§ 139.22. Italy.—The Reformation made progress in Italy in various directions. A large number of the humanists (§ [120, 1]) had in a self-sufficient paganism lost all interest in Christianity, and were just as indifferent toward the Reformation as toward the old church; but another section were inclined to favour a reformation after the style of Erasmus. Both remained in outward connection with the old church. But besides these there were many learned men of a more decided tendency, some of them attempting reforms at their own hand, and so not infrequently rejecting fundamental doctrines of Christianity, such as the various Anti-trinitarians of that age (§ [148]), some who attached themselves to the German, but more frequently to the Swiss reformers. Both brought the reforming ideas before the people by preaching and writing. Almost all the works of the German and Swiss reformers were immediately after their publication circulated in Italy in translations, and under the shield of anonymity scattered broadcast through the land, before the Inquisition laid hold upon them. Among the princely supporters of the Reformation movement, the most prominent was Renata of Este, Duchess of Ferrara, and sister-in-law of the French king Francis, distinguished as much for piety as for culture and learning. Her court was a place of refuge and a rallying point for French and Italian exiles. Calvin stayed some weeks with her in A.D. 1536, and confirmed her in her evangelical faith by personal conversation, and subsequently by epistolary correspondence. Her husband, Hercules of Ferrara, whom she married in A.D. 1534, at first let her do as she liked, but in A.D. 1536 expelled Calvin from his dominions, and had his wife confined, in A.D. 1554, as an obstinate Lutheran heretic, in the old castle of Este. Still she was allowed to return to her husband after she had brought herself to confess to a Romish priest. But when after his death, in A.D. 1560, Alphonso, her son, put before her the alternative of either recanting her faith or leaving the country, she returned to France, and there openly made profession of her faith and attached herself to the Huguenots. Francis of Guise was her son-in-law, and she was subjected on account of her Protestantism to the incessant persecutions of the Guises. She died in A.D. 1575.—We have seen already, in § [135, 3], that the idea had been mooted of a propaganda of Catholic Christians in Italy. With a strong and lively conviction of the importance of the doctrine of justification by faith they made it the central point of religious life and knowledge, and thus, without directly opposing it, they inspired new life into the Catholic church. The first germ of this movement appeared in the so-called Oratory of Divine Love, an association formed in the beginning of A.D. 1520 at Rome, after the apostolic model, for mutual religious edification, consisting of fifty or sixty young, eager men, mostly of the clerical order. One of the original founders was Jac. Sadolet, who in this spirit expounded the Epistle to the Romans. To it also belonged such men as the founder of the Theatine order (§ [149, 7]), Cajetan of Thiene, and John Pet. Caraffa, Bishop of Chieta, and afterwards Pope Paul IV., who sought the church’s salvation rather in the practice of a rigorous inquisitorial discipline. The sack of Rome (§ [132, 2]) broke up this association in A.D. 1527, but spread its efforts over all Italy. The fugitive English cardinal, Reginald Pole, attached himself in Venice to the party of Sadolet. In Ferrara there was Italy’s most famous poetess, Vittoria Colonna; at Modena the Bishop Morone, who, although as papal legate in Germany, a zealous defender of the papal claims (§§ [135, 2]; [137, 5]), yet in his own diocese even subsequently aided the evangelical tendencies of his companions with much ardour, and hence under Paul IV. was cast into the Inquisition, to come out only under Pius V., after undergoing a three years’ imprisonment. In Naples there was Juan Valdez, Alphonso’s brother, secretary of the Spanish viceroy of Naples, and author of the “One Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations,” as well as a book of Christian doctrine for the young in the Spanish language. In Siena there was Aonio Paleario, professor of classical literature, famous as poet and orator. In Rome there was the papal notary Carnesecchi, formerly the personal friend of Clement VII. In other places there were many more. The most conspicuous representative of the party was the Venetian Gasparo Contarini (§ [135, 3]), who died in A.D. 1542.

§ 139.23. The tendency of the thought of these men is most clearly and fully set forth in the little work, “The Benefit of Christ’s Death.” At Venice, where it first appeared in A.D. 1542, within six years 60,000 copies of this tract were issued, and afterwards innumerable reprints and translations of it were circulated. Since Aonio Paleario had written, according to his own statement, a tract of a similar character, he came to be generally regarded as its author, until Ranke discovered a notice among the acts of the Inquisition, according to which the heretical jewel was to be assigned to a monk of San Severino in Naples, a disciple of Juan Valdez, and afterwards Benrath succeeded in proving his name to be Don Benedetto of Mantŏva. The conciliatory spirit of these friends of moderate reform gave grounds for large expectation, all the more that Paul III. seemed all through his life to favour the movement. He nominated Contarini, Sadolet, Pole, and Caraffa cardinals, instituted in A.D. 1536 a congregatio præparatoria, and made Contarini the representative of the curia at the religious Conference of Regensburg in A.D. 1541 (§ [135, 3]), which sought to bring about the conciliation of the German Protestants. But just about this time, probably not without the co-operation of the Jesuit order founded in A.D. 1540, a split occurred which utterly blasted all these grand expectations. The zeal of Caraffa set himself at the head of the opposition, and Paul III., in accordance with his proposal in his bull Licet ab initio of A.D. 1542, reorganized the defunct Roman Inquisition after the Spanish model as the central institution for the uprooting of the Protestant heresy. This “Holy Office” henceforth pursued its violent career under the pontificate of Caraffa himself, who mounted the papal throne in A.D. 1555 as Paul IV. Subsequently, too, under the obstinate, fanatical, and hence canonized monkish pope Pius V., from A.D. 1566 every suspicion of Protestantism was rigorously and mercilessly punished with imprisonment, torture, the galleys, the scaffold, and the stake. So energetically was the persecution carried out against the adherents and the patrons of the Reformation, that by the end of the century no trace of its presence was any longer to be found within the bounds of Italy. One of the last victims of this persecution was Aonio Paleario. After he had been for three years in the prisons of the Inquisition, he was strangled and then burnt. A similar fate had previously befallen Carnesecchi. How thoroughgoing and successful the Holy Office was in the suppression of books suspected of a heretical taint appears from the war of extermination carried on against that liber perniciosissimus, “On the Benefit of Christ’s Death.” In spite of the hundred thousand copies of the book that had been in circulation, the Inquisition so carefully and consistently pursued its task of extirpation, that thirty years after its appearance it was no longer to be found in the original and after a hundred no translation even was supposed to exist. In Rome alone a pile of copies were burnt which reached to the height of a house.In A.D. 1853 a copy of the original was found in Cambridge, and was published in London, 1855, with an English translation made by the Duke of Devonshire in A.D. 1548.[399]

§ 139.24. Among the Italian reformers who shook themselves entirely free from the papacy, and only by flight into foreign lands escaped prison, torture, and the stake, the following are the most important.

  1. Bernardino Ochino, from A.D. 1538 general of the Capuchins, became by his glowing eloquence one of the most popular of Italian preachers. The study of the Bible had led him to accept the doctrine of justification when, in A.D. 1536, he was called to Naples as Lenten preacher. He was there brought into close contact with Juan Valdez, who confirmed him in his evangelical tendencies, and made him acquainted with the writings of the German reformers. In order to escape arrest and the Inquisition, he fled in A.D. 1542 to Geneva, and wrought successively at Basel, Augsburg, Strassburg, and London. After the death of Edward VI. he was obliged to make his escape from England, went as preacher to Zürich, adopted Socinian views, and even justified polygamy.He was consequently deposed from his office, fled to Poland, and died in Moravia in A.D. 1565.[400]
  2. Peter Martyr Vermilius, an Augustinian monk and popular preacher. The study of the writings of Erasmus, Zwingli, and Bucer led him to quit the Catholic church. He fled to Zürich, became professor in Strassburg, and on Cranmer’s invitation came to England, where he was made professor in Oxford. When Mary came to the throne, he returned to Strassburg, and died as professor at Zürich in A.D. 1562.
  3. Peter Paul Vergerius in A.D. 1530 accompanied Campegius to the Diet of Augsburg as papal legate (§ [132, 6]); was sent again, in A.D. 1535, to Germany by Paul III., in order to get the German princes to agree to the holding of the council at Mantua (§ [134, 1]), and on this point he conferred personally but unsuccessfully with Luther. On his return home, in A.D. 1536 the pope conferred upon him, in recognition of his faithful service, the bishopric of his native city, Capo d’Istria. In A.D. 1540 we find him again present during the religious conference at Worms (§ [135, 2]), where his conciliatory efforts called down on him the displeasure of the pope and the suspicion of his enemies as a secret adherent of Luther. In order to clear himself of suspicion he studied Luther’s writings with the intention of controverting them, but had his heart opened to gospel truths, and was obliged to betake himself to flight. At Padua the dreadful end of the jurist Speira, who had abjured his evangelical convictions, and feeling that he had committed the unpardonable sin died amid the most fearful agonies of conscience, made an indelible impression upon him. He now, in A.D. 1548, formally joined the evangelical church, wrought for a long time in the country of the Grisons, not as a member of the Reformed but of the Lutheran church, and died as professor at Tübingen in A.D. 1565.
  4. The Piedmontese Cœlius Secundus Curio was the youngest of a family of twenty-three, and was early left an orphan. He studied at Turin, where an Augustinian monk, Jerome Niger, made him acquainted with the writings of Luther and others. Unweariedly devoted to spreading the gospel in the various cities of Italy, he was repeatedly subjected by the persecution of the Inquisition to severe imprisonment, but always managed to escape in almost a miraculous way. At last he found, in A.D. 1542, on the recommendation of the Duchess Renata, an asylum in Switzerland, first of all in Bern; then he taught in Lausanne for four years, and in Basel for twenty-two. He died at Basel in A.D. 1569. His latitudinarian theology gave no offence among the liberal-minded folk of Basel, but he was looked upon with much displeasure by the theologians of Geneva, whose prosecutions of heretics he had condemned; and even from Tübingen, Vergerius, who had been his intimate friend, brought the charge of Pelagianism against him.
  5. Galeazzo Carraccioli, Marquis of Vico, on his mother’s side a nephew of Paul IV., was led by intercourse with Juan Valdez and the preaching of Peter Martyr to abandon the gay, worldly life of the Neapolitan court for one of religious earnestness and devotion, and by means of a visit to Germany in company with the emperor he was confirmed in his evangelical convictions. In order to be able to live in the undisturbed profession of his faith, he fled, in A.D. 1551, to Geneva. Neither the tears nor the curses of his aged father, who had hurried after him to that place, nor the promise of indulgence from his papal uncle, nor the complaining, the tears, and despair of his tenderly loved wife and children, whom at great risk he had visited at Vico in A.D. 1558, were able to shake the steadfastness of his faith. But equally in vain were his incessant entreaties and tears to induce his wife and children to come and join him on some neutral territory, where he might be allowed to follow the evangelical and they the Catholic confession. On the ground of this obstinate and persistent refusal, the Genevan consistory, with Calvin at its head, at last granted him the divorce that he claimed, and in A.D. 1560 Carraccioli entered into a second marriage. Down to his death, in A.D. 1586, by his active and industrious life he afforded a pattern, and by his successful labours he proved a powerful support to the Italian congregation in Geneva, whose pastor, Balbani, raised to him a well deserved memorial in the history of his life, which he published in Geneva in A.D. 1587.
  6. To the sketch of these noble reformers we may now add the name of a woman who is well deserving of a place alongside of them for her singular classical culture, her rich poetic endowment, and her noble and beautiful life. Fulvia Olympia Morata, of Ferrara, in her sixteenth year began to deliver public lectures in her native city, where she enjoyed the friendship and favour of the Duchess Renata. She married a German physician, Andrew Grunthler, went with him to his home at Schweinfurt, and there attached herself to the Protestant church. When that city was plundered by the Margrave Albert in A.D. 1553 (§ [137, 4]), they lost all their property.She died in A.D. 1555 at Heidelberg, where Grunthler had been appointed professor of medicine.[401]

§ 139.25. The Protestantizing of the Waldensians (§ [108, 10]).—The news of the Reformation caused great excitement among the Waldensians. Even as early as A.D. 1520 the Piedmontese barba, or minister, Martin of Lucerne, undertook a journey to Germany, and brought back with him several works of the reformers. In A.D. 1530 the French Waldensians sent two delegates, George Morel and Peter Masson, who conferred verbally and in writing with Œcolampadius at Basel, and with Bucer and Capito at Strassburg. The result was, that in A.D. 1532 a synod was held in the Piedmontese village of Chauvoran, in the valley of Angrogna, at which the two Genevan theologians Farel and Saunier were present. A number of narrow-minded prejudices that prevailed among the old Waldensians were now abandoned, such as the prohibition against taking oaths, the holding of magisterial offices, the taking of interest, etc.; and several Catholic notions to which they had formerly adhered, such as auricular confession, the reckoning of the sacraments as seven, the injunction of fasts, compulsory celibacy, the doctrine of merits, etc., were abandoned as unevangelical, while the Reformed doctrine of predestination was adopted. On this foundation the complete Protestantizing of the whole Waldensian community now made rapid progress, but called down upon them from every side bloody persecutions. In Provence and Dauphiné there were, in A.D. 1545, four thousand murdered, and twenty-two districts devastated with fire. Their remnants got mixed up with the French Reformed. When the Waldensian colonies in Calabria were told of the Protestantizing of their Piedmontese brethren, they sent, in A.D. 1559, a delegate to seek a pastor for them from Geneva. Ludovico Pascale, by birth a Piedmontese Catholic, who had studied theology at Geneva, was selected for this mission; but soon after his arrival he was thrown into prison at Naples, and from thence carried off to Rome, where in A.D. 1560 he went with all the martyr’s joy and faith to the stake erected for him by the Inquisition. In the trials of this man Rome for the first time came to understand the significance and the attitude of the Calabrian colonies, and now the grand-inquisitor, Alexandrini, with some Dominicans, was sent for their conversion or extermination. The flourishing churches were in A.D. 1561 completely rooted out, amid scenes of almost incredible atrocity. The men who escaped the stake were made to toil in the Spanish galleys, while their wives and children were sold as slaves. In Piedmont, the duke, after vain military expeditions for their conversion, which the Waldensians, driven to arms had successfully withstood, was obliged to allow them, in the Peace of Cavour of A.D. 1561, a restricted measure of religious liberty. But when the violent attempts to secure conversions did not cease, they bound themselves together, in A.D. 1571, in the so-called “Union of the Valleys,” by which they undertook to defend one another in the exercise of their evangelical worship.—Continuation, § [153, 5].

§ 139.26. Attempt at Protestantizing the Eastern Church.—The opposition to the Roman papacy, which was common to them and the eastern church, led the Protestants of the West to long for and strive after a union with those who were thus far agreed with them. A young Cretan, Jacob Basilicus, whom Heraclides, prince of Samos and Paros, had adopted, on his travels through Germany, Denmark, and Sweden had come into friendly relations with Melanchthon and others of the reformed party, and attempted, after he entered upon the government of his two islands in A.D. 1561, to introduce a reformation of the local church according to evangelical principles. But he was murdered in A.D. 1563, and with him every trace of his movement passed away.—In A.D. 1559 a deacon from Constantinople, Demetrius Mysos, spent some months with Melanchthon at Wittenburg [Wittenberg], and took with him a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession, of which, however, no result ever came. At a later period, in A.D. 1573, the Tübingen theologians, Andreä, Luc. Osiander, and others, reopened negotiations with the patriarch Jeremiah II. (§ [73, 4]), through a Lutheran pastor, Stephen Gerbach, who went to Constantinople in the suite of a zealous Protestant nobleman, David of Ungnad, ambassador of Maximilian II. The Tübingen divines sent with him a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession, composed by Mart. Crusius, with a request for his judgment upon it. The patriarch, in his reply in A.D. 1576, expressed himself candidly in regard to the errors of the book. The doctors of Tübingen wrote in vindication of their formula, and in a second answer, in A.D. 1579, the patriarch reiterated the objections stated in the first. After a third interchange of letters he declined all further discussion, and allowed a fourth epistle, in A.D. 1581, to remain unanswered.—Continuation, § [152, 2].

II. The Churches of the Reformation.

§ 140. The Distinctive Character of the Lutheran Church.[402]

In the Lutheran Church, that specifically German type of Christianity which from the days of Charlemagne was ever panting after independent expression reached its maturity and full development. The sacred treasure of true catholicity, which the church of early times had nurtured in the form of Greek-Roman culture, is taken over freed from excrescences, and enriched by those acquisitions of the Middle Ages that had stood the proof. Its vocation was to set forth the “happy mean” between the antagonistic ecclesiastical movements and struggles of the West, and to give its strength mainly to the development of sound doctrine. And if it has not exerted an equal influence in all departments, paying most attention to the worship and least to matters of constitution, it cannot, on the other hand, be denied that even in those directions an effort has been made to modify the violent contradiction of extremes (§ [142, 1], [2]).