[694] The Zodiacus Vitæ is a long moral poem, the books of which are named from the signs of the zodiac. It is not very poetical, but by no means without strong passages of sense and spirit in a lax Horatian metre. The author has said more than enough to incur the suspicion of Lutheranism. I have observed several proofs of this; the following will suffice:—
Sed tua præsertim non intret limina quisquam
Frater, nec monachus, vel quavis lege sacerdos.
Hos fuge; pestis enim nulla hac immanior; hi sunt
Fæx hominum, fons stultitiæ, sentina malorum,
Agnorum sub pelli lupi, mercede colentes,
Non pietate Deum; falsa sub imagine vecti
Decipiunt stolidos, ac religionis in umbra
Mille actus vetitos, et mille piacula condunt, &c.
Leo (lib. 5).
I could find, probably, more decisive Lutheranism in searching through the poem, but have omitted to make notes in reading it.
[695] Ahi cieca gente, che l’hai troppo ’n pregio;
Tu credi ben, che questa ria semenza
Habbian più d’altri gratia e privilegio;
Ch’altra trovi hoggi in lei vera scienza
Che di simulation, menzogne e frodi.
Beato ’l mondo, che sarà mai senza, &c.
Satir. i.
The twelfth Satire concludes with a similar execration, in the name of Italy, against the church of Rome.
Its progress in the literary classes. 18. This rapid, though rather secret progress of heresy among the more educated Italians, could not fail to alarm their jealous church. They had not won over the populace to their side; for, though censures on the superior clergy were listened to with approbation in every country, there was little probability that the Italians would generally abjure modes of faith so congenial to their national temper as to have been devised, or retained from heathen times, in compliance with it. Even of those who had associated with the reformers, and have been in consequence reckoned among them, some were far from intending to break off from a church which had been identified with all their prejudices and pursuits. Such was Flaminio, one of the most elegant of poets and best of men; and such was the accomplished and admirable Vittoria Colonna.[696] But those who had drunk deeper of the cup of free thought had no other resource, when their private assemblies had been detected, and their names proscribed, than to fly beyond the Alps. Bernard Ochino, a Capuchin preacher of great eminence, being summoned to Rome, and finding his death resolved upon, fled to Geneva. His apostacy struck his admirers with astonishment, and possibly put the Italians more on their guard against others. Peter Martyr, well known afterwards in England, soon followed him; the academy of Modena, a literary society highly distinguished, but long suspected of heresy, was compelled, in 1542, to subscribe a declaration of faith; and though Lombardy was still full of secret protestants, they lived in continual terror of persecution during the rest of this period. The small reformed church of Ferrara was broken up in 1550; many were imprisoned and one put to death.[697]
[696] M’Crie discusses at length the opinions of these two, p. 164-177, and seems to leave those of Flaminio in doubt; but his letters, published at Nuremberg in 1571, speak in favour of his orthodoxy.
[697] Besides Dr. M’Crie’s History of the Reformation in Italy, which has thrown a collected light upon a subject interesting and little familiar, I have made use of his predecessor Gerdes, Specimen Italiæ Reformatæ; of Tiraboschi, viii. 150; of Giannone, iv. 108, et alibi; and of Galluzzi, Istoria del Gran Ducato, ii. 292, 369.
Servetus. 19. Meantime the natural tendency of speculative minds to press forward, though checked at this time by the inflexible spirit of the leaders of the Reformation, gave rise to some theological novelties. A Spanish physician, Michael Reves, commonly called Servetus, was the first to open a new scene in religious innovation. The ancient controversies on the Trinity had long subsided; if any remained whose creed was not unlike that of the Arians, we must seek for them among the Waldenses, or other persecuted sects. But even this is obscure; and Erasmus, when accused of Arianism, might reply with apparent truth, that no heresy was more extinct. Servetus, however, though not at all an Arian, framed a scheme, not probably quite novel, which is a difficult matter, but sounding very unlike what was deemed orthodoxy. Being an imprudent and impetuous man, he assailed the fundamental doctrines of reformers as much as of the Catholic church, with none of the management necessary in such cases, as the title of his book, printed in 1531, De Trinitatis Erroribus, is enough to show. He was so little satisfied with his own performance, that in a second treatise, called Dialogues on the Trinity, he retracts the former as ill written, though without having changed any of his opinions. These works are very scarce and obscurely worded, but the tenets seem to be nearly what are called Sabellian.[698]
[698] The original editions of the works of Servetus very rarely occur: but there are reprints of the last century, which themselves are by no means common.