1532-71]

Progress of heresy

383

taken root, the main impulse coming from the Swiss Cantons. Here he ministered, generally at Poschiavo, until his death in 1571. The Florentine scholar Antonio Brucioli, banished from his own city, had come to Venice and set up a printing-press. In 1532 (two years before Luther's German translation was completed) he published his Italian translation of the whole Bible, based upon Santi Pagnani's learned Latin version from the original languages; and this he followed up subsequently by a voluminous commentary. In 1546 he was in the prisons of the Inquisition, accused of publishing heretical books; and although it may be doubted whether anything of his could justly be so described, his troubles at the hands of the Holy Office ended only with his life. A more striking personality was that of Baldo Lupetino of Albona in Istria, uncle of the well-known Mattia Vlacich (M. Flacius. Illyricus. He was a conventual Franciscan, and had held the office of provincial; an acute scholar and a devout man. Accused of preaching heresy in the Duomo at Cherso, he fell into the hands of the Venetian Inquisition in 1541; and, although the Lutheran Princes interceded on his behalf, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life, it being clear from depositions made then and subsequently that he was a Lutheran. In 1547 he was again in trouble for preaching to his fellow-prisoners, and was sentenced to be beheaded, his body to be burned, and his ashes to be cast into the sea "to the honour and glory of Jesus Christ." The Doge relaxed the sentence; but in 1555 he was again accused, and the following year he was degraded and drowned.

Nor were disciples lacking. The letters of Aleander, when Nuncio at Venice, speak of a great religious association of artisans existing there in 1534, the leaders being one Pietro Buonavita of Padua, a carpenter, a French glover, and several German Lutherans. The two first-mentioned were taken and imprisoned for life; but Aleander continues to lament the progress of heresy and the apathy of the Senate. We learn more about the Reformed in Venetian lands from the letters of Baldassare Altieri of Aquila in the Abruzzi, a literary adventurer who came to Venice about 1540, served Sir Edmund Hastwell, the English ambassador, till 1548, and after two years of wandering died at Ferrara in August, 1550. He acted as a kind of secretary to the Reformed, and wrote on behalf of "the brethren of the Church of Venice, Vicenza, and Treviso " to Luther, Bullinger, and others, begging for the good offices of the Lutherans with the Venetian government. The brethren are, he says, in the sorest need, and cannot improve their state whilst the Signory allows them no liberty. They have no public churches; each is a church to himself. There are plenty of apostles, but none properly called; all is disorder, and false teachers abound. Nevertheless, they adhere to Luther in doctrine as against the Sacramentaries, and do not despair, since "God can raise up new Luthers amongst them." But their appeals were in vain; the Lutheran Princes had their hands full already, and the Swiss were not

384

The Court of Renée at Ferrara

[1528-39

likely to help those who sided with Luther against them. In the end, their associations were broken up. Many were punished, many more gave way; those who were left seem to have gravitated towards anabaptist and speculative views of a very pronounced kind.

It is hard to form a precise idea of the number of the Reformed in Venice, but they were evidently very numerous. Processes for heresy were very common, especially after Giovanni della Casa became Nuncio in 1547, with orders to expedite the work. Of the records which survive many are at Udine; but at Venice alone there still remain over eight hundred processes for Lutheranism between 1547 and 1600, and more than a hundred more for Anabaptism, Calvinism, and other heresies. The greater number are from Venice itself; but Vicenza, Brescia and Cittadella are represented, with a number of smaller places.

FERRARA, long famous for learning and the fine arts, was a centre of hardly less importance, though in quite a different way. Ercole, the son of the reigning Duke Alfonso, had married Renée the daughter of Louis XII of France in 1528, and succeeded his father six years later. Renée had already imbibed the new ideas from her cousin Margaret of Navarre and from her governess Madame de Soubise, poetess and translator of the Psalms. The latter, with the whole of her distinguished family, followed her to Ferrara; and as most of Renée's suite, which included Clément Marot, the poet, were of the same way of thinking, her Court became a rallying-point for the Reformed. From France came the statesman Hubert Languet and the poet Léon Jamet; from Germany the Court physician Johann Sinapius and his brother Kilian, who acted as a tutor to Renée's children. There were also Alberto Lollio and the canon Celio Calagnani, joint founders of the Academy of the Elevati; the physician Angelo Manzioli, whose famous Zodiacus Vitae, published by him under the pseudonym Marcello Palingenio Stellato, poured ridicule on the monks and clergy; and Fulvio Peregrino Morato, who had preceded Kilian Sinapius in his office but had been banished in 1539, perhaps for Lutheran opinions. He returned to the University in 1539, bringing with him his most famous daughter Olympia Morata, "an infant prodigy who became a distinguished woman." She became an intimate member of Renée's household, corresponded on equal terms with the most learned men of the day, passed through a sceptical phase to devout Lutheranism, and finally, having incurred her patron's anger, married a German physician named Grunthler and accompanied him to his own land. Nor were Renée and Olympia the only well-known women who adopted Reformed views there. Amongst others who did so were Lavinia della Rovere, grand-niece of Pope Julius II, and the Countess Giulia Rangone, a daughter of the House of Bentivoglio. One other resident at the Court must be mentioned — the learned Cretan who took the name of Francesco Porto. He was a man of great caution and reticence, but

1536-54]

Renée and Calvin

385

devoted to the cause of Reform. After studying at Venice and Padua and teaching for ten years at the University of Modena, he came to Ferrara in 1546 to take the place of Kilian Sinapius. The complaints of the Pope led to his expulsion in 1551. He was again with Renée, as her reader, in 1553, but then retired to Venice and ultimately to Geneva. Hither also at various times came students and others whose lives were in danger elsewhere. Among these was the Piedmontese Celio Secondo Curione, a latitudinarian and a student of the Reformed doctrines from his youth. After several remarkable escapes from capture he fled to Padua, thence (after three years as professor in the University) to Venice, and thence to Ferrara. Through Renée's influence he received a chair at Lucca while Ochino was there, but after a short and troublous stay had to take refuge beyond the Alps. But Ferrara gave shelter to a greater fugitive than any of Italian birth. Early in 1536 Renée was visited by Calvin, who had come to Italy under the assumed name of Espeville. We have no trustworthy account of the visit, but it evidently made the deepest impression upon Renée and her Court. Apparently he celebrated the communion for them in private; certainly he incited them to protest against the accustomed services. In fact, on Holy Saturday (April 14), when the officiating priest in one of the chief churches of Ferrara presented the cross for the veneration of the faithful, one of Renée's choristers, a youth of twenty known as Jehannot or Zanetto, broke out in open blasphemies against what he regarded as idolatry. The incident was probably prearranged in order to cause a popular outbreak; but it is clear that the people were scandalised. Under pressure from Rome Ercole took steps to punish the offenders. But he found that the whole suite of his wife were involved; while Renée invoked the French power to protect her servants. The matter dragged on for some months; but at length, as the principal person implicated (probably Calvin himself) escaped from his guards on the road to Bologna, not without suspicion of their connivance, it was allowed to drop.

Henceforward Calvin was Renée's spiritual adviser, and she was in frequent correspondence with him. Under his influence she refused in 1540 to make her confession or to hear mass any longer. This does not seem to have involved an open breach with the Church; there were many more who were equally remiss in their religious duties. Ercole tried to avoid taking action, and winked at her opinions so long as she and her associates avoided giving open scandal. Moreover, when Paul III paid a visit to Ferrara Renée met him on friendly terms, and obtained from him a brief, dated July 5, 1543, by which she was exempted from every jurisdiction but that of the Holy Office. But she disguised her Calvinism less and less, while the activity of the Inquisition was daily increasing; and at length the pressure of the Holy See compelled the Duke to act. In 1554 he applied to the French King for an "able and

C. M. H. II.

25

386

The Modenese Academy

[1537-48 energetic" teacher for his wife, and the Inquisitor Mathieu Ory was sent. As his exhortations made no impression, she was put on her trial for heresy, and condemned to imprisonment, twenty-four of her servants being likewise sentenced. But a week afterwards, on September 13, it was announced that she had "abjured and received pardon." The documents are lost, so that it is hard to say precisely what occurred. It is certain that Renée made her confession and received the Eucharist, equally so that she was at heart a Calvinist, and went on in her old courses until, after Ercole's death, she retired in 1560 to Montargis and became a protector of the French Huguenots.

Ercole's other capital, MODENA, was equally famous as a centre of learning. Many of the scholars of the Modenese Academy had long been suspected of heterodoxy, among them being Lodovico Castelvetro, Gabriele Falloppio, the anatomist, and the brothers Grillenzone, who were its founders. In Advent, 1537, an Austin friar, Serafino of Ferrara, denounced an anonymous book, the Sommario della Santa Scrittura, which was being sold in Modena by the bookseller Antonio Gaboldino; but his action only called forth protests. In 1540 arrived the learned Paolo Ricci, a conventual Franciscan, who had left the cloister, and now, under the assumed name of Lisio Fileno, publicly expounded the Scriptures and denounced the Papacy. Thus the new opinions gained ground. The annalist Tassoni (il Vecchio) declares that both men and women disputed everywhere, in the squares, in the shops, in the churches, concerning the faith and the law of Christ, quoting and misquoting the Scriptures and doctors whom they had never read.

Attempts were soon made to put a stop to this. The Sommario was refuted by Ambrogio Catarino and burned at Rome in 1539. Two years afterwards Ricci was arrested, taken to Ferrara, and made to recant. Other measures were for a time averted by the intercession of Sadoleto, himself a Modenese; he urged that the academicians were loyal to the Roman Church, and should not be molested because they claimed for the learned the right of free enquiry. The Pope however was still suspicious; and Giovanni de Morone, the Bishop of Modena, then absent on a legation in Germany and himself a friend of Contarini and to the doctrines of Grace, was sent for to reduce this "second Geneva " to order. It was proposed that suspected persons should sign a formulary of faith, drawn up by Contarini in the plainest possible terms. After strenuous resistance the signatures were secured, and the matter seemed at an end. But a strong feeling of resentment had sprung up; the Academy was still a hot-bed of disaffection, and preachers of doubtful orthodoxy, such as Bartolommeo della Pergola, were eagerly listened to.

At length Ercole was goaded into taking action throughout his dominions. A ducal edict of May 24, 1546, was so severe in its provisions that the Modenese Academy promptly dispersed; and in 1548

1550-71]

Repressive measure in the Modenese

387

A

Fra Girolamo Papino of Lodi was installed as Inquisitor at Ferrara. poor youth of Faenza, by name Fannio (or Fanino), was soon brought before him, who had fallen into heresy through his perverse interpretation of the Bible. He recanted once through fear, but relapsed, and began preaching throughout Romagna with great success. At length he was arrested at Bagnacavallo, and conveyed to Ferrara. Here his imprisonment was a succession of triumphs. His friends were allowed access to him, and his visitors included Olympia Morata, Lavinia della Rovere, and others, upon whom his cheerfulness and earnestness and his bold predictions made a great impression. After long negotiations between Ferrara and the Holy See, in which Renée herself took part, the order arrived for his execution as a relapsed heretic. It was confirmed by Ercole, and on August 22, 1550, he was strangled and his body cast into the river. His was the second recorded death for religion in Italy, the first being that of Jáime de Enzinas, a Spanish Lutheran and, according to Bucer, an eager disseminator of Lutheranism, who was burned at Rome on March 16, 1547. Another execution followed in 1551, that of a Sicilian priest, Domenico Giorgio, who is described as a "Lutheran and heretic." Minor punishments followed in great numbers; so that Renée was forced to send her Huguenot followers to Mirandola, where under the Count Galeotto Pico they found a place of refuge.

Some years afterwards attention was again called to Modena, where the Reform still prospered. On October 1, 1555, a brief of Paul IV demanded that four of the leaders, Bonifacio and Filippo Valentino (the former of whom was provost of the Cathedral), Lodovico Castelvetro (who had translated the writings of Melanchthon into Italian), and the bookseller Gaboldino, should be arrested and handed over to the Holy Office. Filippo Valentino and Castelvetro, warned in time, made their escape. The others were taken and conveyed to Rome, where Bonifacio recanted; but Gaboldino, on refusing to do so, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Four years later Castelvetro, already condemned for contumacy, was persuaded to go to Rome with his brother Giammaria, and stand his trial; but he fled before it was over, was again condemned, and was burned in effigy as a contumacious heretic. The two brothers escaped to Chiavenna, where Lodovico died in 1571, having in 1561 appealed in vain for a hearing before the Council of Trent.

Even this was not the end of heresy in the duchy. The registers of the Inquisition contain long lists of suspects, and not a few condemnations, both at Ferrara and Modena; at Modena indeed, in 1568 alone, thirteen men and one woman perished at the stake.

Very different again was the movement at NAPLES, at any rate in its earlier stages. It centres round one great man, Juan de Valdés, whose position is thus described by Niccolò Balbini, minister of the congregation of Italian refugees at Geneva, in his life of Galeazzo Caracciolo :