This is not true, De Vaticina Summis Pontificibus, written around 1280, contains modified versions of the prophecies,
"De Vaticina Summis Pontificibus" (actually Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus; the "de" is misplaced and there should be an additional "i" in "Vaticinia") is a different list of prophecies. One doesn't get to prove that the Prophecy of Malachy is legitimate by appealing to a
very different list that predated it. This would be like someone arguing that the medieval Gospel of Barnabas (a "gospel" dated to around the 14th century most likely written from a Muslim perspective) must go back to the first century because other Gospels do. If there
is any connection at all, it is more likely that the "Prophecy of St. Malachy" was simply inspired by these earlier alleged prophecies.
with the Maestà of Duccio containing the latin list of Malachys mottos in his hand. This was painted 1308–1311, way before some supposed forgery.
You appear to be getting mixed up with
a painting of Malachi, the author of the Book of Malachi, who is holding a scroll with words on it... but what is on it is not the prophecy of the popes, but rather Malachi 3:1 (in Latin). This has absolutely nothing to do with Malachy of Ireland.
This is simply untrue, the pre-1590 prophecies were as vague if not moreso; take "Ex Ansere Custode" (“From the Guardian Goose”), applying to Pope Alexander III (1159-1181), which is horrendously vague and can only be connected to Alexander III by the tortuous argument that the Pope must have been descended from the patricians who saved the Capitoline citadel from Brennus and the Gauls in 390 BC when a flock of geese sacred to Juno warned the Roman guards of a secret attack. Even this interpretation was put forward by Abbé Cucherat in 1871 and is the only attempted explanation to date. So no, clearly not all of the pre-1590 prophecies are recorded with “relative accuracy” (as Korson argued) or are even close to “spot-on accurate” (as you and Prudlo argued).
That is not "the only attempted explanation to date". The explanation given in the
original publication of the prophecies, and one given by various people afterwards, was that he was "de familia Paparona" (of the Paparoni family), which had a goose as their emblem, and the interpretation was that it was in reference to that.
Of course, the difficulty of this explanation is that there is question as to whether Alexander III was from this family, which may be why some later writers, perhaps feeling that this explanation didn't work, came up with other explanations like the tortured one you describe. But this only fits with the idea of it being a 16th century forgery: People thought that he was from this family, and then the 16th century author of the prophecy utilized this possibly mistaken belief in the prophecy. Then when people later realized this explanation could be an error, they were forced to come up with the same kind of tortured explanations as they did for the popes chosen after the publication of the prophecy.
My statement of "Perfect descriptions of things that happened prior, but harder to justify descriptions of what happened after" was perhaps oversimplistic; however, all that is necessary for this is for the person who made the prophecy to have plausibly
thought them accurate.
I also notice that this portion of your post is lifted almost word-for-word from
this blog post:
"To give an example in the first case,
Ex Ansere Custode (“From the Guardian Goose”), applying to Pope Alexander III (1159-1181), which is horrendously vague and can only be connected to Alexander III by the tortuous argument that the Pope must have been descended from the patricians who saved the Capitoline citadel from Brennus and the Gauls in 390 BC when a flock of geese sacred to Juno warned the Roman guards of a secret attack. This convoluted interpretation was put forward by Cucherat in 1871 and is the only attempted explanation to date. So clearly not all of the pre-1590 prophecies are recorded with “relative accuracy” (Korson) or are even close to “spot-on accurate” (Prudlo)."
You even have the same unnecessary second space between "Gauls" and "in". Further confirmation this is the source of this claim is its mention of the "De Vaticina Summis Pontificibus", making the exact same error in its name as you did. This being your source will be relevant in the next part of the post.
It is simply impossible that this was a forgery, as the historical account of its existance throws this theory out of the water. If you are to say that it was a forgery of Cardinal Simoncelli at the 1590 conclave, as has been theorized by detractors, one must read the history of the prophecy and realize the manuscript was discovered 34 years before the conclave of 1590, and there is good evidence to suggest that parts of the prophecy were known as early as 1280.
You here add in a claim of it being discovered 34 years before. You don't go into any explanation about what you are referring to, but it appears to be once again from the blog post I noted. I will therefore assume that is where it comes from. It claims:
"The prophecies were not discovered in 1590, but in 1556 by Augustinian historian and antiquary Onofrio Panvinio, who apparently published the first edition of the prophecies in Rome around 1557. Wion’s inclusion of them in the Lignum Vitae was more well known, but came thirty-three years after the publication by Panvinio."
It then goes on later to assert that "As we have seen above, it was Panvinio who first discovered the manuscript in the Vatican archives and remained one of the firmest believers in the prophecies." However, the blog post simply asserts this with no evidence; it offers no citations to show that he found, published, believed in, or even
knew about the prophecy.
Onofrio Panvinio did publish something in 1557, but it does not appear to be the prophecy. Rather, it is a work called "
Epitome Romanorum pontificum" which is a book going through all of the popes at the time and talking about them. My Latin skills are too lackluster to try to properly assess if there is any mention of the prohpecy in there, but there is an Index at the end, and I do not see Malachias (Latin for Malachy) listed there;
it should be between Maginulphus and Mamertina. This indicates there is no mention of him at all, let alone any prophecy of his.
Further, M.J. O'Brien,
on page 99 of his 1880 work "An Historical and Critical Account of the So-called Prophecy of St. Malachy" (which ultimately concludes it's a forgery), says this:
"Nor does the continuator of Marianus Scotus, or Bordini, or Platina, or Papyrus Masson,
or Onuphrio Panvinio, or Joannel, who wrote in 1570, say anything about them."
O'Brien notes that Panvinio (among others) does not mention the prophecies; he mentions this in other places as well in the work (O'Brien actually refers many times to Panvinio's book). If this is correct, as it at least seems to be, then quite obviously Panvinio never published them nor professed any belief in them. Perhaps O'Brien is wrong... but in that case, evidence needs to be offered that Panvinio was a supporter of them. In what writing did he express support of them, and
where in that writing? As noted, it does not appear to be in "Epitome Romanorum Pontificum", the book he
did publish in 1557.
While you do not mention it yourself, I should note that the blog post you seem to be taking this from also puts forward the assertion that the prophecies were beileved in by Girolamo Muzio and published by him in the 1570 work "Il Choro Pontifico Nel Qual Si Leggono Le Vite Del Beatissimo Papa Gregorio& Di XII Altri Santi Vescoui." (I did not introduce that "&", it was how it was written on the page) This work can be found
here (the blog post did not get the name quite right). This work, which basically gives a biography of several Catholics,
does have a section on the life of Malachy, with a title of "Vita Di Santo Malachia, Tratta da S. Bernardo Abbate di Chiaraualle" ("Life of Saint Malachy, from St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux"). At least based on this description, I assume this is a condensed version of the "Life of St. Malachy" by St. Bernard. This work by Muzio is in Italian, and my lack of Italian knowledge--compounded by the fact this is Italian from 450 years ago--makes me unable to be sure there is no mention of the prophecy here. If anyone who knows Italian can look into it and point out where it is, I'll accept it. But with the information I do have, I am doubtful for several reasons. The title indicates this is taken from the "Life of Saint Malachy" book by St. Bernard. If so, this would hardly have any mention of the prophecy, for it is admitted even by defenders of the prophecy that this is not mentioned in that work. I suppose it's possible Muzio might have added in the information, but looking through the pages regarding Malachy (303-334), it all
looks to be Italian to me, whereas if the prophecy was published, we would expect to see a change to Latin for a while. Even if Muzio was simply offering a translation of it into Italian, the lack of any format switch indicates to me that this prophecy wasn't there. I am willing to be corrected on this should anyone point me to where in this work the prophecy is listed... but for now, it seems a bust.
This brings us back to Panvinio again. As noted, neither the blog post nor anyone else I have been able to find has offered actual evidence he knew about the prophecy, let alone discovered and published and believed in it. But there
is a connection between him and the prophecies some have offered. Namely, the prophecies may have been primarily
based on Panvinio's book, as O'Brien, mentioned earlier, asserts
on pages 13-14:
"In Panvinius's Epitome, the popes' armorial bearings are given, but not in every case. When the arms are given, we usually find that they figure in the prophecy, when not given, the prophecy is a play upon, or a description fo the pope's name, country, family, or title, when cardinal. Moreover, we find in Panvinius the very same antipopes as given in the prophecy. Even when the pope's family-name, armorial bearings or cardinalic title is wrongly given by Panvinius, we find the forger of the prophecy to perfectly chime in with him. This so astounded me, the first time I looked over Panvinius's Epitome, that I was led to suspect that the prophecies might have been the work of Panvinius himself."
(O'Brien concludes that Panvinio did not make it, but believes someone relying primarily on Panvinio did)
So this assertion that they were discovered in in 1556 and published in 1557, or published anytime prior to Wion in 1595, seems to be an unsupported assertion, at least as far as I can gather. Perhaps the claim that Panvinio was a believer in them came from some kind of mix-up?
The timing is uncanny.
