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LUDWIG VON PASTOR'S
HISTORY OF THE POPES FROM THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
CHAPTER V.
Sarpi’s Political Theories and his Attempts to Protestantize Venice.
The reconciliation between Rome and Venice was followed by an immediate
resumption of diplomatic relations. On the very day of the absolution the
Senate appointed Francesco Contarini as its representative in Rome. The Pope
received him in a most friendly way, embraced him, spoke of his affection and
regard for the republic, declaring how the independence of Italy depended on an
understanding between Venice and the Holy See; he would not remember the past;
let everything be new and let the past be forgotten. On his part the Pope also
appointed a nuncio to Venice in the person of Berlingherio Gessi, bishop of Rimini. In his instruction the new
nuncio was bidden to display zeal and manly courage as well as a gentle and
conciliatory spirit. Venice was still under the impression of the distress the
city experienced at the time of the censures inflicted by Sixtus V and Julius II; consequently anyone with a glib
tongue would easily persuade the people that the Popes sought to oppress the
secular power by all the means they disposed of. As against these ideas the
nuncio should stress the love of peace cherished by the Apostlic See. To peace the papacy owed its existence and increase; the Pope demanded no
more than what was due to him, and he embraced the Venetians with fatherly
affection. We all learn by experience, hence the
nuncio must defend with impartiality and courage the interests of the Church in
the face of too worldly-minded prelates, and the prelates themselves in the
face of secular officials. At all times the Pope wished to see the Church’s
authority and power manfully defended by the nuncio; on the other hand he may not, without solid justification in law, meddle
with things over which controversy might arise, for it may very well be a less
evil not to start a controversy than to be defeated in it. In
particular Gessi must see to it that the
Venetians carry out the promises made previous to the reconciliation and endeavour to secure the recall of the Jesuits.
As regards the reform in Venice the nuncio should particularly keep an
eye on the bishops and the religious.
For the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline at Venice the Patriarch Vendramin is the most important factor: he must
present himself for examination in Rome. In Dalmatia, where the prelates have
but slender revenues and but little standing in public opinion, the bishops
were themselves at times the occasion of irregularities. The bishops of the
Terra Ferma (the mainland) were more prudent. They
were usually chosen from among the nobles and for that reason they were treated
with greater respect by the officials. Gessi’s instructions reproach the ecclesiastical judges with the same vice of which the
secular judges were accused, namely that in Venice the study of the law was
neglected and that the verdicts of the judges were arrived at through a mere
instinctive sense of what was right, so that much arbitrariness prevailed. If
then there is an appeal from episcopal judgments of this kind and if the
bishops take sides against the appellant, the nuncio should, as a rule, favour
the party which is in danger of suffering violence.
As regards the religious in Venice, the storm that recently broke out
against them was due to the fact that they still
refuse to accept the reform and for that reason seek the protection of the
secular power. Examples of this have been seen even since peace was
re-established, at Bassano and Bergamo, and the monks were still in the habit
of appealing to the secular power. Both the regular and secular clergy of
Venice are in sore need of reform for the city offers every occasion for sin as
well as a large measure of impunity for the guilty. But since strictness in
dealing with the religious would be interpreted as revenge for their rebellion,
the nuncio, as occasion may arise, should deal sharply rather with such as kept
themselves free from such conduct. As for Sarpi and Marsiglio,
let him see to it that they are handed over to the Inquisition.
It goes without saying that the Pope once more draws Gessi’s attention to certain points which had long been objects of controversy between
Venice and Rome : for instance, certain grievances in
respect of the freedom of shipping in the Adriatic, the city of Ceneda, and the regulation of rivers which Venice had taken
it on itself to carry out in the territory of Ferrara with a view to preventing
the silting up of the lagoons.
It was no easy task to carry out these instructions. Only under duress
had the republic agreed to a compromise. Now that by yielding it had averted
the danger of war, the republic redoubled its arrogant attitude towards the
Pope with a view to avenging itself for its humiliation. As it had done before,
so now also it stuck to its contention that the censures had been invalid and that absolution had been neither needed nor
imparted.1 Accordingly the Venetian envoy in Paris zealously scattered copies
of a pamphlet which appeared to prove that the Senate had not revoked the
decree in which it protested against the interdict. In a letter, the contents
of which his brother broadcast all over Paris, Cardinal Du Perron also seems to
assert that the Pope gave his assent to the compromise simply because he was
driven to it. Hence great joy among the Huguenots and all those who were ill
disposed towards the Pope. However, public opinion underwent a change when the
nuncio published the text of the requests for absolution. In Rome itself an
account was drawn up of the course of the discussions and the absolution. This
was sent to the nuncio for his information and for use in private conversation.
Naturally the republic felt bound to issue a refutation of the account; to this
end Sarpi had to put his ever ready pen at its
disposal. In that document the undesirable fact that absolution had been given
is passed over in silence, just as it is in the protocols of the sittings of
the Senate.
In addition to commissioning him to press for a real execution of the
settlement, Gessi’s instructions contain a prominent
paragraph in which he is bidden to exert himself in behalf of the return of the Jesuits to Venice. The Pope did not cease to look
on it as a point of honour not to abandon an Order
that had sacrificed itself for him. In that spirit he earnestly represented to
Contarini, the Venetian envoy, the injustice of an indiscriminate expulsion of
all Jesuits. Rumour had it that other princes were
disposed to follow the example of Venice. In particular it was feared that Rudolph II was about to banish the Jesuits, an act which in the
opinion of Cardinal Borghese, would lead to the utter disruption of Catholicism
in Germany. For this reason the French nuncio, Barberini,
was instructed to urge Henry IV to intervene on behalf of the threatened
religious. According to a letter of Ubaldini, who succeeded Barberini, Henry IV
was very favourably disposed towards the Jesuits and
on their account greatly irritated against Venice. Yet not even he met with any
success: the Jesuits were destined to be banished from Venice for nearly fifty
years. Another task laid on Gessi, one which it was
not possible to carry out, was in regard to “those
seducers, styled theologians”, especially Sarpi and Marsiglio.
The opinion in Rome was that after the reconciliation their being handed over
to the Inquisition would meet with no difficulty and the new nuncio had been
given verbal instructions in that sense. However, only two days after the
reconciliation, the republic had assigned to the State divines annual pensions of 100-200 ducats each. It gave them its support now as in the
past so that Gessi finally hit on the plan of seizing
one or other of their number by force and taking him by sea into papal
territory. Authorities in Rome informed the nuncio that it would doubtless be
impossible to get hold of the theologians or to compel them to flee without the
act of force which he suggested, but they wished to know what would be the effect in Venice of violent measures seeing
that the Senate protected and favoured its divines.
The Pope would gladly cite them before the Inquisition, but what was to be done
if, following the example of Sarpi, Fulgenzio and Marsiglio, they refused to obey? Would it not be a less
evil to let things be rather than provoke a fresh rupture?
However, an act of violence, far greater than the one here declined by
the Pope, was now about to occur. Whilst Cardinal Du Perron, acting on
instructions from Rome, was making a move for a reconciliation of the State
divines with the Pope, on 5th October, 1607, Sarpi was
the object of a murderous attack in which he received three dagger wounds in
the head. Even if Rome had been ignorant of the consequences of force in any
form, events were now to speak loud enough. Forthwith there arose in Venice
such an outcry against the crime as if the doge himself had been attacked. The
plot, it was said, had been hatched in Rome and by the Pope himself; the Collegio deliberated as to whether or not the nuncio should
be arrested and his papers confiscated. Sarpi himself,
in a well-known pun, threw the blame on Rome when he said that the stiletto
that had struck him was in the style of the Roman curia. Together with the text
of the sentence pronounced against the culprits the Signoria sent an account of
the attempt to Paris. In this story suspicion was thrown on the Pope and the
Jesuits as having instigated the deed. The Venetian envoy in Paris, Foscarini, was a bitter enemy of the Holy See; consequently he did his best to spread this version
especially among the Huguenots.
The French nuncio, Ubaldini, saw himself compelled to give a positive
assurance that it was very far from the Pope’s mind to inflict on Sarpi the
punishment he justly deserved by any other means than by a regular judicial
procedure of the tribunal of the Inquisition; that the Pope desired his
conversion rather than his punishment and would have granted him his pardon had
Sarpi made it possible. True, the assassins had not been molested after their
escape into the Pontifical States, but then the same liberty is left to all who
have committed no crime in the territory; the Venetian ambassador had not
demanded their extradition, whereas even notorious highwaymen, notwithstanding
the excesses committed by them in the Pontifical States, find a refuge in
Venice. Cardinal Pinelli remarked to the secretary of
the Venetian envoy in Rome that at no time could an instance be found of the
Church having acted in so crooked and diabolical a fashion and only the lowest
among the populace could entertain such a suspicion. Paul V himself declared to
the Venetian envoy that if the attempt was the act of a zealot such zeal was
ill-inspired and insane. However, at Venice they obstinately stuck to their
suspicion. The Secretary of State, Borghese, sent explanations concerning the
suspicions to which the attempt on Sarpi gave rise, not only to the French
nuncio, but to other envoys as well. That this should have been necessary was
humiliating enough for the Holy See, but it need not surprise us too much. The
Venetian envoys to the various courts belonged for the most part to the school
of Sarpi and in the spirit of their teacher they all worked against the Pope. Moreover it was precisely the rulers of Venice who had
accustomed the world to secret condemnations and executions, without any legal
formalities; hence it need not be matter for surprise if some people were
disposed to believe that even the Pope would act in this fashion and in virtue
of his supreme authority would declare Sarpi without the law. The fact is that,
disgusted by Sarpi’s deceitful conduct, more than one
offer was made to the Pope to rid the world from such a “pest”. But Paul V
always rejected such proposals with horror; he desired Sarpi’s conversion, he was wont to say, not his death. None the less in 1609, Sarpi’s friends once more spread all over Italy rumours of fresh attempts on the part of the Pope against
the life of the Servite friar.
In general the letters of the Roman Secretary
of State are full of complaints against the attitude of Venice. The conduct of
the republic, he writes, is little better than it was previous
to the compromise; the publication of blasphemous writings and speeches
against the Holy See goes on and the people are given to understand that all
the wrongs in the quarrel were on the Pope’s side. Those who had written
against the interdict are still in the pay of the Signoria and Fra Fulgenzio, perhaps the worst of them all, occupies, with
other members of his Order of a like stamp, the place of the Jesuits, both in
their church and in their college. Since the reconciliation, in many monasteries,
new superiors have been appointed under the protection of the republic;
however, the religious and the former superiors who during the interdict had
been tools of the Signoria, refused to acknowledge their authority. Priests
true to their conscience were prevented from returning to their churches and
according to reliable rumours many ecclesiastics
still lingered in gaol. The Venetian envoys, for
instance Contarini in Rome, spread the belief that the terms of the
reconciliation were wholly in favour of the republic. In the following year
Borghese had again to complain of the favour shown to the State theologians by
the government as well as the public sale of heretical writings and the
banishment of priests and religious on the smallest pretext. Venice no longer
showed any regard for ecclesiastical immunity, though this had been the
occasion of the quarrel with Rome; it even happened that priests were banished
for their decisions in the confessional. Religious whose rule obliged them to
live on charity received such scanty alms that they often lacked necessaries,
and that solely because they were loyal to the Apostolic See. In addition to
all this the Senate defended many of its violent measures against the religious
by alleging certain concessions granted by Cardinal Joyeuse; under this
pretext, for instance, the Capuchin Paolo of Cesena had been prevented from
holding a visitation of the monasteries of his Order. There was no doubt about
it, Joyeuse had exceeded his instructions.
Henry IV, for whose ears these complaints were intended, and whose
intervention was hinted at by the French envoy in Rome, did at least this much
that he sent as his envoy to Venice Champigny, a man devoted to the Holy See.
But to Champigny’s representations the Senate replied with a series of
reproaches against the Pope which in turn were stigmatized by the papal
government as quite unjustified. First among these grievances was this that,
contrary to established custom, the tenth part of ecclesiastical revenues was
not conceded to the Signoria. On this point Paul V would not yield; he declared
that he would not grant the tenth; the whole world would be astonished if he
were to do so before the State divines had obeyed the summons to Rome
The keenest sorrow of the Pope was, however, the knowledge that now as
before the friends of the Protestants were busy paving the way for Calvinism in
Venice and, as a consequence, in the whole of Italy. As a means to this end the English envoy Wotton was eager
for a war with the Pope, hence the compromise proved most unwelcome to him
though in public, before the Collegio, he expressed
the opposite view. William Bedell, chaplain to Wotton since 1606, was of
opinion that if the dispute had gone on for a few years longer, Venice would
have broken with the Pope for ever; however, there
was no need to despair of the future seeing that outstanding men, such as Sarpi
and Fulgenzio, were at heart wholly bound to the new
teaching. The secret intrigues of the two Servites which constituted Bedell’s hope were the nuncio’s constant and heavy anxiety.
So far Protestantism could not be openly preached in Venice. On one occasion,
when Gessi complained that some of the nobles
frequented Wotton’s house, the doge replied that if that was so he would have
their heads cut off; none the less Flemish and German merchants were in the
habit of holding meetings in the house of the Zechinelli which were attended by Wotton and the State divines.
On these occasions hatred for the Pope and enthusiasm for the teaching
of Calvin were freely expressed. Moreover sermons were
preached at Wotton’s house, though, owing to the indifference in matters of
religion of the upper classes in Venice, these were but sparsely attended. For
this reason Wotton made arrangements for some public
lectures on political science which he hoped would prove more injurious to
Catholicism. Heretical books also were smuggled into the city, Wotton himself
getting two cases of such works. When the Venetian envoy in Paris, Pietro Priuli, a friend of Sarpi’s, returned
from France, Protestant writings were discovered in four bundles of his
luggage. These had been collected by Biondi, Priuli s
secretary. Gessi protested in vain; when he
complained to the Senate of the Protestant sermons of Bedell, some of the senators
merely laughed and wagged their heads; the doge declared that permission had
been given for these lectures on political science. The doge would not listen
to the nuncio’s complaint concerning Priuli’s secretary Biondi and his Protestant books on the plea that there was no
secretary of the name of Biondi! The explanation is that Biondi had not been
officially appointed by the republic but had been employed by Priuli at his own expense!
In the spring of 1608, Wotton judged the time favourable for an attempt to found a Protestant community in
Venice. However, the undertaking proved abortive. Diodati, who had translated
the Bible into Italian and whom Wotton had summoned to Venice in the capacity
of preacher, deemed it expedient to make an early departure before he had
accomplished anything. However, his journey was not altogether without result
for it established fresh contact between Sarpi, the really
leading statesman of the republic of San Marco and the two heads of the
Calvinistic revolutionary party, namely Philippe du Plessis Momay and Christian of Anhalt, men who both nursed far-reaching plans.
Mornay, the Huguenot Pope , was wholly taken up
with the idea of linking all the Calvinist powers in one universal federation
and by means of a military campaign of such a league to destroy the papacy in
its very seat, Rome. Christian of Anhalt, in the interests of Protestantism,
worked for the downfall of the house of Habsburg; he had already succeeded in
uniting many Protestant princes in a separate league, the so-called Union of
1608, with a view to the execution of his designs. By its position, in the rear
of the Habsburgs and facing Rome, a Protestant Venice would have been an
invaluable asset for Mornay and Anhalt alike, hence they were both urged by
Diodati to ascertain how matters stood with regard to the Protestant leanings of the Venetians. A letter of Diodati to Achatius von Dohna prompted
Anhalt, in 1608, to despatch Christopher von Dohna to Venice for the purpose of gathering information,
especially through Sarpi, concerning the religious situation there. Diodati’s
request that a French ecclesiastic should accompany him on his journey to
Venice was agreed to and Mornay assigned to him not a priest, but the young
French nobleman, David Siques; at Venice the
indefatigable enemy of Rome would be able to bring pressure upon King James
through Wotton and on the Signoria through Sarpi for the realization of his
great plan. A letter of Mornay charges Siques to work
for an alliance with England and Holland, which France would perhaps join. The
object of the alliance was to break the tyranny of Rome and to undermine
superstition and idolatry. A letter of Mornay to Wotton is couched in most
hopeful language; the fall of Babylon, which had been foretold by the Angel of
the Apocalypse, was at hand; then, like the old man Simeon, he too would gladly
depart from this world.
Dohna and Siques achieved as little in the political sphere as
Diodati had done in the religious life of Venice; nevertheless their reports give us a good insight into the plans and intrigues of the
friends of Protestantism in that city. Sarpi proved extremely disappointing to
Diodati. On his arrival in the city of the lagoons he still hoped for
everything from the famous Servite; but when he conferred with him all his
hopes vanished. Sarpi, without doubt, was a good hater; but that which actuated
him was the icy hate of a cool scholar; he lacked the impassioned fire which
makes the popular leader and sways the masses. To Diodati’s adjuration to come out
in the open and to enter upon a struggle with Rome Sarpi only replied with
tears; he could not, so he explained, show himself before the whole world as a
friend of the Protestants; as advisor of the government, and under his friar's
cowl, he could more effectively undermine the Pope’s authority; God, he added,
only looked to the heart, hence an open avowal was not required. Burrowing, not
daring, was Sarpi’s forte. To Dohna he lamented the fact of his being forced to do many things against his will,
such as saying Mass; he did so as rarely as possible, but since Rome had
excommunicated him he could not leave off, lest he
should give the impression that he recognized the excommunication; besides, he
had orders from the government to do so. Sarpi, as he remarked to Dohna, thought it desirable for the German princes to
maintain agents with the Signoria with a view to their making propaganda in
favour of Protestantism both in private conversations and by means of printed
sheets. Each month some fifty copies of a broadsheet should be printed by the
British envoy in which a covert attack would be made on some point of Catholic
teaching or practice. Sarpi himself volunteered to write an essay of this kind
every fortnight. After a while people would surely say: “All these errors have
the Pope for their author, hence we must free ourselves from his authority”. No
one could prevent the German merchants in Venice from maintaining a preacher of
their own, for the Inquisition was powerless against foreigners. At first let
the sermon be in German, the rest will follow of its own accord and the time
will come when a common profession of faith will have to be drawn up for the
churches of England, Switzerland, the Palatinate and
Geneva. For the rest Diodati confirms Gessi’s report
to Rome concerning the attitude of the Signoria: according to what Sarpi had
told him more priests had been executed since the settlement than in any
previous twenty-five years.
At Naples, the republic of St. Mark was represented by a friend of Sarpi,
who was doing his utmost to increase the tension between Venice and the Holy
See. The Roman authorities were accurately informed of these intrigues. Through
the nuncio at Naples they sought to bring pressure to
bear on the viceroy, by pointing out how the encroachment of the government of
Naples on the province of the Church was calculated to encourage Venice to act
in like manner and that it would be fatal for Spain and the loyalty of its
Italian subjects if heresy were to find acceptance in Italy.
Although, in view of the circumstances, Sarpi put his hopes in his
underground efforts, he nevertheless did not lose sight of the possibility of a
sudden and complete rupture between the republic and the papacy. A war, so he
fancied, might bring about such an eventuality and, as is seen from his remarks
to Dohna, he did not shrink from the thought of
causing a general war and, with the help of the Turks, from causing a wholesale
conflagration of Christendom if thereby he could advance his pet scheme. Let
the Turkish fleet show itself before Granada; the Moriscos, whose numbers
exceeded a million, would surely revolt. A fresh dispute between the Pope and
Venice may be expected; Spain would side with the Pope, France and England with
the republic and the struggle for Milan would break out anew; Holland was still
at war with Spain; Savoy and, through the mediation of the Swiss cantons, the
German Protestant princes, would be drawn into a league with Venice. From Sarpi’s correspondence it becomes clear that the man who
was reputed to have the welfare of Italy so very much at heart, actually wished its territory to become the scene of war,
for in that event heretical soldiery would sweep over the peninsula and two
years would suffice to wipe out the papacy.
ACTIVITIES OF FULGENZIO MICANZIO.
However, so far there was but little prospect of a war on Italian
territory. For the year 1609, those Venetians who favoured Protestantism set their hopes on Sarpi’s pupil and
brother in religion, Fulgenzio Micanzio.
A man of immoral life and secretly an apostate from the Catholic faith, Fulgenzio possessed the daring and passion which were
wanting in his master whose foxy nature led him to work underground rather than
in the open. From Fulgenzio’s Lenten sermons Bedell,
who had read them before they were delivered, expected decisive results. Fulgenzio was well known in Rome; he had gone on preaching
during the interdict and since then he had not changed his conduct in the
slightest degree. His audacity, Cardinal Borghese writes in 1607, is beyond all
bounds and a year later he describes him as a formal heretic. During his stay
in Rome the Patriarch of Venice, Vendramin, was
pressed to forbid Fulgenzio to preach, but in his
terror of the Signoria all he found it in his heart to say was that it was a
long time till next Lent and that a way out would be found. The way out was not
discovered and in Lent, 1609, that Calvinist in a friar’s habit went into the
pulpit and there expounded to his hearers his own Calvinistic tenets as if they
were the teaching of the Catholic Church. In doing so he acted in full accord
with his master: “This is the line we take”, Sarpi observed to Dohna, “we expound the truth of the gospel but without
saying that the Catholic Church teaches the opposite. In this way only
Protestants understand us whilst the others feel satisfied with our preaching”.
As a matter of fact Fulgenzio’s praises were sounded throughout Venice: he was extolled as a man of great
merit, one who preached Catholic doctrine and who deserved every commendation
and reward. At that time Paul V feared the worst on the part of the republic;
in fact he was debating whether the welfare of Italy
required that the power of Venice should be broken with the help of the Spanish
arms, for it had become evident that nothing would be achieved by censures
alone. On his part, and in his capacity as a statesman, Sarpi also played a
double game. Thus the Signoria was not allowed to know
that if, for instance, he advocated a league with Holland it was with the secret
desire of thereby paving the way for the reformed teaching, or that a similar
plan had prompted his wish for the presence in Venice of agents of the German
princes.
Such tortuous means may have served to prepare the way, they could not
of themselves bring about decisive success. The bulk of the people did not
understand Fulgenzio’s sermons, or they attached a
Catholic meaning to them. Agents, however, of the Protestant powers appeared in
Venice; thus in 1609 and 1610, John Baptist Lenck represented several German princes and since 1609, Cornelius van der Myle was the envoy of the States General. In 1620, a treaty of commerce was concluded between Holland and
Venice; nothing, however, transpired as regards any success of the two agents
in the religious sphere. Greater zeal was being shown since 1608 by Biondi, the
former secretary of the Venetian ambassador in France. Biondi had gone to
England for the express purpose of offering his services to the English king.
He is probably the author of a memorial advocating the formation of a league of
all Protestants, under the leadership of James I, for the purpose of fighting
the papacy chiefly in Italy itself. The king was asked to provide stipends for
preachers in Venice and to found seminaries for the training of such men in
England and in the Valtellina. These plans, which never got beyond the stage of
mere plans, must probably be traced back to Sarpi himself.
As a matter of fact Sarpi’s hopes of a Protestant Venice were pretty well at an end about this time. Opinion
had gradually veered round in favour of the Pope. Immediately after the
reconciliation with the Holy See, Marcantonio Capello, one of the seven divines
who had jointly worked against the interdict, had fled to Rome for the purpose
of making his peace with the Pope. In the following year the Franciscan, Fulgenzio Manfredi, who had shouted louder than any one of
them against the Curia, took a similar step and towards the close of the year
he was followed by the Vicar General, Ribetti,
another of the seven signatories of the pamphlet against the interdict. In
1609, the Venetian envoy in Rome, Contarini, a partisan of Sarpi, was recalled
and his place taken by Giovanni Mocenigo, a man well
disposed towards the Pope and who had successfully worked for a compromise in
the dispute between Paul V and the republic over the abbey of Vagandizza. On the representations of Henry IV and at the
request of Mocenigo, the Pope now granted Venice the
tenth which he had refused until then.
That same year the King of France rendered a signal service to the
Curia. To one of his colleagues Diodati had given a glowing account of his
journey to Venice. There existed in Venice, so he wrote, a strong leaning
towards the new teaching; the sermons of Fulgenzio were a blow to the Pope which it will be impossible to make good; if Fulgenzio could preach every Sunday, the battle would soon
be won; the greatest freedom of speech obtained in Venice; the Calvinistic
books were read and the Pope’s conduct and teaching
were the objects of universal condemnation. This letter came into the hands of
Henry IV. Now the French King was a friend of the republic. He frequently
warned Rome not to drive Venice, by harsh measures, into the path taken by
England. A Protestant Venice, however, did not fit into his political scheme
for he did not wish the French Hugenots to derive new
strength from a league with a Calvinistic Signoria. Hence this letter greatly
annoyed the king and he ordered Champigny, his envoy, to read it to the
assembled Senate of Venice. Nothing could be worse for Sarpi and Fulgenzio than their being so completely unmasked by their
talkative friend and things becoming public property of whose success silence
was the first condition. The effect of the letter was immediate, during the
reading one of the Senators turned deadly pale whilst another strove in vain to
prove that the document was a forgery. The Senators who were favourable to the Pope now waxed more
bold. Fulgenzio was forbidden to preach and Sarpi’s prestige suffered a first set-back. Paul V thanked
the King of France in an autograph letter. From this time onwards forebodings
of the approaching fall of the learned Servite increased. Many of his letters
to Huguenots came into the hands of the French nuncio; they contained clear
proof of the writer’s heretical sentiments. However, neither Gessi nor the Curia judged it opportune to show these
documents in Venice for the republic was still unwilling to dispense with the
services of the clever friar.
None the less the unlimited freedom he had hitherto enjoyed in the use
of the State archives was now limited to ecclesiastical documents and he
himself felt the need of greater reserve in his intercourse with the
Protestants. His epistolary correspondence with the French Huguenots, of which
until then the Venetian envoy in Paris, Foscarini,
had been the intermediary, was rendered exceedingly difficult after the latter’s
recall. His correspondence with Mornay ended about the year 1612. As early as
1609, his patron Wotton had been on the point of leaving Venice when the
Signoria banned the book in which James I defended the oath of allegiance. At
the close of 1610, Wotton was recalled by his King. He returned indeed twice to
Venice, as ambassador, but Bedell no longer accompanied him and it does not appear that at that time he took any great interest in the
Calvinists of the city.
In the meantime Paul V did all he could in
order to win over the republic of St. Mark by kindness. His gentleness
increasingly impressed the Venetians. True, the violence of the republic
against priests that remained loyal to the papacy from time to time revived the
hopes of the friends of Protestantism that yet another break with Rome might
occur. However, to the bitter chagrin of Sarpi, Paul V acted with wisdom and
restraint. By degrees the friends of the papacy secured the ascendancy in the
Senate and Sarpi himself thought it advisable to hide his hatred of the Pope.
The doge Donato remained obstinate, but in 1612 he was carried off by death.
Once again the hopes of those who favoured Protestantism even in Venice rose high as Henry
IV, now leagued with the Calvinists of Germany, was preparing to deal a mortal
blow to the house of Habsburg. However, when the dagger of an assassin put a
sudden end to the French king’s life Sarpi wrote that “the only hope of
Christian freedom” had vanished.
Even now Mornay refused to give up hope. The disputes of Rudolph II with
his brothers and his Protestant subjects, so he fancied, might yet prove useful
to the Protestants of Venice. With this in mind he commissioned the Pole, Rey, to visit Venice and Sarpi and then also Germany.
However, the governor of Moravia, Charles von Zierotin,
a keen Protestant on whom Mornay relied, found himself compelled to explain
that the archduke had made a Protestant rising impossible so that even the
bravest in the land would not dare to forward the designs of Mornay.
The next few years brought fresh disappointments. Sarpi’s wish to see Protestant soldiery in Italy was fulfilled when in the war of the Uscocchi against central Austria, the republic entered into an alliance with the States General (Holland).
Even Sarpi could not wish for fiercer enemies of the Papacy than the Dutch
mercenaries. When the league with the republic of St. Mark was concluded, the
Dutch Protestants boasted that now they would drive the Pope from Rome and
depose him; that this and the introduction of their tenets, would be the fruit
of the war in Italy. Bibles in Italian and copies of the Catechism of
Heidelberg were already being printed in Holland for distribution in Venetian
territory. However, in the end even Sarpi had to confess that the presence of
Dutch troops had been of little advantage to the spread of Calvinism in Italy.
Sarpi was assuredly mistaken when on occasion he claimed that there were
10,000, or even more, Protestants in Venice; as a
matter of fact apostacy from the ancient Church ended more often in complete
infidelity than in Protestantism. Be this as it may, Sarpi’s efforts to found a Calvinist community in Venice
proved a complete failure. For all that this grim hater of the Holy See was
very far from the thought of making his peace with the Pope; quite the
contrary. “I shall fight him more fiercely after my death than during my life”,
he had written; and he kept his word; in the solitude of his study he now prepared to deal the Catholic Church his heaviest blow.
It would seem that Sarpi had begun at an early date to collect information about the Council of
Trent, and in his capacity as a consultor to the republic, the State archives
were open to him so that he was in a position to add constantly to his
knowledge. Wotton, who went to Germany in 1611, as well as other enemies of the
Pope, supplied him with fresh documents. With so much material in hand Sarpi
set himself the task of writing a great history of the assembly of Trent. The
apostate archbishop of Spalato, Marcantonio de Dominis,
made a copy of the work during a stay in Venice in 1615 and published it in
London in 1619, under the pseudonym of Pietro Soave Polano,
an anagram of Paolo Sarpi Veneto. Against the advice of the shrewd Sarpi, de Dominis betrayed the scope of the publication by
the very title he gave it : A History of the Council
of Trent; an exposition of the artifices used by the Roman Curia for the
purpose of preventing the divergences in its dogmatic teaching to be made
manifest and the reform of the papacy and the Church from being discussed. The
Popes, so the editor declares in his dedication of the work to James I, fearing
precisely lest the councils should show them in their true colour,
and seek to recall them to a sense of their duty, have, by diabolical
instigation, taken no notice of the ancient councils and stultified the recent
ones to the holding of which they have been compelled to consent, for by
trickery and intimidation they brought it about that these assemblies were not
only unable to investigate the truth, but were even compelled to exalt still
further the worldly power of the papacy and to destroy the last vestiges of the
Church’s liberty.
The author of the book, de Dominis declares, wished to destroy his work but he now laid it in the arms of the king
as another Moses saved from the water, to the end that
it may help to rescue God’s people from the tyranny of the new Pharaoh who by
means of the fetters of a most illegal and treacherous council oppresses it by
a cruel slavery.
SARPI’S BOOK ON THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
Sarpi’s book created a sensation from the first and its effect has not spent itself
even now. Within a decade it could be read in Italian, Latin, German, French
and English; the Latin translation alone reached a fourth edition by 1622. This
phenomenal success is explained by the universal wish for further information
on a Council which for Catholics was a pillar of the ecclesiastical order and
for Protestants a stumbling block. Already Cardinal Cervini and Pius IV had entertained the idea of publishing the Acts of the Council, and Massarelli’s preparatory work on the subject was well
forward, hence de Dominis’ assertion is false when he
affirms, in his dedication, that Rome was anxious to keep the Acts of the
Council from the eyes of the world. However, the projected publication did not
take place, so that Sarpi’s book is the first detailed
story of the assembly. Moreover it was largely based
on unpublished documents and written with undeniable skilland vigour. The Protestants could not fail to derive particular enjoyment from the spiteful sallies against the
Roman Curia with which the story is seasoned, for in those pages that which to
Catholics was an inviolable sanctuary of holiest origin, was ascribed to very
human motives and dragged in the dust. As history Sarpi’s work does not attain a high level. Hate guided his pen. Where his sources,
which he seldom quotes, can be verified, we frequently detect the most
arbitrary distortions and misrepresentations which cause persons and things to
appear in the wrong place and in a false light. Until quite recently it
was believed that for many of his statements Sarpi must have disposed of
manuscript documents which are lost to us. But the most recent research has
shown that such details as cannot be verified by documentary evidence are
simply forgeries.
Sarpi did not long survive the last and most influential of his literary
achievements. He died on January 15th, 1623, unreconciled with the Church,
detested, in his last years, by the nobility and shunned by the people. The
Signoria, however, and the more intimate circles of his followers continued loyal
to him. Three weeks after his death the Senate decreed the erection of a
monument in his honour. However, consideration for
the Roman Curia prevented the execution of the plan. He was given a pompous
funeral in which all the religious Orders took part, though many walked but
reluctantly in the funeral cortege. An account was published, signed by all the
inmates of the Servite Convent, according to which his end had been almost like
that of a Saint, but not all the friars had signed the document of their own
free will. It was only in the eighteenth century, when the anti-christian spirit was describing ever widening circles, that
editions of the complete works of Sarpi began to appear and that his reputation
grew more and more. It was reserved to the nineteenth century to raise a
monument to the enemy of the Popes. That he deserved no such honour is sufficiently proved by the fact that his
character betrays some very despicable features. Sarpi defied the thunder of
Rome though he had no cause to fear it whilst he enjoyed the protection of the
Venetian government; but for fear of compromising himself he refused, in 1622,
a legacy left him by Antonio Foscarini who had been
innocently sentenced to death and whom, in happier days, he had called his
friend. Foscarini had left 100 ducats to Sarpi, with
a request for his prayers; Sarpi refused the gift on the plea that duty and
loyalty forbade him to have anything to do, be it in life, be it in death, with
a man who had rendered himself unworthy of the favour of the government.
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