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Religious Orthodoxy, Dissent and Suppression in Venice in the 1540s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Antonio Santosuosso
Antonio Santosuosso
Affiliation:
Mr. Santosuosso is assistant professor of history in theUniversity of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
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Extract

In his book Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkely, 1968), William J. Bouwsma claims that the confrontation between Rome and Venice in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was based on two different views of the world. He sees Rome as the embodiment of the authoritarianism and intolerance of the Counter Reformation and Venice as the last representative of Renaissance republicanism. Bouwsma maintains that the struggle which reached a point of crisis during the interdict of 1606-1607 was a logical development of an inborn ideological conflict between Venice and Rome. His thesis, however, does not fit the facts for the 1540s, which were a crucial decade in Venetian history since these years witnessed the acceptance of the Roman Inquisition and the first attempt to adopt an Index of Forbidden Books. During this period, Rome and Venice disagreed not on what should be implemented or rejected, but on who should have the responsibility and weaponry to enforce it. When there was a confrontation between them, it was caused by reasons of state—the political needs of two governments sharing a common border and having different political interests in Italy and/or in Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 476 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1973

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References

1. As an introduction to the history of Italian Protestantism, see Cantimori, Delio, Prospettive di storia ereticale italiana nel cinquecento (Bari, 1960)Google Scholar and Eretici italiani del cinquecento (Florence, 1967; 1st ed. 1939)Google Scholar. In English, still useful is Church, F. C., The Italian Reformers, 1534–1564 (New York, 1932), 2 vols.Google Scholar

2. For Venetian religious policy in the 1540s, read Buschbell, Gottfried, Reformation und Inquisition in Italien um die Mittle des XVI Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1910)Google Scholar; Campana, Lorenzo, “Monsignor Giovanni Della Casa e i suoi tempi,” Studi storici 16 (1907): 527–580Google Scholar; 17 (1908): 145–282; 18 (1909): 325–513 (hereafter Campana); Stella, A., Dall'anabattesimo al Socinianesimo nel cinquecento veneto (Padua, 1967)Google Scholar and “Utopie e velleità insurrezionali dei filoprotestanti italiane (1545–1547),” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 27 (1965): 133–182Google Scholar; Schutte, Anne Jacobson, “Pier Paolo Vergerio: The Making of an Italian Reformer” (Ph.D. diss.; Stanford, 1969), pp. 162–255Google Scholar; Santosuosso, Antonio, “Life and Thought of Giovanni Della Casa, 1503–1556” (Ph.D. diss.; University of Toronto, 1972), pp. 182–302Google Scholar. For the sixteenth century as a whole, see Bouwsma, W. J., Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty. Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley, 1968), especially pp. 112–133Google Scholar; Pommier, E., “La societé venitienne et la Reforme protestante an XVIe siècle,” Bollettino dell' Istituto di Storia della Società e dello Stato Venesiano 1 (1959): 3–26.Google Scholar

3. Ludovico da l'Armi to Cristoforo Madruzzo, July 11, 1546, Venice, Buschbell, pp. 242–243. The representative of the German princes was the Italian Protestant Baldassarre Altieri.

4. On Della Casa, see Campana and especially Caretti, Lanfranco, “Giovanni Della Casa, uomo pubblico e scrittore,” Filologia e critica. Studi di filologia italiana (Florence, 1951), pp. 65–98Google Scholar, which is the best study in print available to scholars. The most recent work is my Ph.D. dissertation, “Life and Thought of Giovanni Della Casa, 1503–1556.”

5. On Della Casa's appointment as a nuncio a latere, check Sforza, Giovanni, “Riflessi della Controriforma nella Repubblica di Venezia,” Archivio storico italiano 93 (1935): 20–27Google Scholar. See also Archivio di Stato, Venezia (hereafter ASV), Consiglio dei Dieci. Lettere degli ambasciatori a Roma, busta 23, documents 103, 104, 105. Sforza did not consider the evidence contained in these documents.

6. To Beccadelli, Ludovico, 07 11, 1545, Venice, Alessandro Mortara, ed., Alcune lettre di celebri scrittori italians (Prato, 1852), p. 11.Google Scholar

7. To Beccadelli, , 07 21, 1545, Venice, Giuseppe Cugnoni, ed., Scritti inediti di Monsignor Della Casa (Rome, 1889), p. 32.Google Scholar

8. Both quotations in letters to the cameriengo, October 2, 1546 and October 3, 1546, Campana 17:168, 168 n. 2.

9. Della Cam to Beccadelli, July 21, 1545, Venice, Cugnoni, pp. 31–32.

10. Iacomo Guidi to Francesco Lottino, Cosimo I's secretary, May 12, 1545, Venice, Archivio di Stato, Firenze, (hereafter ASF), Archivio Mediceo, filza 2966, fol. 273r.

11. Francesco Venier to the Dieci, September 27, 1544, ASV, Consiglio dei Dieoi. Letters degli ambasciatori a Roma, busta 23, document 105.

12. For biographical sketches of Strozzi, Michele Poccianti, Catalogus scriptorum Florentinorum omnis generis (Florentiae, Apud Philippum Iunctam, 1599), p. 72Google Scholar; Inghirami, F., Storia della Toscana (Fiesole, 1844), 13:323Google Scholar; Negri, G., Istoria degli scrittori fiorentini (Ferrara, 1722), p. 223Google Scholar; Bongi, S., Annali di Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari da Trino di Monferrato stampatore in Venezia (Rome, 1895), 2:150–152Google Scholar. There are letters addressed to Strozzi in Aretino, Pietro, Terzo libro dells lettere (In Parigi, Appresso Matteo il Maestro, 1609), pp. 324r–324vGoogle Scholar; and Doni, Anton Francesco, Lettere (Fiorenza, 1546), pp. 21v–22v.Google Scholar

13. Della Casa to Pier Luigi Farnese, May 29, 1546, Ronchini, Venice Amadio, ed., Lettere d'uomini illustri conservate in Parma nel R. Archivio dello Stato (Parma, 1853), p. 152Google Scholar. Also Pier Filippo Pandolfini to Cosimo I, May 1, 1546, Venice, ASF, Archivio Mediceo, filza 2966, fol. 262v.

14. Della Casa to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, May 22, 1546, Campana, 17:161.

15. Della Casa to Pier Luigi Farnese, May 29, 1546, Venice, Ronchini, p. 152.

16. Della Casa to Cardinal Farnese, June 19, 1546, Campana, 17:164 n. 3. On Strozzi's treatment in prison, Cosimo I to Pandolfini, August 14, 1546, Florence, ASF, Archivio Mediceo, filza 7, fol. 272r.

17. Pandolfini to Cosimo I, June 19, 1546, Venice, ASF, Archivio Mediceo, filza 2975, fol. 127r; Cosimo I to Pandolfini, July 9, July 23, August 14, 1546, Ibid., filza 7, foll. 200r, 222r, 272r. Pandolfini's answers to the duke's instructions are in Ibid., filza 2967, foll. 167r, 183r.

18. Unless otherwise indicated, I have relied for the account of Fra Ambrogio's trial on the file in ASV, S. Uffizio. Processi, busta 1.

19. Jedin, H., Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando, trans. Eckhoff, F. C. (London and St. Louis, 1947), pp. 224–225.Google Scholar

20. Papal brief of November 31, 1547, Fontana, B., “Documenti vaticani contro 1'eresia luterana,” Archivio della R. Deputazione Romana di Storia Patria 15 (1892): 155–156.Google Scholar

21. On the impact of political developments on Venice's religious policy, see Stella, “Utopie e velleità insurrezionali italiane, (1545–1547),” pp. 133–182.

22. Chabod, Federico, Per la storia religiosa dello stato di Milano durante il doiminio di Carlo V (2nd. ed.; Rome, 1962), pp. 145–168Google Scholar; Berengo, Marino, Nobili e mercanti nella Lucca del cinquecento (Turin, 1965), pp. 415–418.Google Scholar

23. Cantù, Cesare, Gli eretici d'Italia. Discorsi politici (Turin, 1865), 3:129Google Scholar. On the Venetian Inquisition in general, besides the works mentioned in connection with Protestantism in the Venetian territories, see also Albanese, F., L'Inquisizione religiosa nella Repubblica di Venesia (Padua, 1891)Google Scholar; Bellondi, V., Documenti e aneddoti di storia veneziana, 1810–1854, tratti dall'Archivio de Frari (Florence, 1902)Google Scholar. Most of the information in the books mentioned above is very poor.

24. Cantù, pp. 131, 162–163 n. 5.

25. Fra Ambrogio's trial transcript, ASV, S. Uffizio. Processi, busta 1, fol. lr.

26. To Cardinal Farnese, May 22, 1546, Campana, 17:162 n. 1.

27. Letter of March 19, 1547, Ibid., p. 200.

28. The doge's decree is published by Sforza, pp. 195–196. So Pandolfini communicated the news to Cosimo I, “Questi s.ri hanno creato tre homini de primi della città che insieme con il Nuntio habbino autorità di procedere contro a Luterani” May 7, 1547, Venice, ASF, Archivio Mediceo, filza 2967, f01. 549r.

29. Della Casa's letter to Rome, June 4, 1547, Campana, 17:203.

30. A deliberation of the Council of Ten of September 21, 1548 mentions that the threelay members have met with the nuncio's auditor and the inquisitor “tre fiate alla settimana dal mese di Aprile 1547,” ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci. Segreti, registro VI, fol. 29r.

31. The vote was eight for, eleven against, ten undecided. ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci. Segreti, registro VI, foll. 29r-30v.

32. To Cardinal Farnese, March 20, 1549, Campana, 17:227, 231.

33. Matteo Dandolo to the Dieci, June 28, 1550, Rome, quoted in Paschini, Pio, “L'Inquisizione a Venezia ed il nunzio Lodovico Beccadelli, 1550–1554,” Venezia e l'Inquisizione Romana da Giulio III a Pio IV (Padua, 1959), p. 44Google Scholar. The new papal nunclo, Beccadelli, was a lifetime friend of Della Casa.

34. The figures, which I have taken from the index of ASV, S. Uffizio. Processi, are not complete, since it is evident that there are trials missing from the archives. For instance, in Venice there is no trace of the trial against Strozzi.

35. This is my interpretation of Vergerio's trial, Santosuosso, , “Life and Thought of Giovanni Della Casa, 1503–1556,” pp. 231–233Google Scholar. But see also Paschini, Pio, Pier Paolo Vergerio il giovane e la sua apostasia. Un episodio delle lotte religiose del cinquecento (Rome, 1925), pp. 144–153Google Scholar; and especially, Schutte, , “Pier Paolo Vergerio: The Making of an Italian Reformer,” pp. 229–255.Google Scholar

36. Altieri to Heinrich Bullinger, March 24, 1549, Venice, quoted in Cantù, p. 137.

37. The man was Frate Angelico. See Sforza, 93:210–211; Buschbell, pp. 89–93; Campana, 17: 204–212.

38. My observations on the procedural aspect of the Inquisition are deducted from the Latin version of the instruction that the Dieci drafted on September 21, 1548 during the discussion of the proposal to extend the institution to the Dominion: ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci. Segreti, registro VI, foll. 30r-30v.

39. Tacchi-Venturi, P., Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia narrata col sussidio di fonti inedite. Vol., pt. 1: La vita religiosa in Italia durante i primordi dell' ordine (Rome, 1950), p. 436.Google Scholar

40. Cantù, p. 126.

41. Tacchi-Venturi, p. 436; also Cantù, p. 126.

42. The papal briefs are published in Fontana, pp. 76–77, 81–82.

43. The text of the decree, dated January 29, 1526 more veneto, is in Brown, Horatio F., The Venetian Printing Press 1469–1800 (Amsterdam, 1969; reprint of 1891 London edition), p. 108Google Scholar. Brown's book is the best account to date of press censorship in Venice. Something on the topic can be found in Sforza, pp. 5ff; Campana, 17:265–274; Busch bell, pp. 31–35; Pesenti, Giuliano, “Libri censurati a Venezia nei secoli XVI-XVII,” La Bibliofilia 58 (1956): 15–30Google Scholar. See also Reusch, Heinrich, Die Indices Librorum Prohibitorum des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Bonn, 1883), pp. 204–214Google Scholar; Hilgers, Joseph, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1904), pp. 167–168Google Scholar. The standard Italian work on the topic of press censorship is Zaccaria, Francescantonio, Storia polemica delle proibizioni di libri (Rome, 1777)Google Scholar. For a background on the sixteenth-century Venetian press, besides Brown's book, see Grendler, Paul F., Critics of the Italian World, 1530–1560: Anton Francesco Doni, Nicolò Franco and Ortensio Lando (Madison, Milwaukee, and London, 1969), pp. 3–19Google Scholar and “Francesco Sansovino and Italian Popular History 1560–1600,” Studies in the Renaissance 16 (1969): 139–180Google Scholar. A comprehensive account of the whole topic is in Grendler's forthcoming book on Venetian censorship.

44. Pesenti, pp. 15–16.

45. The letter of the papal nuncio, Fabio Mignanelli, describing the event is dated February 2, 1543, and is printed in Tacchi-Venturi, pp. 441–442. The decree of signoria, dated February 12, 1542 more veneto, is in Brown, pp. 210–211.

46. The people charged with granting the imprimatur were the Riformatori dello studio di Padova. The text of the decree, dated December 30, 1544, is in Brown, p. 211.

47. Francesco Venier to the Dieci, March 1, 1544 more veneto, Rome, ASV, Archivio Proprio Roma, filza 6, fol. 39r-39v.

48. Giovanni Antonio Venier to the Dieci, February 6, 1545 more veneto, Rome, ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci. Lettere degli ambasciatori a Roma, busta 23, document 118.

49. Bonnant, Georges, “Les index prohibitif et expurgatoires contrefaits par des Protestants au XVIe et au XVIIIe siècle,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 31 (1969): 612, 616.Google Scholar

50. The text of the decree is in Brown, pp. 211–212.

51. Decree of July 18, 1548. Text in Brown, p. 212; and Sforza, pp. 27–28.

52. Text of the decree, dated January 16, 1549, in Brown, pp. 212–213; and Sforza, p. 28.

53. The preamble of the Index is in Brown, Horatio F., “The Index Librorum Prohibitorum and the Censorship of the Venetian Press,” Studies in the History of Venice (London, 1907), 2:85–87Google Scholar. The list of forbidden books included in the 1549 Index is in Reusch, pp. 138–142; Comba, Emilio, I nostri protestanti. Vol 2: Durante la riforma nel Veneto e nell'Istria (Florence, 1897), pp. 692–695.Google Scholar

54. The information is in Grendler's forthcoming book.

55. Quoted in Grendler, , Critics of the Italian World, p. 18.Google Scholar

56. I thank Prof. Grendler for this information.

57. This is again information provided me by Prof. Grendler's courtesy.

58. Text of the decree, dated January 18, 1549, in Brown, The Venetian Printing Press, p. 213.

59. Della Casa to Cardinal Farnese, June 8, 1549, Venice, A. Boselli, “II carteggio del card. Alessandro Farnese conservato nella Palatina di Parma,” Archivio storico per le Province Parmensi, N.S., 21 (1921): 155–156Google Scholar; also Campana, 17: 155–156, 273–274.

60. Chabod, Federico, “Venezia nella politica italiana ed europea del cinquecento,” La civiltd veneziana del Rinascimento (Florence, 1958), pp. 139–190.Google Scholar