Introduction to the English Edition

IntroductionIntroduction to the English to the Edition English Edition 1 Introduction to the English Edition 1 The Ambiguity of the Word All preachers must preach explicitly against Lutheran ideas, otherwise they will be considered suspect and proceedings will be taken against them just as if they were suspect.1 It was thus that the Congregation of the Holy Office forced all preachers to speak out explicitly against Protestant doctrines in a decree of 20 May 1550. Two years later, the solicitation to condemn Lutheran ideas explicitly from the pulpit was accompanied by a request to formulate an explicit profession of the Catholic faith, along with detailed indications of the subjects that could be preached about.2 These two rulings came at the end of a decade that saw a significant increase in the number of preachers suspected of heresy on the Italian peninsula. The Lutheran heresy had started to spread widely there in the 1520s, when many of its first and most active propagators were preachers from religious orders. After the Roman Inquisition was reorganised in 1542, some of the best-known preachers of the time like Bernardino Ochino, Pietro Martire Vermigli and Pier Paolo Vergerio fled across the Alps to avoid capture by the Roman inquisitors. They feared trial on account of the doctrines that they had spread from the pulpit in the immediately preceding years. As Ochino, Vermigli and Vergerio were among the leading players on the public stage at the time, their escape to Switzerland provoked great outrage. Many other preachers lacked their audacity or determination and remained on Italian soil with no intention of changing their ways, probably hoping that there was still some margin of freedom for those who only partly embraced Protestant ideas. They developed increasingly astute techniques for disseminating their doctrines, as the increasingly pervasive presence of the Inquisition prompted them to hide their real or presumed heterodoxy behind an increasingly ambig- 1 ACDF, S. O., Decreta, I, f. 28v; S. Seidel Menchi, ‘Origine e origini del Santo Uffizio dell’Inquisizione romana (1542-1559),’ in L’Inquisizione, Atti del Simposio internazionale, Città del Vaticano, 29-31 ottobre 1998, ed. by A. Borromeo, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2003, pp. 291-321, esp. p. 301. 2 The reference is to the rule imposed by Pietro Aleni of Brescia, vicar to the Bishop of Verona, Luigi Lippomano; see P. Guerrini, ‘L’opera riformatrice di un vicario generale nel biennio 1552- 1553,’ Il Concilio di Trento, 2, 1943, pp. 192-200. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325463_002 2 Introduction To The English Edition uous veil of rhetoric that nevertheless instilled the seed of doubt in the most perceptive and discerning audiences. The aforementioned Holy Office decree of 1550 was by no means the first measure that Rome had taken to set limits and controls on preaching in the sixteenth century. The Fifth Lateran Council had already approved a decree on 19 December 1516 during the XI session that targeted preachers who prophe- tised imminent catastrophes and the coming of the Antichrist without papal authorisation. The aim at the time was to attack followers of the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola, who had been burnt at the stake in Florence in 1498. These devotees, the Piagnoni, were reviving the themes of his apocalyptic preaching at a distance of some years. The political crisis triggered by the arrival of King Charles vIiI of France in the peninsula in 1494 had marked the start of a long period of warfare on Italian soil. The collapse of the fragile political balance of the old Italian states designed by Lorenzo the Magnificent in the second half of the fifteenth century was duly accompanied by a climate of fear and uncertainty, which intensified the repercussions of the religious crisis affecting the papacy. There was also a harsh anticlerical diatribe at the same time that highlighted the moral degeneration of the clergy and the entire Church. The papacy tried to react through the decisions taken at the Fifth Lateran Council, targeting preachers who expressed a growing sense of anti- Roman discontent, predicting a destiny of regeneration and catharsis in the near or distant future. The bulls Supernae maiestatis praesidio and Dum intra mentis arcana of December 1516 ordered the Gospel to be preached in accor- dance with the patristic interpretation and avoid any mention of calamity and future tribulations, thereby setting a clear boundary for the Piagnoni and their followers. This briefly outlined context was further complicated by the spread of Lutheran doctrines around the Italian peninsula from the early 1520s onwards. Some of the first to spread the Protestant word were preachers, in particular members of religious orders such as the Augustinians who were especially responsive to the lure of the Lutheran message. The Church authorities were quick to realise what was happening and Rome issued precise instructions for the Apostolic Nuncios in Venice and Naples in 1524, asking them to supervise preaching with special care and monitor the circulation of printed books. The top echelons of the Church hierarchy were no longer only worried by apocalyptic preaching. As Pope Clement VII had rightly predicted, the spoken (or preached) word was now as great a danger as the written (or printed) word in terms of spreading heresy; they were both distribution channels for Protestantism and they both needed to be kept under strict surveillance. Both the Church and the civil powers took various measures to control preaching in .

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