266 Gian Matteo Giberti, Downloaded from Papal Politician and Catholic Reformer. PAST II. S datary and confidential adviser of the pope Giberti had not http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ A enjoyed full opportunities for carrying out his aims, but as bishop of Verona his work possessed the element of permanence. To the historian of the religious movements of the time Giberti is deeply interesting, but to the end somewhat of a problem. On the one side he touches the new opinions of the age, the revived Auguatinian theology, the new fervour of love and devotion ; on the other he belongs to the party which triumphs in the council of Trent, the. party which combines sweeping reform in ecclesiastical at Brunel University on July 20, 2015 discipline with the most resolute attitude of opposition to heresy and all that seemed likely to endanger the unity of the catholic church. Giberti is mentioned by Caracciolo in his Vita Pavli IV. as one of the earliest members of the Oratory of Divine Lwe. This society first met during the pontificate of Leo X in the church of SS. Silvestro and Dorothea in the Traatevere, near the site of the ancient inn dedicated by Calixtus I to the service of the ' true God,' and the place where, according to tradition, St. Peter suffered martyr- dom. Amid the indifference and semi-paganism of the Roman curia and people a few earnest men, mourning over the loss of all religion, and seeing the handle thus given to the opponents of the church, burned to make their own religion fervent and deep, that they might stimulate others to follow their example. While the clergy were indifferent what hope was there of the laity ? Spiritual faculty could only develop through exercise. They met, therefore, to hear and discuss readings from the Scriptures, and to join in divine worship and prayer. Their starting-point for reform was, therefore, inward and spiritual. If men could only be stirred up to care for spiritual things, all elBe would come. The true remedy for the decay of religion must be positive rather than negative. Luther and Melanchthon, Colet and Erasmus all had thiB same fltarting-point, however different their ultimate goal. Men who 1903 GIAN MATTEO GIBERTI 267 diverged as profoundly afterwards as Gasparo Contarini and the future strenuous upholder of the Inquisition, Gian Pietro Caraffa, were fellow members now of this society.1 It seems probable that Giberti was one of the moving spirits in the formation of this society, for he gave it its name,' and Ballerini tells us that he had a strong bent for religion from his boyhood, since, as we noticed before, he was with difficulty prevented by his father from joining a religions order. The society quickly increased until it numbered fifty or sixty members, and found imitators in many other cities, such as Vicenza, Verona, and Naples. There were other signs of a religious movement in Leo X's reign, which stood quite apart Downloaded from from any revolt against authority, for it was at this time that Erasmus was bringing out at Basle his edition of St. Jerome's works and his Novum Instrumcntum, dedicated, with permission, to the pope himself. http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ It was two members of the Oratory of Divine Love who became the founders of the new Order of the Regular Clerks or ' Theatines,' aa they were at first called in derision, which received formal recognition in the second year of the pontificate of Clement VII. The first impulse came from Gaetano da Thiene, a scion of a noble family of Vicenza, but Gian Pietro Caraffa was the third member, and the first to be elected head of the order. The final step of procuring the papal diploma, by which the new society was at Brunel University on July 20, 2015 formally established, was hindered for some time by a certain part of the rule which enjoined living on alma and yet forbade mendi- cancy. In this difficulty Giberti proved a powerful friend, and on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross his efforts were at last crowned with success, and a crowd assembled in the Vatican to hear the diploma of Clement VII recited before the most sacred and ancient altar of St. Peter's,' after which the fathers of the new order took their solemn vows and elected Caraffa as their first head. This morning (writes Sanga to Mentebuona on 14 Sept. 1524) the bishop of Chieti with three companions has taken the vows in St. Peter's— that is, to be vested as a priest, to keep the three vows, and to live to- gether as canons regular. May God give them perseverance; and if I believed I had it too perhaps you would see me run there one day. But those vows arc too difficult; yet to that of poverty I am well accustomed, and also to that of obedience, having been so many years in servitude. So that I should have to struggle with one alone, which is certainly in my belief the most difficult. 1 Contarini was certainly an early member, but not as early a one as Caracciolo states in his Vita Pauli IV^ for Dittrich (Oasparo Cotdarini, p. 215) shows that he did not know S&doleto, who was certainly one of the earliest members, before 1524. 1 Billerini, Vita Giberti, cap. L p. 5, prefixed to his edition of Giberti's works. 1 Caracclolo, Vila Pauli IV. p. 197. 268 OIAN MATTEO GIBERTI April Caracciolo tells us also that Giberti was very anxious to become a Theatine himself, but that neither the pope nor the Sacred College would allow him to withdraw from public affairs. The new order was quite after Giberti's heart. It was an attempt to meet the need of a cultivated and spiritual clergy, without which the laity could not be won back to religion. Their duties included preaching, visiting the sick, and administering the sacraments, and it was they who first began the custom of frequent communions. Thus the order of the Regular Clerks aimed at doing for the people at large what a few earnest men had tried to do for themselves in the Oratory of Divine Love.* Downloaded from There had been for some time a powerful undercurrent of revived religious feeling in Italy, which was partly the result and partly the cause of the study of the sacred texts in their original languages, which the classical revival had brought in its train." The Greek psalter and the Hebrew Bible had been published in http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ the fifteenth century, and we are told that Bembo's mother had attended readings from the Bible given by a doctor of theology at Bologna.6 A cry for reform in ecclesiastical dis- cipline, which was one symptom of this undercurrent, was being raised not only by German ' heretics,' by popes,7 and by re- ligious ecclesiastics themselves, such as Giberti, but by civil rulers. It was the count in command of the garrison of Naples who besought St. Cajetan to establish a branch of his new society in at Brunel University on July 20, 2015 that city, and it was the citizens of Verona, acting through the civil government of Venice, who begged Clement VII to appoint to their vacant diocese a man capable of carrying out the much-needed work of ecclesiastical reform. The papacy responded to this desire for reform by selecting such men as Caraffa, Gregorio Cortese and Fregoso, Giberti and Sadoleto, Morone and Contarini to fill vacant sees. It was in the August of 1524 that Giberti was most un- willingly compelled to accept the bishopric of Verona.8 His reluctance, it would seem, arose not from any dislike of episcopal work as such, but partly from a sense of his own unworthiness, for, * Mamenbrecher in his Oeschichte der katholischen Reformation (NOrdlingan, 1880), p. 280, calls it a seminary for bishops. * See Pastor's account of the religions spirit which accompanied what he calls the • true ' Renaissance, as manifested in private diaries and educational treatises: History of the Popes, vol. ii. (ed. Antrobus, 1891). ' See De Leva, Storia docum. di Carlo V, iii. 840. ' In 1460 Pins II even drew np a bnll to enforce his scheme of reform, bat it was never issued. Sixtas IV had drawn np a bnll on the same subject also, bat it had fallen to the ground, owing to the opposition of the Sacred College. See Pastor, iii. 275. * Lettered* Prmeypi, i. 124 (Venice, 1681), Giberti to the Florentine envoys at the imperial court, dated August 1524. He notifies his election and at the same time says that he has thus been obliged to refuse the see offered him by Francis I, as he ' could not hold two at once.' We have also his letter to the doge himself, Andrea Oritti, on the same occasion. 1908 OIAN MATTEO OIBERTI 269 like Gasparo Contarini, he had a very high ideal of what a bishop should be, and partly from an unwillingness to accept work which, since he would not be allowed to reside in the diocese, he could not perform to his own satisfaction. His first act after his elevation was to appoint Gian Battieta Mentebuona as his agent to proceed in the same month of August first to Venice and then to Verona to do all the necessary acts in his name with regard to taking posses- sion of the benefice.9 Mentebuona had already proved himself serviceable to the pope, and must have had a reputation for a good deal of tact, since he was chosen for the delicate mission to the marquis of Pescara at the time of the conspiracy of Girolamo Downloaded from Morone.