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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
The influence of Agostino Valier on the theoretical formulations behind the Catholic Reformation and on its practical reforms is little known. There are reasons for this lack of recognition. Unlike Robert Bellarmine and Caesar Baronius, his illustrious contemporaries, he did not leave behind one or two great works on which the eyes of the Catholic and non-Catholic worlds were fixed. Unlike them, he was not in the center of major theological or historical controversies. From behind the scenes, he exerted a quiet, consistent influence on Catholic intellectual life and reforms over half a century. Much of his impact was the result of his personal contacts with his wide circle of friends, church leaders, and secular rulers of Europe, for whom individually he prepared short treatises concerning major issues confronting them. There were many such treatises. In 1719 Josephus Caminus listed one hundred twenty-eight such titles in his edition of Valier's book De cautione adhibenda in edendis libris which he published in Venice.
1 Valier, Agostino, Augustini Valerii Patricti Veneti… De cautione adhibenda in edendis libris (Padua: Caminus, 1719) xxiii–xxviiiGoogle Scholar. This list was compiled with the help of Josephus Antonius Saxus, prefect of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. No distinction is made in the list between printed works and manuscripts or between works in Latin and works in the vernacular.
2 Valier, Agostino, Vita e morte di S. Carlo Borromeo… Commentarius de consolatione ecclesiae ad Ascanium Card. Columnam libri VI (Quos auspice Sanctissimo Domino Nostro Pio Papa Sexto ex ejusdem privatae Bibliotecae Apographo nunc primum edidit, et scholiis auxit Hyacinthus Ponzetti a Sacris Domus Pontificalis; Rome: apud Lazarinos, 1795).Google Scholar
3 The extensive correspondence between Valier and the Borromeos is preserved in the Bibl?oteca Ambrosiana in autographs and copies. Some of the important letters between Valier and Carlo Borromeo were recently published. See Tacchella, Lorenzo, ed., San Carlo Borromeo ed il card. Agostino Valier (Carteggio) (Verona: Istituto per gli Studi Storici Veronesi, 1972)Google Scholar.
4 Ventura, Giovanni, Vita Augustini Valerii, published in Antonio Calogerà, Opuscoli (Verona: n.p., 1741) 25. 49ff.Google Scholar
5 A short list of some of these lives is found in , Tacchella, San Carlo Borromeo ed il Card. Agostino Valier, 64Google Scholar.
6 Tacchella, Lorenzo and Tacchella, Mary Madeline II, Cardinale Agostino Valier e la riforma tridentina nella diocesi di Trieste (Udine: Editrice Arti Grafiche Friulane, 1974).Google Scholar
7 See above, n. 2.
8 Council of Trent, Decretum de reformatione, canon 2.
9 , Tacchella and , Tacchella II, Cardinale Agostino Valier, 69.Google Scholar
10 Ibid.
11 A letter of Agostino Valie to Carlo Borromeo dated 17 March 1565 speaks of this arrangement (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. F. 105, Inf. f. 202). Valier was ordained a subdeacon on 21 March 1565 (See , Tacchella and , Tacchella II, Cardinale Agostino Valier, 70)Google Scholar.
12 Carlo Borromeo's motion is reported in Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Miscell. Arm. XII 146, p. 149.
13 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Cons. Acta Miscell. 19, pp. 344—46.
14 In a letter to his priests in 1589, Valier explained how he imitated Giberti throughout his administration. See the appendix of Bellerini, P. in J. Matteo Giberti, Opera Omnia (Ostiglia: n.p., 1740) 153Google Scholar.
15 Valier's short handbook, Libeììus congregationum sacerdotum semel in mensefaciendarum, a copy of which can be found in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, was in fact a loosely constructed agenda for these monthly meetings.
16 See , Tacchella and , Tacchella II, Cardinale Agostino Valier, 73—75Google Scholar ; Montorio, V. II, Seminario di Verona (Verona: n.p., 1968) 5—8Google Scholar.
17 Copy of Valier's Del S. Concilia di Trento sopra ìe monache per la citta di Verona in Ambrosiana of Milan.
18 Copy of Ricordi di Mons. Agostino Valeria Vascovo di Verona in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan.
19 See , Tacchella and , Tacchella II, Cardinale Agostino Valier, 75.Google Scholar
20 , Valier'sOrdinationes Societatis Charitatis, sive de Institutione Socielatis Charitatis Veronae was published in 1568Google Scholar . See , Tacchella and , Tacchella, II Cardinale Agostino Valier, 75Google Scholar.
21 Copies of these booklets are in the archives of Verona. See , Tacchella and , Tacchella, II Cardinale Agostino Valier, 77Google Scholar.
22 , Tacchella and , Tacchella, II Cardinale Agostino Valier, 77.Google Scholar
23 Valier, Agostino, “Lettera consolatoria nella quale essendo stata liberata essa citta della peste, che per molti giorni travagliata, si consola col suo popolo et li essorta a ringratiare la Maesta di Dio et a viver christianamente” (Venice: n.p., 1575).Google Scholar
24 Evidence of Valier's interest in establishing a Jesuit house is seen in a letter the newly elected general of the Jesuits, Francisco Borgia, wrote from Vienna on his way to Rome, on 6 May 1567. He described how he planned to be a guest of Valier who had expressed interest in having the Jesuits in his diocese. The letter is found in Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, vol. 4: Sanctus Franciscus Borgia (Madrid: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1910) 462Google Scholar.
25 Tacchella and Tacchella describe the extensive correspondence between Carlo Borromeo, Valier, and the Jesuit general (II Cardìnale Agostino Valier, 79-82).
26 Ibid.
27 Tacchella and Tacchella cite (Ibid., 82-83) contemporary reports; for example, Archbishop Alberto Valier, nephew and successor of Agostino Valier, reported on the occasion of his ad limina visit to Rome in 1607 about the contentment of the Jews in their ghetto; Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sac. Cong. Cone. Visile ad Limina, Alberto Valier, Verona, anno 1607.
28 Pavoncello, Nello, “Gli Ebrei in Verona,” Vita Veronese 11 (1958) 85 nn. 3–4.Google Scholar
29 For details of Valier's visitations, I follow Tacchella and , Tacchella, II Cardinale Agostino Valier, 83–90Google Scholar ; Pavat, M., La Riforma tridentina del clero a Paren e Pola (Rome: n.p., 1960)Google Scholar ; Antonini, Lorenzo, “II Cardinale Agostino Valier visitatore apostolico a Vicenza” (Ph.D. diss., University of Padua, 1969)Google Scholar.
30 Achivio Segreto Vaticano, Cons. 160, p. 5.
31 Fo details, see Pullapilly, Cyriac K., Caesar Baronius Counter Reformation Historian (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975) 67–70.Google Scholar
32 For example, Valier resolved a problem of litigation with the archpriest of the cathedral of Verona by writing a stern letter; see letter dated 6 August 1588 in Archivio Vescovile Verona, b. 711.
33 Vaticano, Archivio Segreto, Politicorum 196, “Elezione Leone XI, Relazione del Conclave,” p. 299.Google Scholar
34 For a detailed description of the conclaves between 1605 and 1606, see , Pullapilly, Caesar Baronius, 103–16Google Scholar.
35 The account of the conclave so indicates; see Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Politicorum 106, pp. 335-38.
36 Achivio Segreto Vaticano, Acta Consist. Miscell. Tom. 21, pp. 351-52.
37 The letter is published in Cavattoni, Cesare, Lettere del Cardinale Agostino Valier ai Dogi di Venezia (Verona: n.p., 1862) 46.Google Scholar
38 For details of the interdict and the resolution of the matter, see , Pullapilly, Caesar Baronius, 118–32.Google Scholar
39 An example of the discussion on the fundamental meaning of Christian religion is contained in the proceedings of one evening's activities at the Accademia delle Notti Vaticane written by Agostino Valier himself (see Philippus sive de Christiana laetitia dialogus, to be found at the Vallicelliana in Rome [Codex XVI Saeculi, Lit. R. 62]).
40 A good example of discussions concerning ecclesiastical administration is Valier's own daily after-dinner meetings with his diocesan staff in Verona (see above p. 315).
41 Valier, Agostino, De recta philosophandi ratione libri duo quos Augustinus Valerius episcopus Veronae scripsit, quo tempore venitius philosophiam profitebatur (Verona: apud Sebastianum et Joannem fratres a Domnis, 1577) 1.1.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., 1.3-5.
43 Ibid., 1.8. “Quae sint principia, causae, elementa, proprietates rerum naturalium, quid motus, quot ejus species, quid locus, quid tempus, quid elementa, quid corpora imperfecta, quid metallum, quid plantae, quid animal, quot metallorum, plantarum ac animalium genera, quid virtus, quid faelicitas, quid pulcherrimae omnes res.”
44 Ibid.
45 Agostino Valier, Praefatio to “Qua ratione versandum sit in Aristotele ad Leonardum Donatum,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 2.58—62.
46 Agostino Valier, “Praefatio in libros de Coelo,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 43-46.
47 Kristeller, Paul Oskar, Renaissance Thought and its Sources (ed. Mooney, Michael; New York: Columbia University Press, 1979) 3–4.Google Scholar
48 Agostino Valier, “Praefatio in libellum Porphirii de quinque vocibus,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 41-43.
49 Agostino Valier, “Praefatio in Cebetis tabulam,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 39-41.
50 Agostino Valier, “Praefatio habita secundo anno in libros de moribus Aristotelis,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 36-39.
51 Agostino Valier, “Praefatio publice habita anno MCLIX,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 35. Valier repeats the same theme in his Commentarius de consolatione ecclesiae (see n. 2 above) and in his unpublished work Philippus sive de Christiana laetitia dialogus (see n. 39 above).
52 Pirotti, Umberto, “Aristotelian Philosophy and the Popularization of Learning: Benedetto Varchi and Renaissance Aristotelianism,” in Cochrane, Eric, ed., The Late Italian Renaissance 1525-1630 (New York: Harper & Row, 1970) 168–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
53 Firpo, Luigi, “The Flowering and Withering of Speculative Philosophy—Italian Philosophy and the Counter Reformation: The Condemnation of Francesco Patrizi,” in Cochrane. The Late Italian Renaissance, 270–71.Google Scholar
54 See Kristeller, Paul Oscar, “Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance,” Byzantion 17 (1944-1945) 364–66.Google Scholar
55 , Fipo, “Flowering and Withering,” 271.Google Scholar
56 Bouwsma, William, “Venice, Spain, and the Papacy: Paolo Sarpi and the Renaissance Tradition,” in Cochrane, The Late Italian Renaissance, 362–64.Google Scholar
57 , Valier, De recta philosophandi, 10—11.Google Scholar
58 Agostino Valier, “Praefatio in libros de vita, ac moribus Aristotelis,” in Ibid., 26-33.
59 Ibid., 3.
60 Ibid., 7. “Matrem bene dictorum ac recte factorum, reginam liberalium omnium artium, quae complectitur cognitiones humanarum ac divinarum rerum.”
61 Ibid., 24.
62 Ibid., 17-18.
63 Ibid., 19.
64 Ibid., 22-23.
65 Ibid., 25-26.
66 Ibid., 35. Valier also repeats the same argument throughout his treatise, Commentarius de consolatione ecclesiae. See n. 51.
67 , Valier, Augustini Valerii Patricii Veneti, 5–7Google Scholar . “Vea philosophia est jucundissimum vitae solatium… et magistra bene vivendi; servit demum Theologiae, hoc est, magistrae humanae salutis.”
68 , Valier, “Praefatio publice habita anno MDLIX,” 35Google Scholar . “Veritas, modestia, mansuetudo, felicitas, humanitas, externarum rerum contemptus.” In elevating philosophy as the most important discipline, next only to theology, Valier differed significantly from the humanist view and even from the views of most Catholic and Protestant thinkers of the late sixteenth century. By the time of the publication of Magdeburg Centuries (the massive twelve-volume work which was published from Magdeburg by Flacius Illyricus and his colleagues between 1559 and 1574 to demonstrate that the Catholic Church had deviated fundamentally from the teachings of Christ and that Lutheranism represented the true church of Christ), both Catholic and Protestant scholars had determined that what would best serve religion, from their perspectives, was history. It was for this reason, as Eric Cochrane has shown, that sacred history, separated from profane history, obtained a dominant position in the ecclesiastical literature of the time. Valier, although he at one time put history at the top of the list of obligatory reading for Christians, along with the fathers of the church, remained almost alone among his contemporaries in upholding the position of philosophy as the chief handmaid of theology. It is in doing so that he became the unofficial philosopher of the Catholic Reformation. See Cochrane, Eric, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) 231-32, 445–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
69 , Valier, “Praefatio publice habita anno MDLIX,” 33.Google Scholar
70 Ibid., 26.
71 Valier, Agostino, “Praefatio in libros de coelo,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 46.Google Scholar
72 Valier, Agostino, “Praefatio in libros de anima,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 49–51.Google Scholar
73 , Valier, “Praefatio in Cebetis tabulam,” 40–41Google Scholar . “Beatitudinem sive faelicitatem summum atque ultimum bonum hominis summamque ipsius perfectionem esse inter omnes constat. Beatitudinem consequntur tranquillitas ac pax animi; fideles ejus ministrae scientiae perfectae virtutes sunt.”
74 , Valier, “Praefatio habita secundo anno in libros de moribus Aristotelis,” 36.Google Scholar
75 , Valier, De recta phìlosophandi, 9.Google Scholar
76 Agostino Valier, “Qui mores in cive Veneto equiruntur ad Aloysium Contrarinum,” in idem, De recta phìlosophandi, 62-68.
77 , Valie, “Praefatio publice habita anno MDLIX,” 33.Google Scholar
78 , Valier, De recta philosophandi, 16–17.Google Scholar
79 Ibid., 13-15.
80 Agostino Valier, “Quibus in artibus adolescens Venetus debeat excellere ad Bernardum Zane,” in idem, De recta philosophandi, 69-74.
81 , Valier, “Qua ratione versandum sit in Aristotele ad Leonardum Donatum,” 54–58.Google Scholar
82 Refrences to these can be found throughout Philippus sive de Christiana laeriria dialogus.
83 See nn. 59 and 60.
84 See Kristeller, Paul Oscar, Renaissance Thought II, Papers on Humanism and the Arts (New York: Harper & Row, 1965) 60.Google Scholar
85 See nn. 58, 59, 60, and the related text.
86 See Bainton, Roland H., Here I Stand, A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950) 48, 169–70.Google Scholar
87 Vita Caroli Borromei Card. S. Praexedis Archiepiscopi Mediolani. Item opuscula duo Episcopus ac Cardinalis ab Augustino Card. Veronae Conscripia (Verona: Apud Franciscum a Donnis, 1602).Google Scholar
