[53] Il pretesto, says Father Paul of Bellarmin’s book, è di scrivere contra Barclajo; ma il vero fine si vede esser per ridurre il papa al colmo dell omnipotente. In questo libro non si tratta altro, che il suddetto argumento, e più di venti cinque volte è replicato, che quando il papa giudica un principe indegno per sua colpa d’aver governo overo inetto, ò pur conosce, che per il bene della chiesa sia cosa utile, lo può privare. Dice più volte, che quando il papa comanda, che non sia ubbidito ad un principe privato da lui, non si può dire, che comandi che principe non sia ubbidito, ma che privata persona, perchè il principe privato dal papa non è più principe. E passa tanto inanzi, che viene à dire, il papa può disponere secondo che giudica ispediente de’ tutti i beni di qual sivoglia Christiano, ma tutto sarebbe niente, se solo dicesse che tale è la sua opinione; dice, ch’è un articolo della fede catholica, ch’è eretico, chi non sente così, e questo con tanta petulantia, che non vi si può aggiungere. Lettere di Sarpi, 50.
Contest with Venice. 2. Paul V. was a pope imbued with the arrogant spirit of his predecessors, Paul IV. and Pius V.; no one was more prompt to exercise the despotism which the Jesuits were ready to maintain. After some minor disputes with the Italian states, he came, in 1605, to his famous conflict with the republic of Venice, on the very important question of the immunity of ecclesiastics from the civil tribunals. Though he did not absolve the subjects of Venice from their allegiance, he put the state under an interdict, forbidding the celebration of divine offices throughout its territory. The Venetian clergy, except the Jesuits and some other regulars, obeyed the senate rather than the pope. The whole is matter of known history. In the termination of this dispute, it has been doubted which party obtained the victory; but in the ultimate result and effect upon mankind, we cannot, it seems, well doubt that the see of Rome was the loser.[54] |Father Paul Sarpi.| Nothing was more worthy of remark, especially in literary history, than the appearance of one great man, Fra Paolo Sarpi, the first who, in modern times and in a Catholic country, shook the fabric not only of papal despotism, but of ecclesiastical independence and power. For it is to be observed that in the Venetian business, the pope was contending for what were called the rights of the church, not for his own supremacy over it. Sarpi was a man of extraordinary genius, learning, and judgment: his physical and anatomical knowledge was such as to have caused at least several great discoveries to be assigned to him;[55] his reasoning was concise and cogent; his style perspicuous and animated. A treatise “Delle Materie Beneficiarie,” in other words, on the rights, revenues, and privileges, in secular matters, of the ecclesiastical order, is a model in its way. The history is so short and yet so sufficient, the sequence so natural and clear, the proofs so judiciously introduced, that it can never be read without delight and admiration of the author’s skill. And this is more striking to those who have toiled at the verbose books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where tedious quotations, accumulated, not selected, disguise the argument they are meant to confirm. Except the first book of Machiavel’s History of Florence, I do not remember any earlier summary of facts so lucid and pertinent to the object. That object was, with Father Paul, neither more nor less than to represent the wealth and power of the church as ill-gotten and excessive. The Treatise on Benefices led the way, or rather was the seed thrown into the ground that ultimately produced the many efforts both of the press and of public authority to break down ecclesiastical privileges.[56]
[54] Ranke is the best authority on this dispute, as he is on all other matters relating to the papacy in this age, vol. ii., p. 324.
[55] He was supposed to have discovered the valves of the veins, the circulation of the blood, the expansion and contraction of the pupil, the variation of the compass. A quo, says Baptista Porta of Sarpi, aliqua didicisse non solum fateri non erubescimus, sed gloriamur, cum eo doctiorem, subtiliorem, quotquot adhuc videre contigerit, neminem cognovimus ad encyclopædiam. Magia Naturalis, lib. vii., apud Ranke.
[56] A long analysis of the Treatise on Benefices will be found in Dupin, who does not blame it very much. It is worth reading through, and has been commended by many good judges of history.
History of Council of Trent. 3. The other works of Sarpi are numerous, but none require our present attention except the most celebrated, his History of the Council of Trent. The manuscript of this having been brought to London by Antonio de Dominis, was there published, in 1619, under the name of Pietro Soave Polano, the anagram of Paolo Sarpi Veneto. It was quickly translated into several languages, and became the textbook of protestantism on the subject. Many incorrectnesses have been pointed out by Pallavicini, who undertook the same task on the side of Rome; but the general credibility of Father Paul’s history has rather gained by the ordeal of hostile criticism. Dupin observes that the long list of errors imputed by Pallavicini, which are chiefly in dates and such trifling matters, make little or no difference as to the substance of Sarpi’s history; but that its author is more blamable for a malicious disposition to impute political motives to the members of the council, and idle reasonings which they did not employ.[57] Ranke, who has given this a more minute scrutiny than Dupin could have done, comes nearly to the same result. Sarpi is not a fair, but he is, for those times, a tolerably exact historian. His work exhibits the general excellences of his manner; freedom from redundancy, a clear, full, agreeable style; a choice of what is most pertinent and interesting in his materials. Much has been disputed about the religious tenets of Father Paul; it appears to me quite out of doubt, both by the tenor of his history, and still more unequivocally, if possible, by some of his letters, that he was entirely hostile to the church, in the usual sense, as well as to the court of Rome, sympathising in affection, and concurring generally in opinion, with the reformed denomination.[58] But as he continued in the exercise of his functions as a Servite monk, and has always passed at Venice more for a saint than a heretic, some of the Gallican writers have not scrupled to make use of his authority, and to extenuate his heterodoxy. There can be no question but that he inflicted a severe wound on the spiritual power.
[57] Hist. Eccles. Cent. 17.
[58] The proofs of this it would be endless to adduce from the history: they strike the eye in every page, though it cannot be expected that he should declare his way of thinking in express terms. Even in his letters he does not this. They were printed, with the date, at least, of Verona, in 1673. Sully’s fall he laments, “having become partial to him on account of his firmness in religion.” Lett. 53. Of the republic of the United Provinces he says: La nascenza di quale si come Dio ha favorito con grazie inestimabili, così pare che la malizia del diavolo oppugni con tutte le arti. Lett. 23. After giving an account of one Marsilio, who seems to have been a Protestant, he adds: Credo se non fosse per ragion di stato, si trovarebbono diversi, che saltarebbono da questo fosso di Roma nella cima dell riforma; ma chi teme una cosa, chi un’altra. Dio però par che goda la più minima parte dei pensieri umani. So ch’ ella mi intende senza passar più oltre. Lett. 81., Feb., 1612. Sarpi speaks with great contempt of James I., who was occupied like a pedant about Vorstius and such matters. Se il re d’Inghilterra non fosse dottore, si potrebbe sperare qualche bene, e sarebbe un gran principio, perchè Spagna non si può vincere, se non levato il pretesto della religione, ne questo si leverà se non introducendo i reformati nell’Italia. E si il rè sapesse fare, sarebbe facile e in Torino, e quì. Lett. 88. He wrote, however, a remarkable letter to Casaubon, much about this time, hinting at his wish to find an asylum in England, and using rather too different language about the king: In eo, rarum, cumulatæ virtutes principis ac viri. Regum idea est, ad quam forte ante actis sæculis nemo formatus fuit. Si ego ejus protectione dignus essem, nihil mihi deesse putarem ad mortalis vitæ felicitatem. Tu, vir præstantissime, nihil te dignius efficere potes, quam tanto principi mea studia commendare. Casaubon, Epist. 811. For mea in another edition is read tua; but the former seems preferable. Casaubon replied, that the king wished Paul to be a light to his own country; but if anything should happen, he had written to his ambassador, ut nulla in re tibi desit.
Gallican liberties. Richer. 4. That power, predominant as it seemed in the beginning of the seventeenth century, met with adversaries besides Sarpi. The French nation, and especially the parliament of Paris, had always vaunted what were called the liberties of the Gallican church; liberties, however, for which neither the church itself, nor the king, the two parties interested, were prone to display much regard. A certain canonist, Richer, published in 1611 a book on ecclesiastical and political power; in which he asserted the government of the church to be a monarchy tempered with aristocracy; that is, that the authority of the pope was limited in some respects by the rights of the bishop. Though this has since become a fundamental principle among the Cisalpine catholics, it did not suit the high notions of that age; and the bishops were content to sacrifice their rights by joining in the clamour of the papal party. A synod assembled by Cardinal du Perron, archbishop of Sens, condemned the book of Richer, who was harassed for the rest of his life by the persecution of those he had sought to defend against a servitude which they seemed to covet. His fame has risen in later times. Dupin concludes a careful analysis of Richer’s treatise with a noble panegyric on his character and style of writing.[59]
[59] Hist. Eccles. Cent. 17. l. ii. c. 7. Niceron, vol. xxvii. The Biographie Universelle talks of the republican principles of Richer: it must be in an ecclesiastical sense, for nothing in the book, I think, relates to civil politics. Father Paul thought Richer’s scheme might lead to something better, but did not highly esteem it. Quella mistura del governo ecclesiastico di monarchio e aristocrazia mi pare una composizione di oglio e acqua, che non possono mai mischiarsi insieme. Lettere di Sarpi, 109. Richer entirely denies the infallibility of the pope in matters of faith, and says there is no authority adduced for it but that of the popes themselves. His work is written on the principles of the Jansenizing Gallicans of the 18th century, and probably goes farther than Bossuet, or any who wished to keep on good terms with Rome would have openly approved. It is prolix, extending to two volumes 4to. Some account of Richer will be found in Histoire de la Mère et du Fils, ascribed to Mezeray, or Richelieu.