RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Italy, the Reformation in
pope's death, and the destruction of the documentary charges against Carnesecchi, on occasion of the storm upon the Inquisition's building in 1559. Pius V. retrieved the matter and Carnesecchi, whose correspondence with Giulia Gonzaga formed the basis of a second trial, was executed with other " heretics " on Oct. 1, 1567 Among the victims of the Inquisition, not a few were of Neapolitan origin; and they all belonged to the very great numbers whom the viceroy's complacency delivered, year in, year out, to the Curia, though the Spanish Inquisition was not allowed to operate in the kingdom proper, and an attempt to introduce it in 1547 had been frustrated by a sanguinary insurrection of the populace. The viceroy's complacent disposition was also proved at the death of Giulia Gonzaga in 1566, when he seized her correspondence and despatched it to Rome. By his long years of superintending the Inquisition Pius V acquired the most exact acquaintance with the situation, and he renewed and intensified the tribunal's activity so that he won the name of Fra Michele dell' Inquisizione. A storm of persecution covered all parts of Italy in the years of his pontificate (1566- 1572). Concerning the victims only defective information remains, but it put an end to the reforming movement.
With reference to the additional victims apprehended in the south, some information is given in Luigi Amabile's II santo offizio delta 5. In inquisizione, in Napoli (2 vols., Citta South and di Castello, 1892). Nothing short of Central wholesale murder was perpetrated in Italy. that quarter in 1560 and 1561 upon the Evangelical inhabitants of San Sisto and La Guardia. Moreover, the Holy Office's barge plied regularly back and forth between Naples and Ostia, incessantly bringing new " suspects " before the tribunal. The numbers of emigrants — or rather fugitives — for the faith from Sicily and the kingdom continually increased — so far, at least, as this item can be checked at Geneva, where many sought refuge (cf. J. Galiffe, Le Refuge italien de Geneve, Geneva, 1881). For southern and central Italy, some acceptable information is furnished by a protocol-book of the Roman Inquisition for the years 1564-67, which contains the sentences decreed against heretics during that period (cf. Revista Cristiana, 1879-80) . How matters looked and fared in the Roman Inquisition's prison is reported by the younger Camerarius, who was himself under arrest there, in 1565, whose Relatio vera was printed by J. G. Schelhorn (De vita, fatis ac meritis Philippi Camerarii, Nuremburg, 1749) . Camerarius was confined in the upper story, " where one is in the bakeoven "; others were below, "in so damp a hole that it is past understanding how men can exist in that grave." Frequently monks came in to make attempts at conversion, Dominicans for the most part, once Petrus Canisius, the Jesuit. Among their fellow captives were spies. Camerarius and his fellow countryman, Peter Rieter, were liberated through the rigorous intercession of Emperor Maximilian II., to whom appeal had been made. On June 23, 1566, there was " public abjuration " of twenty-three who were under charge, who, for
the most part, had been sentenced to perpetual confinement, or to the rigor of the galleys. After that, sentence was pronounced upon the Neapolitan nobleman, Pompeo de' Monti, who was beheaded near the bridge of Sant' Angelo, on July 4, 1566. Still other victims who were executed in Rome are named in the roll of Italian Reformation martyrs; three of them so early as under Julius III., Fanino of Faenza, Domenico of Bassano, and the Augustinian Giuliano; later, two others, Giovanni Buzio (also named Mollio), of Montalcino, and an unknown of Perugia; under Paul IV., the noble youth Pomponio Algieri of Nola was burned, and how many at that time were still confronted with a similar fate may be inferred from the fact that on the death of this pope in 1559, when the people's rage broke open the prison doors, no fewer than seventy heretics were set free.
Better information exists as to what occurred
from the beginning of the energetic reaction at
Venice and in its dominion, than with
6. The reference to events and the scope of
Later repression in southern and central
Period in Italy. At Venice, the outcome of the Italy. movement was connected with the general political situation, and the senate, from the time of the downfall of the Protestant party in Germany through the Schmalkald War, waived whatever considerations it had previously conceded to their wishes, and showed itself much more amenable to the Curia than was formerly the case. Meantime a new religious movement had sprung up in Venice. In 1550, Julius III. affirmed that 1,000 Venetians might be counted as belonging to the Anabaptist sect. A new group thus comes to the light, inasmuch as the earlier advocates of the Reformation belonged not to the radical, but to the conservative Reformation, as espoused by Luther. Both currents are in collateral progress from the middle of the century, and both command eminent names; but the attitude of mutual antagonism on the part of their champions contributed even more than the brute force of their common foe to nullify the movement itself. Among advocates of the conservative Reformation are to be named men such as Pietro Speziali (in Cittadella) and Francesco Spiera (q.v.). Now, too, the previously mentioned Fra Baldo Lupetino was seized by his fate; and only for a little while longer could Baldassare Altieri of Aquila, who had been in correspondence with Luther, Bullinger, and others, still work in the wake of the Schmalkald party's defeat after he was compelled to leave Venice in 1549. A transition to the steadily growing Anabaptist party is afforded by Francesco Negri of Bassano; in a measure, as well, by Celio Secondo Curione. The proper father, however, of the Italian Anabaptists was Camillo of Sicily, who, after his conversion, styled himself " Renato." His system is quite spiritualistic; whoever is elected receives the " spirit "; the children of the " spirit " merely slumber in death, to enter upon a higher form of being thereafter; the rest fall away to destruction. The sacraments are only emblems; Christ is above all a divinely favored man; and more of the same sort. Their theological foundations were fixed in a
Italy, the Reformation in Ivo of Chartres