The conclave that elected Leo X, now open at the Vatican

The first page gives the subject away in a broad, elegant hand: Conclaue Leonis Decimi Pontificis Maximi. Below it, the copy dates the vacant see to Friday, 4 March 1513. The Vatican manuscript Barb.lat.2641, a seventeenth-century copy of documents related to the conclave that elected Leo X, has now entered the library's weekly digitization stream. The Vatican's current Week 33 listing includes it among 24 manuscripts digitized after the library resumed work, while the independent Recent Vatican Manuscripts feed records the item on 17 August 2026. 12

That combination makes this a particularly good manuscript to open on a screen: the object is modest, the historical moment is enormous, and the first folio tells you exactly where to begin.

Barb.lat.2641 belongs to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vatican Apostolic Library. Its old shelfmark is XXXIII.161. The catalog describes it as Copia documenti relativi il conclave di papa Leone X — a copy of documents concerning the conclave of Pope Leo X. It is a Latin paper manuscript from the seventeenth century, measuring 290 × 200 mm and extending to 12 leaves. The catalog records the foliation as ff. I–II, 1–9, III. 3

The catalog names no author or scribe. That absence matters. Barb.lat.2641 is best approached as a documentary copy preserved for what it transmits, rather than as a signed personal account by someone inside the conclave.

Its opening words are more specific than the short English title suggests:

The line fixes the setting as the conclave for Leo X and points back to the vacancy that followed the death of Julius II. The page is a seventeenth-century hand looking back to a papal election from more than a century earlier.

The cardinals gathered on Friday, 4 March 1513. After five days of deliberation, they elected Giovanni de' Medici, who took the name Leo X. 4

Giovanni was the second son of Lorenzo de' Medici and became one of the leading Renaissance popes. His pontificate ran from 1513 to 1521; he supported the arts and expanded the Vatican Library, while the financial and religious pressures of his reign helped set the stage for the crisis that followed Martin Luther's challenge. 5

Barb.lat.2641 does not show us the cardinals voting in real time. It preserves a later copy of documents about that election. That distinction gives the manuscript its particular value: readers can see how a major political and religious event was gathered, arranged, and kept in documentary form long after the conclave itself had ended.

The opening folio, 1r, carries the large title in sweeping cursive and the date line beneath it. The rest of the page settles into dense Latin lines. A large Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana watermark crosses the lower writing, and an oval library stamp sits near the bottom edge. The page has the feel of an archive's working object rather than a decorated presentation manuscript.

Folio 1v continues the same compact script. Its lower-right oval stamp is easier to isolate against the writing, and the turn of the page makes the manuscript's physical sequence clear: this is a short, continuous dossier, not a single isolated title page. 6

The complete digitized copy is available in the Vatican's DigiVatLib viewer: browse Barb.lat.2641. Start with folio 1r, read the incipit alongside the catalog record, and then turn through the short sequence to see how the documents continue across the copy. The catalog and edition browser together provide the shelfmark, metadata, and page-by-page route for exploring the manuscript beyond the opening image. 3