rare materials from a papal conclave are, it's perhaps surprising that the papers ended up in Scotland rather than being locked away in a Vatican vault.
Dr Tycz says: "The collection was acquired by the Earl of Crawford in the late 19th Century from the Borghese family, there was a Borghese Pope in the early 17th Century.
'The Borghese family collected these kinds of items, probably to keep some kind of family record, and they were sold to the Earl of Crawford.
'They're currently on loan to the National Library of Scotland from the family, they've been catalogued really well and been made very accessible for researchers to go and see them.
'It's a really great resource for us as scholars.'