Papal MarquisFrancis Augustus MacNutt (February 15, 1863 – December 30, 1927) was anIndiana-bornCatholic writer, and American diplomat, who later became a high rankingVatican official.
Francis Augustus MacNutt was also for some time an American diplomat and a prolific writer of plays and histories. MacNutt married Margaret Ogden, grand-daughter ofClement Clarke Moore who wrote the famous Christmas poemThe Night Before Christmas, and they established themselves inRome at the Palazzo Pamphilj inPiazza Navona. Their home was the center of social life for theRoman nobility and seniorCatholic Church officials. Today, it is the Embassy of Brazil.
MacNutt was highly influential inVatican circles and was a close friend to three popes,Leo XIII,Pius X, andBenedict XV, and also to CardinalsRafael Merry del Val andMariano Rampolla, bothCardinal Secretaries of State. His influence was also known in theAustrian Imperial Court, where he established close ties with theimperial family includingEmpress Zita. He was offeredAustrian nobility as abaron but quietly refused the distinction. At the Vatican, he worked to find solutions to the "Roman Question" which kept the Vatican and theKingdom of Italy apart following Italy's seizure of thePapal States in 1870.
In 1903 MacNutt bought a small castle for himself and his wife, "Schloss Ratzotz" as asummer home atBressanone/Brixen in what is today northern Italy.
MacNutt's 1912 translation from theLatin ofPeter Martyr'sDe Orbe Novo (1530) was an important work of scholarship that modernized, moderated and improved on its only other translation into English, that ofRichard Eden from 1555.
In 1926, the year before his death, he wrote his autobiography, a two volume privately printed text, which was later edited by Father John Donovan and published in 1936 asA Papal Chamberlain: The Personal Chronicle of Francis Augustus MacNutt. The preface was written byG.K. Chesterton and the foreword byPatrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes,Archbishop of New York. It was published by Longmans, Green and Co.
He died of cancer on December 30, 1927, at Schloss Ratzotz, two years before the Vatican and the Italian Kingdom established diplomatic relations which saw the establishment of the Vatican as an independentsovereign state based on much of his ideas and work. He was buried in the graveyard ofSanta Maria am Sand in Millan nearBressanone in the largely German-speaking province ofSouth Tyrol, Italy. His headstone makes no mention of his Papal titles or accomplishments. He was buried in the habit of aThird Order Lay Franciscan.
A Papal Chamberlain: The Personal Chronicle of Francis Augustus MacNutt (1936), featuring a preface byG. K. Chesterton.
Bartholomew De Las Casas: His Life, His Apostolate, and His Writings[1] (1909)
Fernando Cortes and the Conquest of Mexico, 1485–1547 (1909)[2]
Fernando Cortes: His Five Letters of Relation to theEmperor Charles V, 1519–1526 (1908)[3]
Three Plays: Balboa, Xilona, The Victorious Duchess[4] (1916)
Martyr D'Anghera, Peter. De Orbo Novo: The Eight Decades. Trans., notes & introduction by Francis Augustus MacNutt. New York: Putnam’s Sons. 1912. Two volumes.
TheMarquis MacNutt was aKnight of St Gregory the Great, a senior Papal honour, and aPapal Chamberlain to PopesLeo XIII andPius X, the only American so appointed at the time.
