638 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
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Ml SARA FACILE TUTTO IN ChRISTO PER EL QUAL VIVO ET SPERO DI MORIRE.
(From Ochino's letter to the Council of Siena, Sept. 5, 1540 ; reproduced from Benrath's monograph.)
The Capuchin Monk.
Bernardino Ochino ^ is one of the most striking and picturesque characters among the Italian Protestants of the Reformation period. He was an oratorical genius and monkish saint who shone with meteoric brilliancy on the sky of Italy,
1 Also spelled Occhino, in Latin Ocellus.
§ 129. BEiiNARDmo OCHINO. 1487-1565. 639
but disappeared at last under a cloud of scepticism in the far North.
He reminds one of three other eloquent monks : Savonarola, who was burnt in Florence at the stake ; Father Gavazzi, who became a Calvinist and died peacefidl}- in Rome ; and Pere Hyacinthe, who left the Carmelite order and the pulpit of Notre Dame in Paris without joining any Protestant Church.
Ochino was born in the fair Tuscan city of Siena, which is adorned by a Gothic marble dome and gave birth to six popes, fifty cardinals, and a number of canonized saints, among them the famous Caterina of Siena ; but also to Protestant heretics, like Lelio and Fausto Sozini. He joined the Franciscans, and afterwards the severe order of the Capuchins, which had recently been founded by Fra Matteo Bassi in 1525. He hoped to gain heaven by self-denial and good works. He far surpassed his brethren in ability and learning,^ although his education was defective (he did not know the original languages of the Bible). He was twice elected Vicar-General of the Order. He was revered by many as a saint for his severe asceticism and mortification of the flesh. Vittoria Colonna, the most gifted woman of Italy, and the Duchess Renata of Ferrara were among his ardent admirers. Pope Paul III. intended to create him a cardinal.^
Ochino as an Orator.
Ochino was the most popular preacher of Italy in his time. No such orator had appeared since the death of Savonarola in 1498. He was in general demand for the course of sermons during Lent, and everywhere — in Siena, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice — he attracted crowds of people who listened to him as to a prophet sent from God.
1 Boverius (ad ann. 1535): " Bemardinus divinis et humanis Uteris non mediocriter imbutus."
2 Sand, Seckendorf, C. Schmidt (in Herzog), and others, state that the pope made Ochino his confessor; but this is without support, and intrinsically improbable. See Benrath, 33 sq. (German ed.).
640 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
We can hardly understand from his printed sermons the extravagant laudations of his contemporaries. But good preachers were rare in Italy, and the effect of popular oratory depends upon action as much as on diction. We must take into account the magnetism of his personality, the force of dramatic delivery, the lively gestures, the fame of his monastic sanctity, his emaciated face, his gleaming eyes, his tall stature and imposing figure. The portrait prefixed to his "Nine Sermons," published at Venice, 1539, shows him to us as he was at the time : a typical Capuchin monk, with the head bent, the gaze upturned, the eyes deeply sunk under the brows, the nose aquiline, the mouth half open, the head shaved on top, the beard reaching down to his breast.
Cardinal Sadolet compared him to the orators of antiquity. One of his hearers in Naples said. This man could make the very stones weep.^
Cardinal Bembo ^ secured him for Lent at Venice through Vittoria Colonna, and wrote to her (Feb. 23, 1539) : " I have heard him all through Lent with such pleasure that I cannot praise him enough. I have never heard more useful and edifying sermons than his, and I no longer wonder that you esteem him so highly. He preaches in a far more Christian manner than other preachers, with more real sympathy and love, and utters more soothing and elevating thoughts. Every one is delighted with him." A few months later (April 4, 1539) he wrote to the same lady : " Our Fra Bernardino is literally adored here. There is no one who does not praise him to the skies. How deeply his words penetrate, how elevating and comforting his discourses ! " He begged him to eat meat and to restrain from excessive abstinence lest he should break down.
1 " Predicava con ispirito grande che faceva piagnere i sassi." Some wrongly iittribute this saying of Rosso to the Emperor Charles V., who heard Ochino at Naples. Benrath, 24, note.
^ He was then the historiographer of Venice, but was soon afterwards created cardinal by Paul III., March 24, 1539.