§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 147
Grisons, is Petrus Paulus Vergerius (1498-1565). ^ He labored there four years (1549-1553), and left some permanent traces of his influence. He ranks among the secondary Reformers, and is an interesting but somewhat ambiguous and unsatisfactory character, with a changeful career. He held one of the highest positions at the papal court, and became one of its most decided opponents.
Petrus Faults Vergkrius.
Vergerio was at first a prominent lawyer at Venice. After the death of his wife (Diana Contarini), he entered the service of the Church, and soon rose by his talents and attain-
^ PiERPAOLO Vergerio, also called the younger, to distinguish him from an older member of his illustrious family. De Porta thus introduces his account, I.e. : " Inter exsuies, qui oh Evangelii eonfessionem Italue profiu/i in Rhcetia eonsederunt, hand ullus sive generis nobilitatem, sive dignitatem, sive vitce actic rationem spectes, majorem meretur attentwnem quam P. P. Vergerius."
148 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
ments to influential positions. He was sent by Clement VII., together with Campeggi and Pimpinelli, to the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, where he associated with Faber, Eck, and Coch- Iseus, and displayed great zeal and skill in attempting to suppress the Protestant heresy. He was made papal secretary and domestic chaplain, 1532. He was again sent by Paul HI. to Germany, in 1535, to negotiate with the German princes about the proposed General Council at Mantua. He had a personal interview with Luther in Wittenberg (Nov. 7), and took offence at his bad Latin, blunt speech, and plebeian manner. He could not decide, he said in his official report to the papal secretary (Nov. 12), whether this German "beast" was possessed by an evil demon or not, but he certainly was the embodiment of arrogance, malice, and unwisdom.i He afterwards spoke of Luther as " a man of sacred memory," and " a great instrument of God," and lauded him in verses which he composed on a visit to Eisleben in 1559. On his return to Ital}^ he received as reward for his mission the archbishopric of Capo d' Istria, his native place (not far from Trieste). He aspired even to the cardinal's hat. He attended — we do not know precisely in what capacity, whether in the name of the Pope, or of Francis I. of France — the Colloquies at ^yorms and Regensburg, in 1540 and 1541, where he met Melanchthon and Calvin. Melanchthon presented him on that occasion with a copy of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology.^ At that time he was, according to his confession, still as blind and impious as Saul. Li the address De Unitate et Pace Ecdei<ice^ which he delivered at Worms, Jan. 1, 1541, and which is diplomatic rather than theological,^ he urged a General Council as a means to
^ Sixt gives (pp. 35-45), from Seckendorf, Sarpi, and Pallavicini, a full account of this characteristic interview, which belongs to the history of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches. The official report is published by Friedensburg.
2 With a letter printed in his Opera, Corp. Reform. IV. 22, and in Sixt, 94.
3 Translated from the Latin in Sixt, 75-94. The address was printed and distributed immediately after the delivery, but has become very rare.
§ 38. THE REFORMATION IN THE ITALIAN VALLEYS. 149
restore the unity and peace of the Church on the traditional basis.
His conversion was gradually brought about by a combination of several causes, — the reading of Protestant books which he undertook with the purpose to refute them, his personal intercourse with Lutheran divines and princes in Germany, the intolerance of his Roman opponents, and the fearful death of Spiera. He acquired an experimental knowledge of the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith, which at that time commended itself even to some Roman divines of high standing, as Cardinal Contarini and Reginald Pole, and which was advocated by Paleario of Siena, and by a pupil of Valdes in an anonymous Italian tract on " The Benefit of Christ's Death." ^ He began to preach evangelical doctrines and to reform abuses. His brother, bishop of Pola, fully sympathized with him. He roused the suspicion of the Curia and the Inquisition. He went to Trent in February, 1546, to justify himself before the Council, but was refused admittance, and forbidden to return to his dio-
1 Trattaio utilissimo del benejicio di Giesk Christo crucijisso, verso i Christiani. Venet. 1540. It was circulated in more than forty thousand copies within six years, translated into several languages, and republished from an English version (made from the French), 4tla ed., London, 1638, by the Religious Tract Society of London, with an introduction by John Ayer, and again in Boston, 1860 (Gould & Lincoln, pp. 160, with facsimile of the title-page). The Italian original was recovered at Cambridge, 1855. Vergerius wrote in 1558 that there appeared no book in his age, at least in Italian, " so sweet, so pious, so simple, and so well adapted to instruct the weak on the article of justification" (Sixt, p. 103). The tract was formerly (by Tiraboschi, Gerdes, McCrie, Jules Bonnet, Mrs. Young, and others) ascribed to Aonio Paleario, professor of classical literature at Siena ; but it was written by a pupil of the Spanish nobleman, Juan de Valde's, at Naples, and revised by Flaminio. Ranke found in the Acts of the Inquisition the notice, " Quel libro del beneficio di Christo fu il sua autore un monaco di Sanseverino in Napoli discepolo del Valde's, fu revisore di detto libro il Flaminio, fu stampato molte volte," etc. Die Homischen Papste, vol. I. pp. 90-92 (8th ed. 1883). Benrath found the name of the author, Don Benedetto de Mantova, "Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengesch.," I. 575-596 (1877). Comp. his article Paleario, in Herzog^, XI. 165, note, and E. Bohmer on Valde's, ibid. XVI. 276 sqq. Bohmer says that there are two Italian copies of the tract in the imperial library at Vienna.