The numerous Protestants of Venetia also experienced the effects of the papal persecution, although the repub- lic resisted the Inquisition, and sought to counteract it by a number of decrees. Already, in 1542, the papal nuncio Delia Casa procured the arrest of a priest, (iiulio Milanese, and, soon after, that of the provincial of the
Minorites, Baldo Lupetino. The former, however, suc- ceeded in making good his escape. In 1546 pope Paul HI gave a fresh impulse to the persecutions, and many fled the country, some recanted, and others were im- prisoned for life. The persecution was still more vio- lent in the neighborhood of Venice than in the city it- self. The bishop of Bergamo himself, Soranzo, was obliged to go to Rome to give an account of his faith, and was imprisoned. A few only succeeded in hiding themselves in the midst of the greatest dangers. Alti- eri, who had so often obtained protection for the Italian Protestants from the princes forming the League of Smalcald,was at last in danger himself, and, after many escapes, died poor in the neighborhood of Brescia in 1550. After 1557, foreigners who visited Venice for study or commerce received, however, some degree of protection. This encouraged the native Protestants, who called a minister, and again formed a congregation in private. They were soon betrayed, and most of them imprisoned. The senate now for the first time consent- ed that their offence should be punished by death. They were not burnt, however, but thrown into the sea at night. Baldo Lupetino was among these. The de- struction of the little church of the Waldenses, who, since the end of the 14tli centurj-, had settled at St. Pisto and IMontalto, in Calabria, is one of the saddest episodes of the sad liistory of Italian Protestantism. The other evangelical communities of Locamo, etc., met with the same fate.
(3.) Church History from the Suppression of the Befor- mation %tntil the present Day. — Throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries Italy remained dismembered into a number of small states, which prevented the peo- ple from becoming one consolidated nation. Its eccle- siastical history during this period is as unimportant as the political. Only once an xxa of ecclesiastical re- forms appeared to dawn, when Leopold, grand-duke of Tuscany, brother of emperor Joseph H, attempted, by the agency of Scipio Ricci, bishop of Pistoia and Prato, to reform the polity of the Church. At a synod of his clergy which Ricci assembled at Pistoia (1786), and whicli was largely attended, the principles of the Galil- ean Church and of tlie most liberal Jansenism were adopted; the prerogatives claimed by the popes, and, in particular, the claim of infallibility, were severely de- nounced, many superstitious ceremonies were abolished, and it was determined that public worship should be conducted in the language of the people, and that the Scriptures should be circulated among them. But these enactments were opposed by most of the bishops of Tus- cany, and when Leopold ascended the imperial throne of Austria, the hierarchj^ obtained a complete victor}'. The territorial changes which the French republic and the first Napoleon introduced in Italy were not of long duration, but the revolutionary ideas which during this period had been kindled in the minds of many Italians survived. A secret society, the Carbonari, which at first aimed at the introduction of a universal republic, but subsequently had tlft establishment of a nationfil union and the introduction of liberal reforms, and, in particidar, religious toleration, for its chief object, spread with great raijidity throughout the peninsula, and be- came the rallying-jioint for all the educated Italians who wished to break the omnipotent influence of the Church upon the political and social affairs of the peo- ple. The Carbonari succeeded in 1821 in compelling the government of the Two Sicilies to grant a liberal constitution, but an armed intervention of the Austrians soon restored the absolute power of the king and the despotic influence of the Church. It was, however, ap- parent that the educated classes of Italj- only yielded to brutal force, and that the desire to emancipate the peo- ple from the influence of the priests, and, in particular, from the temporal rule of the popes, became stronger every year. In 1830 a new revolution broke out in the papal provinces, and within a fortnight four fifths of the States of the Church had made themselves free from
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papal rale, and constituteel themselves an independent state. Again it required the armed intervention of Aus- tria to arrest the success of the liberal and anti-papal movement throughout Italy. The accession to the throne of Sardinia of Charles Albert in 1831 gave, how- ever, to Italy one prince who openly adhered to the pro- gramme of the national liberal party, and therefore awakened great hopes for the future. In the same year Mazzini organized the secret society Young Italy, which repeatedly attempted insurrections for the purpose of establishing an ItaUan republic. All these attempts were luisuccessfid, but they greatly increased the breach bet^veen the Italian people and the Church of Rome. The liberal priest V. Gioberti, in his work on the moral and political primacy of the Italians (1843), endeavored to prove that a reconciliation between the national lib- eral party and a reformed papacy was possible, and that the best way for securing a political regeneration of It- aly was the establishment of a confederation of the sev- eral states, with a Uberal pope at its head. When, in 1816, Gregory XVI died, and the new pope, Pius IX, seemed to adopt some of the views of Gioberti, the be- lief in the practicability of the scheme found many ad- herents among the liberal party, but the large body of the ultramontane party looked upon them with distrust, and even regarded many steps taken by the new pope as a mistaken policy.