§ 127. CALVINISM AND UNITARIANISM. 629
and Geneva. A few of them gathered also in Basel, and associated there with Castellio and the admirers of Erasmus.^
An Italian Chnrch was organized at Geneva in 1542, and reorganized in 1551, under Galeazzo Caraccioli, Marquis of Vico. Its chief pastors were Ragnione, Count Martinengo (who died 1557), and Balbani.
Among the 279 fugitives who received the rights of citizenship in that city on one day of the year 1558, there were 200 Frenchmen, 50 Englishmen, 25 Italians, and 4 Spaniards.
The descendants of the refugees gradually merged into the native population. Some of the best families in Geneva, Ziirich, and Basel still bear the names and cherish the memories of their foreign ancestors. In the valleys of Poschiavo and Bregaglia of the Grisons, several Protestant Italian congregations survive to this day.^
The Italian Protestants were mostly educated men, who had passed through the door of the Renaissance to the Reformation, or who had received the first impulse from the writings of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. We must distinguish among them two classes, as they were chiefly influenced either by religious or intellectual motives. Those who had experienced a severe moral struggle for peace of conscience, became strict Calvinists ; those who were moved by a desire for freedom of thought from the bondage of an exclusive creed, sympathized more with Erasmus than with Luther and Calvin, and had a tendency to Unitarianism and Pelagianism. Zanchi warned BuUinger against recommending Italians for sound doctrine until he had ascertained their views on God and on original sin. The same national characteristics continue to this day among the Romanic races. If Italians, Frenchmen, or Spaniards cease to be Romanists, they are apt to become sceptics and agnostics. They rarely stop midway.
1 Henry, II. 422 ; Schweizer, I. 293.
'^ On the Italian refugees in the Grisons, and in Zurich, see above, §§ 38, 39, and 40 ; and Trechsel, I.e., II. 64 sqq.
630 THE REFORMATION Df FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
The ablest, most learned, and most worthy representatives of orthodox Calvinism among the converted Italians were Peter Martvr Vermigli of Florence (1500-1562), who became, successivelv, professor at Strassburg (1543). at Oxford (1547), and last at Ziirich (1555), and his younger friend, Jerome Zanchi (1516-1590), who labored first in the Grisons, and then as professor at Strassburg (1553) and at Heidelberg (1568). Calvin made several ineffectual attempts to secure both for the Italian congregation in Geneva.^
The sceptical and antitrinitarian Italians were more numerous among the scholars. Calvin aptly called them " sceptical Academicians." They assembled chiefly at Basel, where they breathed the atmosphere of Erasmian humanism. They gave the Swiss Churches a great deal of trouble. They took offence at the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, which they misconstrued into tritheism, or Sabellianism. at the orthodox Christology of two natures in one person, and at the Calvinistic doctrines of total depravity and diAine predestination, which they charged with tending to immorality*. They doubted the right of infant baptism, and denied the real presence in the Eucharist. They hated ecclesiastical discipline. They admired Servetus, and disapproved of his burning. They advocated religious toleration, which threatened to throw everything into confusion.
To this class belong the two Sozini, — uncle and nephew, — Curio, Ochino (in his latter years'). Renato. Gribaldo, Biandrata, Alciati, and Gentile. Castellio is also counted with these Italian sceptics. He thoroughly sided with their anti-Calvinism, and translated from the Italian manuscripts into Latin the last books of Ochino.
1 See above, pp. 156 and 162, and C. Schmidt, Peter Martyr Vermigli. Leben und auspeirahlte ScJ^irifien, Elberfeld. 1858 (p. 296). Vergerio, the former bishop of Capo d'Istria and papal nuncio, is also numbered among the orthodox Italians, but he had no settled opinions, and was no theologian in the proper sense. See above, § 38, pp. 144 sqq. E. Tremellio, a converted Jew of Ferrara (1510-1580), one of the most learned Orientalists, was a Calvinist.