Heresy, Culture, and Religion in Early Modern Italy: Contexts and Contestations 9780271090795

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Heresy, Culture, and Religion in Early Modern Italy

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Habent sua fata libelli

SIXTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS & STUDIES SERIES General Editor RAYMOND A. MENTZER University of Iowa EDITORIAL BOARD OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS & STUDIES ELAINE BEILIN Framingham State College MIRIAM U. CHRISMAN University of Massachusetts, Emerita

HELEN NADER University of Arizona CHARLES G. NAUERT University of Missouri, Emeritus

BARBARA B. DIEFENDORF Boston University

THEODORE K. RABB Princeton University

PAULA FINDLEN Stanford University

MAX REINHART University of Georgia

SCOTT H. HENDRIX Princeton Theological Seminary JANE CAMPBELL HUTCHISON University of Wisconsin–Madison RALPH KEEN University of Iowa ROBERT M. KINGDON University of Wisconsin, Emeritus MARY B. MCKINLEY University of Virginia

SHERYL E. REISS Cornell University JOHN D. ROTH Goshen College ROBERT V. SCHNUCKER Truman State University, Emeritus NICHOLAS TERPSTRA University of Toronto MARGO TODD University of Pennsylvania

MERRY WIESNER-HANKS University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

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Copyright 2006 by Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri All rights reserved. Published 2006. Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies Series tsup.truman.edu

Cover Illustration: Lorenzo Lotto, detail of Sant’ Antonio Altarpiece (1541–42), oil on panel. Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, photo courtesy of Art Resource. Cover and title page design: Teresa Wheeler Type: Minion Pro Printed by Thomson-Shore, Dexter, Michigan USA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heresy, culture, and religion in early modern Italy : context and contestations / editors, Ronald D. Delph, Michelle M. Fontaine, and John Jeffries Martin. p. cm. — (Sixteenth century essays & studies ; v. 76) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-931112-58-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-931112-58-4 (alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-935503-42-2 (e-book) 1. Italy—Church history—16th century. I. Delph, Ronald K. II. Fontaine, Michelle. III. Martin, John Jeffries, 1951– IV. Series. BR875.H47 2006 274.5'06—dc22 2006017430

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher.

∞ The paper in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

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For Elisabeth Gleason

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Contents

List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi Introduction RENOVATIO AND REFORM IN EARLY MODERN ITALY . . . . . . 1 John Jeffries Martin

Part One Chapter 1

REFORMERS AND HERETICS: NEW PERSPECTIVES . . . . . . . . . . 19 LORENZO LOTTO AND THE REFORMATION IN VENICE . . . . . 21 Massimo Firpo

Chapter 2

MAKING HERESY MARGINAL IN MODENA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Michelle M. Fontaine

Chapter 3

RUMORS OF HERESY IN MANTUA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Paul V. Murphy

Part Two Chapter 4

CULTURE AND RELIGION: THE CONTEXTS OF REFORM . . . . 69 RENOVATIO, REFORMATIO, AND HUMANIST AMBITION IN ROME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Ronald K. Delph

Chapter 5

AN ERASMIAN LEGACY: ECCLESIASTES AND THE REFORM OF PREACHING AT TRENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Frederick J. McGinness

Chapter 6

THE TURBULENT LIFE OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNITY IN VENICE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Paolo Simoncelli

Chapter 7

GASPARO CONTARINI AND THE UNIVERSITY OF PADUA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Paul F. Grendler

Chapter 8

VENICE AND JUSTICE: SAINT MARK AND MOSES . . . . . . . . . 151 Marion Leathers Kuntz

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Part Three Chapter 9

THE VICISSITUDES OF REPRESSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 THE INQUISITOR AS MEDIATOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Silvana Seidel Menchi

Chapter 10 THE EXPURGATORY POLICY OF THE CHURCH AND THE WORKS OF GASPARO CONTARINI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Gigliola Fragnito Chapter 11 THE HERESY OF A VENETIAN PRELATE: ARCHBISHOP FILIPPO MOCENIGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Elena Bonora Chapter 12 LEGAL REMEDIES FOR FORCED MONACHIZATION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Anne Jacobson Schutte An Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 John W. O’Malley Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

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Illustrations

Lorenzo Lotto, Christ and the Adulteress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Proemio di Andrea Gritti, Libro d’oro, Maggior Consiglio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Ducal Palace, Piazzetta, first column. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Tobias Stimmer, Gasparo Contarini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

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Preface Early modern Italian history has emerged as a major field of study over the last few decades. Only thirty years ago, a famous scholar called the era that fell between the Renaissance and the Risorgimento the “forgotten centuries.” Today, by contrast, early modern Italy has become the focus of intense study in numerous fields: art history, the history of science, the history of the state, intellectual history, and, not least of all, the history of Christianity. This volume is concerned with struggles within the dominant religious culture of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In preparing this anthology, we became acutely aware that the traditional framework of Reformation and Counter-Reformation—or of innovation and repression—within which many scholars had previously approached this period, was no longer adequate. To be sure, few historians have ever doubted that in this period Italy was full of intellectual and cultural energy; but the Roman Catholic Church established the Inquisition, placed suspicious or possibly subversive texts on an Index of Prohibited Books, burned Giordano Bruno in Rome in 1600, and confined the eloquent court astronomer Galileo to house arrest in 1633 for having maintained too forcefully that the earth was not, as many then taught, at the center of the universe, but rather a moving planet that revolved around the sun. Whatever intellectual energies there were in Italy in this period, therefore, were harshly repressed; and France, Holland, and England emerged as the most dynamic cultures in Europe at this time. The counterpoint between reason and reform on the one hand and repression and intolerance on the other makes for a seductively appealing story, but, as the contributions in this anthology make clear, new research has challenged this perspective. The early modern men and women who appeared to be at odds with one another were often close friends; ideas that were heterodox at one period were considered entirely orthodox at another; institutions that seemed repressive were at times centers of mediation and compromise; and, perhaps most important, the reforms in religion in this period must now be seen in a larger context of social upheaval and vast cultural changes on a variety of fronts: educational, artistic, scientific, and literary. In short, it now no longer seems possible to view the history of Italy in this period as one in which social forces or religious parties were clearly defined. The essays in this volume represent these new perspectives. The contributors include two generations of Italian and American scholars. And, while there is no xi

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new consensus that emerges from the works published here, we emerge from this project more convinced than ever that each particular reform movement in Italy—both from the perspective of the reformers and from the perspective of those who sought to either repress them or find other ways to bring them back into the mainstream of Italian piety—must be understood within particular social and political contexts. It is our hope, finally, that this new perspective will serve as a guide to the future studies of religion and cultural change in early modern Italy.


We put this anthology together in the age of e-mail and conference calls. In this high-speed world of instant communication, we have nonetheless had a bit of time to reflect on the fact that, despite profound differences from the religious and scholarly world that existed in Italy many centuries ago, we have much in common with the persons we study. Like sixteenth-century humanists, reformers, and church officials, we too are merely trying our best to make sense of the past and, through the study of the past, to make better sense of the world in which we live. It has been a pleasure for us to deepen our friendships while putting this book together, but each of us is also mindful that we have done this not in isolation from life but in the midst of it. One of us, after careful thought and deliberation, made a major change of emphasis in priorities, moving from the large lecture hall of the university to the smaller classroom of a private secondary school; the other two have felt the strain of trying to explain to their young children that they were busy, of all things, “working on the sixteenth century.” For all our friends and family who have been supportive of this enterprise, we are extremely grateful. And we offer a special note of appreciation to T. C. Price Zimmermann for his help with the translation of Paolo Simoncelli’s essay. Finally, it is our special pleasure to dedicate this volume to Elisabeth Gleason. Elisabeth Gleason’s formal scholarly contributions to this field are well known, first through her nuanced studies of Italian evangelism and especially through her splendid biography of the Venetian humanist, reformer, and cardinal, Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542). Indeed, her Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform (1993) has set a new standard in our field. But published work is only one index of a scholar’s influence. We all know her as a master of many languages. She was born in Belgrade, she attended school in Germany, and she had family in Austria. Her Italian is perfect, and she is a superb Latinist. But it was more than this background that made her a bridge between the American and the European worlds: it was also her lively, cosmopolitan interest in the culture on both sides of the Atlantic. She has done more than anyone in her generation to foster relationships and friendships between American and Italian scholars, many of whom have contributed to this HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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anthology. Perhaps her most decisive influence has been her encouragement of her students and younger colleagues. As a mentor and teacher, Elisabeth has listened to many young scholars over the years; she has helped them (and us) reformulate our dissertations, rethink our conference papers, and craft our first publications. She has always done so with courtesy, encouragement, and an uncanny ability to enable her colleagues to rethink some of their most basic assumptions. It is our hope that this volume can serve as a collective expression of our gratitude to Elisabeth for all that she has done to develop the field of the study of religion in early modern Italy. Ronald K. Delph Michelle M. Fontaine John Jeffries Martin

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Introduction

RENOVATIO AND REFORM IN EARLY MODERN ITALY John Jeffries Martin

IN THE LATE 1540S THE HUMANIST Agostino Steuco—Vatican librarian, learned scholar of the Hebrew Bible, and a reformer deeply critical of the widespread corruption of the clergy—put forth an ambitious program for refurbishing and restoring the grandeur of Rome. At the core of his proposal was the renewal of the Via Lata. Over the centuries, this impressive avenue had become overgrown, its once stately monuments reduced to ruins. Steuco envisioned refurbishing this boulevard, the present-day Via del Corso, as a restoratio imperii that would bring glory to his pontiff and patron Pope Paul III. The renewal project Steuco imagined would, in short, reestablish an impressive avenue reaching from the Porta del Popolo to the Capitoline, the ritual center of the ancient city. Along the way there would be “three majestic water fountains whose waters would soar skyward.”1 No mere idealist, Steuco sought to persuade the pope that such an undertaking was possible. Furnishing enough waters for the fountains he proposed along the boulevard that was now to be called the Via Pauli would require the repair of the Aqua Virgo, one of the city’s ancient aqueducts. At the time, no one was certain of the precise location of its source. Determined to uncover the springs that fed the aqueduct, Steuco took a sabbatical from his post as Vatican librarian and set out on an expedition into the Roman countryside east of the city. His on-site archeological investigations proved as thorough as his meticulous textual scholarship. He made a positive identification of the source. With this expedition his desire for renewal had taken him literally ad fontes—not merely to the original texts of biblical and humanist scholarship (the primary sources that were the passion of humanists eager to strip away what they perceived as the corruptions of 1Delph, “Renovatio, Reformatio, and Humanist Ambition in Rome,” in this volume.

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the intervening centuries) but also to the natural springs in the Roman campagna that had once served as a major source of the water supply of ancient Rome. Steuco, as Ronald Delph has shown in a number of exemplary studies (including one in this volume), was a figure of enormous complexity.2 A brilliant textual scholar keen on reforming a corrupt clergy, he was at the same time an ardent opponent of other brilliant textual scholars who, equally concerned by clerical corruption, proposed fundamentally different solutions to the problems confronting the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century. To many of these humanists, reform required a rethinking of both the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of them believed that such reforms could be brought about within the framework of the Catholic Church itself. But Steuco broke company with these reformers over the matter of discipline. First he deplored the way in which they (and others like them) aired their concerns publicly. To Steuco, such criticisms—even if justified—were to remain part of a closed conversation among the clerical elites. With some justification, he was deeply fearful of the implications of spreading the criticisms of the church among the “uneducated”—as the popular turmoil in contemporary Germany seemed to caution.3 But he also opposed the emphasis that Erasmus (a humanist whose methods he otherwise admired) and Luther placed on interiority, with a concomitant de-emphasis on the exterior cult of the church’s rituals: appeals to saints, pilgrimages, auricular confession, and so on. For, to Steuco, as to many other Catholic reformers in this period, it was precisely the exterior cult that formed the basis of the religious discipline that he and others viewed as essential to the preservation not only of popular piety but of the social order itself. From Steuco’s perspective, there was little wrong with Rome’s traditional beliefs and practices per se—what they required was renewal in light of the purest versions of these traditions. Thus his expedition into the Roman countryside might be read as a metaphor for his lifelong search for the actual sources of Rome’s religious and political greatness. It might also be seen as a key to understanding a fundamental component of the culture of renovatio and reform in the sixteenth century. Steuco was every bit as intent on reform as Erasmus and Luther. Indeed, for nearly all reformers, renewal meant a return ad fontes. But in Italy, as elsewhere in sixteenth-century Europe, proponents of reform were often partisans of fundamentally different ideals or models of the church: Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, evangelical, Anabaptist, or anti-Trinitarian. Moreover, nothing was fixed about the beliefs, the positions, or the ideologies of sixteenth-century Italian reformers. This 2 In addition to the essay cited in note 1, see Delph, “Polishing the Papal Image” ; Delph, “Venetian Visitor to Curial Humanist,” 126–27; and Delph, “Valla Grammaticus.” 3Seidel Menchi (Erasmo in Italia, 54) highlights Steuco’s concern that theological discussion be “circoscritta ai sapienti.”

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was an age not only of conviction but also of contestations or arguments among reformers and of constantly shifting loyalties and beliefs—as well as of spiritual journeys that could lead an individual through an intricate array of beliefs and practices, even at times outside Christianity altogether and into Judaism or Islam. The landscape of sixteenth-century Italian reform had few fixed boundaries, even after the bishops who had gathered at the Council of Trent (1545–63) issued their formal decrees aimed at clarifying the lines between orthodoxy and heresy in the Catholic world. The most traditional approach to the religious history of sixteenth-century Italy made little room for this complexity. To the contrary, it was—as the early histories of the Counter-Reformation in Italy portrayed it—a period of vast ecclesiastical reform, largely orchestrated from the highest circles of the Italian clerical elites, that fundamentally transformed the church and society for better or worse, depending on the scholar’s point of view. In this narrative, the history of Italian reformers, who either were Protestants themselves or seemed sympathetic to Protestant teachings, was of little significance. They were dismissed as a tiny minority, whose ideas were out of step with the powerful spiritual currents of their time. The obverse of this approach—the origins of which are to be found in the writings of such late nineteenth-century scholars as Karl Benrath and Emilio Comba—highlighted, often in a heroic narrative, the history of those few heretics or dissidents. In this view, the Reformation did penetrate Italy, and many reformers (Bernardino Ochino, Pietro Martire Vermigli, Pier Paolo Vergerio), inspired by such figures as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, sought to bring about a renewal of Christianity along largely Protestant lines. But they necessarily failed as the triumphant church of the Counter-Reformation rooted them out through denunciations, inquisitorial trials, the burning of heretical texts, and the control of bookshops and publishers. Yet, despite the fact that these two approaches examined the religious history of the Italian peninsula from fundamentally opposing perspectives, they proved to be different sides of the same coin. Both models— whose basic frameworks still shape much thinking on the history of this period— resulted in a dichotomy that radically oversimplified the history of spiritual reform by suggesting that this topic should be approached in largely dualistic or even contrapuntal terms. In the mid-twentieth century this dichotomy broke down. In his short but influential book, Katholische Reformation oder Gegenreformation, the German scholar Hubert Jedin (1900–1980), who is best known for his three-volume history of the Council of Trent, made a compelling case that many of the reform initiatives in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy had not developed as reactions to the Protestant Reformation—that is, that many aspects of the reform initiatives in Italy in this period were not driven by what had traditionally been called a HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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“Counter-Reformation” but rather had developed from some of the same social and cultural tensions that had produced the Reformation. Accordingly Jedin grouped such movements as the establishment of the Oratory of Divine Love and the Theatines as well as the Fifth Lateran Council under the rubric “Catholic Reform.” In this same period, though slightly earlier, a similar shift took place in the study of the Italian “Reformation.” In his magisterial study Eretici italiani del Cinquecento, the Italian historian Delio Cantimori (1904–66) made it clear that many of the heretical ideas that had previously been seen as offshoots of German or Swiss Protestantism were neither Lutheran nor Zwinglian nor Calvinist in any formal sense. To the contrary, the proponents of these ideas were, as Cantimori put it in a famous phrase, “rebels against any form of ecclesiastical organization.”4 In addition, Cantimori stressed the originality of their thought, which he linked explicitly to Italian traditions and ideas of the Renaissance. Though looking at fundamentally different facets of the religious life in sixteenth-century Italy, Jedin and Cantimori presented compelling and complementary new models that enabled a far more nuanced picture of the Italian religious landscape to emerge.5 Jedin made it plain that early modern Catholicism could not be reduced to the Counter-Reformation, that the impulses for spiritual and ecclesiastical reform (within the Catholic world) were much broader. In a similar fashion, Cantimori’s arguments made it impossible to reduce the Italian reform movement to Protestantism, and he too made it clear that the range of religious ideals among the heretics was much wider than earlier scholars had recognized. Together, therefore, these works had the effect of making it possible for students of sixteenth-century Italy to recognize that the spectrum of religious reform was both broad and rich in color. To be sure, it was still possible to identify individuals in Italy who were proponents of Lutheran or Calvinist ideas as well as a number of prelates who adopted theological ideas and institutional strategies that are best understood primarily, if not exclusively, as reactions to Protestantism and for whom, therefore, the term “Counter-Reformation” is not inappropriate. But these two groups represent only certain tendencies within a much broader array of beliefs and efforts for reform. Moreover, many individuals in Italy did not adhere exclusively to one position. Many reformers, for example, shifted their positions over time, in response to both social and personal (or psychological) factors. Finally—and this is a complication that is the root of so many of the debates within the study of the reform movements in Italy in this period—proponents of the Catholic Reformation and prominent figures active in movements in Italy that were either explicitly heretical

4Cantimori, Eretici italiani del Cinquecento, viii. 5For a fascinating discussion of Jedin’s and Cantimori’s relationship, see O’Malley, Trent and All That, 78–82.

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or that eventually came to be defined as heretical often overlapped and influenced one another. In short, the religious map of Italy in this period is not only complex; it is full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and contestations. To a large degree, scholars of the Italian reform movements have been working within this intricate and often confusing framework ever since. At first, especially in the ecumenical climate of Vatican II (1962–65), there was a tendency to emphasize the central role of what came to be called evangelism—a loosely defined set of ideas that were seen as conciliatory, largely inspired by the writings of Saint Paul, sympathetic to many of Luther’s teachings and yet committed to trying to bring about a reform within the Roman Catholic Church.6 Early studies emphasized the significance of a number of the major reformers in this group: Gasparo Contarini, Gianmatteo Giberti, Marcantonio Flaminio, Reginald Pole, and Vittoria Colonna. In much of the historiography, these figures have come to be known as the spirituali, in contrast to those more hard-line reformers such as Giampietro Caraffa, Michele Ghislieri, and Scipione Rebiba who sought to clamp down on any manifestation of sympathy with the Protestant Reformation, who supported a vast, centralizing reorganization of the Roman Inquisition and the careful control of the circulation of printed matter up and down the peninsula— supporters, that is, of a Counter-Reformation whom scholars have often grouped together under the label zelanti or intransigenti. It was originally believed, moreover, that the climate after the early 1540s, following the death of Contarini and the flight of Ochino (discussed below in the essay by Paul Murphy) as well as the founding of the Jesuits, the refurbishing of the Roman Inquisition, and the convocation of the Council of Trent, marked a major turning point in the religious history of the peninsula as hopes for significant reform faded, and the intransigent party gained control of the church. This certainly was the chronology that Cantimori himself favored, judging from his book Prospettive di riforma ereticale italiana del Cinquecento (1960), his concise overview of the period. It is a chronology, moreover, that continues to inform much of the Italian scholarship on this topic. But more recent work, especially by scholars in North America, has challenged many aspects of this paradigm. As Anne Jacobson Schutte has pointed out in an influential essay, the newer scholarship devoted to the history of the religious life of the peninsula has demonstrated that not all hope for reform was lost in the 1540s. To the contrary, scholars have found compelling evidence for the existence—despite the increasingly repressive measures of the church—of wellorganized and well-connected heretical groups active in Italy down to the 1580s.7 6Gleason, “On the Nature of Sixteenth-Century Italian Evangelism.” 7Schutte, “Periodization of Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious History,” 269–84.

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In addition, historians have grown increasingly uncertain of the traditional terminology used to understand this period. The term “evangelism” appears to be of little use; while at the same time the recent works of Massimo Firpo and Silvana Seidel Menchi have opened up more productive avenues for research by structuring the study of heterodox ideas and movements not around such modern categories as evangelism but rather on the basis of the careful reconstruction of the ways in which the ideas of Erasmus and the Spanish exile Juan de Valdés animated particular individuals and groups, even as their followers—both moderate and radical—modified their ideas and adapted them to fit often quite diverse programs of reform.8 Finally, not everyone agrees that it is possible to group the reformers into a party of spirituali on the one hand, and a party of zelanti or intransigenti on the other.9 In a similar fashion, students of early modern Catholicism in Italy—as many of the essays in this volume demonstrate—have continued to develop a far more nuanced history of those reformers who were committed to a Catholic and then to a Counter-Reformation. An especially fruitful avenue of research has been in the analysis of episcopal reform. Inspired in part by the work of such leading Italian scholars as Adriano Prosperi and Paolo Prodi, whose studies of Gianmatteo Giberti and Gabriele Paolotti offered a sympathetic picture of reforming bishops both prior to and after the Council of Trent, this new scholarship of the reform movements within early modern Catholicism examines such issues as pastoral care, preaching, diocesan administration, and attempts by bishops to mediate between the centralizing demands of the papacy and the local concerns of the diocese.10 In addition, many scholars have explored the history of the new religious orders of the sixteenth century, underscoring on the basis of newer methods in social history the degree to which these movements were responses to significant changes in Italian society that appear to have prompted an intense concern on the part of laymen and laywomen to be more directly and intensely involved in the religious life of their towns and cities.11 A final tendency in this new scholarship has been to recover certain parallels between the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, viewing both through the lens of a European-wide process of Konfessionalisierung or “confessionalization” and demonstrating the degree to which both were motivated by the efforts on the part of elites to develop new forms of social discipline and civility. 12 8See Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia; and Firpo, Dal sacco di Roma all’inquisizione. 9See, for example, Hudon, “Religion and Society in Early Modern Italy.” 10Prosperi, Tra evangelismo e controriforma;

and Prodi, Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti.

11Black, Italian Confraternities. 12For applications of this model to Italy, see my chapter and the one by Schutte in Early Modern Italy, ed. Marino, 125–42.

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On several counts, the essays in this volume engage questions and issues posed by the most recent scholarship on the history of reform in early modern Italy. They do so primarily, and impressively, through the authors’ abilities to escape the tyranny of the older categories that had long shaped the general history of the reform movements in the sixteenth century. Indeed, in this volume, one can see emerging a further perspective on the history of the reform in Italy. If the last fifty years have been preeminently concerned with developing increasingly differentiated analyses of the variety of the reform movements in the sixteenth century, more recent studies have begun to stress the degree to which religious ideas must be examined in their particular political or social contexts. Elisabeth Gleason’s recent biography of Gasparo Contarini, undoubtedly one of the most engaging figures of this period, is an outstanding example of this new scholarship.13 Thus the emphasis of these authors rather falls squarely on the context of particular reformers. They attend to the social, intellectual, political, and cultural milieux in which particular ideas developed.

ESCAPING OLD CATEGORIES Paul Murphy’s study of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua, is exemplary in this respect. Murphy makes it clear that the efforts by scholars to place Gonzaga into either one camp or another—that is, either to view him (largely on the basis of his friendship with Contarini) as a fellow traveler among the spirituali or to see him (because of his “ruthless repression” of heretics in his diocese) as representative rather of the party of the intransigenti—is no longer productive. In place of these categories, Murphy makes the valuable suggestion that Gonzaga be viewed rather as a “patrician reformer,” a characterization that places him much closer in outlook to Agostino Steuco than his friendships with such major figures of the Italian reform movement as Bernardino Ochino and Pier Paolo Vergerio would imply. For Gonzaga was comfortable with theological discussions with these reformers so long as they remained discrete, limited to the cardinal’s entourage. But, when they crossed the line and became public, involving ordinary priests and laymen, Gonzaga bristled. Though much more open than Steuco to new theological ideas represented by such figures as Erasmus, Pole, Contarini, Ochino, and Vergerio, Gonzaga was equally fearful of the consequences of the open discussion of these ideas. Both as a wealthy nobleman whose nephews were the dukes of Mantua and as a leading ecclesiastic, he believed he had a responsibility to preserve the social order that, in his view, the new ideas could easily upset were they too widely diffused among the popolo. 13Gleason, Gasparo Contarini.

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In a similar fashion, Massimo Firpo, one of Italy’s leading scholars of the religious reform movements of the sixteenth century, explores the difficulty of placing such a figure as the Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto—best known as a prolific painter of portraits—in a fixed religious category. Many scholars have viewed Lotto as “firmly bound to the Catholic faith,” while others argue for a Lotto who “was open to heterodox doctrines.” While Firpo’s solution in part reflects an emphasis on the social context of Lotto when he was evidently most outspoken about his “heretical” ideas—namely, during the 1540s when he had such close contact with Venetian jewelers, many of whom were, in fact, heretics—Firpo places more emphasis on the dynamic shifts in the religious culture from the 1520s to the 1550s. Thus we find with Lotto, as with so many of the “heretics” of the sixteenth century, a complex religious journey, now embracing, now rejecting certain beliefs as both his personal circumstances and the larger ecclesiastical and political situation changed.14 Finally, Paolo Simoncelli’s study of the exiled Florentine community in midsixteenth-century Venice points to a further set of ideological struggles, largely political, that undoubtedly colored the experience of religious reformers in this period. Many of the Florentine exiles in Venice and the Veneto were republican in sentiment and, therefore, strongly opposed to the Medici and the power they held over Tuscany after their restoration in 1530. Yet the reach of the Medici into Venice was powerful, and they sought to find ways to clarify which Florentines were their enemies and were not. Fissures opened up within the exile community. While Simoncelli gives his primary emphasis to the political struggles, there was no doubt a tendency for the Florentine exiles who favored republicanism to be among those most open to the new religious ideas of the day. While the contributions by Murphy, Firpo, and Simoncelli grapple with the problem of locating individuals in relation to particular ideologies frequently associated with the Reformation on the one hand, and the Counter-Reformation on the other, Marion Kuntz’s contribution casts light on further dimensions of the religious life of Italy in this period that certainly transcend the traditional categories. In particular, by examining the iconographic and ideological associations of the Venetian Republic with ideals of justice that were rooted in biblical history, Kuntz opens up yet another space for the exploration of religious discourse in Italy. Thus, she is able to show how thinkers such as Guillaume Postel and Dionisio Gallo were able to draw on Venetian traditions in the elaboration of their prophetic ideals, even if they ultimately would come to be seen as heretics by the Venetian authorities—evidence perhaps that in Venice as in much of early mod14On the tendency of many of the Italian “heretics” to drift from one belief to another, often ultimately returning to the Catholic Church, see Martin, “Spiritual Journeys.”

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ern Europe, the prophetic and charismatic strains of Christianity were seen as threatening to the social and moral order.

PRUDENT AND PERSUASIVE CONVERSATIONS Reformers not only worried about the spread of ideas among the popolo; they also developed careful strategies to render their own speech prudent, not calling attention to their dissent but rather approaching the question of religious reform with caution, in ways that would keep them from calling attention to themselves. In many respects, the great theorist of prudence in the sixteenth century was Erasmus. To be sure, he was hardly alone in the emphasis he placed on prudentia, but his writings in their subtle ambiguities were exquisite examples of this virtue. Scholars have long known that Erasmus was primarily concerned, in his critiques of the Roman Church, with urging theologians and the clergy to return to the gospel, to make Christ the center of their teachings. For this reason, his teachings were influential among both Protestant and Catholic reformers, even as he himself often disagreed with the ways in which others made use of his ideas. He argued with Luther over freedom of the will, and he resented the emphasis that many scholastically trained theologians in the Catholic Church placed on matters of the exterior cult that he himself viewed as largely irrelevant to Christian piety. In his contribution to this volume, Frederick McGinness turns to an Erasmian text that few scholars would have the stamina to tackle: the compendious Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi of 1535. In this work, a treatise on preaching, Erasmus not only offers a vision of the preacher as a teacher of the Gospels; he also develops a theory of prudential speech. To be sure, he doesn’t hesitate to offer advice on how to use a variety of rhetorical methods to drive home one’s sermons. But Erasmus, like Steuco upon whom he exercised such a profound influence, was insistent that the preacher return ad fontes; that his starting point be the love of the Gospels and the letters of Saint Paul; that he would be wise to make use of the earliest Greek commentators such as Origin, Basil, and Chrysostom, rather than the scholastic commentators who came later and who distorted the teachings of Jesus through their preoccupation with fine points of doctrine and theology—the source, in Erasmus’s view, of disputatious chatter. Erasmus’s ideal of reform, therefore, was one of restoring the church to its original purpose—to fill the hearts of Christians with the love of God and encourage them to act (with God’s grace) virtuously in this world so that they might be saved in the next. Accordingly, Erasmus’s theory of preaching constituted a form of religious prudence and attempted to create a realm that was reconciliatory, a language upon which all Christians, even after the start of the Reformation, could agree. It was, moreover, a form of persuasio or persuasion, a prudential language that would bring listeners to Christ. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Ironically, Erasmus’s ideas—while highly influential among many of the Italian heretics—were at the same time important to the bishops and other prelates who gathered at Trent. McGinness makes a compelling argument that it was this treatise on preaching that shaped the Tridentine decrees on preaching, first drafted in 1546. Many Italian reformers exercised a similar prudence in their speech. This was, in fact, a hallmark of the spirituali whose positions in the higher circles of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (as bishops and cardinals) made it essential that they be guarded in their statements about doctrine. For them, Erasmus provided an essential model. This prudence took on an especially intriguing function in the pastoral work of Egidio Foscarari, Giovanni Morone’s successor as the bishop of Modena. Foscarari went out of his way to control the spread of heresy in his city in the 1550s. He did so—as Michelle Fontaine makes clear in her contribution to this volume—not through repressive measures but through a carefully orchestrated process of mediation. Deeply influenced—whether directly or indirectly is unknown—by Contarini’s vision of the duties of a bishop, Foscarari came to view his personal relationships with the Modenese as the linchpin of his episcopacy. Rather than winning them over to orthodoxy through repression, he sought to win them over through the cultivation of trusting relationships and his own persuasive skills. His social connections to many of the leading families of the diocese made this task all the easier. Understanding well that his superiors in Rome viewed Modena as a cauldron of heretical ideas, he was able to convince many of his friends that they would do better to abjure their heretical beliefs privately to him rather than risk a trial in the Inquisition. Remarkably, because Foscarari kept notes of his encounters with those he brought back into the fold, it is possible to know with relative certainty that he managed—through these prudent conversations—to help his friends avoid the scandal that a more public trial would have caused. Unhappily (and ironically) Foscarari’s book of abjurations fell into the hands of his successor, who used it as a tool of repression, bringing many of those whom Foscarari had privately reconciled to trial before the Holy Office in Modena. Clearly, at least in the case of Modena, by the 1560s, the religious climate had grown far more restrictive and less tolerant than it had been earlier in the century.

REFORM AND ITS RELATION TO HUMANISM AND SCIENCE While scholars have long focused on the relation of reform to humanism, several of the essays in this volume point to relatively new territory, at least in American scholarship, namely, the close connections between reform ideas and the study of natural philosophy as well as such subjects as astronomy, botany, civil engineering, and medicine. Given the larger context of the intellectual history of the period, HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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this should not surprise us. After all, in 1543, not long before Agostino Steuco traipsed about in the campagna outside Rome, two pivotal scientific works— Andreas Vesalius’s celebrated anatomical treatise On the Fabric of the Human Body and the Polish canon Nicolas Copernicus’s book On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs—were both published.15 Modern scholars often forget the close affinities that existed between the investigations into the natural world and the zeal for religious reform, but there were many. A significant number of those involved in heretical movements in sixteenth-century Venice, for example, were doctors of medicine, and Galileo demonstrated remarkable sophistication on questions of biblical hermeneutics in his Letter to Christina of Lorraine of 1619. Perhaps then it was no accident that several of the figures examined in this anthology, though in different degrees, were drawn to the study of natural philosophy. Contarini and Filippo Mocenigo had both studied under the controversial Aristotelian philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi at Padua, while Gonzaga studied under the same natural philosopher at Bologna. Contarini—as Paul Grendler reminds us in his essay below—took courses in mathematics and astronomy while a student at the University of Padua and continued to demonstrate an interest in scientific research well into his adult life, when, for example, he encouraged the establishment of a botanical garden at Padua for the purposes of medical research into the curative properties of plants. It was Mocenigo, however, whose philosophical, scientific, and technical interests were most pronounced. Throughout his life, he read and published works on natural philosophy, and he brought the philosopher Francesco Patrizi—himself a major figure among the eretici—with him to his diocese in Cyprus to undertake a large-scale project of draining the riverbeds with the goal of increasing the island’s agricultural productivity. It would be tempting to draw a relation between this interest in science and an openness to new religious ideas. To be sure, Pomponazzi, who was willing to talk publicly about extremely controversial issues (such as his idea that there was no rational basis for the belief in the immortality of the soul), played some role in challenging the traditional views of his students, several of whom emerged as important figures in the reform movements of the sixteenth century. But, despite the efforts of an earlier generation of scholars to demonstrate a connection between, for example, the scientific revolution and Protestant ideas, it is now increasingly clear that the relationship between religious beliefs and scientific thought was enormously complex. The papacy itself, for example, from the late Middle Ages through the seventeenth century, did much to foster scientific investigation. In the end, it is 15 For a more general argument about the relation of humanism to scientific thought, see Grafton, Defenders of the Text, esp. 5, where Grafton observes, “they [the humanists] often analyzed scientific texts and produced results of interest to specialists in medicine and astronomy as well as the general reader.”

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more useful to see the development of new religious ideas and new scientific ideas as part of a broader shift in European intellectual and cultural life in which Protestants, Catholics, and others were engaged. Knowing that an individual was interested in scientific thought in and of itself tells as little about his or her religious attitudes as knowing that he or she was a humanist.

REPRESSION Despite various affinities—humanistic, scientific, elitist—among Italian reformers, this was by no means an ecumenical age. Humanists and reformers, who often had a common culture and shared methodologies as well as similarly patrician attitudes towards the uneducated, did in fact disagree sharply with one another over important questions relating to theology and reform. The sixteenth century, after all, was preeminently a period in which men and women of similar passions disagreed violently with one another. The most obvious divide came in 1542 with Pope Paul III’s reestablishment of the Inquisition as a centralized court under Rome’s authority—a decision that should perhaps be seen as a reflection of the growing concern among certain members of the Curia that Protestant ideas had begun to spread too quickly in Italy to delay taking repressive measures much longer. Yet even this revamping of the Inquisition, as several scholars have recently emphasized, did not unleash a wave of repression. To the contrary, for at least the next twenty or so years, many Italians, even if suspected of heresy, found ways to reach an accommodation with the church. Some did so, as the eminent scholar Silvana Seidel Menchi shows in her essay on the role of certain inquisitors in the mid-sixteenth century as mediators. Far from acting as agents of repression, many inquisitors sought ways to shape language that would enable those suspected of heresy to reach an accommodation with the church, often through rather slight modifications in their choice of words or in the emphasis they placed on certain theological ideas. But even with the selection of Giovanni Pietro Carafa as Pope Paul IV in 1555, when the eretici faced a further turn of the screw, men and women sympathetic with reform ideas were able to find ways to mask their ideas in “prudent conversation.” In Modena, for example, soon after the start of this pontificate, Bishop Foscarari found it increasingly difficult to protect those suspected of heresy. Indeed his moderation and his close ties to Morone briefly cast doubt on his orthodoxy, and he was summoned for interrogation by the Holy Office in nearby Bologna. The stark choices between martyrdom for one’s cause (that is, staying in Italy and risking the consequences, even if this meant death) and flight (that is, abandoning one’s home and business and setting out to live in a new place) were hardly the only options available. Many Italians simply chose to live outwardly as Catholics, while inwardly continuing to hold Protestant beliefs HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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in their hearts—it was this group that John Calvin, angered by their evasions, labeled “Nicodemites” after the gospel figure of Nicodemus who chose to follow Jesus “by night.”16 Following the establishment of the Inquisition, Italy experienced a further chill in the late 1550s with the efforts by the Roman authorities, in the grand cultural wars of the period, to control the publishing and circulation of books by authors, living and dead. The first papal Index auctorum et librorum prohibitorum, published by Pope Paul IV in 1559, with its sweeping condemnation of authors, whether or not their writings bore at all on theological or doctrinal issues, was rightly perceived as a blow to those who found much of value in the writings that the papacy was censoring. The Index was a blunt instrument and it included, for example, all the works of Erasmus, even his treatise on preaching that had been embraced in an early session of the Council of Trent. After heated debate at a later session of the Council in the early 1560s, the more moderate Pope Pius IV published a revised and somewhat less severe Index in 1564. Now many of the authors who previously had been subjected to a blanket condemnation were to be held back and kept out of circulation only until offending passages could be removed or modified—donec corrigantur—by theologians whose doctrinal credentials were not in question. It is an aspect of this strange history of textual correction that Gigliola Fragnito explores in her fascinating essay. Looking carefully at the case history of the fortunes of the Opera of Contarini, published in Paris in 1572, she demonstrates how the decision reached at the Council of Trent to suspend various works by suspect authors until their texts could be “corrected” led not to their return to circulation in expurgated versions but, in general, to their suppression. The machinery of censorship, as might be expected, was simply too clumsy, too unwieldy. In all of Christendom there were not enough skilled theologians to do the work of excising offending passages and emending suspect phrases in the books on the Index expurgatorius. As she shows, the scholars the church commissioned for this task were often not up to the work; the criteria for excisions and emendations were inconsistent; and communications between the Congregation of the Index, established in 1572, and the bishops and inquisitors in the Italian provinces to whom the work of censorship had been entrusted often broke down. Moreover—as the case of Contarini demonstrates—Rome faced an especially delicate task. On the one hand, Contarini’s family and friends had taken it upon themselves to revise Contarini’s ideas to remove his memory from any suspicion of heterodoxy. On the other, the Jesuit order, too often seen in simplistic accounts of the Counter-Reformation 16The literature on Nicodemism is vast. For an orientation, see Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies, esp. chap. 5.

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purely as an agency of repression, opposed many of the Congregation’s decrees on the grounds that they were too general. Many of the works, the Jesuits insisted, were needed in their classrooms. The admiration of scholars for certain great works simply made it impossible for them to censor the texts to Rome’s satisfaction. In the end, therefore, the donec expurgantur clause proved a broken promise. Unable to complete its task, the actions of the Congregation ended up keeping countless texts out of circulation. Many of these texts simply disappeared from memory or survived only in mutilated form. A great book-burning would have been no less effective. The story of Filippo Mocenigo, a Venetian nobleman who served as archbishop of Nicosia (on Cyprus) from 1560 until 1571 and later held a largely honorific position at the court in Rome, is also representative of the often clumsy and largely ineffectual aspects of the effort by the Catholic Church to control the circulation of ideas that had come to be seen as dangerous. As Elena Bonora makes clear in her contribution to this volume, Mocenigo was in an entirely different camp from such figures as Contarini or Foscarari, both of whom risked charges of giving support to the Protestants. To the contrary, Mocenigo’s ideas were perceived as threatening because of their rationalism. A close friend of the philosopher Francesco Patrizi, Mocenigo was a member of the Accademia della Fama in Venice, a vociferous Pelagian (who stressed, that is, the individual’s ability through virtue to achieve salvation without the aid of divine grace), and skeptical of the doctrine of the Trinity. Again, in the case of Mocenigo, one can gain a sense of the increasingly intolerant atmosphere. Indeed, he had faced accusations for heresy in the early 1560s, but these had proven inconsequential. But in Rome in the 1570s, he was a figure of considerable suspicion. His work on his treatise Via et progressi spirituali was so closely monitored that it underwent something akin to a process of expurgation while he was writing it; and its contents were used against him in the heresy trial he underwent in Rome in 1583. Mocenigo, always outspoken, did not hesitate to defend his ideas in the course of the proceedings. The dialogue between Mocenigo and the inquisitors gives a glimpse of the narrowing of cultural horizons in the Roman court in this period. Mocenigo, reaching back to the teaching of the church fathers, made it clear that there were several competing interpretations of key points in Christian theology, but his inquisitors made it plain that, at least in their view, Catholic doctrine in these years after Trent was not so variegated. Mocenigo had a decision to make: he could either accept the teachings of the Holy Mother Church or be sentenced as a heretic. It is telling that the trial ended with a sentence to remove offending passages from Mocenigo’s treatise before publication—a sentence that turned out, again because of the largely unwieldy and contradictory nature of censorship in the late sixteenth century, to keep the book from ever being published. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Other forms of repression, though less well known, were perhaps even more devastating for the social and cultural lives of the Italians in the years following the Council of Trent. Schutte’s essay on “involuntary monachization” offers a glimpse into yet another dimension of the repressive aspects of the Roman Catholic Church in the two centuries after Trent. The Council of Trent is well known for the emphasis it placed on the consent of both the bride and the groom in marriage. In a similar fashion, the delegates gathered at Trent had stipulated that entry into a monastic vocation was to be voluntary. The novice was only to make his or her profession after the age of sixteen, and he or she was to do so willingly. Recognizing that abuses were frequent, Trent even established legal remedies for those who claimed that they were forced—per vim et metum—against their wills to join a religious order. Nonetheless, as in the case of the Council’s celebrated decree on marriage, the decree on religious professions was in all likelihood relatively ineffective. Families upon whom financial considerations weighed heavily inevitably pursued strategies that best served their economic interest, whether this meant striking an advantageous bargain to seal a marriage alliance or placing a son or daughter in a religious community in order to help preserve the family’s wealth. Certainly one of the most intriguing dimensions of Schutte’s essay is the importance of looking beyond the legislation of Trent to the social realities of Italian Catholics in relation to the institutional and legal frameworks Trent provided. In contrast to several historians whose work has emphasized the relatively progressive dimensions of Trent in fostering a sense of the importance of the individual, Schutte sees rather a system that continued to cause pain and suffering for thousands whose lives were in fact shaped by not their own interests, but rather by the collective interests of their families.17

TOWARD A CONCLUSION In a fundamental sense, the essays in this volume demonstrate the degree to which the current scholarship on the reform movements and the general culture of sixteenth-century Italy have deconstructed the older categories so frequently used to describe the religious landscape of this peninsula in the age of reform. For much of the sixteenth century, the association of a particular reformer with one position or another proves virtually impossible. Reformers as diverse as Contarini and Steuco shared many values: they were elitist, they believed in reform generated from on high, and they saw the role of the clergy as guiding the people in their faith. Moreover, it is quite clear that this period was one of studied ambiguity and prudence. Reformers did not so much adopt positions as explore what 17Bossy, “The Counter Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe.”

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positions it was possible to take. And while it is clear that there is no clear dividing line between parties and that there was no sudden moment when the climate for reform in Italy left little room for those who openly disagreed with the doctrines of the Catholic Church, it remains true that, from the 1540s on, there was a gradual shift to a more explicitly repressive climate. Certainly by the mid-1550s, the intransigent party was ascendant. The results of the “Counter”-Reformation—once the Inquisition and the mechanism for the control of printed matter were in full gear—greatly restricted the cultural life of the Italians. Moreover, in the social sphere as well, Trent appears to have initiated a new period of social discipline that weighed heavily on the lives of many Italians, perhaps especially women. Nonetheless, students of early modern Catholicism should not return to the simple dichotomies of the past. The Roman Catholic Church was also responsive to some of the deepest needs of the society. It elaborated new forms of piety, sought to improve the quality of its clergy, and was a major force in the organization of charity in a world in which poverty was a widespread concern. In order to navigate these waters, scholars will need more studies such as Elisabeth Gleason’s recent prizewinning biography of Contarini, a work that has been in many ways the inspiration for this volume.18 The more we can learn about prominent figures such as Contarini and even less well-known figures such as Agostino Steuco whose life Ronald Delph has begun to flesh out, the more precise our understanding of the period as a whole will become. At the same time in matters of religion we are dealing with profoundly collective phenomena. We need a better grasp of the social positions of the heretics—as both Murphy’s and Firpo’s contributions suggest. In the end, Italian scholars of the Italian Reform might continue to draw inspiration from what is now a very old argument. For much of what Lucien Febvre had to say about the reform in France in a famous essay—namely, that we must attend not merely to dating and labeling but also to the religious concerns of groups as well as individuals in a society shocked by vast social and economic changes—remains as vital today as when it was first published in 1929.19 Historians of the religious life of sixteenth-century Italy have yet to turn in earnest to a social history of religion in this period or to apply the insights of anthropology to the problems of this era.20 Certainly there are hints of such concerns on the horizon—evidence that the field is likely to remain a dynamic one for a long time to come. 18 Gleason, Gasparo Contarini. See also Mayer, Reginald Pole. 19 For an English translation, see Burke,

A New Kind of History, 44–107. For the importance of social history as a means of understanding the religious history of this period, see Gentilcore, “Methods and Approaches.” Intriguing studies of aspects of the religious life of this period, inspired by more explicitly anthropological approaches, can be found in Burke, Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy, 13. 20

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Secondary Sources Black, Christopher. Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Bossy, John. “The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe.” Past and Present 47 (1970): 51–70. Burke, Peter. The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———, ed. A New Kind of History and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Cantimori, Delio. Eretici Italiani del Cinquecento. Ricerche storiche. Florence: Sansoni, 1939. Delph, Ronald K. “From Venetian Visitor to Curial Humanist: The Development of Agostino Steuco’s ‘Counter’-Reformation Thought.” Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): 102–39. ———. “Polishing the Papal Image in the Counter-Reformation: The Case of Agostino Steuco.” Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992): 35–47. ———. “Valla Grammaticus, Agostino Steuco, and the Donation of Constantine.” Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996): 55–77. Firpo, Massimo. Dal sacco di Roma all’inquisizione: Studi su Juan de Valdés e la Riforma italiana. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1990, 1998. Gentilcore, David. “Methods and Approaches to the Social History of the CounterReformation in Italy.” Social History 17 (1992): 73–98. Gleason, Elisabeth G. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. ———. “On the Nature of Sixteenth-Century Italian Evangelism: Scholarship, 1953–1978.” Sixteenth Century Journal 9, no. 3(1978): 3–25. Grafton, Anthony. Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. Hudon, William V. “Religion and Society in Early Modern Italy: Old Questions, New Insights.” American Historical Review 101 (1996): 783–804. Marino, John A., ed. Early Modern Italy, 1550–1796. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Martin, John Jeffries. “Spiritual Journeys and the Fashioning of Religious Identity in Renaissance Venice.” Renaissance Studies 10 (1996): 358–70. ———. Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Mayer, Thomas F. Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. O’Malley, John W. Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Prodi, Paolo. Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti (1522–1597). 2 vols. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1959–67. Prosperi, Adriano. Tra evangelismo e controriforma: G. M. Giberti, 1495–1543. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1969. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. “Periodization of Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious History: The Post-Cantimori Paradigm Shift.” Journal of Modern History 61 (1989): 269–84. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia (1520–1580). Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Chapter 1

LORENZO LOTTO AND THE REFORMATION IN VENICE Massimo Firpo

IN A PIONEERING STUDY originally published in 1895, the great art historian Bernard Berenson first brought attention to the Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556). Berenson not only recognized Lotto’s artistic brilliance; he also observed in Lotto’s paintings of the 1530s and 1540s the maturation of an intense religious sensibility—a sensibility infused with a marked desire for reform in the church and in piety.1 It is well known that in Italy during the troubled decades that preceded the Council of Trent, there existed a widespread perception that religious reform was necessary. Those who held this view called not only for new moral and devotional rigor and for a different set of institutional practices, but also for the return of the church and Christians to an authentic faith, founded on the plain word of God.2 But what was Lotto’s position in relation to the reform currents of the day? Certainly the coexistence in Lotto’s works that were explicitly antiheretical—such as his frescoes at Trescore—along with works that appear to have been supportive of heterodox doctrines—most notably his twin portraits of Martin Luther and his wife—suggested early on to scholars that there was no simple answer to this question.3 It is not surprising, then, that the question of Lotto’s religious orientation has been at the center of a number of recent scholarly studies beginning with the 1

This study is based on the much larger examination of Lorenzo Lotto in my Artisti, gioiellieri, eretici. 1Berenson, Lotto, ed. and trans. Vertova, 114–15, 121–22, 129, 149–50, 188–89, 197–99, 204. Berenson’s book first appeared in English as Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism in 1895. The definitive third edition appeared in 1955. 2See Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia; and Firpo, Riforma protestante. 3Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 212.

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exhibition of his works in Venice in 19534 and continuing through the conferences and exhibitions held in 1980/81 in conjunction with the quincentenary of his birth.5 Since Lotto’s beliefs inevitably influenced the iconographic content and the forms of expression in his paintings—and thus the historical significance of his works—the issue of the extent to which this artist embraced religious reform and evangelical ideas raises important questions, both ideological and methodological. It is impossible, for example, to avoid raising the question of Lotto’s own understanding of his altarpieces that, animated as they are by authentic and affectionate popular piety, are a far cry from the magniloquent rhetoric of Titian. These works include Lotto’s Santa Lucia in the town of Jesi, his Madonna del Rosario in the city of Cingoli, and his Sant’Antonino in San Zanipolo (Santi Giovanni e Paolo) in Venice, as well as the small Crucifixion in Berenson’s collection. On the back of the Crucifixion, for instance, a dear friend of Lotto’s wrote that it had been painted “by the hand of messer Lorenzo Lotto, a very devout man; and for his devotion he made it during Holy Week and it was finished on Good Friday at the hour of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.”6 The question of the religious meaning of Lotto’s painting leads immediately to other problems concerning the historical context: the patrons commissioning the works and the social impact of those images on his contemporaries. Neither of these questions can be reduced to the well-trodden path of solely formal and stylistic evaluations. Studies that focused on Lotto and his works in the 1970s and 1980s continued to stir up debate over Lotto’s beliefs. Lotto’s cryptic reference in his daybook, Register of Various Expenses, to “two small paintings of Martin Luther and his wife,” could no longer be set aside as an isolated element or dismissed as insignificant. The proposal made by Giovanni Romano in 1976 to attribute to Lotto the preparatory sketches for the engravings of the frontispiece for the biblical translation made by the notorious heretic Antonio Brucioli7 also could not fail to reopen the problem of Lotto’s religious identity.8 Even more important in this regard was Renzo Fontana’s research that demonstrated that some of the individuals most 4See, for instance, Mostra di Lorenzo Lotto, ed. Zampetti; Coletti, Lotto, 8, 11; Banti, Lorenzo Lotto, 43; Pignatti, ed., Lorenzo Lotto, 143; Pallucchini, Profilo di Lorenzo Lotto, 64–65; Pallucchini, Lorenzo Lotto, 7–8; Montini, “Religiosità di Lorenzo Lotto,” 180–81; and Bianconi, Tutta la pittura, 7– 9, 23, 26. 5Zampetti, Lorenzo Lotto nel suo e nel nostro tempo; Bergamo per Lorenzo Lotto; Dillon, Lorenzo Lotto a Treviso; Lorenzo Lotto a Loreto e Recanati; Zampetti and Sgarbi, Lorenzo Lotto; Dal Poggetto and Zampetti, Lorenzo Lotto nelle Marche; and Zampetti, Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto. 6Berenson, Lotto, ed. and trans. Vertova, 119. 7La Biblia, trans. Brucioli, Venice, 1532. 8Romano, “La Bibbia di Lotto.” See also Cortesi Bosco, “A proposito del frontespizio di Lorenzo Lotto.”

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Lorenzo Lotto, Christ and the Adulteress, 1531–33, oil on panel. Louvre Museum, photo courtesy of Art Resource.

closely connected to the artist were tried by the Venetian Holy Office.9 The records of two inquisitorial proceedings in particular make it possible to gain insight into the world of Lotto’s friends and acquaintances, the doctrines they professed, and the human relationships that bound them to one another. The first record concerns the proceedings launched in 1549 against Bartolomeo Carpan, a jeweler from Treviso who was an intimate friend of Lotto’s and whose likeness we can see in the Triple portrait now in Vienna.10 The second, occurring in 1559, concerned Mario d’Arman, the nephew in whose house Lotto found affectionate hospitality at the start of the 1540s; this is where he painted his portrait of Luther.11 Carpan’s circle of friends included Giovanni del Savon, a man who, from 1542 to 1545, gave shelter in Treviso to a then-elderly Lotto “out of Christian 9Fontana, “‘Solo, senza fidel governo,’ ” 279–97. See also Fontana, “Appunti sulle frequentazioni di Lotto”; and Fontana, “Aspetti sociali,” 359–62. 10ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 29, fasc. 17. 11ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 16, fasc. 1.

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charity” at a time when the painter was “alone, without a faithful guide and very disquieted in his mind.”12 Another acquaintance was a man with well-known heterodox views, Baldassare Altieri, secretary to the English embassy and the representative of the Schmalkaldic League in Venice. Altieri furnished Carpan with forbidden books that he was also involved in selling as far afield as Sicily, thanks to the cooperation of another jeweler, Lauro Orso, whose name also appears in Lotto’s Register of Various Expenses.13 In light of this documentation, the lack of artistic success that Lotto encountered in Venice seems to have its roots in a religious crisis and in its influence on his artistic and professional identity. Even his unexpected and otherwise incomprehensible decision not to return to his native city in 1549 seems to find a reasonable explanation in the fact that the inquisitorial trials of Carpan and Orso were being initiated at that very time. These new findings all contribute to the increasing centrality that this religious question has taken on in the world of Lotto studies in terms of an attempt both to define the outlines of the question more accurately and to establish the nature of its origins and development. What significance, for instance, should be given to the early works of Lotto, like the frescoes at Trescore that clearly show an anti-heretical polemic as the studies of Francesca Cortesi Bosco have shown?14 How are we to read the numerous religious references in his letters to the Misericordia confraternity in Bergamo written during the period of his work on the marquetry of Santa Maria Maggiore?15 How are we to evaluate his relations in Venice in the 1530s with people like Alessandro Citolini, Giulio Camillo, or Sebastiano Serlio, all of whom were hardly in line with Roman orthodoxy?16 On the other hand, how are we to judge Lotto’s commitment to charitable works and above all his close ties with the Dominican order, in particular with the friars of San Zanipolo in Venice, in whose habit he asked to be buried?17 And what exactly was being taught in the pages of that catechism for children entitled The Christian Institution, a book of which he acquired no fewer than five copies while 12Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 301–3, cf. 92–94, 230. 13Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 124–26, cf. 302. 14Cortesi Bosco, “Riforma religiosità arte”; Cortesi Bosco, Gli affreschi dell’Oratorio Suardi; and Cortesi Bosco, Lorenzo Lotto. See also Pirovano, Lotto. 15See Lettere inedite di Lorenzo Lotto, ed. Chiodi; and Chiodi, “Quattro lettere inedite di Lorenzo Lotto.” These letters are now reproduced in Chiodi, Le lettere di Lorenzo Lotto. 16See Olivato, “Per il Serlio a Venezia”; Olivato, “Dal teatro della memoria”; and Olivato, “Ancora per il Serlio a Venezia.” Also useful are Carpo, “Ancora su Serlio e Delminio,” 111–13; Carpo, La maschera e il modello; Tafuri, “Ipotesi sulla religiosità di Sebastiano Serlio,” 57–66; and Tafuri, Venezia e il Rinascimento, 79ff. 17On the two wills of Lotto of 1531 and 1546 (both dated 25 March), see Cortesi Bosco, “Autografi inediti di Lotto”; Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 301ff.; and Aikema, “Lorenzo Lotto and the Ospitale,” 343–50.

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in Treviso in the mid-1540s?18 What sort of religious groups might he have frequented thanks to his relationships with Bartolomeo Carpan and Lauro Orso? And lastly, what was the meaning of his final withdrawal to the Holy House of Loreto as an oblate “so as not to go around entangling myself any more in my old age” (as he himself noted in his Register) and “to quiet my life in this holy place?”19 In the compass of this brief study it is not possible to even attempt answers to these queries. Yet it is worthwhile to point out how the debate on Lotto’s religious identity has become polarized, albeit with different nuances and emphases. On the one hand, scholars such as Luigi Chiodi,20 Pietro Zampetti,21 Francesca Cortesi Bosco,22 and Jacques Bonnet have shown a Lotto who was always firmly bound to the Catholic faith until his death, even to the extent of anticipating certain themes of the devotional painting of the Counter-Reformation.23 On the other hand, Maria Calì gives a portrayal of a Lotto who since the 1520s was open to heterodox doctrines, to which he remained faithful by and large from his Bergamo years to his final days at Loreto.24 Both of these scholarly camps seem to fail to take into account the profound changes in the historical context and the religious sensibility experienced in Italy between the 1520s and the 1550s, a failure that renders each of these positions rather unconvincing. Yet other scholars such as Augusto Gentili, 25 Peter Humphrey, 26 and Adriano Prosperi,27 when faced with the difficult task of reconciling highly contradictory evidence (such as Lotto’s portrait of Luther and his entrance as an oblate in the Holy House of Loreto or his heretical acquaintances and the edifying Madonnas of his altarpieces), attempt to steer a middle course between the two extremes. But their depictions of a “reformist” Lotto as an advocate of a profound 18Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 228. 19Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 151. 20Chiodi, Le lettere di Lorenzo Lotto. 21Zampetti, “Un pittore ‘inquieto della mente’ ”; Zampetti, “A che punto siamo con Lorenzo Lotto?”; Zampetti, “Osservazioni e primo consuntivo”; Zampetti, “Introduzione: Lorenzo Lotto”; and Zampetti, Lotto. 22In addition to the studies cited above in notes 14 and 17, see also Cortesi Bosco, “La letteratura religiosa”; Cortesi Bosco, “Lorenzo Lotto”; Cortesi Bosco, “Il problema della posizione religiosa”; Cortesi Bosco, Il coro intarsiato di Lotto; and Cortesi Bosco, “Per Lotto nelle Marche.” 23Bonnet, Lorenzo Lotto. See also Mozzoni and Paoletti, Lorenzo Lotto. 24 Calì, “La ‘religione’ di Lorenzo Lotto”; Calì, “Loreto: La conclusione”; Calì, “Ancora sulla ‘religione’ di Lorenzo Lotto”; and Calì, “Tra religione e potere.” The heterodoxy of Lotto, at least in one phase of his life, is supported with solid arguments also by Papini, “Lorenzo Lotto filoriformato?” 25Gentili, “Lorenzo Lotto dopo l’esperienza romana”; Gentili, “Per Lorenzo Lotto e i suoi contesti storici”; Gentili, “L’immagine e la cultura di Roma”; Gentili, Lattanzi, and Polignano, I giardini di contemplazione; and Brown, “Introduction,” in Lorenzo Lotto. 26Humfrey, Lorenzo Lotto. 27Prosperi, “La crisi religiosa.” This study is now reproduced in Prosperi, America apocalisse e altri saggi.

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renewal of the church yet entirely uninvolved with any doctrinal deviances remain unconvincing. In order to understand Lotto as a painter and his religious orientation during these troubled times, the problem must be posed in slightly different terms. Above all, the artist must not be viewed within the framework of overly rigid categories. To the contrary, one must seek instead an understanding of Lotto’s personal and artistic evolution against the background of the explosive religious divisions of those years. Such an approach seeks both to take into account the changing historical context over time as well as Lotto’s own individual religious experience and to delineate the social and doctrinal profile of the world within which he lived. Such a task is obviously far from easy, given the scant documentation available. Yet it must begin with the acceptance of one premise, namely, that those “two small paintings with the portrait of Martin Luther and his wife” of 1540 along with his association with heretical acquaintances in the 1540s constitute unquestionable proof of a heterodox orientation on Lotto’s part. This must be the starting point of analysis, even if the available evidence does not permit precision as to the level of conviction and theological awareness with which he was acting. Solid confirmation for this emphasis on Lotto’s heterodoxy is provided by the five copies of the little book, The Christian Institution, that he purchased in Treviso in 1544/45. Lotto’s interest in this work is extremely revealing, since the only catechisms circulating in Italy at that time in the vernacular were of Lutheran or Calvinist inspiration.28 Furthermore, his purchase of five copies of this work can only be explained by an intent to give the volumes a wide distribution. The problem, then, is following Lotto’s evolution from the quiet years in Bergamo, a period unmarked by any trace of early doctrinal dissent, through his long and frequently interrupted Venetian sojourn in the 1530s and 1540s, when he found himself in a city that Bernardino Ochino defined in December 1542 as the gateway to the Reformation in Italy.29 The Diaries of Marin Sanuto, the letters of the papal nuncios, the first inquisitorial proceedings, letter collections, and the output of printers are all sources that make it possible to reconstruct the early diffusion of Reformed doctrines in Venice; a diffusion that was due in part to the tolerance practiced by the authorities of the Venetian Republic who, in 1530, refused to condemn Lutherans because “our state and dominion is free and thus we cannot forbid them.”30 As far 28Turrini, “‘Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana’”; Schutte, Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books; Biancardi, “Per una storia del catechismo,” esp. 166–67; Tramontin, “Catechesi, catechismi e catechisti”; and Cavazza, “‘Quello che Giesu Christo.’ ” 29Piccolomini, “Due lettere inedite di Bernardino Ochino,” esp. 206–7; and Ochino, I “Dialogi sette” e altri scritti, 128–29. 30Sanuto, I diarii, 53:65–68; and Stella, “Tensioni religiose e movimenti di riforma.”

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as Lotto is concerned, of particular significance is the fact that within the very church of San Zanipolo in Venice, a group of heterodox believers gathered under the leadership of the carpenter Antonio marangon who was himself later arrested and tried.31 The sermons delivered there by Damiano Loro, the Dominican prior of San Zanipolo, also contained various heresies: “He preaches bad things,” the nuncio Girolamo Aleandro observed in 1534.32 In 1531, the prior led the protest by his friars against certain reforms imposed by Rome, the brothers declaring that, rather than submit, they would “turn Lutheran.”33 This outburst was followed by the decision to impose the anti-heretical preaching of Zaccaria da Fivizzano on the convent. It was in that same period, from the late 1520s to the early 1530s, that Lotto established strong ties with Sebastiano Serlio and Jacopo Sansovino in Venice, while his charitable activities at the hospital of San Zanipolo brought him close to the typographer Gian Maria Giunti, publisher in 1532 of Antonio Brucioli’s celebrated Italian Bible—an edition for which Lotto designed the frontispiece. And thus he contributed to that wide circulation in Venice of the word of God in the vernacular that caused Aleandro so much uneasiness and that seemed to find an echo in the popular and pedagogical commitment of some of the Venetian artist’s most beautiful paintings. Lotto’s erratic movements between Venice and the Marches in the subsequent years make it difficult to specify his precise circumstances, but this task becomes easier in the 1540s, thanks in part to the survival of his Register of Various Expenses, which he began keeping in 1538. This was the last decade Lotto spent in Venice, with the interruption of the years 1542–45, when he resided in Treviso, one of the liveliest centers of heretical dissent in Veneto.34 The records of the inquisitorial proceedings against Mario d’Arman and Bartolomeo Carpan make it possible to reconstruct, at least in part, the environments within which the painter lived and worked for a decade and to know the nature of the religious doctrines professed there. In the case of Carpan, these doctrines provide a full-scale catalogue of Reformation heresies: justification by faith alone, predestination, and rejection of papal authority, indulgences, the intercession of saints, Lenten fasting, auricular confession, and the real presence in the Eucharist. From these inquisitorial records there emerges the profile of Carpan as not only “a very great Lutheran” by reputation, but also a man committed to “preaching and disseminating his heretical and damnable opinions” in private encounters and clandestine meetings, sometimes in the form of homilies delivered in “some 31Gaeta, “Documenti da codici vaticani.” 32Nunziature di Venezia, ed. Gaeta, 1:163. 33Sanuto, I diarii, 55:74. 34Serena, “Fra gli eretici trevigiani”; and Liberali,

La restaurazione, 212ff., cf. 324–25.

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garden or such like place.”35 Supplying himself with heterodox books from the English embassy, Carpan circulated them as far afield as Sicily. His opinions were by no means exceptional within the workshops that crowded around Rialto, the area then known (as it still is today) as the Ruga degli oresi, or “goldsmith’s street.” Here Reformed doctrines found great success among those able artisans, rich in human experience and with their eyes wide open to the world, who often were in contact with the political and religious leadership of their society and with intellectuals and printers. In the records of the Venetian Holy Office, the names of jewelers recur persistently in the lists of heretics under examination in those years: the goldsmith Iseppo orese in San Moisé, 36 Giacomo Zenaro, Gasparo and Paolo Crivelli, Alessandro Caravia,37 the Milanese Giovan Battista Ferrari,38 the Pisan Giovan Battista Vernicali, and the Greek Franzino Singlitico (a friend of Carpan).39 These men, in turn, were surrounded by a myriad of assistants, gem cutters, gem polishers, engravers, and swordsmiths. The world of Carpan and Lotto was defined within the context of an entire social and cultural universe: a universe reflected with extraordinary vigor in the works of the Venetian goldsmith-poet Caravia, Il Sogno and La verra antiga, published in 1541 and 1550, respectively. These popular poems show how Caravia’s religious concerns took on an increasingly heterodox orientation. As late as 1571, a Venetian doctor tried by the Holy Office in Rome maintained that for many years the banks of the Lagoon had been the meeting place of a veritable “company made up of goldsmiths who held clearly and with the utmost certainty that man is saved without works.”40 Even if Lotto’s name does not appear in the records of the Venetian Inquisition, there is no doubt that he was connected to these groups of heterodox jewelers. His relationship with Carpan, in whose house goldsmiths and painters gathered to discuss and learn more about Reformed doctrines, makes this clear. A further witness to his at least peripheral involvement in this world of artisans can be found in his paintings, with his extraordinary passion and competence in depicting gems and jewelry, as shown by the diadems, pins, rings, and necklaces with which he never missed a chance to adorn his noblewomen and saints. The problem consists, rather, in identifying the reflections of his religious 35See above note 10. 36ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 7, fasc. 5. See also Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies, 91–94; Martin, “Spiritual Journeys”; and Peyronel Rambaldi, Dai Paesi Bassi all’Italia, 254ff. 37Benini Clementi, Riforma religiosa. 38ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 14, fasc. 24 (formerly 10). 39ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 10, fasc. 16; and busta 29, fasc. 17. 40ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 10, fasc. 32. Cf. Pommier, “La société vénitienne,” esp. 18; Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies, 81; and Seidel Menchi, “Protestantesimo a Venezia.” See especially Olivieri, “Fra collettività urbane,” esp. 490, 503–6.

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orientation in his painting of the 1530s and 1540s: reflections that prove to be faint and at times uncertain. Yet it is possible to discern certain such traces in a number of his works. In the Santa Lucia in Jesi, for example, with the centrality of faith underlined by the very structure of the altarpiece, in the earnest commitment to popular teaching shown in his Madonna del Rosario in Cingoli, in the intense re-evocation of the “benefit of Christ” shown in the Crucifixion in Berenson’s collection, or in the Pietà in Brera, one sees traces of Lotto’s own religious sentiments, which are infused with evangelical and Reformed ideas. Equally impossible to ignore is the anticlerical polemic hidden within the altarpiece Sant’Antonino in San Zanipolo in Venice41 with its denunciation of a church separated from ordinary people and its battle lines drawn up in defense of wealth and privilege. Nor can one overlook the triumph of redemption over original sin as represented in the Redentore in gloria in Vienna. Unmistakable, too, is the celebration of the superiority of grace over the law, of faith over works, and of the New over the Old Testament represented in Lotto’s late paintings of San Girolamo now in the Doria Pamphili and the Prado.42 It is reasonable to assume that in the artistic crisis Lotto seems to have experienced in the last years of his life, an internal conflict of a religious nature played a part. On the one hand, his heterodox orientation ensured an awareness of the Reformation’s condemnation of holy images. 43 On the other hand, inescapable restrictions were placed on his artistic production by the weight of the iconographic tradition, the requirements of his patrons, and his obvious need for caution. An indirect confirmation of this conflict is provided by the famous letter with which, in April 1548, Pietro Aretino pretended to console the painter for his lack of artistic success. Passing along to him greetings from the great Titian, at that time living at the imperial court of Augsburg and at the pinnacle of his fame, Aretino scornfully commented that Lotto should not be too sorry not to be a great painter because he was near the top in religion.44 At this same time another Venetian painter, Alvise Donà,45 who used to attend heretical gatherings held in Carpan’s house, did not hesitate to display in an enormous painting of the Crucifixion the double-headed imperial eagle on the standards carried by the Roman soldiers responsible for the death of Christ. This prominent depiction of the imperial eagle in this painting in which Christ was put 41On this, see Mazza, “La pala dell’ ‘Elemosina di Sant’Antonio’”; and Aikema, “Lorenzo Lotto.” 42Giammarioli and Di Mambro, “I San Girolamo.” 43Among the numerous works available on this topic, see Christensen, Art and the Reformation; Michalski, Reformation and the Visual Arts; Eire, War Against the Idols; and Scavizzi, Controversy on Images. 44Aretino, Lettere, 4:10–11. Cf. Aretino, Lettere sull’arte, 2:218–19. 45On Donà, see the documents published by Ludwig, “Archivalische Beiträge zur Geschichte,” esp. 23ff.

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to death was meant to be a severe criticism of Charles V, who had defeated the Protestant forces in the decisive battle of Mühlberg in April 1547.46 Aside from these examples, it is not surprising that in sixteenth-century Italy painting provided scant echoes of a widespread religious sensibility out of tune with Roman Catholic orthodoxy, with perhaps the exception of Iacopo da Pontormo and his astonishing figurative transcription of the catechism of Juan de Valdés in the frescoes of San Lorenzo in Florence. The presence of evangelical ideas in Pontormo’s fresco cycle in San Lorenzo is even more stunning when considering that such sentiments could not have been included without the approval of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici.47 One final question merits attention here, and this concerns Lotto’s withdrawal to the Marches and his entrance as an oblate in the Holy House of Loreto in September 1554, shortly before his death. First of all, as noted previously, it is impossible to avoid recognizing that his decision not to return to Venice in 1549 sprang from a compelling set of circumstances, namely, inquisitorial proceedings launched at that very time against his friends, Carpan in Venice and Orso in Messina. This connection between these inquisitorial investigations and Lotto’s decision not to return to Venice is further supported by the fact that in December 1550, while he was staying in Ancona, Lotto was visited by Orso, who asked his friend to help him with money, a request Lotto fulfilled.48 It is probable, however, that in those final years Lotto wanted only to forget his heretical involvements of the past and that his entrance into the Marian sanctuary at Loreto was a way to return to the Catholic fold and declare his repentance. It is possible that he took advantage of the opportunity provided by the jubilee of Julius III in 1550, and it is possible that his becoming an oblate was a sort of extrajudicial absolution or, better yet, a salutary penance imposed upon him following a confession of his heterodox past. First of all, this hypothesis is suggested by the fact that the official act copied into the registers of the Holy House along with the letter of acceptance from the cardinal patron of the monastery, Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, constitutes an isolated case within the entire body of documentation of those years.49 Further evidence supporting this interpretation is provided by the fact that Gaspare Dotti, at that time the governor of the sanctuary and the man before whom Lotto pronounced his vows, could boast of long experience as an inquisitor, which stretched back to

46 The canvas, while owned by the Accademia in Venice, is actually housed in the Science Museum of the Ospedale Civile of San Marco. 47Firpo, Gli affreschi di Pontormo. 48Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 126. 49Lotto, Il “Libro di spese diverse,” 310ff. Cf. Archivio della Santa Casa, Loreto, Istromenti, 7.

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Venice thirty years before.50 It was by virtue of this experience that Dotti became a close associate of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, who was a member of the supreme congregation in Rome. In June 1551, Dotti was nominated as a commissarius Sancti Officii and one year later, on the eve of Lotto’s acceptance as an oblate, he had been designated for that role in the Marches.51 Here then lies the basis for the suspicion that in Lotto’s decision to spend his final days within the confines of a Catholic sanctuary, more was involved than the torment of an extreme old age without any other recourse. Lotto, seeking to quiet his soul, was also subjecting himself to penance, albeit penance of an informal nature, that had been imposed upon him by an inquisitor. Penance for a man, for a painter, who in his earlier years had embraced in his life and displayed in his paintings religious ideas regarded as heretical by the church.

50 Tacchi Venturi, Storia della Compagnia, 1.1:311; 1.2:279–80, 2.1:79–80; and Gaeta, “Documenti da codici vaticani,” 13, 47–50. 51Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Rome, Stanza storica, Decreta 1548– 1558, fols. 45r, 68v; and see fols. 46r–48v, 49v–51v.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ACDF ASC ASVe

Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Vatican City Archivio della Santa Casa, Loreto Archivio di Stato, Venice

Printed Primary Sources Aretino, Pietro. Lettere. Edited by Paolo Procaccioli. 7 vols. Rome: Salerno, 1997–. ———. Lettere sull’arte. Edited by Ettore Camesasca. 3 vols. Milan: Edizioni del Milione, 1957–1960. La Biblia quale contiene i sacri libri del vecchio Testamento tradotti nuovamente da la hebraica verità in lingua toscana per Antonio Brucioli. Co’ divini libri del nuovo Testamento di Christo Giesù signore et salvatore nostro, tradotti di greco in lingua toscana pel medesimo. Venice: Lucantonio Giunta, 1532. Chiodi, Luigi. “Quattro lettere inedite di Lorenzo Lotto.” Bergomum 71, nos. 1–2 (1977): 17–36. ———, ed. Le lettere di Lorenzo Lotto e scritti su Lotto. Bergamo: Centro Culturale Niccolò Rezzara, 1998. Lotto, Lorenzo. Lettere inedite di Lorenzo Lotto. Edited by Luigi Chiodi. Bergamo: Tipografia Vescovile G. Secomandi, 1968. ———. Il ‘Libro di spese diverse’ con aggiunta di lettere e d’altri documenti. Edited by Pietro Zampetti. Venice: Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, 1969. Nunziature di Venezia. Edited by Franco Gaeta et al. Vols. 1–. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1958–. Ochino, Bernardino. I “Dialogi sette” e altri scritti del tempo della fuga. Edited by Ugo Rozzo. Turin: Claudiana, 1985. Piccolomini, Paolo. “Due lettere inedite di Bernardino Ochino.” Archivio della Società romana di storia patria 28 (1907): 201–7. Sanuto, Marino. I diarii. Edited by Rinaldo Fulin et al. 58 vols. Venice: Deputazione R. Veneta di Storia Patria, 1879–1903. Reprint, Bologna: Forni Editore, 1970.

Secondary Sources Aikema, Bernard. “Lorenzo Lotto and the Ospitale de San Zuane Polo.” In Rosand, Interpretazioni veneziane, 343–50. ———. “Lorenzo Lotto: La pala di Sant’Antonino e l’osservanza domenicana a Venezia.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz 33 (1989): 127–40. Banti, Anna. Lorenzo Lotto: Regesti Note e Cataloghi. Edited by Antonio Boschetto. Florence: Sansoni, [1953?]. Benini Clementi, Enrica. Riforma religiosa e poesia popolare a Venezia nel Cinquecento. Alessandro Caravia. Florence: Olschki, 2000. Berenson, Bernard. Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895. ———. Lotto. Edited and translated by Luisa Vertova. Milan: Leonardo, 1990.

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Bergamo per Lorenzo Lotto. Lorenzo Lotto: Riflessioni lombarde. Atti del convegno: Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto. Catalogo della mostra. Bergamo: Centro Culturale S. Bartolomeo, 1980. Biancardi, Giuseppe. “Per una storia del catechismo in epoca moderna. Temi e indicazioni bibliografiche.” Cheiron 27–28 (1998): 163–235. Bianconi, Piero. Tutta la pittura di Lorenzo Lotto. Milan: Rizzoli, 1955. Bonnet, Jacques. Lorenzo Lotto. Paris: Adam Biro, 1996. Brown, David Alan. “Introduction.” In Brown, Humphrey, and Lucco, Lorenzo Lotto, 1–2. Brown, David Alan, Peter Humfrey, and Mauro Lucco, eds. Lorenzo Lotto: Il genio inquieto del Rinascimento. Milan: Skira, 1998. Calì, Maria. “Ancora sulla ‘religione’ di Lorenzo Lotto.” Ricerche di storia dell’arte 19 (1983): 37–60. ———. “Loreto: La conclusione della vicenda religiosa di Lorenzo Lotto.” In Zampetti, Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto, 113–32. ———. “La ‘religione’ di Lorenzo Lotto.” In Zampetti and Sgarbi, Lorenzo Lotto, 243–77. ———. “Tra religione e potere: Il dissenso di Lorenzo Lotto.” In ‘Renovatio Urbis.’ Venezia nell’età di Andrea Gritti (1523–1538), edited by Manfredo Tafuri, 236–62. Rome: Officina, 1984. Carpo, Mario. “Ancora su Serlio e Delminio: La teoria architettonica, il metodo e la riforma dell’imitazione.” In Sebastiano Serlio: Sesto seminario internazionale di storia dell’architettura, Vicenza, 31 agosto–4 settembre 1987, edited by Christof Thoenes, 111–13. Milan: Electa, 1989. ———. La maschera e il modello: Teoria architettonica ed evangelismo nell’ “Extraordinario Libro” di Sebastiano Serlio (1551). Milan: Jaca Book, 1993. Cavazza, Silvano. “‘Quello che Giesu Christo ha ordinato nel suo Evangelio’: I catechismi di Pier Paolo Vergerio.” Metodi e ricerche n.s. 18 (1999): 3–22. Christensen, Carl C. Art and the Reformation in Germany. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979. Coletti, Luigi. Lotto. Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1953. Cortesi Bosco, Francesca. Gli affreschi dell’Oratorio Suardi: Lorenzo Lotto nella crisi della Riforma. Bergamo: Bolis, 1980. ———. “A proposito del frontespizio di Lorenzo Lotto per la Bibbia di Antonio Brucioli.” Bergomum 70, nos. 1–2 (1976): 27–42. ———. “Autografi inediti di Lotto: Il primo testamento (1531) e un codicillo (1533).” Bergomum 93, nos. 1–2 (1998): 7–73. ———. Il coro intarsiato di Lotto e Capoferri per Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Milan: Silvana, 1987. ———. “La letteratura religiosa devozionale e l’iconografia di alcuni dipinti di L. Lotto.” Bergomum 70, nos. 1–2 (1976): 3–25. ———. “Lorenzo Lotto dal polittico di Ponteranica alla commissione della Santa Lucia di Jesi.” In Zampetti, Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto, 56–80. ———. Lorenzo Lotto: Gli affreschi dell’Oratorio Suardi di Trescore. Milan: Skira, 1997. ———. “Per Lotto nelle Marche e i suoi committenti (1523–1532).” Bergomum 91, no. 2 (1996): 15–60. ———. “Il problema della posizione religiosa di Lorenzo Lotto.” In Zampetti, Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto, 81–89.

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———. “Riforma religiosità arte alchimia negli affreschi di Lorenzo Lotto dell’Oratorio Suardi di Trescore.” In Zampetti, Lorenzo Lotto nel suo e nel nostro tempo, 28–38. Dal Poggetto, Paolo, and Pietro Zampetti, eds. Lorenzo Lotto nelle Marche: Il suo tempo, il suo influsso: Ancona, Chiesa del Gesu, Chiesa di San Francesco alle Scale, Loggia dei mercanti, 4 luglio–11 ottobre 1981. Florence: Centro Di, 1981. Dillon, Gianvittorio, ed. Lorenzo Lotto a Treviso. Ricerche e restauri. Catalogue. Treviso: Canova, 1980. Eire, Carlos. War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Firpo, Massimo. Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I. Turin: Einaudi, 1997. ———. Artisti, gioiellieri, eretici: Il mondo di Lorenzo Lotto tra Riforma e Controriforma. Rome: Laterza, 2001. ———. Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento: Un profilo storico. Rome: Laterza, 1993. Fontana, Renzo. “Appunti sulle frequentazioni di Lotto con alcune cerchie riformate venete.” In Zampetti, Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto, 101–5. ———. “Aspetti sociali e orizzonti mentali nell’ambiente lottesco negli anni quaranta del Cinquecento.” In Rosand, Interpretazioni Veneziane, 359–62. ———. “‘Solo, senza fidel governo et molto inquieto de la mente’: Testimonianze archivistiche su alcuni amici di Lotto processati per eresia.” In Zampetti and Sgarbi, Lorenzo Lotto, 279–97. Gaeta, Franco. “Documenti da codici vaticani per la storia della Riforma in Venezia. Appunti e documenti.” Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea 7 (1955): 5–53. Gentili, Augusto. “L’immagine e la cultura di Roma nell’opera di Lorenzo Lotto.” In Il S. Girolamo di Lorenzo Lotto a Castel Sant’Angelo, edited by Bruno Contardi and Augusto Gentili, 39–54. Exhibit catalog. Rome: Romana Società Editrice, 1983. ———. “Lorenzo Lotto dopo l’esperienza romana: Fascinazione e negazione.” In Zampetti, Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto, 39–55. ———. “Per Lorenzo Lotto e i suoi contesti storici: Due episodi ridocumentati, tra polemica e progetto.” Artibus et Historiae 4, no. 8 (1983): 77–93. ———. “Le storie, le metafore.” In Lorenzo Lotto: Il genio inquieto del Rinascimento. Edited by David Alan Brown, Peter Humfrey, and Mauro Lucco, 37–42. Milan: Skiro, 1998. Gentili, Augusto, Marco Lattanzi, and Flavia Polignano, eds. I giardini di contemplazione: Lorenzo Lotto, 1503–1512. Rome: Bulzoni, 1985. Giammarioli, Maurizio, and Patrizia Di Mambro. “I San Girolamo tardi di Lorenzo Lotto.” In Il S. Girolamo di Lorenzo Lotto a Castel S. Angelo, edited by Bruno Contardi and Augusto Gentili, 107–16. Exhibit catalog. Rome: Romana Società Editrice, 1983. Humfrey, Peter. Lorenzo Lotto. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Liberali, Giuseppe. La restaurazione dello ‘stato ecclesiastico.’ Treviso: Editrice Trevigiana, 1971. Lorenzo Lotto a Loreto e Recanati. Loreto: Archivio Storico Santa Casa. Ludwig, Gustav. “Archivalische Beiträge zur Geschichte der venetianischen Malerei.” Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 24 (1903) [Supplement]: 1–109. Martin, John Jeffries. “Spiritual Journeys and the Fashioning of Religious Identity in Renaissance Venice.” Renaissance Studies 10 (1996): 358–70.

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———. Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City, new ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Mazza, Angelo. “La pala dell’ “Elemosina di Sant’Antonino” nel dibattito cinquecentesco sul pauperismo.” In Zampetti, Lorenzo Lotto nel suo e nel nostro tempo, 347–64. Michalski, Sergiusz. The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1993. Montini, Renzo U. “Religiosità di Lorenzo Lotto.” Fede e arte 1(1953): 180–81. Mostra di Lorenzo Lotto, edited by Pietro Zampetti. Exhibition catalog, Palazzo ducale, Venezia, 14 guigno–18 ottobre 1953. Venice: Arte Veneta, 1953. Mozzoni, Loretta, and Gloriano Paoletti, eds. Lorenzo Lotto “…mi è forza andar a far alcune opere in la Marcha.…” Jesi: Assessorato alla Cultura Pinacoteca comunale/ Associazione Culturale Teatrale e Cinematografica Teatro ‘G. Pirani,’ 1996. Olivato, Loredana. “Ancora per il Serlio a Venezia: La cronologia dell’arrivo ed i suoi rapporti con i ‘dilettanti d’architettura.’ ” Museum Patavinum 3 (1985): 143–54. ———. “Dal teatro della memoria al grande teatro dell’architettura: Giulio Camillo Delminio e Sebastiano Serlio.” Bollettino del Centro internazionale di studi di architettura Andrea Palladio 21 (1979): 233–52. ———. “Per il Serlio a Venezia: Documenti nuovi e documenti rivisitati.” Arte veneta 25 (1971): 284–91. Olivieri, Achille. “Fra collettività urbane e rurali e ‘colonie’ mediterranee: L’ ‘eresia’ a Venezia.” In Storia della cultura veneta, edited by Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, vol. 3, pt. 3: Dal Primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento, 467–512. Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1981. Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Lorenzo Lotto. Milan: Aldo Martello, 1953. ———. Profilo di Lorenzo Lotto. Edited by Ornella Fanti. Bologna: Pàtron, 1954. Papini, Carlo. “Lorenzo Lotto filoriformato?” In La Riforma protestante nell’Italia del Cinquecento, 2nd ed., edited by Salvatore Caponetto, 487–91. Turin: Claudiana, 1992. Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna. Dai Paesi Bassi all’ Italia: “Il Sommario della sacra Scrittura”; Un libro proibito nella società italiana del Cinquecento. Florence: Olschki, 1997. Pignatti, Terisio, ed. Lorenzo Lotto. Milan: Mondadori, 1953. Pirovano, Carlo, ed. Lotto: Gli affreschi di Trescore. Milan: Electa, 1997. Pommier, Edouard. “La société vénitienne et la Réforme protestante au XVI siècle.” Bollettino dell’Istituto di storia della società e dello Stato veneziano 1 (1959): 3–26. Prosperi, Adriano. America e apocalisse e altri saggi. Pisa: Istituti editorial, e poligrafici Internazionali, 1999. ———. “La crisi religiosa in Italia nel primo Cinquecento.” In Brown, Humphrey, and Lucco, Lorenzo Lotto, 21–27. Romano, Giovanni. “La Bibbia di Lotto.” Paragone 27, nos. 317–19 (1976): 82–91. Rosand, David, ed. Interpretazioni veneziane: Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro. Venice: Arsenale, 1984. Scavizzi, Giuseppe. The Controversy on Images from Calvin to Baronius. New York: Peter Lang, 1992. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books, 1465–1550: A Finding List. Geneva: Droz, 1983. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia (1520–1580). Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987. ———. “Protestantesimo a Venezia.” In La Chiesa di Venezia tra Riforma protestante e Riforma cattolica, edited by Giuseppe Gullino, 131–54. Venice: Studium Cattolico Veneziano, 1990. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Serena, Augusto. “Fra gli eretici trevigiani.” Nuovo archivio veneto 3 (1923): 169–202. Stella, Aldo. “Tensioni religiose e movimenti di riforma (durante il dogado di Andrea Gritti).” In ‘Renovatio Urbis.’ Venezia nell’età di Andrea Gritti (1523–1538), edited by Manfredo Tafuri, 134–47. Rome: Officina, 1984. Tacchi Venturi, Pietro. Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Rome: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1950–51. Tafuri, Manfredo. “Ipotesi sulla religiosità di Sebastiano Serlio.” In Sebastiano Serlio: Sesto Seminario internazionale di storia dell’architettura, Vicenza, 31 agosto–4 settembre 1987, edited by Christof Thoenes, 57–66. Milan: Electa, 1989. ———. Venezia e il Rinascimento. Turin: Einaudi, 1985. Translated by Jessica Levine as Venice and the Renaissance. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989. Tramontin, Silvio. “Catechesi, catechismi e catechisti.” In La Chiesa di Venezia tra Riforma protestante e Riforma cattolica, edited by Giuseppe Gullino, 113–30. Venice: Studium Cattolico Veneziano, 1990. Turrini, Miriam. “‘Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana’: Le scuole di catechismo nell’Italia del Cinquecento.” Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento 8 (1982): 407–89. Zampetti, Pietro. “A che punto siamo con Lorenzo Lotto?” In Zampetti and Sgarbi, Lorenzo Lotto, 13–20. ———. “Introduzione: Lorenzo Lotto; Il suo e il nostro tempo.” In Lorenzo Lotto nelle Marche: Il suo tempo, il suo influsso, edited by Paolo Dal Poggetto and Pietro Zampetti, 17–27. Florence: Centro Di, 1981. ———. Lotto. Bologna: Capitol, 1983. ———. “Osservazioni e primo consuntivo sulle giornate lottesche.” In Zampetti and Sgarbi, Lorenzo Lotto, 483–87. ———. “Un pittore ‘inquieto della mente.’ ” In Zampetti, Lorenzo Lotto nel suo e nel nostro tempo, 50–65. ———, ed. Lorenzo Lotto nel suo e nel nostro tempo: Atti del convegno di Urbino, 25 agosto 1980. Notizie da Palazzo Albani 9, nos. 1–2 (1980). ———, ed. Omaggio a Lorenzo Lotto: Atti del convegno Jesi-Mogliano, 4–6 dicembre 1981. Notizie da Palazzo Albani 13, no. 1 (1984). Zampetti, Pietro, and Vittorio Sgarbi, eds. Lorenzo Lotto: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi per il V centenario della nascita, Asolo, 18–21 settembre 1980. Treviso: Comitato per le celebrazioni lottesche, 1981.

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Chapter 2

MAKING HERESY MARGINAL IN MODENA Michelle M. Fontaine

FOR SUCH A SMALL, SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN CITY, Modena gained an unusually large and widespread reputation for its notorious infestation of Protestant heretics. In the decades following the publication of Martin Luther’s NinetyFive Theses (1517), some of the Modenese—like citizens in many Italian towns— read and discussed the ideas of several northern reformers, notably Calvin and Bucer. Toward the end of the 1530s, Catholic authorities labeled them luterani—a term used generally to connote “heretics.” By midcentury, the heretics of Modena had become infamous within the Italian peninsula. Not only did these alleged heretics attract the attention of their lay and clerical contemporaries alike; they also continue to capture the interest of historians of Italian religious culture. For the last century, scholars have often focused on the religious crisis in early modern Modena, spotlighting in particular those suspected of heresy or the attempt to control heterodox opinion through a reinvigorated Inquisition or other methods of “the control of conscience.” 1 One of these scholars, Salvatore Caponetto, is representative of this approach. He explains that from the 1540s, “Modena was the major center of anti-Roman dissent in the entire Emilia….” He further asserts that certain highly placed Modenese citizens led the “formation of a clandestine community that served as an alternative to the Church of Rome,” and that this alternative church flourished in Modena until 1566 when severe repression by the Inquisition ended its success.2 This view of the history of the Modenese heretics and their clandestine community reflects the work of many other scholars of early modern Italy, who focus on the birth and spread of heresy 1On social and religious control, see Prodi and Penuta, Disciplina dell’anima; Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza; Hudon, “Religion and Society in Early Modern Italy”; and Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo. 2Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, 254–60. See also Bianco, “La comunità di ‘fratelli.’ ”

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in the 1540s and then jump to its repression in the late 1560s. However, in their analysis, these scholars have overlooked significant developments that occurred in the interim period of the 1550s and early 1560s. In jumping from the 1540s to the late 1560s, scholars have missed an important episode in the story of early modern Catholicism. Although heresy appeared to hold a firm grip on the central nodes of Modenese life during the 1530s and 1540s, that hold began to weaken rapidly during approximately the next fifteen years. During that time a sudden resurgence of vital, orthodox Catholicism gained a groundswell of popular support and set in motion a process that pushed heresy to the margins of Modenese society, removing it from public view and forcing the heretics underground. The reinvigoration and restoration of orthodox Catholicism began in 1550 with the arrival of Modena’s new resident bishop, Egidio Foscarari. For more than a decade, Bishop Foscarari endeavored to revitalize orthodoxy in Modena by two kinds of processes: the public, visible rebuilding of corporate religious unity and piety on the one hand, and the private spiritual direction of individuals who held heterodox beliefs on the other. As orthodox Catholicism once again regained its central, visible position in Modenese life, the heretics of Modena and their heretical opinions faded into the periphery well before the Inquisition tightened the screws on the heretics in the late 1560s.

HERESY AT THE CENTER OF MODENESE LIFE During the first half of the sixteenth century, the turmoil experienced generally throughout the Italian peninsula beset Modena also and grew to include a religious crisis as well. Like its neighbors, Modena succumbed to the travails of the Italian Wars and multiple economic and social distresses induced by periodic war, drought, famine, and the increase of indigence and civil strife.3 Against this backdrop of general instability and crisis, the emergence of heterodox religious opinion left its mark. As heretical opinions gained a foothold, religious orthodoxy in Modena seemed to weaken. The ineffective supervision of the episcopal vicars who governed the Modenese church on behalf of a string of absentee bishops could not meet the challenges posed by citizens who energetically embraced religious beliefs that sounded similar to those of the northern reformers generally identified with the “religious crisis of Italy.”4

3For further analysis of this crisis in Modena, see Fontaine, “For the Good of the City,” 31–35. 4On the religious crisis in Modena, see esp. Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi; and Rotondò, “Per la storia dell’eresia.” For the religious crisis in Italy, see Simoncelli, “La crisi religiosa,” 252–81; and Adorni-Braccesi, “Una Città Infetta.”

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Heresy became an issue of public concern in Modena during the late 1530s and early 1540s. As early as the mid-1520s, Modenese citizens began to exchange ideas with some of the northern reformers. At least by the 1530s, if not earlier, members of Modena’s most prestigious intellectual institution, the Academy, began to read and discuss the writings and ideas of Calvin, Bucer, and Melanchthon, among others.5 These discussions began in private, behind the closed doors of the Academy, but in the late 1530s they became more public. At that time, Camillo Renato and Bernardino Ochino, both well-known heretics, taught and preached in Modena with the blessing of the Academicians.6 In the opinion of some conservative members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the Academicians, guilty by their association with men of questionable faith, thoroughly earned their own reputation as heretics. In the early 1540s, religious discussion turned to debate and debate soon caused schism in Modena. The issue of who was to deliver the Lenten sermons in 1541 intensified faction and civil disorder, twin evils for the early modern city. The reform faction, backed by the Augustinians, members of the Academy, and some of the Conservators (town councillors) wanted Bernardino Ochino. The conservative faction, which consisted of the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the episcopal vicar, and other Conservators, pushed for a more traditional Carmelite preacher. After one particularly explosive incident, the vicar reported to the bishop that the intensity of the disagreement would have likely developed into a riot had the ducal governor not been in town to enforce an uneasy peace.7 These public disputes affected others as well. During the height of this Lenten controversy, one chronicler remarked that “fewer and fewer go to the cathedral to hear the preacher. … This [situation] is due to those people who are turning the city upside down by telling others not to go to hear [him].” He later identified “those people” as the heretics of Modena.8 This account of Lenten controversy demonstrates how heresy touched the central nodes of power and influence in Modena. By all accounts, the Academy, the intellectual center of the city, functioned as the fulcrum for the early spread of heretical ideas. The family, friends, and associates of the Academy included many members of the social and political elite, families of long-standing honor and reputation in Modena like the Castelvetro, the Valentini, and even the local counts, the Rangoni.9 These families and others frequently served on the town council, 5Caponetto, Protestant Reformation, 52, 252–54. See also Firpo, Riforma protestante, 53–69. 6For the Academy and the suspicion of heresy, see Firpo, “Gli ‘spirituali’”; Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 230–35; and Memeo, “La ‘religione cittadina,’ ” 302–46. 7Firpo and Marcatto, Processo inquisitoriale del Morone, 2.2:931–32. 8Bianchi [Lancellotti], Cronaca Modenese, 7:27. 9Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 7:22. See also Firpo, Riforma protestante, 54–56.

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the municipal political center. Consequently, at any given time, a handful of people with heretical religious beliefs served as Conservators. Not only did heresy touch the nodes of power, but it began to spread to artisans in their shops.10 Writing to Bishop Giovanni Morone, the episcopal vicar reported that “this entire city (as is its reputation) is stained, infected with the contagion of diverse heresies, like Prague. In the shops, on the street corners, in private homes … everyone disputes … matters of faith, free will, purgatory, the Eucharist, predestination, [and more].…”11 Contemporary lay observers also give us a window into Modenese heterodoxy at this time. Alessandro Tassoni the Elder, a chronicler of Modena, recorded that “the learned, the unlearned, and those inexperienced with letters debated the faith and laws of Christ in the streets, in shop rooms, and in churches, whenever the occasion presented itself, and all of them tore sacred scripture apart indiscriminately.”12 Others confirmed this impression that unlearned and unchecked public discussion of religious doctrines prevailed in Modena. Tommasino Lancellotti wrote extensively about the religious controversies that plagued his city during these years. He blamed the members of the Academy of Modena for “sowing schism” throughout his beloved patria.13 Worse yet, he found his own honor at stake when visiting Ferrara on business. A citizen of Ferrara accused him of being a heretic, since “everyone knew” that all the Modenese were heretics.14 The private, scholarly discussion of the Academicians had turned into public debate about key points of the Catholic faith such as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, confession, the saints, the Virgin, and the pope. Prominent citizens suspected of heresy and occasionally cited by the Inquisition freely walked the streets, filled public offices, and lectured at the Academy. By the early 1540s, Modena reluctantly acquired an unshakable reputation that extended throughout Italy for the large number of heretics tolerated in the city. The traditional ecclesiastical sources of power in the city—centered around the cathedral, the most influential orders, religious ritual, and the episcopal office—could not effectively challenge the heretics. Located in the physical center of the city off the Piazza Grande, the cathedral had functioned for centuries as the traditional symbolic heart of good religion. In the absence of a resident bishop, the cathedral canons directed much of Modena’s religious life. It became known, 10 For the spread of heretical opinions to the artisanal class, see Bianco, “La comunità di ‘fratelli’”; and Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies, 89–95, 150–52, 242–47. 11Firpo and Marcatto, Processo inquisitoriale del Morone, 2.2:897. 12Cronache modenesi di Alessandro Tasoni, 231. 13“Li quali seminano sixima in questa città di Modena.” Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 7:22. He accused several dozen members of the Academy of Modena of spreading heresy. Ibid., 8:15. 14 Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 8:298. Lancellotti was not a heretic; in fact, he seemed to become more orthodox and conservative as he aged.

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however, that heresy touched even the cathedral chapter. Later, the Inquisition charged the archcanon, Bonifacio Valentini, with sowing heresy among the other canons in the cathedral chapter, meeting with other suspected heretics, and owning a number of heretical books.15 Beyond the cathedral, the four most influential monastic houses—the Dominican, Franciscan, Augustinian, and Benedictine— began to argue over preaching schedules as well as religious ideas, creating more divisions in the city. Religious controversy and schism at the traditional core of the clergy resulted in the general weakening of traditional Catholicism among the laity. By the early 1540s, noticeably fewer parishioners attended Mass. More remarkably, the number of faithful who participated in the regular religious processions fell to a trickle. Even the most popular processions held on the feast of Corpus Christi, which promoted belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and traditionally attracted thousands, drew ever fewer people.16 Popular opinion put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Modena’s absentee bishops for both the decay of orthodox traditions and the advance of heresy. The chronicler Lancellotti embraced this sentiment when he explained that, by their absence, Modena’s bishops “have been and are the cause of heresy… .”17 Bishop Morone tried to visit Modena to attend to this situation but rarely succeeded as the pope continuously sent him on papal business elsewhere. After trying to govern Modena from afar with little success, Morone finally renounced his episcopate in 1550 in favor of a Dominican theologian, Egidio Foscarari.18 Upon hearing that Foscarari would soon come to Modena as bishop, Lancellotti wrote, “perhaps he will direct those persons who are not following the ways of God correctly. This city has the greatest need [for this kind of direction]…all because of the evil bishops who have milked the bishopric and have left sinners in the mouths of wolves….”19 After several decades of ineffective religious supervision and the ultimate outbreak of heresy and schism, the imminent arrival of a resident bishop raised the possibility that the religious tide might turn again, this time toward orthodoxy and tradition.

THE BISHOP AND THE RESTORATION OF VITAL PUBLIC CATHOLICISM Although Foscarari knew that ecclesiastical authorities in Rome sent him to Modena specifically to control and eradicate heresy there, he had a wider vision of 15Firpo and Marcatto, Processo inquisitoriale del Morone, 1:258n32. See also Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 101–13, 125–29. 16Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 7:72–73. 17Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:225. 18Following the first phase of the Council of Trent, many cardinals resigned their episcopates; see Hallman, Italian Cardinals, 32–65. 19Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:256. See also Biondi, “Tommasino Lancellotti,” 43–61.

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his mission that resonated deeply with the pastoral concerns of the reform decrees of the Council of Trent.20 He came to Modena to pastor his newly acquired flock and did so, from 1550 to 1564, as Modena’s first resident bishop of the sixteenth century. Taking Gian Matteo Giberti, the Dominican Saint Antoninus, and other resident bishops as his models and following the precepts of being a “good bishop” set out by the late Gasparo Contarini in his De officio episcopi, Foscarari concerned himself with the quality of his cura animarum (pastoral duties) and the supervision of his clergy.21 Many of his episcopal activities focused on reunifying religion in the city and restoring a vital, corporate Catholicism to the public view. The bishop visibly bolstered Catholic piety in public. From his first entry into Modena, Bishop Foscarari began to promote orthodox religion and devotion, especially in the city’s religious center, the cathedral. By his own example, Bishop Foscarari began to endorse devotion to orthodox religion, particularly to the Eucharist. Arriving in the evening on 15 July 1550, he immediately entered the cathedral, ascended the stairway at the left of the nave to the choir above “where the Body of Christ was kept,” and there intoned the Te Deum. Then he visited the crypt of San Geminiano, Modena's patron saint, and finally retired to the episcopal palace next door.22 From that first night, the Modenese regularly noted their bishop’s presence in the cathedral. The significance of his presence in the cathedral should not be undervalued. Although it is the bishop’s expected and recognized domain of supervision, the cathedral had lost its effective position as the center of orthodox religion in Modena during the period of absentee bishops and heretical cathedral canons, and the renewed and continuous presence of a resident bishop signaled to the Modenese the potential return of clear orthodox direction located in the heart of their diocese. From his first Sunday in Modena, Bishop Foscarari began the habit of presiding regularly over the Mass in the cathedral. A few weeks later, on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, he celebrated his first Mass. He continually attended, supervised, and participated in the Mass on subsequent Catholic feasts including the Holy Cross, the Nativity, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi.23 In contrast to the low parishioner turnout at similar liturgies 20For the pastoral spirit of the Council of Trent, see O’Malley,

Trent and All That, 64–65, 130–32.

21For Foscarari’s reform of the clergy, see Fontaine, “Urban Religious Culture,” 75–90. 22Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:257. 23Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:275, 324, 394–95, 412–13; 11:370, 377. Years later, Foscarari helped write the reforms of the twenty-third session of the Council of Trent on the residence of bishops, which stated that “unless their episcopal duties call them elsewhere in their diocese, they are on no account to absent themselves from their cathedral church during the periods of the Advent of the Lord, Quadragesima, the Nativity, Easter, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi, on which days especially the sheep ought to be refreshed and to rejoice in the Lord at the presence of the shepherd.” Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, ed. and trans. Schroeder, 165.

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during the years without a resident bishop, hundreds of Modenese now attended the feasts, often filling the cathedral to maximum capacity. The Modenese not only went to Mass more consistently; they also attended vespers again. With the assurance that the bishop would supervise all the preaching during his first Lenten season in Modena, record-breaking crowds turned out to hear the preacher’s two-hour sermons.24 The bishop's consistent presence in the cathedral throughout the liturgical year at masses that filled the cathedral to capacity created an image of enthusiastic and unified orthodox Catholicism in Modena. His very presence helped restore and reinforce the center of religious orthodoxy as he promoted orthodox doctrine in the city. The bishop not only fortified the center of orthodox religion inside the cathedral; he also appeared repeatedly in public, leading hundreds of Modenese in traditional religious rituals. Following him as their religious leader, the Modenese took to the streets to mark sacred space on numerous occasions.25 During one particularly severe drought and famine, the bishop led a series of processions through the city, tracing a route from the cathedral to the Benedictine church the first day, from the cathedral to San Domenico the following day, and from the cathedral to a church on the northernmost edge of the city on the last day. Each day, the urban elite joined the bishop in leading these processions, followed by several thousand faithful Modenese, while several thousand others lined the streets.26 In a city with a population of approximately eighteen thousand, this was an impressive turnout indeed.27 The bishop also regularly led religious processions. As bishop of the city, Foscarari always celebrated the Corpus Christi Mass at the cathedral. He then led thousands of Modenese through the streets of the city and ended the procession with a benediction back in the cathedral.28 These processions and many more like them created a visible image and corporate experience of orthodox Catholic unity in the city.29 These processions not only demonstrated Catholic solidarity; they also helped push heresy to the margins. While many thousands might attend these public and corporate Catholic rituals, the absence of one or two individuals might also be noticed. For instance, on the feast of Corpus Christi in 1553, the bishop 24Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:324, 353. 25On such processions, see Davis, “The Sacred and the Body Social.” On Counter-Reformation thinking on the use of external ritual, particularly processions, see Delph, “Venetian Visitor to Curial Humanist”; and Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 272–76. Foscarari moved in the same network as Steuco and Contarini and most likely shared their opinions on the matter of the external cult. 26Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:386–87. On drought and famine in Modena, see Basini, L’Uomo e il pane. 27For Modena’s population, see Basini, L’Uomo e il pane, 13–23. 28Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:412–13. 29On the significance of ritual in the early modern city, see Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice; and Trexler, “Florentine Religious Experience,” 7–41.

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celebrated the Mass in the cathedral. Then the cathedral canons—with the notable exception of Archcanon Bonifacio Valentini, who would be tried for heresy later—carried the blessed sacrament through the city, closely followed by the Conservators and other pious Modenese.30 The absence of an individual or two at orthodox Catholic rituals served to mark a contrast with the many who participated in religious debates or who did not observe Catholic traditions a decade earlier. The bishop’s continual association with traditional belief and practice located in the cathedral and his use of processions to rally religious enthusiasm revitalized Catholic orthodoxy and rendered it a visible and defining aspect of life in the very heart of Modena.

HERESY BECOMES A PRIVATE MATTER Well aware that Rome believed his primary mission to be the control if not eradication of heresy in the Diocese of Modena, Bishop Foscarari also worked privately, behind closed doors, to reform those suspected of holding heretical opinions.31 Foscarari first restored the traditional role of the bishop as overseer of faith and morals in the diocese. Although this role dated from the instigation of the office of bishop in the early church, it had fallen into disuse over time. In 1179 the bull Ad abolendum, often called the “founding charter of the Inquisition,” officially commissioned bishops to investigate charges of heresy in their dioceses.32 In keeping with Ad abolendum, Foscarari believed that the primary responsibility for controlling heresy on the diocesan level fell to the bishop rather than the local Inquisition. However, the bishop of Modena knew very well that he could not ignore the local tribunal of the Inquisition.33 By the time he began his tenure as bishop in 1550, the Roman Inquisition had become more organized and systematic in the wake of its reinvigoration a decade earlier by Giovanni Pietro Carafa and others. Therefore, Foscarari used his own connections to the Dominican Order to staff the Modenese Inquisition with men he knew well. He appointed, or arranged for the appointment of, Angelo Valentini—whom he had known during the 1530s 30Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 12:428. 31During his first week as bishop, Foscarari received a brief from Pope Julius III pertaining to heretical preachers and confessors. See Lancellotti, Cronaca Modenese, 10:225; and Fontana, “Documenti vaticani contro l’eresia luterana in Italia,” 418. When Paul IV became pope five years later, he reiterated these orders in a bull to Foscarari. For the bull, see ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 1, fasc. 1, pt. la. 32For Ad abolendum, the medieval origins of the Inquisition, and the Inquisition and bishops, see Peters, Inquisition, 44–75. 33Several decades earlier this might not have been the case, as Matteo Duni has recently shown; see his Tra Religione e Magia, 16–43.

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and 1540s when they both lived in San Domenico in Bologna—to the tribunal. Another close Dominican friend from Bologna, Domenico da Imola, became Angelo Valentini’s assistant, and later in 1560 replaced him as inquisitor.34 He also moved the location of the tribunal and its archives from the Dominican monastery in the north of the city to his episcopal palace adjacent to the cathedral. Subsequent heresy trials took place in the episcopal palace. 35 Foscarari worked closely with his Dominican friends while attempting to correct the religious views of the heretics of Modena. Nonetheless, whenever possible he steered clear of the Inquisition when overseeing and correcting the faith of the Modenese. Armed with inquisitors he could trust, the bishop personally inquired into the religious and spiritual faith of individuals in his diocese. He made periodic visitations to all the parishes in his diocese, even those in the mountains outside the city.36 Beyond the information he gained through these pastoral visits, Foscarari also requested that each parish send him a list of the parishioners who did not confess to their priest during Lent. Eventually, he compiled these names into a notebook, noting in particular who had erred against the teachings of the church. This notebook purportedly topped 150 manuscript pages, although only eight original pages have survived. The fragment alone contains over seventy names of Modenese men and women and the names of their parishes. Occasionally, Foscarari noted the nature of the heresy. Most usually, he wrote next to each name, “abjured before the heart of the bishop.”37 Foscarari had a light touch when meeting with suspected heretics. He had not become a Dominican in 1526 so that he could become an inquisitor, and like many Dominicans, he recoiled from the coercion associated with the Inquisition. Much in keeping with the style of the reform network of his mentor and friend Cardinal Giovanni Morone, Foscarari favored utilizing the traditional episcopal method of persuasio (persuasion), when correcting errors of personal faith. Episcopal persuasion as a means of redirecting the theologically errant had been common from the time of the early church and had been periodically renewed during the outbreak of heresy in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.38 Rather than 34D’Amato, I Domenicani a Bologna, 1:505, 506, 508, 528. For Valentini and da Imola’s roles in the prosecution of heresy, see ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 3, 2, fasc. 9, “Contro Paolo Cassano,” fol. 3r; Inquisizione, busta 1, fasc. 5, pt. 2, 13 December 1558, fol. 1r; and Archivio Storico Comunale, Modena, Riformagioni, Consilii, e Provvigioni della Comunità di Modena, 1561, fols. 109v, 162v. See also O’Neil, “Discerning Superstition,” 1–20; and Archivio di San Domenico, Bologna, III, 37050, Ludovico da Prelormo, Cronaca del P. Fra Ludovico da Prelormo, 254. 35ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 1, fasc. 7, pt. 4; and Inquisizione, busta 3, 2, fasc. 12, fol. 166v. 36For his visitations, see Biblioteca Capitolare, Modena, O. 1. 33, Liber visitationum saeculo XVI, fols. 1r–57v; and Pistone, “Le visite pastorali a Modena.” 37For example, see the case of Maramilo in the parish of San Barnabo, ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 1, fasc. 7, pt. 7, fols. 1v, 3v. 38For episcopal persuasio, see Peters, Inquisition, 44–46.

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follow an overtly aggressive line against the heretics of Modena, Foscarari met with them individually to discuss the contours of their personal faith with the intent of teaching, persuading, and reconverting them to orthodox Catholicism.39 Foscarari’s light-handed method of persuasion and his control of the Inquisition worked best during the first half of his tenure as bishop. Before 1555, he developed trust and goodwill among some of the most renowned heretics of Modena, including Ludovico Castelvetro, the humanist poet; Antonio Gadaldino, a local bookseller; Bonifacio Valentini, the archcanon; and his cousin, Filippo Valentini, each a member of one of the most prominent families in Modena. Each of these men had run afoul of the Roman Inquisition in the 1540s and reports of their unreformed views continued to filter to Rome. During his early years as bishop, Foscarari met with these influential Modenese on numerous occasions to discuss different projects of mutual concern and interest, from providing social welfare for the urban poor to publishing certain works of Erasmus.40 Unfortunately, increasing intransigence in Rome that reached a peak during the pontificate of Paul IV (1555–59) put pressure on the bishop of Modena to yield to the growing authority of the Inquisition. In 1556 the Roman Inquisition recalled the Valentini cousins, along with Gadaldino and Castelvetro, to Rome, charging them once again with heresy. Hastening to their defense, the Conservators wrote a letter of complaint to the Duke of Ferrara saying, “The Inquisitor uses his office without any hindrance. Our Most Reverend Bishop, a man of great holiness, attends closely to these matters. What do they hear in Rome that such people don’t hear [in Modena]?”41 Despite the best efforts of Foscarari, the duke, and the municipal government to protect them, each of the accused fell to the power of the Inquisition. After evading prison twice, Castelvetro left Modena permanently to escape the Inquisition in 1560. Filippo Valentini also fled at much the same time. Foscarari recorded in his notebook that Bonifacio Valentini, the archcanon, abjured before him privately. Bonifacio also described this encounter with the bishop during his subsequent trial in Rome, but failed to convince his inquisitors of his orthodox faith. He returned to Modena two years later, apparently a repentant sinner, publicly recanted his heretical views, and spent the rest of his life imprisoned in the episcopal palace.42 In this case, the Roman Inquisition overturned the bishop’s own positive evaluation of the state of Bonifacio’s soul. Toward

39Peters, Inquisition, 44–46. See also Bianco, “Comunità di ‘fratelli,’ ” 621. 40On the nature and extent of his work with this group, see Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia, 238–39. 41ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 1; cited also in Canosa, Storia dell’Inquisizione in Italia, 1:18–19. 42A copy of Valentini’s formal abjuration is in ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 3, fasc. 23, “Contro Giovanni Bagnacavallo.”

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the end of the 1550s, the bishop of Modena had to contend more and more with the arm of the Roman Inquisition. The combination of Foscarari’s paternal but gentle method of persuading suspected heretics of their errors, his apparent fraternizing with them, his attempted control of the Inquisition in Modena, and his association with his patron, Cardinal Giovanni Morone, eventually called the orthodoxy of his own faith into question among those given to suspicion in Rome. In the spring of 1558, the Inquisition in Bologna began a preliminary investigation into the nature of his own religious beliefs. After several months of interrogation in Bologna, the tribunal sent him to Rome. There the Inquisition made him a virtual prisoner in the Castel Sant’Angelo along with his friend Cardinal Morone. They both remained imprisoned until their release the day after Pope Paul IV’s death in 1559.43 The Inquisition began to investigate Foscarari shortly after Bonifacio Valentini’s trial in Rome, during which he admitted that he had abjured before his bishop, yet the Inquisition found him guilty as charged. This might have caused the inquisitors to doubt Foscarari’s ability to distinguish the finer points of religious truth. However, nothing substantial indicates that Foscarari ever held a heretical religious position.44 His “heresy”—if it can be called that—most likely consisted of the company he kept.45 As an involved, resident bishop, Foscarari interacted continuously with the Modenese. His interaction with suspected heretics as with others in his diocese endeared him to the Modenese but simultaneously caused others of a more suspicious nature to question his own orthodoxy. During Foscarari’s episcopate, the Inquisition did not prosecute many Modenese compared to the numerous trials conducted shortly after his death in 1564. When Foscarari died, the bishopric reverted to Giovanni Morone, who remained its absentee bishop until 1571. During this time, beginning in 1566, a new, unbending inquisitor of Modena, Paolo Costabili, began a pronounced season of heretic hunting. Ironically, he used Foscarari’s own notebook as a starting point for reinvestigating most who had previously abjured before the bishop. The years when a bishop could supervise the faith and morals of the members of his diocese unimpeded by the Inquisition had come to an end.

43The record of this investigation has not yet come to light; it most probably burned in the destruction of the Holy Office following the pontiff ’s death. 44Pope Pius IV fully exonerated Foscarari in 1560 and later thought well enough of his orthodoxy to commission him to revise the Breviary, the Missal, and the Catechism at the close of the Council of Trent. 45In a letter written years later, it became clear that the Roman Inquisition thoroughly disapproved of Foscarari’s method of persuasion; see ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 122, “Lettere della Sacra Congregazione,” 26 January 1572, fol. 1r.

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Without a doubt, the heretics of Modena always held a minority opinion. During the most uncontrolled period of heterodox discussion and debate in the 1530s and 1540s, heresy never touched the majority of the Modenese. At the height of its success, the clandestine, alternative church in Modena never consisted of more than 150 individuals in a total urban population of less than 20,000.46 However, during the decades without a resident bishop, when religious disputes became very public, heresy did touch all the central nodes of power. The vocal minority confused the silent—or less vocal—majority. In these years, heresy did not appear to hold a marginal or inconsequential position. Many concerned citizens could not easily determine how far heresy had spread in their city. The absence of a strong Catholic center made the extent of heretical opinions all the more difficult to ascertain. The process of privatizing heresy in Modena, of driving heretical discussions from the public view into a clandestine church, began in 1550. Spearheaded by Foscarari, who made residency a defining attribute of his office, this process consisted of a public and private dimension. Although Rome pressured Foscarari to focus on the eradication of heresy in his diocese, the bishop had a wider vision of revitalizing Catholic orthodoxy in faith and practice. His direct supervision of liturgy and ritual assured thousands of Modenese that orthodox religion had returned to Modena. A resident bishop who authoritatively directed religious experience created a powerful image of Catholic unity in the city. The thousands of believers who attended these Catholic rites and rituals attested to the growing health of orthodox and unified religion in the city. Arguably, the bishop’s visible restoration of corporate liturgy and ritual overshadowed his private meetings with those suspected of heresy. Nonetheless, the combined private and public activity of the bishop effectively drove heresy from the center of Modenese life, forcing it underground and into the private sphere, well before the arrival of a repressive Inquisition in the late 1560s.

46See Bianco, “Comunità di ‘fratelli,’ ” 621–25.

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Printed Primary Sources Bianchi, Tommasino De [Lancellotti]. Cronaca Modenese. Edited by Carlo Borghi, Luigi Lodi and Giorgio Ferrari Moreni. 12 vols. Monumenta di storia patria delle provincie modenesi. Serie delle cronache. Parma: Fiaccadori, 1862–84. Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. Edited and translated by Henry Joseph Schroeder. St. Louis: Herder, 1960. Reprint, Rockford, IL: Tan Books, 1978. Cronache modenesi di Alessandro Tasoni, di Giovanni da Bazzano e di Bonifazio Morano secondo l’esatta lezione dei codici e con le varianti del Muratori ora per la prima volta nella loro integrità publicate. Edited by Luigi Vischi, Tommaso Sandonnini, and Odoardo Raselli. Monumenti di storia patria per le provincie modenesi. Serie delle cronache 15. Modena: Società Tipographica, 1888.

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Pistone, Giuseppe. “Le visite pastorali a Modena nel secolo decimosesto.” Accademia nazionale di scienze, lettere e arti, Memorie Serie 6, 15 (1973): 114–16. Prodi, Paolo, and Carla Penuta, eds. Disciplina dell’anima, disciplina del corpo, e disciplina della società tra medioevo ed età moderna. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994. Prosperi, Adriano. Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari. Turin: Einaudi, 1996. Rotondò, Antonio. “Per la storia dell’eresia a Bologna nel secolo XVI.” Rinascimento 13 (1962): 107–54. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia (1520–1580). Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987. ———. “Inquisizione come repressione o inquisizione come mediazione? Una proposta di periodizzazione.” Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per l’ éta moderna e contemporanea 35–36 (1983–84): 53–77. Simoncelli, Paolo. “La crisi religiosa del Cinquecento in Italia.” In Lo storia: I grandi problemi dal Medioveo all’età contemporanea. Vol. 4, pt. 2, L’età moderna: La vita religiosa e la cultura. Edited by Nicola Tranfaglia and Massimo Firpo. Turin: Utet, 1986. Trexler, Richard. “Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image.” Studies in the Renaissance 19 (1972): 7–41.

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Chapter 3

RUMORS OF HERESY IN MANTUA Paul V. Murphy

IN 1567 AND 1568, ENDIMIO CALANDRA, longtime secretary of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga (1505–63), was put on trial by the Roman Inquisition along with many other Mantuans. In the course of his trial, Calandra had ample opportunity to comment on the religious situation of his day. He attested to the doctrinal orthodoxy of Cardinal Gonzaga while at the same time admitting the Mantuan cardinal had been, in his view, negligent in supervising preachers. He attributed this to the general openness of the period: I knew him to be negligent concerning preachers; but perhaps this was because even in Rome preachers were heard who preached Lutheran doctrine, just as they preached here in Mantua, because then things were not so strict.1

Calandra’s testimony demonstrates that Gonzaga employed men whom he knew to be of questionable orthodoxy as late as the 1550s. Indeed, Gonzaga does not seem to have been very strict. His willingness to impose orthodoxy was significantly influenced by the degree to which such discipline was pastorally or civically useful. In the historiography of the last several generations, much effort has gone into determining when and how the church of the Renaissance gave way to the church of the Counter-Reformation, or whatever term one might choose to describe the church of the early modern period. The date most often cited for the change is sometime around 1542 when notable Italians fled to Protestant Switzerland and the papacy reorganized the Roman Inquisition. The result of these changes, some argue, was a strikingly altered climate of religious practice and belief. In short, a certain Renaissance nonchalance gave way to a stern and attentive severity.2 Other 1“L’ho ben conosciuto per negligente nelle cose delli predicatori: ma forse anco questo poteva procedere perché in Roma s’erano anco sentiti delli predicatori che predicavano pure alla lutherana, come so predicava anco qui in Mantova, perche allhora le cose non andavano così strette.” Settimo Costituto di Endimio Calandra, 19 April 1568, in Pagano, Processo di Endimio Calandra, 333. 2Delio Cantimori, Massimo Firpo, and Paolo Simoncelli are among the scholars who hold to this XXXX

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scholars have seen the change as less abrupt and more gradual. Silvana Seidel Menchi, for example, has argued that the inquisitors of Italy prior to Giovanni Pietro Carafa’s election to the papacy in 1555 acted more as mediators of theological dialogue than as zealous prosecutors of heretics.3 Cardinal Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua, provides a valuable test case for this problem.4 This was a man who, according to Ludwig von Pastor, in his youth “was a votary of the Renaissance” yet who, after he became cardinal in 1527, “began to take life more seriously” and ruled his diocese “with a rod of iron.”5 Pastor’s admiring portrait of Gonzaga as an early example of reform within the Catholic Church has been mirrored by those scholars who also viewed him as stern but who have been distinctly more critical of him on that account.6 Given this model for describing Gonzaga’s activities, it should not be difficult to find examples of his severity with regard to preaching and heresy that would support the thesis of a sharp break in religious practice in Italy in the early 1540s. The evidence, however, is much more ambiguous than Pastor and others have recognized. Gonzaga did not in fact rule with an iron rod. Much more common in his approach to the religiously suspect was the use of persuasion as well as a good deal of flexibility. Ercole Gonzaga was the second son of Francesco Gonzaga (1466–1519), Marquis of Mantua, and Isabella d’Este (1474–1539). He enjoyed the benefits of the brilliant court that his parents supported. His mother in particular took great care in the education of her son both in Mantua and later at the University of Bologna. In Bologna he studied under another Mantuan, the Aristotelian philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi. Gonzaga never lost an interest in studies, retained court philosophers and theologians throughout his life, and built a large personal library. At the age of sixteen he became perpetual administrator of the diocese of Mantua. This responsibility did not lead Gonzaga to immediately seek holy orders. He did not receive ordination to the priesthood until 1556 and was not ordained bishop until 1561. Nevertheless, prior to his ordination, he functioned in all ways other than liturgical as the bishop of Mantua, and his contemporaries saw him in that way. In 1527, after much effort on the part of his family, who employed the Mantuan humanist Baldassare Castiglione for his diplomatic services, Pope Clement VII elevated Gonzaga to the cardinalate. As with most other highborn clerics of 3

general view. See Firpo and Marcatto, Processo inquisitoriale del Morone; and Firpo, Inquisizione romana e controriforma. 3In addition to her article in this volume, see Seidel Menchi, “Evangelismo e intransigenti.” 4On Gonzaga, see Murphy, “Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga”; and Rezzaghi, Il “Catecismo” di Leonardo de Marini. 5Pastor, History of the Popes, 11:526. 6Davari, “Cenni storici intorno.”

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the Renaissance, Gonzaga enjoyed a large personal income that came from multiple benefices. The inadequacy of Pastor’s interpretation of Gonzaga as having undergone some sort of conversion is made clear also by his five natural children, the youngest of whom was born in 1557, long after his elevation to the cardinalate. During his years in Mantua he actively promoted the arts in a manner not unlike his mother. He continued to employ Giulio Romano, who had worked for his brother Federico as his architect. Under Romano’s direction, the interior of the Mantuan cathedral was transformed to reflect a Renaissance interest in Christian antiquity. This renovated cathedral became the focus of a renewed liturgical life that included the works of Gonzaga’s maestro di capella, Jacquet of Mantua, a composer of numerous polyphonic masses.7 After Gonzaga was elevated to the cardinalate in 1527, he began to act as his family’s official representative at the papal court. He lived in Rome for almost ten years before the ill will that developed between him and Pope Paul III led him to return to Mantua and take up residence there in 1537. In Mantua he carried out a reform that included pastoral visitations of his diocese, attention to clerical education, the establishment of a printing press, closer supervision of convents of nuns, and the reorganization of lay confraternities. These efforts had much in common with the work of his friend and neighboring bishop, Gian Matteo Giberti. Nevertheless, he drew from sources other than Giberti as well and should not, therefore, be viewed as simply imitating him. For example, he did not depart from Rome to return to Mantua until after the presentation of the Consilium de emendanda ecclesia to Paul III on 9 March 1537. This document was drawn up by a commission of prominent reformers and curial officials including Gasparo Contarini, Giovanni Pietro Carafa, Jacopo Sadoleto, Reginald Pole, Federigo Fregoso, Girolamo Aleandro, Gregorio Cortese, Tommaso Badia, as well as Giberti. These prelates presented to the pope a candid assessment of the abuses in the Roman Curia and the Datary and the problems that befell the church as a result. Absenteeism by bishops, the sale of ecclesiastical office, and the lack of suitable preparation for those who were to be ordained are only the most noteworthy of its points. The reform commission members hoped to move the pope to take action to correct these abuses and thereby initiate restoration of the pastoral office. It is frequently noted that this document had little real effect on the course of reform.8 For purposes of understanding Gonzaga’s reform, it is important to keep in mind that all the cardinals were provided with a copy of this document prior to its publication. Thus, Gonzaga would have returned to Mantua the following 7On Gonzaga’s patronage of art and music see Piva, L’ “Altro” Giulio Romano; and Fenlon, Music and Patronage. 8 On the Consilium, see Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, 1:424–26. See also Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 129–57.

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month with an example of this reform plan in hand. The criticism and advice it contained were fresh in his mind when he began to supervise personally his own reform in Mantua. Therefore, given the correlation between the advice in the Consilium and Gonzaga’s own activities, it can be argued that his reform in Mantua was one of the few instances in which that document had any measurable effect following its publication. For twenty-four years, Gonzaga closely supervised his local church. Gonzaga’s career culminated in his appointment by Pope Pius IV as papal legate to the Council of Trent in 1561. There he presided over some of the stormiest sessions of the council, including those that dealt with the residence of bishops in their dioceses. He remained in Trent until his death in March 1563. Gonzaga’s official duties came to include matters that were more than ecclesiastical. In 1540 his older brother, Duke Federico Gonzaga, died. From that time until 1556 Cardinal Gonzaga acted as the ducal regent for his nephews. For much of the Renaissance, the Gonzaga family had maintained their independence and influence by carefully balancing themselves among the larger Italian states and, after 1494, negotiating between the Habsburg and Valois families in Italy. After 1527, however, Habsburg dominance in the peninsula led the Gonzagas to solidify their alliance with Charles V. Cardinal Gonzaga, who, early in his career, had been seen by some as a francophile, was then required to uphold fully his family’s foreign policy of supporting the Habsburgs.9 This responsibility became more immediately his when he became regent for his nephews, Francesco and Guglielmo. In this capacity, he protected Gonzaga interests in Italian and imperial politics. This included drastically reducing the size of the Mantuan court to stabilize state finances and encouraging trade to increase tax revenue. Diplomatically, Gonzaga avoided any more involvement in the wars that engulfed Italy (1494– 1559) than was absolutely necessary to maintain the Gonzaga family’s relationship with the Habsburgs. If Cardinal Gonzaga had left Rome in 1537 largely due to his falling out with Pope Paul III, his residence in Mantua was prolonged by his responsibilities to his family. Thus for a large part of his career, Ercole Gonzaga was both the spiritual and temporal ruler of Mantua and the leading member of the Gonzaga family.10 Throughout his career, Gonzaga’s views on preaching were influenced both by his role as the ecclesiastical and political ruler of Mantua as well as by his involvement with prominent reformers such as Cardinals Gasparo Contarini and Reginald Pole. In particular, he was concerned that preachers conduct themselves in such a manner that they not scandalize the faithful. Contarini’s treatise on preaching, Modus concionandi, also expresses this. Contarini was concerned that explicit 9De Loaisa, Correspondencia del Cardenal de Osma con Carlos,

14:21.

10See Rodriguez-Salgado, “Terracotta and Iron,” 42–44.

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treatment of issues such as justification or predestination as described by Saint Paul might lead the people to become lax in their efforts to merit salvation through works. He wrote: “From all this it can be seen clearly that we must avoid these deep questions before the ignorant people.”11 Discussion of questionable material was to be addressed only in a suitably elite forum. This work reflected Contarini’s preoccupation that the gospel be preached authentically, but not in such a manner that simple and uneducated people consider themselves exempt from the necessity of doing good works. Caution was especially necessary, therefore, when dealing with justification or predestination. The effect of preaching on the public, not the content itself, was of greater importance here. Elisabeth Gleason has identified this as a central aspect of the thought of many of the spirituali.12 Thus, this patrician model of reform and pastoral practice exhibited by Gonzaga is closely related to reform views of other prominent figures of his generation. Gonzaga’s supervision of preachers in his diocese can be seen as expressive of those views and as representative of the interests of the Gonzaga family. Three cases of preachers accused of heresy in Mantua and its environs illustrate his pastoral and theological approach to heresy or allegations of heresy. Evident in all of these cases is Gonzaga’s preference for negotiation and persuasion as means of resolving theological and pastoral difficulties. The first example concerns Gonzaga’s reaction to the preaching of the Augustinian observant Frate Andrea Ghetti da Volterra (d. 1599), in the years between 1542 and 1548. Ghetti had a long career as a preacher in many cities in Italy and had come to Mantua during Lent of 1542.13 He later attended the Council of Trent on two occasions and enjoyed the favor of Cardinals Cristoforo Madruzzo of Trent, Girolamo Seripando, and Reginald Pole, as well as Gonzaga. He authored, among other things, a theological work titled Trattato utile della grazia e delle opere, which emerged from the sermons he gave in Florence in 1544. Endimio Calandra testified that Ghetti brought with him to Mantua a catechism by the Lutheran Justus Jonas (1493–1555), which he then passed on to the Dominican Leonardo de Marini, who was then in the process of writing a catechism for the diocese of Mantua on the order of Cardinal Gonzaga. Although no reference to a catechism by Jonas survives, it is reasonable to accept Calandra’s testimony to the extent that Ghetti did import some work by the Protestant reformer.14 Ghetti was, moreover, accused of heresy by two ardent opponents of Protestantism, Dionigi Zannettini, known as Grechetto, and the Dominican friar, Ambrogio Catarino. 11Contarini, “De modo concionandi,” 305–9. 12Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 260–76. 13On Ghetti, see Battistini, Fra Andrea Ghetti da Volterra; Jedin, Papal Legate, 227–30; and Firpo and Marcatto, Processo inquisitoriale del Morone, 1:254n27. 14Primo Costituto di Endimio Calandra, 25 March 1568, in Pagano, Processo di Endimo Calandra, 235.

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Periodically during Ghetti’s career he was investigated by the Roman Inquisition. He avoided imprisonment until 1555, when Paul IV had him incarcerated. Ghetti did not regain his liberty until the death of the pope in 1559. He then went to Trent in the company of Cardinal Seripando, Gonzaga’s colleague as legate. At the beginning of January 1543, Cardinal Giovanni Salviati’s secretary wrote to Calandra seeking information on Ghetti. Cardinal Salviati (1490–1553), the archbishop of Ferrara, was an old friend of Gonzaga. He considered inviting the friar to preach in Ferrara and wanted Gonzaga’s opinion before extending the invitation, because there were rumors concerning his theology. Gonzaga’s secretary, Endimio Calandra, later testified that the man did indeed hold Protestant views. In particular, Calandra said, Gonzaga had specifically asked Ghetti to preach on purgatory when he had been in Mantua, but he managed to avoid the topic.15 Ghetti did, however, succeed in preaching at Ferrara without reported incident. In 1548, Gonzaga, Salviati, and Ghetti again corresponded on the question of the preacher’s orthodoxy. A controversy, the basis of which remains unknown, had arisen between Ghetti and Gonzaga’s other secretary, Camillo Olivo. The Augustinian wrote to Gonzaga to clear his name of the charge of heresy, reminding the cardinal that he had preached in his presence.16 According to Calandra, the friar had held to justification by faith alone and denied the existence of purgatory.17 Gonzaga responded a week later by saying that at the time Ghetti had preached at Mantua, he had considered investigating him on account of the scandalous things he said. But since then he had not heard anything bad about him. He did criticize him, however, for not taking his advice. Gonzaga’s letter indicates that on that previous occasion both he and Cardinal Pole had counseled the man to study further and to exert himself in avoiding scandal to his friends.18 In Gonzaga’s view, Ghetti had not done that. This gives evidence of a concern, like that of Cardinal Contorini, that preachers address justification, predestination, or purgatory only with caution. If there was a problem, Contarini, Pole, and Gonzaga would counsel the preacher to study more in order to avoid the scandal that might arise when ordinary people heard problematic theology. In a letter to Lattanzio Tolomei, a preacher who had created a stir in Siena, Contarini criticized 15 ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1913, unnumbered fasc., secretary of Cardinal Salviati to Endimio Calandra, 2 January 1543. See also Secondo Costituto di Endimio Calandra, 27 March 1568, in Pagano, Processo di Endimio Calandra, 253. According to Calandra, Gonzaga said of purgatory, “vi era il purgatorio et guai a noi se non vi fusse stato purgatorio.” 16ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1917, unnumbered fasc. labeled “Paesi vari dal 1° Gen. al 10 Decembre, Diversi,” Andrea Ghetti to Ercole Gonzaga, 1 January 1548. 17 Secondo Costituto di Endimio Calandra, 27 March 1568, in Pagano, Processo di Endimio Calandra, 258. 18ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1917, unnumbered fasc., Ercole Gonzaga to Andrea Ghetti da Volterra, 8 January 1548.

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preachers who learned a smattering of Saint Augustine and then presumed to preach on difficult matters before the people.19 This is consistent with Gonzaga’s attitude to Ghetti and with his patrician reform views. Both Ghetti and Salviati wrote to Gonzaga of the friar’s intention to speak in an orthodox manner. Salviati affirmed that Ghetti had promised to “preach as a Christian and a Catholic and to edify the people and not scandalize them.” He added that Ghetti had in fact carried out that promise the previous year at Naples.20 Ghetti also wrote to Gonzaga. He rather obsequiously noted the reconciliation that had taken place between himself and Olivo. He also stated that as a result of the controversy, he had become aware again of Gonzaga’s “zeal” for him and the cardinal’s desire that he “exercise the gifts that God has given me to his honor and for the public well-being, and without scandal, which I was forced to do after I left Mantua where the precepts and documents and loving encouragement of Your Reverend Lordship were inviolable to me.…”21 Ghetti insisted that he did remember Gonzaga’s advice. Gonzaga had proceeded in such a way that Ghetti had to restrain himself from preaching as openly or as “scandalously” as he might have. Gonzaga did not prosecute the man, but he did attempt to influence his preaching. Gonzaga, Salviati, and Ghetti used negotiation to achieve Gonzaga’s desired end of preaching that did not upset any social or religious conventions. This stands in sharp contrast to the attitude of Carafa, whose dealings with Ghetti were far more severe.22 In an era of increasingly stern proceedings against those suspected of heresy, Gonzaga pursued less harsh means of maintaining order in his diocese and duchy. A second case in which Gonzaga used negotiation rather than stronger coercive measures concerns the questionably orthodox preaching of Don Costantino da Carrara, a member of the congregation of clerks regular known as the Lateran Canons. This matter also touched on Gonzaga’s responsibilities as the Cardinal Protector of the Lateran Canons. Since the late 1530s, Gonzaga had been involved in efforts to reform the congregation. A spotlight was shed on its practices when one of its most prominent members, Pietro Martire Vermigli, took flight for Geneva and apostatized in 1542. Gonzaga’s efforts must have given him reason to be satisfied that heresy was not an issue among the Lateran Canons even if he recognized 19 Gasparo Contarini to Lattanzio Tolomei. The letter exists as an enclosure in a letter to Gonzaga dated 19 January 1538, in Stella, “La lettera del Cardinale Contarini,” esp. 428. 20ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1917, unnumbered fasc., Giovanni Salviati to Ercole Gonzaga, 11 January 1548. 21“Sempre desiderando ch’io eserciti i doni che mi ha dati Iddio in honore suo e pubblica salute, e senza scandolo. Cosa che io mi son forzato di fare poi ch’io uscii di Mantova, dove sempre mi sono stati inviolabili precetti e documenti, et amorevoli accorgimenti di vostra signoria reverendissima.” ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1917, unnumbered fasc., Andrea Ghetti to Ercole Gonzaga, 11 January 1548. 22Firpo and Marcatto, Processo inquisitoriale del Cardinal Morone, 1:255.

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that they were not paragons of devotion. In a letter of 1549 he assured a colleague that heresy was not a problem in that congregation: “Concerning their monasteries here there is no danger of Lutheranism because there is no one there who knows anything other than to eat.…”23 This assessment of the theological views of the Lateran Canons may not have been entirely candid. According to the testimony of Endimio Calandra, Costantino preached justification by faith alone when he was in Mantua in late 1543 or early 1544. This included preaching at least one sermon in Gonzaga’s presence. As a result, Gonzaga forced him to retract his problematic views, but he did not bring an end to Costantino’s career.24 Don Costantino’s reputation then extended to Ferrara. His activity there involved him in a well-known chapter in the history of the Reformation in Italy. Renée of France (1510–76), a daughter of King Louis XII of France, was married to Cardinal Gonzaga’s cousin, Ercole d’Este II, the Duke of Ferrara. Duchess Renée is well known as a supporter of the Reformation and as one who resisted her husband’s attempts to convince her to return to the Roman Catholic faith. In 1545 she requested that Cardinal Gonzaga send Costantino to Ferrara as a preacher.25 Cardinal Gonzaga first consulted with her husband. Gonzaga described the man to the Duke d’Este as “not very learned, but much given to these new doctrines.”26 He also informed the duke of the occasion less than two years earlier when Don Costantino preached in Mantua in his presence. Gonzaga wrote that he had made him retract “some things that he had not said well, and were it not for the reputation of his religious congregation, I would have imprisoned him, and I still hold that view.”27 Again, Gonzaga found a way to restrain unorthodox preaching without having to go so far as to imprison the man. In his letter to the Duke of Ferrara, he spoke strongly of prison as a fit punishment. His role as protector of the Lateran Canons, however, offered him a convenient means to avoid imposing such a penalty. At issue in Gonzaga’s letter to his cousin was the religious and political position of Renée of France and the relationship between the ruling families of Mantua and Ferrara. The religious views of the duchess and her resistance to her husband’s 23“Delli loro monasteri qui non vi è pericolo di luteranesmo per che non vi e che sappia far altro che mangiare fittate ecetto un Don Baldo da bergamo che è vecchio dotto e buono.” ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1918, fol. 318r, Ercole Gonzaga to Reginaldo Nerli, 7 May 1549. 24Secondo Costituto di Endimio Calandra, 27 March 1568, in Pagano, Processo inquisitoriale di Endimio Calandra, 254; and BAV, Barb. Lat., codex 5793, fols. 48v–49v, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 26 November 1545. 25On Renée, see Rodocanachi, Une protectrice de la Réforme. See also Blaisdell, “Politics and Heresy.” 26“Non molto dotto, ma tanto posto in queste nuove dottrine.” BAV, Barb. Lat., codex 5793, fols. 48v–49v, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 26 November 1545, quote at fol. 48v. 27“Alcune cose che non bene haveva dette et ancho per honore della sua religione, certo l’havererei fatto impregionar, pure me ne ritenni per li sopradetti rispetti.” BAV, Barb. Lat., codex 5793, fols. 48v–49r, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 26 November 1545.

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attempts to have her return to Catholicism heightened the political and religious significance of any involvement by Gonzaga or his preachers. After the duke’s death, Renée returned to France and practiced her faith more freely. It is not surprising that Gonzaga would not want Don Costantino preaching to her. He may have been unwilling to arrest the man, but the religious and political stakes in Ferrara seemed high enough to advise against Costantino’s presence there. Of the duchess’s religious views, Gonzaga wrote that “she assents willingly to one who speaks of these new doctrines perhaps with good zeal, but not with much prudence, things being what they are.”28 Gonzaga saw the need for caution particularly on account of the social position of Renée. She was his cousin’s wife, a member of “a very Catholic house.” He would not act without Ercole d’Este’s consent and would follow his cousin’s lead.29 He first suggested that if the duke did not consider it appropriate for Costantino to preach to the duchess, Gonzaga would respond to her by saying that he had already removed the man’s license to preach on account of his “impurity of doctrine” and would therefore not tolerate that he ever preach in her presence. But if the duke consented to the man’s coming to Ferrara, Gonzaga would be willing to allow it. He would do this, however, on the condition that if Costantino said anything that was “not Catholic,” the Duke of Ferrara would put him in prison and punish him as he deserved.30 The content of Don Costantino’s preaching must have been clearly heretical. Gonzaga had already taken action by removing his license to preach—not an insignificant act of discipline. But for one who has been characterized as ruling his diocese with a rod of iron, the punishment was rather light. For the sake of preserving the honor of the Lateran Canons, he did not imprison the man. Nor did Gonzaga’s challenge eliminate the possibility that Don Costantino might continue his career under the right circumstances. If someone else would take responsibility for the man’s conduct, Gonzaga was quite willing to let him again ascend the pulpit. Certainly Gonzaga was concerned about the importance of sending a Protestant preacher to the Este court. But even when characterizing the theological views of the duchess, he seemed more concerned about a lack of prudence than with the actual content of the sermons. How strenuously he pursued the heresy of Don Costantino depended largely on the political situation. Gonzaga’s involvement with the Benedictine monks Luciano degli Ottoni and Benedetto Fontanini provides a third illustration of Gonzaga’s pastoral supervision. 28“Assentire volentieri a cui parla d’esse nuove dottrine forse con buon zelo, ma non già con molta prudentia correndo i tempi che corrono.” BAV, Barb. Lat., codex 5793, fols. 48v–49v, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 26 November 1545, quote at fol. 49r. 29“Essendo moglie di chi elle è et di quella casa tanto catholica, non me ne son voluto risolvere se prima non ne intendo l’openione di vostra eccellenza.” BAV, Barb. Lat., 5793, fols. 48v–49v, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 26 November 1545, quote at fol. 49r. 30BAV, Barb. Lat., codex 5789, fol. 49r, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 26 November 1545.

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It too underlines the relationship between religious and political commitments. Ottoni and Fontanini both belonged to the Cassinese congregation of Benedictines that included the celebrated monastery in Mantuan territory, San Benedetto in Polirone.31 Both were Mantuans who made significant contributions to the religious thought of their day. Fontanini authored the original draft of Beneficio di Cristo.32 Ottoni had attended the first sessions of the Council of Trent in 1545 and 1546. He was also the author of Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi in apostoli Pauli epistolam ad Romanos commentaria.33 While at San Benedetto in Polirone, Ottoni assisted Gonzaga in his attempts to maintain a resident philosopher.34 At the Council of Trent, Ottoni came under suspicion of heresy for his thoughts on justification. He apparently expressed the view that if one had faith, one would not sin. The idea was rejected by the council and he retracted the thesis the next day.35 Ottoni also did a Latin translation of the heretic Giorgio Siculo’s Trattato de iustificatione, which contained severe criticism of the Catholic Church.36 In April 1549, the monks of San Benedetto in Polirone prepared for the election of a new abbot. Gonzaga wrote to Cardinal Pole, the protector of the Cassinese congregation of Benedictines, appealing for the election of a Mantuan whom he could trust, naming two monks in particular as acceptable candidates. Unfortunately, this letter is no longer extant. Pole’s response was positive but did not entirely guarantee that Gonzaga’s preferences would be selected. Gonzaga then sent an emissary to the monastery to further urge his case. In response, seven monks wrote to Gonzaga assuring him that they would assist him as they could. As a result of this lobbying, the monks elected Luciano degli Ottoni as the abbot of San Benedetto in Polirone. It seems that Ottoni was one of Gonzaga’s candidates, as the cardinal later referred to him as “that abbot that they conceded to me.”37 The most revealing moments in this relationship surfaced approximately a year after the election of Ottoni, when the monks of the monastery deposed him. They accused Ottoni of permitting the circulation of suspect books and other disorders. Gonzaga reacted negatively to this action. Public accusations of unorthodoxy 31On this congregation of Benedictines, see Collett, 32For

Italian Benedictine Scholars. a recent appraisal of the composition and editing of this work, see Mayer, Reginald Pole,

120–25. 33This work was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. See Concilium Tridentinum (CT), ed. Görres-Gesellschaft, 1:206n8. 34ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1919, fol. 63r–v, Luciano degli Ottoni to Ercole Gonzaga, 30 September 1549. 35CT, 5:473–76, 659–60. 36Luciano degli Ottoni to Ercole Gonzaga, 6 December 1550, in Ginzburg and Prosperi, “Le due redazioni,” 202–3. 37“Quell’abbate che m’havevano concesso.” Ercole Gonzaga to Galeazzo Florimonte, 29 June 1550, in Ginzburg and Prosperi, “Le due redazioni,” 200. The original is located in ASMa, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1945, fols. 16r–17v.

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at the most prominent religious house in the duchy of Mantua were not the only thing to disturb Gonzaga. The abbot’s deposition without Gonzaga’s prior knowledge was an affront to his dignity as cardinal and ducal regent in Mantua. The monks treated him, he said, as if he were a “plebeian.”38 Ottoni was Gonzaga’s man at San Benedetto in Polirone. Further, despite the advice of some of the monks there, Gonzaga did not maintain his distance from Ottoni. The problems of Ottoni worsened when his fellow Benedictine, Giorgio Siculo, testified against him and Fontanini during his own heresy trial in September 1550. Both Ottoni and Fontanini were then arrested. Ottoni interpreted this as an attempt by the monks to justify themselves for overthrowing his leadership.39 He wrote to Gonzaga twice in December 1550 to plead that Gonzaga and Pole hear his case, rather than his fellow monks, whose privilege it ordinarily was to try their own. It is at this point in the case that Gonzaga’s actions begin to reveal his way of operating when dealing with questions of heresy. Gonzaga responded to Ottoni with a rather harsh rejection of the suggestion that he himself judge the case. In the matter of Siculo’s accusations, he had already addressed himself to the inquisitor in Ferrara, who had sent a subordinate to meet with Ercole in Mantua. During this meeting, Gonzaga had the opportunity to examine the documents of Siculo’s case that pertained to Ottoni and Fontanini. Having seen the documents, Gonzaga told Ottoni that he considered the charges reasonable and that he should be punished according to the law. He refused to take part in the trial and encouraged the Benedictine officials to proceed. But he promised Ottoni that he would also encourage the judges to act with “equity, justice, and charity,” or he would have recourse to the pope.40 Despite his refusal to intervene, Gonzaga nevertheless assisted Ottoni and Fontanini in a very significant way. In keeping with the norms of inquisitorial procedure, Gonzaga supplied the accused with the depositions taken against them, saying that he would always offer them if they were able to justify themselves.41 Thus, the accused had an advantage as they prepared to defend themselves. In the end, the two monks received relatively light sentences when compared to their principal accuser, Siculo, who died by hanging in Ferrara in February 1551. Ottoni lost his offices, but died in a monastery of natural causes. Fontanini was eventually freed from prison.42

38Gonzaga to Florimonte, in Ginzburg and Prosperi, “Le due redazioni,” 200. See also Fragnito, “Ercole Gonzaga,” 257. 39Luciano degli Ottoni to Ercole Gonzaga, 6 December 1550, in Ginzburg and Prosperi, “Le due redazioni,” 202–3. 40Ercole Gonzaga to Luciano degli Ottoni, 3 January 1551, in Fragnito, “Ercole Gonzaga,” 269. 41Fragnito, “Ercole Gonzaga,” 270. 42Fragnito, “Ercole Gonzaga,” 263.

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Gonzaga took with one hand and gave with the other. In this way he held himself above the fray and avoided any public forum in which his own actions and words could be scrutinized. He had already acted on behalf of Ottoni when the accusations of irregularities were still intramural. A second public defense might bring difficulties and dishonor upon his family and duchy. Yet, when he backed Ottoni as a candidate to be abbot of San Benedetto in Polirone, Gonzaga must have been aware of the accusations made against him at Trent. Gigliola Fragnito has suggested that Gonzaga may have shared the heretical views of Siculo, Ottoni, and Fontanini and that such a shared theological outlook would explain Gonzaga’s support of Ottoni as abbot.43 If one considers only this episode, such a conclusion might seem tenable. Although some doubted Gonzaga’s orthodoxy, the best contemporary evidence available attests to it. There is no direct evidence that he shared heretical views, while there are specific indications to the contrary. If he had held any heretical views, it seems unlikely that he could have been chosen as papal legate to the Council of Trent in 1561 no matter how repentant he may have been by that time. Gonzaga was, however, unintimidated by reasoned discussions of questionable orthodoxy when they were carried on in a suitably elite forum. Participation in such discussion must not have eliminated the speaker from his good graces. Gonzaga was also powerful enough politically to give shelter. Mantuans such as Ottoni and Fontanini most likely perceived that and sought his aid. Cardinal Gonzaga’s work of pastoral supervision of the diocese of Mantua required attention to theological problems common throughout northern Italy in the mid-sixteenth century. Preachers who presented problematic views or were openly heretical did not escape his notice. From his handling of the three cases discussed here, however, it is clear that sternness or severity would be inappropriate adjectives to describe his actions, even well into the 1550s. Nevertheless, how and why he dealt with them reveals even more about the attitudes of prominent, reform-minded figures of his generation. The key to understanding Gonzaga’s work in Mantua lies in two important aspects of his life: his role as a great lord of northern Italy and his pastoral views. He saw himself, as others likewise saw him, as a prince. In 1540 Bernardo Navagero, then the Venetian ambassador to Mantua, wrote to the Venetian senate and described Gonzaga. Among other things he noted, “The movements of his eyes and his other gestures are very grave and all are those of a prince; and finally, every

43If Gonzaga did share Siculo’s views, he manifested a particularly distasteful and cold-blooded attitude towards the Benedictine’s plight when he urged Ercole d’Este to cooperate more fully with the inquisitors in Siculo’s prosecution. See Fragnito, “Ercole Gonzaga,” 262–65; and Blaisdell, “Politics and Heresy,” 81.

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part of him, as regards the body, shows that he was born to greatness.”44 This sense of princely status colored his views of others. This is notably evident in his attitude to Pope Paul III. One of the things that disturbed Gonzaga most about the nepotism of Pope Paul III was not the pope’s expenditures on his family; Gonzaga was equally attentive to his own relatives. What disturbed Gonzaga was his perception that in elevating his son Pier Luigi Farnese to the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, for example, the pope indirectly insulted the dignity of old families such as the Gonzaga family. Cardinal Gonzaga wrote to his cousin, Duke Ercole d’Este of Ferrara, of that promotion, “To us who do not have such luck and hold our estates by ancient right and much labor and effort, and with so many worries, it seems strange to see a duke of two such cities sprout up in one night like a mushroom.”45 Gonzaga carried that sense of his own social position and his role in northern Italy into his career as a political leader and an ecclesiastic. It would be a mistake, however, to limit an analysis of Gonzaga’s activities with regard to heresy to the sphere of politics. Gonzaga’s attitude to reform and preaching reflect those of other Italian prelates and preachers who sought reform and have often been referred to as the spirituali. His attitudes toward preaching approximated those of Cardinals Contarini and Pole, which, in practical terms, dovetailed with his dynastic responsibilities. Gonzaga’s use of negotiation when confronting preachers or other clerics active in his diocese who lacked orthodoxy gives evidence of one who maintained Contarini’s views on preaching into the 1550s. Gonzaga personally rejected the doctrines of Protestant theologians and willingly took action when those teachings threatened the social order for which he was responsible. But when those matters of faith were discussed in a circumspect manner by members of an intellectual or social elite, Gonzaga stayed his hand. He did not assume that error had to be dealt with by rigor in the first instance. Rather, he encouraged further study on the part of a preacher such as Ghetti. Negotiation and confidential pressure appear to have been Gonzaga’s preferred methods in the management of preaching and heresy. In this respect, Gonzaga’s career suggests that the character of religious practice and episcopal leadership in Italy remained rather open into the 1550s. This outlook on the church and his role in it can be understood as a “patrician reform” view. His reform activities and his supervision of preachers were conditioned by his early training as a prominent figure in a ruling family as well as by an interest in reform that was quite genuine in its own right.

44Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato, ed. Albèri, 2:14. 45BAV, Barb. Lat., codex 5793, fols. 6v–7r, Ercole Gonzaga to Ercole d’Este, 23 August 1545.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ASMa BAV

Archivio di Stato, Mantua Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Printed Primary Sources Battistini, Mario, ed. Fra Andrea Ghetti da Volterra, O.S.A., teologo, oratore, pedagogista: Notizie biografiche, con i suoi due trattati Sull’educazione dei figliuoli e Della grazia e delle opere. Florence: Libreria editrice fiorentina, 1928. Bembo, Pietro. Opere del Cardinale Pietro Bembo. 4 vols. Venice, 1729, Reprint, Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1965. Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuum nova collectio. Edited by Görres-Gesellschaft. 13 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau: Societas Goerresiana, 1901–67. Contarini, Gasparo. “De modo concionandi.” In Regesten und Briefe des Cardinals Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542), edited by Franz Dittrich, 305–9. Braunsberg: Huye, 1881. De Loaisa, García. Correspondencia del Cardenal de Osma con Carlos V y con su secretario Don Francisco de los Cobos, Comendador Mayor de León. Vol. 14, Documentos ineditos para la historia de Espana. Edited by Miguel Salvá and Pedro Sainz de Baranda. Madrid: Imprenta de la viuda de Calero, 1849. Dittrich, Franz. Regesten und Briefe des Cardinals Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542). Braunsberg, 1881. Ginzburg, Carlo, and Adriano Prosperi, eds. “Le due redazioni del ‘Beneficio di Cristo.’ ” In Eresia e riforma nell’Italia del Cinquecento, 135–97. Biblioteca del Corpus Reformatorum Italicorum. Miscellanea 1. Florence: Sansoni, 1974. Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato. Edited by Eugenio Albèri. Vol. 2, Relazione di Mantova dall’anno 1540. Serie 2. Florence: Tipografia e Calcografia all’insegna di Clio, 1841.

Secondary Sources Blaisdell, Charmarie Jenkins. “Politics and Heresy in Ferrara, 1534–1559.” Sixteenth Century Journal 6, no. 1 (1975): 67–93. Buschbell, Gottfried. Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mitte des XVI, Jahrhunderts. Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte 13. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1910. Collett, Barry. Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation: The Congregation of Santa Giustina of Padua. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Davari, Stefano. “Cenni storici intorno al tribunale dell’inquisizione in Mantova.” Archivio storico lombardo 6 (1879): 547–65, 773–800. Fenlon, Iain. Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Firpo, Massimo. Inquisizione romana e controriforma: Studi sul cardinal Giovanni Morone e il suo processo d’eresia. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992. Firpo, Massimo, and Dario Marcatto. Il processo inquisitoriale del cardinal Giovanni Morone. 6 vols. in 7. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1981–95. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Fragnito, Gigliola. “Ercole Gonzaga, Reginald Pole e il Monastero di San Benedetto Polirone: Nuovi documenti su Luciano Degli Ottoni e Benedetto Fontanini (1549– 1551).” Benedictina 34 (1987): 253–71. ———. “Gli ‘spirituali’ e la fugi di Bernardino Ochino.” Rivista storica italiana 84 (1972): 777–813. Friedensburg, Walter, editor. “Vergeriana 1534–1550: Ein Nachlass.” Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 10 (1912/13): 70–100. Gleason, Elisabeth G. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Jedin, Hubert. A History of the Council of Trent. Translated by Ernest Graf. 2 vols. London: Nelson and Sons, 1949. ———. Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando. Translated by Frederic C. Eckhoff. St. Louis: Herder, 1947. Jenkins Blaisdell, Charmaine. “Politics and Heresy in Ferrara, 1534–1559.” Sixteenth Century Journal 6, no. 1 (1975) 67–93. Luzio, Alessandro. “Vittoria Colonna.” Rivista storica mantovana 1 (1885): 1–52. Mayer, Thomas F. Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. McNair, Philip. Peter Martyr in Italy: An Anatomy of Apostasy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Murphy, Paul V. “Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and Catholic Reform in Sixteenth-Century Italy.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1996. Pagano, Sergio, ed. Il Processo di Endimio Calandra e l’Inquisizione a Mantova nel 1567– 1568. Studi e Testi 339. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1991. Pastor, Ludwig von. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Edited by Frederick Ignatius Antrobus et al. Translated by Ralph Francis Kerr. 40 vols. London: J. Hodges, and St. Louis: Herder, 1891–1953. Piva, Paolo. L’“Altro” Giulio Romano: Il Duomo di Mantova, la chiesa di Polirone, e la dialettica col medioevo. Quistello: Officina Grafica CESCHI, 1988. Rezzaghi, Roberto. Il “Catecismo” di Leonardo de Marini nel contesto della riforma pastorale del Cardinale Ercole Gonzaga. Rome: Libreria Ateneo Salesiano, 1986. Rodocanachi, Emmanuel. Une protectrice de la Réforme en Italie et en France: Renée de France, duchesse de Ferrare. Paris, 1896. Reprint, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970. Rodriguez-Salgado, M. J. “Terracotta and Iron: Mantuan Politics (ca. 1450–1550).” In La Corte di Mantova nell’etá di Andrea Mantegna, 1450–1550: Atti del convegno, Londra, 6–8 marzo, 1992/Mantova, 28 marzo 1992, edited by Cesare Mozzarelli, Robert Oresko, and Leandro Ventura, 15–59. Rome: Bulzone, 1997. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. Pier Paolo Vergerio: The Making of an Italian Reformer. Geneva: Droz, 1977. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “Evangelismo e intransigenti nei difficili equilibri del pontificato farnesiano.” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 24 (1988): 20–47. Stella, Aldo. “La lettera del Cardinale Contarini sulla predestinazione.” Rivista della storia della Chiesa in Italia 15 (1961): 411–41.

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Chapter 4

RENOVATIO, REFORMATIO, AND HUMANIST AMBITION IN ROME Ronald K. Delph

DATING FROM THE PONTIFICATE of Pope Nicholas V (1447–55), several generations of humanists living in Rome worked to justify the popes’ temporal authority and actions by cultivating an image of the pontiff as a papal prince who legitimately exercised both political and spiritual authority. By the reign of Paul III (1534–49), this image of the popes and the idiom in which Roman humanists expressed it had saturated the culture of papal Rome. The efforts of the popes to rule the papal states and the city of Rome, coupled with a steady barrage of humanist treatises and orations that celebrated these actions, exercised a powerful influence over the minds of churchmen and humanists living in Rome concerning the nature of papal power, and how that power should be used.1 Paul III, himself a Roman by birth, gloriously embraced both the obligations and interests of the popes as rulers of the city of Rome, as well as the humanist ideology that legitimated his activities in this sphere. Surprisingly enough, little is known about how the pope’s position and interests as a powerful temporal lord shaped Paul III’s attitude toward reform. Nor do any scholarly works exist that explore how the pope’s dominion over the city of Rome worked to place parameters around the debate on reform at the papal court during his pontificate.2 Further limiting our understanding of reform under Paul III is the lack of any full-scale study of humanism in Pauline Rome. Yet preliminary studies show that humanists in this period assiduously worked to create a positive image of the

1On the pope as a temporal lord, see Prodi, Papal Prince, trans. Haskins. For Roman humanists’ attempts to legitimate the temporal imperium of the pope see D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism, 115– 43; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 235–91; and Stinger, “Roman Humanist Images of Rome.” 2See Prodi’s remarks to this effect in his “La sovranità temporale,” 70.

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pope as ruler of Rome while celebrating the revival of the city.3 To understand the contours of reform in the early Counter-Reformation era under Paul III, it would be useful to examine the culture of humanism under this pontiff, because Roman humanist culture reflected the dominant values of the papal court even as it continued to shape and popularize these values. Humanists in Pauline Rome lived in a textured world and they found their own attitudes toward reform delineated by their constant struggle to earn a livelihood, advance their careers in the church and Rome, and make a name for themselves as erudite scholars. To recognize this is to acknowledge that attitudes toward reform in Rome, and the extent to which Roman humanists, churchmen, and popes were willing to actively engage in reform, were conditioned by a complex set of personal and institutional aspirations, obligations, traditions, and perceptions.4 This essay explores the culture of humanism in Pauline Rome by focusing upon the actions, ambitions, and ideas of the Italian humanist Agostino Steuco, who lived in Rome from 1535 to 1548, in order to gain some sense of the dominant values and the idiom of humanism in Rome in the early Counter-Reformation. Deepening the understanding of humanism under Paul III will help establish the cultural context that shaped the Farnese pontiff ’s attitude toward reform, and enable historians to be sensitive to the issues, perceptions, and images of papal power and authority prevalent at the papal court that delimited the scope of reform under Paul III. At the same time this study, centered upon a prominent Roman humanist, reveals how the dominant values of Roman humanism shaped not just Steuco’s perceptions of the papacy, the city of Rome, and his ongoing struggle for career advancement in the early Counter-Reformation era, but also affected his thoughts and actions regarding reform.


Shortly after arriving in Rome in 1535, the Italian humanist Agostino Steuco penned his impressions of the city and commented upon the emotions that had overcome him when he wandered about the ruins and desolation of the onceproud capital.5 He wrote:

3See. Delph, “Venetian Visitor.” 4On the need to understand Paul III’s reform activities within the larger context of sixteenthcentury Italian social and familial culture, see the penetrating observations of Gleason, “Who Was the First Counter-Reformation Pope?” 5Steuco belonged to the order of the Augustinian Canons of the Congregation of San Salvatore in Bologna. The Acts of the Chapter General list him as staying in Rome at their house of San Pietro in Vincoli in 1535 and 1536. See. ASB, Fondo Demaniale, 175/2622. Canonici Lateranensi di S. Salvatore di Bologna. Atti Capitolari di Congregazione dall’Anno 1419 al 1597 (Atti Capitolari), fols. 162r, 163r.

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Often … wandering through the ruins of the ancient city, I was not able to contain either my tears or sighs, partly commiserating over the miserable destruction of so great a city, partly deploring the instability of human things, indeed so grand, powerful, robust, and beautiful…you can see the most grand homes of the emperors now overgrown by vineyards with only vestiges remaining, and the walkways and long rows of rooms buried by the earth that is piled on top. Whatever sorts of statues remain, stand for the most part with either hands or feet or arms or noses lopped off. Everything is cadaverous, in ruins, just like the bones of a once beautiful body.

He brought his remarks to a close with a wistful line on the transitory nature of all things human, and on the evanescent nature of the power and splendor of the ancient city of Rome: behold the efforts of those who had persuaded themselves to erect an eternal city, who laid the most robust foundations; in such a short space of time all of it has slipped away, not so much caused by the injuries of the ages alone, as by the injuries of human hands.6

This melancholy assessment of the state of Rome and of human efforts to create a beautiful, eternal city stands in marked contrast to a very optimistic and vibrant plan for urban renewal that Steuco laid out some dozen years later. In a treatise entitled De via Pauli, et de fontibus inducendis in eam, written at the papal court sometime in late 1546 or early 1547, Steuco counseled Paul III to undertake three major urban renewal projects.7 If completed, these projects would dramatically change the urban landscape and settlement patterns within the city. The first of these proposals was an ambitious undertaking that urged the Farnese pontiff to widen and deepen the course of the Tiber River from Perugia on down to Rome, a distance of about 120 miles. This would allow heavy boat traffic once again to ply the waters of the Tiber to the north of Rome, carrying large 6“Eram Romae cum haec scriberem quam hoc primum tempore conspexeram, et saepe animi causa, per ruinas veteris urbis obambulans nec lacrymas, nec gemitum continere poteram, partim miseratus tam praeclarae urbis miserabilem interitum, partim rerum humanarum etiam grandium, fortium, robustarum, pulcherrimarum instabilitatem deplorans, superbissimas imperatorum domos, vineta nunc, tantum vestigiis superstitibus videas, ambulacra, longosque thalamorum ordines, terra quae supervenit, sepultos. Quicquid statuarum est reliquum, fere truncatis, aut manibus, aut pedibus, aut brachiis, vel naribus astare: Omnia cadaverosa, ruinosa, tanquam formosi quondam corporis ossa … ecce conatus eorum, qui sempiternam urbem erigere sibi persuasissent, robustissima fundamenta iecissent, tam brevi temporis spatio, cuncta vanuerunt, non tam saeculorum tantum iniuria, quam humanarum manuum.” The quotation is from Steuco’s commentary on the Psalms, first published in 1548, but obviously written years earlier. Enarrationum in Psalmos, in Opera omnia, ed. Morandi, vol. 2, fol. 151r. 7De via Pauli et de fontibus inducendis in eam is a rare work by Steuco, a copy of which I came across in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris several years ago. It bears the shelf mark Velins 1170. The date of 1546 or early 1547 for the composition of De via Pauli derives from my analysis of the contents of this and Steuco’s two other Roman treatises examined in this paper, as well as Steuco’s activities in Rome and in regard to the Council of Trent in the years 1545–47.

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amounts of wine, victuals, and dry goods to the city. Steuco envisioned a major emporium developing in Rome along the Tiber to handle this river traffic outside what he identified as the Porta Flumentana, just off the Campus Martius.8 His second project was equally ambitious. He envisioned a broad avenue stretching from the Porta Flumentana over to the Porta Flaminia and then down to the foot of the Capitoline hill. This broad way would be spectacular, for Steuco would furnish it with three majestic water fountains whose waters would soar skyward. From the Porta Flaminia to the Capitoline, this great boulevard—known in Steuco’s day as the Via Lata—would bear the name of the pope and henceforth be known as the Via Pauli. This series of fountains would be rendered feasible as a result of Steuco’s third urban renewal project. Imbedded in the heart of his treatise was a plea that the pope refurbish the old Roman aqueduct known as the Aqua Virgo. Before falling into disrepair, this aqueduct for years had brought abundant water to northern Rome in the area of the Campus Martius from springs in the Roman countryside some twelve and a half miles east of the city. The restoration of this water supply, Steuco believed, would furnish ample fresh water to the homes and palaces that now cluttered the old Campus Martius. So bountiful would the waters of the Aqua Virgo be that he foresaw no problem in diverting part of this water to the three magnificent fountains he proposed for his new boulevard.9 The tone that runs throughout the De via Pauli is one of vibrant renewal, rebirth, and growth for the city of Rome. This is a dramatic change from the melancholy attitude that permeated Steuco’s earlier thoughts on the city, and one wonders what happened in the intervening years to change his outlook. Moreover, one is struck by the boldness and scope of the projects proposed. To properly lay the groundwork for any one of these plans would engage a great deal of time and energy on Steuco’s part. Furthermore, from both a financial and engineering standpoint, any one of these works faced enormous obstacles and competition at the papal court.10 Yet Steuco ambitiously bundled all three plans together and presented them to the pontiff as an ensemble. Here too one wonders what motivated him to propose such a sweeping series of public works to Paul III in 1546/47. In addition to presenting a remarkable vision of urban renewal and growth for mid-sixteenth-century Rome, this work also poses a number of interesting questions regarding its origins and purpose. In order to understand the tone, 8Steuco misidentified the location of the ancient Porta Flumentana, believing it had been located north of the Mausoleum of Augustus near the Porta Flaminia. In Roman times, the Porta Flumentana was located toward the southwest end of the Campus Martius, and gave access to the Capitoline from the Tiber. See Lugli, Roma Antica, 12; and Lugli, Itinerario di Roma Antica, 27. 9De via Pauli, sig. A1v. 10 For an overview of the many urban and artistic works that consumed Paul III’s time and money, see Robertson, Il Gran Cardinale, 15–26.

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scope, and intent of this treatise, one must look to the prevailing attitudes and ideology of the humanist culture that shaped Steuco’s thoughts in Rome as he wrote in the mid-1540s. But in addition, this essay will examine how the De via Pauli formed part of an ongoing effort by an ambitious humanist to advance his career and fortunes at the papal court in the 1530s and 1540s. Steuco’s De via Pauli was a carefully crafted treatise aimed as much at advancing his own career as it was at enhancing the reputation of Paul III and improving the quality of life in Renaissance Rome. Viewed from these perspectives, Steuco’s De via Pauli is extremely useful for what it reveals about humanist culture and humanist ambition in Renaissance Rome under Paul III. Steuco entered the household of Paul III in 1536 and in January 1538 the pope created him bishop of Chisamos and in October of that year appointed him Vatican librarian, a position he would hold until his death in 1548.11 Over the course of these years, Steuco underwent a profound change in orientation as a humanist and churchman. He came to Rome in 1535 as an outsider, as an abbot in the scholarly, rather austere Congregation of Augustinian Canons of San Salvatore of Bologna.12 Prior to this time, most of his humanist scholarship had been devoted to Old Testament biblical emendations and exegesis, and syncretic philosophical writings. But he had also authored a series of polemical writings in which he attempted to defend many of the rituals and pious religious practices of the church against the attacks of the northern reformers. Composed in the Italian cities of Venice and Reggio in Emilia, these early polemical works acknowledged the clerical corruption and excesses that had alienated many Christians. Steuco admitted in his writings that this corruption had enabled the reformers to appeal to Christians who were unhappy with the current state of the clergy and institutional church.13 These earlier writings show Steuco urging the clergy and members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to moderate their behavior and to embrace reform as the only way to inhibit the spread of heresy across Europe. The melancholy evident in the passages on Rome cited above is congruent with the views of a humanist and churchman who acknowledged decay and corruption as rampant in both the ecclesiastical and temporal spheres. There is a 11The consistory act creating Steuco bishop of Chisamos on the island of Crete is found in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Acta Vicecancellarii 5, fol. 74r, while the papal brief appointing him Vatican librarian is found in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 1706, fols. 380r–381r. For Steuco’s career as Vatican librarian, see Freudenberger, Augustinus Steuchus, 97–121. 12For this austerity, see the Acts of the Chapter General, where annual proscriptions were laid down to govern the lives of the canons and punishments were passed to discipline members who transgressed the asceticism of the order. See for example ASB, Atti Capitolari 1518 (fol. 132r), 1524 (fols. 143v–44r), and 1529 (fol. 151r). 13See Steuco to Erasmus, 1533, in Opera omnia, ed. Morandi, vol. 3, fol. 27v; and Steuco, Pro religione, in Opera omnia, ed. Morandi, vol. 3, fol. 1v.

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feeling also that what has been lost—at least in the case of Rome—could never again be recovered. Just as Steuco bemoaned the decay of the clergy and ecclesiastical institutions in his earlier polemics, so too did he grow sorrowful when upon arriving in Rome he began to walk amid the ruins of the ancient city, mindful of the corruption of all temporal things. However, exposure to the ideology and values of the prevalent humanist culture in the papal city radically altered his ideas regarding church reform and the renewal of Rome. For instance, his polemical writings from this period dealing with reform issues show a complete absence of calls for moderation among the clergy and in the ceremonies and rituals of the church. Instead, he began to emphasize the need for pomp and splendor in sacred rituals and ceremonies, and especially in those involving the pope at Rome. Moreover, this new view of the hierarchical nature of rituals that focused on the papacy was commensurate with Steuco’s actions at the Council of Trent, where he spent his final days firmly supporting papal claims to authority in both temporal and spiritual affairs.14 During his years at the papal court, Steuco came to embrace the dominant humanist ideology which held that the popes who ruled over a large kingdom in central Italy were the legitimate heirs of the ancient Roman imperium. He also adopted the view, prevalent among Roman humanists, that the Renaissance popes were legitimately engaged in returning the city of Rome to the former splendor it had enjoyed as the political and religious capital of ancient Rome. Throughout his stay at the papal court, the twin ideologies of renovatio imperii and renovatio Romae came to play a large role in shaping Steuco’s thoughts about papal power, reform, and the city of Rome. His De via Pauli, presenting a series of magnificent papal works projects boldly aimed at furthering the revival of Rome, is a clear manifestation of these two ideologies.15 Steuco’s thoughts in De via Pauli show that he has absorbed the cultural idiom of earlier Roman humanists. Writers such as Giannozzo Manetti, Blosio Palladio, and Flavio Biondo praised the revived imperium exercised by the Renaissance popes—an imperium that for them included temporal as well as spiritual authority. The Roman humanists Platina and Raffaele Maffei joined Biondo and Palladio in comparing pontiffs to earlier Roman rulers. All these humanists celebrated the popes for their efforts at renovatio Romae, for having worked to restore the pomp and splendor with which the city had been adorned in ancient Roman times.16 14See Delph, “Polishing the Papal Image”; and Delph, “Venetian Visitor,” 126, 127. 15Delph, “Venetian Visitor,” 105, 128–33. The pressure for humanists to conform to the dominant ideology and idiom of Roman humanism was very strong and those who failed to adapt were ridiculed and shunned as outsiders. On this sociological and cultural phenomenon, see Gouwens, “Ciceronianism and Collective Identity”; and Gouwens, Remembering the Renaissance, 13–26. 16See Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 235–91, esp. 241, 245, 257; Prodi, Papal Prince, 50–58; Gouwens, Remembering the Renaissance, 2–14; and D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism, 121–23.

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Steuco employed these same motifs in De via Pauli as he pressed the pope to undertake the renovation of Rome by beautifying the old Via Lata. He wrote: what will men see in the entire city more delightful than this avenue, what else will they tread upon more frequently and walk upon with their feet, if indeed the effort of Paul III, who is most like his ancestral Romans…should increase the grandeur which nature and the efforts of the ancient Romans have conferred upon it, by creating fountains and adding other ornaments, which avenue, indeed deformed by ruins and congested by squalid buildings, he first opened up?17

Having reminded the pope that this and his past efforts to enhance the city rendered him similar to the ancient Romans, he detailed for the pope how important and majestic the Via Lata and the surrounding area had been in ancient Roman times: this area and this avenue were most pleasing to the ancient Romans. Indeed on this route they carried out their triumphal parades, crossing over from the Via Sacra onto the Via Lata which were joined at the Capitoline hill. Here all the Roman plebs came to see the triumphal parades. Likewise this same avenue cut through the middle of the Campus Martius, a most beautiful and sacred place to the Romans.18

Steuco’s point here is clear. He is urging the pontiff to expand vastly the few renovations he has already undertaken on the Via Lata, in an effort to restore the area to the splendor that it enjoyed in ancient Roman times. Moreover, in attempting to sell his project to the pope as an integral part of the renovatio Romae, Steuco linked his plan with the earlier efforts the pope had already taken to beautify and restore the Capitoline hill. He exclaimed: who does not see how the age in which Paul III reigns cries out for those fountains and for this new grandeur; he who first of the Roman pontiffs, with his eyes turned to the Capitoline, namely to the home, the citadel of the Roman imperium and the temple of highest Jove, not able any longer to bear the majesty of the place lying debased in ancient ruins, wiped out the squalor, and decided that the dignity of the place, scattered and shattered, should be restored?19

The adoption of the twin themes of renovatio imperii and renovatio Romae helps to explain, at least in part, the optimistic tone of De via Pauli. But other 17Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A2v. For Paul III’s renovations of the Piazza del Popolo and the Via Lata prior to this, see Ackerman, “Planning of Renaissance Rome,” 11–13; Gigli, “Via del Corso,” 24; and Ciucci, La Piazza del Popolo, 29–34. 18Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A3v. 19Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A1r. For Michaelangelo’s renovations of the Capitoline for Paul III, see Ackerman, “Planning of Renaissance Rome,” 11; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 258–60; and Burroughs, “Michelangelo at the Campidoglio.”

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concerns played a considerable role in determining the tone and breadth of this work as well. As a humanist working at the papal court, a key part of Steuco’s job was to celebrate the virtues, actions, and learning of his patron Paul III. In this same vein, he was expected to contrive ways to enhance the reputation of his benefactor. The projects in De via Pauli, aimed at restoring the city to its past greatness and splendor, posed just such an opportunity. Thus Steuco assured the pope that the projects he proposed would easily earn him the title “Prince of all the Popes” when visitors from across Europe encountered them in Rome, and he explained in detail the breathtaking spectacle that awaited travelers as they entered Rome to the north by ship at the Porta Flumentana.20 The first fountain, he said, would be located: at the very beginning of the avenue itself, where will be seen the renewed navigation of the Tiber, the port, and the station of the ships transporting goods from Tuscany, Umbria, and the Sabine region. This one will be visible to those having passed through the Porta Flumentana [placed] where the avenue splits in two, with one way tending toward the Ponte Hadriana, the other being the Via Lata, that is, your street, which cuts through the middle of the Campus Martius to the Capitoline hill. The second fountain will be halfway down the avenue, the third in the Piazza San Marco.21

Steuco’s own obligations as a humanist to his patron Paul III worked to give De via Pauli a very optimistic and laudatory tone. The humanist/patron relationship also helps to explain in part Steuco’s motives as he conceived his treatise. His intentions were to present the pope with projects that, if carried out, would earn him lasting fame as a temporal ruler. But there was a further element that helped determine the tone, intentions, and scope of this work: Steuco’s concern to advance his own career and reputation as a humanist in Rome. In 1538 Paul III appointed Steuco bibliothecarius of the Vatican Library. Steuco used his good fortune in the Vatican Library to write and dedicate a number of works to Paul III, gestures that enhanced his standing in the eyes of both the pope and fellow humanists.22 But perhaps he had a grander vision of how to immortalize both himself and Paul III as he penned his De via Pauli. 20Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A1r, A4v. For earlier Roman humanists’ use of the term “princeps” and their tendency to exalt the popes as temporal lords charged with looking after the welfare of their subjects see Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 23; and Prodi, Papal Prince, 37–58. 21Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A2r. In pitching his proposal for the Via Pauli, Steuco was no doubt aware that since 1535, the Farnese pope spent many summer months residing in the Palazzo Venezia, located on the Piazza San Marco (the present-day Piazza Venezia). Hence the pope would be furnished with a spectacular view of this boulevard and its fountains. For Paul III and the Palazzo Venezia, see Coffin, Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome, 31–33; and Gigli, “Via del Corso,” 24. 22Writings of this sort include Steuco’s syncretic work, the De perenni philosophia of 1540, the dedication copy of which is contained in BAV, Vat. Lat. 6377; and his 1547 diatribe Contra Laurentium XXXXX

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At one point in his treatise, Steuco argued that the restoration of the Aqua Virgo would not cost the pope much money because the aqueduct was already in fairly good shape, evidenced by the fact that the Aqua Virgo supplied a small amount of water to the Trevi Fountain.23 For proof the Aqua Virgo was the aqueduct that brought water to the Trevi Fountain, he drew the pope’s attention to the fresco of Sixtus IV on the wall of the Vatican Library. Among the verses underneath Sixtus celebrating his numerous efforts to rebuild the city of Rome was one that read, “Virgineam Trivii qui [sic] repararis aquam.”24 What Steuco left unsaid about this painting speaks volumes about his own ambition and desire to increase his fame. For in addition to Sixtus IV and his four nephews, the artist Melozzo da Forlì also painted the humanist Platina as he received his appointment as Vatican librarian. While the thrust of the painting was to memorialize Sixtus IV as a patron of letters and learning and as the rebuilder of Rome, it could not have escaped Steuco’s attention that his predecessor Platina had found a way to etch his memory and reputation into the minds of men in a rather striking fashion. Steuco’s move to call attention to this painting as he pitched a series of projects aimed at urban renewal in Rome was opportunistic. Perhaps he hoped someday to see a similar painting in the Vatican, portraying Paul III with an inscription composed by himself, celebrating the pope as a patron of letters and learning, and lauding the pontiff ’s splendid works that had created the Via Pauli, opened the Tiber to booming river traffic, and brought abundant water into the city. And just as Platina had taken his place alongside Sixtus IV, Steuco would assume his place next to Paul III, his memory and fame captured forever in a fresco in the Vatican Library.25 There is further evidence that a desire to enhance his own ecclesiastical career and humanist reputation was a driving force in the writing of De via Pauli. Two of the three projects outlined in this treatise Steuco had actually proposed earlier in 1546. The first of these projects he vetted in a treatise entitled De revocanda in urbem aqua virgine, written in the summer of 1546 and published in early 1547.26 When Steuco began this treatise he was no doubt motivated by a 23

Vallam, de falsa Donatione Constantini Libri Duo. This latter work is analyzed in Delph, “Valla Grammaticus.” 23Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A3v. At sig. A2v, Steuco gave an estimate of 20,000 gold ducats to repair the Aqua Virgo. 24The text correctly reads “Virgineam Trivii quod repararis aquam.” On Sixtus IV and this painting, see Rowland, Culture of the High Renaissance, 31–33. 25For Platina and this painting, see Rowland, Culture of the High Renaissance, 32. Rowland notes that Platina composed the inscription praising Sixtus IV. 26Steuco, De aqua virgine, in Opera Omnia, ed. Morandi. Vol. 3, fols. 245v–248r.

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compelling set of circumstances. Renaissance Rome was in desperate need of water. Of the eleven aqueducts that had supplied the city with an abundance of fresh water in imperial times, now only the Aqua Virgo remained in service, but barely so.27 The volume of water the aqueduct carried into the Renaissance city was only a fraction of what it once was, and fell far short of supplying Rome’s thirst for water. The city was chronically short of water, and this severely restricted the growth of the urban area. Against this background of hardship caused by a lack of water, Steuco conceived an ambitious plan to supply Rome with an abundance of water. The centerpiece of this plan was the restoration of the Aqua Virgo. Steuco focused his attention on several problems as he began to explore the feasibility of repairing the aqueduct. First of all, why was the conduit of the aqueduct filled with only a fraction of the water it had once carried? Had something happened to the source of the water, the springs called the Aqua Virgo, from which the aqueduct itself took its name? Was the aqueduct damaged, and if so could it be fixed, or had the ravages of man and time rendered rehabilitation impossible from a financial or engineering standpoint? To answer these questions, in the fall of 1545, Steuco abandoned his post in the Vatican Library for a time and began to investigate the course and condition of the aqueduct. This expedition took him to the north and then eastward, about twelve and a half miles outside of the city in the Roman countryside.28 There he investigated the springs that had at one time fed the aqueduct, and discovered what had happened to stop the once formidable flow of water from coursing its way into the city. Reflecting back upon his efforts in his treatise, Steuco told the pope that his attempts to evaluate the condition of the aqueduct and discover its springs had not been easy. He related the difficulties he had encountered as he began his inquiry, standing at the end of the Aqua Virgo where it emptied into the Trevi Fountain in the Campus Martius: There is no one who does not know that the Fountain of the Virgin is what is commonly called the Trevi Fountain today. But a great confusion and ignorance arises, because if anyone about to investigate the origins of the flowing water should reflect upon the path it takes from the Campus Martius, since the water soon hides itself in a subterranean route, having been identified barely a mile outside the city among some air shafts, from there receding from the eyes it is not identified anymore by any signs, even when, with deep 27On the aqueducts, see Parker, Archaeology of Rome; and Frontinus, Aqueducts, 339–59. For the state of the Aqua Virgo during the Renaissance, see Il Trionfo dell’Acqua, 205–8; and Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 24. 28Steuco was absent from his post as Vatican Librarian for an extended period of time in the late fall and early winter months of 1545/46. Freudenberger (Augustinus Steuchus, 114–15) argues that it was during these months that he roamed the Roman countryside following the Aqua Virgo to its source.

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valleys occurring, through which it should have been necessary for it to have come into sight on arches, you will not see any vestiges of it.29

Despite these difficulties, Steuco happily reported to the pope in his treatise that through a great effort of time and energy, he managed to trace the route of the aqueduct back to the original springs that had fed it in Roman times. He was able to do this by following the aboveground air shafts or manholes that punctuated the line of the underground water channel every hundred yards or so.30 Even with the aid of the air shafts though, his task had not always been easy. In constructing their aqueducts, the Romans had frequently created junctions at which several aqueducts all came together. When this happened, he was forced to sort out several lines of air shafts until uncovering once again those that marked the route of the Aqua Virgo.31 Steuco’s perseverance paid off, and eventually he discovered where the aqueduct began, as well as the lush springs that fed it. Recalling these fountains, he effused with praise for the volume of water they produced. In the entire Roman countryside, he asserted, there existed no larger, more abundant, or beautiful springs. Likewise, the quality of the water was fresh, cool, and salubrious.32 Steuco’s investigation of the area revealed to him one reason why the Aqua Virgo no longer flowed into Rome. The Romans had surrounded the springs with a concrete enclosure, thereby elevating and pooling the water. Over the centuries, this concrete wall had disintegrated, allowing the water to flow away from the aqueduct and into a tributary of the Anio River.33 In coming across the springs of the Aqua Virgo, Steuco had not uncovered a vast new source of water out in the Roman countryside. To the contrary, the springs of the Aqua Virgo were well known in his own day, but, he pointed out, no one called these waters the Aqua Virgo anymore. Instead they were known as the Salone Springs, and their old function as the source of the water flowing through the conduit of the Aqua Virgo had long been forgotten.34 Steuco’s optimistic report to the pope on the condition of the springs was matched by a positive evaluation of the condition of the conduit itself. He told Paul III: Barely anything has changed from its earlier, pristine condition. For all the aqueduct is underground.… But only in a few places, with the subterranean channel having been flushed out, will we be forced to rebuild the arches, 29Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 246r. 30Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 246v. 31Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 246v. 32Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 246v. 33Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 246v. See. Frontinus, Aqueducts, 351. 34Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 247r.

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Steuco advised the pope that he had consulted with some architects on the cost of repairing the aqueduct, and they assured him that it could be done for 15,000 gold ducats. Lest the pontiff shy away from his waterworks projects, Steuco counseled him that he could more than recoup his expenses by selling the water to individual homes in Rome.36 Having argued for the engineering and economic feasibility of restoring the Aqua Virgo to Rome, Steuco encouraged the pope to consider how the arrival of this large, fresh stream of water could benefit the people of Rome and beautify the city. Since it came into Rome at a fairly high spot as it cut through the Pincio hill on the northeastern edge of the city, Steuco said that water lines could easily be extended to all the low-lying areas of the city. He wrote: First off, one will be able to see beautiful fountains and to drink publicly in the forum before the Porta Flaminia, at the entry to the city, and then all down the street to the forum of San Marco. Then in the forum of the Pantheon and in the Campo dei Fiori, and finally through the entire city with the water flowing into the homes of illustrious men…what could be more joyful than this spectacle?37

What is particularly interesting in this earlier treatise is the vocabulary and ideology Steuco employed to sway Paul III to favor his aquaduct initiative. As in his later work, De via Pauli, here too Steuco articulated his proposal in rhetorical terms that would resonate with the pope by playing upon the theme of a renovatio Romae. He took particular care to depict his waterworks project as a key initiative that would further Rome’s revival. With abundant fresh water, the population and housing of Rome could grow and Rome would be resplendent with broad avenues festooned with lush fountains. Steuco conceived this vibrant, physically striking city to be a suitable residence for a papal prince who exercised sway over a considerable realm in central Italy. As in De via Pauli, Steuco’s thoughts here show that he has absorbed the cultural idiom of earlier Roman humanists such as Manetti, Palladio, and Biondo, who had also praised the revived imperium exercised by the Renaissance popes. Like Steuco, all three of these humanists applauded the efforts of the popes who, acting as secular lords, worked to restore the pomp and splendor that had once adorned the city in ancient times.

35Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 247r. 36Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 247r. Compare this amount with his estimate a year later of 20,000 gold ducats in Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A3v, and above n23. 37Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 247r–v.

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Yet earlier humanists’ attempts encouraging and celebrating the rebirth of Rome in the Renaissance had also focused on the city as a religious capital as well as the seat of a secular prince. In this regard, the renewed imperium exercised by the Renaissance popes was recognized as an ecclesiastical, spiritual authority as well as a secular authority. Giles of Viterbo and Flavio Biondo praised the revival of Rome under earlier pontiffs as befitting the exalted dignity that Rome held in both the ancient and the contemporary Christian world. Rome was, among other things, the site of the martyrdoms of Saints Peter and Paul, and the writing of humanists like Vegio, Biondo, and Giles of Viterbo worked to create a historical link between the Renaissance popes and Peter, the chief of the apostles and first bishop of Rome.38 Steuco was aware of this ideology and incorporated its general themes into his De aqua virgine. For instance, he attempted to demonstrate that his aqueduct project would enhance Rome as the center of Christianity and renew the piety and veneration for Rome among all Christians. This in turn, he believed, would contribute to a further revival and restoration of the city’s lost grandeur. Working from this line of reasoning, he explained to Paul III that some previous pontiffs, having been motivated by a sense of “public charity” and “paternal benevolence” toward people in general, had undertaken a number of great civic works. The benefit to Rome and the papacy from tending to the public welfare had been substantial. In the past, such acts of benevolence and civic-mindedness had awakened a sense of devotion among people as they venerated Rome as a sacred place and a “domicile of piety.”39 Steuco believed that if Paul III embraced his suggestion to refurbish the Aqua Virgo, this project would have a similar effect in enhancing Rome’s role as a center of piety and devotion. The restored aqueduct would help Rome regain that exalted spiritual state the city had enjoyed in the ancient Roman world.40 It is important to keep in mind that De aqua virgine was precisely the type of work that would enhance Steuco’s stature as a humanist at the papal court, as he proved himself a capable defender of the pope’s secular activities and his actions aimed at enhancing Rome’s status as the chief city of Christendom. But this earlier treatise worked to advance Steuco’s career and name as a humanist in Rome in another fashion as well, for it established his reputation in humanist circles in the city as a serious student of Roman archeology and classical scholarship.41

38See O’Malley, “Fulfillment of the Christian Golden Age.” For other humanists who celebrated the spread of the spiritual imperium of the popes, see Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 83–246, esp. 235–39. 39Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 245v. 40Steuco, De aqua virgine, fol. 246r. 41For humanist classical antiquarian activities in Rome, see Jacks, Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 235–91; Rowland, Culture of the High Renaissance, 7–17; and D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism, 88–110.

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Since 1429, when Poggio Bracciolini had discovered the work of Sextus Julius Frontinus on Roman aqueducts, a great deal of confusion had reigned as Roman humanists attempted to identify specific aqueducts in Rome with those described in Frontinus.42 In Steuco’s day, much uncertainty still surrounded the Aqua Virgo. Not all of his contemporaries were convinced that the aqueduct he identified as the Aqua Virgo was the conduit that brought water to the Trevi Fountain. A number of humanists identified the Aqua Appia, which entered the city from the southeast, to be the true Aqua Virgo. The problem stemmed from the fact that both aqueducts ran for miles underground in the Roman countryside. Moreover, Frontinus’s description of the Aqua Virgo’s sources very nearly described the springs that fed the Aqua Appia, leading a number of scholars to mistakenly claim that the Aqua Appia was the real Aqua Virgo.43 However, by actually following the course of the Aqua Virgo from the Trevi Fountain into the Roman campagna, Steuco positively identified both the conduit known as the Aqua Virgo and the springs that fed the aqueduct.44 In De aqua virgine, Steuco shrewdly combined his antiquarian activities with a practical plan for how the pope could substantially improve life within the city of Rome. If the pope had actually taken Steuco up on his proposal, the refurbished aqueduct and the increased water supply it brought into Rome would have been a lasting memorial not only to Paul III, but also to Steuco, whose scholarly and antiquarian inquiries had demonstrated the feasibility of the project in the first place. While a desire to establish his credentials as an antiquarian in humanist circles in Rome was a motivating factor in the writing of the De aqua virgine, a second work also published in 1547 showed Steuco working to advance his career in another fashion. Sometime in the mid-1540s, he was approached by a delegation sent from a number of towns from the regions lying to the north and east of Rome. This delegation asked Steuco to intercede on its behalf with the pope, urging Paul III to undertake a papal works project aimed at making the Tiber River navigable from Perugia to Rome. If accomplished, this would have allowed many of the towns along the tributary rivers feeding into the Tiber below Perugia to ship their goods to the papal city. Steuco was probably considered an attractive spokesperson by this consortium of towns because he hailed from Gubbio in Umbria, where his family held property. Thus the increased shipping along the tributaries of the Tiber could

42On the discovery of this manuscript by Poggio, see Frontinus, Aqueducts, xxxii; and Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini, 1:85, 88. 43See Steuco’s remarks to this effect in De aqua virgine, fols. 246r, 247r. For Frontinus’s description of the sources of the Aqua Appia, see Aqueducts, 341. 44Steuco, De aqua virgine, fols. 246v–247r.

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have a considerable impact upon the fortunes and economy of his own family and patria if this project were undertaken by the pope.45 The fact that the consortium selected Steuco as its orator was a clear indication of the growing influence he wielded at the papal court. For his part, Steuco sought to intervene on behalf of the towns with the pope by carefully crafting a proposal that would appeal to the pontiff. Thus in the summer of 1546, he again took up his pen and composed another work, entitled De restituenda navigatione Tiberis, which was published in 1547.46 Steuco’s objective in writing this work was fairly straightforward—he had to persuade Paul III to spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and resources on a massive project to make the Tiber bear heavy shipping. What is of most interest however is the approach the humanist employed to present this project to Paul III. He advanced his scheme in terms of a renovatio imperii and as part of the instauratio Romae. There is clear evidence in this work that Steuco personally investigated many of the tributary rivers of the Tiber to ascertain their ability to handle shipping. But in addition to citing his own explorations, he also continuously cited from the works of Pliny the Younger, Strabo, and Tacitus to demonstrate that the ancient Romans had used the Tiber as a major route to ship goods to Rome from the hinterlands.47 Thus Paul III would be restoring navigation to the Tiber, and in doing so aiding his subjects throughout the papal states as well as those in Rome. Addressing Paul III as a temporal prince, he also urged him to think of the welfare of the people in Rome and how the ability to transport goods on the Tiber would immeasurably improve their lives.48 Steuco also worked carefully to connect this project with the pope’s other efforts at renovatio Romae. He reminded Paul III that he had opened up the streets and squares of Rome, and that he had pulled down many old and dilapidated homes. Moreover, he praised the pontiff for having refortified the city and having once again begun work on the new basilica of Saint Peter. Take up this new project, he urged the pope, and men would celebrate him as a real pontiff, the 45For Steuco’s family background, see Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, 8:576–77; and Freudenberger, Augustinus Steuchus, 6–13. 46Steuco composed this work in the summer of 1546 as an oration to be given at the papal court, a copy of which is found in BAV, Vat. Lat. 3587. The work was substantially revised and published for the first time as De restituenda navigatione Tiberis à Trusiamno, agri Perusini castello, usque Romam, and later included in Opera omnia, ed. Morandi, vol. 3, fols. 242v–245r. On fol. 243r, Steuco writes, “fungorque haec scribens multarum urbium quasi legatione, quae ad me oratum venerunt, ut hoc earum nomine à tua maiestate suppliciter peterem.” 47See De restituenda navigatione Tiberis, fol. 243r, where Steuco describes in detail the upper reaches of the Chiana River. For his references to Pliny, see fols. 243r–v, 244r; for Strabo, see fols. 243r– v, 244v; and for Tacitus, see fols. 243v, 245r. 48Steuco, De restituenda navigatione Tiberis, fol. 245r.

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father of his country, and claim that he, the offspring of a Roman family, had produced a work in true Roman fashion.49 Working as a hired pen, Steuco deftly articulated his ideas on the restoration of navigation to the Tiber in terms that would appeal to Paul III. However, despite the pope’s initial interest and delight in Steuco’s Tiber River scheme, the humanist was concerned that his initiative might fall by the wayside as Paul III became overwhelmed with the affairs of the Council of Trent. Thus he again returned to the topic in the late fall or early winter of 1546/47 in his De via Pauli.50 This last treatise then, is the direct result of Steuco’s role as an orator for the consortium of towns in the hinterlands of the papal state that wanted the Tiber opened up to river traffic. Understood from this perspective, his last treatise, De via Pauli, appears to be a neatly packaged attempt to push his Tiber River project at the papal court, where it appeared in danger of falling by the wayside. To the core proposal of the widening and deepening of the Tiber and rendering it suitable for river traffic, Steuco has thrown in the attractive idea of a major emporium developing along the river in the area outside the Porta Flumentana. But to really sell the project, he also proposed an ambitious plan to redesign in a spectacular fashion the major thoroughfare in Renaissance Rome, the Via Lata, and name the new boulevard after the pope. However, the design that he proposed for the Via Pauli also cleverly included support for his own antiquarian research and ensuing project, the rebuilding of the Aqua Virgo, which was crucial for supplying water to the fountains he proposed for the avenue. Moreover, Steuco made this element of his proposal the linchpin for a full-blown renovatio of the city. He acknowledged that Paul III’s prior renovation of the Capitoline had drawn people to the area and they had begun settling once again on the Palatine, Quirinale, and Esquiline hills. Thus Paul III had begun the redevelopment of a largely abandoned area.51 But Steuco observed: Reason persuades that this will come about much sooner if fountains are brought into the area; if an abundance of water should render the Via Lata, which runs to the Capitoline, striking, and if the Romans living in this place shall have water not only publicly but even privately. Thus the same man will both restore the Capitoline and use fountains to bring water to the Via Lata.52

As if this were not enough to convince the pontiff to commit to the project, Steuco added one more irresistible enticement:

49Steuco, De restituenda navigatione Tiberis, fol. 245v. 50Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A1r. Since January 1546, Paul III had pushed Steuco to go to the Council of Trent, but he delayed his departure until September 1547. 51Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A3v. 52Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A3v.

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this same water as it is quite large, can be extended into the Campo dei Fiori, the most celebrated place of new Rome, and from here into your own forum with two large fountains having been erected before the Palazzo Farnese.53

Skillfully composed and neatly packaged, De via Pauli presented the pope with three programs for urban renewal. But what is particularly interesting about this work is that it reveals the textured way in which a humanist adopted the cultural idiom of humanism in Rome, and learned to use that idiom to advance both his own interests and those of his patron the pope. Despite Steuco’s fervent efforts to promote his projects at the court of Paul III, however, none of them came to fruition under the Farnese pontiff. Steuco died suddenly in March 1548 while attending the Council of Trent and his urban renewal projects, bereft of their chief advocate in Rome, fell out of favor. Steuco’s proposals, however, did not languish in obscurity for long. Under Pope Pius V (1566–72) the Aqua Virgo was refurbished and once again began carrying an abundant supply of water into Rome from the Salone Springs.54 And under Pius’s successor, Pope Gregory XIII (1572–85), the waters of the Aqua Virgo began to gush skyward from a fountain in the Piazza del Popolo, the first of many such fountains designed by Giacomo della Porta to bring the waters of the Aqua Virgo to the people of late sixteenth-century Rome.55 A final observation is worth making here regarding Steuco’s urban renewal proposals. As remarked earlier, his vision of Rome was a vibrant, optimistic one. Steuco’s vocabulary mimics that of earlier humanists who lived in Julian and Leonine Rome. Only in his earliest days in Rome is there a note of pessimism or melancholy regarding the city. However, this attitude was soon replaced by a much more optimistic outlook concerning the city and its future. Guiding the renovatio Romae that Steuco celebrated was the pope, who was expected and encouraged to wield his imperium over the people of Rome and throughout his lands in a beneficent fashion. This renovatio and the image of the pope as an active temporal lord closely tied to it were powerful elements in the culture of Pauline Rome. Paul III’s energetic rebuilding of the city of Rome provided the impetus for the three ambitious papal works projects that Steuco proposed, but the pope’s vibrant, active rebuilding of Rome provided the impetus for the development of Steuco’s own ideas concerning ecclesiastical and papal reform as well. Steuco clearly embraced the role of Paul III as a temporal prince, and his ideas and writing on 53Steuco, De via Pauli, sig. A3v. 54On the reconstruction of the aqueduct under Pius V, see D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 35, 229–30. 55D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 35–38; D’Onofrio, “Una strada e una città,” 209–12; and Ciucci, La Piazza del Popolo, 41–42. More work needs to be done on the precise influence Steuco’s proposals exerted over these later projects under Pius V and Gregory XIII.

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reform while in Rome and his participation at the Council of Trent bear this out. The nexus between renovatio Romae and reformatio ecclesiae was a dynamic one in Steuco’s own thoughts and actions, and his example shows that in order to understand the contours of reform under Paul III, one must first explore how this powerful interplay between renovatio and reformatio shaped the debate on reform in Rome among humanists and at the papal court, as well as among the church fathers at Trent.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ASB ASVa BAV

Archivio di Stato, Bologna Archivio Segreto Vaticano Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Printed Primary Sources Frontinus, Sextus Julius. The Aqueducts of Rome. Translated by Charles Bennett. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950. Steuco, Augustino. Contra Laurentium Vallam, de falsa Donatione Constantini Libri Duo. Lyon: Sebastianus Gryphius, 1547. ———. De restituenda navigatione Tiberis à Trusiamno, agri Perusini castello, usque Romam. In Opera omnia, ed. Morandi. Vol. 3, fols. 242r–245r. ———. De revocanda in urbem aqua virgine. In Opera omnia, ed. Morandi. Vol. 3, fols. 245v–248r. ———. De via Pauli et de fontibus inducendis in eam. Rome: Balthasarus Cartularius, n.d. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Velins 1170). ———. Enarrationum in Psalmos pars prima. In Opera omnia, ed. Morandi. Vol. 2, fols. 1r– 202v. ———. Opera omnia Augustini Steuchi. Edited by Ambrosio Morandi. 3 vols. Venice: Dominicus Nicolinus, 1590/91. ———. Pro religione christiana adversus Lutheranos (1530). In Opera Omnia, ed. Morandi. Vol. 3, fols. 1v–24v.

Secondary Sources Ackerman, James. “The Planning of Renaissance Rome, 1450–1580.” In Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, edited by Paul A. Ramsey, 3–18. Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982. Burroughs, Charles. “Michelangelo at the Campidoglio: Artistic Identity, Patronage, and Manufacture.” Artibus et Historiae 32 (1993): 85–111. Ciucci, Giorgio. La Piazza del Popolo. Rome: Tipografia di Luciano Chiovini, 1974. Coffin, David. The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. D’Amico, John. Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome: Humanists and Churchmen on the Eve of the Reformation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Delph, Ronald K. “From Venetian Visitor to Curial Humanist: The Development of Agostino Steuco’s ‘Counter’-Reformation Thought.” Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): 102–39. ———. “Polishing the Papal Image in the Counter-Reformation: The Case of Agostino Steuco.” Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992): 35–47. ———. “Valla Grammaticus, Agostino Steuco, and the Donation of Constantine.” Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996): 55–77. D’Onofrio, Cesare. Le fontane di Roma. Rome: Staderini Editore, 1957. ———. “Una strada e una città riemersi dall’acquedotto di Agrippa.” In Via del Corso: Una strada lunga 2000 anni, edited by Cesare D’Onofrio, 209–12. Rome: De Luca, 1999. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Freudenberger, Theobald. Augustinus Steuchus aus Gubbio, Augustinerchorherr und päpstlicher Bibliothekar (1497–1548). Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorffsche, 1935. Gigli, Laura. “Via del Corso: La strada bimillenaria.” In Via del Corso: Una strada lunga 2000 anni, edited by Cesare D’Onofrio, 9–47. Rome: De Luca, 1999. Gleason, Elisabeth G. “Who Was the First Counter-Reformation Pope?” Catholic Historical Review 81 (1995): 173–184. Gouwens, Kenneth. “Ciceronianism and Collective Identity: Defining the Boundaries of the Roman Academy, 1525.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23 (1992/ 93): 173–95. ———. Remembering the Renaissance: Humanist Narratives of the Sack of Rome. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Jacks, Philip. The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Lugli, Giuseppe. Itinerario di roma Antica. Rome: Bardi, 1975. ———. Roma Antica, Il Centro Monumentale. Rome: Bardi, 1946. O’Malley, John W. “Fulfillment of the Christian Golden Age under Pope Julius II: Text of a Discourse of Giles of Viterbo, 1507.” Traditio 25 (1969): 266–338. Parker, John Henry. The Archaeology of Rome. Vol. 8, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, traced from their sources to their mouths, chiefly by the work of Frontinus; verified by a survey of the ground. Oxford: J. Parker & Co., 1876. Prodi, Paolo. The Papal Prince. Translated by Susan Haskins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———. “La sovranità temporale dei papi e il Concilio di Trento.” In Il Concilio di Trento come crocevia della politica europea, edited by Hubert Jedin and Paolo Prodi, 65–84. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979. Robertson, Clare. Il Gran Cardinale: Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Rowland, Ingrid. The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in SixteenthCentury Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Sabbadini, Remigio. Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne’ secoli XIV e XV. 2 vols. Florence: Sansoni, 1967. Stinger, Charles. The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. ———. “Roman Humanist Images of Rome.” In Roma Capitale (1447–1527), edited by Sergio Gensini, 15–38. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1994. Tiraboschi, Girolamo. Storia della letteratura italiana. 9 vols. in 16. Milan: Dalla Società tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1822–26. Il Trionfo dell’Acqua: Acqua e Acquedotti a Roma, IV sec. a.C.–XX sec. Mostra organizzata in occasione del 16o Congresso ed Esposizione Internazionale degli Acquedotti, 31 ottobre 1986–15 gennaio 1987. Museo della Civiltà Romana. Rome: Paleani, 1986.

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Chapter 5

AN ERASMIAN LEGACY Ecclesiastes and the Reform of Preaching at Trent Frederick J. McGinness

WITH THE PUBLICATION OF HIS TREATISE on preaching, Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi, in the year before his death in July 1536, Erasmus reached the culmination of his life as a humanist, educator, spiritual writer, exegete, and pastoral theologian.1 Arguably Erasmus’s greatest pastoral work, this compendium set the agenda for Catholic preaching for generations. Ecclesiastes contained a wealth of useful rhetorical prescriptions, sound observations, and practical suggestions that would make good preaching possible and bring sacred oratory into its golden age.2 Despite its timeliness and immediate popularity, the work passed quickly into obscurity; for not long after his death, Erasmus would be held responsible for the damages of the Reformation and his works were prohibited.3 Even by 1545, on the eve of the Council of Trent, Erasmus had few clerical proponents.4 In 1550, 1This work first appeared as Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi libri quatuor, opus recens, nec antehac a quoquam excusum. For the view that Ecclesiastes represented the culmination of Erasmus’s life work in a number of areas, see Weiss, “Ecclesiastes and Erasmus,” esp. 90. For an introduction to Erasmus’s pastoral theology, see O’Malley, “Introduction.” O’Malley’s introduction is complemented by new studies on Erasmus’s pastoral theology; see, for example, Pabel, Conversing with God; and Pabel, “Promoting the Business of the Gospel.” 2Fumaroli, L’âge de éloquence. 3For the fate of Erasmus in Italy from the early 1520s and throughout the sixteenth century, see Seidel Menchi, Erasmus als Ketzer, esp. chap. 9; and Seidel Menchi, Erasmo in Italia. Useful too is Flitner, Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt, 33–44, esp 38. 4See the works of Seidel Menchi cited in note 3. Seidel Menchi’s work shows the enormous influence (mostly unacknowledged) of Erasmus’s writings on literary and religious currents in Italy. Flitner, Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt, also examines the growing anti-Erasmian sentiment in Italy in this XXXX

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his works were banned at Louvain; in 1551, at Paris and Toledo; and in 1559, in Italy.5 Paul IV’s Index of Forbidden Books further prohibited the possession and reading of Erasmus’s works. One can assume that the humanist’s reputation fared even worse afterwards. 6 The eminent French humanist and legal scholar at the University of Rome, Marc Antoine Muret (d. 1585), obliterated the name of Erasmus from the pages of his books, as did some Jesuits.7 Within a few years after Trent, Ecclesiastes would be upstaged by timely, ecclesiastically endorsed treatises on preaching by Spanish and Italian humanist-clergymen responding to the Council of Trent’s call to foster “competent persons to discharge beneficially this office of preaching.”8 In this climate of anti-Erasmianism, it would appear that Ecclesiastes exerted no influence at Trent at all, none on ecclesiastical rhetorics, and none on Catholic preaching in general. Following up recent studies on Erasmus’s Nachleben, this essay argues that Erasmus’s contribution to the reform of Catholic preaching at Trent was in fact substantial, though certainly unacknowledged and probably suppressed, and that Ecclesiastes anticipated and informed Catholic preaching in the inter- and postTridentine years.9 Indeed, drafts of Trent’s commission for the reform of preaching strongly suggest that the ideas, recommendations, and the very language of Ecclesiastes figured prominently in the commission’s deliberations up to the final decree on reform of 17 June 1546.10 This decree muffled the more characteristic Erasmian language and ideas on preaching that had appeared in earlier drafts;11 nonetheless, it carried faint but 5

period. The anti-Erasmian activities started quite early. In 1531, the Dominicans of the Low Countries and later the crutched friars forbade the reading of Erasmus. See Duke, “Salvation by Coercion.” 5See, for example, Index de l’Inquisition espagnole, 5:260. Paul F. Grendler (Roman Inquisition, 79) notes that the Sienese Index of 9 April 1548 specifically mentioned “the greater part” of Erasmus’s writings, especially the Colloquies. See ibid., 96, for the Catalogo of 1549, which banned Erasmus’s Colloquies, and the Catalogo of 1554/1555, which banned ten of his works; and cf. ibid., 117, for the Index of Paul IV (January 1559), which “condemned all of Erasmus’s titles.” For the further banning of Erasmus’s books in Italy in 1559, see Seidel Menchi, Erasmus als Ketzer, 274ff. 6The Council of Trent’s Index did allow for expurgated versions of some of his works. For further reactions to Erasmus, see Rummel, Erasmus and His Catholic Critics. 7Crahay, “Le procès d’Érasme.” See also Nolhac, “La bibliothèque d’un humaniste.” 8Concilium Tridentinum (CT), 5:241–43. Translations of Tridentine documents are from Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, ed. and trans. Schroeder; for the portion just cited, see p. 26. 9For Erasmus’s legacy, see Seidel Menchi, “Whether to Remove Erasmus.” See as well Asensio, “Heterodoxos españoles.” For Erasmus’s influence in general, see Seidel Menchi, Erasmus als Ketzer. 10For background on this decree, see Rainer, “Entstehungsgeschichte,” 256–317, 465–523. For preliminary drafts, see CT, 5:105, 226–41. The reform decree included chapter 1, “The Establishment of Lectureships in Holy Scripture and the Liberal Arts,” and chapter 2, “Preachers of the Word and Questors of Alms.” 11“Quoniam vero usque adeo praecipuum fundamentum est Christianae religionis evangelizare…” XXXXX

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discernible traces of the humanist’s treatise, expounding on the chief office of the bishop as teacher, the dignity of the preaching office, the separation of preachers from the laity, and the distinction between the teaching of the preacher and teaching of the schools. Also bearing an Erasmian stamp was the decree’s emphasis on preaching as persuasion, the oratorical genera of the preacher, and the need for the preacher to accommodate his message to his audience’s capacity to grasp it. Further echoing Ecclesiastes, the Tridentine reform decree declared that preaching must deal with the core beliefs necessary for salvation, as well as offer instruction on the vices and virtues. Finally, the Tridentine decree, like Ecclesiastes before it, laid out the cosmic arena of the preacher’s heroic contest. This study examines these Erasmian elements in the Tridentine decree that would have such a strong impact on Catholic preaching after Trent.


By the eve of the Council of Trent, Erasmus’s Ecclesiastes was the single most important document on preaching in western Europe and could hardly be ignored.12 It is estimated that by 1545 there were as many as thirty-six hundred copies of the text in circulation. This massive work was the largest compendium on preaching ever produced for the Christian churches of the east and west.13 Erasmus himself confesses to having been overwhelmed by the enormity of the work.14 Yet it was a mature, sophisticated (albeit sometimes rambling) treatise on the central ministry of preaching, a summa of sacred and secular rhetoric. As a handbook for the “modern” preacher, the work was unparalleled. Significantly, Ecclesiastes would be the first in a long, impressive production of Catholic homiletic treatises from this era instructing preachers on the dignity and importance of their office, on the virtues required of the preacher, and on biblical hermeneutics.15 Like later such works in this genre, Ecclesiastes laid out guidelines 12

(CT 5:106). This draft document also uses the word “ecclesiastes,” for the text reads “ut singulae parochiae suum habeant ecclesiasten.” The term is omitted in the final decree. 12See Kleinhans, “Erasmus’ Doctrine of Preaching,” 31–34. Ecclesiastes at first enjoyed wide popularity among Catholics and Protestants alike, although not without some criticism. Within five or six years of its publication, churchmen seeking to combat Lutheran teachings from the pulpit began to raise concerns about the work, which could be biting in its criticisms of delinquent and incompetent clerics. 13This essay uses the text found in Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, vols. 5–4 and 5–5. The text will be cited by the book number in Erasmus’s text, followed by the page number in Chomarat’s Latin edition (e.g., Ecclesiastes, 1:121). 14Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:29. 15Erasmus was deeply indebted to Saint Augustine’s De doctrina christiana. Béné, Erasme et saint Augustin, 372–425. He also relied heavily on John Chrysostom’s On the Priesthood and on other writings of the church fathers, especially the homilies of Origen.

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for applying classical rhetoric and dialectic to heralding the gospel, noted the best Christian preachers to study, highlighted the most important biblical doctrines to explain, and stressed preaching on the vices and virtues. The treatise provided lists of preaching ideas and their loci in scripture, and urged adherence to the teaching of the church on all matters of faith. In short, Erasmus’s work took up nearly every issue a preacher had to know for this “office more truly angelic than human,” a task that, according to Erasmus, “is the greatest of all and the most pleasing to God, but also the most difficult of all.” 16 Neither the conciliar decree nor the drafts of the preparatory commission mention Erasmus or his Ecclesiastes.17 However, scholars such as Arthur Allgeier, Andreas Flitner, Jacques Chomarat,18 and Hubert Jedin,19 have detected peculiarly Erasmian elements in the preparatory documents,20 specifically in the idea of colleges (seminaries) for the study of scripture,21 and the need for a methodus to introduce clergy to scripture.22 The absence of any explicit reference to Erasmus, it seems, is likely due to a decidedly anti-Erasmian bias among the fathers on the commission. One member of the commission, the Dominican Ambrogio Catarino, for example, had produced his own methodus on preaching in 1543. While Catarino’s work was very close to Erasmus’s Ratio seu Methodus compendio parveniendi ad veram theologiam, the Dominican expressly distanced himself from some of Erasmus’s positions in his own treatise.23 16“Ad munus angelicum verius quam humanum” (Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:112) and “opus omnium maximum Deoque gratissimum, sed idem omnium difficillimum” (ibid., 1:126). 17See on this Allgeier, “Das Konzil von Trient”; and Allgeier, “Erasmus und Kardinal Ximenes.” For a history of the debate on this decree, see Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, 2:99–124. 18Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:2; and Larios, “La reforma de la predicación en Trento.” Larios discusses Ecclesiastes, but does not notice the connection with the Tridentine documents. 19Jedin (History of the Council of Trent, 2:122) comments that this decree “was the first, and we may add at once, the only successful attempt to combine church reform with whatever was sound in Christian humanism.” Jedin does not discuss the connections with Ecclesiastes. 20For the Erasmian language of Cardinal Quiñones, see Flitner, Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt, 35: “Mit ähnlich erasmischen Formulierungen hatte der Kardinal Quiñones den Uebelstand gekennzeichnet: Eine Lehre aus der Heiligen Schrift selbst sei fast nirgends zu treffen. Die Weisheit fast aller Geistlichen, auch derer, die sich für gelehrte Theologen hielten, stamme aus zweiter oder dritter Hand, ‘non ex ipso sacrorum librorum fonte.’ ” 21Chomarat observes this at Ecclesiastes, 1:130 (note, line 12, in Academiis publicis): “C’est le principe de ‘séminaires’ qui est ici posé.” The question of seminaries, however, would not be addressed until session 23 of the Council. 22Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, 2:88, calls the methodus “a thoroughly Erasmian notion.” The methodus, however, dropped out of the discussion and was not mentioned in the final decree. Ibid., 2:109. 23Flitner, Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt, 37, says of Catarino’s methodus: “diese Schrift des Dominikaners Ambrosius Catharinus Politus klingt in so vielen Stellen dem ‘methodus’ des Erasmus gleich, daß eine direkte Abhängigkeit angenommen werden muß.” Flitner does not declare whether Erasmus’s Ecclesiastes was available to any or all members of the commission. He does, however, speculate: “Als ein Muster für das geforderte Werk zur Ausbildung der Geistlichen mag diesem Kreise u.a. die XXXXX

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Despite such hostility, Erasmus’s work continued to exert a powerful, however silent, influence at Trent, above all in articulating the crucial role of the bishop in the reform of preaching and of Christian society in general.24 This issue, in fact, had been among the first items on the council’s agenda for ecclesiastical reform.25 In Trent’s reform decree of 17 June 1546, the fathers approved a brief, concise statement on preaching, much modified from the preparatory commission’s earlier drafts.26 The decree looked to the quality and supply of priests to assist the bishop in carrying out this crucial office. It focused on training preachers in grammar and holy scripture, not in scholastic theology. In the first of two chapters, the fathers mandated that there be “instructors in sacred theology,” persons to “expound and interpret the holy scriptures,” and “lectureships in holy scripture and the liberal arts…that the heavenly treasure of the sacred books which the Holy Ghost has with the greatest liberality delivered to men may not lie neglected. …”27 This first chapter, therefore, echoed a theme fundamental to all humanists as well as to the author of Ecclesiastes, namely, that preachers be thoroughly versed in the scriptures.28 In the second chapter, the fathers declared that “preaching is the chief duty of bishops” (praedicatio evangelii…praecipuum episcoporum munus).29 All bishops 24

Schrifte des Erasmus vor Augen gestanden haben.” 24Galán Vioque (“Erasmo en España”) demonstrates that the professor of rhetoric at the University of Alcalà, Alfonso García Matamoros, drew from Ecclesiastes when he composed his own preaching treatise, De methodo concionandi juxta rhetoricae artis praescriptum (1570). Matamoros mentions Erasmus only to criticize him. Nonetheless, Matamoros’s debt is significant evidence for the scholarly authority Erasmus still held even after his consignment to the Index. John O’Malley has called attention to Alfonso Zorrilla, who in 1542 complained that Erasmus’s work “was diffuse, prolix, and confused”; but then wrote his own treatise on preaching in 1542 at Rome, which O’Malley notes “was an act of outrageous and wholesale plagiarism—a covert, scissors-and-paste compilation out of Reuchlin and three Lutheran authors—Melanchthon, Veit Dietrich, and Johannes Hepinus (Hoeck).” O’Malley, “Erasmus and the History of Sacred Rhetoric,” 17. 25Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, 2:99ff. 26Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, 2:99–124. One other important element of this debate, which this study does not address, was the preaching privileges of the mendicants. 27The conciliar commission does not use the wording “heavenly philosophy,” but the biblical term “treasures” is also frequent in Erasmus. See Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:242: “but how much more precious are the things that the preacher takes from the treasure-house of heavenly philosophy and scatters from the pulpit.” 28Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:78. Erasmus refers to this gift as “a learned tongue [linguam eruditam], which is the special gift of preachers”; it is not “trained in the syllogisms of the philosophers or adorned with the embellishments of the orators but learned in the speech of the Lord, as was written about Esdra”; and at 3:260, Erasmus notes that the learned tongue is “clear in explaining the obscurities of the scriptures,” as Augustine advised. 29Compare CT, 5:242. The phrase is repeated in canon 4 of the reform decree in the third period of the Council at its eighth session, 11 November 1563. See CT, 9:981, session 8 (24), Canon quartus: “Praedicationis munus, quod episcoporum praecipuum est…quo frequentius posit, ad fidelium salutem exerceri.”

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were “bound personally, if not lawfully hindered, to preach the holy gospel of Jesus Christ.”30 The admonition extended to all “archpriests, priests and all who in any manner have charge of parochial and other churches to which is attached the cura animarum.” Their duty was, the decree explained: to preach the holy gospel of Jesus Christ … feed the people committed to them with wholesome words in proportion to their own and their people’s mental capacity, by teaching them those things that are necessary for all to know in order to be saved, and by impressing upon them with briefness and plainness of speech the vices that they must avoid and the virtues that they must cultivate, in order that they may escape eternal punishment and obtain the glory of heaven.31

On the actual subject matter of preaching, Trent’s only directive was “to preach the holy gospel of Jesus Christ.” Preaching was to be based on scripture, as Lateran V (1513–17) and reform bishops before Trent had demanded.32 Bishops, moreover, were to provide for competent preachers in this “the chief foundation of the Christian religion,” and to inspect the qualifications of everyone preaching within their dioceses, while forbidding anyone to preach without their permission.33 Long before the appearance of this decree, a number of dedicated bishops and clergy had grasped the urgent need to reform preaching in this direction. Many of the decree’s ideas, therefore, were in the air and at Trent they seem to have had a multitude of advocates.34 In light of this terse, highly refined Tridentine statement on preaching, Erasmus’s large, unwieldy Ecclesiastes might seem to have had only a faint resonance. It was, however, remarkably pertinent to every topic enunciated. Erasmus had in fact anticipated the directives of the decree, as is evident in the ideas, statements, and in some places even in the very language of Ecclesiastes. Erasmus’s deep familiarity with Christian tradition had made it clear to him that the bishop was crucial for the church’s spiritual welfare, and when the bishop did not preach, Christian society lapsed dismally. It was preaching, then, that defined the episcopal office, a theme Erasmus reiterates throughout Ecclesiastes. On the role of the bishop, Erasmus stated: The highest dignity in the ecclesiastical hierarchy belongs to the bishops; however many their functions, chief among which are the administration of 30The Council, however, provides for bishops “to appoint competent persons to discharge beneficially this office of preaching” if they are “hindered by a legitimate impediment.” The preparatory document of 13 April 1546 also explicitly uses the term ecclesiastes (from ecclesiasten) instead of praedicator. 31CT, 5:242. 32Sacrorum conciliorum nova, 32:944–47. 33CT, 5:106: “praecipuum fundamentum est Christianae religionis evangelizare.” See also CT, 5:123. 34For background on preaching reforms before Trent, see McGinness, Right Thinking, 29–49.

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the sacraments and spiritual instruction [praecipuae sunt administratio sacramentorum et doctrina spiritualis], he is at the pinnacle of his dignity whenever he feeds the souls of the people with the flesh and blood of Christ, which is the word of God.35

Here and elsewhere throughout Ecclesiastes, Erasmus argues that preaching is the “chief duty” (praecipuum munus)36 of the bishop, “whose special role is to teach the people” (cuius praecipuae partes sunt docere populum).37 Tracing the office of bishop back to the priesthood of Aaron whose “chief characteristic [was] teaching the people the laws of the Lord,”38 Erasmus’s exegesis of the recondite prescriptions governing Aaron’s life and family and his sacerdotal paraphernalia underscores the “outstanding endowments required in an ecclesiastical teacher.”39 The preacher is to be separated from the people so as not to be contaminated in the sanctuary of his heart and mind, and this in turn will allow him “to relate…the teachings and to act as mediator and patron of the people.”40 Erasmus observed that Aaron’s consecration shows that one “who is to take up the role of preacher must above all be severed from worldly business, wholeheartedly devoted and dedicated to divine matters,” and be of “outstanding purity of life.”41 No other ecclesiastical office demands greater integrity. Erasmus’s preoccupation with the allegorical significance of the Aaronic priesthood serves to exalt the sublime dignity of this office, a theme that would be repeated in many Catholic preaching manuals after Trent as well as in mirrors for bishops.42 For Erasmus the splendid external trappings of the priestly office signified allegorically the inner spiritual strengths that deacons and presbyters must exhibit. Their minds must be “adorned with every kind of heroic virtue and perfect purity 35Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:114. 36Erasmus has a fondness for the word praecipuum and its various forms. See Chomarat’s note at Ecclesiastes 1:49 on Erasmus’s translation of the Greek word didaktikovn, or “doctor,” in 1 Tim. 3:2, and docibilem in 2 Tim. 2:24. Chomarat notes Erasmus’s change to “appositum ad docendum” and calls attention to Erasmus’s treatment of this word in his Annotationes, where Erasmus insists on the importance of preaching. For the annotation, see Erasmus, Opera omnia, ed. Leclerc, 6:934D–E, where Erasmus refers to preaching as the “praecipuum Episcoporum munus.” Chomarat does not seem aware of Trent’s choice of this word. 37Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:54. 38Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:98, “id quod in pontifice praecipuum erat, videlicet populum docere praecepta Domini.” 39Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:84. The rules and sacred paraphernalia associated with Aaron complement the theme of the dignity of the office of preaching, which Erasmus gives as the argument of book 1. See also ibid., 1:78. 40Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:86. 41Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:86, 1:92. 42Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:206. For a discussion of this theme, see McGinness, Right Thinking, 41ff. For a post-Tridentine example, see Granada, Ecclesiasticae rhetoricae, 1.3.12ff, “De concionandi officio, et insigni eius dignitate.”

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of life.”43 And if such is the case in these two offices, Erasmus writes, how much “loftier” must be the “gifts of the spirit…required of someone who has undertaken the office of preacher,” that is, the bishop, who today has as his “chief duty” teaching the people the laws of the Lord.44 Significantly, the concept of preaching as the chief duty of the bishop as articulated in Ecclesiastes became the cornerstone of Trent’s decree on preaching and on homiletic reform in the post-Tridentine era.45 Erasmus identifies five principal offices of priests/bishops: “they administer the sacraments of the New Law, they pray for the people, they judge, they ordain, and they teach.”46 In any one of these functions they “surpass the excellence of kings.” He observes, however, that one priestly duty towers above all others, and this is “teaching the Lord’s flock…[for] to fulfill the office of teaching is both the most difficult by far and also the most beautiful by far, since its usefulness extends farthest.”47 Because teaching goes to the core of Christian life, “the prelate, though outstanding in everything, is absolutely at the peak of his dignity when he feeds the Lord’s flock with sacred teaching from the pulpit and dispenses to them the treasure of evangelical philosophy.”48 Erasmus asserts that ceremony without meaning is empty, and in his mind meaning and understanding comes from good preaching. He writes, “For what good is it to adults to have been baptized unless they have been taught through a catechist what baptism means, what they ought to believe, how they ought to order their life according to their Christian faith?”49 As Erasmus equates the bishop’s “teaching” (docere) with “feeding” (pascere), so too will Trent. To be an evangelical teacher means that one nourishes the Lord’s flock. The preaching bishop envisioned by Trent would similarly be one “powerful in work and speech who builds up with word and example, lest his people lack the nourishment of the word of God.”50 Although Erasmus does not advocate a permanent separation of clergy from laity, he clearly was uncomfortable with the easy familiarity with which clergy of all ranks came and went about among the masses, thus bringing themselves into contempt. His lengthy discourse on the exalted dignity of the preacher’s office strongly urges preachers to keep apart from the laity in all mundane matters, and he desires that every ambiguous intimacy and mercenary or sinful exchange with laymen and

43Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:98. 44Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:98. 45See O’Malley, “Saint Charles Borromeo.” 46Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:198, 1:200. 47Eramus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:200, 1:202 48Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:202. See also ibid., 1:54, 114. 49Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:202. 50CT, 5:106.

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women cease. If a teacher wishes to win the hearts of his people, Erasmus advises, he must provide outstanding examples of what it is he is urging, as did Christ, “the perfect model of all virtues.”51 Erasmus’s ideas on this topic clearly anticipate the seminary system that would set future preachers on the path of virtue very early in life. In fact, Erasmus believes that the duty of providing preachers fell first upon parents and early teachers. “It is for parents or teachers, therefore, if they have marked out someone for the office of preacher, to prepare him right from infancy as an instrument for the Holy Spirit, to train him in character and in those subjects especially that are most effective for the ability to teach.”52 Princes, too, assisted in this by preserving peace and an orderly society, as did bishops in “providing clerics with a settled life … [and] preachers endowed with the evangelical virtues.” These authorities would become “shapers of youth learned and devout alike to drop the seeds of Christian devotion upon their tender minds.” Erasmus concludes, “the reflowering of evangelical vigor in the people rests particularly with these persons.”53 Erasmus’s comprehensive vision of the career of the preacher provides a glimpse of the crucial role seminaries would play in the post-Tridentine church as the “seed bed” (seminarium) of virtues and training in the disciplines that would make for good preachers, as well as the crucial role of parents in preparing their sons for this vocation.54 Ecclesiastes also clearly anticipates the council’s crucial debate on the residency of bishops. Erasmus envisions reform where bishops remain in their dioceses and preach regularly. For, as he notes, wherever morals have grown deplorable, the cause is the same, “the flock does not feed continually upon the word of God.”55 Erasmus believes that enforcing the rule that bishops preach would eliminate the abuse of bishops appointing stipendiary bishops who have little concern for teaching. This would also help bishops ensure that preachers under their jurisdiction be sufficient, suitable, and approved, a task arguably even more important than the bishop’s own preaching.56 Erasmus does concede, though, as would Trent, that “the absence or illness of a bishop required the efforts of a substitute because of the pressure of business.”57 Today, he acknowledges, “this role [of preaching] is widely 51Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:330. 52Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:110, 112. 53Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:165. 54Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:138, 2:248. 55Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:136. See also, ibid., 1:30, 33. 56Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:130–32: “Ac mea quidem sententia, talis episcopus maius operae precium fecerit, si sedulo per se suosque aduigilet, vt singulis ecclesiis idonei pastores ac didaktikoiv praeficiantur, palam autem inutiles ab eo munere submoueantur, quam si ipse concionandi negocio totus incumbat.” Cf. CT, 5:242. 57Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:114.

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delegated to monks and presbyters,” and because of the size of towns and number of churches in a diocese, auxiliary preachers are necessary.58 Despite these exceptions, Erasmus emphasizes that the duty of preaching is primarily that of the bishop. He points out that while Jesus did not himself baptize, nevertheless he “used to teach personally, and for some time, as the church matured, no one preached in the churches except the bishop.”59 With circumstances changed, however, a principal responsibility of bishops was to provide competent preachers, rather than to take this role completely on themselves.60 “Anyone,” Erasmus writes, “who steps up to that place [preaching] ought to remember that he is occupied in an office that far surpasses the dignity of a king and that is primary in a bishop.”61 Erasmus’s criticisms of bad preaching do not fall on specific bishops, but rather target the many unworthy individuals found preaching nearly everywhere, “the young, the irresponsible, the ignorant,” who lack direction and understanding of their office. Just as true Roman orators were hard to find, Erasmus declares, so too are true preachers exceedingly rare: “If the gospel needs to be preached, how scarce they are.”62 While the commission on preaching at Trent called particular attention to many abuses in the pulpit as did Ecclesiastes, it is worth noting that the final Tridentine document on the reform of preaching omits mention of these unsuitable preachers.63 Trent’s decree on preaching identifies the substance of preaching as “the heavenly treasure of the sacred books.”64 This departs somewhat from Erasmus’s distinctive “treasure of evangelical philosophy,” but the two documents draw close together in equating “feeding” and “teaching” as expressions of the nature of the bishop’s teaching as nourishment for his flocks.65 Erasmus declares that in “feeding,” the preacher follows the example of Christ, the greatest teacher, the bringer of heavenly wisdom, “to instruct people toward piety.” He draws daily from the 58Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:114, 130. 59Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:114: “Olim baptizabant Apostolorum discipuli, quemadmodum Dominus Iesus non ipse baptizabat, sed Apostoli in eius nomine tingebant, ipse per se docebat et, subolescente Ecclesia, aliquamdiu in templis nemo concionabatur praeter episcopum.…” 60Erasmus, like Trent later, made it the bishop’s duty to provide excellent preachers for his diocese; in some ways, because of the size of the territory, supplying preachers was even more important than the actual preaching of the bishop himself. Erasmus even states that if a bishop himself does not preach he may be forgiven for this, as long as he provides good preachers for his flock. Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:103. 61Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:114. 62Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:36, 134. 63CT, 5:106–7. 64CT, 5:241: “coelestis ille sacrorum librorum thesaurus.” Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:202: “thesaurum euangelicae philosophiae.” 65Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:114, 194.

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storehouse of scripture to bring down “morsels of salutary teaching with which souls are nourished and invigorated.”66 Erasmus emphasizes that the “teaching” of the bishop has nothing to do with the teaching that goes on in the schools; it is rather “the food of evangelical teaching” that brings eternal life. Erasmus’s view of the preaching bishop recapitulates his theology of Christ’s redemptive work, which began and continues through preaching. Christ, the teacher of “heavenly philosophy,” “the perfect evangelist,” “the prince of preachers,” spent the principal part of his earthly ministry in preaching, to instruct men and women in piety.67 So too must preachers carry on teaching that “ineffable philosophy which the Son of God brought to earth from the bosom of his father.”68 Like the apostles who “offered very attentive ears to Christ, the teacher of all teachers,” good bishops and their delegates, therefore, must study the sacred books before preaching so they too can “feed” the people.69 In addition to stressing the need for bishops to engage in regular preaching and teaching, Ecclesiastes provides myriad instructions on how the preacher is to deliver his message, “because persuasion [persuadere] is in fact the only power he possesses.”70 The members of the Tridentine commission on preaching and other clergy trained in the studia humanitatis understood that classical rhetoric had persuasion as the goal of oratory, which encompassed a triadic aim: “to teach, to move, to delight.”71 So too did Erasmus identify these aims, making clear that the preacher/bishop was indeed an orator in the fullest sense, as his objectives were the same.72 The three aims operate when the bishop preaches, but certainly no element should predominate more than teaching. Erasmus again is quick to point out 66Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:202, 3:46. 67Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:218, 222. 68Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:104. 69Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:106. 70 The first lines of Ecclesiastes make clear that persuasion is at the heart of sacred oratory. j Ekklhsiavzein is “to speak to the assembly,” and j ekklhsiastæh" is someone who pleads publicly before a crowd. Among the pagans too this office was always considered especially lofty and honorable. “But just as there are two kinds of government, the secular (which some prefer to call the extrinsic on the grounds that among Christians consecrated to God nothing should be secular) and the sacred (which today they call the ecclesiastical), so there are two kinds of ecclesiastes: the secular, who proclaim the laws of princes and decrees of magistrates and persuade the people, and the sacred, who expound the edicts, promises, and will of the highest prince and persuade the people at large.” Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:135; See also 1:176. 71See CT, 5:124: “Curent autem non tam ut doceant, delectent et flectant in persuasibilibus humanae sapientiae et eloquentiae verbis, quam ut intelligenter, libenter, obedienter audiantur in ostensione spiritus et virtutis, ut sc. quam veritatem ore predicant, opere non impugnent.” The Tridentine commission here is echoing Saint Augustine, who in turn is drawing upon Cicero in his De oratore. See Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 4.12.27. 72“Illud in summa spectat qui dicit ut doceat, ut delectet, ut flectat.” Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:274, 596. At 2:310, Erasmus stresses that the preacher is especially involved in the suasorial and encomiastic genera.

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that this teaching is not the same as goes on in the schools: “However ingenious Duns Scotus’s teachings about metaphysics, what do they have to do with the preacher?”73 The bishop’s teaching is “the heavenly philosophy,” or as Trent would declare, “the heavenly treasure of the sacred books.” And like Christ, the bishop teaches by persuasion. Homiletic persuasion has nothing to do with compulsion. Persuasion is, in fact, vastly more difficult, for “it is much easier to compel by force than to persuade by speech,”74 while “for weapons he [the preacher] has sacred teaching, tears, prayers, and a blameless life.” To be persuasive, Erasmus notes, the preacher must embrace with his heart what he urges: the most important thing for persuasion…is to love what you are urging; the heart itself supplies ardor of speech to the lover, and it brings the greatest force to effective teaching if you display within yourself that which you are teaching to others.75

Following the classical authorities on rhetoric, Erasmus emphasized that one cannot move another unless he has first been moved himself. The ancient authors also had spoken of three oratorical genera, the judicial, suasive (deliberative), and the encomiastic (epideictic or demonstrative). Of these three, Erasmus identifies the preacher’s domain as the suasive and encomiastic types, because the preacher is especially occupied with these genera in dissuading men and women from vice and sin, and in praising God, the angels, saints, and in dealing with the virtues.76 But Erasmus also departs from this strictly classical tripartite division by taking the words of Paul (2 Tim. 3:16, 4:2) to fashion uniquely scriptural genera of speaking (teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, encouraging), recognizing them as distinctively Christian genera for imparting God’s word in the arduous task of “feeding” the Christian community.77 Erasmus does not revise the 73Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:260. 74 Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:172. See also Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique, 2:1162: “Le désir de persuader est l’âme de l’éloquence.” Chomarat calls attention to the opening of Cicero’s Pro Milone and also to Erasmus’s own disapproval of anything that would engender a fear negating the Christian spirit. For Erasmus on persuasion as the aim of eloquence, see Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:172. 75Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:84. 76Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:310. 77“We shall add in passing what seems particular to exhortation, consolation, or rebuke; for someone who is exhorting is urging courage, someone who is consoling is urging more moderate grief, someone who is rebuking is urging the recognition of one’s fault and coming to one’s senses: for this is the only goal of anyone who is rebuking in a Christian fashion: ‘to teach them in sacred learning, to inspire them, to console and admonish them.’ ” Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:136. Erasmus’s preacher-bishop therefore does what Paul prescribes in 2 Tim. 3:16 (“sacra doctrina doceantur, extimulentur, consolentur et admoneantur”) and 2 Tim. 4:2 (“quum episcopus quatenus est episcopus nullum ius habeat nisi docendi, monendi, obiurgandi, obsecrandi et consolandi”). See also Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:310, 2:394, 2:272, 2:392, 2:456; and Quintilian Institutio oratoria 3.4.

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classical scheme of oratorical categories for homiletic purposes, but he often speaks of these genera as intrinsic to the preacher’s office, and in fact discusses them where he treats the suasive and encomiastic categories of rhetoric, so granting them an equal status among the genera dicendi.78 One of the most striking marks of the Tridentine decree is its insistence on rhetorical accommodation (apte dicere), an ability Erasmus declared to be crucial to the preacher’s engagement with his flock and which ancient authors on rhetoric held as central to eloquence.79 The decree insisted that teaching be in proportion to the mental capacity of a preacher’s audience: appropriate, respecting time, circumstances, persons, professions, and age.80 Erasmus saw this discretion on the part of the speaker as the hallmark of a superior teacher and an effective preacher. The failing of preachers to accommodate themselves to their audience had been one of the major criticisms of preaching before Trent, and would become a matter to which bishops, religious superiors, and clerical educators would pay far greater attention in the post-Tridentine years. Homiletic treatises too would grow more sensitive to this issue with their repeated admonitions that preaching to a congregation was not the same as a scholastic disputation.81 Erasmus’s language again emerges in Trent’s insistence that bishops and preachers teach “those things it is necessary for all to know for salvation.”82 In Erasmus’s mind, because teaching was crucial, it followed that preachers should know what to teach and what to avoid in the pulpit.83 To this end, book 4 of his Ecclesiastes provides a lengthy list of res necessariae for preachers to have on hand, an index of teachings on the faith as derived from scripture, as well as subjects that derive from it.84 Trent and the Roman Catechism would later follow Erasmus 78Erasmus’s articulation of these Pauline genera may, in fact, have influenced a major Spanish author of ecclesiastical rhetoric, the Franciscan Diego de Estella, whose Modo de predicar identifies these Pauline categories as the only genera for preaching, thereby rejecting the classical categories. Originally published in Salamanca in 1576, Diego’s work is now available in a modern edition in Estella, Modo de predicar y Modus. 79 This theme runs throughout Ecclesiastes; see 1:66, 2:322, 1:79. At 1:66, Erasmus writes, “Rhetores negant quenquam bene dicere, nisi dicat apte.…” 80“Plebes sibi commissas pro sua et earum capacitate pascant salutaribus verbis, docendo ea, quae scire omnibus necessarium est ad salutem…” CT, 5:241. The commission’s early draft of 13 April 1546 had expressed this idea more thoroughly; see CT, 5:107–8: “Nunquam vero obliviscantur, quibus praedicent; positi enim sunt, ut praedicent plebibus, non praelatis.…” 81See Granada, Ecclesiasticae rhetoricae, 173: “Concionator tamen in hac ipsa tractatione meminisse debet, quid potissimum inter doctorem et concionatorem intersit. Scholasticus enim doctor docere solum, et intellectum erudire studet: concionator autem voluntatem movere, et ad pietatis et iusticiae studium inflamare debet: ideoque omnia ad hunc scopum (quatenus fieri poterit) dirigere atque referre conabitur.” 82CT, 5:241. 83Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:330, 4:375. 84Erasmus begins book 4 by stating he will provide a list of the subjects with which the preacher is occupied: “Superest elenchus siue index materiarum in quibus potissimum versatur ecclesiastes…” XXXX

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by setting forth these res necessariae for preachers.85 Articulating doctrine precisely so “that everyone everywhere preach one and the same thing” would become a hallmark of Tridentine reform. The drafts of the document on preaching reform repeat Erasmus’s concern that there be a consistent exposition of church doctrine based on scripture, and that preachers echo the apostles’ concordia and “understand the same way” on matters of the faith.86 Erasmus’s index in book 4 of Ecclesiastes would give the fathers at Trent a summa outlining the doctrines to be preached and showing how they all fit within the harmonic architecture of dogmatic and moral theology. Perhaps the most striking element in the terse Tridentine decree on preaching is its insistence that preachers “impress upon them [the people] with briefness and plainness of speech the vices that they must avoid and the virtues that they must cultivate, in order that they may escape eternal punishment and obtain the glory of heaven.” The formula derives from Saint Francis of Assisi’s instruction to his friars in Later Rule (1223): I admonish and exhort those brothers that when they preach their language be well-considered and chaste [Ps. 13:7 and Ps. 19:13] for the benefit and edification of the people, announcing to them vices and virtues, punishment and glory, with brevity, because our Lord when on earth kept his word brief.87 (italics in original)

In these final words on the content of preaching, Trent, in effect, embraced the Franciscan preaching tradition as typified after Francis in the sermons of notable Franciscan preachers like Bernardino of Siena, who expressly made the “vices and virtues, punishment and glory” the substance of his preaching.88 This Franciscan element appears in early drafts of the decree and remains in the final form of the document.89 Its inclusion at Trent reflects its currency in a number of ecclesiastical instructions on preaching prior to Trent that directed preachers to address these themes specifically. Indeed, long before Trent a consensus had been 85

(Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:322). At 4:405 he writes, “Fides enim est certa persuasio de omnibus quae necessaria sunt ad salutem.” See also 1:30. 85Erasmus takes up the res necessariae at 4:330, cf. 4:332. See CT, 5:106, where Trent envisions a catechism and other handbooks on faith. 86“Neque aliud praedicent in publicis concionibus, aliud in colloquiis privatis, sed ubique idem et semper ad aedificationem audientium.” CT, 5:107 (13 April 1546). Erasmus describes how concord and harmony among the apostles expressed itself: “idem sentiebant, idem loquebantur, nempe magnifica Dei, non opiniones hominum” (Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:386). 87Francis of Assisi, 1:105. 88See Polecritti, Preaching Peace, esp. 24ff. 89Cornelio Musso, the eloquent Franciscan bishop of Bitonto and a principal member of the commission, may have suggested this phrase. On Musso, see Norman, “Franciscan Preaching Tradition,” and Norman, Humanist Taste.

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forming that these Franciscan themes were essential to Catholic preaching.90 As early as 1537 and again in 1541, Cardinal Gasparo Contarini as bishop of Belluno had included this formula in his own instructions for preachers.91 The inclusion of this Franciscan language as a centerpiece in the Tridentine document might seem to preclude any Erasmian influence on this specific aspect of Catholic preaching. However, Erasmus himself enthusiastically endorsed attacking vices and teaching virtues; it lay at the core of preaching and is a fundamental theme of Ecclesiastes.92 Without acknowledging Francis’s Rule or the Franciscan preaching tradition, Erasmus independently places these topics at the very center of the preacher’s work when he writes, “nothing has greater force for the correction of the people’s habits than the spreading of evangelical doctrine by suitable preachers.”93 Just as Francis had articulated these themes to his brothers as the essence of their preaching, Erasmus similarly dedicates a substantial portion of Ecclesiastes to handling vices and virtues, because a major duty of the preacher is to teach the virtues and dissuade from vices.94 Consequently, much of books 2 and 3 lays out methods for extirpating vices and praising virtues. Book 4, in fact, gives “a list or index of the subjects in which the preacher is especially occupied,” and deals with vices in detail. For Erasmus, nothing was more important than this for creating morally upright people.95 On this score, he and the Franciscans stand completely aligned. For the reform of Christian society and the work of Christ’s redemption could occur only through the continuous activity of preachers who carried on Jesus’ work of imparting the heavenly philosophy that had piety—the acquisition of virtue and elimination of vice at its core. Erasmus concludes Ecclesiastes in book 4 by setting his discussion of the vices and virtues against the panorama of a cosmos ordered in a “threefold hierarchy.” This is a Pseudo-Dionysian universe of excellent “harmony” (concordia), beginning with God, followed by the heavenly society of the angels, the ecclesiastical and mystical body of Christ, and moving on down the ladder of creation to the political state of a city or region. Erasmus observes that “all these polities to some extent reflect the image of that heavenly one in which there is perfect order and perfect harmony.”96 In this universe whose ideal is “harmony” or “concord,” human beings 90For this direction in Catholic preaching before Trent, see McGinness, Right Thinking, 29ff. 91See Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, chap. 5, esp. 266ff. 92Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:427. 93Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, “Introduction,” 32. 94Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 2:304, 334–35, 427, 444, 4:332. On one level at least, Ecclesiastes also aims at correcting the vices of the preachers themselves, for as Erasmus observed, it was expected that a man who reproves others’ vices should indeed be wholly pure of vice himself. See. ibid., 1:56, 84, 173. 95Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 1:32. 96Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:311–12.

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are educated in piety and come to obey the law, especially the new law of Christ. This is what renders Christians “truly pious,” and the effects of this piety bring about a society where virtue displaces vice, harmony replaces conflict, and the cosmic order is restored. Here the church makes its way amid the contraries of Satan, the antithesis of Christ, who “corrupts all creation as far as he can.” Satan is the foe, for “instead of the highest wisdom [Satan possesses] the highest malice for seducing and for disturbing order,” and it is Satan and his call to vice that defines the arena of the preacher’s contest. While dealing with virtues and vices in book 4, Erasmus presents Christ as the perfect model of all virtues, arguing that in him resides the path to the restoration of social as well as cosmic order.97 Christ is the overwhelming counterweight to the vices of Satan and his members. Christ is the model all must strive to imitate, in whom no trace of vice coexists with his virtues. This latter theme would, of course, become prominent in Catholic preaching after Trent. In the end, Erasmus writes, virtue will displace vice and restore cosmic order, but in the meanwhile, the preacher’s purpose is to work toward this goal and each Christian’s obligation is to pursue this triumph of virtue over vice. As part of his treatment of virtues and vices in book 4, Erasmus constructs an “index of loci” for preaching.98 Though making only little headway in this project, he nonetheless gives his readers a hefty start, placing his entire list under “divisions or headings” and suggesting that each preacher compile for himself “an abundance of virtues and vices,” and “a sylva, especially from holy writ.”99 But he leaves this enormous task for others to complete, so that each one may examine the sacred books and choose for himself what he will judge as useful for preaching and arrange it in a convenient order. This suggestion later Catholic writers would follow with great zeal.100 Though apparently passed over at Trent and discarded afterwards, Erasmus’s Ecclesiastes proved to have a vigorous impact on the understanding of Catholic preaching at Trent and in the post-Tridentine era. Erasmus’s work had emphasized the duty of preaching as the highest obligation of the bishop and placed preaching squarely in the rhetorical tradition of persuasion, a matter vastly different from scholastic teaching or preaching. Ecclesiastes also set the first standards on how to apply classical rhetorical principles to preaching. In emphasizing the dignity of the

97Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:330; see also ibid., 2:456 and 4:324, on this same theme. 98Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:336. Erasmus recognizes he is in a long tradition of authors who have composed such lists. 99“Reliquum est vt ex iis quae proposuimus, texamus indicis capita siue titulos ac deinde ad singulos syluam aliquam ecclesiastae suggeramus, praesertim e Sacris Literis.” Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:344. Erasmus takes the word “abundance” from Cicero De oratore 3.30.118. 100Erasmus, Ecclesiastes, ed. Chomarat, 4:378. See Paleotti, Instruttione.

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office of the preacher, the importance of the preacher’s moral life, his incessant training in scripture, theology, and hermeneutics, and making clear what was at stake whenever a preacher stepped before a congregation to speak, Erasmus revived the ideal of the classical orator whose work was the most arduous of all. From its first appearance in 1535, Ecclesiastes authoritatively defined the new Catholic homiletics that Trent affirmed. Vices and virtues, the necessary articles of faith, accommodation to one’s audience, the avoidance of criticism of preachers, clergy, and authorities—all became characteristic of the post-Tridentine preacher. Whatever its shortcomings, Ecclesiastes became the point of departure from which all subsequent treatises on sacred oratory would find their origins.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Printed Primary Sources Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. Edited and translated by Henry Joseph Schroeder. St. Louis: Herder, 1960. Reprint, Rockford, IL: Tan Books, 1978. Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuum nova collectio. Edited by Görres-Gesellschaft. 13 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau: Societas Goerresiana, 1901–67. Estella, Diego de. Modo de Predicar. In Modo de predicar y Modus concionandi: Estudio doctrinal y edición critica, edited by Pio Sagüés Azcona. 2 vols. Madrid: Instituto Miguel de Cervantes, 1951. Erasmus, Desiderius. Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi. Translated by James Butrica. Edited with annotations by Frederick J. McGinness. Collected Works of Erasmus 67– 68. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, forthcoming. ———. Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi. In Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, 5.4:29–471, and 5.5:7–391. Edited by Jacques Chomarat. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1991, 1994. ———. Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi libri quatuor, opus recens, nec antehac a quoquam excusum. Basel: Froben, 1535. ———. Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami. Edited by Jean Leclerc. 10 vols. in 11. Leiden: Petrus Van Der Aa, 1703–06. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Vol. 1, The Saint, edited by Regis J. Armstrong. New York: New City Press, 1999. Granada, Luis de. Ecclesiasticae rhetoricae sive de ratione concionandi libri sex. Venice: F. Zilettus, 1578. Index de l’Inquisition espagnole 1551, 1554, 1559. Edited by Jesús Martínez de Bujanda. Geneva: Droz, 1984. Paleotti, Gabriele. Instruttione per li predicatori destinati alle ville, o terre. Rome: Moneta, 1678. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio. Edited by Joannes Dominicus Mansi. Vol. 32. Paris: H. Welter, 1902.

Secondary Sources Allgeier, Arthur. “Erasmus und Kardinal Ximenes in den Verhandlungen des Trienter Konzils.” Spanische Forschungen der Görres-Gesellschaft 4 (1933): 193–205. ———. “Das Konzil von Trient und das theologische Studium.” Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft 52 (1932): 313–39. Asensio, Eugenio. “Heterodoxos españoles en el XVI: Los estudios sobre Erasmo, de Marcel Bataillon.” Revista de Occidente 63 (1968): 302–19. Béné, Charles. Erasme et saint Augustin ou influence de saint Augustin sur l’humanisme d’ Erasme. Geneva: Droz, 1969. Chomarat, Jacques. Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme. 2 vols. Paris: Belles lettres, 1981. Crahay, Roland. “Le procès d’Erasme à la fin du XVIe siècle: Position de quelques jésuites.” In Colloque érasmien de Liège: Commémoration du 450e anniversaire de la mort d'Érasme, edited by Jean-Pierre Massaut, 115–33. Paris: Société d’édition “Les belles letters,” 1987.

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Duke, Alastair. “Salvation by Coercion: The Controversy Surrounding the ‘Inquisition’ in the Low Countries on the Eve of the Revolt.” In Reformation Principle and Practice: Essays in Honour of Arthur Geoffrey Dickens, edited by Peter Newman Brooks, 135– 56. London: Scolar Press, 1980. Flitner, Andreas. Erasmus im Urteil seiner Nachwelt. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1952. Fumaroli, Marc. L’ âge de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et "res literaria" de la Renaissance au seuil de l'époque classique. Geneva: Droz, 1980. Galán Vioque, Guillermo. “Erasmo en España: Ecclesiastes y De ratione dicendi de Alfonso García Matamoros.” Humanistica Lovaniensia 45 (1996): 372–84. Gleason, Elisabeth G. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Grendler, Paul F. The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press 1540–1605. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. Jedin, Hubert. A History of the Council of Trent. Translated by Ernest Graf. 2 vols. London: Nelson and Sons, 1949. Kleinhans, Robert G. “Erasmus’ Doctrine of Preaching: A Study of Ecclesiastes, sive de ratione concionandi.” PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1968. Larios, A. “La reforma de la predicación en Trento (Historia y contenido de un decreto).” Communio 6 (1973): 22–83. McGinness, Frederick J. Right Thinking and Sacred Oratory in Counter-Reformation Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Nolhac, Pierre de. “La bibliothèque d’un humaniste au XVIe siècle: Les livres annotés par Muret.” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 3 (1883): 202–38. Norman, Corrie. “The Franciscan Preaching Tradition and Its Sixteenth-Century Legacy: The Case of Cornelio Musso.” Catholic Historical Review 85 (1999): 208–32. ———. Humanist Taste and Franciscan Values: Cornelio Musso and Catholic Preaching in Sixteenth-Century Italy. New York: P. Lang, 1998. O’Malley, John W. “Erasmus and the History of Sacred Rhetoric: The Ecclesiastes of 1535.” The Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 5 (1985): 1–29. ———. “Introduction.” In Spiritualia and Pastoralia, edited by John W. O’Malley, ix–li. Collected Works of Erasmus 66. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. ———. “Lutheranism in Rome, 1542–43: The Treatise by Alfonso Zorrilla.” Thought 54 (1979): 262–73. ———. “Saint Charles Borromeo and the Praecipuum Episcoporum Munus: His Place in the History of Preaching.” In San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, edited by John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro, 139–71. Washington DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1988. Pabel, Hilmar M. Conversing with God: Prayer in Erasmus’ Pastoral Writings. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. ———. “Promoting the Business of the Gospel: Erasmus’ Contribution to Pastoral Ministry.” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 15 (1995): 53–70. Polecritti, Cynthia L. Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy: Bernardino of Siena and His Audience. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000. Rainer, Johann. “Entstehungsgeschichte des Trienter Predigtreformdekretes.” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 39 (1915): 256–317, 465–523. Rummel, Erika. Erasmus and His Catholic Critics. 2 vols. Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1989. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia (1520–1580). Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987.

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———. Erasmus als Ketzer: Reformation und Inquisition im Italien des 16. Jahrhunderts. Leiden: Brill, 1993. ———. “Whether to Remove Erasmus from the Index of Forbidden Books: Debates in the Roman Curia, 1570–1610.” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 20 (2000): 19–33. Weiss, James Michael. “Ecclesiastes and Erasmus: The Mirror and the Image.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 65 (1974): 83–108.

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Chapter 6

THE TURBULENT LIFE OF THE FLORENTINE COMMUNITY IN VENICE Paolo Simoncelli

IN 1560, A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE FEAST of Saint John the Baptist, the Medici agent in Venice, Pietro Gelido, noted in a letter to his patron Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany, that for “the first time in the seven or eight years that I’ve been here, I’ve been invited to the banquet given by the consul of our nation on the Feast of Saint John.”1 The invitation, which came from the sitting consul, Pandolfo Attavanti, merited attention, since the ceremony that honored the patron saint of Florence every year on June 24 was also the annual occasion for the seating of the new consul and councillors of the Florentine “nation” residing in Venice.2 Gelido’s report to Cosimo I illustrates something of the political tensions that pervaded the Florentine community in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century.3 Indeed, from the outbreak of war between Florence and Siena in 1552 until the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, when Medici rule over Siena and over the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was secured, the refusal by the Florentine exiles living in Venice to invite the duke’s ambassador to their annual festival pointed to a deep fissure in the Florentine nation abroad. The rift was between those Florentines such as Gelido, who supported the duke, and those who—their hopes ignited by the Sienese rebellion against Florence—continued to long for a restoration of a republican form of government in Florence. Gelido’s report of Attavanti’s invitation may 1

Translation by T. C. Price Zimmermann and Ronald Delph. 1ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2973, fol.116r, Gelido to Cosimo I, Venice, 22 June 1560. 2Statuti delle colonie fiorentine, ed. Masi. 3For background on the Medici agent in Venice, see “Gelido, Pietro,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 53:2–5. Gelido resided in Venice from 1552 to 1561.

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have been an attempt, in the new political climate after the end of the Sienese rebellion, to reassure the duke that the anti-Medicean Florentine community in Venice was no longer a threat to his political ambitions.4 This stands in sharp contrast to the much more turbulent years of the 1530s, 1540s, and 1550s in which the vicissitudes of international politics, joined with the insistent and dangerous dealings of the Florentine exiles at Venice, constituted real perils for the stability of the Medici dukedom. These circumstances forced the Medici to pay close attention to the Florentine colony in Venice and to adopt particularly severe measures to try and isolate those members who had been exiled for reasons of state.5 These first few observations prompt us to cast a cursory glance at the turbulent life of the Florentine community in Venice, to hazard a preliminary political overview, and to sketch out the initial contours of its development. Throughout the early decades of the sixteenth century, the Florentine exiles residing in Venice had become a major concern for the Medici dukes of Tuscany. But Venice was not, in fact, the most likely destination for the Florentine republicans, nor even the place of exile that the newly elected Florentine magistrates of the Otto di Guardia e Balìa had imposed upon them after the Medici restoration in 1530. The writings of Florentine exile Jacopo Nardi, such as his Istorie della città di Firenze, report that some 150 to 170 Florentines were banished,6 but most of them, as Benedetto Varchi observed in his Storia fiorentina, had in general been sent either to other localities in Florentine territory, to the states of the church, or to the Kingdom of Naples. Only three exiles were originally confined in the Veneto in 1530. Niccolò di Francesco Carducci and Niccolò di Lorenzo Benintendi were exiled to Venice, while Paolantonio di Tommaso Soderini was relegated to Verona.7 Initially, Varchi wrote, the exiles hoped “if not foolishly then certainly vainly,” that they would be repatriated at the end of three years when the ban expired. 4Gelido, himself deeply sympathetic to reform impulses, may also have been favorably disposed toward Attavanti because of the latter man’s active support for religious reform and spiritual renewal. In Venice, Attavanti dispersed funds sent to him by Giulia Gonzaga at the suggestion of Pietro Carnesecchi to support those who had sought refuge there religionis causa. From Venice as well, Attavanti also passed along the works of Juan Valdés to Carnesecchi. Gelido, after eventually leaving Venice and gaining the company of Calvinists in France, would receive financial aid from Carnesecchi through the hands of Attavanti. See Firpo and Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi, 2:64, 248– 49, 482, 768, 836, 1164–65. 5See below, nn. 40, 41, 66. 6Nardi, Istorie della città di Firenze, 2:232. See also Guicciardini, Opere inedite, ed. Guicciardini, 9:351; and Firpo and Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi, 1:457. 7Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 1:320–21. On Varchi, see Albertini, Firenze dalla Repubblica al principato, 339–46; Pirotti, Benedetto Varchi, 14–20; and Lo Re, “Biografie.” Bernardo Segni (Storie fiorentine, 207–8) reduces the number of exiles to fifty, without however offering any documentation for it. The list of the names of the exiles reported by Modesto Rastrelli (Storia d’Alessandro de’ Medici, 1:221– 31) confirms the numbers furnished by Varchi and Nardi.

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Thus they observed the terms of their initial exile with great discomfort, expense, and patience.8 Only in the wake of the imposition of even harsher terms of exile in 1533 did many of the exiles begin to despair of returning to their native city and elect to come to Venice. At this point, Varchi noted, “Many of these decided to break the terms of their exile. They knew this made them rebels against the duke and consequently, either sold or concealed their holdings in order to avoid having their property confiscated.”9 In this increasingly tense climate, Florentine republicans finally broke whatever remaining ties they had to their homeland. Nardi’s testimony about developments following the imposition of the second exile of 1533 is explicit. Most of these men, he wrote, “gravitated to Pesaro and other localities in the state of Urbino, where they were warmly welcomed by that duke…and likewise in Venice too they were welcomed with compassion.” And he adds that after some initial confusion there “the exiles, up to forty-five of them, were granted a license for bearing arms.”10 All in all, about a third of the 120 to 150 Florentines whom Nardi estimates were sent into exile between 1530 and 1533 for either political or economic reasons decided to move to Venice. Nardi’s estimates are probably too low, however, since during the final phase of the Medicean war against the last Florentine Republic in 1530, with the surrender of some Florentine detachments near Arezzo, the republican commanders of these troops were given the option of taking refuge in Venice and some undoubtedly did so.11 Moreover, during the siege of Florence a number of the Florentines residing in Venice, like their counterparts at Lyon, at Naples, and in Flanders, had been invited to contribute voluntarily to the defense of the republican cause. Little money was obtained, but the initiative proved dangerous and consequently some of these Florentine republicans probably decided to settle permanently in Venice as well.12 8Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 322. 9Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 363. 10Nardi, Istorie della città di Firenze, 241–42. The ninth and final book of the sixteenth-century edition of Nardi’s work, published in Lyon by Ancelin in 1582, ends with this phrase. See. Picquet, “Jacopo Nardi”; and Bramanti, “Sulle Istorie della città di Fiorenze di Jacopo Nardi.” See below, n13, for details on Nardi’s personal possessions that were soon confiscated. 11Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 271. 12Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 270. Another wave of Florentine republican exiles arrived in Venice after Francesco Guicciardini, working as a diplomat for the Medici regime, reached an agreement with the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d’Este. By the terms of this agreement, the duke banished the Florentine exiles living in Ferrara and expelled them from the Este duchy, driving many of them toward the Veneto. See Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 361; and De Leva, Storia documentata di Carlo V in correlazione all’Italia, 2:593–95. Once when called upon by Charles V to give an explanation for the complaints against the Medici regime that the exiles living in Naples had raised, Guicciardini in his reply cited Venice and Lyon as among the places imposed by the Medici for exile. In fact, these two cities were XXXX

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Nardi, leaving behind his meager belongings that had been confiscated in Florence, had preceded them there, arriving in Venice the previous December.13 He encountered a surprisingly warm reception in the Republic, as he wrote to Lorenzo Strozzi a few months after his arrival: In the time that has passed I have suffered many inconveniences and difficulties, especially before I came here, which was the 17th day of the past December [1533]. But here, I don’t know how, I landed very well, having waited for my poor old father to be well, and since I have had many occasions for very honorable and enjoyable relations with gentlemen both foreign and of Venetian birth…so I go along without much inconvenience, being embraced, God be thanked, as a brother or father.14

As a result of this first favorable impression and of his reception by “gentlemen both foreign and of Venetian birth,” in 1534 Nardi composed two short political works, Discorso fatto in Venezia contro ai calunniatori del popolo fiorentino and Brieve discorso … in Venegia dopo la morte di papa Clemente settimo.15 The first Discorso in particular, addressed to Duke Alessandro of Florence, was meant to dispute the claim some were making that “the Medici’s adversaries and those who love liberty and the past government of the city of Florence are persons of low rank in contrast to the Medici and their supporters.”16 Not surprisingly, the pro-republican Nardi developed in this work a strong anti-Medicean reading of the previous century of Florentine history. In particular, he singled out the year 1436, when the “great equality of Florence” was subverted by the Medici, who “used the favors of the basest men” and “abased the most noble families” to establish their preeminence in the city. In Discorso fatto in Venezia, Nardi gave particular attention to the last Florentine Republic (1527–30) and to the repressive policies of Pope Clement VII that had provoked civil war and led to the ruin of the city.17 The formation of a significant community of anti-Medicean exiles in Venice and Nardi’s own aspirations to support himself as a freelance author of political and historical works in the city may explain his reluctance to mention Venice as 13

never assigned for this purpose; Guicciardini clearly confused Venice and Lyon—cities voluntarily chosen by the exiles themselves—with those imposed by Medicean authority. Guicciardini, Opere inedite, 9:367–68. 13Nardi’s possessions were confiscated in July 1534. Pieralli, La vita e le opere di Iacopo Nardi, 85–86. 14Nardi to Lorenzo Strozzi, Venice, 18 April 1534, in Pieralli, Vita e opere di Nardi, 158–60. 15Each of these works by Nardi still awaits a critical edition. However, the texts can be found in Nardi, Vita di Giacomini, ed. Gargiolli. See also, Pieralli, Vita e opere di Nardi, 87–93; and Picquet, “Florentins et rebelles,“ 49–71. 16Nardi, Discorso fatto in Venezia, in Vita di Giacomini, 227. 17Nardi, Discorso fatto in Venezia, in Vita di Giacomini, 237, 289–310.

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among the centers of Florence du dehors that materially assisted the exiles.18 And despite the election of Paul III as pope in 1534 and the growing attraction of Rome as a place of refuge for the exiles, Venice still remained one of the favored destinations of the Florentine expatriates.19 This was the result of two circumstances. First, in 1536 Filippo Strozzi, one of the greatest bankers of the Renaissance and a key financial supporter of the Florentine republicans, decided to take up residency in the city.20 Secondly, shortly after Strozzi’s move to Venice Alessandro de’ Medici, the duke of Florence, was assassinated on the night of Epiphany in 1537 by his cousin Lorenzino de’ Medici.21 Emboldened by the apparent weakness of the new ruler of Florence, Duke Cosimo I, republican forces engaged Medicean troops at the battle of Montemurlo in July 1537. The outcome of this battle was the disastrous defeat of the republicans and the capture of nearly all of their leaders.22 Over the course of these few months, from January to July 1537, the initial steadfastness that the exiles had presented in the face of great adversity began to waver. This was owed perhaps to the fact that in place of a “tyrant” duke there had succeeded a young ruler whom the ottimates hoped to be able to guide.23 Perhaps original attitudes also may have softened because among Cosimo’s first acts had been an attempt to recall to the patria at least some of the “great” exiles.24 Nonetheless, republican hopes remained alive. Varchi, now himself a voluntary exile, wrote that among the ranks of the exiles, there multiplied voices and letters that spread the news of an intervention on behalf of the republicans by the king of France, who it was rumored, “must already have put together a great army to deprive Cosimo of the lordship and restore Florence to liberty.…” Many Florentines, Varchi observed, recalling the hardships and dangers of the past, fled the 18See Nardi, Istorie della città di Firenze, 251–52. 19See Lupo Gentile, La politica di Paolo III; Capasso, La politica di papa Paolo III, 71–73; Pastor, Storia dei papi, 5: 200–13; Spini, Cosimo I, 32–54; and Firpo, Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo, 311–27. 20For the events touching upon his family that forced Filippo Strozzi to oppose Alessandro de’ Medici, see Lorenzo Strozzi, “Vita di Filippo Strozzi,” lxvi–lxx. In Venice, his brother and biographer wrote, “per usare nell’altrui patria quella libertà che nella sua, godere non gli era permesso, e vivere più sicuramente, essendo proprio a quella nobile repubblica accogliere e accarezzare lietamente tutti i fuori usciti e specialmente quelli di qualche condizione e facultà.” Ibid., xliii. While residing in the city of Venice, the entire Strozzi family was allowed to carry arms. Ibid., xciii–iv. For a detailed look at both Filippo Strozzi and his economic and financial concerns, see Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici. 21The only biography of Lorenzino is Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici. 22See also Spini, Cosimo I, 84–91. 23Albertini, Firenze dalla Repubblica al principato, 207–11; Spini, Cosimo I, 28–34; and Cantagalli, Cosimo I, 44–49. 24Albertini, Firenze dalla Repubblica al principato, 215–16; Simoncelli, “Le comunità fiorentine,” esp. 6–7. Following these events, Varchi began his voluntary exile from Florence. See his Storia fiorentina, 424–25.

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city and were followed by others who sought out their friends or relatives who had preceded them. Meanwhile a number of people in Florence, including the whole party of the Friar Savonarola, were of the firm opinion that Cosimo’s reign would quickly come to an end. 25 Piero Strozzi’s actions also contributed to the instability of the times and helped fan the flames of republican sentiment among the Florentine rebels. In the first months of 1537, Strozzi returned from his military campaign alongside the French in Piedmont and rejoined his father Filippo at Bologna. He brought with him “more than a hundred soldiers, the greater part Florentines, and almost all exiles and trained in war.”26 The fact that now more than a hundred armed men were serving Strozzi suggests that the original exiles had been joined by others. But the willingness of the exiles to take up arms, together with the uncontrolled political passion of Piero Strozzi, began to tarnish their image. Furthermore, recent republican attempts at assaulting some towns bordering the papal Romagna, had been regularly frustrated for various reasons. These defeats led Varchi, who had participated in the assaults in the entourage of Strozzi, to observe that “while in Bologna, in Ferrara, and in Venice, many things were discussed every day, nothing was ever concluded, with the result that the Florentine exiles, who were first held in admiration…were brought to derision even among children.…”27 The Battle of Montemurlo in July 1537 dealt a crushing blow to the republican cause and worsened living conditions for the exiles. In addition to two thousand mercenary soldiers, over two hundred of the exiles had participated in this decisive engagement.28 The tragic list of prisoners captured by the Medicean troops of Alessandro Vitelli in this battle records the names of scores of men who, acting rashly, paid for the passionate furies of Piero Strozzi.29 Moreover, a severe blow had also been dealt to the leadership capabilities of Filippo Strozzi. He had lost, along with his partisans killed in battle, thirty-five thousand scudi that he had been forced to leave in Venice under pressure from the king of France, as part of a financial transaction that had involved the new Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este.30 Back in Venice, there no longer existed any point of reference at all, whether political or economic, that could materially support or even lend hope to the 25Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 430. On the vain hopes for French aid, see Albertini, Firenze dalla Repubblica al principato, 168–69; and Cavalcanti, Lettere edite e inedite, ed. Roaf, xxviii–xxxii; and especially his letters from France, ibid., 51–85. 26Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 429. 27Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 431. 28Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 439. 29Luca Landucci lists by name thirty of the more outstanding exiles captured at Montemurlo and subsequently executed. He concludes his remarks by writing, “E molti altri, che io none scrivo.” Diario fiorentino, ed. del Badia, 373–75. 30Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 439.

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dreams of the Florentine exiles. The local Florentine nation lived, in short, a stressful life. From the meager documentation that survives, it appears that from 1435 on, the community had at its disposal inside the convent of the Frari a chapel along with a schola, whose quarters had been restored in 1504.31 In addition to the street, the piazza, and the Calle Toscana near the Rialto, these were the meeting places for the exiles. But the religious association of the Florentines of Venice, the Company of Saint John the Baptist, which had until shortly after the Battle of Montemurlo been the favored gathering place of the exiles, had now fallen into disuse.32 Meanwhile the intermittent presence in the city of Piero Strozzi, who was still serving the French crown under arms, brought more harm than good to the community. This was particularly true in 1542 when, in a bold move, he secured the port of Marano in the name of the king of France, striking out against Austrian soldiers who were defending the port. His timing angered the Venetian authorities who had fomented the scheme, and who proceeded immediately to expel the entire Strozzi family from the territory of the Republic.33 Several years elapsed before the changing conditions of the international contest allowed the exiles to regain the ability to make their voices heard once again. The arrival at Venice in October 1545 of the new Medicean ambassador Pierfilippo Pandolfini34 was greeted, in fact, by an honorable welcome from the representatives of the Florentine community, among whom was Jacopo Nardi, now recognized as the moral head of the Florentine exiles.35 Pandolfini reached Venice in the middle of diplomatic efforts following the Peace of Crépy in September 1544, which renewed a politico-diplomatic web that would result in the conclusion of a papal-imperial alliance against the Schmalkaldic League. For its part, the league, already supported by the French alliance, worked to win over Venice. Such an alignment, supported financially by the anti-Medicean Florentine bankers, would pose a far from negligible military threat to the Florentine duchy.36 In the dynamics of this international scenario, the anti-Medicean exiles now had greater possibility to maneuver, the more so as they were able to regroup about the Strozzi brothers, readmitted (although without Piero) to the territory of the Venetian Republic after the cession of the port of Marano to Venice.37 These 31ASV, Indice 257, S. Maria dei Frari, busta 103. I thank Prof. Giuseppe Gullino for this information. See also, Sbriziolo, “Per la storia delle confraternite veneziane,” esp. 431–32. 32Sagredo, “Statuti della Fraternità.” 33Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 301. 34Del Piazzo, Gli ambasciatori toscani, 48. 35Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi,” 3:937–49, esp. 939 n10. 36De Leva, Storia documentata di Carlo V in correlazione all’Italia, 4:176–77; Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma, 108–9; François, Le cardinal François de Tournon, 224; and Stella, “Utopie e velleità insurrezionali.” 37Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 356.

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ominous changes did not escape the Medicean diplomats and informers accredited throughout Europe. From France, beginning in January 1545, the Florentine ambassador Bernardo de’ Medici had advised Cosimo I of Piero Strozzi’s intention to unite his family at Venice.38 And at Venice, in fact, the Strozzi brothers would gather and quickly be joined by numerous other Florentine exiles from France.39 The prospect that all the powerful leaders of the Florentine exiles, who previously had been dispersed throughout Italy and Europe, would congregate in Venice was rendered still more disquieting by the explicit support they were henceforth able to enjoy from Giovanni della Casa, the papal nunzio of Paul III to Venice.40 As a consequence of these developments, Cosimo I recommended to Pandolfini the closest surveillance of all the arriving exiles. But he also urged his ambassador to appeal for peace and internal concord with the Florentine community, which, after the honorable welcome extended to Pandolfini, had been aroused anew by the prospect of the imminent leadership of the Strozzi. Members of the community had also become upset by Medicean offers to pay a stipend to Nardi, an offer that had created a huge political rift among the Florentines in Venice.41 For his part, Pandolfini executed the ducal orders with particular attention, well aware that in those years the Florentine duchy faced grave threats from developments on the international scene. The principal measures of surveillance the Medici used to monitor and control the Florentine community in Venice during these years are well known.42 However some aspects of the daily life of the colony still remain in the shadows. But a close analysis reveals how punctual Medicean intervention was during this period in politically dangerous moments, an intervention that attempted to strike at the most sensitive socioeconomic nerves of the Florentine community in Venice. These actions clearly testify to Cosimo’s belief that he could not place too much trust in the loyalty of the Florentine nation in Venice. 38ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4590, fol. 70r–v. Bernardo de’ Medici to Cosimo I, Fontainebleau, 25 January 1545. 39See Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 356. 40Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 355–56. See also Campana, “Monsignor Giovanni della Casa,” esp. 17 (1908): 422; and Santosuosso, Vita di Giovanni della Casa, 83–84, 103–4. 41See, for example, ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 6, fol. 421r–v, Cosimo I to Pandolfini, Pietrasanta, 9 December 1545: “Ci dispiace assai la disunione che voi ci scrivete che hoggi è costà fra cotesti mercanti fiorentini, la quale perché è di danno et di poco honore all natione, farete intendere da parte nostra al Console et a qualli che son causa di tali dispareri, che a noi non piace questo modo di proceder et che noi desideraremmo che loro da per loro si riunissero insieme acciò che noi non fussimo forzati a tener qualche modo per accordarli che poi non piacesse a qualcuno di quelli che son causa di questo.” Concerning the “provvisione” given to Nardi and the following political discord that it caused in the Florentine community, see Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi.” 42See Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici; Simoncelli, Il cavaliere dimezzato; and Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi.”

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Nevertheless, the initial intense diplomatic activity of the new Medicean ambassador at Venice garnered, in concert with that of Nardi, some success in lessening the tension between the republicans and Cosimo I. This is seen, for example, by the first requests from the exiles to reenter into the grace of the duke. The letter Ser Mariotto d’Anghiari sent from Venice in December 1545 to Pandolfini on behalf of himself and a local group of exiles was characteristic of this. Petitioning Pandolfini to be allowed to return to his home in Anghiari, he wrote: The courtesy of Your Lordship has obliged me to him in such wise that where I am, there Your Lordship may always assure himself of having a servitor who in every service will be willing to venture his own life…therefore I supplicate Your Lordship to deign to undertake my protection and to arrange it so that His Excellency pardons me, and that he accepts me and the others of Anghiari who find themselves banned back into his grace, and restores us to our patria and to our families, and if my errors and those of the others have been grave, even extremely grave, the pity and benignity of His Excellency must be even greater than all our faults.43

Ser Mariotto’s offer was by no means contemptible. He had been, in fact, a major figure in the dangerous sedition of 1537 during which the bands of Florentine exiles headed by Piero Strozzi nearly seized the fortified town of Anghiari, which constituted one of the militarily sensitive points bordering the papal lands of Romagna.44 Ser Mariotto’s request having been transmitted by Pandolfini to Cosimo I, the duke was prompt to show clemency toward the onetime rebel.45 He did this, as he communicated directly to the cardinal of San Giorgio, Girolamo Capodiferro, because “the intercessions have been numerous and such from many persons of consequence, who have sought and pressed me to consent that Ser Mariotto d’Anghiari, a proscribed rebel against my state, might remain in that province there in the service of Your Most Reverend Lordship.” He also noted that he was motivated to do this in part “because I desire greatly to speak with him on a matter of great importance regarding the security of my fortress of Anghiari.” Indeed, an envoy of the duke would soon contact Ser Mariotto, presumably to initiate discussions concerning the fortress.46 43ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fol. 60r–v. 44Varchi, Storia fiorentina, 431–32, 435–36. 45ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fol. 63r–v, insert of Pandolfini between two letters to Cosimo I, Venice, 10 and 16 December 1545: “Ser Mariotto d’Anghiari alli giorni passati mi venne a visitare et molto m’andò scusando le actioni sue. Et all’ultimo mi pregò che lo raccomandassi all’ E.V. perché quella fussi contenta di farli pigliar gratia [che] potessi tornare a Fiorenza o almanco star al suo officio di Romagna con quel R.mo legato. Io con buone parole li risposi che per qualche via facessi intendedre il suo buon animo all’ E. V. la quale è clementissima.…” 46ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 6, fol. 413r–v Cosimo I to the Cardinal of San Giorgio, from Pisa, 20 December 1545. See also fol. 413v, Cosimo I to Mariotto d’Anghiari, from Pisa, 20 December 1545.

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The path thus chosen of clemency and cooperation with some groups of exiles was one of the means Cosimo used to control the local Florentine colony even before the concentration of the Strozzi at Venice. In sharp contrast to this moderate approach, however, was a more strident tactic apparent in a harsh Florentine law of 12 December 1545, which struck at a wide variety of artisans and wool workers who now exercised their occupations outside the Florentine state. The text of this law was particularly severe, for it created an obligation, in fact, for all the gold drawers, dyers of silk, painters, or craftsmen, Florentine or of the domains of His Excellency [Cosimo I], and all the weavers of gold cloth and of silk with gold, whether Florentine or of the dominion, as well as foreigners who in whatever manner or time have exercised the said arts or any of them in Florence, or at present exercise them in whatever place outside the state of His Most Illustrious Excellency, that within a month from today each and every one of them must return to the city of Florence and must appear personally before the Conservators or Superintendents of the Guild of Porta Santa Maria.47

Failure to comply would bring with it the automatic penalty of the “capital ban” and “confiscation of goods.”48 Moreover a bounty of two hundred gold scudi would be paid by the “chamberlain or superintendent of the respective guild” to whoever killed one of the noncomplying artisans. Furthermore, anyone who carried out such an assassination would be well rewarded, for in addition to the reward of two hundred scudi, if the assassin was in exile he would be repatriated. If he was not exiled however, then he could, at his own discretion, repatriate anyone of his own choosing, save for those banished for reasons of state.49 According to Lorenzo Cantini, this law was the result of both economic and political concerns on the part of Cosimo I. As he writes, “after the years 1533 and 1537, an unusually large emigration from Florence of families who supported the republican cause was perhaps what gave rise to the law to recall them back home.…” These pro-republican artisans, he noted, had severely damaged Florentine commerce and art, not so much by their absence, as on account of their settling in foreign states and practicing their trade there.50 Nevertheless the contours of the law and above all else the severity of its penalties suggest, at least initially, a political motivation at work here as well. Further underpinning the notion that political concerns were behind this law are the remarks of the historian Furio Diaz, who has identified an authoritarian drift in Medicean politics that ranges from the institution of the office of fiscal 47Legislazione Toscana, 1:272. 48Legislazione Toscana, 1:272. 49Legislazione Toscana, 1:272–73. 50Legislazione Toscana, 1:273–74.

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auditor in 1543 and the Pratica Segreta in 1545, to the so-called Legge Polverina of 1549. This latter piece of legislation declared that even the intention to commit lèse majesté was punishable. Further evidence of this growing authoritarian tendency were various proclamations, among which was the one just mentioned from December 1545, issued to the great disadvantage of merchants residing abroad, and that severely affected their ability to interact with the anti-Medicean exiles.51 This growing authoritarian stance quickly brought things to a head in the Florentine community in Venice. Early in January 1546, Pandolfini wrote to Cosimo: Some Florentine gold beaters have come to find me, saying that they had been informed that all artisans were obliged to return to Florence within a month; they replied that they have been here many years, as one sees by the [enclosed] note, and they wish, being Mediceans, to obey on that account…but not having had notice of this thing before this week, and being here with their families and tied up with work, it is not possible for them to return within the stipulated term; they desire to have some extension of the time in order to be able to put their affairs in order; they say they have had recourse to me as a representative of Your Excellency in this place and have begged me to work to obtain the said extension.52

Pandolfini forwarded the note that the Mediceans had given him to Cosimo, while informing the duke that since he had not known anything about the decree he had not been able to respond to them in any definite fashion. Behind Pandolfini’s rather straightforward communication to Florence lay perhaps a deeper concern with the activities of Piero Strozzi who, aided by the king of France, was at the time seeking to take up residence in Venice once again.53 But Pandolfini’s remarks also betray a profound concern for the fate of the pro-Medicean Florentines in Venice. His dispatch records that some artisans had come to speak with him, demonstrating a readiness to obey Cosimo’s decree and asking only for an understandable delay in carrying out the provisions of the new law. These men had immediately declared themselves Mediceans, and had pointed out that their residency in Venice, with one exception, dated back to the years preceding the Republic, as if out of a wish to emphasize a difference in their situation with respect to the other members of the Florentine colony in Venice. This profession of Medicean political loyalty on the part of the few artisans who went immediately to present themselves to Pandolfini might suggest that their actions were motivated solely by economic considerations. But evidently 51Diaz, Il granducato di Toscana, 85-107, and below in this chapter n67. 52ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fol. 109r, note attached to a letter of Pandolfini to Cosimo I, Venice, 7 January 1546. 53ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fols. 123r–25v Pandolfini to Cosimo I, Venice, 21 January 1546.

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their concerns were more broadly based, and also diplomatically more pressing as well, given that the Medicean ambassador had been called in by the doge, Francesco Donà, to render an account of the proclamation of recall. 54 At this meeting the doge had, in fact, requested exemption for the affected residents in the territory of the Republic. As much was relayed by Pandolfini to Cosimo I on 21 January 1546. The doge had told him, he wrote, that in this city there were some gold beaters who have lived here so long that our officials regarded them as theirs, they having rightfully acquired civility [citizenship] through such a long habitation and paying taxes and liking it here. And therefore His Serenity along with those Lords desires that Your Excellency content himself that they remain here without incurring the penalty of the indemnity. And they assured themselves that you would not fail to grant them this grace, Your Excellency and their Lordships being one.55

The Venetian diplomatic pressure had its desired effect. Cosimo I responded to Pandolfini the following week, noting that “the great affection that we bear the Most Serene Doge and those Illustrious Lords renders us always disposed to gratify them in everything we can; therefore inform Their Lordships that for our part we are content that those gold beaters on whose behalf you write us, who are already established in Venice, may remain there freely without incurring our ban.”56 It is not possible to establish whether it was through a spontaneous decision or whether, motivated by further diplomatic pressure coming from other states in addition to Venice, Cosimo I was convinced to soften the edict of 12 December 1545. Whatever the reason, on 6 March 1546 a new law specified that only those artisans indicated by name were obliged to obey the preceding edict of recall— among the twenty cited appeared a “Tommaso called l’Arrabbiato who works at Venice.”57 Of all those recalled only Tommaso appears to have been living in Venice, and his nickname “Arrabbiato” (the angry) suggests that he was a political rebel and not merely a hotheaded individual. The internal split between Mediceans and anti-Mediceans in the Venetian Florentine colony was destined to become more acute. A dispatch Pandolfini’s secretary sent to Cosimo I following the first Sienese insurrection and the resultant intervention by the Medicean troops that liberated the Spanish guard of Juan de Luna is indicative of this.58 The secretary informed Cosimo that in Venice

54On Donà, see “Francesco Donà,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 40:724–28. 55ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fols. 123r–25v, Pandolfini to Cosimo I, Venice, 21 January 1546. 56ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 6, fol. 471r, Cosimo I to Pandolfini, 29 January 1546. 57See Legislazione toscana, 1:303–5. 58See D’Addario, Il problema senese, 29–33; and Cantagalli, La guerra di Siena, lxxvii–viii.

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“Florentines with twisted minds have made light of what this whole people and nobility have most warmly attributed to the infinite praise of His Excellency, of having with such rapidity come to the aid of those gentlemen and that city of Siena; and that his guard could on such short notice take care of everything.”59 This was indicative of a stance by one faction of the Florentine colony that excluded the other from Medicean orthodoxy. Nevertheless Pandolfini, in accord with the duke, made it appear still possible to surmount the growing rift between the two factions with a certain ease when dealing with other issues, such as the case of Mariotto d’Anghiari or those of other individual exiles. For example, in March 1546, Cosimo disposed of two cases that showed his flexibility in dealing with members of the Venetian Florentine community during this period. In the middle of March, Battista Guasconi had informed Pandolfini that he wanted “to be able to return to Florence with the goodwill of His Excellency.…” He asserted, Pandolfini reported, that he had committed no other crime than to have been present together with his brother at the home of Lorenzo Strozzi, and he further claimed to tell anyone who would listen that the duke was most forgiving.60 Toward the end of the month, “a certain Nanni da Poggibonsi, weaver of woolen cloths, who was banned over the charge of having been found at the death of those Spaniards [at Siena], was commended to Pandolfini.”61 The duke’s disposition for both men arrived in early April and showed his leniency. Cosimo decreed that “Battista Guasconi, not having anything prejudicial against him other than that which you write us concerning his having had relations with exiles, we are content that he return to his place.” The duke also informed Pandolfini that “Nanni da Poggibonsi, of whom you write, is not contained within our ban, because the handicrafts that we have stipulated do not extend to weavers of woolen cloth.”62 Medicean preoccupation with both the larger international situation and the internal tensions in the Florentine community in Venice proved enduring however, as witnessed by the forced fiscal impositions that were to be paid by some of the major representatives of the Florentine community whom Cosimo regarded as unfaithful or dangerous. In August 1546, members of the Giunti family were 59ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fol. 171r–v, Iacopo Guidi to Cosimo I, Venice, 24 February 1546. Italics added. 60ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fol. 199r, Pandolfini to Cosimo I, Venice, 17 March 1546. 61ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2966, fol. 215r, Pandolfini to Cosimo I, Venice, 31 March 1546. 62ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 7, fols. 5r and 30r, Cosimo I to Pandolfini, 3 and 9 April 1546. Cosimo’s reply dealing with Nanni da Poggibonsi was apparently based upon a misunderstanding however, since he did not figure in the edict of recall of any artisan category, as supposed by Cosimo I, but rather in that relating to the Sienese insurrection.

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forced to appease Cosimo with such a payment and in October of the same year, Francesco Nasi was hit with a similar imposition.63 Further roiling relationships between the anti-Medicean and pro-Medicean factions in Venice in mid-November 1546 was the scuffle that broke out among some Florentines in which Cecchino di Jacopo Antonio Busini was killed by a son of Catone Biffoli, who was banished for his actions.64 Meanwhile, Piero Strozzi continued to stir things up, as Pandolfini directly informed the duke a few days later: I understand that that Bartolomeo da Fano who lives with Piero Strozzi has been telling a friend of his about some future undertaking and in particular against Your Excellency; and it has been reported here that Piero Strozzi in talking with the landgrave of Hesse about the affairs of Florence, stated that if one were to harass that state, one would greatly disturb the affairs of the Emperor.65

Because his repeated appeals for peace among the Florentine republicans in Venice proved vain, and emboldened by the evolution of the international political situation and the defeat of the League of Schmalkalden in 1547 at Mühlberg, Cosimo finally moved to tighten his control over the exiles in Venice.66 He did this not only because of the necessity of imposing political uniformity on the Florentine colony, but also in an effort to achieve a definitive separation of the banned exiles from the Florentine merchants residing in the city. Thus, on 27 November 1547, there was again proposed a draconian ban “on those who have spoken with the banished.”67 In this newest ban, all conversation and dealings with the rebels together with all aid, favor, or subsidy given to such men were also strictly forbidden.68 Moreover, all Florentines were henceforth banned from entering into the “pay or stipend” of any secular or lay lord without the express consent of Cosimo.69 In attempting here to place a juridical bar between members of the two Florentine factions in Venice, Cosimo was certainly aware of the passions and physical 63See Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi,” 944–45; and Simoncelli, “Le comunità fiorentine all’estero nel ’500,” 10. 64ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, fol. 325r, Pandolfini to Lottini, from Venice, 17 November 1546. 65ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, c. 336r, coded note inserted by Pandolfini between two letters to Cosimo I, Venice, 24 November, and December 1546. The note continues, “et chi scrive, che credo venga di Augusta, mostra che di lui no sia stato tenuto molto conto.” 66See the documentation in Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi,” 940–43. 67See Legislazione toscana, 1:363–65. The correspondence in this affair (see below, nn. 71 and 73), leads us to hypothesize either an error of dating in Cantini’s Legislazione toscana where he has October instead of November, or an “official” circulation of the law prior to its official date of issuance. 68Legislazione toscana, 1:363. 69Legislazione toscana, 1:364–65.

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assaults that flared between the two sides on a near daily basis. But this new ban also should be considered as among the measures directed at creating a physical void about Lorenzino de’ Medici, the onetime assassin of Duke Alessandro de’ Medici, who was now residing in Venice.70 In the autumn of 1547, Lorenzino was becoming increasingly isolated after many of the most belligerent Florentine exiles had left Venice and followed Strozzi to France. Indeed, in March of the following year, Lorenzino would be killed by a Medici assassin.71 But this newest ban struck deeply at the heart of the Florentine community on another level as well. Pandolfini wrote from Venice to Gianfranco Lottini on 15 October 1547, “These Florentines have tormented me these days in respect of this ban, one saying one thing and another something else; such that I could not deny writing to His Excellency all that you will see.”72 The measure prepared by the duke thus was having its desired effect, if already a month before its official promulgation the Medicean ambassador at Venice was being tormented by the resident Florentines. But if Pandolfini was being tormented, evidently those Florentines in Venice had not obeyed the preceding bans very well, nor indeed had they maintained a “politically correct” comportment. And certainly problematic too was the fact that the newly elected consul of the Florentine nation at Venice, Pandolfo Attavanti, was also going to be included in the anticipated measures of the ban.73 A few days after having rendered an account to Lottini of the excitement of the Florentines over this ban, the ambassador in fact notified Cosimo I that Pandolfo di Luigi Rucellai, “the nephew of the papal legate Giovanni Della Casa, had sought him out and asked his advice on how he should handle himself with regard to this ban.” Rucellai explained to the ambassador that he and his father, while being the “most affectionate servants of the duke, frequently found themselves conversing with some of the exiles while in the house of the legate. Moreover, he did not see 70See, for example, in ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, the detailed missives from these days dealing with the intentions of Lorenzino de’ Medici, sent by Pandolfini to Cosimo I from Venice. In the note inserted following the letter of 21 October 1547, Pandolfini wrote, “Tutti questi che seguitano li Strozzi, per quanto me è referto, si mettono a ordine per fare compagnia, et l’animo loro è di [far] passare anco Lorenzo traditore.… Per altre bande intendo che Lorenzo traditore vuole per ogni modo partirsi di qui, o con detta compagnia, o per altra strada.” In another note following the letter of 26 October 1547, the ambassador told Cosimo, “Lorenzo traditore si lascia vedere et ritraggo che ancora lui ragiona di levarsi di qua et andrà in Francia.” And in a note dated 2 November 1547, Pandolfini observed, “Lorenzo traditore per ora resterà qui per quanto intendo et in compagnia sua resteranno alcuni forestieri.” 71Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 373–88. 72ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, fol. 697r–v. From France, there is an echo of the unhappiness of Catherine de Médicis concerning this ban contained in the dispatch of the Medicean ambassador to the French court, Giovan Battista Ricasoli, to Cosimo I, from 27 November 1547. See Agostini, Pietro Carnesecchi, 192n4. 73ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, fol. 527v.

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how he could avoid speaking with them in the future in the same situation.”74 The ambassador also noted in his dispatch that Pandolfo Attavanti had begged me again to perform an office for him and left me a memorial so that I might supplicate Your Excellency in his name to receive him in grace…and not only he, but many of the others, demonstrate a willingness to obey, but it appears to them that it will be difficult when encountering banned individuals in the streets and on the Rialto not to greet them as they have done until now; in respect of the other things they anticipate no difficulty.75

The Medicean ambassador thus communicated to the duke the persistence of the uneasiness caused by the tenor of the ban, identifying two Florentines of great stature in the community, Pandolfo Rucellai and Pandolfo Attavanti, who, among many others, had personally represented to him the difficulty of holding formally to those dispositions. Attached to both Rucellai and Attavanti was an aura of suspicion. More noted up until now have been the actions of Rucellai, and not only because of the close relationship he enjoyed with the papal nunzio Della Casa, who at Venice was notorious as the protector of the anti-Medicean exiles.76 Less noted has been the behavior of Attavanti, who had just been elected consul of the Florentine nation only a few months earlier in April 1547 with the concurrence of a majority of Florentines who were at the limits, if not beyond, of political orthodoxy.77 The response of Cosimo I to the ambassador’s requests for instructions on how to deal with the troubled exiles was completely formal. He instructed Pandolfini to tell the two Florentines “and whoever else asks you” that if they had spoken with any exiles about matters of state, they were to present themselves in person before the Otto di Balìa in Florence. But as for having simply greeted or casually spoken with an exile, these types of interactions did not fall under the ban, whose purpose was to prohibit “speaking confidentially or treating matters pertaining to the state.”78 The reaction in Venice to the duke’s instructions is not known, nor has the specific “memorial” that Attavanti wanted to send to Florence been located. There does exist, however, some information concerning Attavanti’s reaction to the ban, in all likelihood drawn up by Pandolfini’s secretary and forwarded to Florence. The secretary recorded that the consul, concerned about the implications of

74ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, a note sent by Pandolfino to Cosimo I from Venice, inserted between two letters dated 15 and 21 October 1547. 75ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967. 76For the activities of the papal nunzio in Venice at this time see Santosuosso, Vita di della Casa, 136–37. 77Simoncelli, “Su Jacopo Nardi.” 78ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 9, fols. 144v–45r, Cosimo I to Pandolfini, 28 October 1547.

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the ban, had come to him and stated that he did not believe that the ban was promulgated against the likes of him, “a person who attends to his business, to merchandising and ordinary things as merchants do.” Yet in order to earn the grace of the duke, he confessed that in times past he had engaged in some commerce and business with the Strozzi of Messer Filippo, “collecting and paying … not however for notable sums, but never having had with them or with others [political] discussions, or to have meddled in affairs of state.” More recently, Attavanti stated, he had not had business or commerce of any sort with the Strozzi, nor had he engaged in any type of political discussions, nor would he in the future.79 While Attavanti petitioned the duke to receive him into his grace, at the same time he explained that it would be a great imposition and inconvenience for him currently to leave his business affairs and present himself before the Otto di Balìa in Florence. Nevertheless, Attavanti professed that if the duke so desired it, he would “let everything go to the dogs” and come to Florence in order not to raise the indignation of the duke.80 This ostentatious minimizing of his rapport with the Strozzi, furnished to Pandolfini’s secretary by Attavanti, speaks more eloquently than any other documentation in showing how tight was the net of interests and political passions that Cosimo I had to cut with a scalpel to separate— without too much damage—the wheat from the chaff.81 Yet it would still be more than a decade after the ban of 1547, until the conclusion of the war of Siena in 1559, before Attavanti and others within the Florentine community of Venice, tempering their republican aspirations, would demonstrate their fidelity and resign themselves to the government of the duke.82 Even then, hopes of a republican restoration persisted in some measure among the exiles. Thus in a reform of the Florentine confraternity of Saint John the Baptist in Venice in 1555–56, carried out by Jacopo Nardi, Girolamo di Paolo Mei, and Chirico di Chirico Barducci, the omission of prayers and invocations for the Florentine homeland was conspicuous.83 79ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, fol. 700r–v. 80ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 2967, fol. 700r–v. 81Attavanti appears fleetingly in several letters from the Florentine republican political theorist Donato Giannotti (1492–1573), who had held office in the Republic until the Medici return to power. Especially pertinent is the one to Lorenzo Ridolfi, sent 9 December 1544 from Vicenza, with the invitation to address “le lettere a m. Pandolfo Attavante, che ha la cura dell’altre: che così vuole il cardinale [Ridolfi].” See Giannotti, Lettere italiane, ed. Diaz, esp. 116. In the ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 407, fol. 249r; filza 485, fol. 142r; and filza 528, fol. 748r, there are three more letters of Attavanti (two addressed to Cosimo I and one to Francis I) that deal with minor business matters; they are dated respectively Florence, 22 January 1551; Venice, 8 June 1560; and Venice, 31 May 1567. 82On the Florentine war against Siena from a Venetian perspective, see D’Addario, Il problema senese; Cantagalli, La guerra di Siena; and Simoncelli, “Le comunità fiorentine all’estero nel ’500.” 83See Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 301; and Sagredo, “Statuti della Fraternità e Compagnia dei fiorentini in Venezia,” 452–54.

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Chirico di Barducci, who sat on this reform commission, was a particularly ardent proponent of the republican cause.84 In one of his letters intercepted by the authorities in Rome in 1556, he encouraged those exiles who had taken refuge at Montalcino and Rome after the fall of Siena to go on hoping for a favorable outcome for France in the European conflict. In the same letter, Barducci spoke of the joy aroused in the Florentine colony of Venice by the news that Vico de’ Nobili had succeeded in avoiding capture by the Medici party during the dramatic surrender of Port’Ercole on 16 June 1555.85 This latter proponent of Florentine republicanism, Vico de’ Nobili, had been among the original exiles of 1530; indeed the pope himself considered him a dangerous enemy.86 Serving as a man at arms under Piero Strozzi, he had been assigned to the personal defense of Lorenzino de’ Medici at Paris, with whom he had then formed part of the community of Florentine exiles at Venice in the 1540s. There, despite the fact that he was not a merchant, this ardent anti-Medicean warrior was elected consul of the local nation in 1558. His election provides further testimony of the seemingly inextinguishable republican hopes of the Florentine exiles in Venice. This hope was kept dimly alive the next year when the consulship passed to…Pandolfo Attavanti.

84Sagredo, “Statuti della Fraternità e Compagnia dei fiorentini in Venezia,” 454. 85ASF, Mediceo del Principato, filza 3276, no pag., Gianfigliazzi to Cosimo I, Rome, 30 May 1556, with an enclosed copy of Barducci’s letter from Venice to Bernardo Canigiani in Rome. On the fall of Port’Ercole, see D’Addario, Il problema senese, 388–90; and Cantagalli, La guerra di Siena, 432–37. When Port’Ercole fell to Cosimo I’s troops, the French were thereafter prevented from making a landing to help the Sienese Republic. 86See Varchi, Storia fiorentia, 59, 270, 432; and Ferrai, Lorenzino de’ Medici, 305.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ASF ASVe

Archivio di Stato, Florence Archivio di Stato, Venice

Printed Primary Sources Cavalcanti, Bartolomeo. Lettere edite e inedite. Edited by Christina Roaf. Bologna: Commissione per i testi in lingua, 1968. Giannotti, Donato. Lettere italiane (1526–1571). Edited by Furio Diaz. Milan: Marzorati, 1974. Guicciardini, Francesco. Opere inedite. Edited by Piero and Luigi Guicciardini. Vol. 9. Florence: Cellini & Co., 1866. Landucci, Luca. Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516: Continuato da un anonimo fino al 1542. Edited by Iodoco del Badia. Florence: Sansoni, 1883. Legislazione Toscana (1532–1774). Edited by Lorenzo Cantini. 32 vols. Florence: Albizziana, 1800–1808. Nardi, Jacopo. Istorie della città di Firenze. Edited by Lelio Arbib. 2 vols. Florence: Società editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi, 1842. ———. Vita di Antonio Giacomini e altri scritti minori. Edited by Carlo Gargiolli. Florence: Barbèra, 1867. Pieralli, Alfredo, ed. La vita e le opere di Iacopo Nardi. Vol. 1, La biografia e le opere minori. Florence: Civelli, 1901. Statuti delle colonie fiorentine all’estero (secs. XV–XVI). Edited by Gino Masi. Milan: Giuffrè, 1941. Strozzi, Lorenzo. “Vita di Filippo Strozzi (al fonte Giovanbattista).” In Filippo Strozzi, tragedia: Corredata d’una vita di Filippo e di documenti inediti. Edited by Giovanni Battista Niccolini. Florence: Le Monnier, 1847. Varchi, Benedetto. Storia fiorentina. In Opere di Benedetto Varchi. Edited by Antonio Racheli. Vol. 1. Trieste: Lloyd austriaco, 1858–59.

Secondary Sources Agostini, Antonio. Pietro Carnesecchi e il movimento valdesiano. Florence: Seeber, 1899. Albertini, Rudolf von. Firenze dalla Repubblica al principato: Storia e coscienza politica. Turin: Einaudi, 1955. Bramanti, Vanni. “Sulle Istorie della città di Fiorenze di Jacopo Nardi: Tra autore e copista (Francesco Giuntini).” Rinascimento 37 (1997): 321–40. Bullard, Melissa. Filippo Strozzi and the Medici: Favor and Finance in Sixteenth-Century Florence and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Campana, Lorenzo. “Monsignor Giovanni Della Casa e i suoi tempi.” Studi storici 16 (1907): 3–84, 247–69, 349–580; 17 (1908): 145–282, 381–606; 18 (1909): 325–514. Cantagalli, Roberto. Cosimo I granduca di toscana. Milan: Mursia, 1985. ———. La guerra di Siena (1552–1559): I termini della questione senese nella lotta tra Francia e Asburgo e il suo risolversi nell’ambito del principato mediceo. Siena: Accademia degli Intronati, 1962. Capasso, Carlo. La politica di papa Paolo III. e l'Italia. Vol. 1. Camerino: Savini, 1901. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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D’Addario, Arnaldo. Il problema senese nella prima metà del Cinquecento: La guerra di Siena. Florence: Le Monnier, 1958. De Leva, Giuseppe. Storia documentata di Carlo V in correlazione all’Italia. 5 vols. Bologna: Naratovich, 1863–94. Del Piazzo, Marcello. Gli ambasciatori toscani del principato, 1532–1737. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1953. Diaz, Furio. Il granducato di Toscana. I Medici. Turin: Utet, 1987. Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Vols. 1–. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–. Ferrai, Luigi. Lorenzino de’ Medici e la società cortigiana del Cinquecento. Milan: Hoepli, 1891. Firpo, Massimo. Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I. Turin: Einaudi, 1997. Firpo, Massimo, and Dario Marcatto. I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi (1557– 1567). 2 vols. in 4. Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 1998–2000. François, Michel. Le cardinal François de Tournon, homme d’Etat, diplomate, mécène et humaniste (1489–1562). Paris: De Boccard, 1951. Lo Re, Salvatore. “Biografie e biografi de Benedetto Varchi: Giambatista Busini e Baccio Valori.” Archivio storico Italiano 156 (1998): 671–736. Lupo Gentile, Michele. La politica di Paolo III nelle sue relazioni colla corte medicea. Sarzana: Tipografia Lunense, 1906. Pastor, Ludwig von. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Edited by Frederick Ignatius Antrobus et al. Translated by Ralph Francis Kerr. 40 vols. London: J. Hodges, and St. Louis: Herder, 1891–1953. Picquet, Thea. “Florentins et rebelles: Le témoignage de Jacopo Nardi.” In Soulèvement et ruptures: L’Italie en quête de sa révolution: Echos littéraires et artistiques. Actes du Colloque des 4 et 5 décembre 1997, 49–71. Université Nancy: Culture et société dans les lettres italiennes, 1998. ———. “Jacopo Nardi: Regards sur un passé perdu: Le livre X des Istorie della città di Firenze.” Rinascimento 36 (1996): 407–30. Pirotti, Umberto. Benedetto Varchi e la cultura del suo tempo. Florence: Olschki, 1971. Rastrelli, Modesto. Storia d’ Alessandro de’ Medici primo duca de Firenze. 2 vols. Florence: Benucci, 1781. Sagredo, Agostino. “Statuti della Fraternità e Compagnia dei Fiorentini in Venezia dell’anno MDLVI.” Archivio Storico Italiano, ser. 1, app. 9 (1853): 441–97. Santosuosso, Antonio. Vita di Giovanni della Casa. Rome: Bulzoni, 1979. Sbriziolo, Lia. “Per la storia delle confraternite veneziane: Dalle deliberazioni miste (1310– 1476) del Consiglio dei Dieci: ‘Scholae Comunes,’ artigiane e nazionali.” Atti dell’Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere e arti 76 (1967–68): 405–42. Segni, Bernardo. Storie fiorentine dall'anno MDXXVII al MDLV. Edited by Gargano Gargani. Florence: Barbèra, 1857. Simoncelli, Paolo. Il cavaliere dimezzato, Paolo del Rosso ‘fiorentino et letterato.’ Milan: Franco Angeli, 1989. ———. “Le comunità fiorentine all’estero nel ’500: Ideologia e politica finanziaria.” In “Circolazione di uomini e d’idee tra Italia ed Europa nell’età della Controriforma. Atti del XXXVI Convegno di studi sulla Riforma e i movimenti religiosi in Italia, Torre

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Pellice, 1–3 settembre 1996,” edited by Susanna Peyronel Rambaldi. Special issue, Bollettino della Società di studi valdesi 181 (1997): 5–12. ———. “Su Jacopo Nardi, i Giunti e la ‘Nazione fiorentina’ di Venezia.” In Studi in onore di Arnaldo d’Addario. Vol. 3, Firenze. Edited by Luigi Borgia, Francesco De Luca, Paolo Viti, Raffaella Maria Zaccaria, 937–49. Lecce: Conte, 1996. Spini, Giorgio. Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato mediceo. Florence: Vallecchi, 1980. ———. Tra Rinascimento e Riforma. Antonio Brucioli. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1940. Stella, Aldo. “Utopie e velleità insurrezionali dei filoprotestanti italiani (1545–1547).” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 27 (1965):133–82.

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Chapter 7

GASPARO CONTARINI AND THE UNIVERSITY OF PADUA Paul F. Grendler

THE URGE TO CHANGE AND REFORM culture and religion that swept across Italy in the sixteenth century affected most areas of life, including universities. Although scholars used to view universities as bastions of traditional learning resistant to change, nothing could have been farther from the truth in Italy. Most university disciplines—the humanities, medicine, natural philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy—underwent significant change and reform in the Renaissance.1 The structure of universities changed to reflect the reforms in teaching and research, just as later the religious reforms of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations altered belief and behavior. But in contrast with the controversy surrounding the Protestant Reformation, university reforms were implemented with little argument. This was because the political leaders of society wanted universities to prosper academically. These leaders, who were shaped through university study, then took a keen interest in the university of the state when they reached positions of power. They implemented reforms that they believed would benefit learning and the university. The relationship between the leaders of the Republic of Venice and the University of Padua offers an illuminating example of the interaction between rulers and universities. And Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542), the subject of Elisabeth G. Gleason’s prizewinning biography, offers an excellent vantage point from which to examine the links between the individual, university, ruling nobility, and educational reform. Contarini studied at the University of Padua and years later became a member of the Venetian magistracy which oversaw the university in a period of change. He exemplifies the broad nature of reform in sixteenth-century Italy. 1This is the major theme of Grendler, Universities.

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Whether princes or republican oligarchs, rulers took a close interest in universities in Renaissance Italy. Governments created, financially sustained, protected from competition, and sometimes shut down universities. They changed the structure of the university according to considered plan or whim; they appointed and dismissed professors. Governments expected universities to educate the state’s administrators, clergymen, lawyers, judges, physicians, surgeons, future professors, some schoolteachers, and, above all, the future rulers of the state. Young nobles from families prominent in local government studied there, while leaders of the state looked with pride on “our” university and boasted about its learned professors and numerous foreign students. Cities and governments also keenly appreciated the money that free-spending students brought to the economy of the host town. For all these reasons, members of the ruling class took a personal interest in the affairs of the university. Universities, in turn, relied on the benevolent concern of the state’s rulers to thrive, a dependency familiar to faculty and staff of state and provincial universities in the United States, Canada, and Europe in the twenty-first century. In 1405 the Republic of Venice conquered Padua and incorporated the city and its hinterland into the Venetian state. The Venetian overlords made it clear from the beginning that they would strongly support the university.2 The government ordered the embryonic and potentially competing studi (universities) of Treviso and Vicenza to close. Venice and the Commune of Padua initially were to contribute 1,500 ducats each for the expenses of the University of Padua. However, in September 1407 the Venetian Senate agreed to pay all the expenses up to a maximum of 4,000 ducats. This limit was abolished in 1414, with additional funding to come from taxes imposed on Padua and its territory. But in the course of the fifteenth century the Venetian government shifted all the expenses of the university to the town of Padua and its hinterland through a head tax and levies on local vehicles and prostitutes. Occasionally the Venetian government ordered tax revenues from other towns in the Venetian terraferma (mainland) diverted to the support of the university. Thus, Venice followed the practice of other Italian governments: it insisted that the host town bear all or most of the expenses of the university. Governments argued that because the townspeople profited financially through an influx of wealthy students from afar who spent freely, they should also bear the expenses. But the Venetian Senate, not the Commune of Padua, made policy, appointed and dismissed professors, and determined salaries. Most important, when the reputation of the university seemed to be declining and enrollments dropping, the government took decisive action to arrest the decline by 2For this and the following paragraph, see Dupuigrenet Desroussilles, “L’Università di Padova dal 1405 al Concilio di Trento,” 3.2:607–25; and esp. Grendler, Universities, 21–40.

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promulgating new statutes and regulations, by expanding the faculty, and especially by seeking out and appointing distinguished scholars at high salaries. On 31 March 1407, the Venetian government decreed that all the Republic’s subjects desiring university degrees must study at Padua under pain of a fine of five hundred ducats. At midcentury it decreed that those who obtained degrees elsewhere would be barred employment by the Venetian state.3 Since the government repeated such decrees several times in the next two hundred years, and because no prosecutions have come to light, it is not likely that they were enforced. Still, they signaled that the government saw the University of Padua as an integral part of the Republic and would protect it against competition. And the decrees certainly had moral force for Venetian nobles, even though they served in elective political offices rather than as employees of the state. Tradition and inclination, more than laws, led Venetian nobles to study at the University of Padua or nowhere.4 The tradition began in the early fifteenth century. In 1407 the Venetian government appointed Gasparino Barzizza (1360– 1430), a pioneering pedagogical humanist, to a professorship in Rhetoricis et Moralibus (Auctoribus); that is, he was to teach rhetoric and moral authors (moral philosophy) at Padua, where he remained until 1421. Barzizza taught a number of Venetian nobles through his university lectures and in his house, where he boarded and taught students, especially boys too young for the university.5 A considerable number of prominent Venetian nobles studied at the University of Padua in the course of the fifteenth century.6 A Venetian senator stated that twenty-four young Venetian nobles (in an estimated total university enrollment between nine hundred and a thousand) were studying at the University of Padua in May 1509.7 The number may have been unusually low at that moment. About one hundred Venetian nobles were studying at the University of Padua in 1566, when total enrollment was an estimated 1,500 to 1,600 students.8 No doubt the number of 3For the law of 1407, see AAUP, filza 648, fol. 9r–v. For its reiteration in the 1440s and 1450s, see Dupuigrenet Desroussilles, “L’Università di Padova,” 617. 4So far as can be determined, no Venetian noble, that is, the male issue of a legitimate marriage of a noble father and eligible to hold political office when he came of age, studied at any university except Padua after 1407. Illegitimate sons of nobles (hence, commoners) may have studied at other universities. 5Mercer, Teaching of Gasparino Barzizza, 38. Mercer (passim) lists various Venetian nobles who studied with Barzizza. See also Martellotti, “Barzizza.” 6See King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance, 321–23, 325, 328, 333, 335, 339 (two), 342, 348, 351, 359, 360, 362, 366, 368, 370, 372–74, 377, 383, 386, 390, 400, 403, 405, 408, 413, 421–22, 432, 437, 439, 441, 443, 449. 7The estimate comes from Senator Francesco Bragadin on 15 September 1517, when the Senate was discussing rebuilding the university after the War of the League of Cambrai (1509–17) had ended. Favaro, “Lo Studio di Padova nei Diarii di Marino Sanuto,” 95. The estimated total enrollment comes from Grendler, Universities, 31, 515. 8“Onde tenendo questi signori di continuo cento et più de i loro figliuoli allo Studio di Padoa, ove concorrono quasi tutti gli scolari dello stato.” Memorandum of papal nuncio Giovanni Antonio XXXXX

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Venetian nobles studying at Padua waxed and waned. But whatever the numbers, Padua was the destination for Venetian nobles seeking higher education. Contarini prepared for university studies by attending the Scuola di San Marco and the Scuola di Rialto, both in Venice.9 The Scuola di San Marco consisted of two humanists who lectured on the classics, and the Scuola di Rialto consisted of a single lecturer who taught Aristotelian philosophy. The primary function of the Scuola di San Marco was to teach boys good classical Latin so that they might become secretaries in the Venetian government. Hence, because of the age of the pupils and the goal of the school, the instruction was preuniversity, even though Giorgio Valla (1447–1500) and Marcantonio Sabellico (1436–1506), Contarini’s teachers at the Scuola di San Marco, were eminent humanists. It is likely that Contarini was well prepared for university studies. Contarini began his studies at the University of Padua in 1501, probably arriving in late October. Lectures normally commenced immediately after the two religious holidays, All Saints and All Souls, on 1 and 2 November. Contarini had just turned eighteen—he was born on 16 October 148310—when he began his university studies. His age was typical for entering students; the vast majority of students at Italian universities began at about eighteen, some at a later age, a small number earlier. By contrast, most students at northern European universities were younger, typically fourteen to seventeen, and still struggling to master Latin. Students at Italian universities did not begin their studies until they had a command of Latin and often some acquaintance with Aristotelian texts. Students came to Italian universities for five reasons. The largest number came to obtain doctorates of law, permitting them to apply for admission into local colleges, that is, professional associations, of legists that decided who might practice law or pursue other professional careers for which legal training was 9

Facchinetti of 14 September 1566, in Nunziature di Venezia, 8:107–8. In this memorandum, Nuncio Facchinetti, who had obtained a doctorate of law from the University of Bologna and knew university life well, summarized the points he had made to the Collegio, the high magistracy of the Venetian government that formulated foreign policy. The nuncio had urged the Venetian government to bar Protestant students from the University of Padua because they would with their rich banquets and heretical books lure into heresy “the one hundred and more of their sons,” that is, sons of the Venetian nobility, studying at the university. (However, the Venetian government refused to keep out Protestant students.) Facchinetti added that “almost all the students in the state” came to Padua to study rather than going elsewhere, a recognition of the key role that the university played in the intellectual and professional life of the Venetian state. The enrollment estimate comes from Grendler, Universities, 36, 515. 9For what is known of Contarini’s early education and at the University of Padua, see Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 8–10; and Beccadelli, “Vita di Monsignor Reverendissimo et Illustrissimo Messer Gasparo Contarino” in Monumenti 1.2:10–11. Beccadelli (1501–72) was Contarini’s friend and secretary from 1535 until 1542. He wrote this biography between 1554 and 1558. 10The birth date comes from Beccadelli, “Vita di Contarino” in Monumenti, 1.2:10. I am grateful to Elisabeth G. Gleason for this reference.

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required. The second largest group came to obtain doctorates of medicine, needed for admission into local colleges of physicians that granted permission to practice medicine. A handful of students came to win doctorates in arts and philosophy. And a few clergymen, mostly from the monastic orders, attended university to study theology and acquire doctorates from the local Faculty of Theology. Their numbers increased greatly after the Council of Trent (1545–63) as a result of the emphasis on clerical training of the Catholic Reformation. The final group consisted of students who did not come to obtain degrees. Often members of the highest stratum of society, these students would lead governments, rather than serve them. Since they were already titled and wealthy, they would not have to earn a living in law or medicine. Freed of the necessity to earn degrees, some of these wealthy dilettantes devoted their university years to dining well, dueling with their social equals, brawling with townspeople, and laying siege to the virtue of the daughters and wives of the town. But other nobles came to hear famous scholars, broaden their minds, and develop their intellects without following a structured pattern of lectures. These were true amateurs, lovers of learning. Contarini was such a student. Contarini studied natural philosophy, theology, Greek, and mathematics and astronomy at Padua, and he had a particular interest in the works of Aristotle.11 This is not surprising, because Aristotle was the most important curriculum author, especially for natural philosophy and metaphysics. Which lectures Contarini regularly attended is unknown; however, he must have heard the lectures of Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525), the star professor of natural philosophy who attracted many students, because Contarini’s later works demonstrated a good knowledge of Pomponazzi’s works. From Mantua, Pomponazzi obtained a doctorate in arts at Padua in 1487, then was appointed extraordinary professor of natural philosophy the following year. He ascended to first ordinary professor of natural philosophy in 1495, left for private study in 1496, and returned in 1499, now the leading professor in his subject at the university and possibly in Italy.12 His notes for his 1504 lectures indicate that Pomponazzi was developing the position that reason could not demonstrate the immortality of the human soul. Pomponazzi’s famous Tractatus de immortalitate animae, which fully articulated that position, was finally published in 1516, when he was teaching at the University of Bologna. When it appeared, Contarini wrote a short rebuttal, politely arguing that reason could demonstrate the immortality of the human soul. Pomponazzi replied, also in polite terms. Despite their differences, it is likely that Pomponazzi had considerable influence on the young patrician, because Contarini found 11Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 8–9. 12Facciolati, Fasti Gymnasii Patavini, 2:108–9; and Pine, Pietro Pomponazzi, 43–45.

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philosophical issues, and the relationship between philosophy and religious belief, fascinating. Another major figure, Alessandro Achillini (1463–1512), also taught natural philosophy at Padua from 1506 to 1508, but it is not known whether Contarini attended his classes. Contarini also studied theology at the University of Padua. Even though it was a center for secular Aristotelianism, sometimes called Averroism, Padua taught more theology and Christian metaphysics than did most Italian universities. While monastic order convents delivered most theology instruction in Italy, and some Italian universities had no professorships of theology at all before the conclusion of the Council of Trent, Padua had two professors of theology and two professors of what might be called Christian metaphysics at the time of Contarini’s studies. Metaphysics based on Aristotle was the preferred method for explaining being, seen as essential preparation for the study of theology. Christian metaphysics meant teaching Aristotle’s Metaphysics in a way that viewed Aristotle and Christianity as compatible. Two great medieval Scholastics, the Dominican Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–1274) and the Franciscan John Duns Scotus (1266– 1308), had shown the way. In 1442 Padua established a professorship of Thomistic metaphysics called Ad metaphysicam in via s.Thomae (metaphysics taught in the tradition of Thomas) always filled by a Dominican friar. In 1474, Padua added a Scotist metaphysics professorship called in via Scoti (taught in the tradition of Scotus) filled by either a Franciscan friar or an Augustinian hermit.13 The two metaphysics professors taught at the same time (hour thirteen, the second lecture hour of the morning). Then the university added a professorship of Scotist theology in 1476 and one for Thomist theology (Ad legendum theologiam iuxta doctrinam s. Thomae) in 1490. They taught at hour fourteen, the third lecture hour of the morning. Franciscans and Augustinians filled the Scotist theology post, and Dominican friars the Thomist theology professorship. In other words, Scotist and Thomist metaphysicians and theologians offered metaphysics and theological instruction to members of their own orders and any other students who wished to attend. The clergymen who held these positions during Contarini’s student days were all distinguished and well-published scholars. The Dominican friar Girolamo da Monopoli (d. 1528) taught Thomistic theology from 1491 to 1502, then Thomistic metaphysics from 1502 to 1518 (possibly continuing to teach in his convent even though the university practically closed down from 1509 to 1517). Father Gaspare Mansueti da Perugia taught Thomistic theology from 1503 to

13For more information on the theology and metaphysics professorships at the University of Padua, see Grendler, Universities, 366–70.

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1509, then resumed his position in 1517 after the conclusion of the war of the League of Cambrai.14 But the most distinguished theologian by far at Padua during Contarini’s student days was the Franciscan Antonio Trombetta (1431–1517), who taught Scotist metaphysics at the university from 1476 or 1477 until 1511. Influential and respected, he wrote several works strongly criticizing his secular Aristotelian colleagues in philosophy. He was a member of the papal commission that drafted the bull Apostolici regiminis sollicitudo approved at the Fifth Lateran Council on 19 December 1513. The bull affirmed the immortality of the human soul as part of Christian belief and condemned, but did not prohibit the teaching of, the proposition that reason could not demonstrate the immortality of the human soul, the position held by Pomponazzi and some other philosophers.15 Father Maurice O’Fihely (also called Maurice du Port, d. 1513) from Ireland taught Scotist theology at Padua from 1497 to 1512, wrote several books, edited works of Scotus, participated in the Fifth Lateran Council, and became a bishop.16 Padua also had many other theologians teaching in the various convents in the city whose lectures Contarini might have attended. Thus, Padua had much to offer to a young patrician deeply interested in the confluence and conflict of theology and philosophy. These theologians, along with Pomponazzi and other Paduan philosophers, were studying and arguing some of the most important theological and philosophical issues of the day in the period of intellectual ferment just before the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It is likely that they stimulated much thought in his young head. Contarini also studied Greek. Padua had a single professor of Greek at the time, initially Lorenzo Camers, called il Cretico because he studied in Crete for seven years, who taught from 1479 until his death in 1505. The learned Marcus Musurus (1450–1517) followed in the academic years 1503–4, and 1505–9, before moving to Venice to collaborate with Aldo Manuzio in the editing and printing of Greek texts.17 Contarini also studied mathematics and astronomy, a joint professorship taught by a single scholar. Benedetto Triaca held the position from 1497 or 1498 to 1506, and Bartolomeo Vespucci from 1506 to 1509. Neither was a scholar of 14Girolamo da Monopoli wrote books on metaphysics, Saint Athanasius, and a treatise on works and the Eucharist against Ulrich Zwingli. Mansueti published less. Contarini, Notizie storiche, 21–30; and Facciolati, Fasti Gymnasii Patavini, 2:96–97. 15Poppi, “Lo scotista patavino Antonio Trombetta (1436–1517)”; Poppi, “L’antiaverroismo”; and Poppi, “Scienza e filosofia.” All three are reprinted in Poppi, La filosofia nello Studio francescano del Santo a Padova. See also Gios, L’attività pastorale, 295n11, 300–2, 383. 16Scapin, “Maurizio O’Fihely.” 17Facciolati, Fasti Gymnasii Patavini, 1:lv–lvi; Lowry, World of Aldus Manutius, ab indice; and Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 9n28 for further bibliography.

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distinction.18 But one of the students was Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). He studied medicine at the University of Padua for two academic years, from the fall of 1501 to May 1503, but probably continued his investigation of the heavens as well.19 One wonders if he and Contarini met. It is just as important to note what Contarini did not study. So far as is known, he did not study law or medicine, the two most important subjects in Italian universities. And it is not likely that logic, taught using the works of fourteenth-century British scholars, called the “Oxford Calculators” for their study of kinematics, attracted him.20 The professors of logic at Padua were poorly paid young scholars who quickly ascended to better positions in natural philosophy or left the university. On the other hand, Contarini may have attended the lectures of the humanities professor who taught the Latin classics. Giovanni Calfurnio (1443–1503) held this professorship from 1486 to 1502, and Raffaelo Regio (d. 1520) from 1503 to 1509. Although competent, neither was a humanist of the first rank.21 Like students in all centuries, Contarini probably learned a great deal from his fellow students, especially his fellow nobles and good friends, Tommaso Giustiniani (1476–1528) and Vincenzo Querini (1479–1514). Querini apparently was at Padua in 1501 and 1502, and Giustiniani from 1501 until 1505. These young patricians and others also met in Giustiniani’s house in Murano between 1505 and 1510.22 The well-known correspondence between Contarini, Giustiniani, and Querini in later years documents their links, even though they took different spiritual paths to religious reform. Free of the necessity of attending lectures preparing him for degree examinations, Contarini pursued his own interests. Other wealthy Italian aristocrats in a similar position did the same. The studies of Ercole Gonzaga (1505–63) at the University of Bologna a generation later were similar to those of Contarini. The second son of the ruling family of Mantua, already a bishop and intended for a cardinal’s hat, Gonzaga arrived at the University of Bologna in December 1522 at the age of seventeen and a half. Well prepared in Latin and Greek, Gonzaga pursued an education that combined selected university lectures, private instruction, and fine living. In a typical day, Gonzaga attended a logic lecture in the morning. Early in the afternoon Lazzaro Bonamico (1477/8–1552), a well-known humanist not holding a university position at the time, lectured to Gonzaga on the classics. 18Favaro, “I lettori di matematiche,” 54–55. 19See Bili´nski, “Il periodo padovano di Niccolò Copernico (1501–1503).” 20 They included Thomas Bradwardine (ca. 1295–1349), William Heytesbury (before 1313– 1372/3), and others. For the list of the professors of logic at Padua during Contarini’s student days, see Facciolati, Fasti Gymnasii Patavini, 2:115–16, 118–19. 21Facciolati, Fasti Gymnasii Patavini, 1:lvi. For the scholarship of Calfurnio and Regio, see Ward, “Quintilian and the Rhetorical Revolution of the Middle Ages,” 234–44. 22Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, esp. 9–10.

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Later in the afternoon, Gonzaga attended the natural philosophy lecture of Pietro Pomponazzi, who began teaching at Bologna in 1511 or 1512. Pomponazzi was teacher, mentor, and friend to Gonzaga, as he may have been to Contarini at Padua.23 When Pomponazzi died in May 1525, the grieving Gonzaga left the university, never to return. Although he did not take a degree, Gonzaga studied ancient languages, humanistic texts, philosophy, and theology with a series of tutors for the rest of his life in the midst of an ecclesiastical and political career just as active as that of Contarini.24 Contarini studied at the University of Padua for eight years, from 1501 until May 1509, except for a brief interruption in 1502 when he returned to Venice upon the death of his father. 25 He left the university in 1509 at the age of twenty-five and a half, when the Venetian army suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of Agnadello (14 May 1509) during the War of the League of Cambrai. Imperial forces entered the city of Padua and the university practically closed down. Even though the war ended his university studies, Contarini probably would not have stayed much longer. Most students spent five to eight years at Italian universities, emerging with doctorates in law, medicine, or arts, or leaving without a degree.26 Contarini never obtained a university degree. Despite the near closure of the university he could have taken a doctorate, because colleges of doctors that conferred the degree functioned independently of the teaching university. Indeed, the majority of their members were not professors, but local lawyers or physicians holding doctorates. Or Contarini could have obtained a doctorate from someone possessing count palatine authority. The office originated in the Middle Ages when emperors and popes granted individuals the authority to act in their absence in a few legal and judicial matters, the most important of which were to confer degrees, create notaries, and to legitimize bastards. Once a member of a 23Pomponazzi and Contarini were friendly in 1515; Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 78–79. It is likely but not known for certain that they were also friends when Contarini was a student. 24Luzio, “Ercole Gonzaga”; and Murphy, “Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga,” 24–41. 25Beccadelli, “Vita di Contarino” in Monumenti, 1.2:12; and Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 8. It is not known if Contarini spent the summer months, when lectures were not held, in Padua or Venice. Some students remained in the university town studying on their own through the summer months. 26Students at Italian universities did not acquire bachelor’s degrees. They wanted doctorates in law or medicine, which were very expensive but qualified them to practice professionally. The licentiate, or permission to teach anywhere in Christendom, came with the doctorate. Students saw no reason to pay more money for the bachelor’s degree, which had no value to them. Hence, the latter disappeared in Italian universities by the early fifteenth century. Although contemporary documents occasionally referred to “bachelors,” the term meant an advanced student who had not yet received his doctorate. Only the bachelor of theology degree survived. Faculties of theology, dominated by monastic order theologians from local convents outside the civic university, awarded bachelor, licentiate, and doctoral degrees in theology, mostly to members of their own orders, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Grendler, Universities, 172–74, 360–65.

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family earned such authority, the legitimate male heirs inherited the office of count palatine in perpetuity. Hence, by Contarini’s lifetime, Padua had several resident counts palatine and Venice may have had others.27 Any of them could have conferred the degree on him. But like most Venetian nobles who studied at Padua, Contarini did not need or want a doctorate. The degree verified that the holder had the necessary knowledge to practice law or medicine successfully and the credential for admission into a local professional association of legists or physicians. But Venetian nobles would not become lawyers or physicians. Their profession was to govern the Republic by holding elective political office, debating legislation, governing subject towns, undertaking diplomatic missions, commanding ships, and overseeing armies. They did not need degrees, but strong political and family connections, practice in broglio (politicking), experience, and ability. Nevertheless, Contarini would renew his association with the university years later as a member of the Venetian magistracy overseeing it. Although imperial troops conquered Padua in May 1509, the occupation lasted only until Venetian troops recaptured the city in mid-July 1509. But the war continued and the university languished, as professors fled and students stayed away. A few lectures were delivered and a limited number of degrees were conferred in the next few years. The University of Bologna took advantage of Padua’s difficulty by stealing its two biggest stars, Pomponazzi and Carlo Ruini (1456– 1530) in law. The Republic did not undertake to rebuild the university until it finished reconquering its mainland state and ending the war, which happened in January 1517. As the government rebuilt the university by hiring new professors, the Venetian Senate relied on three of its members for advice and to prepare faculty rolls, which were the annual lists of professors and the subjects that they would teach. Senate documents began to refer to the trio as Riformatori of the university. In the following decades the trio became an elected magistracy, called the Riformatori dello Studio di Padova, charged with overseeing all aspects of the university. The Riformatori made recommendations for appointments and salaries, resolved disputes, and did anything else needed for the good of the university. The Riformatori proposed and the Senate decided, but the Senate invariably followed their recommendations. The term of office of a Riformatore became two years, much longer than the six- to twelve-month terms for other elective offices. A Senate law of 1557 decreed

27See Grendler, Universities, 180–86, for further explanation of colleges of doctors and counts palatine. For degrees awarded by counts palatine in Padua, see Martellozzo Forin, “Conti palatini e lauree conferite per privilegio.”

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that Riformatori could not resign for another position before their terms were completed, because “the matters of the University of Padua are of such importance and honor to our state.”28 This was very unusual. Because Venetian laws forbade pluralism at the upper echelons of the government and new elections occurred every three, six, or twelve months, or when vacancies occurred, Venetian patricians were constantly moving from one office to another. Probably only a minority served full terms—except for the Riformatori. Then in 1563, the Senate resolved the difficulty, and further affirmed the importance of the university, by legislating that patricians could hold the office of Riformatore concurrently with other offices.29 This was an extraordinary concession. So far as can be determined, the holders of no other significant elective office in the state enjoyed such a privilege. Who were the Riformatori? The typical Riformatore had demonstrated his ability and influence by discharging successfully various political tasks, such as governing a subject town or undertaking a diplomatic mission, and through election to the highest offices in the government, typically Savio Grande, ducal councillor, and/or member of the Council of Ten. Indeed, the Venetian government chose Riformatori dello Studio di Padova from the ranks of the most powerful nobles in the government, the group of about fifty patricians who ran the state on a daily basis. But there was often an additional quality that improved chances for election to the office: study at Padua and/or a reputation for learning.30 Contarini possessed all the desired qualities. He had studied at Padua and was learned. He had successfully discharged three ambassadorships—to Emperor Charles V, to the Duke of Ferrara, and to the papacy—in the 1520s. He was elected Savio Grande in 1530; ducal councillor and member of the Council of Ten quickly followed.31 In December 1530 his colleagues elected Contarini, now forty-seven years of age and relatively young for the highest offices in the gerontocratic Venetian system, as Riformatore dello Studio di Padova. He first appeared before the Senate as a Riformatore on 3 May 1531. This was followed by several other appearances, as the Riformatori proposed appointments, pursued an expensive

28“Le cose del Studio di Padoa, che sono di quella importantia, et honor al stato nostro”; from a copy of the Senate law of 29 July 1557, in AAUP, filza 737, fol. 15r. For various laws concerning the Riformatori, see AAUP, filza 737 fols. 11r–16r . 29For a copy of the law of 13 November 1563, see AAUP, filza 737, fol. 16r. 30 For a brief explanation of how the Venetian political system worked and a list of the leaders of the Venetian state for a slightly later period, see Grendler, “Leaders of the Venetian State, 1540–1609.” For a brief discussion of the magistracy of the Riformatori, see ibid., 55; the biographies indicate which patricians were Riformatori. For lists of Riformatori, see AAUP, filza 508, no foliation, and filza 737, fols. 18r–21r. See also De Bernardin, “I Riformatori dello Studio,” 4.1:61–91. Despite the title, the article has little information about the Riformatori and only for the late sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth. Further study of the Riformatori is needed. 31 Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 29–60.

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law professor, determined salaries, and tried to tighten discipline over students by revising university statutes. He held the position until sometime in 1533.32 The Riformatori operated best by listening attentively when professors, students, or the two Venetian governors of Padua came with requests, reports, or grievances concerning the university. They then proposed a course of action to the Senate, which invariably followed their advice. The Riformatori made many significant recommendations beneficial to the university in the sixteenth century. One was the establishment of a professorship of medical botany, initiated during Contarini’s tenure as a Riformatore. Studying the medicinal qualities of plants was a minor part of medical education in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.33 A professor of practical medicine delivered a few lectures based on the works of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980–1037), and that was all. Then humanists began to study Dioscorides’ De materia medica and Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis, the two most important ancient texts on plants and their medicinal uses. A few scholars began to collect and study plants. In 1532 officers of both the arts and law student organizations approached the two Venetian governors of the city of Padua. They requested that the university establish a professorship in medical botany, arguing that it would be very useful and was necessary for medical studies. They praised the accomplishments of Giovanni Manardo (1462–1536) of Ferrara, a pioneering researcher in medical botany then teaching medicine at the University of Ferrara. In other words, the students wanted a new position—no other university in Europe had a professorship of medical botany at this time—for a developing field of research and wanted Manardo to fill it. It is also very likely that other sectors of the university, such as the professors of medicine, also wanted the new position. Such requests were seldom spontaneous or reflected the desires of just a few students. The governors relayed the request to the Senate on 14 June 1532 and obviously to the Riformatori, and before long Padua had a professorship of medical botany. However, the Riformatori did not choose Manardo, but a lesser scholar, Francesco Bonafede (1474– 1558) of Padua, already teaching medical practice at Padua. Bonafede began the 32 Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 64, 71–72. For Contarini's appearance in the Senate as a Riformatore, see Sanuto, I diarii, 54:178, 322; 55:19, 53–54, 106, 433–34; 56:276; 57:120–21, 205–06. These passages are also conveniently excerpted in Favaro, “Lo Studio di Padova,” 122–27. There is one difference between Gleason’s account, based on several archival sources, and Sanuto’s. Gleason (Gasparo Contarini, 64n293, 71) reports that Contarini served as Riformatore until September 1533, while Sanuto wrote that Nicolò Tiepolo was elected Riformatore to replace Contarini on 23 January 1533: “Fu poi fatto scrutino di un sopra il studio di Padoa, in luogo di sier Gasparo Contarini, ha compido.” The votes for the competing candidates follow. Sanuto, I diarii, 57:457. It should be noted that Sanuto was not always accurate, that patricians moved from one office to another so often that it is sometimes difficult to track them, and a patrician might continue in an office until his elected successor returned from abroad. 33 See Grendler, Universities, 342–45, for details and full bibliography.

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new position, the first continuing professorship of medical botany in Europe, in the fall of 1533.34 Other universities followed Padua’s example by creating professorships of medical botany. The steps followed in the establishment of the professorship of medical botany were typical of the healthy interaction between the university community and its Venetian rulers. The students made a request. It carried weight because students, especially wealthy foreigners, spent a great deal of money on housing, food, servants, books, tutoring, and entertainment in Padua. They might leave for other universities if their requests were denied. In addition, the students often spoke for the university community as a whole. Riformatori such as Contarini understood the needs of scholarship and the university, and they had the political weight to persuade the Senate. The Riformatori and Senate often acceded to a student request, but made some changes, in this case choosing someone other than the person whom the students wanted. This reminded the students who ran the university. Riformatori and Senate followed this pattern in similar actions throughout the sixteenth century. Some of their actions were unorthodox but had brilliant outcomes. Having dissected small animals and human bodies at Louvain and Paris, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels (1514–64) became a passionate advocate for the study of anatomy through dissection. He received a bachelor’s degree at the University of Louvain in 1537, then in the autumn came to Padua, where he immediately won a medical doctorate through examination, that is, without attending lectures there. In December 1537, the Senate appointed him professor of surgery with the obligation to teach anatomy and to perform public dissections. During his teaching at the University of Padua (1537–43) Vesalius began the revolution that made anatomical study central to medical research and teaching. The anatomical revolution was a key part of what historians of medicine call “the medical Renaissance of the sixteenth century.”35 Students, professors, and nobles working through the Riformatori and Senate made many decisions that improved the University of Padua in the course of the sixteenth century. The partnership worked well because patricians such as Contarini had studied at Padua, cared about the university, and were influential. They persuaded their Senate colleagues to act for the good of the university. 34See the summary of the request of the students in Sanuto, I diarii, 56:398; reprinted in Favaro, “Lo Studio di Padova,” 126. Unfortunately, the lack of documentation has made it impossible to follow the rest of the negotiations or to determine Contarini’s role. Nevertheless, the new professorship held by Bonafede appeared in 1533: “Ad lecturam simplicium: Exc. d. m. Franciscus Bonafides Patavus.” AAUP, filza 651, fol. 113r, faculty roll for the academic year 1533–34. Tomasini (Gymnasium Patavinum…libri V, 95) and Facciolati (Fasti Gymnasii Patavini, 3:405) confirm this. 35 For the details on the appointment of Vesalius to the University of Padua, see Grendler, Universities, 331-32. See also Medical Renaissance.

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Contarini followed in the footsteps of previous Venetian nobles with intellectual interests by attending the University of Padua. As with almost any historical figure who lived five hundred years ago, it is impossible to determine the exact role that his studies played in his intellectual and religious development. Nevertheless, the courses, professors, and the intellectual currents encountered at Padua must have been immensely stimulating to a young man deeply concerned about philosophical and religious issues. It is likely that his eight years at the university had lasting impact. Later, as a successful statesman and dedicated servant of the Venetian Republic, Contarini participated in the reform of the institution that helped shape him intellectually.

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Printed Primary Sources Beccadelli, Lodovico. “Vita di Monsignor Reverendissimo et Illustrissimo Messer Gasparo Contarino Gentilhuomo Venetiano et Cardinale della S. Romana Chiesa.” In Monumenti di varia letteratura tratti dai manoscritti di Monsignor Lodovico Beccadelli, edited by Giambattista Morandi, 2 vols. in 4 parts, 1.2:1–59. Bologna: Nell’Istituto delle Scienze, 1797–1804. Reprint, Farnborough, Hants: Gregg Press, 1967. Nunziature di Venezia. Vol. 8, marzo 1566–marzo 1569. Edited by Aldo Stella. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1963. Sanuto, Marino. I diarii. Edited by Rinaldo Fulin et al. 58 vols. Venice: Deputazione R. Veneta di Storia Patria, 1879–1903. Reprint, Bologna: Forni Editore, 1970.

Secondary Sources Bili´nski, Bronis/law. “Il periodo padovano di Niccolò Copernico (1501–1503).” In Scienza e filosofia all’Università di Padova nel Quattrocento, edited by Antonino Poppi, 222–85. Padua and Trieste: Edizioni Lint, 1983. Contarini, Giambattista. Notizie storiche circa li pubblici professori nello Studio di Padova scelti dall’ordine di San Domenico. Venice: Antonio Zatta, 1769. De Bernardin, Sandro. “I Riformatori dello Studio: Indirizzi di politica culturale nell’Università di Padova.” In Storia della cultura veneta. Vol. 4 in 2 pts., Il Seìcento, edited by Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, 1:61–91. Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1983. Dupuigrenet Desroussilles, François. “L’Università di Padova dal 1405 al Concilio di Trento.” In Storia della cultura veneta. Vol. 3 in 3 pts., Dal primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento, edited by Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, 2:607–45. Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1980. Facciolati, Jacopo. Fasti Gymnasii Patavini. 3 vols. in 1. Padua: Typis Seminarii, 1757. Reprint, Sala Bolognese: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1978. Favaro, Antonio. “I lettori di matematiche nella Università di Padova dal principio del secolo XIV alla fine del XVI.” In Memorie e documenti per la storia della Università di Padova, 1–70. Padua: La Garangola, 1922. ———. “Lo Studio di Padova nei Diarii di Marino Sanuto.” Nuovo archivio veneto, 3rd ser., 36 (1918): 65–128. Gios, Pierantonio. L’attività pastorale del vescovo Pietro Barozzi a Padova (1487–1507). Padua: Istituto per la storia ecclesiastica padovana, 1977. Gleason, Elizabeth G. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Grendler, Paul F. “The Leaders of the Venetian State, 1540–1609: A Prosopographical Analysis.” Studi veneziani n. s. 19 (1990): 35–85. ———. The Universities of the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

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King, Margaret L. Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Lowry, Martin. The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979. Luzio, Alessandro. “Ercole Gonzaga allo Studio di Bologna.” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 8 (1886): 374–86. Martellotti, Guido. “Barzizza, Gasparino.” In Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 7:34–39. Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1965. Martellozzo Forin, Elda. “Conti palatini e lauree conferite per privilegio: L’ essempio padovano del sec. XV.” Annali di Storia delle Università italiane 3 (1999): 79–119. The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century. Edited by A. Wear, R. K. French, and I. M. Lonie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Mercer, R. G. G. The Teaching of Gasparino Barzizza: With Special Reference to His Place in Paduan Humanism. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1979. Murphy, Paul V. “Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and Catholic Reform in Sixteenth-Century Italy (1505–1563).” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1995. Pine, Martin L. Pietro Pomponazzi: Radical Philosopher of the Renaissance. Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1986. Poppi, Antonio. “L’antiaverroismo della scolastica padovana alla fine del secolo XV.” Studia patavina 11 (1964): 102–24. ———. La filosofia nello Studio francescano del Santo a Padova. Padua: Centro Studi Antoniani, 1989. ———. “Scienza e filosofia nelle scuole tomista e scotista all’Università di Padova nel Quattrocento.” In Scienza e filosofia all’Università di Padova nel Quattrocento, edited by Antonino Poppi, 329–43. Trieste: Edizioni Lint, 1983. ———. “Lo scotista patavino Antonio Trombetta (1436–1517). ” Il Santo. Rivista Antoniana di storia dottrina arte 2 (1962): 349–67. Scapin, Pietro. “Maurizio O’Fihely editore e commentatore di Duns Scoto.” In Storia e cultura al Santo, edited by Antonio Poppi, 303–8. Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1976. Tomasini, Iacopo Philippo. Gymnasium Patavinum…libri V. Udine: Ex Typographia Nicolai Shiratti, 1654. Reprint, Sala Bolognese: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1986. Ward, John O. “Quintilian and the Rhetorical Revolution of the Middle Ages.” Rhetorica 13 (1995): 231–84.

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Chapter 8

VENICE AND JUSTICE Saint Mark and Moses Marion Leathers Kuntz

IN LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN Venice, it was not by chance that the doge, as purveyor and representative of Venetian justice, lived in the very palace from which justice was administered. The doge was not separated in his personal affairs from the ducal palace, the sacred space that symbolized Venetian justice, or from the sacred space of the Basilica San Marco, which was built as his private chapel. The joining of sacred spaces, human and divine, was perhaps the most significant aspect of the Serenissima, the Most Serene Republic. Melchiorre Roberti has noted: The usual seat of the Venetian Curia was the palace. In fact the greater part of the documents records that the doge, as in every other public function so in rendering justice, was residing ‘in the public palace.’1

Indeed, it was within this framework that the infamous fourteenth-century conspiracy of Baiamonte Tiepolo had become a paradigm of treachery, since, according to Venetian chroniclers, Tiepolo’s desire was to remove the doge from the sacred space of the palace, the seat of justice, and the sacred space of the doge’s private chapel, the Basilica San Marco. The doge, as elected head of the Serenissima, was responsible for upholding God’s laws and for the practice of the divine cult, as well as for administering political justice for the Republic. The joining of political and religious functions in the person of the doge revealed a peculiarly Venetian understanding of political and religious justice. In his dual role, moreover, the doge had constant reminders of his duty to uphold justice.

1Roberti, Le Magistrature giudiziarie veneziane, 12. Also see Giovanni Battista Egnazio, Nove libri, BNM, Mss. It., Cl. VII, Cod. CXX (=8158), Liber 5, cap. 1, fol. 104r.

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From the ducal palace, the doge entered the Basilica San Marco through the door that opened into the chapel of San Clemente. On the stone crown molding of the chapel an inscription about justice had been sculpted, circumscribing three sides of the room. As the doge passed through this sacred space to the Sala regia, he was warned: Choose justice; render to all their rights; the poor with the widow, the ward and the orphan, O doge, they all hope in you as a patron; be pious to all. Let not fear or hate or love or gold draw you away [from justice]. As a flower, you will fall, doge, and you will become ashes, and just as you govern, thus you will be after death.2

In the atrium of the Basilica San Marco there was also a mosaic inscription that precedes the mosaic of the judgment of Solomon. The text admonished: Let the judge love and bear justice everywhere on earth. Let him not endure the unjust lest he suffer burning.3

Pietro Saccardo has argued that the mosaics about justice in the Basilica pertained to all—citizen, magistrate, or prince—and that they were original to the first decorations of the church.4 The doge as first citizen, first magistrate, and prince would surely have read the inscriptions as definitions of his own responsibility to God and to the Republic. Justice is also a theme reiterated in the numerous chronicles about Venice’s history. Giovanni Battista Egnazio (1473–1553), in the introduction to his chronicle of illustrious Venetians and their institutions, notes that peace and justice will abide with those who follow God’s law.5 He notes that Venetians had always practiced in a unique way the Christian religion derived from the new revelation of God’s law or Decalogue.6 The doge set the example and “taught that true wisdom

2

“Dilige iustitiam, sua cunctis reddito iura; Pauper cum uidua, pupillus et orphanus, O Dux, Te sibi patronum sperant; pius omnibus esto. Non timor aut odium vel amor ne te trahat aurum. Ut flos casurus Dux es ceneresque futurus Et velut acturus post mortem sic habiturus.” 3 “Iustitiam terrae iudex amet undique ferre. Ne ferat iniustum per quod paciatur adustum.” 4See Saccardo, La Basilica di San Marco, 346. 5Egnazio, Nove libri, 1.4. For the life and work of Egnazio, see Agostini, “Notizie istoriche spettanti”; and Cranz and Kristeller, Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, 4:48–49. Useful too is Ross, “Venetian Schools and Teachers.” 6Egnazio, Nove libri, La Prefatione, fol. 1r. Note especially, “La Christiana Religione, che fu da gli oracolí, de’ profeti Hebrei, e dalle voci delle sibille predetta, hebbe per autore quell Dio…con grandezza de’ miracoli confermata per modo, che tutti per via della semplice purita conforme alla regola dell’ben uiuere, de’ nostri padri.…”

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consists in poverty, in the scorn of human things, and in religion, a thing that men of great and excellent ability did not know.”7 Venetians, however, had always practiced Christian piety and followed God’s laws.8 Egnazio summons Plato as a witness that “no city can be established with prosperity or governed with happiness without the help of God.9 Although Venice welcomed people of diverse cultures and beliefs, the city was established by Christians who “at every hour entirely embrace the piety of the orthodox faith.”10 For this reason, “God loved Venice more than all the other cities in the world.”11 The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, served as a paradigm for Venetian laws and hence for Venetian justice. Egnazio observed that the city of Rome alone surpassed Venice in the observance of justice.12 Venice thought of herself as a new Rome, and her emphasis on justice was part of the continuity. In addition, Rome was the place where the Christian Church had been established by Peter, who sent his disciple Mark on a mission to Aquileia. Mark eventually became the patron saint of Venice, and since Mark was represented as a lion, the winged lion became the symbol of Venice. On the open book which the lion holds in this iconographic depiction are written the words, “Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus,” spoken, according to legend, by an angel to Mark when almost overcome by a storm on the Venetian lagoon. Peace and justice—which itself can only flourish in peace—were from an early period associated with Venice’s patron saint.13 Egnazio emphasized that justice was the mother of every virtue, and Venetians embraced all virtues, but especially justice which he defined according to a peculiar Venetian understanding of this virtue under which all others are subsumed:

7“Il capo…insegnò, che la uera sapienza consiste nella povertà, nel despregio dell’humane cose, e nella religione, cosa, che huomini di grande, et eccellente ingegno non seppero ….” Egnazio, Nove libri, La Prefatione, fol. 1r, 8Egnazio, Nove libri, 1.1, fol. 5r. 9“A testimonio di Platone, alcuna città non può con prosperità constituita o con felicità gouernata senza l’aiuto di Dio.” Egnazio, Nove libri, 1.1, fol. 5r. 10Egnazio, Nove libri, 1.1, fol. 4v. 11 This statement appears in the marginalia of Egnazio, Nove libri , 1.1, fol. 4v. It was often repeated by Guillaume Postel. 12Egnazio, Nove libri, 6.5, fols. 37v–38r. 13The Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Codex Guelf 225, Noviss., 80, contains a Liber symbolum, where at liber V, symbolum CXXXV, the winged lion of Saint Mark is depicted holding the open book with the words of the angel inscribed on it. Christ, the Virgin, and other evangelists are depicted enthroned in the heavens. Following the symbol is a poem titled: Marco, et Reipublicae Venetae: Pax tuta est semper avspice ivstitia; its concluding lines are: “Avspice Ivstitia, tua Pax, Leo maxime, pacem Securam nobis, perpetuamque facit.” [When Justice is the foundation, your peace, oh Lion (of Saint Mark) makes peace secure and everlasting for us]

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Venice as the new Rome took seriously its image as the city of justice and peace, hence its designation as Serenissima.15 As Patricia Fortini Brown has noted, romanitas became especially prominent “as a visual and verbal cultural ideal in Venetian civic discourse” under the dogado of Francesco Foscari. He had a medal struck in the early 1450s by the architect Antonio Gambello; on the obverse is Venice enthroned as justice with a large sword of justice in her right hand and a large shield in her left hand. Surrounding the seated female figure are the words “Venetia Magna.”16 Guillaume Postel (1510?–81), a brilliant French humanist in the court of Francis I, was a self-appointed propagandist for Venice and never ceased to praise her and her institutions. He expresses his firm belief in God’s preference and care for Venice in his Libro della divina ordinatione. Throughout the text, Postel argues that “for a thousand or more years, Divine Providence has had more care for Venice than for all the rest of the world.” God loved Venice more than all other states, according to Postel, because Venice had maintained the Christian religion in a most devoted and prudent manner. In addition, Venice had perpetuated its ducal state without interruption. Whenever there might have been any change of doge, tribunes, or consuls, this was accomplished without resorting to war and violence as in other states.17 Postel mentions the alterations of governments in the Roman Empire and in France; although these states were “the first and most famous and important states of the western world,” they had sustained so much “bloody cruelty, violence and ambition and other disturbances” because of the change of princes and governments.18 Venice’s conservation of the publico bene, that is, the welfare of its citizens, also endeared Venice to God, and this divine providence and care had been ordained by Christ.19 The stability of the Venetian Republic and its dedication to 14Egnazio, Nove libri, 6.5, fol. 37v. 15See Marx, “Venezia-altera Roma?” 16Brown, Venice and Antiquity, 104–5. 17“Et quantunque per il tempo di trecento o quatrocento anni siano state qualche mutatione nel gouerno sotto Dogi, Heraclianí, Tribuní, et Consoli auanti che à questo perpetuo Stato Ducale che è adesso uenissero, niente dimanco non si troua che per uia di sangue et uiolentía d’armi come egli è nelli altrí lochi solito, mai si sia usata tyrannide à tal che si puo et si debbe dire la uerita, che per mille et piu anni, la Diuina Prouidenza habbi hauuto piu cura di Venetia che di tutto quanto il resto del mondo.” Postel, Il libro della divina ordinatione, sig. B2r. 18Postel, Il libro della divina ordinatione, sig. B2r. 19“Conciosia donque che egli è di necessita di glorificar et lodar Iddio, per le opere particolari della sua Prouidenza, uedendo che maggior cura sua è stata da mille anni in qua sopra di Venetia, che XXXXX

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pious charity enabled the city to enjoy peace and pursue justice, predicated upon God’s law and the Christian religion. Because of this, Venice, according to Postel, had been chosen by God as the place for the restitution of all things. “For this reason God had founded Venice and until now has preserved her.”20 Postel suggests that because of God’s care and love of Venice, the Venetians had developed a venezianità that made Venetians, nobili and popoli, desire above all to remain in Venice instead of serving other powerful princes. Postel viewed venezianità as a miracle: A marvelous thing it is, that never is it found that the Venetian has been able to be toward his own country other than Venetian, that is, a lover of his own country, which thing certainly surpasses all the miracles of the world.21

Since venezianità also included love of justice and peace, it is not surprising that the iconography of the ducal palace is replete with images of justice, as has often been observed.22 Venice, represented as a beautiful woman, is poised high on the façade of the doge’s palace with a sword raised in her right hand. Indeed on every side of the doge’s residence, Venice sits enthroned as justice. And nowhere is she represented in a more dramatic and awesome manner than on the pentacle crowning the Porta della Carta. Venice as justice is here represented holding a sword in her right hand, the scales in her left hand, and with a lion on each side. It was on the Porta della Carta that notices pertaining to justice were placed. Another Frenchman of the sixteenth century, who called himself Dionisio Gallo, was also effusive in his praise of Venice. Arriving in the city in 1566, he wrote and spoke about Venetian justice in laudatory terms.23 He addressed large crowds in the courtyard of the ducal palace, informing them about the necessary reform of the church. He provided for his listeners a plan of action that he called his Legatio. Dionisio Gallo was probably a disciple of Postel and, like Postel, he had important connections in Venice. Postel was imprisoned in Venice in 1555 for heretical opinions; Dionisio Gallo was imprisoned in 1566 for preaching without a license, although Dionisio assured the Inquisition that he was not preaching, but rather speaking. Whatever he chose to call his appearances, he urged the 20

di tutta la Christianita insieme, quanto à l’apparente conseruatíone del Pvblico Bene….” Postel, Il libro della divina ordinatione, sig. B2r–v. 20“Per questo fu fondata et fin qui e da Dio conservata Venetia.” Postel, Il libro della divina ordinatione, sigs. C3v–Dr. 21“Cosa Miracolosa e, che mai si troua ch’el Venetiano habbi potuto inuerso la sua Patría esser altro che Venetiano, cioe amator della patria sua, il che certo auanza tutti li miracolí del mondo.” Postel, Il libro della divina ordinatione, sig. B4v. 22See Wolters, Storia e politica nei dipinti di Palazzo Ducale, 19–20, 228–32. 23See Kuntz, Anointment of Dionisio. Dionisio was processed by the Venetian Inquisition in 1566; the records of his trial and his numerous writings can be found in the ASVe, Sant Uffizio, Processi, busta 22.

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Venetians to join him in his grand enterprise of reforming the church and the world, since he had been anointed, according to his story, by the Virgin, who instructed him how to carry out the divine plan for reform of the world. During his incarceration, Dionisio wrote numerous letters from prison, all preserved along with his trial in the records of the Sant’Uffizio. Especially interesting for our purposes are the letters directed to the “most famous and illustrious senators” of Venice, whom he urged to render justice, “since they had been chosen by God to be judges in his own cause.” During his imprisonment, Dionisio had ordered the guards of the prison to hand over his writings to Paolo Corner, a Venetian senator and one of the Tre Savi sopra eresia (the three lay magistrates appointed to serve alongside the three ecclesiastical judges who constituted the Inquisition). Evidently Dionisio believed that Corner would comprehend his plan for reform of the church more easily than the prelates on the tribunal. In fact, Dionisio challenged the authority of the Inquisition with the exception of the three lay members, who were Venetian senators. He often noted that Venetian senators were God’s representatives, elected to be judges in his own cause, and they were the only members of the tribunal who had the right to judge him. Since Venice had a providential role in God’s plan for the reformation of his church, Venetian senators would naturally share in Venice’s destiny, according to Dionisio. He showed great respect for the Venetian senators: whom God chose as judges in his own cause through the Holy Spirit that he sent into the assembled senate on the day after holy Pentecost in the appearance of a white dove [which flew] above the head of his own chosen servant and messenger, Dionisio Gallo.24

Dionisio also praised the Venetian nobility and “two pious and honored Venetian men, the most illustrious Giusto Morosini, a nobleman, and the best citizen Rocho Veneto (in actuality Rocho di Mazzochi). “Both these men,” Dionisio wrote, “signed my legation, since they approved all my writings.” He called upon the Venetian nobility to be his “mother and father” and urged that they receive their son. If the Venetian nobility received Dionisio as son, it would inherit the possession of the whole world. Dionisio described his relationship with Venice as familial and intimate; but instead of consanguinity, Dionisio and Venice, according to his perception, shared the divinely infused right to administer justice and thereby bring reform to the church. Dionisio’s adoption of Venice as mother and father was part of his sacramental role in effecting justice.25 24ASVe, Sant Uffizio, Processi, busta 22, “Ad Clarissimos ac illustrissimos Dominos Senatores Venetos.” 25ASVe, Sant Uffizio, Processi, busta 22, “In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi crucifixi, amen.” This document is addressed to the most reverend and illustrious Lords, the Sacred Venetian Tribunal and the Senate. Also see the document “Ex coelo empireo veritas reuelata.”

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Venice as female and male, or mother and father, was not a concept unique to Dionisio. Guillaume Postel perpetuated the concept of Venice as the most perfect magistracy, referring to the dual nature of the Venetian Republic as male and female. He acknowledged that the temporal magistracy was female and the spiritual magistracy was male; their union made Venice the most perfect republic.26 The perfect blending of male and female was represented in the Venetian state and in its justice, according to Postel. This conception of Venice as both male and female seems similar to Dionisio’s intention when he called Venice his mother and his father; he begged to be freed from prison through the justice “that was owed to God, to Christ, to him, and to the people and also through the justice that you have promised to God and have sworn that you would provide for the people, poor as well as rich, on a daily basis.”27 Since Venice had been chosen by God to judge, she could be considered the parent and paradigm for the reformation of the ecclesia militans, as Jerusalem, the holy city, was the paradigm for the ecclesia spiritualis. Postel called Venice not only a new Rome, but also a new Jerusalem because of her emphasis on justice. Postel’s and Dionisio’s understanding of Venetian justice was shared by many, if not most Venetians themselves. One Orpheo Fioccha of Polpenaze wrote to the heads of the Council of Ten in 1554 that “the grandeur, the happiness and the conservation of this most holy Republic depends on the many beautiful orders that come especially from the most holy laws established by your most excellent lordships through which honor has been given to God, his majesty has been proclaimed and his name has been lauded. …” The laws that protect men from the “wicked who disturb the tranquility of those who wish to live in peace will be conserved by the hand of God, who has a care for this justice that reigns in the hearts of your most excellent lordships.”28 Orpheo also wrote that the laws preserve the “property, honor, and life of men; the evil and wicked who transgress the laws are punished according to the laws. As long as the laws are preserved, this most illustrious Dominion will flourish.”29 The concept of Venice as the vehicle of God’s justice on earth is illustrated in a beautiful miniature accompanying the proemio dogale of Andrea Gritti to the ancient Golden Book (Libro d’oro) of the Great Council.30 Saint Mark is shown handing the book of God’s law to the new doge Andrea Gritti, who is kneeling 26See Kuntz, “Guillaume Postel e l’idea di Venezia,” 163–78. 27ASVe, Sant Uffizio, Processi, busta 22, “Ex coelo empireo veritas reuelata.” “Admoneo te (pater mi materque mea, Reverendissima, ac illustrissima justa et benigna dominatio veneta) et obsecro per ipsam iustitiam quam tu mihi debes, quam Deo promisti atque iurauisti te facturum populo tam pauperi quam diviti hodierno die.” 28ASVe, Capi del Consiglio dei Dieci, Lettere, filza 56, 1555. 29ASVe, Capi del Consiglio dei Dieci, Lettere, filza 56, 1555. For a discussion of Venice as justice in the sculptures of the ducal palace and the loggia, see Rosand, “Venezia Fígurata.” 30ASVe, Maggior Consiglio, Libro d’oro vecchio, proemio dogale, fol. 21r–v.

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Proemio di Andrea Gritti, Libro d’oro, Maggior consiglio, fol. 21r. Archivio di Stato, Venice.

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before the saint (see facing page). The text describes the remarkable foresight of God, who after he created the earth and eternal intelligences, brought forth laws that ordered the universe with remarkable stability.31 The text makes clear that the republic that emulates God’s order and stability will be well instituted. God’s laws are perpetual in spite of the vicissitudes of human circumstances. A republic must of necessity follow God’s laws, and it was incumbent upon the doge to safeguard and protect incorrupte sancteque the laws of the Venetian Republic in order to preserve the stability and the perennitas of the Serenissima. By receiving God’s law from Saint Mark, the doge is accepting his responsibility to uphold God’s law as he administers justice. The symbols of justice were constant reminders to the doge and to the Venetians that Venice was the receptacle of God’s law. The doge was reminded in a special way of his role as upholder of justice when he passed through the door opening from the entry of the ducal palace into the chapel of San Clemente and then into the royal chapel in the Basilica San Marco.32 The ancient inscription on the crown molding of the chapel was a clear warning to all the doges of Venice that their responsibility was political and religious. Another aspect of the ducal palace makes that point clear. The capital of the first column of the colonnade to the right of the Porta della Carta, with all of its political-religious connotations, is dedicated to justice and reveals perhaps the most significant aspect of the tension between the political and the religious in the Serenissima. This beautiful column, the first on the Piazzetta as one faces the Porta della Carta, has an octagonal capital. In a recent book about the capitals of the columns of the doge’s palace, Antonio Manno observes that this capital has characteristics that are different from all the others. The inscriptions, written for the most part in Venetian, are carved into the table of the abacus, while the others follow the neck of the capital.33 Each of the eight sides of the capital is connected with some aspect of justice. Astrea is shown as Justice; Aristotle is giving the constitution to the Athenians; Moses is depicted leading the Israelites; while Solon is portrayed bestowing the laws upon the Athenians. Rounding out the images of Justice here are Scipio restoring the Carthaginian child to her father; Numa Pompilius, the early lawgiver to the Romans; Moses receiving the tablets of the law; and Trajan rendering justice to the widow. 31ASVe, Maggior Consiglio, Libro d’oro vecchio, proemio dogale, fol. 21v: “Ea scilicet ratione ut quae diu perpetue essent…duratura ceu globorum conuersiones, solis meatus et stellarum perennes cursus leges ratas, diuturnasque haberent. Quae uero fluxa et variis euentis obnoxia, et mox interitura temporaneis momentaneisque institutis pro locorum temporum et personarum natura gubernanda et regenda constituit.” 32See above, p. 151. Also see Cozzi, “Il giuspatronato del doge su San Marco.” 33See Manno, Il poema del tempo, 69–77. The plates accompanying the text are very beautiful. I am indebted to Dr. Daniela Ambrosini for presenting this book to me.

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Ducal Palace, Piazzetta, first column. Photo courtesy of Charles Daniels.

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It is important to note that two sections of the capital are dedicated to Moses. On the most conspicuous part of the capital, which faces the Piazetta, the beautifully sculpted figure of God hands the Decalogue to a kneeling Moses (see photo preceding page). On the other side of the capital, the Hebrew people at the foot of Mount Sinai accept the conditions offered them by Moses for a special alliance with God (based on Exodus 24:17). This column, appropriately placed first in the series, emphasizes Venice’s insistence upon and appreciation of justice. With the dual depiction of Moses, both receiving the law of God and transmitting it to the Israelites, the capital shows that the foundation of Venice’s laws is the Decalogue, and that the doge is responsible for rendering justice according to God’s law, as he fulfills his political duties. The other examples of justice drawn from Greece and Rome that appear on the capital emphasize the political aspect of justice as the two depictions of Moses emphasize the religious. The capital of this column seems to be the key to other representations of Venice as justice on the exterior of the palace, to the inscriptions inside the chapel of San Clemente, and to those in the atrium of the Basilica San Marco and also to the Porta della Carta, where the doge is portrayed on his knees before Saint Mark represented as a lion. There are additional reasons to support the linking of Venetian justice to God’s law, and in particular to Mark as purveyor of God’s law. These considerations undergird Venice’s great devotion to Saint Mark as patron saint of Venice, since through the authority of Saint Mark the Serenissima has received her right to be portrayed as Justice herself and to administer justice based upon God’s law. In a brilliant article, Gilberto Pressacco cogently argues for the emphasis on a number of Old Testament and Judaic elements in the legend of Saint Mark. Such elements would have rendered the Venetians disposed to accept Mark, the patron saint of their city, as the giver of God’s law in Venice, parallel to the role Moses played among the Hebrews in the Old Testament. Traces of these Old Testament and Judaic elements in the leggenda marciana, Pressacco argues, are found in the “most obscure history of the first Christian community of Aquileia,” and in the obscure history of the first Christian community at Alexandria.34 Pressacco notes, for example, several idiomatic expressions found in the Friulan dialect, spoken in Aquileia, which is in Fruili, the region northeast of Venice, where legend holds that Peter sent Mark from Rome to preach the faith. The first of these phrases is L’arc di San Marco, which in the Friulan tongue means “the rainbow.” This turn of phrase exists in no other Romance 34Pressacco, “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus.’ ” On the question of the authenticity of the tradition of Saint Mark at Aquileia, see Cuscito, “La tradizione Marciana aquileiese.” For a discussion of the frescoes in the crypt of the Basilica of Aquileia that depict Saint Peter and Ermacora, the disciple of Saint Mark, see Rizzi, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 149–52.

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language, and nowhere else is it found linked to the Old Testament story of Noah at Genesis 9:12–17, which indicates God’s will to pursue universal salvation.35 A further expression from the Friulan dialect that serves to emphasize the close association of Mark with Jewish and Old Testament elements is Marcolà/fa li màrculis/fa li marcolèttis. This translates into Italian as far le capriole, that is, to perform a liturgical dance in two choruses to express euphoric exaltation with leaps and falls. Here Mark, the legendary evangelist of Aquileia and Venice, is linked by name with the performance of a liturgical dance in the Friuli. Moreover, the legend of Mark further associates him with sacred dance through his disciple Ermacora, whom popular tradition holds was the inventor of holy dance.36 Pressacco points out the Old Testament and Judaic elements behind this linkage of Mark and sacred dance. He looks from Friuli to Alexandria, where, according to the saint’s legend, much of his ministry took place. Today the Coptic church (especially the Ethiopian) makes use of an interesting form of liturgical dance in two choruses, accompanied by the cither and tamburello. Significantly, a characteristic of sacred dance in the Old Testament is the use of the tamburello and the song in two choruses. But it is not just the Friulan dialect that perhaps reflects pieces of the legend of Mark that linked him to the performance of sacred dance in Alexandria and the Old Testament. Pressacco points out that until the eighteenth century in the Basilica of Sant’Eufemia, located in the Friulan town of Grado, there was on display a cimbalo, also known as a tamburello. The veneration of this instrument closely associated with sacred dance in the basilica at Grado may be tangible evidence of the link that once existed in the regions of Friuli and the Veneto between Saint Mark and sacred dance, which traced its origins directly back to Jewish inspiration in the Old Testament.37 A further Jewish element in the legend of Saint Mark working to predispose the Venetians to accept Mark as the purveyor of God’s law handed down to Moses, was the medieval tradition indicating that Mark was “born from the most famous tribe of Levi,” and he was “said to have yielded the duties which the Mosaic law was giving.”38 By the Renaissance, this tradition had so permeated the Venetian understanding of the legend of Mark that it was preserved in the account of Venice’s foundation and subsequent history entitled Cronica Veneta dal principio della città di Venezia sino all’anno 1527. After the author of the Cronica writes of the apostle 35Pressacco, “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus,’ ” 647. 36Pressacco, “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus,’ ” 648. 37“la possible risonanza alto-Adriatica di un’usanza originariamente alessandrina autorizza a formulare l’ipotesi che copti, etiopici e aquileiesi abbiano conservato l’eco di un fenomeno legato alla figura di Marco, ‘esploso’ originariamente in Alessandria e mantenutosi a lungo nelle due ‘aree marginali’ più segnate da tratti giudeo-cristiani (dei quali il puì rilevante è l’osservanza e l’ipostatizzazione del sabato.” Pressacco, “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus,’ ” 648–49. 38Pressacco, “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus,’ ” 649–50, 670n18.

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Peter sending Saint Mark from Rome to Aquileia to preach, he notes that “Mark, evangelist, disciple, and son of messer Saint Peter, Apostle of Jesus Christ, had been of the Jewish nation and of the tribe of Levi....”39 For the Venetians, the legend that Mark was a Levite linked him in an intimate way to God’s law, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, since the Levites were priests and teachers of the law.40 This tradition, moreover, also sheds light on the break between Saint Paul and Saint Mark, which is recorded in Acts 15:37–40. Pressacco advises that one should look more deeply for the origins of this split than the simple dichotomy that equates Peter with nationalism and Paul with universalism, which traditionally has been viewed as the source of the disagreement between Mark and Paul.41 For within this disagreement was a desire on the part of Mark, like his teacher Peter, to preserve the Jewish law as part of the Christian faith. Pressacco states: ...in Mark, in fact, the theme of universalism is present without the exclusion of all of Israel—or for that matter of the Torah—but only [the exclusion] of that Israel which was refusing the Messiah: it is possible, in fact, to pinpoint in the line James—Peter—Mark the will to preach Christ without forgetting or destroying the law of Moses …42

Guillaume Postel often emphasized the significance of Moses, who had been called from the beginning by Jesus, whom Postel called the Mediator.43 In fact, he argues that the Mediator contains within his heart and life the same truth as Moses did. The Mediator, Jesus Christ, is triune in “Moses as his heart, in Himself

39“Marco euangelista discipulo e fiol de messer S. Piero Apostolo de Iesu Christo fó de nacion Zudaíca e della tribu de Levi”: BNM, Mss. It., Cl. VII Cod. CCCXXVII (=7776), Cronica Veneta dal principio della città di Venezia sino all’anno 1527, fol. 42r. This important manuscript is from the early sixteenth century and is written in Venetian. 40See Deuteronomy 10:8–9, 33:8–10. Note especially the blessing of Moses recorded in Deuteronomy 33:8–10: “Thus the Levites keep your words, and your covenant they uphold. They promulgate your decisions to Jacob and your law to Israel” (33:9–10). See also, “Priests and Priesthood” in Encyclopaedia Judaica. 41Pressacco, “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus,’ ” 652. For a different point of view, see Niero, San Marco, 15–18. 42Pressacco, “Marco “Christianus et medicus,’ ” 653. Pressacco also notes that it is possible to find in Alexandria and in Aquileia the remnants of such a line. 43BL, Sloane ms. 1410, Guillaume Postel, Lex oris sive de Naturae et Gratiae in unum Aestitutae Conciliatione, Scriptum quod Zoharis, hoc est summi splendoris nomine vocatur, estque Symeonis illius Iusti et Summi Iudaeorum Pontificis ultimi…, fols. 127v, 135v. Charles Stinger (Renaissance in Rome, 212) notes that Roman humanists made original contributions to Hebraic scholarship, especially in the treatments of Moses. George of Trebizond in an oration before the papal court in 1437 “asserted that just as Moses had led the Hebrews out of Egypt after four hundred years of bondage, so would the pope bring an end to the similar period in which the Greeks had labored in schism.” Stinger points out here that in papal circles the various Lives of Moses provided the opportunity to enhance the authority and prestige of the Roman popes by “exploiting the topos of Moses as typus papae.”

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as his head, and in his lower stomach as his nourisher and seed who is Elias.…”44 Postel, whose writings did much to emphasize the similarities between Judaism and Christianity, notes that both Christ and Moses were trying to renew the written law of the fathers.45 Postel speaks often of the Auditores Mosis (Hearers of Moses), that is, those who follow God’s law. His praise of Saint Mark discloses his assumption that he considered Saint Mark one of the Auditores. Postel extols Venice, under the patronage of Saint Mark, as the place where God revealed his presence through the Venetian Virgin. He lauded Venice because she was never contaminated by idolatry or subversion.46 Postel’s great devotion to Venice had its grounding in the merits of the Venetian Virgin, “in whom the presence of Christ dwelled most fully,” and in the patron saint of Venice, Mark. But his devotion to Venice and Saint Mark was also predicated upon Mark’s devotion to the Mosaic law. His devotion to Mark is revealed in his remarks about the Pauline-Petrine disagreement. He wrote that John Mark, author of the second Gospel and most faithful interpreter of Peter, was fleeing the consortium of Paul because it taught things truly contrary not only to Peter but also to the whole church.… Therefore, under the standard of Mark, the evangelist, clothed as his lion … there was need that this meaning of the primitive church be restored.47

The close association of Mark with Peter, who was more “Jewish” in his understanding of early Christianity than the “Gentile” Paul, endeared Mark to Postel. He argued that the Gospels were prefigured in the Decalogue, and he placed special emphasis on the second Gospel, indicating that Mark looks back to the mysteries of the written law, hidden to this day to the whole world and now about to give support to the Gospel renewing itself in the fourth age of the church.48

The renewed Gospels have drawn their strength from the Decalogue; the Gospel 44Postel, Le Thrésor des prophéties, 142. 45BL, Sloane ms. 1410, Postel, Lex oris, fol. 312v. Also see Postel, Candelabra Typici in Mosis. 46BL, Sloane ms. 1410, Postel, Lex oris, fol. 3r–v. 47“Ideo merito Iohannes Marcus Euangelii Secundi Author et fidelissimus Petri interpres refugiebat Pauli consortium eo quo reuera non solum Petro sed toti Ecclesiae contraria docuit.… Ideo sub Marci Euangelistae vexillo…in suo Leone vestito, instaurari hunc primitiuae Ecclesiae sensum opus fuit.” BL, Sloane ms. 1410, Postel, Lex oris, fol. 41r. Postel often refers to Mark by his full name, as in Acts 12:12 and 15:37. The latter verse reads: “But Barnabas wanted to take with them John also, who was surnamed Mark.” 48“Marcus respicit Legis Scriptae mystería ad hanc diem toti orbi terrarum abscondita et nunc renascenti quarta in aetate Ecclesiae Euangelio suffragatura.” BL, Sloane ms. 1411, Postel, In ordinationis Aeternae tabulam liber explicatorius, fols. 394r–439v, quote from “Quatuor gradus Evangelistarum,” fol. 433r–v.

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of Mark in a particular way drew its strength from the written law and for this reason was most important to Postel. Importantly, Postel’s association of Saint Mark with the Decalogue suggested that Venice was the seat of political justice, since her laws were established as an exemplar of the Decalogue. The identification of Saint Mark with Moses is significant for understanding Venice’s concept of herself as Justice. Non-Venetians of the cinquecento like Guillaume Postel, Dionisio Gallo, and the French humanist Jean Bodin, who shared this view, heaped lavish praise upon Venice and her institutions. The concept of Mark as the new Moses also helps to explain the primacy of the political in Venice. The doges, after adopting Saint Mark as patron of the city, had the responsibility as heads of the Venetian Republic to maintain his authority and that of the Serenissima to ensure the appropriate religious and social responses to the law of God, the Decalogue, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses and disseminated by the “new Moses” Saint Mark. One of the responsibilities of the doge was to uphold and protect the cult of Saint Mark. Gino Benzoni has often noted that to be subject to Venice meant that one was faithful both to Saint Mark and to the doge of the Venetians.49 The doge on his knees receiving the standard from Saint Mark appears on the zecchino d’oro, a Venetian gold coin from the sixteenth century, and serves to confirm the idea of the Venetian doge as upholder and dispenser of justice supported by Saint Mark. The political-religious role of the doge becomes even more significant when Saint Mark is associated with Moses. The doge as dispenser of justice was upholding God’s laws as well as Venice’s laws. In effect, God’s law could be viewed as a paradigm for Venice’s laws, which enhanced the political aspect of the Republic, since the temporal laws reflected the eternal laws, making Venice “most serene.” This aspect of Venetian law and justice is clearly emphasized in the proemium of the Libro d’oro of Andrea Gritti, as the doge kneels before Saint Mark to accept the law. Both Mosaic and Marcian traditions provided numerous points of contact between these two figures, and worked to create a role for Mark as a bearer of divine law to the Venetians, similar to the role filled by Moses for the ancient Hebrews. An ancient tradition, repeated by Postel in the sixteenth century, indicates that the written law or Decalogue was placed in Moses’ hands by an angel and subsequently was passed on to the seventy-two interpreters of Moses.50 Another ancient tradition states that an angel spoke to Saint Mark, who, as an interpreter of Peter on a mission to preach in the northern lagoon of Venice,

49See especially Benzoni, “Devozioni dogali.” 50BL, Sloane ms. 1411, Guillaume Postel, In ordinationis Aeternae tabulam liber explicatorius, fol.

434r.

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became terrified as a violent storm almost capsized his small boat. A further medieval tradition that linked Saint Mark to the house of Levi and Postel’s association of Mark with Moses, the lawgiver, lend credence to the suggestion that Venice’s patron saint was considered one of the seventy-two interpreters of Moses, often numbered among the prisci theologi, or ancient theologians. In Venice, Moses and Mark, closely linked together, were both seen as transmitters of God’s law, and through this law, of Justice. Thus the myth of Venice as the Most Serene Republic takes on greater richness when one considers the association of Saint Mark and Moses, in relation to Venice and Justice.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ASVe BNM BL

Archivio di Stato, Venice Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice British Library, London Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Printed Primary Sources Postel, Guillaume. Candelabra Typici in Mosis Tabernaculo iusso diuino expressi breuis ac dilucide interpretatio. Venice, 1548. ———. Il libro della divina ordinatione, dove si tratta delle cose miracolose, lequali sono state et fino al fine hannon da essere in Venetia, et principalmente La Cavsa per laquale Iddio fin qui habi havuto piu cura di Venetia, che di tutto quanto il mondo insieme. Padua: Gratioso Perchacino, 1555. ———. Le Thrésor des prophéties de l’univers. Edited by François Secret. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969.

Secondary Sources Agostini, Giovanni degli. “Notizie istoriche spettanti alla vita e agli scritti di Batista Eganzio, sacerdote viniziano.” In Raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici e filologici, edited by Angelo Calogerà, 33: 1–191. Venice: Simone Occhi, 1745. Benzoni, Gino. “Devozioni dogali.” In San Marco: Aspetti storici e agiografici; Atti del convegno internazionale di study, Venezia, 26–29 aprile 1994, edited by Antonio Nero, 110–22. Venice: Marsilio, 1996. Brown, Patricia Fortini. Venice and Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Cozzi, Gaetano. “Il giuspatronato del Doge su San Marco.” In Niero, San Marco, 727–42. Cranz, Edward F., and Paul Oskar Kristeller, eds. Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin translations and commentaries: Annotated lists and guides. Vol 4. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1980. Cuscito, Giuseppe. “La tradizione Marciana Aquileiese come problema storiografico.” In Niero, San Marco, 587–97. Kuntz, Marion Leathers. The Anointment of Dionisio: Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Italy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. ———. “Guillaume Postel e l’idea di Venezia come la magistratura più perfetta.” In Postello, Venezia e il suo mondo, edited by Marion Leathers Kuntz, 163–78. Florence: Olschki, 1988. Manno, Antonio. Il poema del tempo: I capitelli del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia. Storia e iconographia. Venice: Canal e Stamperia Editrice, 1999. Marx, Barbara. “Venezia-Altera Roma? Ipotesi sull’umanesimo veneziano.” Quaderni 10 (1978): 1–18. Niero, Antonio. San Marco: La vita e i mosaici. Venice: Studium Cattolico, 1994. ———, ed. San Marco: Aspetti storici et agiografici; Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Venezia, 26–29 aprile 1994. Venice: Marsilio Editore, 1996. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Pressacco, Gilberto. “Marco ‘Christianus et medicus’.” In Niero, San Marco, 647–84. Rizzi, Aldo, ed. Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Milan: Electa, 1979. Roberti, Melchiorre. Le Magistrature giudiziarie veneziane e i loro capitolari fino al 1300. Vol. 1. Padua: Typografia del Seminario, 1906. Rosand, David. “Venezia Figurata: The Iconography of a Myth.” In Interpretazioni veneziane. Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro, edited by David Rosand, 177–96. Venice: Arsenale, 1984. Ross, James Bruce. “Venetian Schools and Teachers, Fourteenth to Early Sixteenth Century: A Survey and Study of Giovanni Battista Egnazio.” Renaissance Quarterly 29 (1976): 521–57. Saccardo, Pietro. La Basilica di San Marco…terza parte, sotto la direzione di Camillo Boito. Venice: Ferdinando Ongania Editore, 1888. Stinger, Charles. The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Wolters, Wolfgang. Storia e politica nei dipinti di Palazzo Ducale: Aspetti dell’autocelebrazione della repubblica di Venezia nel cinquecento. Venice: Arsenale, 1987.

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Chapter 9

THE INQUISITOR AS MEDIATOR Silvana Seidel Menchi

BROKEN CRUCIFIXES, PAINTINGS OF THE MADONNA lacerated and covered with filth, images of Saint Anthony or Saint Christopher set afire, pulpits smeared with excrement, church doors and the walls of public buildings plastered with heretical broadsides and graffiti, preachers forced to dodge letters hurled into pulpits, inquisitors threatened in poems or sonnets posted throughout the towns and cities of the peninsula—these are only the most conspicuous manifestations of what may be called an offensive or aggressive strategy (and certainly a strategy born of confidence) within the reform movements in Italy in the period running from about 1530 to about 1550 or 1555.1 At times, a conspiracy of silence or intimidation surrounded these acts to such a degree that the inquisitors who should have been prosecuting their perpetrators could do nothing at all. At Genoa, an inquisitor was beaten up. In the cathedral at Como on Christmas Day 1549, when a friar tried to read an ordinance of the Inquisition that threatened supporters of heretics with excommunication, catcalls and the ringing of bells forced him to stop speaking and he quickly had to seek safety from the crowd. Michele Ghislieri—who later became Pope 1

Translated by John Jeffries Martin. This translation of “Inquisizione come repressione o inquisizione come mediazione? Una proposta di periodizzazione,” originally published in Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea 35–36 (1983–84), omits pages 53–56 of the original. Since the publication of this article, research on the role of inquisitors and the nature of inquisitorial interrogations has continued to develop. See, both for its essays and its rich bibliography on this theme, Del Col and Paolin, L’Inquisizione romana. Furthermore, Seidel Menchi’s essay itself constituted the first significant blow against Delio Cantimori’s periodization of the history of the Italian reform movements set out in his Prospettive di storia ereticale italiana del Cinquecento. For an elaboration of this shift, see Schutte, “Periodization of Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious History.” 1Chabod, Per la storia religiosa, 106n2, 152, 154, 159, 170, 171, 275ff; Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 22; Del Col, “Eterodossia e cultura,” 10, 11; and Caponetto, Aonio Palerio, 82–84. The term “inquisitor” is used in this chapter to indicate a function, not a title.

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Pius V—was forced out of the city while serving as inquisitor of Como. 2 In Modena, one of the messengers of the Holy Office who had come to post a citation on the shop of an individual accused of heresy (this was the second accusation) could only watch as a boy tore it down, ripped it up, and laughed off the messenger’s threats. Two witnesses to this event, both apprentices, refused to testify to what they had seen.3 At times the pranks and petty acts of rebellion against the inquisitors, which took place in various regions, took on a more intimidating aspect. At Cremona in 1552, the inquisitor encountered an entourage of some seventy to eighty armed and threatening nobles; as he approached a man suspected of heresy, they threatened him with their fists and swords.4 In 1545 at Faenza, two Dominicans, sent from Rome, were met by such serious threats that they were forced to suspend an inquest that was already under way and seek the support of the secular authorities.5 On the outskirts of Bologna in 1540, an inquisitor was the target of an attack aimed at seizing a set of documents relating to a particular trial.6 Similarly at Rovigo in 1558, thieves broke into the bishop’s chancellery and made off with inquisitorial documents.7 These various episodes cast light on the relatively aggressive and propagandistic character of the development of new religious ideas. It is significant that these ideas were expressed in public, often from church pulpits, and during religious services and processions. Both inside and outside the churches, groups would assemble during and after the Sunday sermon to talk about the preacher or even to enter into discussions with him, sometimes challenging him if he was still speaking in the traditional manner and praising him if he appeared to be supportive of the new theology.8 Groups of individuals of the most varied classes and conditions—men and women, sword smiths and silk weavers, apothecaries and soldiers of fortune, teachers and itinerant vendors, notaries and goldsmiths, doctors and cobblers—would gather around to offer their comments on the sermon.9 Around 2Chabod, Per la storia religiosa, 166, 167. 3ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 2, “Contra Thomam Bavellam 1545.” 4Chabod, Per la storia religiosa, 175, 303. 5Tre Re, “Gli avvenimenti del sedicesimo secolo nella città di Faenza,” 280ff. 6Renato, Opere, 1:172ff; and Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 237. 7ASDR, Cause Criminali, busta 1, 29 August 1558. 8Ginzburg and Prosperi, Giochi di pazienza, 28, 29. To offer an example from the archives, ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 8, fasc. 30, “Contra Bartholomeum dalla Barba et Andrea Farmacceri Veroneses 1550,” fol. 33v. 9Del Col, “Eterodossia e cultura,” 23; Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 221ff; 225–28; Pastore, Marcantonio Flaminio, 57; ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 6, “Extractum processus contra hereticos de Asyllo de anno 1547,” fol. 18v; ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 8, fasc. 30, “Contra Bartholomeum dalla Barba,” fols. 21r, 23v–24r, 42r, 45v–46r, 51v; and ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 2, “Contra plures et presertim dominum Vincentium Ferraronum presbiterum, Gabriotum Tassonum, Geminianum Manzolum, Ioannen Rangonum et Gabriotum Tassonum,” 1546, testimony of 7 June 1570.

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certain key words and phrases, such as “purgatory,” “the Gospel,” and “grace,” the tensions were palpable. No longer did church walls or the walls of convents mark the boundary between the sacred and the profane; the oil lanterns placed before shrines or in front of the images of the saints were no longer the reference point for the piety of a neighborhood or for a family. The religious life was no longer anchored to specific sites, to precise objects, or to particular times; it was expanding, moving out into the open: into the piazze, streets, shops, even public laundries where women (the donnicciole) would discuss Saint Paul and justification by faith.10 Frequently persons under examination would steer the inquisitors to eight or ten witnesses.11 Later on, as the heretical propaganda withdrew into private spaces and the houses of the accused, those testifying provided only one or two additional leads, if any at all. Historians have underestimated the force of popular initiatives that sought to transform the everyday language of devotion in a climate of this kind. In Pisa in 1546, in the Church of San Francesco, a hatmaker interrupted the preacher and challenged his views on purgatory in front of his congregation.12 In Ravenna during a sermon, a doctor, “a man who was highly respected…inthe city,” jumped to his feet and shouted at the preacher, who was in the process of explaining the doctrine of transubstantiation, “you are telling nothing but lies!”13 In Siena, in a chapel near the Church of the Servites, during a meeting of his confraternity, a young artisan took the occasion of the impending Feast of All Saints to hold forth on the cult of saints, arguing that the veneration of saints was nothing but a superstition, and he chastised his confratelli (his brothers in the confraternity) for having allowed themselves to be deceived, “since the saints in no way could pray for us either here or in heaven.”14 In 1543 in Bologna—again, it seems among the members of a confraternity— the layman Girolamo Ranialdi, who had the responsibility of leading prayers, on his own initiative changed the phrasing of the absolution, dropping references to the Virgin and the saints. When his confratelli expressed surprise at his omission, he told them that he had dropped the allusion to the Virgin and the saints on purpose because there should be recourse to Christ alone, and “he continued to insist that he had spoken appropriately.”15

10Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 235. 11See, for example, ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 2, “Contra Dominum Franciscum Sigitium 1541,” testimony of 15 February 1541, in which the individual under examination, Camillo Manenti, recalls twelve other witnesses. See also ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 2, ”Contra Dominum Ioannem Bertharium.” 12Caponetto, Aonio Palerio, 82. 13Buschbell, Reformation und Inquisition, 13:302. 14Marchetti, Gruppi ereticali senesi, 51ff. 15“constanter affirmavit se bene dixisse.” BCAB, Bologna, Inquisizione, busta 1927.

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In Udine that same year, a belligerent group of Protestants came together for public readings near the pulpit in the city’s cathedral every Sunday; their text was I tre muri—the Italian translation, it turns out, of Martin Luther’s To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.16 Again on a Sunday in the year 1543 at a church in Legnaro, a scuffle broke out between the priest and a group of worshippers when the priest started to fight off a “Lutheran” cobbler, who had shown up in the church with a group of his followers and tried to climb up in the pulpit to deliver a sermon.17 In 1547 at Asolo, a notary challenged the vicar of the Franciscan house to a public debate on confession, purgatory, and free will before the podestà (the mayor appointed by the ruling authorities in Venice).18 In 1547 at Semonzo, a cobbler interrupted the officiating priest during Mass to deny the existence of purgatory; he succeeded in inducing the vicar of the church to organize a debate on this theme. In fact the worshippers who were attending the Mass witnessed the bet that the cobbler and the vicar entered into concerning the existence or nonexistence of purgatory, with the cobbler pledging two pair of shoes and the vicar two mocenighi (gold coins).19 On the same theme, Antonio dal Borgo and Vittore festaro made a wager of one mocenigo that same year at Asolo, placing their bet with the butcher at Bassano.20 In the city of Modena in 1555, during a meeting of the confraternity of San Pietro Martire, a weaver stood up to contradict the friar who had praised good works, telling him to his face that “God’s mercy is greater than our works, because we cannot possibly do enough to fill our obligations.”21 Again in the Modenese in 1552, a layman confronted a preacher who had insisted on the necessity of the intercession of the saints and had exalted the Virgin: “O Father,” the layman said, putting the priest on the spot, “what did you say this morning?” The friar responded, “What do you expect me to say? I have to say these things; otherwise we will be punished and sent off as galley-slaves.”22

16ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 1, fasc. “Girolamo Venier, Alvise Cavallo, Francesco Garzotto, Pietro Percotto, Francesco Milanese, Pre’ Patrizio e altri,” testimony of Girolamo [Venier], a cobbler, 3 August 1543. See also Seidel Menchi, “Le traduzioni italiane di Lutero,” 93–97. 17ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 1, “Maniero Peron, Buccella Girolamo and others,” deposition of Tomeo Lazzari, 11 January 1544. 18ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 6, “Extractum processus contra hereticos de Asyllo de anno 1547,” fols. 10v–11r. 19ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 6, “Extractum processus contra hereticos de Asyllo de anno 1547,” fol. 13r–v; and testimony of the tailor, maestro Pasino, 28 October 1547. 20ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 6, “Extractum processus contra hereticos de Asyllo de anno 1547,” fol. 6v. 21Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 255. 22Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e crisi, 227.

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Even when summoned before the Inquisition, the protagonists of these and similar events exhibited a combative attitude. It was by no means unusual for a heretic before the tribunal of the Inquisition to make a true and proper defense of his beliefs. One of the best known of these cases was that of Camillo Renato (also known as Lisia Fileno), who wrote his Apologia with the intent of convincing the tribunal of the legitimacy or even of the “necessity of his proposals for the reform of the church and…the renewal of the religious life.”23 From this date on, the history of religious dissent in Italy was studded with apologetic writings, in which the accused entered into a dialogue with the inquisitors. It is not reasonable to assume that the accused wished to convert the inquisitors; probably they were fighting to foster a church that would be broad, flexible, and diverse and in which they would have a place for themselves and their particular way of feeling and living their piety. Even in 1557 at Porcia, the weaver Antonio Fachin, cited before the vicar of the bishop of Concordia, defended himself with a writing that was the equivalent of an apologia of his beliefs.24 The efforts of the accused to involve the inquisitors in a theological discussion was often evident in how they appealed to sacred texts. Reducing the propositions that constituted the articles of accusation to this or that authority of holy scripture, the accused tried to bring the inquisitor into his own territory. He tried, in short, to open a theological debate in the midst of a trial for heresy. For instance, a jurist, originally from Siena, who in 1547 had taken up residence in Grignano, a village in the Polesine, with the express purpose of converting the local peasants to Lutheran ideas—“I came there to convert the peasants”— tried to engage his judges in a dialogue. Appealing to the authority of Saint Paul, the jurist wanted, he said, de fide disserere (to argue about the faith): “I would like the favor of your Lordships to allow me to speak with you in such a way that you might understand what I am saying and what I believe about these matters of faith.” He continued, ”Once you have understood me, if you find that I am in fact in agreement with your beliefs and the truth, you will not have to examine me any further; rather you will judge me in accordance with the laws of justice and you will free me as an innocent man.”25 Bartolomeo dalla Barba of Verona, brought before the Venetian Inquisition, was asked if he had stated publicly, either during a fair he had attended or while eating in an inn, “that it’s nothing but folly to believe that the saints can intercede for us on our behalf before God; that this whole practice is as worthless as a penny; and that we must pray to God directly.” Bartolomeo responded, making it 23Renato, Opere, 286. 24Del Col, “Eterodossia e cultura,” 31. 25ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 6, “Contra Petrum Vagnola senensem,” deposition of Giovan Battita di Nicolò Chiarati, 8 March 1547, and testimony of Pietro Vagnola, 9 March 1547.

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clear that he had not done anything but cite Saint Paul and Saint John, according to whom “there is only one mediator between God and man, and that is Christ, who is at the side of the Father and who prays for us.”26 Similarly, a Sicilian friar, sentenced by the tribunal at Palermo in 1547, “confessed to having believed that works are not necessary for the eternal life … drawing on many authorities who had convinced him of this view.”27 Girolamo Ranialdi, the Bolognese apothecary mentioned above, offers another example. In response to the inquisitor who wanted to know why he had omitted the Madonna and the saints in the traditional formula for their intercession, Girolamo answered, “We should pray only to Christ.” And in the moment of silence that followed this answer, before the inquisitor was able to continue his inquiry, the apothecary went onto the attack. He maintained that he had done the right thing in not naming the Virgin, because he had read in the gospel that he who does not enter through the door is a thief or a brigand, and that he had heard it said by many, clergy and laity, in whom he had and continued to have faith that the door is Christ and that it is necessary to have recourse to him alone and to no others. And these things he heard said by preachers in the major churches in Bologna, and he had interpreted them to mean that evangelical teachings excluded the saints and the Virgin.28 Rather than view the protagonists of these events as visionaries, filled with false hopes, it is necessary to suppose that the reality to which they referred—that is, the inquisitorial practice at the time—did provide a certain latitude for discussion, for the search for compromise, even for differences in doctrine. Among the settlements reached between the accused and the inquisitors in this period, one in particular stands out: the agreement that Cardinal Giovanni Morone had the members of the Lutheran Academy in Modena sign in 1542 concerning their profession of faith.29


In effect, therefore, the inquisitor seems to have been, at certain times, more a mediator than a judge. It appears that at times his function was not to ascertain whether or not a religious transgression or “crime” had in fact taken place, but rather to devise a formula that could serve as a compromise. This principle of mediation was especially common in the context of private acts of reconciliation, especially numerous at Modena (and thus numbered among those informal 26ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 8, fasc. 30, “Contra Bartholomeum dalla Barba,” fol. 15r. 27ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 10, “Contra fratrem Ioannem Baptista Vinchi ordinis Sancti Francisci.” 28See above, note 15. 29Peyronel Rambaldi, Speranze e Crisi, 265ff.

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agreements between heretics and the ecclesiastical authorities that were not recorded among the official acts of the tribunals).30 But in certain instances, traces of this practice are found in the documents. In 1556, the Holy Office in Venice was confronted with the case of Pietro Gelusio, an apostate Dominican suspected of heresy. Despite the seriousness of the case and the confession by the accused, the tribunal limited itself to pronouncing a sentence of exile. This relatively mild sentence was based on a memoriale written by Gelusio in which, it turned out, his deviations from orthodox practices appeared irrelevant. Yet it was the inquisitor himself, either acting alone or with other members of the tribunal, who was the inspiration of this document. As it happened, the friar had drawn up another earlier memoir in which he confessed the most incriminating matters. With the financial support of the Duchess of Ferrara, he confessed, he had traveled to Basel in the company of another apostate; there he had studied philosophy and theology; read Zwingli and Westheimer; attended the sermons of the Reformed pastors; returned to Italy; and even supported and covered up the flight of a Capuchin who had already been condemned as a heretic. He further confessed to having propagated and spread his heretical ideas among the nuns in a convent at Spoleto. Since this confession was severely damaging to Gelusio, the inquisitor took the initiative to write him a letter of warning as a result of which the accused worked up a new version of his confession. He now stated that he had not wished to have abandoned his order, that he had gone to Basel without having known of the religious climate of that city, that he had read certain books (he was now vague about the authors and the titles) not knowing that they were forbidden, that in Basel he had not had any contact with the reformers, that he had always protected himself from the contagion of heresy by reading Saint Thomas Aquinas, and so on. Since the warning letter written by the inquisitor has not survived, it is uncertain how far he went in guiding the new version of the friar’s statement. But it is certain that, without the direct intervention on the part of the inquisitor, the Dominican Pietro Gelusio would not have gotten by with the imposition of exile alone.31 Less circumspect was the inquisitor (or more precisely the individual who was fulfilling the role of the inquisitor) in Marostica who actually entered into a dispute with the vicar of the bishop of Treviso in order to offer his protection to a heretic. Antonio dal Borgo, whose brother Benedetto dal Borgo would be burned at the stake for his Anabaptist beliefs in 1551, fled Asolo in 1547, in all likelihood after learning that the bishop of Treviso had been gathering evidence against him

30For a detailed treatment of this theme, see Fontaine, “Making Heresy Marginal in Modena,” chapter 2 above. 31ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 13, “Contra Don Pietro de Spoletto.”

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and other members of his Lutheran group. After three years, perhaps worn down by his evasions and anxieties, Antonio decided to fall in line with the ecclesiastical authorities. In the fall of 1550 he turned himself in to Pietro Ridiato, a Franciscan in Marostica, who had assumed the title of inquisitor, and in the course of an informal conversation, agreed to an act of reconciliation. In order to observe proper procedures, the Franciscan had him put in the prison at the monastery and there, in the presence of a notary, instituted a trial against him. It was a trial from which even a lutherano bestiale (a beastly Lutheran) like Antonio dal Borgo could not but emerge unblemished. The questions the inquisitor posed were invariably gentle. For instance, the very first question was whether he had ever said anything against the Gospels, a question to which the accused, in good faith, was able to answer in the negative. When the interrogation was over, the inquisitor delivered a kind homily to Antonio, warning him to assume a more disciplined attitude towards the church in the future; he then absolved him and sent him back to Asolo so that he could “stay in his homeland and take care of his ‘family.’ ” Moreover, Fra Pietro even provided Antonio with a letter for the sacristan of his parish in Asolo, who was fully aware of the latter’s involvement in the proceedings of 1547. The bearer of the letter, so the friar of Marostica wrote to the priest in Asolo, deserved to be readmitted into the flock of the faithful “as one of the fertile, obedient, and humble sheep … since God does not scorn the contrite of heart.” At Marostica, continued the inquisitor, he himself had absolved him, after having instituted a brief trial against him, a copy of which he sent on to the sacristan. Despite the reluctance of the sacristan and the protests of the vicar of Treviso, both of whom judged the friar from Marostica to be “a strange sort of inquisitor,” two months later the candid Fra Pietro sent a testament to Antonio dal Borgo that asserted that he, Antonio, was a “good Christian” and that therefore he should not be in any way “harassed on account of the suspicion of heresy.”32 At times, therefore, the interventions on the part of the inquisitors—or of the ecclesiastics who served in this role—proved conciliatory. In 1550 the vicar of the bishop of Verona was pursuing an investigation against Omobono Asperti, a priest originally from Cremona who was then serving as the rector of the church at Tomba in the Veronese. At first, in the course of the interrogation, the priest showed resolve; he was clear about his sacramentarian views that were both theologically well grounded and nourished by the reading of the works of theologians,

32ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 6, “Contra hereticos de Asyllo de anno 1547,” letter of the vicar of Treviso to the auditor of the papal legate to Venice, Treviso, 28 October 1550, letter of Fra Pietro Ridiato to the sacristan of Asolo, Marostica, 25 October 1550, testimony of Antonio dal Borgo, 25 October 1550, and testament of Fra Pietro Ridiato, 15 December 1550.

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primarily Swiss theologians, including Heinrich Bullinger. His attitude made it seem as though the case would end tragically. “I would rather burn than abandon these views,” he told the inquisitor, adding such phrases as “I pray and I will continue to pray to the Lord that he confirm me in these views,” and “I pray to Jesus Christ that he might grant me the grace to be able freely to confess his name and that my death might serve a reaffirmation of my beliefs.” Remaining steadfast in his beliefs, he flatly stated, “I hope to be a martyr for Jesus Christ, along with many others who have suffered for the faith.” Yet within a matter of two weeks this resolute candidate for martyrdom declared himself ready to abandon his “evil opinions.” This change of heart was not the result of either physical intimidation or threats of torture. Rather this turnabout was the result of the persuasive efforts of the vicar and a clerical colleague, Giovanni dal Bene, carried out in prison with appeals to “sacred books and the holy doctors of the church.”33 The discussions were not recorded, with the result that the precise terms of the understanding reached between the vicar and the priest are not known. It would be particularly interesting to know the identities of the “holy doctors” whose books formed the basis of his reconversion to orthodox Catholicism: perhaps they were ancient fathers of the church? These particular cases were conducted with extreme leniency. At least until 1550 the suspects, even those who had previously been tried for heresy, were often summoned to appear on their own reconnaissance, the use of torture was rare, and at times the accused were free to come and go from prison at will. Even in the early part of the 1560s, the tribunal appeared to be a center of theological discussion or consultation. Those who were anxious about the beliefs of a family member could present themselves before the inquisitor in the company of the relation who was suspected for his ideas and entreat “the master” to “please try to understand his relative who has some crazy ideas,” since he did not know if this was madness or heresy. To this “madness or heresy”—which could be serious enough—“the father … would respond by trying to knock these ideas down entirely,” and he would do so by having recourse to “various scriptural authorities” without letting the episode have any consequences or leave any traces in the documents.34 Even in certain cases involving corruption, which come before the personnel of the inquisitorial tribunals at midcentury, a certain solidarity with the suspects made itself felt, even if this solidarity was not without the hope of deriving some form of personal advantage from the situation.35 33ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 8, fasc. 30, “Contra Bartholomeum dalla Barba …,” fols. 53r–55v, 57v–58v, 66r. 34Archivio Arcivescovile, Udine, Sant’Uffizio, busta 2, fasc. 28, “Processus … contra Bernardinum della Zorza,” fol. 8r. 35ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 3, “Contra fratrem Ludovicum, die undecima aprillis 1551.”

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The aggressive attitude of the accused and the willingness of the inquisitor to engage in dialogue are clearly documented in the case of Franzino Singlitico.36 Singlitico, born at Rodi and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church with his primary residence on Cyprus, was summoned in 1550 to appear before the Holy Office in Venice as a result of serious charges that had been made against him. For two consecutive days he was interrogated by the auditor of the papal legate at Venice, then by the inquisitor himself. As the interrogation unfolded, there was, from one day to the next, a palpable change in tone. The auditor’s questions had revealed an irreconcilable gap between his position and that of the accused, but the inquisitor’s questions were clearly aimed at finding common ground. The following record of the interrogation by Rocco Cataneo, the auditor, shows that initially the proceedings were carried out in a harsh tone: CATANEO: Did you make your abjuration before … Fra Lorenzo da Bergamo…the inquisitor in Cyprus? SINGLITICO: No, sir—doesn’t the whole island know this? Sure, he wanted me to promise not to talk about matters of faith and not to read books from Germany, but I told him I couldn’t make nor did I wish to make this promise, because it wasn’t in my power to make it. CATANEO: Did you receive an absolution from Fra Lorenzo? SINGLITICO: I did. CATANEO: Why did you accept it? SINGLITICO: I took it because he wanted me to promise him not to defend either Martin Luther or Philip Melanchthon. CATANEO: Did you keep the promise? SINGLITICO: I kept it, because I did not defend either Luther or Melanchthon, but I did defend what I believed to be true.… CATANEO: Do you believe that the pope has the authority to bind and loose and that the indulgences he grants are valid? SINGLITICO: If it is an article of faith that one must believe in indulgences, then I believe in them, but, if not, I don’t. Also, as far as I know, this matter of indulgences hasn’t yet been fully decided. CATANEO: But if it is not decided, what do you think about such a passage? SINGLITICO: I believe what the holy mother church believes.

36ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 10, “Contra Franzinum Singlithico processus.”

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CATANEO: You believe what the holy mother, the Roman Catholic Church, believes? SINGLITICO: I believe what the holy mother Christian church believes.…

The tone changed the next day. It was now the turn of the inquisitor Fra Marino zotto (the lame), to conduct the questioning. This friar, following a careful review of the interrogation that had been conducted the previous day, held out to Franzino Singlitico the possibility of finding some common ground. That there were, in fact, questions of faith that still needed resolution was a premise that even the Lutheran Singlitico was willing to grant. The question now was how the dispute was to be resolved. The position of the accused was that the authority for resolving controversial questions of faith resided in the “Christian church,” understood as the congregation of faithful Christians. The position of the inquisitor on this point was that the authority belonged to “all the bishops and other prelates along with the holy pontiff…and especially to the pontiff.” The possibility for an agreement that developed in the course of their dialogue was based on the formula that the decision of the controversial question was a matter for the “congregation of faithful Christians” (proposed by the inquisitor) but not for “the congregation of the faithful who were ignorant of sacred scripture and without the presence of the sacraments,” but rather to that “part learned in sacred scripture admitted by Christ to the ministry of the sacraments” (the last phrase a correction added by the inquisitor).37 In this context, even the inquisitor’s proposal to use the teachings of the church fathers as a point of reference appeared to be a compromise between Lutheran principle of sola scriptura (by scripture alone) and the ratification of all Scholastic theology upheld by the traditional party. Thus, during the course of the interrogation, no mention was made either of the doctrine of sola scriptura (on the part of the accused) or of the Scholastic tradition (on the part of the inquisitor). But the authority of the church fathers—to which Singlitico had appealed on the previous day—was emphasized. The inquisitor skillfully exploited the national conscience of the accused, stressing above all the Greek fathers: Athanasius, John Chrysostom, John of Damascus, and others, not to mention the ancient councils, to whose authority he appealed to persuade the accused to abandon positions about which he seemed intransigent, insofar as the previous day he had denied the validity of purgatory or the veneration of images. In response to this approach by the inquisitor, Franzino gradually softened his positions. He admitted the possibility of error 37ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 10, “Contra Franzinum Singlithico processus,” testimony of 5 and 6 May 1550. Once he had obtained the assent of the accused concerning this formula, the inquisitor did not cease trying to bring him to further concessions, especially in relation to the summa authorità of the pope; but when Singlitico responded ambiguously, the inquisitor dropped the matter.

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and he remitted himself to a holy mother church, without identifying this church precisely. To be sure, some clarity had been sacrificed to the need to keep the dialogue open. But a head-on collision had been avoided.


In the inquisitorial practice of the Venetian Fra Marino, the case involving Franzino Singlitico represented less the exception than the rule.38 In November 1543, for example, Fra Marino had been asked, in his role as censor, to review “a prose work in the vernacular concerning the ten divine precepts.” The work in question, in all likelihood, was Luther’s Dechiaratione de li dieci commanti—a popular work that would be published in Italy over the thirty-year period of 1525 through 1556 in at least six editions. 39 Fra Marino authorized the publication of this text. Another work that was presented to him in 1546 was a book by Erasmus, in this case an Italian translation of his paraphrases of the Gospel of Matthew, the Espositione letterale del testo di Mattheo evangelista. Again, with the inquisitor’s backing, this work was published in Venice in 1547, though this was a period in which Erasmus’s name was seen as so compromising that most publishers sought to avoid mentioning it altogether. And, in fact, this work was printed under the name of its translator, Bernardino Tomitano.40 In the week during which Fra Marino examined this text, he made only one substantial change. In the opening of his paraphrases, Erasmus had written, “Christ does not impose on anyone the burden of the law of Moses, as long as the living faith is present.” Fra Marino added a phrase to this sentence with the result that it read, “Christ does not impose on anyone the burden of the law of Moses, as long as the living faith is present—though this faith must be associated with works that are also necessary for salvation.”41 The addition was ambiguous. On the one hand, the Franciscan was concerned to place works alongside faith as a 38Del Col, “Il controllo della stampa a Venezia,” 487–489. The reconstruction that follows is based on ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 12, “Patris Marini veneti alias dicti Zotto”; and ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–55,” fasc. 2, fols. 21–25; fasc. 3, fols. 34r–35r. 39Horatio F. Brown, Privilegi veneziani per la stampa concessi dal 1527 al 1597, BNM, Mss. It. Cl. VII, 2500 (=12077), fol. 387. I thank Anne Jacobson Schutte for referring me to this document. For the circulation of this text in Italy, see Seidel Menchi, “Le traduzioni italiane di Lutero,” 40–64. Actually one of the Venetian editions of the text, dated 1543, appeared under the name of Erasmus and, as a result, does not appear along with the other editions as one of Luther’s texts. 40See Seidel Menchi, “Sulla fortuna di Erasmo in Italia,” 616ff. 41[Eramus], Espositione letterale del testo, fol. 3r. See also ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–55,” fasc. 2, testimony of Bernardino Tomitano, 21 May 1555. Shortly afterwards Fra Marino denied having authorized the publication of this text. Cf. ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–44,” fasc. 2, testimonyof 5 August 1555. Tomitano’s testimony is clearly the more reliable, especially since it can be verified by the existence of the text.

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means of salvation (in obedience to the Catholic doctrine of justification); on the other hand, he left the protest against the ceremonial “yoke” of the law intact—a protest that stemmed from the emphasis placed on evangelical liberty, one of the great themes on which Erasmus’s thought coincided entirely with Luther’s.42 There is a similar moderation in Fra Marino’s attitudes towards heretics. On 6 December 1548, for example, Giovanni della Rosa presented himself before Fra Marino to request an attestation of orthodoxy for his brother-in-law Antonio Brucioli. Despite the difficulties that Brucioli had already had with the Holy Office for the printing of his Pie e cristiane epistole di un servo di Gesù Cristo della fede, delle opere e della carità, della Rosa obtained an official document from Fra Marino that expressly stated that “the books written and printed in the city of Venice by Brucioli and published under his name are neither condemned nor even found suspect.”43 This carefully crafted formula enabled the inquisitor to make a false statement without being guilty of a formal lie, since the Pie e cristiane epistole had been published anonymously. When several years later, Fra Marino, now on trial himself, tried to convince the inquisitors of his own incompetence and professional negligence, this was purely a defensive strategy. In fact, the very subtlety of his interventions were a testament to his lucidity and professionalism. The commitment with which Fra Marino protected and even favored heterodox preaching merits particular attention, since it is on this matter that it is possible to discern one of the major characteristics of this first period of the so-called Reformation in Italy, namely the social and cultural bonds that frequently tied the accused to the inquisitors themselves: their common origins and their shared language. A slight digression is in order here. In the twenty-year period running from roughly 1530 to 1550, one of the primary vehicles—if not the primary vehicle—for the diffusion of reform ideas in Italy was preaching. Whether that other vehicle of the dissemination of those ideas—the book—had a range of action as significant as that of preaching, is an issue that may not be possible to resolve. Indeed, it seems that Protestant-tinged works were disseminated primarily in Italy in areas that had already been opened up by sermons, that is, they planted themselves in those places where the fields had already been cleared for tilling. In support of the thesis that preaching—the spoken word—exercised in this period an influence at least equal to that of the book, it is worth recalling that such celebrated preachers as Bernardo Ochino, Pietro Martire Vermigli, Bartolomeo Fonzio, Ambrogio da Milano, and others, were merely the most conspicuous of a far larger group whose activities on the most varied levels contributed significantly to putting into circulation the 42Duke, “The Face of Popular Religious Dissent,” 57. 43ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–55,” fasc. 2, testimony of 14 June 1555. See also ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 12, “Patris Marini veneti,” testimony of 14 June 1555.

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themes of the religious controversies of the day, and to rendering their listeners receptive to the issues involved.44 These remarks emphasize the significance that Fra Marino’s support of certain preachers assumed in this type of context. Various eyewitnesses testified that Fra Marino had covered up or favored, around the year 1550, at least three preachers who were suspected of heresy. The first was Don Ippolito Chizzuola, who preached in the Chiesa della Carità in 1549 and whose sermons, according to certain heretics in Venice, had been the source of their own straying from the orthodox teachings of the church. “If it had not been for Fra Marino,” one of the accused stated, “Don Ippolito would have been deposed and treated badly; and when Don Ippolito was released with his honor intact, Fra Marino was pleased with himself for having helped him.” The solidarity of the inquisitor with this preacher manifested aspects of outright complicity. “When the pontifical legate or his auditor were to attend his sermons [in order to check on him], Fra Marino would be sure Don Ippolito knew in advance” so that he would preach with caution. Another preacher supported by the inquisitor was Fra Giovanni da Colle, whose sermons in San Giuliano had struck several members of his congregation as a “scandal.” By contrast, Fra Marino had nothing but praise for Fra Giovanni da Colle.45 Fra Marino followed the fortunes of his fellow Franciscan Sebastiano Castello with particular fervor. In fact, he favored him so much that his practice of following a moderate line became evident to careful observers. “The year 1550,” one witness declared, “when maestro Sebastiano Castello, the preacher at Santi Apostoli, had been removed on suspicion of heresy, Fra Marino never ceased offering him his support. Showing no respect for God, he attacked Fra Nicolò, the inquisitor who was then in charge, telling him, ‘when I was the inquisitor I never acted this way; rather I always sought to cover up such cases, since I didn’t want to let knowledge of these matters bring about the ruin of our poor brothers’—and with such words.” The witness continued, “He showed just what a scoundrel he was in his protection of the heretics.”46 That this friar had adopted a policy of “covering up heretics” out of an innate goodness or softness in his nature is a difficult thesis to uphold, especially considering the discovery of Fra Marino’s intervention in the case of Pier Paolo Vergerio. “He had written a letter to the cardinal of Mantua in support of the aforesaid bishop [Vergerio],” saying, “ ‘certain frivolous matters have been alleged against 44Translator’s note: In her original text, Seidel Menchi continues this list of outstanding Italian preachers from this period, including as well Giulio da Milano, Agostino Mainardi, Giovan Battista Pallavicini, Bartolomeo della Pergola, Giuliano da Colle, Ambrogio Bolognesi, Andrea Bauria, Ambrogio Quistelli, Agostino Museo, and Andrea Ghetti da Volterra. 45ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 12, “Patris Marini veneti,” testimony of 1 and 18 September 1551. 46ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 12, “Patris Marini veneti,” testimony of 19 September 1551.

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Vergerio,’ and he offered a forceful justification for this interpretation.”47 This intervention attests not to a certain softness in his personality, but rather to a willingness to offer his support even when he was at some personal risk in doing so. As a faithful Catholic, as a friar, and as a member of a community of friars, Fra Marino fought his own battles against the spread of new forms of devotion, countering them at times with irony and sarcasm. According to one witness, the friar, seeing the image of the crucified Christ on whose chest a silver votive had been placed, had exclaimed, “What a cancer! This crucifix is wearing armor.” On another occasion, the friar was present at a procession that a group of the faithful periodically organized at the Church of the Minorites, and when the crucifix that had been paraded about the church from altar to altar was lowered as a sign of respect before the great altar, Fra Marino was overheard saying, “So now Christ is dancing?”48 The boundaries between the views of the inquisitor on the one hand and those brought before him on accusations of heresy on the other had grown thin indeed. A poor Franciscan, not without certain weaknesses, a man exposed to the excitement of the new religious views he was supposed to control—this, in the end, is how the Venetian documents represent Fra Marino. The principle of charity, which he himself evoked,49 expressed his anxiety to avoid ruptures, to keep the dialogue open, and to watch over all the forms of dissent in which he recognized himself. Precisely because he saw in Fra Sebastiano Castello a position that was extremely close to his own, he ended up exposing himself rather daringly. In Fra Sebastiano, one can recognize another exponent of that theology of the “open door” that Fra Marino had practiced as an inquisitor. While in Venice, Fra Sebastiano had preached an irenic theology that was stamped by Erasmian views, a spiritual interpretation of the holy scriptures, the right and responsibility of every Christian to preach the Gospels (“he said that the Gospels ought to be preached by everyone and not merely by those who wore the hood, touching his own”), and a doctrine of justification very close to that developed by Erasmus in his Della infinita misericordia di Dio. Yet, in these same years, at Chiavenna in a sermon he delivered outside, he warned the heretical listeners, saying “that they should be cautious that this evangelical liberty and their claim to be free in the Gospel, without any works of charity, and of the union of peace among them … not lead them into an earthly freedom.”50 In other words, a defense of 47ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 12, “Patris Marini veneti,” testimony of 18 and 19 September 1551. 48ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 12, “Patris Marini veneti,” testimony of Fra Marino, 5 August 1555; and ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–55,” fasc. 3, testimony of 9 August 1551. 49ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–55,” fasc. 2, testimony of Bernardino Tomitano, 21 May 1555. 50ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 8, fasc. 13, “Contra fratrem Sebastianum Castello,” testimony of Girolamo Cavalli, 27 February 1551, and testimony of Castello, 2 September 1551.

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certain openness and flexibility within Catholicism corresponded to the hope that the other side as well would not erect rigid barriers.


The case of Sebastiano Castello, denounced at Venice by a lay auditor, defended resolutely by the inquisitor Fra Marino zotto and dismissed—almost apologetically—by Fra Nicolò da Venezia, confirms the impression that a certain shared culture tied the inquisitors to the accused in these years. Such factors as a shared social background, common readings and life experiences, formed powerful commonalities among these men, not to mention the more mysterious bond that the Franciscan habit forged among them. At times this shared cultural and social experience made the diffusion of religious ideas seem like a family squabble within the mendicant orders, with all the jealousies and conflicts that such family matters so often entail. It was the members of the mendicant orders who were the first to receive and then, in their role as preachers, to elaborate upon the new ideas that were arriving from north of the Alps and to disseminate these ideas in Italy. Moreover, it was these friars who often, in their role as inquisitors, channeled, oversaw, and controlled this process of dissemination—which they were also able, to a certain degree and in certain ways, to support. Thus in Faenza in 1547 it was revealed that the brothers minor conventual, to whom the office of inquisitor was entrusted, were themselves propagators of heretical ideas.51 What were the guiding principles that underlay the inquisitorial practice described above? Clearly the factors that enabled a degree of dialogue between inquisitors and the accused were, on the one hand, the fluidity of the institutional situation—without doubt the tribunals of the Inquisition had not yet consolidated their power—and on the other, the widespread faith in the unity of the Christian Church. This faith tended to undervalue the historical implications of the process of confessionalization that was then under way and the depth of the divisions that were developing. Inquisitors and those accused of heresy tended to encounter one another with the presumption—seen in the words of the Sicilian friar discussed 51Tre Re, “Gli avvenimenti del sedicesimo secolo nella città di Faenza,” 280ff. Nicolò da Venezia, another Franciscan, was even more explicit in his solidarity with one of his fellow friars, Fra Daniele da Brescia, than his predecessor Fra Marino had been towards Sebastiano Castello. See ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 9, “Fra Daniele Baratta da Brescia;” and ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 159, “Acta Sancti Officii Venetiarum 1554–55.” Fra Daniele had been accused of having propagated a simplified and highly interiorized piety in the smaller centers of the Bresciano—a set of beliefs not unlike those of Vergerio. In the course of the trial, the interventions of the inquisitor in his favor were so explicit that Cardinal Durante, writing from Brescia to the Venetian tribunal, advanced the suspicion that the inquisitor was among Fra Daniele’s supporters.

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above—“that the articles of the Lutherans could be viewed as true and that he himself so viewed them, since there were no significant differences between Lutherans and Catholics beyond their use of certain words.”52 Franzino Singlitico—the lucid and up-to-date Greek discussed above—also held onto the notion that there was no “difference from church to church, since there is only one church in Christ; but as for the matter of exterior ceremonies, there are several churches and several rites.”53 Such conviction in an underlying and enduring unity nourished the struggle for the protection of the diversity in which, paradoxically, this unity was articulated. In short, in order to protect the unity of the church, it was necessary to preserve within it a certain space and a certain freedom of expression both for dissent and for religious experimentation.54


It has not been the intention of this chapter to present the inquisitors as champions of tolerance. The flexibility and willingness to compromise displayed by certain inquisitors in the period before 1555 were not without limits. In those cases, for instance, when an individual accused of heresy was obstinate and persistent in the expression of his or her own ideas or when a well-organized coventicle appeared to be on the verge of establishing itself as a church, not even an inquisitor like Fra Marino zotto was able or would have even desired to work out some form of mutual agreement with the accused. In these cases, the inquisitor resorted from the very beginning to the harsh instruments of repression: imprisonment, condemnation to the galleys, or even imposition of the death penalty. Nonetheless, without transforming the inquisitor into a champion of tolerance, scholars should be more attentive to the inquisitorial records making clear that there was a significant difference in the procedures of the Holy Office in the twenty years before 1555 and the twenty years that followed. As Don Basilio d’Istria, the prior of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice observed of the inquisitors in 1569, “Formerly they did not proceed with the diligence they now use.”55 From 1555 on, that is, the Inquisition grew more rigid and opportunities for dialogue less frequent. Suspects were imprisoned even when the evidence against them was slight, at times on the basis of a single denunciation. Tribunals had more frequent recourse to torture, with the result that during the pontificate of Pius V, especially 52See note 27 above. 53See notes 36 and 37 above. 54In 1542, Cardinal Morone and the Lutheran Academy in Modena shared a similar conception of the church and the need for a certain degree of tolerance—this view was at the basis of their pact with one another. See Fontaine, “Making Heresy Marginal in Modena,” chapter 2 above. 55ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 26, Eusebio Borrello, testimony of 29 July 1569.

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in the three-year period running from 1567 to 1569, it became an ordinary measure used by the inquisitors to intimidate or to pressure the accused. Even before torture was actually applied, those carrying out the interrogations made sure that the accused were aware that it was a possibility if they refused to cooperate. Thus, the “criminal” was exhorted “to confess all the heresies in which he has been involved before being subjected to the rigors of torture.” If the accused refused to tell the truth, he was warned, it would be worked out of him “with the instruments the court had at its disposal and by means of the rope.” And if a person suspected of heresy did not reveal those who shared his beliefs, he would be forced to do so “with the harshest means available.” And to ensure that those accused would admit their guilt, they would be “subjected to harsh measures, using the rope and fire in order to have the truth.” These and similar threats, which occurred with greater and greater frequency and intensity in the Venetian trials of the 1560s, had only rarely been used in proceedings prior to 1550. By 1570, in short, the tribunal of the Inquisition, which in the years around 1550 had seemed to be characterized primarily by the mildness of its measures, had become an institution that inspired terror. In 1552, for example, a friar had turned himself in to an inquisitor in order to avoid a trial before a lay tribunal on the grounds that “it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men.” In the later period, those called before the tribunals suffered intense bouts of anxiety.56 Those detained during the preliminary inquests suffered from nightmares so frightening that they reduced proud young men and women to a childlike state: they were terrified to the point of being incapable of sleeping alone.57 At times this state of anxiety made the use of repressive measures unnecessary; prisoners died in jail of heart attacks.58 It is in relation to the practices and procedures of this later period that historians must evaluate and judge the inquisitors of the preceding generation.

56 Archivio Storico Diocesano, Rovigo, Cause Criminali, busta 3, “Processo de Girolamo Biscazza.” 57ASMo, Inquisizione, busta 6, “Contra Guidum Rangonum…1575,” testimony of 28 November 1575. 58ASVe, Sant’Uffizio, busta 26, fasc. “Vincenzo Bertoldi,” 11 May 1570.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives AAU ASMo ASVe ASDR BCAB BNM

Archivio Arcivescovile, Udine Archivio di Stato, Modena Archivio di Stato, Venice Archivio Storico Diocesano, Rovigo Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice

Printed Primary Sources [Erasmus, Desiderius.] Espositione letterale del testo di Mattheo evangelista, di M. Bernardin Tomitano. Venice: Gio. dal Griffio, 1547. Renato, Camillo. Opere. Documenti e testimonianze. Edited by Antonio Rotondò. Corpus Reformatorum Italicorum 1. Chicago: Newberry Library, 1968.

Secondary Sources: Buschbell, Gottfried. Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte 13. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1910. Cantimori, Delio. Prospettive di storia ereticale italiana del Cinquecento. Bari: Laterza, 1960. Caponetto, Salvatore. Aonio Palerio e la Riforma protestante in Toscana. Turin: Claudiana, 1979. Chabod, Federico. Per la storia religiosa dello stato di Milano durante il dominio di Carolo V. 2nd ed. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1962. Del Col, Andrea. “Il controllo della stampa a Venezia e i processi di Antonio Brucioli (1548–1559).” Critica storica 17 (1980): 457–510. ———. “Eterodossia e cultura fra gli artigiani di Porcia nel sec. XVI.” Il Noncello 46 (1978): 9–76. Del Col, Andrea, and Giovanna Paolin, eds. L’Inquisizione romana: Metodologia delle fonti e storia istituzionale: Atti del Seminario internazionale, Montereale Valcellina, 23 e 24 settembre 1999. Trieste: Università di Trieste, 2000. Duke, Alastair. “The Face of Popular Religious Dissent in the Low Countries, 1520–1530.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975): 41–67. Ginzburg, Carlo, and Adriano Prosperi. Giochi di pazienza: Un seminario sul ‘Beneficio di Cristo.’ Turin: Einaudi, 1975. Marchetti, Valerio. Gruppi ereticali senesi del Cinquecento. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975. Pastore, Alessandro. Marcantonio Flaminio: Fortune e sfortune di un chierico nell’Italia del Cinquecento. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1981. Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna. Speranze e crisi nel Cinquecento modenese: Tensioni religiose e vita cittadina ai tempi di Giovanni Morone. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1979. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. “Periodization of Sixteenth-Century Italian Religious History: The Post-Cantimori Paradigm Shift.” Journal of Modern History 61 (1989): 269–84. Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “Inquisizione come repressione o inquisizione come mediazione? Una proposta di periodizzazione.” Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea 35–36 (1983–84): 53–77. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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———. “Sulla fortuna di Erasmo in Italia: Ortensio Lando e altri eterodossi della prima metà del Cinquecento.” Rivista storica svizzera 24 (1974): 537–634. ———. “Le traduzioni italiane di Lutero nella prima metà del Cinquecento.” Rinascimento 17 (1978): 31–108. Tre Re, Maria Grazia. “Gli avvenimenti del sedicesimo secolo nella città di Faenza, con particolare riguardo ai processi e alle condanne degli inquisiti per eresia.” Studi Romagnoli 8 (1957): 279–97.

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Chapter 10

THE EXPURGATORY POLICY OF THE CHURCH AND THE WORKS OF GASPARO CONTARINI Gigliola Fragnito

IN PAST YEARS, HISTORIANS and other scholars have devoted far more attention to books omnino prohibiti (totally prohibited) than to writings temporarily suspended, pending correction and expurgation.1 Yet the recent opening of the Archive of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Rome and the extraordinary wealth of documents concerning the correction of suspended writings it conserves have enabled scholars to shift their attention from an almost exclusive concern with the history of the prohibition of books to examine how the church intended to purge texts of offending passages—in short, from the prohibitory to the expurgatory policy of Rome. This new emphasis, in turn, is now contributing to a more articulated assessment of the consequences of the repressive actions of the church. Indeed, recent and ongoing research on the history of expurgation is shedding new light on the profound gap between Rome’s tremendously ambitious goals of imposing the most rigid forms of conformism and its meager achievements.2 This is all the more evident if one considers the unsuccessful outcome of the project to publish a Roman Index expurgatorius, that is, a catalogue of corrections that would have allowed suspended books to be read again, whether in new expurgated editions or in old ones with handwritten emendations. As a consequence of this failure, hundreds of 1On ecclesiastical censorship, besides the classic studies by Rotondò, “La censura ecclesiastica,” and Grendler, Roman Inquisition, see also the excellent recent synthesis by Infelise, I libri proibiti, with its comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography, and Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo. 2See the essays collected in Stango, Censura ecclesiastica; Fragnito, Church, Censorship and Culture; and Wolf, Inquisition, Index, Zensur.

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Tobias Stimmer, Gasparo Contarini. Engraving published in Paolo Giovio, Elogia vivorum literis illustrium. Basle, 1577, fol. 184r. Courtesy of Princeton University Library.

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texts remained suspended and, therefore, effectively disappeared from libraries and bookshops for centuries. The implications of these suspensions for Italian culture, though they still need to be more accurately assessed, seem to have been as long-lasting and devastating as the losses caused by book burnings themselves. Cardinal Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542) ranks among the most illustrious victims of the shortcomings of Rome’s expurgatory policy as it was elaborated in the late sixteenth century. In order to understand the afterlife of Contarini’s writings in this period— and, above all, the church’s failure to produce an emended edition of his works to put back into circulation—it is necessary to examine the guidelines the central ecclesiastical authorities established during the second half of the sixteenth century. These norms aimed at censorship through expurgation, and were part of a highly ambitious design to revise and correct a huge number of texts so they would comply with ever more rigid criteria of orthodoxy. On 30 December 1558, by a decree of the Congregation of the Index, the first universal index of prohibited books was published in Rome. The composition of this index had been entrusted by Pope Paul IV (1555–59) to the members of the Holy Office, who produced a catalogue that, by its very nature, proved difficult to apply. The difficulty lay not only in the extreme rigor and sketchiness of the condemnations, but also in the inadequacy of peripheral structures dedicated to executing the demands of censorship and expurgation.3 Such problems emerged immediately after the publication of the first index and constrained the Holy Office to draft, in February 1559, the Instructio circa Indicem that narrowed some of the prohibitions. For instance, the Instructio allowed certain works of law and medicine as well as some editions of the church fathers edited by heretical authors to be read, provided that the works were purged of the names of the heretics, along with whatever material was held to be unorthodox.4 There is no doubt that this relaxation of the original guidelines was urged upon Roman authorities by the moderating influence of the Jesuits, who were deeply concerned about the massive numbers of books that had been placed on the Index, including the entire production of sixty publishing houses and all the writings of a number of heretics. Since the opening of their colleges, the Jesuits had been confronted with classical texts that often presented lascivious or obscene passages. At least as early as 1557, they had printed expurgated versions of Martial and other classics, which they even tried to distribute for sale to bookshops.5 3Fragnito, “L’applicazione dell’Indice.” 4Index des livres interdits (ILI), 8:100–104. 5The general of the Jesuit order, Giacomo Lainez, invited his fellow Jesuits to supply booksellers with the expurgated texts. For replies from the Jesuits in Bologna, Ferrara, and Siena to his request, see ARSI, Rome, Epist. Italiae, 1558/I, 111, fols. 234r, 237r, 249r, 278r. See also Dall’Olio, Eretici e Inquisitori, 240–41. Since 1549, concomitantly with the opening of the first colleges, Ignatius of Loyola XXXXXX

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When the Pauline Index was promulgated with its devastating condemnations that greatly hampered their teaching activity, the Jesuit Jerome Nadal urged the Inquisition to recover some of the banned books by correcting them or by eliminating the name of the author.6 Pius IV then imposed a further tempering of the Index of 1559 with the issuance of Moderatio indicis of 14 June 1561, drawn up by the Congregation of the Inquisition. This act expanded the circumstances under which the license to read indexed works would be granted, provided that the permitted works had undergone preventive correction.7 But it was only in the Tridentine Index of 1564 that the criteria for expurgation were formalized. Besides annulling or mitigating many of the prohibitions of the rigorous Index of Paul IV, the commission nominated by the Council of Trent for the preparation of the second universal index aimed, on the one hand, at the explicit recovery of a series of texts totally prohibited in the preceding index by the clause donec corrigatur (until expurgated). On the other hand, the commission sought, by the introduction of a series of general rules, to enlarge the categories of writings that could be read after having undergone suitable revision. Rules 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 encompassed a vast number of works and removed from under earlier censorship a broad range of writings of heretics that did not deal specifically with religion.8 This project, which was prompted by the incontrovertible need of university lecturers and members of the professions to consult the works of scholars and experts who had gone over to the Reformation, would have made it possible to rescue books that had been prohibited in the 1559 Index—however much the correctors may have tampered with them. The Tridentine Index entrusted the work of expurgation to bishops and inquisitors, and in certain specific cases, to individual correctors and universities.9 However, the process of expurgation was extremely limited, because immediately following the closing of the Council of Trent, the bishops became preoccupied with reaffirming their authority in their dioceses and the inquisitors were overburdened by their struggle against heretics.10 Aware of the hardship that the lack or delay of corrections was creating for those who worked in the liberal arts, and also 6

had raised the problem of eliminating scabrous or dishonest passages from the classics used as textbooks. See on this Fabre, “Dépouilles d’Egypte,” 55–76. 6On the Jesuits’ reactions to the Pauline index, see Scaduto, L’epoca di Giacomo Lainez, 22–35. 7ILI, 8:105–6. See also, Rozzo, “L’espurgazione dei testi letterari,” 224–28. 8ILI, 8:91, 813–22. See also Rozzo, “L’espurgazione dei testi letterari,” 229–32. 9ILI, 8:106–8. 10It should be noted however that Rome raised all sorts of difficulties with Cardinal Paleotti, bishop of Bologna, who urged that the expurgation of the suspended texts be made in his diocese under his supervision. See Prodi, Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti, 2:236–45.

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concerned with the transgression into which many faithful were falling because they could not obtain the necessary dispensation to read works that were necessary for the execution of their activities, Rome quickly had to come to terms with the inadequacies of the existing structure of control and improve upon it. It was Pius V (1566–72) who, toward the end of his pontificate, undertook a reorganization of the entire process of censorship. Deprecating the inertia of the ordinaries and inquisitors, on 19 November 1570 he centralized in the hands of the Dominican Tommaso Manrique, the master of the sacred palace in Rome, the work of expurgation and the supervision of publishing the corrected works by the Vatican press. There followed, in the consistory of 5 March 1571, the creation of a commission of cardinals that, a year later, Gregory XIII transformed into the Congregation of the Index. This new ecclesiastical body had a twofold responsibility: to draft a new index that would supersede the index of the Council and to undertake the correction of suspended books. The proliferation of unskilled revisers and inconsistently expurgated editions following the formalization of criteria in 1564 had induced the Congregation of the Index since its beginnings to assign corrections to its own censors, or to the religious orders, some universities, or a small number of reliable peripheral revisers. But this organization had proved inadequate and had given unsatisfactory results to say the least.11 The reasons for the scant success achieved in the area of expurgation were manifold. However, one of the chief elements that contributed to the ineffectiveness of the correctors was certainly the absence in the Tridentine Index of precise instructions outlining what types of material should be expunged from suspected works. The compilers of the third universal index rectified this oversight, beginning in 1587, by detailing the guidelines for expurgation that would be introduced in the index then in preparation. However, these new guidelines would have to wait to be enforced until 1596, when Clement VIII promulgated the third universal index. The second paragraph of De correctione librorum of the Instructio that preceded the list of forbidden books in this new index furnished, in fact, a guide both for preventive censorship as well as for expurgation. Far from being limited to eradicating heresy, it condemned anything that could offend Christian morality; the reputation of the clergy, princes, or private citizens; the rites of the church; or the religious orders. The Clementine Index of 1596 took aim as well at anything 11See “Consultatio de correctione librorum prohibitorum,” compiled by Roberto Bellarmine between 1599 and 1601, in ACDF (formerly Sant’Ufficio); Index: Archivio della Congregazione dell’Indice (Index), XIX/1, fols. 6r–v, 7v; and ACDF, Index, II/21, fols. 229r–232r, memorandum probably prepared by the secretary of the Congregation. The memorandum recalls all the phases of the expurgatory policy from 1571 to the beginning of the seventeenth century. (When citing documents from this archive, the Roman numerals indicate the series, the Arabic numerals the volume).

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that might pose a challenge to ecclesiastical jurisdiction or that could support the concept of raison d’état. Any material that favored superstition, presented a commingling of the sacred with the profane, subordinated free will to fate or to fortune, or that ridiculed or contradicted sacred scripture was to be censored. In short, this Index aimed at eradicating everything that corresponded to the criteria of “an offense to the pious ears” of Catholics.12 However, these new rules had the virtue of allowing—at least in theory—the recovery of a large number of authors and of disciplining the process of expurgation. In the end, though, they wound up disproportionately increasing the number of works subjected to revision. Without a doubt, these guidelines had been prompted by political considerations. The pruning down of the list of works explicitly suspended donec corrigantur served, in fact, to facilitate the reception of the Index on the part of the civil authorities. 13 These officials had opposed the ever-increasing prohibitions applied to works that did not specifically deal with issues of faith. They did so either out of concern for the damage such a move wrought upon the publishing industry, or because this ever-widening pattern of censorship was increasingly judged as unlawful interference by the church in areas that pertained to the state. In the first paragraph of De correctione librorum, the Clementine guidelines provided for several organizational modifications. Irritated by the scarce results of Roman efforts at expurgation, in 1594 Clement VIII suggested that the work of expurgation should be decentralized, and he pressed for the completion of the Index expurgatorius, whose imminent publication had first been announced back in 1564.14 The new organization set up by the Congregation for the implementation of the Clementine Index hinged on local “congregations of the index,” placed under the supervision of the bishops, and flanked by men of learning and (where they existed) inquisitors.15 But the attempt to create a stable network of territorial offices responsible for censorship (separate and distinct from the inquisitorial courts) soon ran into serious difficulties.16 The greatest and most conspicuous of 12ILI, 9:926–27. 13See the interesting considerations of a member of the Congregation of the Index in BAV, Chigi, H.1.21, fols. 45r–50r. 14See Frajese, “La politica dell’Indice,” 348–49. 15Cf. ILI, 9:926. 16On the separation of the two bodies, see the letter from the episcopal vicar of Ravenna to Cardinal Valier, 30 October 1596: “in wishing to assemble those who have been selected for the correction of suspended books and books to be published, difficulties have arisen because the Father Vicar of the Inquisition wishes them to be congregated in San Domenico, alleging that the congregations of the Inquisition are held there. And it has not sufficed to state that this Congregation of the Index is different from that of the Holy Office and of concern to the ordinaries with the help of the Inquisitors, and not to the Inquisitors with the help of the ordinaries, and that regard should be made for the reputation of XXXXXX

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these difficulties were the lack—especially in small towns without academies or universities—of men able to undertake the expurgation of works from a variety of disciplines, the continuing absenteeism of the bishops, and the obstructionism of inquisitors. Moreover, severe problems of communication between center and periphery, and contradictory instructions from the central offices also impeded the work of the local censors. Besides organizational difficulties, the procedures imposed by the Congregation further conspired to slow down the entire process. The Instructio required that suspended writings should be corrected locally by several revisers, and that the emendations, undersigned by the revisers and approved by the ordinary and by the inquisitor, should be collected in a printed Index expurgatorius.17 The Clementine rules notwithstanding, the Congregation, mistrusting local censors, wanted to check the expurgations and authorize their use only after it had issued informal approval, and only in their area of provenance.18 The instruction that locally executed corrections should be sent to Rome had a further purpose: of collecting and collating these corrections in order to publish an expurgatory index listing suspended works that would have universal force. There is no doubt that the cardinals intended the system, despite its unwieldiness, to ensure that the revision of books be executed with the skill and meticulousness that makeshift revisers often lacked. However, these expectations do not seem to have been fulfilled. Numerous real or presumed obstacles complicated the operation, and they were particularly severe in seats that had been assigned specific categories of writings to expurgate. To obviate the bishops’ difficulties in recruiting suitable revisers, the Congregation sought to rationalize the work, dividing the texts most in demand among those dioceses endowed with universities or 17

Mons. Archbishop before whom, and in his absence before his Vicar, this Congregration should reasonably be held.” ACDF, Index, III/1, fol. 114r. On these local congregations see Fragnito, “In questo vasto mare,” 21–35. 17See De correctione librorum, par. 5, in ILI, 9:927. Moreover, there were frequent changes of mind concerning the printing of the local expurgatory indexes. See ACDF, Index, I/1, fol. 112v; III/4, fols. 27r–v, 28r; I/1, fols. 125r, 129r–v. 18The Congregation pronounced concerning the approval of expurgations on several occasions. See ACDF, Index, I/1, fol. 94v (22 November 1596), fol. 125v (13 November 1599), and fol. 184v (14 April 1606). See also the instructions on the printing (which never occurred) of the expurgatory index prepared in Naples under the guidance of Cherubino da Verona: “Nowhere should mention be made of the approval or the permission of the Roman Congregation of the Index, but it should be stressed that it was prepared on the basis of the authority bestowed on him by the [Clementine] Index.” ACDF, Index, II/21, fols. 168r–169v. See also the letter to the inquisitor of Vicenza from Rome, 8 March 1597, in which expurgation is requested “of serious and useful books [on medicine]…that are to be printed in Padua, though your corrections are to be used in the district of your jurisdiction in accordance with the Index and may not be universally applied without prior approval…by this Congregation.” ACDF, Index, V/1, fols. 51v–52r.

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academies: works on medicine and philosophy went to Padua, those on astrology to Venice, historical texts to Milan, books on dueling to Parma, Piacenza, and Cremona, texts on canon law to Bologna, those on civil law to Perugia, Italian literary works to Florence, and humanistic works to the Jesuits.19 Scholars were summoned to help in what Rome called the “honored enterprise” (honorata impresa).20 After initial and not disinterested compliance with the invitation—which authorized them to retain or to procure works that were otherwise forbidden— the revisers grew uncooperative. Their inefficiency was often attributed to the fact that they worked without pay, but it is also likely that their reluctance to “correct” the works submitted to them stemmed also from their admiration for writings that they did not wish to alter or modify in any way. The authorities circumvented the recalcitrance of the lay correctors by resorting to the secular and regular clergy. The results were certainly better, but they were still not entirely satisfactory, given that pastoral duties, preaching, and frequent transfers impeded the presence of these correctors at meetings. Nor could the inquisitors, to whom the burden now shifted, wholly devote themselves to the work, both because they were often “submerged” in preventive censorship and because they were busy with “the affairs of the Holy Office.”21 Besides the greater or lesser commitment of the revisers, there was extreme skepticism concerning the procedures adopted by the Congregation and a widespread conviction that the uniformity of corrections could only be guaranteed by the central offices, from which the imminent publication of the oft-announced expurgatory index was expected. The decision to have the same work expurgated in different places was incomprehensible to many and prompted the revisers to neglect their work.22 But most deleterious to the successful outcome of the operation was the impression among the revisers that their labor on texts for which there was no longer a market was pointless, or that the corrected works would in any case be banned by either the Index or the Inquisition.23 One should be cautious in blaming delays and failures on these difficulties alone. The real problem, besides the quantity of works that needed expurgation, lay in the quality of the corrections. The repeated criticisms made in those years of the newly published, yet inadequately emended, works must have served as a 19For an accurate description of the distribution of books to be corrected among the various institutions, see ACDF, Index, II/21, fols. 229v–231r. Significantly, the document prepared in 1601 does not mention Contarini’s writings. 20ACDF, Index, II/20, fol. 8r. 21ACDF, Index, III/2, fol. 4r; III/3, fol. 45r–v; III/5, fols. 350r–v, 423r, 449r. 22ACDF, Index, III/4, fol. 27r–v; III/5, fol. 326r; III/7, fol. 299r–v. 23For some exemplary instances see Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli, 303–33; Valente, Bodin in Italia; Fragnito, “Ecclesiastical censorship and Girolamo Savonarola”; Fragnito, “Girolamo Savonarola e la censura ecclesiastica”; and Fragnito, “Aspetti e problemi della censura espurgatoria.”

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warning to the cardinals not to rely on isolated censors.24 Such concern induced them on the one hand to switch to a system of collegial censorship and, on the other, to instruct several offices to correct the same work or the same category of works. These measures account for the rejection of overly bland or overly rigorous corrections. They also explain the rejection of corrections that had not been undersigned by at least three revisers and approved by the ordinary and the inquisitor before their submission for further scrutiny by the Roman consultors. In a period when Tridentine orthodoxy was far from digested and assimilated, and as the notion of heresy deepened through increasingly broader spheres of knowledge, obsession with the printed work and the danger of error, combined with the inquisitors’ incessant oversight and the fear of ridicule by the Protestants, seem to have afflicted the institutions of censorship to the point of paralysis.25 The scruples of the Congregation did not hamper the work of its peripheral organs alone. In the central offices, discussion on the form the expurgatory index should take obstructed the standardization of the corrections that were to comprise the work.26 With deadlock looming, in the summer of 1602 Clement VIII, with a series of harsh reprimands, forced the cardinals to shake off their lethargy.27 Only now did the Congregation take action: threatening letters and the withdrawal of reading licenses from the revisers galvanized the bishops and inquisitors.28 Rome now received a large body of corrections, which the consultors set about collating, applying the drastic criterion that they would only concern themselves with books “that may be of some utility” and that were explicitly suspended by the Index.29 In 1607, the first and last tome of the “long-desired and long-promised” expurgatory index finally appeared. Compiled by the master of the sacred palace, Giovanni Maria Guanzelli, better known as Brisighella, it contained emendations to only fifty authors.30 A few years later it was “judged worthy of suspension” by the Congregation of the Index,31 because “several passages…worthy of consider24ACDF, Index, III/3, fol. 179r–v; III/7, fols. 190r–v, 191r; V/1, fol. 161r–v. 25Cf. Bonnant, “Les Index Prohibitifs”; and Rozzo, “Pier Paolo Vergerio censore.” 26For the discussions, see ACDF, Index, I/1, fol. 107v (20 December 1597), fol. 108r–v (3 January 1598), fol. 114v (24 April 1599), fol. 135r–v (29 July 1600), fols. 136v, 137r–v (26 August 1600). 27ACDF, Index, I/1, fol. 154r–v. 28ACDF, Index, V/1, fols. 172r–176v. From 20 September 1602 onwards, reminders to send the expurgations grew increasingly peremptory. 29ACDF, Index, fol. 165v (12 June 1603), and fol. 135r–v. 30Indicis librorum expurgandorum. In the letter to the “pio ac studioso lectori,” Brisighella made no mention of the Congregation, but only of the previous masters of the sacred palace, the universities, and the learned men who had facilitated his work. 31ACDF, Index, VI/1, fol. 34r–v, letter of 27 January 1612 from Cardinal Paolo Camillo Sfondrati to the nuncio in Flanders. The nuncio was about to reprint it with the corrections sent to him from Rome. Apart from the Roman edition, only one seventeenth-century edition is known, printed in Bergamo in 1608. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, 1:549–59.

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ation” yet overlooked by Brisighella, had been detected in a book for which it furnished the emendations.32 Years of expurgatory endeavor thus came ignominiously to an end. The central apparatus had been crushed by the weight of a project for the “disinfestation” of an unmanageable quantity of books. It is not known how many suspended works reentered circulation after heavy mutilation at the hands of the censors, but there is no doubt that with respect to the boundless ambitions of the Congregation, they were signally few in number. Yet it would be a mistake to take the collapse of the censorship machine as proof that it was ineffective. Besides the enormous damage wrought upon the printing industry by the suspension of many popular works and the large-scale shift of book production to devotional and liturgical ones, the failure of Rome’s expurgatorial policy led to the definitive disappearance of an incalculable number of works and authors not only from the market but also from public and private libraries.33 This outcome, added to the express prohibitions set out by the indexes and the needless destruction caused by the inconsistent instructions issued by the central authorities, multiplied the devastating effects of ecclesiastical censorship.


Among the hundreds of works that Rome attempted to rehabilitate through the process of expurgation were those of Gasparo Contarini. Contarini’s Opera was published in Paris in 1571 by his nephew Alvise Contarini, who was at the time Venetian ambassador at the French court.34 The news of this publication reached Rome rapidly and raised great alarm, notwithstanding its approval by the Faculty of Theology in Paris. The reaction of the Inquisition was almost immediate. On 16 February 1572, Cardinal Scipione Rebiba, a member of the Roman Congregation, ordered local inquisitors to forbid booksellers from selling copies of the Paris edition. As he pointed out: “the works … having been written before the decisions of the Council of Trent, might need to be diligently revised and corrected.”35 Following the cardinal’s instructions, concrete measures were taken to 32 ACDF, Index, I/2, fol. 36r–v (24 January 1612). These were the “loca delenda in Historiis Alberti Krantzi” in Indicis librorum expurgandorum, 2–12. 33Grendler, Roman Inquisition, 128–34; Quondam, “ ‘Mercanzia d’onore’/‘Mercanzia d’utile’ ”; and Rozzo, Linee per una storia, 69–119. 34Contareni, Opera cum testimoniis doctorum theologicae facultatis Parisiensis. 35“In Francia si sono stampate, per quanto s’intende, l’opere del Rev.mo Contareno, che essendo state da lui composte inanzi la determinatione del Concilio di Trento, dubitamo non habbino di bisogno di una diligente revisione et di correttione. Vi si è voluto avisare acciò, capitandone in mano di cotesti librari, non le lassate vendere fin che non siano ben reviste.” Quoted in Rotondò, “Nuovi documenti,” 151. Although the extant letter is addressed to the inquisitor of Bologna, there is no doubt that XXXXX

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ensure that the Paris edition would not circulate. While the newly created Congregation of the Index attended to the preparation of the third Roman Index, the master of the sacred palace and the Congregation of the Inquisition periodically drew up and distributed within and outside Rome ever longer and more confused lists of prohibitions and suspensions together with injunctions that reflected the diverse and, at times, contradictory positions taken up by the central authorities. The presence of Contarini’s works on these lists testifies to this confusion. In the lists elaborated in Rome between 1574 and 1580—some of which included so many authors and titles that they hardly differed from universal indexes—Contarini’s name was invariably included. In some of these documents, all his works were prohibited pending expurgation, and were forbidden to be sold by booksellers without a license or prohibited from being sold or read at all. In others, only his De sacramentis and De justificatione were mentioned, though always with the clause donec expurgentur.36 It is difficult, however, to demonstrate that these measures gave rise to effective censorship. Given the ineffectual organization of the Holy Office, especially in its branches outside Rome until the late 1580s, it is unlikely that the inquisitors managed to enforce these provisions, except on booksellers.37 Moreover the Roman directives, which were often at 36

similar instructions were sent out to all inquisitors. 36All his writings appeared in a list drawn up by Paolo Costabili, master of the sacred palace, in May 1574. Addressed to booksellers, it forbade them to buy a number of books or to sell them without a license. But in a longer list [ex Vercelli] addressed to ecclesiastics and laymen only, De sacramentis and De justificatione were mentioned as suspended donec expurgentur. In a new list distributed by Rome on 15 August 1577, Contarini’s Opera were prohibited. ILI, 9:746–78. But, see also ILI, 10:825– 26. According to De Bujanda, the circa 1580 list sent from Turin to Asti (ILI, 9:758–69) is substantially a copy of Giovanni di Dio’s Index of 1576 (ACDF, Index, XIV, on which, see ILI, 10:825–26), but with the suppression of the distinction in three categories: pars prima, “dei libri reprobati che in nesun modo possono vendersi”; pars secunda, “dei libri sospesi che non si possono vendere si prima non sono corretti”; pars tertia, “dei libri sospetti che non si posono vendere senza licenza.” A distinction should be made between lists addressed to booksellers and lists addressed to readers, since the adaptation of lists originally drawn up for booksellers to general readers caused unmitigated confusion. In a number of lists sent out a few years later in 1580, Contarini’s position was contradictory. Two of them registered only De sacramentis and De justificatione as suspended donec expurgentur; the so-called Parma Index, which listed prohibited and suspended books without specifying which of them were suspended and which prohibited, listed all of Contarini’s work. A list addressed to Roman booksellers forbade them to sell Contarini’s Opera without the permission of the master of the sacred palace, while another list included all of Contarini’s writings among those that should be expurgated and were not to be permitted unless corrected. As regards De sacramentis, it is possible that the censors referred to the 1533 Florentine edition. Contarini’s De justificatione was not in print at the time, and why it was included in this round of censorship is unclear. This treatise was published in Gegenreformatorische Schriften, ed. Hünermann. An undated list “published” by the inquisitor of Asti, Girolamo Carati, on 13 February 1576, registers “G. Contarini, cioè tutte l’opere suspette.” Scriniolum Sanctae Inquisitionis Astensis, 89. 37Romeo, “Note sull’Inquisizione romana”; and Fragnito, “L’applicazione dell’Indice,” 107–25. In XXXXX

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variance with the Tridentine Index then in force and couched in obscure language, provided the censors with margins of discretion within which, according to their convictions, they could act with greater or lesser rigor. At the same time, instructions from Rome also contained loopholes that those subjected to censorship often exploited. This helps to explain why one very seldom finds writings of Contarini listed among confiscated books. But Cardinal Rebiba’s instructions were also responsible for the long and aimless peregrinations of Contarini’s writings through the local and central organs of censorship that resulted in the ultimate failure to produce an expurgated edition approved by Rome. To be sure, a new edition of his Opera had been published in Venice by Aldo Manuzio the younger in 1578 and its contents had been expurgated and approved by the Venetian inquisitor, Marco Medici.38 But the inclusion of the cardinal’s Opera in the so-called Index of Parma of 1580 proved that Rome was unaware of the emended Venetian edition of 1578 or that it considered this emended version below the standards required. Certainly Marco Medici was not the first to have revised Contarini’s writings. Collation of extant manuscript copies of De officio episcopi with the 1571 edition shows that, in the latter printing, Contarini’s writings had been manipulated to such an extent that his thought on the most important religious issues of the time had been totally altered.39 Even though responsibility for the revision officially rested with the Faculty of Theology of Paris, family and friends were closely involved. Indeed, the project of a posthumous edition resulted from the combined efforts of the family and of the heirs to the spirituali to erect a monument to Contarini’s orthodoxy. The initiative aimed, on the one hand, to restore the cardinal’s reputation by presenting him as a champion of the Catholic faith against his detractors. On the other hand, this undertaking also aimed at protecting the surviving spirituali, who recognized Contarini as their leader, from protracted attacks on their doctrinal positions. This they achieved by removing what they considered to be all traces of doctrinal ambiguity and by tempering his denunciations of the corruption and decline of ecclesiastical institutions.40 Their expurgatory exercise was met with the disapproval of the Roman Inquisition in 1572, but it was no more favorably received years later by the Congregation of the Index. On 26 November 1587, Contarini’s writings were among 38

Lat. 7129, fol. 40r, there are listed thirty-nine copies of Contarini’s Italian version of De republica et magistratibus, but no copy of his Opera. For a careful and intelligent analysis of this inventory see Russo, “Il mercato dei classici.” 38See Contarini in Gegenreformatorische Schriften. The unsold copies of this second edition were put again on the market in 1589 by Damianum Zenarium with a new frontispiece. 39Fragnito, “Cultura umanistica e riforma religiosa.” 40Fragnito, “Aspetti della censura ecclesiastica.”

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those of several authors handed over for expurgation to Cardinal Costanzo Boccafuoco.41 No further mention of this enterprise is made until 26 September 1592, when five consultors were entrusted by Cardinal Agostino Valier, prefect of the Congregation, with the correction of Contarini’s Opera, which had been listed among the “more useful and necessary books.”42 Their task consisted in checking the quality of the corrections that had already been made in Rome, and their work is probably represented by the two sets of expurgations, undated and unsigned, conserved in the Protocolli series.43 It is not possible to determine when these were completed, but since the correctors were working on the edition of 1571, presumably the 1578 edition had not yet appeared, but one cannot exclude the possibility that Rome was not yet cognizant of the existence of this second revised and corrected edition. A few months later, in February 1593, a new selection was made of the most important books that had been corrected either in Rome or in Naples, or which figured on the index expurgatorius of either Spain, Portugal, or Louvain, and it was ordered that the corrections should be collated and approved.44 This decision was followed by discussions on which books were to be given precedence. Once again, Contarini’s Opera were included on the short list, and the corrections were submitted to Cardinal Agostino Valier for his control and approval.45 It is most 41ACDF, Index, I/1, fols. 28v–29r (26 September 1592). The other works were those by Nicolas of Cusa and Cardinal Tommaso de Vio (Caietanus). An undated memorandum addressed to the Holy Office by the booksellers of Bologna demonstrates that there was a demand for Contarini’s writings, which were listed as “Gasparis Contareni: Le opere buone,” among the books for which they asked to have the expurgations. The document is conserved in BAV, Vat. Lat. 6417/II, fol. 365r–v, among the letters addressed in 1576 to Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto, prefect of the Congregation of the Index, and is a reply to the list with 344 prohibited titles sent to Bologna that year. See Prodi, Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti, 2:240–41. Damiano da Cento, socius of the master of the sacred palace, wrote to the inquisitor of Bologna on 17 July 1576, asking him to inform the booksellers that “they should not expect any correction, since the Cardinals of the Index refuse to send them around, lest they should reveal errors to those who are not aware of them.” The text of da Cento’s letter can be found in Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna, Ms. B. 1860, n. CCVIII. 42Undated and unsigned advice of one of the consultors in ACDF, Index, II/2, fols. 201r, 251r–v. On the Congregation’s decision, see ACDF, Index, I/1, fols. 53r–55v, quote at 54r. On that occasion, the consultors had been divided into eleven classes, each of which had to correct an author or single writing. Contarini’s works were attributed to the fifth class, whose members were the procurator of the Hieronymite Order, the procurator of the order of Saint Bernard, Joannes and Ferdinad Hozes, and Eduardus carthusian. “Huius classis erit Cardinalis Contareni opera expurgare cuius extat censura Romana.” 43 ACDF, Index, II/4, fols. 4r–6r, 16r–24r. Recently these censurae have been examined by Arnold, “Die postume Expurgation,” 295–98. More interested in shedding light on the theological positions of Contarini’s censors, Arnold does not trace the various, though unsuccessful, Roman attempts at producing an expurgated edition. 44ACDF, Index, I/1, fols. 63r–v. 45ACDF, Index, I/1, fols. 63v–64v, esp. fol. 64r (6 March 1593). A list had been prepared by the Secretary of the Congregation of the authors and the writings that had already been expurgated either XXXXX

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likely that Valier, for whom Contarini had been and continued to be a model of scholarship and Christian piety46 and who recommended “care when censoring that the least amount necessary is removed in order not to interrupt the sense, sometimes varying the words so that they are proportionate and reasonable,” wanted to spare Contarini’s writings from too devastating excisions.47 The expurgatory activity of the Congregation was, however, curbed by the conflict that exploded between Clement VIII and the cardinals in the summer of 1593 on account of the so-called Sixto-Clementine Index, and it was not resumed until the following summer.48 Its pace was accelerated by the fierce admonishments of the pope, who argued that “scholars throughout the world will protest greatly if after thirty years no expurgatory index is published.”49 It was only then that the Congregation took action and set about completing the collation of the diverse expurgations in view of the publication of the Roman Index expurgatorius. And only then did the Congregation realize that the corrections were useless in the absence of printed copies of the works to which they referred. The Congregation requested financial support from Clement VIII to purchase the necessary books.50 Thus, on 7 August 1594, Cardinal Marcantonio Colonna authorized the secretary of the Congregation, Paolo Pico, to buy books for a total sum of 70.70 scudi; Contarini’s Opera were among them, at a price of 2.50 scudi.51 After that date, no further mention of Contarini is to be found in the minutes of the Congregation. Moreover, no new expurgated edition ever appeared, nor did the Index expurgatorius, prepared by Brisighella and published in 1607, contain a list of corrections to his writings.52 46

in Rome, or elsewhere. Contarini’s writings figure on the list with the annotation “Romana.” For the list, see ACDF, Index, II/16, fols. 7r–10r. 46See Rossi, “Agostino Valier.” 47ACDF, Index, V/1, fol. 132v, Cardinal Valier to the inquisitor of Ferrara, 10 October 1600. 48Frajese, “La politica dell’Indice,” 324–33. 49Frajese, “La politica dell’Indice,” 347: Oppositiones a S.D.N. per Illustrissimum dominum Silvium Antonianum transmissae contra Indicem, February 1594. 50“Decretum quod Ill.mus Card. Columna alloquatur Sanctissimum ut assignet aliquam provisionem pecuniarum pro necessariis ad expurgationem librorum comparandis et libris emendis et scriptoribus salariandis et consultoribus et censoribus praemiandis quae omnia in sequenti Congregatione relata mature determinanda sunt.” ACDF, Index, I/1, fols. 74r–75r, meeting of the Congregation of the Index of 11 June 1594. 51“Nota delli libri che si comprano per ordine della sacra Congregatione del Indice dal R.P. M.ro f. Pavolo Picho segretario della Congregatione et sig. Luca Valeri deputato a questo officio dal Ill.mo Cardinale Colonna, capo di detta Congregatione, valutato al sotto scritto prezzo dal sig.r Gio. Paolo Pennarossa et Sig. Prospero Podiano, nella libraria del m.co Giorgio Ferrari, quali libri devano servire per l’espurgatione da farsi dalla Congregatione per ordine di N. S.” ACDF, Index, I/3, fols. 8r–9r. At the end of this note, there is a formal request to the general treasurer signed by Cardinal Marcantonio Colonna on 7 August 1594, to give Paolo Pico the sum of 70.70 scudi for the purchase of the books listed. Another copy of this note can be found in ACDF, Index, II/14, fol. 101r. 52It is worth noting, however, that Antonio Possevino, in his 1606 Apparatus sacer ad scriptores XXXXX

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The fate suffered by Contarini’s writings was far from unique. Despite years of exhausting labor, an incalculable number of suspended works from the early seventeenth century on were destined to be forgotten. It would be simplistic, however, to interpret Contarini’s fate only in the light of the shortcomings of the institutional history of the Inquisition. The attention devoted by the Congregation of the Index to his writings suggests that his case was thought to require special attention and could not be left to local censors. Given that his writings had often been listed among the most important, most requested, and most useful books, it is hardly possible that their exclusion from the Index expurgatorius was haphazard. In a period when Rome was steadfastly reconquering territories gone over to the Reformation, the name of Contarini alone would evoke “that heretical spirit that sought an accord between Catholics and heretics” and the “mediators of concord” would be deemed worse and more dangerous than “manifest heretics.”53 Finally, as tensions were mounting that would lead to the Thirty Years’ War, such conciliatory attitudes and irenic aspirations seemed increasingly out of tune.

53

veteris, et novi Testamenti (529), includes some of Contarini’s works among those he recommends to the Catholic reader, even though his writings had not been republished in a revised edition. On the other hand, “Gaspari Contareni opus de Sacramentis et iustificatione” are still recorded in the 1620 Syllabus seu Collectio Librorum prohibitorum, et suspensorum, 20. 53Zaccaria Delfino, recalling Contarini’s role at Regensburg, in a memorandum for cardinal Carlo Carafa, dated January 1559. The text can be found in Müller, Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, 17:390–91.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ACDF ARSI BAV BCAB

Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Vatican City Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna

Printed Primary Sources Contarini, Gasparo. “De justificatione.” In Gegenreformatorische Schriften (1530 c.–1542), edited by Friedrich Hünermann, 23–34. Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorffische, 1923. ———. Opera cum testimoniis doctorum theologicae facultatis Parisiensis quibus haec a se probari et christiana veritate nihil discrepare asseverant. Paris: Sebastianus Nivellius, 1571. Index des livres interdits. Edited by Jésus Martinez de Bujanda. 10 vols. Geneva: Droz, 1984–1996. Indicis librorum expurgandorum in studiosorum gratiam confecti. Tomus primus, In quo quinquaginta auctorum libri prae coeteris desiderati emendantur per Fr. Jo. Mariam Brasichellen. Sacri Palatii Apostolici Magistrum in unum corpus redactus et publicae commoditati aeditus. Rome: Typografia R. Cam. Apost., 1607. Müller, Gerhard, ed. Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, Erste Abteilung, 1553–1559. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1981. Possevino, Antonio. Apparatus sacer ad scriptores veteris, et novi Testamenti. Venice: Apud Societam Venetam, 1606. Reusch, Franz Heinrich, ed. Der Index der verbotenen Bücher. 2 vols. Bonn: Cohen & Son, 1883. Scriniolum Sanctae Inquisitionis Astensis in quo quaecumque ad id muneris obeundum spectare visa sunt, videlicet Librorum Prohibitorum Indicis. Astae: Virgilius de Zangrandis, 1610.

Secondary Sources Arnold, Claus. “Die postume Expurgation der Werke Cajetanus und Contarinis und das Theologische Profil der Römischen Kongregationen von Index und Inquisition (1571–1600).” In Inquisition, Index, Zensur. Wissenskulturen der Neuzeit im Widerstreit, edited by Hubert Wolf, 293–304. Munich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2001. Bonnant, Georges. “Les Index Prohibitifs et Expurgatoires Contrefaits par des Protestants au XVIe et XVIIe siècle.” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 31 (1969): 611–40. Dall’Olio, Guido. Eretici e Inquisitori nella Bologna del Cinquecento. Bologna: Istituto per la Storia di Bologna, 1999. Fabre, Pierre-Antoine. “Dépouilles d’Egypte: L’expurgation des auteurs latins dans les collèges jésuites.” In Les Jésuites à la Renaissance. Système éducatif et production du savoir, edited by Luce Giard, 55–76. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995. Fragnito, Gigliola. “L’applicazione dell’Indice dei libri proibiti di Clemente VIII.” Archivio Storico Italiano 159 (2001): 107–49.

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———. “Aspetti della censura ecclesiastica nell’Europa della Controriforma: L’edizione parigina delle opere di Gasparo Contarini.” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 21 (1985): 3–48. ———. “Aspetti e problemi della censura espurgatoria.” In L’inquisizione e gli storici: Un cantiere aperto: Tavola rotonda nell'ambito della Conferenza annuale della ricerca: Roma, 24–25 giugno 1999, 161–78. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2000. ———. La Bibbia al rogo: La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1471– 1605). Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997. ———. Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ———. “Cultura umanistica e riforma religiosa: Il ‘De officio viri boni ac probi episcopi’ di Gasparo Contarini.” Studi veneziani 11 (1969): 75–189. ———. “Ecclesiastical censorship and Girolamo Savonarola.” In The World of Savonarola: Italian Elites and Perceptions of Crisis, edited by Stella Fletcher and Christine Shaw, 90–111. Burlington: Ashgate, 2000. ———. “Girolamo Savonarola e la censura ecclesiastica.” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 35 (1999): 501–29. ———. “‘In questo vasto mare dei libri prohibiti et sospesi tra tanti scogli di varietà et controversie’: La censura ecclesiastica tra la fine del Cinquecento e i primi del Seicento.” In Censura ecclesiastica e cultura politica in Italia tra Cinquecento e Seicento, edited by Cristina Stango, 1–35. Florence: Olschki, 2001. Frajese, Vittorio. “La politica dell’Indice dal tridentino al clementino (1571–1596).” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 11 (1998): 269–356. Godman, Peter. From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Grendler, Paul F. The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press 1540–1605. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. Infelise, Mario. I libri proibiti: Da Gutenberg all'Encyclopédie. Rome: Laterza, 1999. Prodi, Paolo. Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti (1522–1597). 2 vols. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1959–67. Quondam, Amedeo. “‘Mercanzia d’onore’/‘Mercanzia d’utile’: Produzione libraria e lavoro intellettuale a Venezia nel Cinquecento.” In Libri, editori e pubblico nell’Europa Moderna: Guida storica e critica, edited by Armando Petrucci, 51–104. Rome: Laterza, 1989. Romeo, Giovanni. “Note sull’Inquisizione romana tra il 1557 e il 1561.” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 36 (2000):115–41. Rossi, Maria. “Agostino Valier, vescovo e cardinale di Verona (1531–1605).” Tesi di laurea, University of Parma, 2000. Rotondò, Antonio. “La censura ecclesiastica e la cultura.” In Storia d’Italia. Vol. 5, pt. 2, I documenti, 1397–1492. Turin: Einaudi, 1973. ———. “Nuovi documenti per la storia dell’ ‘Indice dei libri proibiti’ (1572–1638).” Rinascimento 3 (1963): 145–211. Rozzo, Ugo. “L’espurgazione dei testi letterari nell’Italia del secondo Cinquecento.” In La censura libraria nell’Europa del secolo XVI: Convegno internazionale di studi Cividale del Friuli, 9–10 novembre 1995, edited by Ugo Rozzo, 219–71. Udine: Forum, 1997. ———. Linee per una storia dell’editoria religiosa in Italia (1475–1600). Udine: Arti Grafiche Friulane, 1993.

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———. “Pier Paolo Vergerio censore degli Indici dei libri proibiti.” In Pier Paolo Vergerio il Giovane, un polemista attraverso l’Europa del Cinquecento, edited by Ugo Rozzo, 143– 77. Udine: Forum, 2000. Russo, Emilio. “Il mercato dei classici: La letteratura italiana nella bottega di Aldo Manuzio il giovane.” Nuovi Annali della Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari 14 (2001): 21–53. Scaduto, Mario. L’epoca di Giacomo Lainez, il governo 1556–1565. Rome: La civiltà cattolica, 1974. Stango, Cristina, ed. Censura ecclesiastica e cultura politica in Italia tra Cinquecento e Seicento. Florence: Olschki, 2001. Valente, Micaela. Bodin in Italia: ‘La Démonomanie des sorciers’ e le vicende della sua traduzione. Florence: Centro editoriale toscano, 1999. Wolf, Hubert, ed. Inquisition, Index, Zensur: Wissenskulturen der Neuzeit im Widerstreit. Munich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2001.

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Chapter 11

THE HERESY OF A VENETIAN PRELATE Archbishop Filippo Mocenigo Elena Bonora

ITALIAN BISHOPS OF THE SECOND HALF of the sixteenth century have long been studied in relation to how they implemented the decrees of the Council of Trent in their dioceses. Beginning in the 1950s, several studies were published in Italy focusing on the reforming efforts of individual bishops, studies that above all attended to the social implications of pastoral action. Often, this focus on Tridentine decrees and local history obscured the relationships between the local church and Rome, to which local ecclesiastical officials and concerns had to answer. The studies of Giuseppe Alberigo and Paolo Prodi shed more light on the relationship between the bishop and the central authorities. They showed how soon after the close of the Council of Trent multiple problems emerged from the new encounters between reform-minded bishops on the one hand and a centralized papacy on the other. Crucial conflicts developed over the regulation of worship and devotion, the management of financial and human resources, and the control of opinions in the local church. The question of how to interpret the Tridentine decrees was at the center of these conflicts and tensions. Established as a special body in 1564, the Cardinals of the Congregation of the Council eventually wrestled from the bishops the ability to interpret the decrees and monopolized that function for themselves.1 This interest in the tension between bishops and central authorities has continued with recent scholarly attention given not only to the heretics prosecuted by the Inquisition, but also to the Inquisition as an institution. In these studies, the 1See in particular Alberigo, “L’episcopato nel cattolicesimo post-tridentino”; Prodi, Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti; and Prodi, Una storia della giustizia, 278–83.

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problem of the conflict of competency between bishops and inquisitors has been rearticulated in terms of an encounter between two diverse models for the control of the faithful, the one as pastoral, the other as more intrusive and repressive.2 In 1998, the opening of the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to scholars created an important shift in interest and perspective, and further illuminated the tension and conflict that beset the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy.3 Given the lack of materials in the archive of the Holy Office, this new perspective has come about primarily in studies of censorship based on research done in the archive of the Congregation of the Index. Among the most important findings of these studies has been the discovery of the conflicting positions and disagreements that divided the leadership of the church—the pope, the Congregation of the Index, and the Congregation of the Inquisition—concerning the elaboration and application of the Clementine Index of 1596.4 The political-religious conflicts that emerged from the redefinition of what should be written and read— and by whom—held the greatest significance for the future of all Italian culture.5 Beyond the problem of censorship, these conflicts bear light on the internal divisions that rent the church of the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent. From this perspective, it seems worthwhile to investigate the relationships between the bishops and inquisitors, focusing not on the conflicting roles that arose at the heart of the general effort to control the faithful, but rather on the specific political and religious problem of the heresy of bishops.6 Who should judge a bishop? Who should determine the true faith? The work of Massimo Firpo, especially his editions of the inquisitorial trials of Cardinal Morone, the apostolic protonotary Pietro Carnesecchi, and the bishop of Bergamo, Vittore Soranzo, has brought to light the enormous political and religious implications of these questions.7 These studies have revealed the existence of a religious dissent that reached the highest levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and 2According to this interpretation, by the end of the sixteenth century, these two lines of intervention mixed and blended together. The Inquisition in particular developed a more moderate line of interrogation that has been called an “inquisitional pedagogy.” See Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza. 3See L’apertura degli archivi del Sant’Uffizio Romano; and L’Inquisizione e gli storici. 4Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo; Frajese, “La politica dell’Indice dal tridentino al clementino”; Fragnito, “L’applicazione dell’Indice”; Fragnito, “‘In questo vasto mare dei libri prohibiti et sospesi’”; Fragnito, “Diplomazia pontificia e censura ecclesiastica”; and Fragnito, “La censure des livres entre évêques et inquisiteurs.” 5For the repercussions of this censorship on Italian culture see Fragnito, Church, Censorship and Culture; and Fragnito, Proibito capire. 6On the inquisitorial proceedings against a few French bishops charged with heresy under Pio IV, see Bonora, “Inquisition romaine et évêques français,” 325–35. 7Firpo and Marcatto, Il processo inquisitoriale del Morone; Firpo and Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi; and Firpo and Pagano, I processi inquisitoriali di Vittore Soranzo. See also Firpo, Inquisizione romana e controriforma.

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was able to formulate alternative political proposals to the intransigent position of the Inquisition. These spiritual experiences stemming from the doctrines and the teaching of the Spanish Juan de Valdés have been reconstructed as a network of relationships, exchanges of ideas, and complicity that extended throughout the entire peninsula.8 By the 1570s and 1580s, however, religious dissent in Italy was defeated, deprived of leadership, organizational structure, and political protection. It had become incapable of proposing valid political alternatives. What then is the problem presented by the heresy of post-Tridentine bishops? At the center is a generation of churchmen who participated at the Council, drawing from it a heady awareness of their own role within the ecclesiastical ranks. These men formed their ideas in the 1530s and 1540s, before the campaign of censorship spread from religious works to Italian literature, including ultimately, political, judicial, and philosophical writings. As it spread, this campaign of censorship established new boundaries between what one could or could not write, articulated in a different way the relationship between the vernacular and Latin, and reconfigured the limits of learned discussions. The pontificate of Gregory XIII (1572–85) was crucial in defining the historical developments that found many of these prelates unprepared for this change in the cultural climate. After the clamorous absolution by Pius IV (1559–65) of many among the cardinals and bishops tried by his predecessor Pope Paul IV (1555–59) and the consequent discrediting of the Inquisition,9 the elevation to the pontifical throne of the Grand Inquisitor Fra Michele Ghislieri in 1566 as Pius V (1566–72) and the refurbishing of the Holy Office with formidable juridical powers, made possible the revival in grand style of a repressive action agreed upon between the Inquisition and papacy.10 The successor of Pius V, Gregory XIII Boncompagni, was not a friar who had spent his career as an inquisitor, but rather a canon lawyer who did not have a good opinion of the friars, and would have preferred to see fewer of them in the College of Cardinals.11 But it is precisely the gap between the identity of the pope and that of inquisitor that makes it possible to evaluate the strengthening of the authority of the Holy Office.12 In this setting, how an accusation of heresy came 8Firpo, Tra alumbrados e ‘spirituali’; Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano; and Firpo, Dal sacco di Roma all’inquisizione. On the diffusion of Valdesian teachings at the Medici court, see Firpo, Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo. 9Alberto, Paolo IV Carafa. 10On the inquisitorial repression under Pius V see Pagano, Il processo di Endimio Calandra. For the developments in the 1570s that strengthened the organization of the Inquisition in the Italian peninsula, see Romeo, “Note sull’Inquisizione romana.” On the conflicting relationship between Pius IV and the grand inquisitor Michele Ghislieri (the eventual Pope Pius V), see Bonora, “Inquisizione e papato.” 11Pastor, Storia dei papi, 9:905. 12Such a gap was filled after the death of Gregory XIII by the election of another ex-friar inquisitor, the Franciscan Felice Peretti da Montalto, who took the name Sixtus V.

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to be handled between the papacy and Inquisition offers crucial evidence for evaluating the effective articulation of power at the highest levels of the church. The Tridentine Council had decreed that in the most serious cases against bishops, including those of heresy, final sentencing should be reserved for the pope.13 The vicissitudes of Filippo Mocenigo (1524–86), archbishop of Cyprus, demonstrate in the first place that the problem of who should judge accused bishops was essentially a political rather than a juridical issue and hence was not resolved once and for all by the decrees of the Council. In the second place, this case allows insight into the intellectual and religious crises endured during the pontificate of Gregory XIII by that generation of Tridentine bishops to which Mocenigo belonged. Filippo Mocenigo was born into an ancient and prestigious Venetian patrician family.14 Although he had begun a diplomatic career, in 1560 as he prepared to leave Venice to serve as ambassador to the duchy of Savoy, his cousin Alvise, then the Venetian ambassador in Rome, secured for him an appointment as the archbishop of Nicosia on the island of Cyprus, a distant Venetian possession that served as a crossroads between Venice, Constantinople, and the Holy Lands.15 He departed immediately to fulfill the residency requirement proclaimed by Pius IV. However, when the Council of Trent reopened two years later, Mocenigo left Cyprus and undertook the long overland trip from Constantinople back to Venice and from there on to Trent. Arriving at the Council in September 1562, he remained in Trent until the work of the assembly was finished. 16 In 1564, Mocenigo again returned to his diocese where he remained for nearly four years. All the sources dealing with the archbishop of Cyprus portray him in the positive image of a reforming bishop, all the more significant after decades of

13Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. Alberigo, session 24, canon 5, 739–40. 14For the genealogy of the Mocenigo family, see ASVe, Miscellanea codici, serie I, Storia veneta: Marco Barbaro, Arbori de’ patritii veneti, vol. 5, fols. 187, 193; and Litta, Famiglie celebri italiane. For the economic situation of Filippo and his family, see ASVe, Savi sopra le decime, busta 158, nos. 939, 948, 957. See also ASVe, Notarile, Testamenti, busta 1260, n. 792, will of Paola Mocenigo, the sister of Filippo, 2 April 1570; and ASVe, Notarile, Testamenti, busta 57, n. 500, will of Piero Mocenigo, nephew of Filippo, 11 May 1619. 15A reconstruction of the political career of Filippo Mocenigo can be drawn from information found in BNM, Mss. It. Cl. VII, Cod. 824 (=8903), Consegi dal 1551 al 1553, and Mss. It. Cl. VII, Cod. 824 (=8904), Consegi dal 1556 al 1560. For Mocenigo’s nomination as archbishop of Nicosia in 1560, see ASVa, Archivio Concistoriale, Acta Camerari 9, fol. 16v; and BNM, Mss. It. Cl. VII, Cod. 824 (=8904), Consegi dal 1556 al 1560, fol. 302v. Mocenigo’s nomination was presented in the consistory by the pope himself. He received the episcopal pallio on 26 April 1560. ASVa, Archivio Concistoriale, Acta Camerari 10, fol. 46r. 16Leaving Venice on 10 August 1560, Mocenigo arrived on Cyprus on 5 September and made his entrance into Nicosia on 17 September. He left the island a year later and finally arrived at Trent on 9 September 1562.

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episcopal absenteeism on the island. 17 As the Latin archbishop, Mocenigo attempted to implement the Tridentine decrees in a heterogeneous religious setting in which different religious rites, devotional practices, and ecclesiastical disciplines flourished among Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Maronites, Jacobites, and Nestorians. In particular, the Greek clergy hindered his efforts at Latin reform and in 1568 the archbishop was forced to return to his homeland to justify himself before the Signoria for having upset the delicate equilibrium that the Republic of Venice sought to maintain among its Levantine subjects.18 Shortly after Mocenigo left the island, the Turks conquered it and killed or forced into slavery the greater part of the clergy. By that time, Mocenigo was safe in the Veneto, even if he faced serious economic difficulties after losing his primary source of income.19 In Venice, however, Mocenigo was not known as a reforming bishop. Rather, his renown there came as a philosopher.20 He gained further fame in Venice as the learned and proud interlocutor in the Della perfettione della vita politica, the celebrated dialogue of Paolo Paruta, in which the author represented a conversation held at Trent in 1563 while the Council was still in session, featuring a discussion between Venetian patricians and bishops of the Serenissima.21 In the dialogue, published in 1579, the archbishop of Cyprus figured as the most fierce advocate of the value of philosophical knowledge: “Philosophers,” he opined, “are the most excellent and most perfect among all men, thus they alone are true men.”22 A prelate of such birth and fame was normally destined to rise high in a curial career. In fact, in 1573 Mocenigo, a cousin of the reigning doge, was nominated by the Republic as a candidate to succeed the patriarch of Aquileia, one of

17For a Jesuit perspective on the archbishop of Cyprus, see Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Litterae Quadrimestres, 6:920. For a Dominican appraisal of the archbishop, see Lusignano, Chorograffia et breve historia universale, 108. See also Mas-Latrie, “Histoire des Archevêques Latins,” 325–28. 18BCC, Cod. Cicogna 1089/XIII, Ragionamento fatto al ser.mo principe Loredano dal rev. mons. Filippo Mocenigo arcivescovo di Cipro in sua giustificazione, fols. 102r–109r. For the reaction of the Venetian civil authorities, see ASVe, Consiglio dei Dieci, Secreti, registro 8, fols. 89v, 107r–108v, 124r; and ASVe, Capi del consiglio dei Dieci, Lettere degli ambasciatori, Roma, busta 25, n. 55. For the reaction in Rome, see Nunziature di Venezia, 8:340, 344, 345, 355. For the Holy See’s attitude toward the Greeks, see Peri, Chiesa romana e “rito Greco”; and Peri, “L’ ‘incredibile risguardo’ e l’ ‘incredibile destrezza.’ ” 19 The economic difficulties of Filippo Mocenigo can be drawn from the quarrel he had with his brother Marc’Antonio in 1572–73. See ASVe, Cancelleria Inferiore , Miscellanea notai diversi, busta 129. 20In his dedication to Pope Gregory XIII of his 1581 Universales institutiones, Mocenigo mentions his frequent visits to Padua, citing the names of his teachers and friends there. He had taken with him to Cyprus and then on to Padua the philosopher Francesco Patrizi da Cherso. See Vasoli, Francesco Patrizi da Cherso. 21Paruta, Della perfettione. Citations are from the edition of Della perfettione in Paruta, Opere politiche, ed. Monzani, 1:33–405. On this treatise, see Cozzi, “La società veneziana,” 155–83. 22Paruta, Della perfettione, 1:310.

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the most prestigious ecclesiastical appointments in the Veneto.23 However, when the ambassador at the papal court presented the archbishop of Cyprus as the candidate of the Republic and as the next patriarch, the Holy Office unexpectedly produced an inquisitorial dossier on Mocenigo whose existence not even he had suspected.24 This dossier contained an accusation of heresy against the archbishop made twelve years earlier by a Dominican friar of Venetian origins, Fra Antonio, who was commissar of the Inquisition at Pera, and vicar of the Latin patriarch of Constantinople. In 1561, Fra Antonio had traveled the long overland journey from Constantinople to Venice in the company of the archbishop who was on his way to the Council of Trent. Fra Antonio was not the usual overzealous inquisitor. The correspondence in these years between him and the central office of the Inquisition reveals him as capable of moving with dexterity and prudence in the complex world of the eastern Mediterranean, between the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome and the justice of Turkish pasha and qadi, while deprived of the help of the secular arm of any Catholic prince. He found himself busy with the continuous quarrels between the ambassadors of the European states, and engaged in an arduous effort to execute the summons of the Inquisition promulgated against apostate friars and heretics who were disposed to save themselves by converting to Islam, or by embarking upon the first ship to find refuge among the Jews of Salonika.25 The deposition of Fra Antonio made on 9 May 1562 accused Mocenigo of keeping in his possession a copy of Ptolemy’s Geografia in Giacomo Gastaldi’s 1547 Venetian edition—despite the urgings of the friar to burn it. This Italian edition contained geographical maps and a commentary produced by the heretic Sebastian Münster, and had been placed on the Index of Paul IV in 1559 and again on the Tridentine Index of 1564.26 More serious was the accusation that the archbishop had made suspect propositions on the nature of faith and on justification by faith, formulated in the course of learned conversations held when they 23On the right of the Republic of Venice to advance nominations for the patriarchy of Aquileia, see Paschini, “La nomina del patriarca di Aquileia.” 24Mocenigo’s candidacy as prelate and the accusation of heresy leveled against him by the Holy Office were reported with great accuracy by Paolo Tiepolo, the Venetian ambassador to Rome. ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 284r–333v. See also the inquisitorial process of 1583 against Mocenigo, found in the Archivio della Congregazione del Santo’Ufficio, now located in the ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Censurae librorum 1570–1606 (Processo Mocenigo), fols. 47r–191v. 25The letters of Fra Antonio to the Holy Office are found in ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Stanza Storica, Q, 3b, Lettere di vescovi dalla Dalmazia 1557–1629. 26ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 49r–50v; and ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 311v–313v. Fra Antonio was referring to the 1547 Geografia di Claudio Ptolomeo alessandrino con alcuni comenti et aggiunte fattevi da Sebastiano Munstero alamanno…. For the citation of Münster’s edition in the indices, see Index des livres interdits, ed. Bujanda, 8:486–87. On the encyclopedic work of Münster, see Cochetti, Bibliografia e Cabala, 307–15.

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stopped in the villages of Albania, Montenegro, and Dalmatia along their way to Venice. Two decades earlier, these opinions were widely diffused in Italy at every social and cultural level through books, preaching, and discussion. But in the early 1560s, these ideas had a different significance and were now capable of raising suspicions about one’s orthodoxy. Furthermore, making his way to Trent, the archbishop, according to Fra Antonio, had manifested the anachronistic belief that these doctrinal questions were still unresolved and were to be reexamined at the Council.27 In 1574, these imprudent conversations were in the distant past, but their echoes still signaled danger, even though the accusing friar had died and the conduct of the archbishop in the last years had been irreproachable. From April to August 1574, a bitter struggle of the greatest secrecy unfolded over the nomination of Mocenigo. This struggle involved Pope Gregory XIII, the cardinal inquisitors, and the Venetian ambassador, Paolo Tiepolo.28 Beyond the clash over jurisdictional prerogatives between Rome and Venice, the most significant aspects of this event—until now unknown—concern the internal conflict that developed between the pontiff and the cardinals of the Holy Office.29 The Venetian ambassador suggested to the pope that he advance the name of Mocenigo in consistory without concerning himself with the opposition of the cardinals of the Holy Office, because if the pope “declared this in the congregation, no cardinal would have the audacity to speak.” He further urged the pontiff to “use the plenitude of his power,” and hence not to seek out “another judge” because “in this matter there was much that concerned the honor of His Holiness.”30 He suggested to the pope that if indeed he desired to reassure himself concerning the orthodoxy of the archbishop, he should do it in private or by listening to the opinion of a theologian. Finally, he invited the pontiff to silence the cardinal inquisitors so that they could no longer speak about religion in consistory. But these repeated requests of the ambassador collided with the uncertainties and fears of Gregory XIII, who insisted how it was necessary “to give satisfaction to the cardinal inquisitors because, if any cardinal of the Inquisition should show himself opposed for reasons concerning heresy, nothing would come to pass in consistory.”31 The pope made a political choice thick with implications when he refused to raise himself to the position of supreme judge in matters of faith. He tried to evade that responsibility when he claimed “that he neither knew nor understood theology.” The pon27ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 49r–50v, 121r, 124[a]–130r, 133r–v. 28ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 284r–333v. 29For the use of inquisitorial dossiers by the cardinals of the Holy Office to put an end to the candidacies of the “spirituali” to the papal throne, see Firpo, Inquisizione romana e controriforma, 177–259. 30ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 317r–320r (dispatch of 3 July 1574), fols. 315v–317r (dispatch of 26 June 1574), fol. 288r (dispatch of 3 October 1573). 31ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 317r–320r, dispatch of 3 July 1574.

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tiff further told the ambassador that even if it were true that he alone had the prerogative to judge bishops, “he still did not want to interfere in those matters that he did not understand.”32 He “did not want to interfere.” Although the pope used his lack of theological competence as an excuse to the Venetian ambassador, competence was not the evident issue. The cardinal of Pisa, Scipione Rebiba, deacon of the Holy Office, was not a theologian, but rather a canon lawyer like the pope. The pontiff ’s position was rather a reflection of the political equilibrium at the highest levels of the Church of Rome and of the ecclesiastical vision that dominated there, namely, that the Congregation of the Holy Office was the institution at the center of the church that held the power to determine the true faith. This setting would not have been achieved without conflicts. On the threshold of the seventeenth century, one of the greatest representatives of the CounterReformation church, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine, would ply Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini (1592–1605) with poignant exhortations urging that he should convoke synods and assemblies of learned men, that he should consult the most authoritative voices coming from the body of the church and, trusting in his own divine inspiration, that he should decide with clear doctrinal definition the controversy de auxiliis that was then lacerating the church, taking upon himself the responsibility to judge in matters of faith. The attempt to anchor to the authority of the pope the theological questions that the Council of Trent had left unresolved was accompanied in the thought of the Jesuit cardinal—destined to remain an isolated voice—by a firm rejection of a church at the center of which the true faith would be established “secretly and by a few.”33 But Gregory XIII was not Aldobrandini: he did not possess an autonomous political and religious project that would lead him to clash with the Congregation of the Inquisition. Nor was there at his side a Bellarmine, but rather prelates of Paul IV like the cardinal of Pisa, Scipione Rebiba, who, from the continual exercise of power in the permanent institution of the Holy Office, had gained an unquestioned authority and solid political position. During the pontificate of Gregory XIII, the cardinal of Pisa reinforced that power and position, becoming Grand Inquisitor in 1574.34 In the meantime the Holy Office itself was reduced to a compact nucleus of cardinals composed of Scipione Rebiba, Gian Francesco

32ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 310v–311v, dispatch of 22 May 1574. 33Le Bachelet, Auctarium Bellarminianum,

143–48.

34Eubel and Van Gulik, Hierarchia catholica, 3:38.

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Gambara, Ludovico Madruzzo, and Francesco Pacheco,35 with the assistance of the intransigent master of the sacred palace, Paolo Costabili.36 The consequences of such a structure of power at the highest curial levels can be gathered from the words uttered by Rebiba to the Venetian ambassador, who was promoting Mocenigo’s cause. Despite the objections and remonstrances of Tiepolo, Cardinal Rebiba made clear that after being denounced by the Inquisition, the archbishop of Cyprus would never be able to aspire again to another benefice with the cure of souls. Neither anything nor anyone—not even the pope—could ever again render “the accused suitable for any church.” The archbishop had no way out. It was useless for him to attempt to justify himself through extrajudicial methods or to confirm in writing the orthodoxy of his convictions. Rebiba explained to Tiepolo that “the procedure of the Inquisition differs greatly from the procedure of other offices” because “it deals with the opinions of men, who can easily and diversely dissimulate,” and reminded Tiepolo that these decisions were no longer a matter of potential negotiation between diplomats and Roman courtiers, but rather “the ancient and accustomed use of this office,” legitimated by a number of pontiffs and consolidated by the activity of the Inquisition over three decades. Coherently pointing out the political and religious consequences of these changes, the cardinal then told Tiepolo that “even a pope could be a heretic.” 37 A few days later, Cardinal Gambara, another key member of the Holy Office, confirmed to Ambassador Tiepolo that what Rebiba had told him was not personal opinion, but the ideological position of the Holy Office. He assured Tiepolo that the pope “neither could have done nor was able to do” anything to help Mocenigo that opposed the decisions of the Inquisition cardinals. The pontiff would have done better from the beginning if he “had resolutely responded that he could do nothing” and if he had avoided “thrusting the affair into negotiation.” As Tiepolo then explained in his dispatch to Venice, “I gathered from his manner of speaking not only the difficulty inherent in the case, but also something concerning the thought of the cardinals.” Finally the ambassador realized that “the difficulty that was inherent in the case” rested in the pretenses of preeminence of the Inquisition over the pope, rather than in the heretical propositions of Mocenigo.38 35Cardinals Rebiba and Pacheco died in 1577 and 1579, respectively. At this time, Madruzzo was also cardinal protector of Germany, hence he was the direct spokesperson for imperial interests in the Curia. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, 3:43. 36As master of the sacred palace from 1572 until 1580, Dominican Paolo Costabili entered ex officio into the Congregations of the Inquisition and the Index established by Gregory XIII in 1572. “Costabili, Paolo,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 30:261–62. For the intolerance of Costabili, see Fragnito, “Aspetti e problemi della censura espurgatoria,” 166–67; and Fragnito, “Torquato Tasso, Paolo Costabili.” 37ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 305v–308v, dispatch of 7 May 1574.

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The private meetings successively held by order of the pontiff between Rebiba and Mocenigo, and between Mocenigo and the other cardinals of the Holy Office, without any record being kept of what was said, did not achieve any result.39 The final card that the pope then played against the Inquisition was to call upon an outside theologian. It is true that Gregory XIII did not have at his disposal a Bellarmine, but there was on hand at the papal court a man held in great esteem by the pontiff: the Jesuit Francisco Toledo. Over the course of thirty years, the Jesuit order, through enormous effort, had acquired the credibility and power to oppose, when necessary, the operations of the Holy Office, and to follow alternative lines of action with a certain degree of autonomy.40 Toledo alone in this episode appears to have possessed the authority sufficient to challenge the pretense of the Congregation of the Inquisition that established itself as the locus where orthodoxy was defined. According to Tiepolo, when consulted about Mocenigo’s case, Toledo replied: The cardinals of the Inquisition proceed too rigorously at times, and at times they are mistaken, falling into most notable error, and indeed he alleged that they had made a most grave one, and he urged His Holiness to free the archbishop from every charge and to grant this satisfaction to the Serenissima. He spoke in a fashion that greatly moved His Holiness, who said that he valued what had been said to him and that by all means he wanted this case to go forward expeditiously without having so much regard for the cardinals of the Inquisition.41

At this point, the clash between Gregory XIII, Venice, and the Holy Office did not grow worse only because the Republic, wanting to resolve the question of the patriarchate of Aquileia as quickly as possible, proposed another candidate.42 As for Mocenigo, by way of consolation, in November 1574 he was invested by the pope with a prestigious honorific title and remained at the Curia with the promise that, as soon as possible, he would there be assigned some pension or benefice without the cure of souls.43 38ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 315v–317r, dispatch of 26 June 1574. 39ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fol. 118v. 40ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 317r–320r, dispatch of 3 July 1574. In 1588, Toledo became a consultant for the Congregation of the Index. See Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo, 173. For Toledo’s later career, see De Maio, Riforme e miti nella chiesa . For the strategic alliance between the Jesuits and Inquisition under Pius V, see Romano, “Note sull’inquisizione romana,” 138– 41. On Jesuits’ alternative lines of action concerning the confession of the faithful, see Romeo, Ricerche su confessione dei peccati. 41ASVe, Senato, Archivio proprio, Roma, registro 24, fols. 317r–320r, dispatch of 3 July 1574. 42The pope was able to present this candidate in consistory without fear of opposition from the cardinals of the Inquisition. He was the Venetian nobleman Alvise Giustiniani who was named coadjutor cum iure successionis on 14 July 1574. 43ASVe, Capi del consiglio dei Dieci, Lettere degli ambasciatori, Roma, busta 26, dispatch n. 17 of 6 November 1574.

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Frustrated in his career ambition for several years as he saw the fattest benefices of the Venetian Republic conferred upon others, Mocenigo finally presented himself to the pope—still Gregory XIII—seeking an official sentence of absolution.44 In preparing to make his request, he decided to publish a work on which he had been laboring for some time. In 1581, Aldo Manuzio the Younger published Mocenigo’s in folio volume of Universales institutiones ad hominum perfectionem quatenus industria parari potest in Venice.45 In the last part of his book, Mocenigo outlined the model of a perfect society, placing at its center the problem of how to educate society’s citizens and the question of who had the power to establish the truths of faith. To the first problem Mocenigo responded with the establishment of centers of instruction, calling for the creation of colleges for the education of citizens placed under the control of priests and learned men. The second problem was how a society that claimed to be perfect because it held a monopoly on truth and salvation could at the same time safeguard the unity of truth endangered by the intellectual freedom necessary to philosophical and theological research. The free interpretation of sacred scripture would allow subjective opinions and heresies to flourish. This would cause a perfect society to disintegrate. Therefore, he argued, it was necessary to anchor this process to a supreme institutional authority, to a guarantor of orthodoxy, whom he identified as the pope and him alone.46 Mocenigo’s eloquent silence on any other institution that might claim to have authority in the articulation of matters of faith, and his dedication of this work to Pope Gregory XIII reveal the political significance of the Universales. Not only did Mocenigo exhort the pontiff to accept the role of judge in his own personal case at long last, but at the same time he also criticized the ideology of the Inquisition espoused by Cardinal Rebiba many years before.47 After hearing Mocenigo’s plea for a trial and a definitive sentence, Pope Gregory once again sent the obstinate archbishop to the Holy Office.48 This time, the cardinal inquisitors were armed with fresh evidence. Shortly before leaving Venice for Rome in 1573, Mocenigo had written a treatise in the vernacular, “Vie et progressi spirituali,” with the intention of eventually publishing it.49 Between 1575 and 1576 he had given this work to the Jesuit provincial of Lombardy, 44ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 120r–v, 143r–v. 45The treatise is numbered among the sixteenth-century encyclopedia listed entries in Cochetti, Bibliografia e Cabala, 306–7. 46Mocenigo, Universales institutiones, 545. 47Mocenigo’s treatise was published a second time with the title Tractationum philosophicarum (Geneva: Eustathius Vignon, 1588) as part of an anthology that also contained Questiones peripateticae of the physician and botanist Andrea Cesalpino, as well as De natura rerum of Bernardino Telesio. This latter work was eventually prohibited donec expurgatur by the Roman Index of 1596. In the Geneva edition, the political utopia delineated by Mocenigo underwent a significant transformation: the universal dominion of the pope was replaced by the authority of an assembly of pastors. 48ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fol. 113r–v.

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Francesco Adorno, who had suggested a few corrections. Furthermore, he had also obtained a license to publish the work from the Venetian inquisitor and from the patriarch of Venice, who had entrusted its revision to the Jesuits in Venice.50 Finally, the archbishop sought out the opinion of a Benedictine monk, Teófilo da Siena, whom he had known in Venice in 1572. In 1576, he had encountered Teófilo again in Rome, where they met frequently to talk about “theological matters.”51 Among the topics they discussed were the ideas contained in the archbishop’s treatise. They exchanged objections and replies in writing. The monk secretly passed these on to Cardinal Rebiba. They also quarreled, exchanging “angry expressions” and “heretical words” that the monk attributed to Mocenigo. In the end, these reports of Teófilo led to the denunciation of the archbishop as a suspected heretic. 52 These alleged “heretical words” and the contents of Mocenigo’s treatise—analyzed and discussed almost line by line—became the focus of his trial before the dreaded cardinal of Santa Severina, Giulio Antonio Santoro, in the summer of 1583. What heterodox convictions had scandalized the monk? What spiritual deviations, what dangerous doctrines, what disturbing scenes shocked the intransigent cardinal of Santa Severina? Mocenigo did not deny the intercession of the saints, the veneration of images, or fasting. Neither did he criticize the sacraments or refute the primacy of the pope. Nor did he cling to an interior religious experience that led him to question the teachings of the church and the mediating role of the clergy. No, the “errors pertaining to the Inquisition” that were imputed to Mocenigo dealt largely with such intellectual concerns as the necessity of the primordial cause and the contingency of creation, the rapport between the intellect and the will, the infusion of the soul into bodies, and the distinction between divine essences—all philosophical questions with implications on a theological level relative to the themes of creation, free will, original sin, and the Trinity. This treatise was little more than the description of an itinerary toward God, but, dif49The manuscript, in quarto and bound in parchment, was handed over to Cardinal Savelli in the early months of 1583 and used during his trial. ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 106r, 130r–v; it is now contained in ACDR, Sant’Ufficio, Raccolta dei libri delle Censurae librorum (1570– 1606), fasc. 5. 50ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 108r–109v, 121v. 51Teófilo Marzio da Siena, a mathematician and a member of the Cassinese congregation of Benedictines, took part in the reformation of the calendar in 1582. His denunciation was the source of the antiheretical repression against the Benedictine followers of Giorgio Siculo in Manuta in 1568. On him, see Collett, Italian Benedictine Scholars, 256–57; and Prosperi, L’eresia del Libro Grande, 445. ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 96r–v, 175r–176r. 52For the objections of the monk and the replies of the archbishop, see ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 70r–77v. For Teófilo’s depositions, see Processo Mocenigo, fols. 79r–88v, 96r– 99v. Mocenigo was unaware that the Cassinese monk had denounced him to the Holy Office, see Processo Mocenigo, fol. 185r.

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fering from other analogous works, it was intellectual in orientation and filled with distinctions, explanations, and arguments produced by a speculative faith.53 Mocenigo had simply dealt in the vernacular with themes usually debated in treatises on natural philosophy written in Latin. The theological implications of philosophical discourses were still tolerated by ecclesiastical authorities, provided that these discussions were confined to the university and communicated in the language of the learned.54 However, Mocenigo had tried to explain with a rational method philosophical and revealed truths to women and men who did not know Latin.55 In the archbishop’s choice to employ the vernacular in his treatise may be seen revealed elements of his earlier formation in the cultural context of the Veneto in the 1550s. Here, learned churchmen such as the Venetian patrician Daniele Barbaro and philosophers such as Sperone Speroni, professor of moral philosophy at the University of Padua, had actively participated in the debate over language. These scholars had made themselves promoters of the vernacular in the academies and, through a number of writings belonging to genres normally dominated by Latin, had aimed at conferring upon it a “reputation.”56 In the meanwhile, censorship struck at the most diffuse literature in Italy, from chivalric poetry to collections of letters, satires, and short stories.57 In the 1570s, this offensive tormented Torquato Tasso and blocked the dialogues of Speroni until their expurgation.58 It also strengthened the interdictions against the spread of sacred scripture in the 53Among the accusations thrown at Mocenigo by Don Teófilo and carefully gone over one by one by Santa Severina was the charge that he had limited the freedom of creation and divine omnipotence by denying the infinity of the universe and the plurality of worlds. “If [God] had desired that fire should descend, although it is hot, and that water should rise, although it is cold, he could have done it,” argued Don Teófilo, determined that nothing should have limited the free will of the creator. But the archbishop, as a philosopher, was not able to accept such a thesis, just as he was not able to admit the possibility of “innumerable worlds,” because that would imply the negation of the natural order, the object of his studies, which for him coincided with Aristotelian physics and cosmology. ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 152r–153r, 184v. On the irreconcilable nature of the Aristotelian universe with objections similar to those raised by Don Teófilo, see Kuhn, La rivoluzione copernicana, 108–16. 54After the promulgation of the Clementine Index of 1596, a commission of six professors from the University of Padua was entrusted with the expurgation of philosophical works. See Archivio della Congregazione dell’Indice, now located in the ACDF [ACDF, Index], Serie II, vol. 15, Q, 56r, 11 July 1597. Francesco Piccolomini, a friend of Mocenigo who taught natural philosophy at the University of Padua, was one of the members of this commission. In Piccolomini's 1596 Libri ad scientiam de natura attinentes, a work that dealt with themes analogous to Mocenigo's treatise, one can see the growing preoccupation of the author with the theological implications of his own ideas. See especially Piccolomini, Libri ad scientiam, fols. 91v, 96v. 55Evidence that the Inquisition was far more interested in the medium than in the contents of the treatise comes from the indifference that the cardinal inquisitors displayed toward his other treatise, Universales instutiones, despite the fact that during his interrogations the archbishop made numerous references to this latter work, affirming that the two treatises, the one in the vernacular and the other a printed Latin work, both upheld the same ideas. ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 163v–164r, 183v–184r, 186r.

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vernacular and extended the prohibitions against the exposition of biblical stories in prose and verse. This initiative also lashed out at the production of devotional literature that for decades had been popular among the faithful.59 Finally, the Inquisition’s offensive tacitly prohibited the treatment of theological questions in the vernacular.60 But Mocenigo’s case should not be viewed as only a problem of censorship. For even though it had never been published and had received the approval of the Venetian inquisitor, Mocenigo’s treatise was the most consistent element in the possession of the Inquisition that enabled it to institute the trial and justify the suspicion of heresy that for quite some time now had hung over Mocenigo, shaping his career and existence. For twenty years, the Holy Office had not been able to prove its suspicion by charging the bishop with an accomplice, an instance of deviant behavior, or having made one criticism aimed at the institutional church. When the cardinal inquisitors finally began to interrogate Mocenigo in 1583, their confrontation took on the tone of a theological discussion between judge and accused. Citing auctoritates, he argued philosophically and quoted passages gathered and copied down during the evening hours before the following meeting. He presented differing evidence offered by “the teaching of Saint Thomas” and “the contradictions of Cajetan,” and debated between “the sayings of Saint Paul” and the “subjects defined diversely by Saint Thomas and Scotus.” To support his cause, he used sacred scripture, the church fathers, and contemporary commentators.61 56On the nexus between religious dissent and the struggle over the vernacular in the first half of the Cinquecento, see Firpo, “Riforma religioso e lingua volgare.” In Mocenigo’s autobiographical dedication to Universales institutiones, Speroni is mentioned among the professors of the University of Padua whom the archibishop of Cyprus was accustomed to frequent. Mocenigo’s esteem for Daniele Barbaro and for his battle in favor of the vernacular comes through clearly in Paruta’s dialogue where both men figure as interlocutors. See Paruta, Della perfettione, 1:65. Barbaro was designated the patriarch elect of Aquileia by his kinsman Giovanni Grimani; following Barbaro’s death in 1573, Mocenigo was presented as a candidate for the position of coadjutor of the patriarch. 57In addition to Fragnito’s studies on the connection between censorship and literature, see Rozzo, “L’espurgazione dei testi letterari,” 219–71; and Rozzo, “Italian literature on the Index,” 194–222. 58In 1542, Daniele Barbaro published an edition of Speroni’s Dialogi with the Aldine press in Venice. In 1574, Speroni was in Rome where he produced his magnificent Apologia in defense of his Dialogi, which had been blocked by Paolo Costabili, master of the sacred palace, despite the fact that XXXXXX 59

by this time, the work had been circulating in a printed edition for thirty years. For the successive attempts to censor his Dialogi, see Fragnito, “Aspetti e problemi della censura espurgatoria,” 169–70. For the censoring of Tasso, see Fragnito, “Torquato Tasso, Paolo Costabili.” 59Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo, 121–42, 290–313; and Fragnito, “‘Dichino corone e rosarii.’ ” 60This precept was expressed in a letter to the inquisitor of Milan in a letter dated 20 January 1607. ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Stanza Storica, Q, 3d, Raccolta di testi di lettere ed istruzioni del Sant’Ufficio a li inquisitori e vescovi, fol. 115r. 61ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fols. 135r, 151r, 156v.

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In the end, during that summer of 1583, exhausted by the rapid succession of questions posed by the inquisitors, the archbishop was finally forced to admit that in the case of arguments fundamental for the Catholic faith such as original sin and free will, the church fathers did not always agree, the interpretations of holy scripture were manifold, and the responses of Trent insufficient. He ultimately acknowledged that neither the clarifying disputes of the learned in the universities nor the divine inspiration of the pope sufficed to resolve philosophical and theological questions. Rather, such clarifications must fall to the authority of the Congregation of the Inquisition. Mocenigo’s sentence was handed down 6 October 1583 in the presence of the pope and of Cardinals Savelli, Madruzzo, and Santoro. Having heard the votes of the consulting theologians of the Congregation, the pope declared that Mocenigo was neither a heretic nor suspected of heresy. As for the treatise he composed in the vernacular, a close examination of this work showed that it contained propositions that were ambiguous, obscure, and dangerous. Hence the copies in circulation were to be confiscated and destroyed.62 A few days later, the Florentine ambassador wrote to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, “The hatred of the friars is an evil thing. . .and I saw what they did to the archbishop of Cyprus several days ago, who, having been interrogated by the Dominicans and others, was ruined, and in the end, as he was innocent, he was absolved.”63

62ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Processo Mocenigo, fol. 191r–v; and ACDF, Sant’Ufficio, Decreta, vol. 20, 13 October 1583, fol. 299r. 63Letter of Alessandro de’ Medici from Rome to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, dated 20 October 1583, cited by Fragnito, “Girolamo Savonarola e la censura ecclesiastica,” 512.

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Printed Primary Sources Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta. Edited by Giuseppe Alberigo. Basel: Herder, 1962. Index des livres interdits. Edited by Jésus Martinez de Bujanda. 10 vols. Geneva: Droz, 1984–1996. Le Bachelet, Xavier. Auctarium Bellarminianum: Supplément aux oeuvres du cardinal Bellarmin. Paris: G. Beauchesne, 1913. Lusignano, Stefano da. Chorograffia et breve historia universale dell’isola de Cipro principiando al tempo di Noé per in sino al 1572. Bologna: Alessandro Benaccio, 1573. Mocenigo, Filippo. Universales institutiones ad hominum perfectionem: Quatenus industria parari potest. Venice: Aldus, 1581. Nunziature di Venezia. Vols. 1–2, 5–6. Edited by Franco Gaeta et al. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1958–1960, 1967. Paruta, Paolo. Della perfettione della vita politica. Venice: Domenico Nicolini, 1579. ———. Opere politiche. Edited by Cirillo Monzani. 2 vols. Florence: La Monnier, 1852. Piccolomini, Francesco. Libri ad scientiam de natura attinentes. Venice: Franciscus de Franciscis Senensem, 1596. Valdés, Juan de. Alfabeto cristiano. Edited by Massimo Firpo. Torino: Einaudi, 1994.

Secondary Sources Alberigo, Giuseppe. “L’episcopato nel cattolicesimo post-tridentino.” Cristianesimo nella storia 6 (1985): 71–91. Alberto, Albert. Paolo IV Carafa nel giudizio della età della Controriforma. Città di Castello: Stamperia Tiferno grafica, 1990. L’apertura degli archivi del Sant’Uffizio Romano: Atti del Convegno dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Roma, 22 gennaio 1998. Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 1998. Bonora, Elena. “Inquisition romaine et évêques français pendant le concile de Trente.” In Inquisition et pouvoir, Colloque International ‘Inquisition et pouvoir’: Aix-en-Provence, 24–26 octobre 2002, edited by Gabriel Audisio, 323–35. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 2004. ———. “Inquisizione e papato tra Pio IV e Pio V.” In Pio V nella società e nella politica del suo tempo: Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Bosco Marengo-Alessandria, 12–14 febbraio 2004, edited by Maurilio Guasco and Angelo Torre, 33–67. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005. Cochetti, Maria, ed. Bibliografia e Cabala: Le enciclopedie rinascimentali. Vol. 1, pt. 1 of Storia della bibliografia. Edited by Alfredo Serrai, 307–15. Rome: Bulzoni, 1988. Collett, Barry. Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation: The Congregation of Santa Giustina of Padua. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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Cozzi, Gaetano. “La società veneziana del Rinascimento in un’opera di Paolo Paruta: Della perfettione della vita politica.” In Ambiente veneziano, ambiente veneto: Saggi su politica, società, cultura nella Repubblica di Venezia in età moderna, edited by Gaetano Cozzi, 153–83. Venice: Marsilio Editore, 1997. De Maio, Romeo. Riforme e miti nella chiesa del Cinquecento. 2nd ed. Naples: Guida, 1992. Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960– . Eubel, Conrad, Wilhelm Van Gulik, et al. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentioris aevi. 7 vols. Padua: “Il Messagero di S. Antonio,” 1913–68. Firpo, Massimo. Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I. Turin: Einaudi, 1997. ———. Dal sacco di Roma all’inquisizione: Studi su Juan de Valdés e la Riforma italiana. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1990, 1998. ———. Inquisizione romana e controriforma: Studi sul cardinal Giovanni Morone e il suo processo d’eresia. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992. ———. “Riforma religioso e lingua volgare nell’Italia del ’500.” Belfagor 57 (2002): 517–39. ———. Tra alumbrados e ‘spirituali’: Studi su Juan de Valdés e il valdesianesimo nella crisi religiosa dell’Italia del ’500. Florence: Olschki, 1991. Firpo, Massimo, and Dario Marcatto, eds. Il processo inquisitoriale del Cardinal Giovanni Morone. 6 vols. in 7. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1981–95. ———, eds. I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi (1557–1567). 2 vols. in 4. Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 1998–2000. Firpo, Massimo, and Sergio Pagano, eds. I processi inquisitoriali di Vittore Soranzo (1550– 1558). 2 vols. Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2004. Fragnito, Gigliola. “L’applicazione dell’Indice dei libri proibiti di Clemente VIII.” Archivio Storico Italiano 159 (2001): 107–49. ———. “Aspetti e problemi della censura espurgatoria.” In L’inquisizione e gli storici: Un cantiere aperto: Tavola rotonda nell’ambito della Conferenza annuale della ricerca: Roma, 24–25 giugno 1999, 161–78. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2000. ———. La Bibbia al rogo: La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1471– 1605). Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997. ———. “La censure des livres entre évêques et inquisiteurs.” In Inquisition et pouvoir, Colloque International ‘Inquisition et pouvoir’: Aix-en-Provence, 24–26 octobre 2002, edited by Gabriel Audisio, 171–84. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 2004. ———. Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ———. “‘Dichino corone e rosarii’: Censura ecclesiastica e libri di devozione.” Cheiron 17 (2000): 135–58. ———. “Diplomazia pontificia e censura ecclesiastica durante il regno di Enrico IV.” In Atti del Convegno della Fondation Singer-Polignac—Collège de France, Parigi 3–5 dicembre 2001: Les premiers siècles de la République européenne des letters (1368–1668). ———. “Girolamo Savonarola e la censura ecclesiastica.” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 35 (1999): 501–29. ———. “‘In questo vasto mare dei libri proibiti et sospesi tra tanti scogli di varietà et controversie’: La censura ecclesiastica tra la fine del Cinquecento e i primi del

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Seicento.” In Censura ecclesiastica e cultura politica in Italia tra Cinquecento e Seicento, edited by Cristina Stango, 1–35. Florence: Olschki, 2001. ———. Proibito capire: La chiesa e il volgare nella prima età moderna. Bologne: Il Mulino, 2006. ———. “Torquato Tasso, Paolo Costabili e la revisione della Gerusalemme Liberata.” Schifanoia 22/23 (2002): 57–61. Frajese, Vittorio. “La politica dell’Indice dal tridentino al clementino (1571–1596).” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 11 (1998): 269–356. L’Inquisizione e gli storici: Un cantiere aperto: Tavola rotonda nell’ambito della Conferenza annuale della ricerca: Roma, 24–25 giugno 1999. Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 2000. Kuhn, Thomas S. La rivoluzione copernicana: L’astronomia planetaria nello sviluppo del pensiero occidentale. 2nd ed. Turin: Einaudi, 1972. Litta, Pompeo. Famiglie celebri italiane. Tav. 11. Milan: Emilio Giusti, 1868. Mas-Latrie, Louis. “Histoire des Archevêques Latins de l’île de Chypre.” Archives de l’Orient latin 2 (1884): 207–328. Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Litterae Quadrimestres. Vol. 6. Madrid: La Editorial Iberica, 1925. Pagano, Sergio, ed. Il Processo di Endimio Calandra e l’Inquisizione a Mantova nel 1567– 1568. Studi e Testi 339. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1991. Paschini, Pio. “La nomina del patriarca di Aquileia e la Repubblica di Venezia nel secolo XVI.” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 2 (1948): 61–76. Pastor, Ludwig von. The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Edited by Frederick Ignatius Antrobus et al. Translated by Ralph Francis Kerr. 40 vols. London: J. Hodges, and St. Louis: Herder, 1891–1953. Peri, Vittorio. Chiesa romana e “rito Greco”: G. A. Santoro e la congregazione dei greci (1566–1596). Brescia: Paideia, 1975. ———. “L’ ‘incredibile risguardo’ e l’ ‘incredibile destrezza’: La resistenza di Venezia alle iniziative postridentine della Santa Sede per i greci dei suoi domini.” In Venezia centro di mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secoli XV–XVI), Aspetti e problemi: Atti del II convegno internazionale, Venezia, 3–6 ottobre 1963, edited by Hans-Georg Beck, Manoussos Manoussacas, and Agostino Pertusi, 2:599–625. Florence: Olschki, 1977. Prodi, Paolo. Il cardinale Gabriele Paleotti (1522–1597). 2 vols. Rome: Edizione di storia e letterature, 1959–67. ———. Una storia della giustizia: Dal pluralismo dei fiori al moderno dualismo tra coscienza e diritto. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000. Prosperi, Adriano. L’eresia del Libro Grande: Storia di Giorgio Siculo e della sua setta. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000. ———. Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari. Turin: Einaudi, 1996. Romeo, Giovanni. “Note sull’Inquisizione romana tra il 1557 e il 1561.” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 36 (2000):115–41. ———. Ricerche su confessione dei peccati e Inquisizione nell’Italia del Cinquecento. Naples: La città del sole, 1997. Rozzo, Ugo. “L’espurgazione dei testi letterari nell’Italia del secondo Cinquecento.” In La censura libraria nell’Europa del secolo XVI: Convegno internazionale di studi Cividale del Friuli, 9–10 novembre 1995, edited by Ugo Rozzo, 219–71. Udine: Forum, 1997.

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———. “Italian Literature on the Index.” In Church, Censorship and Culture in Modern Italy, edited by Gigliola Fragnito, 194–222. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Vasoli, Cesare. Francesco Patrizi da Cherso. Rome: Bulzoni, 1989.

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Chapter 12

LEGAL REMEDIES FOR FORCED MONACHIZATION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY Anne Jacobson Schutte

MANY OF THE ESSAYS IN THIS VOLUME privilege the efforts of state and church bureaucrats to discipline and confessionalize their subjects. This essay explores a dramatically different set of circumstances, in which the highest ecclesiastical authorities, rather than engage in repression, offered a means of legal relief to a particular group of repressed subjects: those forced to become monks, friars, and nuns. In this matter, the agents of repression were private individuals: lay kinfolk, often in collusion with clerical relatives and monastic superiors, who compelled unwilling members of the younger generation to enter the religious life. This study drives yet another nail into the coffin of a hypothesis about families put forward a generation ago but still influential. According to its proponents, family organization in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries shifted from positional or patriarchal to personal or egalitarian. Childhood came to be recognized as a distinct stage of life, and young people gradually acquired some voice in decisions about their future.1 Examination of the evidence demonstrates the contrary—in the upper and middle strata from which monks, friars, and nuns came, adolescents remained a “population of children” subject to the iron will of their elders.2 These young people were so fearful about challenging the choice of the cloister made for them by patriarchs, matriarchs, and siblings that they dared not avail themselves of 1Shorter, Making of the Modern Family (1975); Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (1977). Shorter and Stone were strongly influenced by Philippe Ariès’ argument about childhood, now universally rejected: L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (1960). Oddly, they ignored the useful “positional to personal family” model outlined by anthropologist Mary Douglas in “To Inner Experience” (1970). 2I borrow the quoted phrase from Frajese, Il popolo fanciullo.

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their rights to contest forced monachization. When interrogated by bishops or their delegates about their willingness to profess monastic vows, reluctant female professants rarely spoke up to express their opposition; at the moment of profession, terrified young women and men could imagine no alternative to saying yes.3 Although the system allowed later opportunities for legal filing of objections, very few took advantage of them until familial oppressors had passed from the scene. Until recently, such literary works as Diderot’s The Nun and Manzoni’s The Betrothed have furnished most of the impressions about resistance by victims of forced monachization.4 This essay draws on another, largely unexplored body of sources: suppliche (petitions) to the Congregation of the Council from monks, friars, and nuns seeking release from monasteries and convents.5 Viewed from the legal and administrative point of view, the petitions furnish additional evidence that in the post-Tridentine period, ecclesiastical decision making was increasingly centered in Rome, in the hands of the papal prince and the commissions of cardinals that served as departments of his government. Petitioners’ carefully crafted accounts and witnesses’ testimony reveal in vivid detail how the early modern patriarchal system worked.


Until the middle of the sixteenth century, a single forum dealing with all manner of impediments presented by canon law, the Apostolic Penitentiary, handled petitions for release from monastic life. In its final session, held on 3–4 December 1563, the

3Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (cited by chapter and page number), Twenty-fifth Session, “Concerning Regulars and Nuns,” 17:228. This section stated that no young woman is take the habit or profess “until the bishop, or if he be absent or hindered, his vicar, or someone delegated by them at their expense, has carefully examined the wish of the virgin, whether she has been forced or enticed, or knows what she is doing.…” Curiously, the decree did not provide that male professands be questioned about whether they were vesting or professing voluntarily, which points to the Council fathers’ haste in concluding their deliberations, their failure to recognize that forced monachization of young men was a problem, or both. 4Literary works concerning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries include la Harpe, Mélanie ou la religieuse (1770); Diderot, La religieuse (1780); and Manzoni, I promessi sposi (1825–27). That the practice of forced monachization continued into the nineteenth century is attested to by Federico De Roberto’s novel I viceré (1894); and Enrichetta Caracciolo’s memoir, Misteri del chiostro napoletano (1864). 5Previous studies of young women forced to become nuns include Paolin, “Monache e donne nella Friuli del Cinquecento,” 208–28; Cattaneo, “Le monacazioni forzate fra Cinque e Seicento”; Medioli, L’ “Inferno monacale” di Arcangela Tarabotti; Vismara Chiappa, “Per vim et metum”: Il caso di Paola Teresa Pietra; Zorzi, La monaca di Venezia; and Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic. That families forced younger sons into the priesthood is well known, but only three scholars have dealt with their involuntary monachization: Guido Dall’Olio (“La disciplina dei religiosi”), Gualberto Piangatelli (“La forzata scelta”), and Roberto Bizzocchi (In famiglia, 178–206).

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Council of Trent changed the procedure. During the first five years following profession, the Council fathers stipulated, the bishop and local superior of the order were to process such requests.6 Thereafter, petitioners had to seek papal permission to take their cases to a designated judicial organ: the venerable Rota, the newly established Congregation of the Council, or the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars (added to the list in the early seventeenth century).7 Initiating proceedings in the Rota was very expensive. Once the system of governance by commissions of cardinals came fully into place in the late 1580s, most petitioners seem to have taken the less costly route of approaching the Congregation of the Council.8 For reasons of archival accessibility, this essay will focus on petitions received and processed by that body in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Petitioners were asking the pope, and through him the Congregation of the Council, for two things. First, they wanted the ordinary instructed to conduct an investigation that they hoped would lead to a declaration, confirmed by the pope, of nullitas professionis (invalidity of religious profession). Second, they sought the Congregation’s mandate of restitutio in integrum: restoration to the lay status they had held before taking vows and a return of their initial deposit.9 On what grounds, years or even decades after professing, did monks, friars, and nuns seek release from their vows? Three legal arguments, alone or in combination, might 6Canons and Decrees, Twenty-fifth Session, “Concerning Regulars and Nuns,” 19:229. 7The Rota, which originated in the late twelfth century, was first called by that name in 1336. See Hoberg, Inventario dell’Archivio, 15–16. The Congregation of the Council was established in 1564, the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars (a fusion of two congregations founded in the 1570s by Gregory XIII) in 1601. Del Re, La Curia Romana, 150–62, 330–34. 8Hoberg (Inventario dell’Archivio, 17) wrongly states that only the Rota and the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars dealt with petitions for release from monasteries and convents. The only accessible guide to Rota proceedings in the early modern era is found in ASVa, Indice 1072: Positiones Sacrae Romanae Rotae, covering only the period 1633–54. These records list twenty-six cases (eighteen certainly and eight others possibly involving petitions for release from vows) over this twentyone-year period—an average, if all are included, of 1.24 cases per year. In contrast, during the first twenty-one years (1669–82) of the period covered here, the Congregation of the Council handled 198 cases—an average of 9.43 per year. Printed decisions of the Congregation of the Council contained in Decreta Sacra Congregazionis Concilii for the years 1703–8 and Thesaurus resolutionum Sacrae Congregazionis Concilii (ThR) for the years 1718–98 include 224 cases of this kind. Collectively these records show an average of 2.6 cases per year, ranging from thirteen in 1705 to zero in several years from 1754 on and again between 1795 and 1798. For references to a handful of cases adjudicated by the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars in the latter half of the seventeenth century, see Medioli, “Per una storia della clausura in Antico Regime.” Several cases passed back and forth between the Congregation of the Council, the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, and the Rota. In the case of men and women who had shed the habit and fled from religious houses, the Apostolic Penitentiary, which had responsibility for issuing pardons for apostasy, is occasionally mentioned. When a religious who had exited without obtaining official permission subsequently married, the Congregation of the Holy Office became involved on the ground that his or her action amounted to bigamy: wedding a second spouse while still married to Christ. 9Dictionnaire du droit canonique, s.v. “Restitutio in integrum,” 7:661–68.

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persuade the Congregation of the Council to rule in their favor. Chief among these was the claim that the petitioner had been compelled to profess per vim et metum (through force and fear) exerted by relatives and/or religious superiors.10 Some petitioners asserted that they had professed before the minimum age of sixteen mandated by the Council of Trent. Others, mostly men, argued that some technical impediment such as a concealed incurable disease or an interrupted novitiate rendered their professions null.11 Petitions arrived in Rome from all over the European Catholic world. Understandably, considering the difficulty and expense of filing from far away, the majority of petitioners were Italians, a considerable proportion of them from the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily and the states of the church. Fewer came from other Italian states: in descending order, Spanish-ruled Lombardy, the Republic of Venice, Piedmont (including Sardinia), Liguria (including, until 1768, Corsica), the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the tiny Republic of Lucca. Low numbers of petitions from the Venetian Republic and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, especially their dominant cities, can easily be explained. In these states, lay magistracies assiduously regulated the lives of religious, particularly nuns. Subjects were discouraged or even prohibited from filing suppliche in Rome, as has been well documented in the case of the eighteenth-century Venetian nun Maria da Riva.12 Three Catholic states outside Italy were fairly well represented: France (including for geographical convenience the papal enclave of Avignon), Spain (including the southern Netherlands), and Portugal. Only a handful emanated from the religiously mixed Holy Roman Empire, eastern Europe, and Malta. Spanish possessions in America yielded two, beleaguered Catholic Ireland just one. None came from Iberian enclaves in Asia or from New France. In deliberating on each case that came before it, the Congregation examined a mass of printed materials submitted by the petitioner’s counsel and opposing attorneys. These included summaries of the testimony of witnesses interrogated by the bishop or his vicar-general on sets of questions submitted by the petitioner’s lawyer, by the diocese’s defensor professionis charged with maintaining that the profession was valid and should not be annulled, and often by one or 10Dictionnaire du droit canonique, s.v. “Consentement matrimonial, section 3, Vis et metus,” 4:324–41. The placement of vis et metus under the heading of consent to marriage in this modern dictionary indicates that at least in canon lawyers’ eyes, forced monachization is no longer a problem. 11Thus far, research has unearthed only one case of a woman involving a medical argument: Felice Alessandra Becchelli (1722), whose brother sought and obtained her release from a convent in Montefalco on the ground that during the decade she had been a nun, her body had changed from female to male. ASVa, Congregazione del Concilio (Congr. Concilio), Positiones 460; and ThR, 2:127– 28, 136, 138. On Becchelli, who can confidently be diagnosed in modern terms as a particular variety of male pseudohermaphrodite, see Schutte, “‘Perfetta donna o ermafrodita?’” 12See Zorzi, La monaca di Venezia.

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more attorneys representing the convent and/or the supplicant’s family and monastic house.13 In addition, lawyers on both sides furnished briefs seeking to demonstrate that the evidence they had produced supported their clients’ contentions. A handful of the thirty to forty cardinals on the Congregation convened in the Quirinal Palace once or twice a month on Saturday afternoons to deal with a wide variety of matters pertaining to the disciplinary decrees of the Council of Trent.14 Forced monachization constituted a small but significant part of the Congregation’s caseload. Between 1668 and 1798, it deliberated on at least 966 petitions for release from vows.15 Almost all previous discussions of forced monachization have framed it as a female problem. In order to preserve patrimonies for their sons, scholars argue, elite parents in modern Catholic Europe calculated carefully how many, if any, expensive marital dowries they could lay out. Surplus female offspring—including those unmarriageable by reason of illness, physical deformity, or mental deficiency16—were persuaded, tricked, or forced into entering a convent.17 Research reveals that well into the era during which the egalitarian family was supposedly emerging and the connection between “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was beginning to be made, fathers, mothers, stepparents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, siblings, and stepsiblings were also disposing of surplus adolescent males by compelling them to enter monasteries.18 Indeed, if preliminary statistics on petitions to the Congregation of the Council were taken at face value, it would appear that forced monachization was primarily a male problem. In the eighteenth century, when in most regions nuns probably outnumbered monks and friars,19 approximately 83 percent of petitions were filed by men, only 17 percent by women. These figures, however, must be put in context by considering what was required to attain success in appealing for release. A petitioner had first to approach the Congregation via the pope and then arrange for the transcript of the diocesan proceedings to be copied (and sometimes translated) 13Since almost all members of the Congregation were Italian, vernacular materials in dossiers sent from non-Italian dioceses had to be translated into Italian at the petitioners’ expense. 14A list of cardinals on the Congregation of the Council may be found at the beginning of each volume of ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Parva Regesta (Petitiones) (PRP). Attendance lists for each meeting of the Congregation in ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Libri decretorum, indicate that at most, ten members (usually the same ones) were in attendance. 15Before 1668, when the series of PRP begins, available sources do not permit reliable quantitative statements. 16Molho, “Tamquam vere morta,” 22–26. 17See works cited in note 5. Sperling makes a different, more complicated anthropologically based argument about the reasons behind forced monachization. 18To my knowledge, the studies by Dall’Olio, “La disciplina dei religiosi,” Piangatelli “La forzata scelta,” and Bizzocchi, In famiglia, constitute the only exceptions to this generalization. 19Demographic research on monastic populations is too spotty to permit confident assertions.

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for transmission to Rome. His or her advocate had to prepare summaries, have them printed, and shepherd the case in person through the final stages. All this required time, some familiarity with legal procedure, persistence, and money. Nuns had time on their hands, but not much else. No doubt to a greater degree than male religious, they had internalized metus reverentialis (reverential fear) of their elders, which deterred many of them from challenging decisions about the life status to which they had not freely consented. After the Council of Trent, the constraints of active and passive cloister severely restricted nuns’ ability to inform themselves about legal procedure, seek advice from outsiders, and gain access to the funds necessary to file suits and pursue them to a conclusion.20 Gender differences in the number of petitions therefore tell nothing about the actual proportions of unwilling female and male religious in early modern European convents and monasteries.


How women and men were compelled to take religious vows and how some of them, against daunting odds, went about trying to gain release can be shown best by considering in detail some individual cases. In Elisabeth Gleason’s honor, this essay will examine three from Italy. The ordeals of Agnese Frosciante, Filippo Coppola, and Giovanni Tommaso Di Gennaro will serve to illustrate elements common among the entire group of petitioners. Because they considered their professions invalid, as well as to avoid confusion, they will be called by their secular names. Born in Rome on 13 June 1641, Agnese Frosciante became an orphan at age fourteen. Four days after her mother’s death, two elder brothers, Giacomo Vincenzo, a Dominican friar, and Francesco, took her to Spoleto, claiming that they intended to place her “in education” with her sister, Maria Francesca, a nun in the Dominican convent of Sant’Andrea. If she did not like it there, they said, she could come home. As Agnese soon discovered, they were lying. Five days after she arrived at Sant’Andrea, her paternal uncle, the Dominican friar Pietro Martire,

20“Active cloister” denotes the prohibition against nuns’ exiting convents except in specified dire circumstances (plague, fire), and then only with the ordinary’s permission. “Passive cloister” refers to strict limitations on outsiders’ coming into convents. See Canons and Decrees, Twenty-fifth Session, “Concerning Regulars and Nuns,” 5:220–21. Especially north of the Alps, ordinaries did not manage to enforce active cloister in all convents. For example, in the case of Judith Aimée Françoise Dusaix (1743), the archbishop of Besançon felt it necessary to inform the Congregation that in the aristocratic abbey of Migete, “regular observance [was] not fully maintained”: nuns could easily obtain permission from the abbess to leave the cloister for long visits with relatives and others. ThR, 12:10; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 704. The Congregation granted Dusaix’s request for restitutio in integrum.

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vested her as a novice,21 imposing on her the monastic name Caterina Angelica.22 As her uncle’s friend Bernardino Michieli recalled many years later, she broke into tears and exclaimed, “For the love of God, don’t shame me this way!” At this point, her brother Francesco fainted. When Michieli asked him the reason, Francesco retorted, “What do you think it is? My poor sister, they’ve given her the habit against her will … and I can’t help her at all; they’re making me stand here like a statue.” To his brother he said, “God forgive you, she told you she didn’t want to become a nun.” “Shut up!” Fra Giacomo Vincenzo retorted. “What I must do will be my burden.”23 During Agnese’s novitiate, Giacomo Vincenzo and Francesco Frosciante succumbed to the plague. As the time for making her profession approached, she expressed her intention to throw off the habit and flee the convent. At her sister’s request, another elder brother, Felice, wrote her a brutally threatening letter: Prepare yourself to do it [take the vows] because I don’t want the shame [of your not professing], and don’t think that because Fra Giacomo is dead you can do what you like, for I’m alive and I’ll take the flies from your nose and the whims from your head. You know that I’ve married and [my wife] is called Agnese, and I don’t want so many Agneses around the house.… If you think you can return to Rome, you’re deluding yourself, because I’ll throw you into the first ditch I find along the road.24

Fearing that if she refused to profess, brother Felice and uncle Pietro Martire would kill her, Agnese took the solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Then and for the next thirty-five years, she told anyone who would listen that she had been made a nun against her will. At last, after Felice and Pietro Martire had died,25 she petitioned the Congregation of the Council. The Congregation ordered Cesare Fachinetti, cardinal archbishop of Spoleto, to conduct an investigation and forward the dossier to Rome. On 15 November 1681, the Congregation rejected her petition.26

21Agnese’s petition does not mention the fact that at the time of her profession, she was seven months short of 16, the minimum age; but in his testimony on 21 January 1682, her brother Luca noted that her vestiture was premature. Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Rome, 1685, Summarium, sigs. A1v–A2r. The full dossier may be found in ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 34, unfoliated. 22Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sig. A1r–v, 16 September 1681. 23Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sig. A3r–v, testimony of Bernardino Michieli, 10 September 1683. 24Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, first part, sig. A1v, letter dated 28 May 1657. Because Agnese was illiterate, Maria Francesca had to read her the letter. Four witnesses confirmed that the missive was in Felice Frosciante’s hand. Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sigs. A3v–A4r. 25Felice died at age 33 on 19 February 1660, Pietro Martire at age 84 on 1 November 1673. ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 34. 26ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 6, sub data; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Libri decretorum, 32:23v.

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Unwilling to take no for an answer, Agnese tried again. On 17 November 1685, the Congregation granted her request for a new hearing.27 Over the preceding years, the vicar-general of the diocese of Spoleto had interrogated additional witnesses. Among the many nuns in Sant’Andrea who testified, three stated that they wished to relieve their consciences of responsibility for a soul certain to be damned if she remained in the convent.28 Two male witnesses provided details about Agnese’s frequent shouting matches with Uncle Pietro Martire.29 A onetime cellmate explained the timing of her petition: And she also told me that as long as her uncle the friar was alive, she couldn’t make her case because he was threatening her. “Now that Uncle is dead,” she said, “if my brother Luca is willing to help, I want to make my case legally.”30

Assistance from Agnese’s sole surviving brother was by no means assured. On one of his rare visits to the convent, Luca had told her, “If you don’t want to stay here, beat your head against the wall.”31 Eventually, however, he came to her aid, first by testifying in her behalf and then by hiring lawyers and promising to maintain her in his home in Rome.32 Very likely for this reason, Agnese’s second petition was successful, and the Congregation considered the new evidence.33 On 9 February 1686, it granted her restitutio ad integrum and Pope Innocent XI declared her profession null.34 Thus Agnese Frosciante, then in her mid-forties, returned to the status from which she had never voluntarily departed: that of a laywoman.


The cases of Filippo Coppola and Giovanni Tommaso Di Gennaro are closely related in place, time, and circumstances—but not in outcome. Natives of Naples, 27ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 8, sub data. 28Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sig. A1r–v, testimony of Maria Francesca Frosciante, 16 September 1681, sig. A2v, testimony of Raimunda Camilla Rescaccini, 10 January 1682; and Maria Serafina Scarducci, 14 August 1684. 29Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sigs. A3r, A4v–A5r, testimony of Bernardino Michieli, 10 September 1683; Mario Palmeri, 13 September 1683. 30Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sig. A4v, testimony of Rosa Giacinta Paccetti, 13 September 1683. 31Sacra Congr. … Frosciante, Summarium, sig. A4v. Earlier, Luca had admitted that during his first five or six visits to Agnese, he had blown hot and cold: “I exhorted her to be patient, sometimes with kindness and sometimes with rigor.” Sacra Congr.…Frosciante, Summarium, sig. A2r, testimony of Luca Frosciante, 21 January 1682. 32His written promise to care for her on 4 February 1686, presented by the attorneys Pietro Cerrettano and Giovanni Andrea Vagano, clearly precipitated the positive resolution of the case. 33ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 8, 17 November 1685. 34ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 9, sub data; ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Libri decretorum, 36:44r–45r; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 34 .

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both were compelled to enter the Calced Carmelite house of Santa Maria della Vita in that city. The ordeal of Coppola, born in 1695, began in early childhood. To fulfill a vow, his mother, Teresa Marturanzo, tried in vain to dress him in the habit of the Minim Order. When he was twelve, the family began to map out his future. Reproving their father, Gennaro, for being overly indulgent toward Filippo, two elder brothers, Nicola and Fortunato (the latter a priest), insisted that Filippo be sent to the episcopal seminary in Nola. After about eighteen months, he returned home. Now Nicola and Fortunato objected that the house was too crowded and there was already one priest in the family. Learning that Filippo had made a promise of marriage to his brother-in-law’s sister,35 they exploded in fury and urged their father to place him in Santa Maria della Vita, where another brother, Santo, and two cousins were friars. In 1716, unable to endure his brothers’ mistreatment, insults, and threats to enroll him in the army and expel him from the family if he did not enter the friary, he tearfully took the habit, assuming the religious name Cristino Maria. During Filippo’s probationary period, his continual illness, frequently expressed reluctance to profess, and flight from the house—amounting, he later claimed, to an interruption of his novitiate—led several of his fellow novices to inform the novice master, Ambrogio Langella, that he was unfit to become a friar. After trying in vain to overcome Filippo’s reluctance through a regimen of prayers and spiritual exercises, Langella concluded that unless the unwilling novice were released and sent home, his soul would be in danger. When “that saintly man” suddenly died, Filippo, bereft of support, had no alternative to making “an external act of profession…by force and entirely against [his] will” on 27 May 1711. He intended to disavow it immediately, but his relatives dissuaded him. Ingenuously trusting in his mother’s assurance that he could leave Santa Maria della Vita and live at home as a secular priest, he proceeded to take holy orders. She did not fulfill her promise. During the next several years, shifted frequently from one monastery to another, Filippo was unable to seek relief from local bishops and Carmelite superiors.36 On 12 June 1722, in response to his petition, the Congregation of the Council ordered Cardinal Archbishop Francesco Pignatelli to conduct a diocesan investigation and forward the findings to Rome. Three months later, on 19 September 1722, Filippo’s petition was denied.37

35Among the cases considered by the Congregation of the Council, romantic relationships are very rare. 36ASDN, Sc. 457, m. 9, no. 16 , fols. 5r–40r; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 606. I thank Pierroberto Scaramella for furnishing photocopies of material on Coppola and Di Gennaro from the archive in Naples. 37ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 35 (1722), sub data; and ThR, 6:391–94.

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Following his brother Fortunato’s death, Filippo moved back home and found employment as a priest. In September 1733, he resumed the effort to gain release from his monastic vows. Over the next four months, he and six fellow Carmelites were interrogated in the archiepiscopal Curia. Filippo reiterated his previous statements and provided additional details. Supporting his allegations, his brothers in religion cited his refusal to hold office in the house as a telling indication of his repugnance for monastic life and his continuing to wear the habit as proof that he had scrupulously followed the rules for seeking restitution to secular status.38 Despite his confreres’ support, the Congregation of the Council was not favorably impressed by Coppola’s dossier. An opinion furnished by one of its consultors, Ignazio Maria Alfani, argued that in the first place, Filippo’s reverential fear of Fortunato, their father’s “vicegerent,” was not strong enough to justify his claims. Evidence that his novitiate had been interrupted, furthermore, was unpersuasive, and his taking priestly orders amounted to a reaffirmation of his monastic vows. Too much time had elapsed between Fortunato’s demise and Filippo’s reinstituting proceedings for release. Case law, too, militated against him: in six previous similar instances, petitioners had been turned down. On 4 December 1734, having evidently accepted Alfani’s interpretation, the Congregation rejected Filippo Coppola’s second petition.39


Fourteen months earlier, on 29 August 1733, the Congregation of the Council had ordered Cardinal Archbishop Pignatelli to investigate Coppola’s confrere Giovanni Tommaso Di Gennaro. Di Gennaro’s petition argued for restitutio in integrum on the ground that his mother, Angela Alfano (who according to all witnesses dominated her elderly, infirm husband, Nicol’Angelo Di Gennaro), had vowed to force her only surviving son into religious life. First, employing beatings, she tried to make him a Mercedarian. He took refuge for two months with his paternal uncle, a priest, and then wandered around the Kingdom of Naples begging until, on the verge of starvation, he had no alternative to returning home. To find some way of supporting himself, he began to study writing and bookkeeping and managed to obtain employment as a scribe in a government office. 38ASDN, Sc. 457, m. 9, no. 16, fols. 5r–40r; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 606. If a petitioner had shed the habit and left the monastery or convent, he or she had to return and revest before the Congregation would consider the case. “Apostates,” those who fled religious houses and chose not to return, had to approach the Apostolic Penitentiary in order to regularize their situations. 39ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 606; ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 47 (1734), sub data; and ThR, 6:391–94.

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Determined to accomplish her objective, “cruel mother” Angela pulled the “pitiable young man” out of school and his job.40 She alternated threats to kick him out of the house, enroll him in the army, or throw him in jail with the promise that if he became a friar and took priestly orders, she would enable him to leave the friary, obtain his inheritance, and live in the world as a secular priest. After selling her jewelry, she deposited the proceeds with Filippo Coppola’s Carmelite cousin Angelo Maria and browbeat her son into vesting in Santa Maria della Vita, where he took the religious name Cirillo. The novice master, bribed by Angela, ignored his protests and sent his secular clothing home so that he could not flee the house. Giovanni Tommaso professed unwillingly on 5 May 1720, declaring that as soon as possible, he would appeal for annulment of his vows. To keep him from doing so, Angela persuaded his superiors to transfer him to remote locations. Twice, in 1727 and 1732, he fled to houses of other orders. Until his mother’s recent death, he asserted under interrogation in October 1733, fear and lack of money had prevented him from appealing to the Congregation.41 Giovanni Tommaso’s sister and fourteen men, nine of them confreres, were summoned to the archiepiscopal Curia for interrogation.42 Although individual Carmelites confirmed his allegations, the house of Santa Maria della Vita, which had objected from the beginning to bearing the expense of two simultaneous proceedings, opposed his suit.43 This complication may have had something to do with the Congregation’s opting on 4 December 1734 to defer a ruling on the case,44 but on 12 February 1735 the cardinals reached a decision. Taking account of the obstacles placed in his way by his mother45 and his monastic superiors to filing an 40Di Gennaro’s attorney crafted the quoted characterizations. ThR, 6:394–95; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 609, printed summary, sig. A1v. 41ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 46 (1733), sub data; ThR, 6:394-95; ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 609, attestation to Angela Alfano’s death on 9 April 1730; and ASDN, Sc. 468, m. 26, no. 5, fols. 1r– 10v (two copies of his petition) and fols. 11r–24v, interrogation of Di Gennaro, 11 October 1733. His sister, Candida, testified on 6 November 1733 that their mother had borne seven sons, all but Giovanni Tommaso by this time deceased, and three daughters, of whom she seems to have been the only one still living. Ibid., fol. 33v. 42ASDN, Sc. 468, m. 26, no. 5, fols. 32r–63v, interrogations conducted between 6 November 1733 and 11 January 1734. Candida (age 34, unmarried, and unable to sign her name) was older than Giovanni Tommaso. Four Carmelites testified in both the Coppola and the Di Gennaro proceedings: the provincial, Mariano Romano; Vincenzo Maria Alfieri; Filippo’s cousin Andrea Maria Coppola; and Tommaso Maria Positano. 43 Archivio Storico Diocesano, Naples, Sc. 457, m. 9, no. 16, fol. 11r, 8 October 1733; and Archivio Storico Diocesano, Naples, Sc. 468, m. 26, no. 5, fol. 10v, 3 September 1733, and fols. 64r–66v, 12 January and 8 May 1734. 44ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 47 (1734), sub data; and ThR, 6:394–95. 45Ignazio Maria Alfani, who served as consultor to the Congregation in Di Gennaro’s as well as Coppola’s case, argued that Agnese Alfano had not merely inspired reverential fear in her son; she had exerted violence amounting to full-fledged vis et metus. See ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 609, printed summary, sigs. A2v–A3r, A4r.

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appeal in a timely manner, and of new information about his having suffered an apoplectic stroke two years earlier, they granted his request.46 In May, after the Neapolitan Curia had processed the paperwork from Rome, Giovanni Tommaso Di Gennaro was released from the Carmelite Order.47


In the post-Tridentine Catholic world, all roads led to and from its administrative center, Rome. Writing on the Inquisition, Adriano Prosperi has persuasively argued that the papacy pioneered in establishing the modern bureaucratic state. Not only were major policy decisions formulated in Rome; their implementation was monitored in minute detail through a steady flow of correspondence between agents on the periphery (inquisitors) and their masters on the Congregation of the Holy Office.48 An even stronger case can be made for the role of the Congregation of the Council in this Weberian process of state formation. In regulating entry into and exit from religious orders and adjudicating innumerable other matters relating to the disciplinary decrees of the Council of Trent, this Congregation ordered bishops and their representatives to conduct investigations and submit reports. After perusing them, it not infrequently demanded fuller information or required that the investigation be done over again. More regularly than the Congregation of the Holy Office, the Congregation of the Council employed consultors and received attorneys’ briefs, almost always accompanied by supporting documentation. These piles of paper, undoubtedly exceeding what the grand inquisitors had to deal with, necessitated the services of a support staff person. The Congregation of the Council’s secretary reviewed the materials submitted, prepared summaries, and saw that both these and the full case papers were distributed in printed form to the cardinals. That members of the Congregation read thousands of pages in preparation for each meeting seems improbable; most likely they relied on the secretary’s summaries. To an incalculable but certainly enormous degree, this key bureaucrat shaped the conclusions his masters the cardinals reached. Secretaries of the Congregation, all of whom held degrees in civil and canon law, were hardly nameless, faceless paper-pushers. Of the nine men who served between 1720 and

46ASVa, Congr. Concilio, PRP 48 (1735), sub data; and ThR, 7:17. ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 609, affidavits furnished on 23 December 1734 by Giovanni Tommaso’s former business arithmetic teacher, Tommaso Graniello, and the physician Silvestro de Bellis concerning the attack of apoplexy, which occurred in September 1732 and paralyzed one arm. In ThR, his malady is mistakenly termed “epilepsy.” 47Archivio Storico Diocesano, Naples, Sc. 468, m. 26, no. 5, fols. 66v–70v; and ThR, 7:17. 48Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza.

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1798, four had been consecrated bishop before being named secretary; two others were raised to this rank during their tenure. All nine eventually received the cardinal’s red hat. Prospero Lambertini, the secretary who more than any other defined the role and rationalized the procedure for dealing with petitions for release from monastic vows, donned the triple tiara in 1740, taking the papal name Benedict XIV.49


The cases of Agnese Frosciante, Filippo Coppola, and Giovanni Tommaso Di Gennaro bear witness to the negative impact of patriarchal economic strategies on middle- and upper-class adolescents in early modern Europe. Like many other but not all petitioners, these three were near or at the bottom of the birth order in large families.50 Their arrival on the scene, no doubt unplanned and in many cases undesired, posed problems, especially for their elder siblings. Avoiding the division of the patrimony into even smaller parcels by disposing inexpensively of the late-born in a convent or monastery was too tempting to resist. In Coppola’s case and especially in Di Gennaro’s, a noneconomic factor, the mothers’ insistence on their sons’ becoming friars, must not be discounted. With relatives and religious superiors—sometimes one and the same—willing to cooperate in this venture, pressuring, threatening, and/or tricking adolescents into professing presented few difficulties. As noted earlier, according to a decree of the Council of Trent, the bishop or his representative had to ascertain that a female professant was taking vows willingly.51 For young people of both genders, however, force and fear exerted over many years fatally compromised the

49 The series comprises Lambertini (1720–35), Guidobono Cavalchini (1735–43), Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti (1743–59), Giuseppe Simonetti (1760–63), Filippo Maria Pirelli (1763–66), Francesco Saverio Zelada (1766–75), Francesco Carraro (1775–85), Filippo Carandini (1785–87), and Giulio Gabrielli (1787–98). On Lambertini (the future Pope Benedict XIV), Cavalchini, Furietti, Carrara, Carandini, and Gabrielli, see the voci in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. Ritzler and Sefrin, Hierarchia Catholica medii et recentioris aevi, vol. 6, provides details on the careers of Simonetti (6, 335), Pirelli (24, 191), and Zelada (28, 335). 50Elder offspring were often forced into the monastery or convent, as two examples will show. In the case of Arnoldine Gouder (1705–6), a nun in Straelen, diocese of Antwerp, her mother sought to favor her sons from a second marriage by cutting Arnoldine, born in her first marriage, out of the patrimonial picture. Decreta Sacra Congregationis Concilii, 303–4, 538–39; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 290. Alleging his inability to provide marital dowries for Marguerite-Eugénie and AnneMarie, his two eldest daughters, Antoine Beauregard of Grenoble forced them into a convent in Chambéry; their supplica was considered between 1770 and 1772. ThR, 39:262–67, 275, 40:28–33; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 1153. The Congregation granted both Gouder’s and the Beauregard sisters’ petitions. 51See n3 above.

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principle that professions should be voluntary and sincere. When the bishop’s vicar-general asked whether she was entering religion of her own free will, one petitioner recalled, she had replied, “What am I supposed to do?”52 From our twenty-first-century perspective, of course, no one should have been forced into a monastery or convent in the first place, and the Congregation of the Council should readily have granted the petitions of all who had been. Since the three petitioners examined here presented ample evidence, corroborated by witnesses, of force and fear both before and after profession,53 why did the cardinals react favorably to Agnese’s and Giovanni Tommaso’s petitions and reject Filippo’s? The main variable appears to be the presence or absence of petitioners’ lawyers in an increasingly complex and bureaucratized judicial forum managed by a secretary with legal training. In the final stages of the petitioning process, Frosciante and Di Gennaro received assistance from aggressive attorneys. Coppola did not: no advocate came forward at the last moment to furnish new information that could tip the balance in his favor or to contest consultor Alfani’s interpretation of his situation. Then as now, those who instituted legal proceedings usually got the level of justice they could afford. Clearly, they represent a minority of unwilling religious. Behind the scenes, virtually invisible to historians, lurk uncountable numbers of men and women. Bereft of the means and opportunity to petition for release from their vows, they had no hope of exiting legally from incarceration in institutions they had not freely entered.54

52“Che debbo fare?” ThR, 26:54–56. This sarcastic or more likely desperate remark comes from Maria Anna Cappello, a Carmelite nun in Somma Vesuviana (diocese of Nola), whose case opened in 1757. On 23 April 1763, the Congregation granted her release. ThR, 32:79–81; and ASVa, Congr. Concilio, Positiones 1044. 53Canons and Decrees, Twenty-fifth Session, “Concerning Regulars and Nuns,” 18:228–29, called for sanctions against those who exerted force and fear to make young people take religious vows. If the perpetrators were still alive at the time their victims petitioned, which was sometimes the case, the Congregation usually ordered that the ordinary prosecute them. 54Episcopal visitations to and special investigations of religious houses occasionally reveal some of them. See Paolin, “Monache e donne nella Friuli del Cinquecento.”

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archives ASVa ASDN BAV Sacra Congr.…Frosciante

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Printed Primary Sources Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. Edited and translated by Henry Joseph Schroeder. St. Louis: Herder, 1960. Reprint, Rockford, IL: Tan Books, 1978. Caracciolo, Enrichetta. Misteri del chiostro napoletano. Florence, 1864. New edition by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli. Florence: Giunti, 1986. Decreta Sacra Congregationis Concilii [1703–18]. N.p.: n.d. (BAV, Racc. Gen. Dir. Can. III.139). De Roberto, Federico. I viceré. Milan, 1894. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun as The Viceroys. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962. Diderot, Denis. La religieuse. Paris, 1780, 1796. Translated by Leonard Tancock as The Nun. New York: Viking Penguin, 1974. La Harpe, Jean-François de. Mélanie ou la religieuse. Leiden, 1770. Manzoni, Alessandro. I promessi sposi. Milan, 1825–27. Translated by Bruce Penman as The Betrothed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1984 Medioli, Francesca. L’ “Inferno monacale” di Arcangela Tarabotti. Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1990. Thesaurus resolutionum Sacrae Congregazionis Concilii. 167 vols. Urbino, 1739–40; Rome, 1741–1908 (cited as ThR).

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Douglas, Mary. “To Inner Experience.” In Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. Edited by Mary Douglas, 19–36. New York: Pantheon, 1970. Frajese, Vittorio. Il popolo fanciullo: Silvio Antoniano e il sistema disciplinare della Controriforma. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1987. Hoberg, Herman. Inventario dell’Archivio della Sacra Romana Rota (sec. XIV–XIX). Edited by Joseph Metzler. Vatican City: Archivio Vaticano, 1994. Medioli, Francesca. “Per una storia della clausura in Antico Regime: La Congregazione cardinalizia dei Vescovi e dei Regolari e la sua amministrazione nella seconda metà del Seicento.” Tesi di dottorato, Università degli studi di Bologna, 1995–96. Molho, Anthony. “Tamquam vere morta: Le professioni religiose femminili nella Firenze del tardo medioevo.” Società e storia 43 (1989): 1–44. Paolin, Giovanna. “Monache e donne nel Friuli del Cinquecento.” In Società e cultura del Cinquecento nel Friuli occidentale: Studi, edited by Andrea del Col, 145–95. Pordenone: Edizioni della Provincia di Pordenone, 1984. Piangatelli, Gualberto. “La forzata scelta della vita ecclesiastica o religiosa nei secoli XVI– XVIII e l’atteggiamento della Chiesa locale.’’ In La nobiltà della Marca nei secoli XIV– XVII. Patrimoni, carriere, cultura, 105–32. Macerata: Centro di studi storici maceratesi, 1998. Prosperi, Adriano. Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari. Turin: Einaudi, 1996. Ritzler, Remegius, and Pirmanus Sefrin, eds. Hierarchia Catholica medii et recentioris aevi. Vol. 6, 1730–99. Padua: Il Messagero di S. Antonio, 1968. Schutte, Anne Jacobson. “‘Perfetta donna o ermafrodita?’: Fisiologia e gender in un monastero settecentesco.” Studi storici 43 (2002): 235–46. Shorter, Edward. The Making of the Modern Family. New York: Basic Books, 1975. Sperling, Jutta Gisela. Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977. Vismara Chiappa, Paola. “Per vim et metum”: Il caso di Paola Teresa Pietra. Como: New Press, 1991. Zorzi, Alvise. La monaca di Venezia: Una storia d’amore e di libertà. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1996.

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An Epilogue John W. O’Malley

IT IS SURELY FITTING TO CONCLUDE this volume by saluting Elisabeth Gleason and congratulating her on her presence in the world of scholarship through years that have witnessed such significant developments in our understanding of religious reform in early modern Italy. She has been one of a handful of scholars who moved easily in both Europe and North America. She thus served as a conduit for the exchange of views and information, and helped forge friendships that crossed the Atlantic and enriched both sides of it. The extent and the vigor of scholarship in the field in the past three decades have to a large extent resulted from exchanges of this kind. Elisabeth has been especially active in opening up the network to younger scholars. This volume is a tribute to Elisabeth, but it is also a testament to the international exchange that has proved so fruitful. Fruitful in what ways? John Martin has described them well. Scholars, in particular those writing for this volume, have discovered and explored sources practically unknown to previous generations. More important, they have explored them with new questions, with greater sophistication, and with less parti pris. They have explored them with more refined categories of analysis and tried to avoid the sharp dichotomy that so long marked scholarship on religion in sixteenth-century Italy—Catholic apology and lay polemic. The scope of research has broadened. The eminent German historian Leopold von Ranke set a pattern for generations when, in the mid-nineteenth century, he described the Counter-Reformation as revolving around three agents: the Council of Trent, the papacy, and the Jesuits. These three agents, Ranke and subsequent historians agree, had an especially direct impact upon Italy. No serious historian today doubts the determining importance of the triad, but the supposition that they moved as one force and with the same singleness of purpose has suffered considerable qualification. Just as significant, other agents have appeared on the scene in great numbers to diffuse the spotlight directed so exclusively on the star players. Until twenty years ago, who knew anything about confraternities or who cared? Now scholars cannot get enough of them.

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Although the Council and the papacy receive implicit and explicit attention in this volume, they are far from dominating it. As is true more broadly in scholarship in the past twenty years, Trent is studied more from the perspective of its implementation and the ways in which this was contested than in and of itself as an historical event. The popes are presented indirectly, and Venice gets more attention than Rome. The Jesuits are scarcely mentioned. The traditional triad, still crucially important for understanding what happened, now competes for attention with other agents whose significance has gradually become more manifest, and our understanding of each of the three elements of the triad has been refashioned by all the methodological developments that have taken place in recent years. The title of our tribute to Elisabeth Gleason itself suggests a significant shift in perspectives: Heresy, Culture, and Religion in Early Modern Italy. Culture rather than state, religion rather than church, early modern rather than CounterReformation, and no mention, even, of reform in any of its variants. In the contributions themselves, the church is of course mightily present, so is the state, and so is reform, especially in its Counter-Reformation expression, but these and similar categories have, with their boundaries newly permeable, taken on subtly different modes. Under the capacious umbrella of culture and religion, the issue that recurs again and again in the preceding pages is the relationship between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Who’s in, who’s out, who’s in-between? How are those who are out detected and dealt with? In this scenario, the intransigenti and the spirituali, in perhaps slightly different guise and definition, appear from time to time and continue to excite scholars with their customary fascination. The volume raises more implicitly than explicitly the traditional question of what effect the repression of heresy had on Italian culture, including religious culture, but it raises it nonetheless powerfully. Among the volume's other merits, then, is that it functions as a remarkably sophisticated report on the state of the field. The volume also suggests one of the most important historiographical trends of the past decade: the remarkable upsurge of interest in sixteenth-century Catholicism among scholars in North America. The founding several years ago of the Society for Early Modern and Catholic Studies, of which Michelle Fontaine was one of the leading spirits, gave institutional grounding to the phenomenon. As is so clear from the foregoing contributions, Catholicism cannot be understood apart from its relationship to Protestantism, but, as the title suggests, many other relationships and aspects of it are now being explored. Religion and culture—if religion is taken to mean in this case the dominant religion, Catholicism, the subject is expanding exponentially. However crucial the relationship of Catholicism in Italy to heterodoxy, it is only one piece of the once dull, now increasingly fascinating picture that is emerging. One reason for the HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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emergence of the new picture is the different, less predetermining type of questions scholars are asking. Instead of asking, for instance, how the Counter-Reformation affected Italian culture in the early modern period, scholars are increasingly asking what Italian culture, even religious culture, was like in that period. It is a simpler, more open question. In answering it, scholars must of course give consideration to the earlier question, which remains as formidable as ever. But the horizon has expanded. Some of the old mega-issues are meanwhile being reshaped. Did the CounterReformation kill the Renaissance? Generations of historians gave an affirmative answer to that question as an article of faith, but the reality was much more complicated. Scholars have dispelled some of the idealizing, almost idolatrous myths that constituted a large part of what we understood the Renaissance to be. Not only has the Renaissance been denuded of much of its romantic glamour, but its very existence has been denied by some historians. If there is one field in which it is difficult to deny that there was a Renaissance, it is art. Historians can trace a straight line from Giotto to Michelangelo. And then (another axiomatic truth of earlier generations) everything went downhill. Surely not. Painting changed considerably in Italy during the sixteenth century, just as it had done in the fifteenth, but it did not necessarily change for the worse. Long gone is the thesis that baroque is synonymous with decadence and thus the perfect form for the Counter-Reformation. In this postmodern age, the Renaissance ideal of beauty and decorum is no longer held as the standard against which all others are to be judged. Moreover, those famous lines from Trent forbidding “all lasciviousness” in paintings seem mild indeed compared with the caustic, almost puritanical strictures that Erasmus, the prince of Renaissance humanists, time and time again directed against the painters of his day. Did the Counter-Reformation (and Reformation) kill humanism? An affirmative answer, once again, was until recently almost automatic. Certainly, if we conceive the Counter-Reformation in its demoniacal form, it killed a humanism that in its idealized form stood for all the liberal values of the modern world. But scholars have descended from such mountain peaks of generalization. As Erika Rummel has argued, humanism took on at least in certain parts of Europe what can be called confessional forms. Like every historical movement that has within it the breath of life, it changed with time. Evidence keeps mounting, however, that in the latter part of the sixteenth century with the astounding proliferation of schools inspired by the humanists’ program, the most fundamental ideals of the movement received an institutional form that prolonged them well into the future and made them accessible to an ever larger percentage of the population. To borrow a note from Marc Fumaroli, the seventeenth century, the age of the scientific revolution (as we used to say), can also be rightly called the age of eloquence. HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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The aspect of the humanist movement that suffered most damage in Catholic lands, and perhaps most especially in Italy, was the rigorous philology applied to sacred texts that Lorenzo Valla and others pioneered. Not that this damage was altogether peculiar to Catholicism, but the church created instruments of surveillance that, no matter how clumsily they may have operated, had a chilling effect. Moreover, those instruments were eventually able in Italy to remove from circulation the most central of all religious texts in the Christian tradition and the text on which some of the geniuses of the movement had lavished their attention. The relationship of the Counter-Reformation to the Renaissance—of the earlier period to the later—is filled with light, darkness, and shadows on both sides. Except for a brief mention by Gigliola Fragnito, the Jesuits scarcely appear in the volume. Fragnito describes them not as blind agents of a papal program or as the sinister creators of it, but as a group whose solution to a pedagogical problem took on dimensions in the public sphere beyond the original intent. Of the three members of the classical triad of the Counter-Reformation, none has undergone more scrutiny in the past decade than the Jesuits and none had its scope more significantly expanded. The Jesuits in Italy, as well as in other parts of Europe, must surely continue to be described in traditional terms as agents of the CounterReformation. Current scholarship does not negate the earlier scholarship. What is now vividly clear, however, is that the Jesuits were not founded as a Counter-Reformation agency, that concern about the spread of heresy only gradually became part of their self-definition, and that that aspect of their activities was only part of a much larger reality. In many parts of the world, it was a small part of the larger picture. In the past decade, scholars have been increasingly directing their attention to the other aspects of the Jesuit enterprise. Undoubtedly conservative in principle, the Jesuits showed themselves responsive to concrete needs and situations in ways scholars were utterly unaware of just a few years ago. Their normative documents, for instance, discourage or severely restrict the use of music in their churches. Until relatively recently, scholars took the rule for the reality. But we now see that, in many of their churches and most especially in their schools, they promoted a vigorous musical program. At certain academic celebrations at the Collegio Romano six, seven, or eight choirs might perform, with music composed for the occasion by the maestro di cappella. Just in the past six or seven years, the Jesuits have caught the attention of a large number of Italian scholars, especially young scholars, so that Italy, along with France and North America, has taken the lead in a field that earlier was pursued almost exclusively by members of the Society of Jesus. Still almost unexplored, however, are the other orders, both the old and the new. If the Jesuits were important, the Capuchins were also important, especially for Italy, and in Italy they were just as numerous as the Jesuits. The field of study indicated by this HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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volume is brilliantly alive at the present, but there are large areas that continue to be neglected in favor of older subjects and themes. It is significant that the term “Counter-Reformation” does not occur in the title of this volume. “Early modern Italy,” which includes the Counter-Reformation, more accurately reflects the breadth of the shifts in recent scholarship. Counter-Reformation there certainly was, but the reality, even the religious reality, was much broader. To capture that broader reality, scholars need broader terms, or at least some alternative terms. As perceptions of the complexity of the period have become ever sharper, the shorthand designations of it have similarly become more complex, less monochrome. It is that complexity, or richness, that makes the field represented by this volume so lively today and so attractive to younger scholars. In that regard, the volume reflects the inspiration of the person to whom it is dedicated.

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Contributors ELENA BONORA is associate professor of early modern history at the University of Parma. Her main research interests concern the religious and cultural history of the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation. Her most recent publications include I conflitti della Controriforma (1998) and La Controriforma (2001).

RONALD K. DELPH is associate professor of medieval and Renaissance history at Eastern Michigan University. He has published numerous articles on humanism in Rome, and is currently working on a study of the Old Testament biblical and textual exegesis of the Italian humanist Agostino Steuco.

MASSIMO FIRPO is professor of early modern history at the University of Turin. Among his more recent publications are Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo, Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I (1997) and Artisti, gioiellieri, eretici: Il mondo di Lorenzo Lotto tra Riforma e Controriforma (2001). MICHELLE M. FONTAINE is campus minister and teaches history at Holy Names High School in Oakland, CA. Her research and publications have focused on early modern urban religious culture in Italy, especially in Modena. She is an editor of Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy (2003).

GIGLIOLA FRAGNITO is professor of early modern history at the University of Parma. Her latest publications include La Bibbia al rogo: La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1471–1605) (1997). She is the editor of Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy (2001). PAUL F. GRENDLER, professor of history emeritus, University of Toronto, now lives in Chapel Hill, NC. He has written eight books, including The European Renaissance in American Life (2006), and was editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. He is a former president of the Renaissance Society of America and a member of the American Philosophical Society.

MARION LEATHERS KUNTZ is Fuller E. Callaway Professor, Regents Professor Emerita at Georgia State University. Her current interests are centered on sixteenthcentury Venetian intellectual history. The Anointment of Dionisio: Prophecy and 253

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Politics in Renaissance Italy (2001) is her latest book. She is currently preparing a book on Venetian inquisitors.

JOHN JEFFRIES MARTIN, professor and chair of the Department of History at Trinity University, is the author of Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (1993, 2003) and Myths of Renaissance Individualism (2006).

FREDERICK J. MCGINNESS teaches European history at Mount Holyoke College. He is the author of Right-Thinking and Sacred Oratory in Counter-Reformation Rome (1995) and is completing the English translation of Erasmus of Rotterdam's treatise on preaching, Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi, which will appear in the Collected Works of Erasmus.

PAUL V. MURPHY holds the John G. and Mary Jane Breen Chair in Catholic Studies at John Carroll University, where he also serves as director of the Institute of Catholic Studies. He has published a number of scholarly works on Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and the early Jesuits, and his current research focuses on the sanctuary of the Holy House at Loreto.

JOHN W. O’MALLEY is Distinguished Professor of Church History at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of The First Jesuits (1995), Trent and All That, Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (2002), and Four Cultures of the West (2004).

ANNE JACOBSON SCHUTTE teaches at the University of Virginia. Her books include Pier Paolo Vergerio: The Making of an Italian Reformer (1977); Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books, 1465–1550: A Finding List (1983); Cecilia Ferrazzi, Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint (1996); and Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750 (2001). SILVANA SEIDEL MENCHI is professor of history at the University of Pisa. Among her numerous publications on sixteenth-century religious life, the best known is Erasmo in Italia (1520–1580), which was published in 1991 and now has appeared in German and French translations. She is currently publishing four volumes of essays on matrimonial trials in ecclesiastical courts.

PAOLO SIMONCELLI, who is professor of early modern history at the University of Rome (La Sapienza), studies the religious culture of the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as well as the relations between culture and politics in Fascist Italy. In addition, he counts among his publications books and HERESY, CULTURE & RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

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essays on the history of Florentine republicanism, including Il cavaliere dimezzato: Paolo del Roso “fiorentino e letterato” (1990); and “Esuli fiorentini al tempo dell’ Altoviti,” in Ritratto di un banchiere del Rinascimento: Bindo Altoviti tra Raffaello e Cellini, ed. Alan Chong et al. (2004).

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Index

Italicized numbers indicate references to figures. Barducci, Chirico di Chirico, 129–30 Barzizza, Gasparino, 137 Bellarmine, Roberto, 218 Benedictines, 41, 61–63 Benedict XIV, Pope, 243 Benrath, Karl, 3 Benzoni, Gino, 165 Berenson, Bernard, 21 Bernardino of Siena, 106 Bianchi, Tommasino de (Lancellotti), 40– 41 Cronaca Modenese, 39n Bible, in Italian vernacular, 17 Biondo, Flavio, 78, 85 bishops. See also priests/bishops as censors, 196, 198 as heretics, 212–13 and post-Tridentine crises, 211, 214 Boccafuoco, Costanzo, 205 Bodin, Jean, 165 Bologna, trials for heresy in, 178 Bonafede, Francesco, 146–47 Bonamico, Lazzaro, 142 Bonnet, Jacques, 25 Bonora, Elena, 14, 170 books. See also censorship clandestine circulation of, 24, 28, 62 permitted by the Index, 195 as vehicles of reform 185–186 Borgo, Antonio dal, tried by inquisition, 176, 179–80 botany, in university curriculum, 146 Bracciolini, Poggio, 86 Brisighella (Giovanni Maria Guanzelli), 201–2, 206 Brown, Patricia Fortini, 154

Achillini, Alessandro, 140 Alberigo, Giuseppe, 211 Aleandro, Girolamo, 27, 55 Allgeier, Arthur, 96 Alteri, Baldassare, 24 Anabaptists, 179 anatomy, in university curriculum, 147 and scholarship, 213, 223n Antonio, Fra, inquisitor, 216–17 Antonio marangon, artisan, tried by inquisition, 24 aqueducts, 76–89 architects, 55, 84 Aretino, Pietro, 29 Aristotelianism, in university curriculum, 11, 138–40 artists/artisans accused of heresy, in Venice, 122–23 as conveyors of heresy, 30, 46, 174–75 painters, 8, 19, 21–31 recalled to Florence, 122–25 social and religious milieu of, 8, 19, 21– 31, 40, 55, 174–75 tried as heretics, 24, 25, 28 30 Asolo, trials for heresy in, 176, 179–80 Asperti, Omobono, priest, tried by inquisition, 180–89 Attavanti, Pandolfo, 127–29 Augustinian Canons of San Salvatore, 77 Augustinians, 41, 77, 140 Averroism, in university curriculum, 139, 140 Badia, Tommaso, 55 Barba, Bartolomeo dalla, tried by inquisition, 177–78 Barbaro, Daniele, 223 257

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Brucioli, Antonio, 22, 27 Pie e cristiane epistole, 185 Calandra, Endimio, tried by inquisition, 53 Calfurnio, Giovanni, 142 Cali, Maria, 25 Camers, Lorenzo, 141 Cantimori, Delio, 4, 5 Cantini, Lorenzo, 122 Caponetto, Salvatore, 37 Carafa, Giovanni Pietro. See Paul IV Caravia, Alessandro, Il Sogno and La verra antiga, 28 Carmelites, Santa Maria della Vita monastery, 239, 241 Carnesecchi, Pietro, 212 Carpan, Bartolomeo, 23, 25, 27–28 Castello, Sebastino accused of heretical preaching, 186–88 tried by inquisition, 186–88 Castelvetro, Ludovico, humanist, tried by inquisition, 46 Castiglione, Baldassare, as advocate for Gonzaga, 54 Catarino, Ambrogio, on preaching, 96 Catholic Church/Catholicism episcopal persuasion against heresy, 45–46 heterogeneous on Cyprus, 215 and popular reform initiatives, 174–78 post-Tridentine conflicts, 212–13 preaching reform, 69–70, 93–109 reform contexts, 2–7, 69–72 Catholic Reform, distinguished from Counter-Reformation, 3–4 censorship. See also Congregation of the Index; indexes and clandestine book distribution, 24 decentralized, 198 of Erasmus’s works, 93–94 expurgation of Contarini’s works, 193– 207 forbidden categories, 197–98 impediments to, 200–202 of Mocenigo’s works, 171, 211–25 of Ptolemy’s Geografia, 216

and scholarship, 199–200 Chiodi, Luigi, 25 Chizzuola, Don Ippolito, accused of heretical preaching, 186 Chomarat, Jacques, 96 The Christian Institution catechism, 24, 26 Christianity, and justice, 152–53 Citolini, Alessandro, 24 classics, as university course, 142 Clement VII, Pope, 11, 6 Clement VIII, Pope, 197–99, 201, 218 Comba, Emilio, 3 composers, 55 confessionalization, as erratic, 172 confraternities, 175–76 Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, 232–33 Congregation of the Council, 211, 232–44 Congregation of the Holy Office. See Inquisition Congregation of the Index, 13–14, 170, 195–98, 212 Consilium de emendanda ecclesia, 55–56 Contarini, Gasparo engraving of, by Stimmer, 194 and expurgatory policy of Rome, 193, 202–7 De justificatione, 203 Modus concionandi, 56 De officio episcopi, 42, 204 Opera: Paris version, 202–3, 205; Venetian version, 204, 205 on preaching, 107 on reason and theology, 139–40 as reform commissioner, 55 De sacramentis, 203 as student of science and humanism, 11, 139–40 and University of Padua, 71, 139–48 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 142 Coppola, Filippo, 238–40, 243–44 Coptic church, liturgical dance of, 162 Corner, Paolo, 156 Cortese, Gregorio, 55 Cortesi Bosco, Francesca, 24, 25 Costabili, Paolo, as inquisitor, 47, 218 Costantino da Carrera, Don, 59–61

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Council of Trent, 139 on active/passive cloister, 236 on expurgation of texts, 196–97 implementation of decrees of, 211–12 ineffectual against repression, 15 on petitions for release from vows, 232–33 on reform of preaching, 9, 69–70, 93– 109, 139 Counter-Reformation, 3–4, 73–90, 249–50 Counts Palatinate, authority to confer doctorates, 143–44 Crivelli, Gasparo, artisan, tried by Inquisition, 28 Crivelli, Paolo, artisan, tried by Inquisition, 28 Cronica Veneta dal principio della città, 162–63 Cyprus, 11, 214–15 dance, sacred, 162 d’Arman, Mario, tried by inquisition, 23, 27 Decalogue. See Ten Commandments Della Casa, Giovanni, 127, 128 Delph, Ronald, 2, 16, 69 Diaz, Furio, 122 Diderot, Denis, 232 Di Gennaro, Giovanni Tommaso, 240–44 d’Istria, Don Basilio, 189 doctorate degree, authority conferred with, 143–44 Domenico da Imola, as inquisitor, 45 Dominicans, 24, 41, 44–45, 140–41, 174, 179, 236–37 Donà, Alvise, 29–30 Dotti, Gaspare, 30–31 du Port, Maurice (Maurice O’Fihely), 141 education, 135–48, 196–97, 221. See also universities Egnazio, Giovanni Battista, 71, 152, 153 Novi libri, 151 Erasmus, Desiderius censored by Index, 13, 94 compared to Francis of Assisi, 106–7

Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi, 70, 93–109 Espositione letterale del testo di Mattheo evangelista, 184 post-Tridentine influence, 70, 94–95 on prudence and persuasion, 9–10 and reform of preaching, 93–109 on role of bishops, 98–99 Este, Ercole, II, and battle of Montemurlo, 60–61, 65, 118 evangelism, and Catholic reform, 5, 6 expurgation. See under censorship families duty of, to provide preachers, 101 patriarchy, and forced monachization, 232–36, 243–44 Ferrari, Giovan Battista, artisan, tried by Inquisition, 28 Firpo, Massimo, 6, 8, 16, 19, 212 Fivizzano, Zaccaria da, preaching in Venice, 27 Flitner, Andreas, 96 Florence assassination of Alessandro de Medici, 117 Cosimo I de Medici, as ruler of, 117 Gelido, Pietro, Medicean ambassador, 113–14, 114n Nobili, Vico de, Florentine counsul, 127–30 and Pope Clement VII, 116 Florentine exiles, 8, 70, 113–30 battle of Montemurlo, 117–19 and Cosimo I de Medici, 120–30 Nardi as moral head of, 114–20, 129 and St. John the Baptist Confraternity, 113, 119, 129 and Strozzi, 117–19, 121, 123, 126, 129 and Venice, 113–30 Fontaine, Michelle, 248 Fontana, Renzo, 22–23 Fontanini, Benedetto, 61, 63, 64 Benefico di Cristo, 62 forced monachization of Filippo Coppola, 238–40, 243–44

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forced monachization, continued of Giovanni Tommaso Di Gennaro, 240–44 of Agnese Frosciante, 236–38, 243–44 of men/boys, 171, 235–36 and patriarchy, 232–36, 243–44 Rota (sacred tribunal), and petitions for release from vows, 233 of women/girls, 235 Foscarari, Egidio, 10, 19–20, 38, 41, 44–48 Foscari, Francesco, 154 fountains, in Steuco’s urban renewal plans, 76, 79–89 Fra Antonio, inquisitor, 216–17 Fragnito, Gigliola, 13, 64, 170, 250 Franciscans, 41, 140, 180, 187, 188–89 Francis of Assisi, on preaching, 106 Fregoso, Federico, 55 Friulan dialect, 161–62 Frontinus, Sextus Julius, Aqueducts of Rome, 86 Frosciante, Agnese, 236–38, 243–44 Fumaroli, Marc, 249 Gadaldino, Antonio, bookseller, tried by inquisition, 46 Gallo, Dionisio, 8, 71 Legatio, 155 tried by inquisition, 155–56 Gambara, Gian Francesco, 218, 219 Gambello, Antonio, 154 Gamillo, Giulio, 24 Gelido, Pietro, 113–14, 114n Gelusio, Pietro, Dominican, tried by inquisition, 179 Gentili, Augusto, 25 Geografia (Ptolemy), 216 Ghetti, Andrea, Trattato utile della grazia e delle opera, 57–59 Ghislieri, Michele (Pius V, Pope), as Grand Inquisitor, 173–74, 213 Giberti, Gian Matteo, 55 Giles of Viterbo, 85 Giunti, Gian Maria, 27 Giustiniani, Tommaso, 142 Gleason, Elisabeth, 16, 136, 247 Gonzag family, and the Italian states, 56

Gonzaga, Ercole as bishop of Mantua, 53–65 children of, 55 and the Consilium de emendanda ecclesia, 55–56 doctrinal views of, 53, 65 elevation to cardinalate, 54–55 pastoral approach of, to heresy, 20, 57– 65 self-perception of, 64–65 as student of Pomponazzi, 11, 54, 143 on theological inquiry, 7 university education of, 142–44 Greek, as university course, 141 Gregory XIII, Pope establishment of Congregation of the Index, 197 and Steuco’s plans for renewal of Rome, 89 vs. the Inquisition, 170–71, 213, 217– 21 Grendler, Paul, 71 Gritti, Andrea, 157–59 kneeling before St. Mark, 158 Libro d’oro, 157, 158, 165 Guanzelli, Giovanni Maria (Brisighella), 201–2 Guicciardini, Francesco, 115n heresy in the absence of strong bishops, 48 accommodation of, by inquisitors, 12, 173–90 Anabaptists, 179 of artists/artisans, 28–30, 40, 47, 174– 75 of Benedictines, 61–63 of bishops, 212–13 catalog of heresies, 17 and Catholicism, 248–49 of Franciscans, 188 Gonzaga’s approach to, 57–65 Lutherans, 178, 180 of Mocenigo, 222–25 public expression of, 173–78, 216–17 sacramentarianism, 180–81 and use of vernacular, 223–24

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humanism, 10–12, 69, 73–90, 97, 103, 249, 250 humanist/patron relationship, 80–81 Humphrey, Peter, 25 immortality of the soul, 138, 141 indexes. See also censorship Clementine, 197–99 expurgatory, 13–14, 193, 201 Index auctorum et Librorum prohibitorum, 13, 94, 193–207 of Parma, 204 Pauline, 195–96 quality of, 200–201 Sixto-Clementine, 206 Tridentine, 196–97, 204 Inquisition censorship of Contarini’s Opera, 203–4 clashes with the papacy, 170–71, 213, 217–21 and Clementine Index, 197–99, 212 as definer of truth, 224–25 leniency of, 181–84, 212n as mediative body, 178–84 pre-and post-1555, 189, 213 rebellion against, 174–75 reestablished, 12–13, 53 separate from Congregation of the Index, 198 use of torture, 189–90 inquisitors as censors, 196, 198 in Ferrara, 63 in Marostica, 179–80 in Modena, 44–45, 47, 218 as protectors of heretics, 186 rebellion against, 174 as theological mediators, 54, 173–90 in Venice, 45, 185–88, 204 intransigenti, 5–7, 248 Iseppo orese, artisan, tried by inquisition, 28 Jacquet of Mantua, 55 Jedin, Hubert, 3–4, 96 Jesuits anti-Erasmianism of, 94

on expurgated texts, 13–14, 195–96 on Index expurgatorius, 13–14 on Mocenigo’s treatise, 221 on music in churches, 250 Jonas, Justus, 57 Judaism, in legend of St. Mark, 161–62 justice, as upheld in Venice, 151–66, 160 justification by faith alone, 27, 57, 58, 60, 175 Kuntz, Marion Leathers, 71 Lateran Canons, 60 Lateran Council V, on preaching, 98 law, as university course, 138–39, 142 logic, as university course, 142 Loreto, Holy House of, 25, 30 Loro, Damiano, 27 Lotto, Lorenzo, 8, 21–31 altarpieces, 22, 25 Christ and the Adulteress, 23 Crucifixion, 22, 29 Luther’s portrait, 23 reform sympathies, 21–23 Register of Various Expenses, 22, 24, 25, 27 retreat to Holy House of Loreto, 30–31 St. Mark miniature, 157 Santa Maria Maggio, work on, 24 Triple Portrait, 23 Luther, Martin, 22, 23, 184 Lutherans, 178, 180 Madruzzo, Cristoforo, 57 Madruzzo, Ludovico, 218 Maffei, Raffaele, 78 Manetti, Giannozzo, 78, 84 Manno, Antonio, 159 Manrique, Tommaso, 197 Mansueti da Perugia, Gaspare, 140–41 Mantua, Gonzaga’s reforms in, 53–65 heresy in, 53 Manuzio, Aldo (Aldus Manutius) the Younger, 141, 204, 220 Manzoni, Alessandro, 232

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Marino, Fra, as inquisitor, tried for heresy, 185–87 Mark, St., 153, 157–66 Judaism, in legend of, 161–62 and sacred dance, 162 Marostica, inquisitors and heresy trials in, 179–80 Martin, John Jeffries, 247 Marzio, Teofilo, 222 Mazzochi, Rocho di, 156 McGinness, Frederick, 9, 69 Medici, Alessandro de, 117 Medici, Cosimo I de, 70, 113–14 and Florentine exiles, 120–30 ruler of Florence, 117 Medici, Lorenzino de, 117 Medici, Marco, as inquisitor, 204 medicine, 139, 142 metaphysics, as university course, 140 Mocenigo, Filippo, 11, 14, 211–25 as archbishop, 214–15 on Cyprus, 11, 214–15 nominated as patriarch of Aquileia, 215–16 and Paolo Tiepolo, 217–19 suspected of heresy, 216–17 tried by Roman inquisition, 221–25 Universales institutiones ad hominum perfectionem, 220 Vie et progressi spirituali, 221 works censored, 222–23 Modena, 10, 37–51 Academy of, 39 Catholic Church/Catholicism, 38, 41– 44 Foscarari as bishop in, 38, 41, 44–48 heresy in, 34–51 inquisition in, 37–38, 45, 47–48 inquisitors in, 44–45, 47, 218 Lenten dispute in, 39 Ochino in, 39 restoration of Catholicism in, 41–44 trials for heresy in, 46 Mondaro, Giovanni, 146 Monopoli, Girolamo da, 140 Montemurlo, battle of, 117–19

Morone, Giovanni, tried by inquisition, 41, 47, 178, 212 Morosini, Giusto, 156 Moses, 160, 161–66, 163n Muret, Marc Antoine, 94 Musurus, Marcus, 141 Nadal, Jerome, 196 Nardi, Jacopo, 114–20, 129 Nicodemites, 13 Nobili, Vico de’, 130 nobility, education of, at University of Padua, 137–39, 143–44 Ochino, Bernardino, in Modena, 39 O’Fihely, Maurice, 141 oratory, 103–5 Orso, Lauro, artisan, tried by inquisition, 24, 25, 30 Ottoni, Luciano degli Divi Ioannis Chrysosomi in Apostoli Pauli, 62 tried by inquisition, 61–64 Pacheco, Francesco, 218 Palladio, Blosio, 78, 84 Pandolfini, Pierfilippo, 119–21, 123, 124, 126, 129 Paolo, Girolamo di, 129 papacy, 78–84, 170–71, 213, 217–21, 242 humanists’ view of, 78–79 Manetti on papal imperium, 78, 84 Palladio, on papal imperium, 78, 84 Paruta, Paolo, Della perfettione della vita politica, 215 Pastor, Ludwig von, 54, 55 pastoral office, 10, 19–20, 38, 41, 44–48, 55–65 Paul III, Pope, 55, 65, 69, 73–90 Paul IV, Pope, 12–13, 44, 55, 59, 193–207 Pauline-Petrine disagreement, 163–64 persuasion, as remedy for heresy, 9–10, 20, 45–46, 54, 103–4, 181 Peter, St., linked to Renaissance popes, 85 philosophy, 10–12, 137, 222–23 Pius IV, Pope, Moderatio indicis, 196 Pius V, Pope, 89, 173–74, 189–90, 197, 213

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Platina (Bartolommeo Sacchi), 78, 81 Pole, Reginald, 55, 57 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 11, 54, 139–41, 143, 144 Pontormo, Iacopo da, San Lorenzo frescoes, 30 popes. See also papacy Clement VII, 116 Clement VIII, 197–99, 201, 218 Gregory XIII, 89, 170–71, 197, 213, 217–21 Paul III, 55, 65, 69, 73–90 Paul IV, 12–13, 44, 55, 59, 193–207 Pius IV, 196 Pius V, 173–74, 189–90, 197, 213 popular religion, and challenges to orthodoxy, 173–78 Porta della Carta, 155, 159, 160 Postel, Guillaume, 71, 157, 163–65 Libro della divine ordinatione, 154–55 and Venetian Virgin, 156, 164 preaching distinguished from disputation, 105 Erasmus on, 9, 69–70, 93–109 in Franciscan tradition, 106–7 as primary vehicle for reform, 185–86, 186n res necessariae, 105–6 and rhetorical accommodation, 105 as sacred rhetorical oratory, 103–4, 103n Tridentine reform of, and Erasmianism, 69–70, 93–109 predestination, 27, 57, 58 Pressacco, Gilberto, 161–63 priests/bishops, 44, 47–48, 54, 97–102, 102n processions, 43–44 Prodi, Paolo, 6, 211 Prosperi, Adriano, 6, 25, 242 Protestants, 138n, 174–78 Ptolemy, Geografia, censored, 216 purgatory, as problematic theology, 58 Querini, Vincenzo, 142

Ranialdi, Girolamo, apothecary, tried by inquisition, 178 Ranke, Leopold von, 247 Rebiba, Scipione, 202, 204, 218–19, 221 reform, and humanism/science, 10–12, 55–56, 73–76 Regio, Raffaelo, 142 Renato, Camillo (Lisia Fileno), tried by inquisition and Apologia of, 177 Renée of France, as heretic, 60–61 rhetoric, 84, 103–4, 103n, 104–5, 137 Ridiato, Pietro, inquisitor, 180 Riva, Maria da, 234 Roberti, Melchiorre, 151 Romano, Giovanni, 22 Romano, Giulio, 55 Rome, 1–2, 73–90 Aqua Virgo,restoration of, 76–89 fountains, in Steucos’ renewal plans, 76, 79–89 and humanist theme of Renovatio Romae, 78, 84–85 Inquisition in, 12–13, 53, 174–75, 224– 25 Steuco’s urban renewal plans for, 76, 79–89 Tiber River, 86–87 Trevi Fountain, 81, 82 trials for heresy in, 41, 44, 46, 47, 179, 212–13 Rucellai, Pandolfo, 127, 128 Ruini, Carlo, 144 Rummel, Erika, 249 Saccardo, Pietro, 152 sacramentarianism, 180–81 Sacra Romana Rota, 233 Sadoleto, Jacopo, reform commissioner, 55 St. John the Baptist Confraternity, and Florentine exiles, 113, 119, 129 St. Peter’s Basilica, 87 Salone Springs, 83, 86 Salviati, Giovanni, 58, 59 San Benedetto monastery, 62 San Marco Basilica, 151, 152 San Salvatore of Bologna, 77 Sansovino, Jacopo, 27

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Sanuto, Martin, Diaries, 26 San Zanipolo, heresy at, 24, 27 Savon, Giovanni del, 23 Savonarola, 118 Schmalkaldic League, 24, 119 Schutte, Anne Jacobson, 171 science, and natural philosophy, 11 Scotist theology/metaphysics, 140 Seidel Menchi, Silvana, 12, 54, 169 seminary system, anticipated by Erasmus’s Ecclesiastes, 101 Seripando, Girolamo, 57 Serlio, Sebastiano, 24, 27 Siculo, Giorgio, 62, 63 Simoncelli, Paolo, 70 Singlitico, Franzino, artisan, tried by Inquisition, 28, 182–84, 189 Soranzo, Vittore, 212 Speroni, Sperone, 223–24 spirituali, 5–7, 10, 65, 169–70, 204, 248 Steuco, Agostino De acqua virgine, 85 De restituenda navigatione Tiberis, 87 De revocanda in urbem aqua virgine, 81 De via Pauli, 75, 81, 84, 88, 89 and humanism, 69, 78 influenced by Erasmus, 9 on reform, 77–78 renovatio imperii, 78–79, 87 renovatio Romae, 78–79, 84–85 restoration program for Rome, 1, 74– 90 self-advancement of, 80–82, 85–86 Tiber River renewal project, 86–87 Strozzi family, and Venetian republic, 119 Strozzi, Filippo, and Florentine exiles, 117, 118, 129 Strozzi, Lorenzo, 116 Strozzi, Piero, and Florentine exiles, 118, 119, 121, 123, 126 Tacitus, 87 Tasso, Torquato, 224 Tassoni, Alessandro the Elder, 40 Ten Commandments, 152–53, 160, 161, 165–66 theology, as university course, 140–41

Thomistic metaphysics, 140 Tiber River, 86–87 Tiepolo, Paolo, and Mocenigo, 217–19 Toledo, Francisco, and the Inquisition, 220 Tomitano, Bernardino, 184 Trevi Fountain, 81, 82 Treviso, heresy in, 27 Triaca, Benedetto, 141 Trombetta, Antonio, 141 universities age of students, 138 as book censors, 199–200 courses and curricula, 11, 138–42, 146, 147 doctoral degrees offered, 138–39, 143n indexes of, 199–200 professors/scholars at, 136–37 reliance of, on government support, 136 Renaissance reforms of, 135 student spokesmen for, 147 tax support of, 136 University of Padua and Contarini, 71 curricula of, 11, 138–40, 146–47 decline and rise of, 137n, 141, 143, 144 and educational reform, 135–48 as educator of nobility, 137–39, 143–44 moral philosophy debate, 223 Riformatori dello Studio di Padova, 145–47 University of Paris Faculty, 204 and Contarini’s De officio episcopi, 204

Valdés, Juan de, 213 Valenti, Bonifacio, tried by inquisition, 41, 44, 47 Valenti, Filippo, tried by inquisition, 46 Valentini, Angelo, as inquisitor, 44–45 Valier, Agostino, 205–6 Varchi, Benedetto, Storia fiorentina, 114– 15 Vatican press, publisher of expurgated works, 197 Veneto, Rocho (Rocho di Mazzochi), 156

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Venezia, Nicolò, inquisitor, 188 Venice doges, 71–72, 151–52, 157–59, 158, 165–66 and Florentine exiles, 113–30 iconography of, 153, 155 inquisitors in, 45, 185–88, 204 justice in, 151–66, 160 metaphors for, 157 as new Rome or Serenissima, 154, 215 repression of artisans, 122–23 sacred space of Curia, 151 San Zanipolo, heresy at, 24, 27 senators of: and Inquisition, 156; and University of Padua, 136, 145–46 social and religious milieu of, 8–9, 11, 70–72, 119–30 trials for heresy in, 24–30, 155–56, 179, 182–84, 186–89 and University of Padua, 135–48 as upholder of Christian justice, 151– 66

Vergerio, Pier Paolo, tried by inquisition, 186–87 vernacular language and heresy, 223–24 Italian Bible in, 17 of petitions against monachization, 234, 235n Vernicali, Giovan Battista, artisan, tried by inquisition, 28 Verona, trials for heresy in, 177–78, 180– 89 Vesalius, Andreas, 147 Vespucci, Bartolomeo, 141 Vitelli, Alessandro, 118 Zampetti, Pietro, 25 zelanti, distinguished from other reformers, 5–6 Zenaro, Giacomo, artisan, tried by inquisition, 28

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