A Network of Compromising Relationships 61

Chapter 3 A Network of Compromising Relationships

The letter cited at the end of the previous chapter not only revealed Chizzola’s habits of dissimulation (the ‘remedies that you recommend to me’ – ‘rimedi che voi mi consigliate’), but also disclosed the friendship and solidarity net- work that both Chizzola and Martinengo were part of. Vittore Soranzo, Giovanni Grimani, Giovanni Morone and Reginald Pole were the men of the Church that Martinengo thought Chizzola should consult to find the right remedy for his personal torments. These names emerged from his tormented letter as points of reference for both men, undisputed authorities to whom they invariably turned at difficult times to receive advice, resolve doubts, and share choices and doctrinal reflections. The profile of this solidarity network was confirmed and clarified some years later by the different trial statements that piled up on the desks of the Roman inquisitors. While Chizzola probably first came into contact with Vittore Soranzo in the mid-1540s, shortly after the latter arrived in the nearby diocese of Bergamo,1 he might have met Grimani, the Patriarch of Aquileia, in Venice in the late 1540s during his Lent preaching, developing close relations that went beyond mere acquaintanceship. As a number of witnesses interrogated by Roman inquisitors in the 1560s later reported, Grimani often took part in ‘various disputes about religion […] with different theologians’, including Celso Martinengo and Ippolito Chizzola.2 When Chizzola was called to testify during the Carnesecchi trial, he had no trouble revealing the secrets confided in him by Grimani’s ‘maestro di casa’ (steward).3 He also showed the close relationship he had with Grimani’s per-

1 In 1544, following a suggestion by Pietro Bembo, Vittore Soranzo was appointed as a Coadjutor Bishop with the right of succession in the diocese of Bergamo, administered at the time by Bembo himself (M. Firpo and D. Marcatto, Nota critica, in I processi inquisitoriali di Vittore Soranzo, p. XVI). Regarding Soranzo’s frequent visits to the nearby city of Brescia, see ibidem, p. XVII. 2 ‘Varie dispute di religione […] con diversi theologi’; M. Firpo, ‘Le ambiguità della porpora e i “diavoli” del Sant’Ufficio. Identità e storia nei ritratti di Giovanni Grimani’, Rivista storica itali- ana, 117, 2005, p. 831. 3 ‘I also think that the Patriarch of Aquileia’s steward [spoke to me about it]’ (‘Credo ancho che [me ne parlasse] il maestro di casa del patriarcha d’Aquileia’; statement by Ippolito Chizzola at the second Carnesecchi trial, Rome, 14 August 1560), in M. Firpo and D. Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi, I, pp. 153-154, esp. p. 156. However, in his statement, Chizzola denied that he knew Carnesecchi personally (ibidem, p. 153).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325463_006 62 Chapter 3 sonal doctor, Giovan Battista Susio, with whom he shared the experience of prison for a short period in 1550, before the latter was released as ‘no founda- tion even worthy of suspicion’ had been found.4 The bond between Ippolito Chizzola, Cardinal Giovanni Morone and Cardinal Pole dated back to the time they spent together at the latter’s house and their common friendship with Marcantonio Flaminio.5 In 1556, shortly after Pole had been ordained as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Marco Antonio Faita, his loyal personal secretary who had followed him from Viterbo to England, sent Chizzola a long and extremely tender account of the ceremony and the speeches given by the English Cardinal to mark the occasion, referring to the latter as their ‘common master’.6 Here too, Chizzola testified to these close relations in the statement he gave during the Inquisition trial against the Florentine protonotary Pietro Carnesecchi, when he came up with the name of their common teacher, the Spaniard Juan de Valdés. Before reminding the Roman Inquisitors of the treatment lovingly given to the now infirm Flaminio at Pole’s Roman residence,7 Chizzola cast his mind back in a difficult after-the- event attempt to distinguish between his friend Marcantonio Flaminio and the by now indefensible Valdés:

4 ‘Fondamento alcuno pur degno di sospettione’. This is how Cardinal Deacon De Cupis in- formed the Patriarch, after having suggested that he should send Susio before the Roman inquisitors (M. Firpo, Le ambiguità della porpora, p. 832). Regarding the bad impression of Pietro Carnesecchi that Chizzola obtained from Susio, see Chizzola’s statement: ‘I heard bad things about him […] from Messer Ioanne Baptista Susio when he was in prison, but previ- ously he spoke well of him. […] And in prison, speaking to me about his affairs, Susio showed that he had consulted Carnesecca about all of his Catholic faith and learnt a good deal about it from him, and I do not recall any details’ (‘Io ne ho inteso dire male […] da messer Ioanne Baptista Susio quando gli era prigione, ma prima ne haveva detto bene. […] Et il Susio in prigione, parlandome delle cose sue, monstrava di havere conferito tutta la sua fede cattolica col medesimo Carnesecca et haverne imparato una gran parte da lui, et non me ricordo par- ticulare’); M. Firpo, D. Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi, I, pp. 153-154, see also ibidem, p. 156. 5 Regarding Chizzola’s relationship with Morone, see also below. 6 Letter from Marco Antonio Faita, Secretary to Cardinal Pole, to Ippolito Chizzola, 3 May 1556, in Calendar of State papers, foreign series, Venice, VI, I, no. 473, pp. 428-437, quotation on p. 428. 7 ‘I know that Flaminio practised with cardinals: I know that he was at Cardinal Pole’s house, where I saw him and visited him when infirm, and he was considered a Catholic’ (‘Il Flaminio so che practicava con cardinali: so che stava in casa del cardinale Polo, dove io l’ho visto et visitato infermo, et era tenuto per catholico’); statement by Ippolito Chizzola (M. Firpo, D. Marcatto, I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi, I, p. 155).