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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Venetian religious literature of the Renaissance period presents an amorphous picture to the historian; there were few recurrent preoccupations among Venetian religious writers and they used a wide variety of theological styles. The topic of the officium episcopi, the bishop's duties and rule of life, did however recur with some frequency. There was, indeed, a considerable volume of literature on this subject in Catholic Europe as a whole between the Conciliar era and the post-Tridentine period. The best known, almost the only widely known Italian example of the genre is the work of a Venetian: the De officio episcopi of Gasparo Contarini. Other Venetian writings on this theme have been barely studied, however, although in some cases they are subtler and more redolent of spirituality, if less explicit, than Contarini's work. It may well be that Venetians, over a period of a century and a half, made a particularly important contribution to the genre and since the Venetian patriciate produced a large number of bishops (the major bishoprics of the Venetian Terraferma were normally held by Venetian nobles) this would not be altogether surprising. It should be said, however, that even in this genre of religious literature it is difficult to point to a specifically Venetian tradition or to any particular continuity of themes; to take the case of Gasparo Contarini, a search for the Venetian antecedents of his ideas yields rather sparse fruits.
1 Attention was first directed to the genre in Jedin, H., ‘Das Bischofsideal der katholischen Reformation’ in Sacramenlum Ordinis, ed. Kuss, O. & Puzik, E., Breslau 1942Google Scholar. This has been reprinted in Jedin, H., Kirche des Glaubens, Kirche der Geschichte. Ausgewahlte Afsätze und Vorträge, Freiburg 1965, ii. 75–117Google Scholar and citations will here be taken from this latter edition. There is an Italian translation: Il tipo ideate di vescovo secondo la Riforma Cattolica, Brescia 1950Google Scholar; note also the Adaptation française by Broutin, P.S.J., : L’évêque dans la tradition pastorale du XVIe siècle, Louvain 1953Google Scholar. On treatises written in the Iberian peninsular primarily, see Idigoras, J. I. Tellechea, El obispo ideal en el sigh de la Reforma, Rome 1963Google Scholar. On the genre in France, see Piton, M., ‘L’idéal Épiscopal selon les prédicateurs français de la fin du XVe au début du XVIe siècle’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 61 (1966), 77–118Google Scholar and Massaut, J. P., Josse Clichthove. L’humanism el la réforme du clergé, Paris 1968Google Scholar.
2 Mons. Jedin does indeed examine briefly Agostino Valier's De cauta imitatione sanctorum episcoporum and Gerolamo Vielmi's De optimo episcopi munere in Das Bischofsideal, 106, 111–12.
3 I examine the near monopoly of major sees in the Venetian dominions by the patriciate of the città dominate and their extensive share in incumbencies of lesser sees in my thesis ‘Studies in the Religious Life of Venice. The Venetian Clergy and Religious orders 1520–1630’, University of Cambridge, Ph.D. 1967Google Scholar.
4 In the patristic citations below, while Latin tides are given in the original, Greek ones are given in English for the sake of convenience. The references P.G. and P.L. are to J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina. A useful key to relevant references in the writings of the Church Fadiers and Doctors is provided in the Stimulus Pastorum of Martires, Bartolomeo dos, Rome 1564Google Scholar, more particularly Bk. 1 (cf. text below, 439). Ludovico da Granada's Concio de Officio Pastorale (1565) is also of some value as a source of citations (it was published in the Lisbon 1565 and Paris 1583 and 1586 editions of Bartolomeo's Stimulus). The two treatises of Dionysius the Carthusian cited below (417–8) are also useful for their compendious references, primarily to Latinisources.
5 Gregory Nazianzus, Orat., 11 Bks. xviii, xxi, xxx, xxxiv, cf xliv, in P.G., xxxv or in Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers ed. Wace, H. and Schaff, P. Ser. 11. vii (Oxford & New York 1894), 204–27Google Scholar. St. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, Bk ii caps. 3, and 5 in P.G. xlviii or Select Library, ed. Wace, and Schaff, Ser. 1. ix (Oxford & New York 1889, 2nd. ed. Grand Rapids 1975)Google Scholar.
6 Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis, Bks. ii, iii (P.L., lxxvii); see Pastoral Care, trans. Davies, H., London 1950Google Scholar.
7 De consid., in Bernardus, S., Opera iii, ed. Leclercq, J. and Rochas, H. M., Rome 1963Google Scholar.
8 S. Bernardus, Opera vii, Epistolae, ed. Leclercq, J., Rome 1974, 100fGoogle Scholar.
9 De consid., Bk. i, cap. i.
10 Cited Martires, Bartolomeo dos, Stimulus, Paris 1583 ed., 42Google Scholar.
11 See Possidius, Vita Augustini trans, as Vita di S. Agostino, testo critico by Pellegrino, M., Alba 1955Google Scholar; also trans, in Foran, E. A., The Augustinians, London 1938, cap. xix. 1–5Google Scholar.
12 Dionysius called ‘the Aeropagite’, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, cf. Celestial Hierarchy, esp. Bk. xii in Oeuvres complètes du pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite, trans. Gandillac, Paris 1943Google Scholar.
13 De vita el regimine praesulum, De regimine praelatum in Doctoris Ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani Opera Omnia, t. xxxvii. v, Tournai 1909Google Scholar.
14 G. Gerson, De consiliis evangelids et statu perfections and Sermo ‘Bonus Pastor’ in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, Paris 1960Google Scholar, iii and v respectively. Cf. Pascoe, L. B., Jean Gerson, Principles of Church Reform, Leiden 1973Google Scholar, cap iv.
15 Jedin, Das Bischofsideal, 76–7.
16 Prodi, P., ‘San Carlo Borromeo e il Cardinale Gabriele Paleotti. Due vescovi della Riforma Cattolica’, Critica Storica, iii (1964), 135–54Google Scholar; cf. idem, Il Cardinale Gabriele Paleotti (1522–1597), Rome 1967, 7–29, 46–8Google Scholar.
17 Niero, A., I Patnanhi di Venezia, Venice 1961, 21–31Google Scholar; Cracco, G., ‘La fondazione dei Canonici Secolari di S. Giorgio in Alga’, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, xiii (1959), 70–81Google Scholar.
18 In Laurentii justiniani, Opera omnia, eds. Brescia 1506, Paris 1514, Venice 1606, 1751Google Scholar.
19 Caps i, xviii.
20 Cf. Lot-Borodine, M., ‘La doctrine de la déification dans l’église grecque jusqu’ au xie siècle’, Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, cv, cvi, cvii (1932–3)Google Scholar; Gilson, E., La théologie mystique de S. Bernard, Paris 1934Google Scholar, cap v.
21 Jedin, Das Bischofsideal, 82–3 notes similarities with Dionysius the Carthusian, However, the Doctor Ecstaticus was probably writing somewhat later. Passages on the communication of the divine fire in both writers are among a number of striking parallels, but the absence of a hierarchic scheme in Bl. Lorenzo's work provides a major point of contrast.
22 Cap. i, cf. cap v.
23 Cap. ii.
24 Cap. iii; for a reference to ‘rational sheep’, cf. John Chrysostom, Orat., II, Bk. ii. cap. 3.
25 Cap. vi.
26 Cf. John Chrysostom, Oral., it, Bk. ii. cap. 2.
27 Caps, viii, ix.
28 Cap. x.
29 Cf. Cracco, loc. cit., 81.
30 Cap. xi, cf. cap xix.
31 Cap. xvii, cf. below, 444.
32 Cap. xxii.
33 For a biography, see Gaeta, F., Il vescovo Pietro Barozzi e il trattato ‘De factionibus extinguendis’, Venice-Rome 1958Google Scholar, introd.
34 Cf. below 429–30, 434.
35 The De ratione bene moriendi was printed in Comolalorii libri iii in Venice in 1531. The date of its composition emerges from Barozzi's reference to his own consecration some thirteen years earlier.
36 Gaeta, op. cit., introd. 8–9.
37 1531 e d., at 61v.
38 Ibid. 63v, 72r–v.
39 First published in Contarini, G., Opera, Paris 1571Google Scholar, and subsequently in the Venice 1578 and 1579 eds. of the Opera. Citations will here be taken from the Paris 1571 ed. The latter was edited by Gasparo's nephew Alvise, then Venetian ambassador in Paris. This and subsequent editions contain certain emendations of the early MSS., evidently imposed by ecclesiastical censors; see Fragnito, G., ‘Cultura umanistica e riforma religiosa; il “De officio viri boni ac probi episcopi” di Gasparo Contarini’, Studi Veneziani, xi (1969), 75–190Google Scholar; on the textual problems see esp. 76–80. Dr. Fragnito is due to publish a critical text of the work.
40 On Contarini's life see: Dittrich, F., Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542), Braunsberg 1885Google Scholar; Jedin, H., ‘Ein Turmerlebnis desjungen Contarini’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 70 (1951), 115–30Google Scholar; idem., ‘Contarini und Camaldoli’, Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà, ii (1959), 51–118Google Scholar (for the documentation of Contarini's Turmerlebnis); Gilbert, F., ‘Religion and Politics in the Thought of Gasparo Contarini’, in Rabb, T. K. and Seigel, J. (eds.), Action and Conviction in Early Modem Europe, Princeton 1969, 90–116Google Scholar; Fragnito, loc. cit.; Ross, J. B.‘Gasparo Contarini and his Friends’, Studies in the Renaissance, xvii (1970), 192–232CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., ‘The Emergence of Gasparo Contarini’, Church History, 41 (1972), 22–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 See Meneghin, P. Vittorio, S. Michele in Isola di Veneiia, i, Venice 1961Google Scholar, esp. cap. v; cf. Schnitzer, J., Peter Delfin (1444–1525) Generaldes Camaldulenserordens, Munich 1926Google Scholar.
42 Printed in Mittarelli, J. and Costadoni, M., Annales Camaldulenses, ix, Venice 1773, 612–719Google Scholar; cf. Gilbert, F., ‘Cristianesimo, umanesimo e la Bolla “Apostolici Regiminis” del 1513’, Rivista Storica Italiana, lxxix (1967), 983–90Google Scholar.
43 Jedin, ‘Contarini und Camaldoli’, 77–8.
44 Fragnito, loc. cit., 185–6.
45 Ibid., 186.
46 See below, nn. 50, 52, 53, 59.
47 Cf. below, n. 49. On Delfin, see Schnitzer, op. cit., 44–51.
48 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, De reginrine prindpum, Bk. i, caps, i, xiv, xv; see Selected Political Writings, ed. D'Entreves, A. P., Oxford 1954, 2–9, 73–83Google Scholar. Contarini did not apparently make use of St. Thomas's classic treatment of the episcopal office in De perfectione vitae spiritualis, caps, xvi, xvii, xxiii, xxiv. This, making extensive use of the pseudo-Dionysius, asserted that the episcopal office was more ‘perfect’ than the state of professed religious.
49 Cf. Annales Camaldulenses, ix, col. 677; N.B. also Gilbert, ‘Cristianesimo, umanesimo’, 983–6.
50 Cf. Possidius, Vita S. Augustini, xix 1–5.
51 St. Bernard, De consideratione, Bk. i, cap. vi.
52 Cf. Possidius, Vita S. Augustini, xxii 2–4.
53 Cf. Ibid., xv.
54 Dr. Fragnito, however, notes that Barozzi's was an unusual case because he had medical interests; loc. cit., 161.
55 Cf. Annales Camaldulenses, ix, cols. 676, 678.
56 ‘Pontificum’ in the original MS. was omitted in the Paris edition; see Fragnito, loc. cit., 164 and n. The remarks made by Giustiniani and Querini in their call for a reform of Canon Law studies were more ambiguous and less pointed: Annales Camaldulenses, ix, col. 678.
57 Fragnito, loc. cit., 167–8 n.; Gilson, E., ‘L’affaire de l'immortalité de l'ame a Venise’, in Umanesimo europeo e wnamsimo veneziano, ed. Branca, V., Florence 1963Google Scholar. There had been a general condemnation of debates on the immortality of the soul, probably not specifically directed at the Paduan school, in the papal bull Apostolici regiminis sollicitudo of 1513, whose drafting may well have been influenced by Giustiniani and Querini: see Gilbert, ‘Cristianesimo, umanesimo’.
58 Annales Camaldulenses, ix, cols 677, 680, 683–8.
59 Cf. Possidius, Vita S. Augustini, xxi. 7.
60 Paschini, P., ‘Le compagnie del Divino Amore e la beneficenza pubblica nei primi decenni del Cinquecento’, in Tre ricerche sulla storia della chiesa nel Cinquecento, Rome 1945Google Scholar.
61 Fragnito, loc. cit., 178.
62 Ruckert, H., The theologische Entwicklung Gasparo Contarini, Bonn 1926Google Scholar.
63 Fragnito, loc. cit., 180.
64 Valier, A., De cautione adhibenda in edendis libris ad Silvium Antonianum, Padua 1719, 22, 27Google Scholar; Vita C. Borromei (cf. below, n. 69) 32.
65 De cautione adhibenda, 27; Vita C. Borromei, 19. The work in question was De rhetorica ecclesiastica libri III, Verona 1574Google Scholar and subsequent eds.
66 De cautione adhibenda, 10–21 passim; De recta philosophandi ratione libri duo, Verona 1577Google Scholar.
67 See De rhetorica ecclesiastica, 1582 ed., 232, 280, 282Google Scholar; Memoriale a Luigi Contarini sopra gli studi ad un Senatore veneziano convenienti, ed. Morelli, G., Venice 1803, 42–3, 46–7Google Scholar.
68 Masotto, F., Agostino Valeria Vescovo di Verona e la sua attuazione dei decreti del Concilio di Trento, (Tesi di Laurea), Milan, 1936–7Google Scholar.
69 Episcopus, Milan 1575Google Scholar, subsequently printed together with Cardinalis and Vita Caroli Card. Borromei, Verona 1586, 1602Google Scholar, 1604, Venice 1589. Citations here are from the 1602 ed. of the three treatises. The De cauta imitatione sanctorum episcoporum was first printed in Mai, A. (ed.), Spicilegium Romanum, viii, Rome 1839Google Scholar.
70 De cautione adhibenda, 29.
71 Jedin, Das Bischofsideal, 91–4.
72 Soranzo, G., ‘Rapporti di S. Carlo con Ia Repubblica veneta’, Archivio Veneto, Ser. v, n. xxvii (1940), 1–40Google Scholar.
73 On the negotiations, see letters of the Nuncios Bolognetti and Campeggio between 10 September 1580 and as July 1581, passim, in Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Nunziatura di Venezia filza 21 fol. 467ff and ibid., filza 22 up to fol. 31; Archivio di Stato, Venice, Senate Roma Reg. 4 fol. 140v to ibid., Reg. 5 fol. 4r, dates between 12 November 1580 and 16 March 1581; Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Venice, Diarii Michiel, i, fols. 90–3, 97–8, 117–18. The records of the visitations of the cathederal and of the parish churches are in Archivio della Curia Patriarcale, Venice, Visila Apostolica 1581; Valier's comments on the clergy are in A.S.Vat. Nunziatura di Venezia, 22 fol. 227r, letter of 21 August 1581.
74 Cf. above, n.68.
75 Cairns, Christopher, Domenico Bollani Bishop of Brescia etc., Niewkoop 1976, 184 n.56Google Scholar.
76 Preto, P., ‘Un aspetto della riforma cattolica nel Veneto. L' episcopato padovano di Niccolo Ormanetto’, Studi Veneziani, xi (1969), 325–63Google Scholar.
77 See above, 416 n. 4; cf. Jedin, Das Bischofsideal, 102–4; Tellechea Idigoras, op. cit., 198–215.
78 E.g., De cautione adhibenda, 49. Valier, in fact, established himself as the mentor of Gasparo's nephew Alvise (Luigi) Contarini, son of Vicenzo, who was responsible for the first (the Parisian) edition of Gasparo's Opera. Valier dedicated three treatises to him, including the Memoriale. He knew Alvise at least from 1574 when the latter was governor of Verona, if not earlier; both men, in fact, figure in Paruta's, PaoloDelia perfectione della vita politica, Venice 1579Google Scholar, the scene of which was set in Trent in 1563.
79 Constitutiones editae per Reverendum in Christum Patrem Io. Matthaeum Gibertum Episcopum Veronensem … collectae et in unum redactae ab Illmo. ac Rdo. Augustino Valerio, Verona 1571, 1572, 1575, 1589Google Scholar. The Preface begins: ‘Augustinus Valerius ad clerum suum salutem’. The Libellus ad clerum suum, which is printed after the Gibertian constitutions, leads into thirteen chapters of admonitions to the Veronese clergy. The claim that he had taken Giberti as his model is made in the Preface and also in the De cautione adhibenda, 24–5.
80 Vita Borromei, 12–13.
81 Valier was responsible for an edition of St. Zeno's sermons published in Verona in 1586 and the latter's name came high on the list of Church Fathers recommended to the little seminarians of Verona (cf. De acolytorum disciplina libri II, Verona 1570, 1583, Venice 1571, cap. xixGoogle Scholar) although St. Zeno does not normally figure among Valier's recommendations of Church Fathers directed to other audiences.
82 Prodi, Il Cardinale Gabriele Paleotti, 8–9, referring to the preface of Archiepiscopale Bononiense, Rome 1594Google Scholar.
83 Presumably summarising Dionysius ‘the Aeropagite’, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; cf. Celestial Hierarchy, xii. 2 on the angelic nature of priesthood.
84 Cf. above, n.26.
85 Farlati, D., Illyrici sacri, v, Venice 1775, 131–2ffGoogle Scholar. address to the provincial synod of Zara 1579; cf. Bernard, De consid., ii. 6, cited in Martires, Bartolomeo dos, Stimulus pastorum, Paris 1583, 17vGoogle Scholar.
86 Hieronymi Vielmi ep. Aemon, De divi Thomae Aquinatis doctrinae et scriptis… libri duo. Accedant orationes duae habitae in Gymnasio Patavino alter Apologetica, alter de optimo episcopi munere, Brescia 1748Google Scholar. This contains abiography of G.V.; another is to be found in Contarini, G.B.M., Notizie storiche circa li pubblici professori nello studio di Padova scelti doll’ Ordine di S. Domenico, Venice 1769Google Scholar. Details of Vielmi's family are in Archivio di Stato, Venice, D. Tassini, Cittadinaza veneta, xii. fol. 2228 (his brother Giambattista was Secretary of the Council of Ten). Ughelli, F., Italia Sacra, v, Venice 1720, 352–3Google Scholar, also mentions among his writings De episcopis quos titulares appellunt and Elucubrationes de residentia episcoporum. In view of his specific references to St. Basil, it is worth noting that Vielmi's De sex diebus conditi orbis, Venice 1575Google Scholar, would appear to have been modelled on Basil's Commentary on the Hexaemeron, although designed to confute more recent schools of impiety than those attacked by Basil. On the De Optimo episcopi munere, cf. Jedin, Das Bischofsideal, 106.
87 On Lollin's life see: Alpago-Novello, L., ‘La vita e le opere di Luigi Lollino, vescovo di Belluno (1596–1625)’, Archivio Veneto, Ser. v, n. 27–8 (1933), 15–116Google Scholar; ibid., n. 29–30 (1934), 199–304; Canart, P., ‘Alvise Lollino et ses amis grecs’, Studi Venetiani, xii (1970), 553–87Google Scholar. Lollin's autobiographical essay Soliloquium was printed in Episcopalum curarum characteres, Belluno 1629Google Scholar.
88 Soliloquium in ed. cit., 239–44.
89 Ibid., 248–9.
90 Alpago-Novello, op. cit., Sen v, n. 27–8, 46–7. I am uncertain whether Giambattista Valier was at all closely related to Agostino.
91 Alpago-Novello, op. cit., Ser. v, n. 27–8, 63–4, ibid., n. 29–30, 207–303.
92 Ed. cit., 252–4.
93 In Episcopalium curamm characteres, 1–28. There can be no doubt that Lollin borrowed heavily from Cabasilas's treatise (P.G., cl) although he did not acknowlege it; Canart, loc. cit., 568 notes Lollin's acquisition of the work but not the use he made of it.
94 Canart, loc. cit.
95 Episcopalium curarum characteres, 153–67; Miscellanea di varie operette, viii, Venice 1744, 231–47Google Scholar.
96 Jedin, H., A History of the Council of Trent, ii, trans. Graf, E., London 1962, cap ix, esp. 326–8, 334–45. 362–4Google Scholar.
97 Ed. cit., 162.
98 Alpago Novello, opcit., Ser. v, n. 27–8,32.
99 P. Sarpi, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, Bk. i cap. i, Bk. ii cap. vi, see the edition of Bari (1935).i. 4. 350–2.
100 Albèri, E. A., Relazioni degli Ambasciatori veneti letti al Senato, Ser. ii. iv, Florence 1857, 383–420Google Scholar.
101 De potestate pontificis quod divinitus sit tradita ad N. Tiepulum, in Opera, Paris 1571, 381–400Google Scholar; Contiliorum magis illustrium summa ad Paulum III Pont. Max., ibid., 546–63. Both works were first printed in the Florence 1553 Torrentina incomplete collection of Contarini's works.
102 Valier, Cardinalis.
103 On Martelli, see Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, ii. 23, 26–7, 38, 92, 107, 112–3, 121–2, 362–4; on the example of Loffredo bishop of Capaccio, see ibid., 26, 34, 38, 344n.
104 On De Dominis, see Crehan, J., ‘The Dalmatian Apostate’ etc., Theological Studies, 22 (1961), 41–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fr. Crehan sees the apostasy as the outcome of the Venetian Interdict dispute of 1606. I am inclined, however, to attribute more decisive importance to a dispute with the papal nuncio Gessi in 1609 over Dalmation missals and breviaries: De Dominis was protesting at the fact that Gessi had taken over responsibility for the revision and publication of these, completely by-passing the bishops: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Numiature di Venezia filza 39(a), fols. 381r, 390v, letters of Gessi of 18 April, 11 May 1609.
105 Dr. Christopher Cairns, whose study of Domenico Bollani bishop of Brescia is cited above, is working on bishops in the Venetian Terraferma generally in the post-Tridentine period. For Venice, I would refer to my own thesis cited abpve n. 3; I am at present working upon a considerably expanded study of religious life in Venice in the period c. 1500–c. 1630.
106 Dr. Cairns very specifically examines this issue in the case of Bollani in op. cit., passim.
107 Ironically, no treatise on the Officium episcopi appears to have been written by Giovanni Tiepolo, patriarch of Venice 1619–31, undoubtedly the most interesting figure among Venetian patriarchs of the Counter-Reformation period and a fairly prolific spiritual writer. He was a subtle and observant pastor, willing to mitigate the rigour of the rules according to circumstances; cf. Zanette, E., Suor Arcangela, monaca del Seicento veneziano, Venice-Rome 1960, 33–6Google Scholar; cf. my own thesis at 373–5. His Compendio delle arte cristiane, Venice 1615Google Scholar, published when he was primicerio (dean) of S. Marco, is a florilegium of treatises on conversion techniques, including what appears to be his own treatise ‘Dell’ arte di ridurre un peccatore a penitenza’ which’is very much preoccupied with the problem of adaptation to the character of individual sinners.
108 See above, 439 n. 78.
109 See above, 443–4 on Lollin's debt to Nicolas Cabasilas.
110 Jedin, Das Bischofsideal, 113; cf. Prodi, Il Cardinale Gabriele Paleolti, 28–9, where he amplifies Mons. Jedin's remarks and claims Paleotti as a distinguished exception.
