Laying aside as untenable the opinion of Marini and Cardano, we agree with those who deny that Bonfadio had fallen so low, and we find support in the testimony of Ortensio Landi, a contemporary of our author and a man of great talents, who fell into disgrace at Rome for evangelical opinions. He tells us that Bonfadio was condemned on false testimony; and this was the belief of the learned of that period. There is in fact nothing to support the theory that he was guilty except the assertions of writers of little reputation for truth in other matters, who were, indeed, only servile retailers of calumnies which their authors wished perpetuated beyond the tomb. The nature of the penalty, the secrecy of the trial and the position of the accused were calculated to impress the popular mind with the belief in a crime against nature—a crime which famous examples, especially that of Brunetto Latini, showed to be the vice of literary men and public teachers of youth. There is, besides, in man an instinct which finds guilt where the axe falls. The public and the historians forgot one fact, Bonfadio read his lectures in a church and his auditors were not young boys. He says that he had “many aged listeners and more merchants than Students.”
The true cause of his condemnation must be sought in his Annals. He probably blamed pretty freely some persons who expected great praise. This opinion is adopted by Teissier among foreign writers, and in Italy by Fontanini and Mazzucchelli besides those already mentioned.
A careful reading of Scipione Ammirato will show that he really does not differ from these writers. “He was punished,” says Ammirato, “for teaching political principles contrary to those of his time and place,” although Bonfadio supported the Doria and Spanish party and opposed those who fought for more liberal government.
We must now enquire what persons offended by the bias of Bonfadio were sufficiently powerful to satiate their vengeance in his blood?
The times were unpropitious to literary freedom. Offences of the pen were punished by the dagger or by banishment. Boccalini was assassinated in Venice; Sarpi fell under a stiletto aimed by Rome. Oberto Foglietta was banished from Genoa, and if the government could have put hands on him he might have gone to the scaffold. Every independent writer was the target of powerful malevolence. So fell Bonfadio. In describing the conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi, he used unmeasured terms of reproach against that noble family and praised beyond all limit the Dorias and the Spanish government. His treatment of the Fieschi, whose fate nearly all lamented and who still had powerful friends in the Senate, provoked the vengeance of the partisans of Gianluigi and popular liberty and also of those nobles who were hostile to Doria and Spain. All other attempts to avenge the dead had failed, and they turned fiercely upon the historian who had outraged the memory of the vanquished. They charged him with a crime which must be punished by fire and secured his condemnation.
Nor did the rage of his enemies cease with his death; for they made every exertion to prevent the publication of his Annals; and, though the times were quiet and the Doria interest clamoured for the publication, their enemies kept the work locked up in the public archives. It was not published until 1586, (in Pavia by Gerolamo Bartoli) that is thirty-six years after the death of its author. Though Bayle and Papadopoli assert that Bonfadio himself published it, this statement must be put down among the numerous errors of his biographers.
We have seen what was the probable reason for the attack of Bonfadio’s enemies; it remains to investigate the pretext which they put forth, since the charge of Attic venery cannot be entertained. Two other crimes were punished among us by fire; and as there is no ground for supposing him accused of witchcraft or magic, we are forced to conclude that he was charged with holding the new religious doctrines which were then striking root in Italy. This opinion, so diverse from that hitherto held, may seem bold and we will briefly consider its probability.
It is well known that the revival of letters paved the way for religious reform. It is known, too, that Italy, seeing herself deprived of political liberty, turned her attention to religious freedom as the foundation of free institutions. In fact, the reformers among us sought mainly to restore democracy to the church. The first accents of religious liberty were heard on the banks of the Verbano and the teachers were Bernardino Ochino da Siena and Pietro Martire. Lucca, Pisa, Vicenza and Modena embraced the new doctrines, and Ferrara received as a guest in 1535, Calvin, the friend of Renata.
In the court of this duchess, were found the most distinguished of the reformers, among whom were Celio Secondo Curione and the beautiful Olimpia Morato, a miracle of virtue and wisdom. The religious community of Naples contained no less illustrious disciples all of whom belonged to the highest families of the land. Some maintain that Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, was of the number; Giulia Gonzaga and Isabella Manriquez certainly were; the latter found an asylum among the Lutherans. It is believed that Princess Lavinia della Rovere, of the house of Urbino, and Margaret of Savoy, wife of Emanuel Filiberto, embraced the new doctrines.
In those days the most cultivated Italians professed the boldest doctrines. Vasari tells us that Leonardo da Vinci had formed such heretical opinions that he accepted no religion whatever. Castelvetro, accused of heresy, with great difficulty escaped the grasp of the inquisition. Bishop Pietro Paolo Vergerio and his brother Giovanni Battista, whose condemnation was written by the same pen which drew the fatal capitulation of Forno; Guglielmo Grattarolo, Gerolamo Zanchi a canon of the Lateran, Giovanni Montalcino, the Sozzini of Siena, the brothers Scipio and Alberico Gentile and many other distinguished literary men held the views of the reformers. Paul III., appalled by the rapid progress of the new ideas, with his bull of April 1543, established the tribunal of the Inquisition in every city, Venice did not wish to suffer it; but Rome strangled Giulio Ghirlanda and Francesco di Rovigo, and all the reformers (among them are mentioned Trissino, Flaminio, Soranzo and Bembo) were forced to flee into exile.