RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Valesius Valtellina
las V., a friend to humanists, to whom Valla dedicated the first part of a Latin translation of the Iliad, that he obtained an appointment at Rome. But at once strife broke out between him and the resident humanists, which, so far as Poggio was concerned, did not cease even with the death of Valla. But the latter’s didactic industry and literary productiveness, his perspicacious philological and historical criticism (cf. his Declamatio), his efforts to free science from the fetters of scholastic tradition, are great and lasting merits. Certainly Valla ranks as a precursor of modern intellectual freedom, even though the ascription, precursor Lutheri, rather malignly applied to him by Bellarmine, fits him only in limited measure. His writings, besides those already named, are abundant; and several of them, such as the Hlegantiw and the Declamatio, have undergone repeated editions. Luther’s opinion of him was ‘“‘ The like of whom neither Italy nor the whole Church produced in many centuries ’’ (Responsio ad Lovan. theol., Briefwechsel, iv. 189). Mancini, a recent biographer, thus measures him: “Tt was his misfortune to clash with Poggio who persecuted him without rest or surcease even beyond his grave. He thus had against him Poggio’s followers, and all who wrote in sympathy with the Curia. What availed it that he cultivated Christian principles and served the truth? A father of modern criticism, he exercised the thorny office, not for the sake of bending it to his personal interests, but to elevate humanity. In the process he did not always observe the right measure in his own defense; he answered with insult where he might have silenced the adversary by compelling force and sharpness of demonstration. Hence, brilliant embodiment of the Italian intellect though he was, he did not find the recognition that was his due, in his own time; though now there is justly conceded him a place among the great ones whose achievements have richly furthered human culture.” K. BENRATH.
BistiogRapHy: Two incomplete editions of the writings of Valla were published, Basel, 1540 (1543) and Venice, 1592; Ulrich von Hutten issued the Donatio Constantini in 1519; J. Vahlen edited the Tria Opuscula, Vienna, 1869. Accounts of the life have been given by J. Vahlen, Vienna, 1864, Berlin, 1870; J. Clausen, Copenhagen, 1861; C.G. Zampt, in Zeitschrift fiir Geschichtswissenschaft, iv. 397 sqq.; G. Mancini, Florence, 1891; M. von Wolff, Leipsic, 1893; L. V. Schwahn, Berlin, 1896. Consult further: G. Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura italiana, vi. 3, 11 vols., Modena, 1772-95; D. G. Monrad, Die erste Controverse tiber das Glaubensbekenntnis, Gotha, 1881; A. Gaspary, Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur, vol. ii., Strasburg, 1888; L. Amabile, Inquisizione di Napoli, i. 73 sqq., Castello, 1892; G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums, i. 460 sqq., 3d ed., Berlin, 1893; Pastor, Popes, vols. iv.-v. passim; Creighton, Papacy, iii. 170-173.
VALLOMBROSA, ORDER OF. See GuaLBEeRtTo GIOVANNI.
VALTELLINA, val’’tel-li’na, REFORMATION AND COUNTER-REFORMATION IN: Valtellina, or the upper valley of the Adda in Northern Italy, early became a coveted possession. In 774 Charle-
magne gave it to the monastery of
?
Earlier St. Denis at Paris, but before long it External was the bone of contention between History. the bishops of Como and of Chur, whose
dioceses here met. The former prelate already had estates in Valtellina, and in 1006 received from Henry II. half of the county; accordingly, in 1190, he laid claim to the temporal sovereignty, and fifteen years later subdued Bormio.
In 1336, however, Bormio again came into the possession of Chur, but in 1350 was taken by the Visconti and remained part of Milan until 1512. In 1404, the fugitive Mastino Visconti presented Valtellina to the diocese of Chur. In the struggles for the duchy of Milan the allies expelled the French from Valtellina in 1512, and remained there as conquerors until 1797, except for a short time after the ‘‘ Valtellina massacre’’ (see below). Ecclesiastically Valtellina remained dependent on the bishop of Como, who was originally under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Aquileia, and later under that of the archbishop of Milan. The bishop of Chur (placed under the archbishop of Mainz in 843), therefore, had little power in Valtellina, though for a time after 1530 he was given an annual compensation for his loss of jurisdiction. Valtellina received the ‘‘ new doctrine” of the Reformation from the south, so that it remained free from the Teutonizing influences of the Reformation proceeding from Zurich. In Grisons, of which Valtellina then formed part, the religious and social reform was accomplished under the influence of the Ilanz Articles of 1524 and 1526 (see Ko- MANDER, JOHANN), and at Davos in 1526 the diet granted religious freedom to all, with the exception of the Anabaptists. Italian Protestants, driven from their country by the commencement of the Counter-Reformation, took advantage of this toleration and settled in large numbers in the valley of the Adda and elsewhere, many availing themselves of their asylum to wage war on the Roman Catholic Church. After 1523, in like manner, a number of Waldenses and other Protestants fled from Milan to Valtellina, only to be expelled by the allies at the request of the inhabitants. Reformation and Counter-Reformation followed fast in Valtellina. In the second decade of the sixteenth century there were officials with Protestant tendencies there, though the great Protestant movement did not take place until after the issuing of the bull Licet ab initio in 1542. The stream of fugitives into the Rheetian valleys included many restless spirits who disturbed both religious and political conditions. In 1529 an Italian preacher was brought from Valtellina to Llanz for examination of his teachings, and in 1544 two Calabrian monks, Francesco and Hieronimo, were expelled from the Engadine for Anabaptist doctrines Chiavenna was the home of the Neapolitan Camillo Renato, an antitrinitarian antipedobaptist, and of Laelius Socinus (q.v.), until a church order made it impossible for adherents of heterodox doctrines to remain. A certain Tiziano was banished for antitrinitarianism and antipedobaptism, despite his retractions, and the ex-monk Franciscus Niger of Bassano was not free from suspicion, though he was in close harmony with the position of the Zurich reformers. [Niger was also an antitrinitarian antipedobaptist. a. H.N.] On the other hand, there were among the fugitive Italians many of unquestioned standing in the eyes of the leaders of the Rhetian Reformation. At first the Italian refugees in Valtellina were permitted only to reside there, not to preach. In 1538, however, the latter privilege was granted them, and in
The Reformation.
Valtellina Van Horne
1544 additional favor was shown Protestant teachers and preachers, though it was still necessary to guard against erroneous doctrines. The Grisons, who! were chiefly Protestant, supported the Reformation in Valtellina for political reasons. The result was religious antagonism, the Roman Catholics of Valtellina, both those who had remained true to the ancient faith and those who had been won back by the Jesuits, uniting with the other Roman Catholics of Switzerland, and these in their turn with Austria and Milan. Political and religious antitheses between Valtellina and the Grisons continually became intensified. Valtellina, which had welcomed the Grisons in 1512, was now oppressed by them, and the religious rights of the Roman Catholics were grievously curtailed. In 1551 it was rumored that Austria and Spain planned to invade the region, but Maurice of Saxony came to the aid of the Protestants, who, four months after the treaty of Passau, received a new edict of toleration despite the protests of the pope and of Spain. In the following year, to check the recrudescence of disturbing doctrines, the synod adopted the Confessio Rhetica, which was accepted by the Italians in 1553. The pope, aided by Austria and Spain, now sought to induce the Grisons to consent to the introduction of the Inquisition into Valtellina, and when this effort failed, the Capuchins were sent, while officials of the Inquisition were ever on the watch along the Milan border. In 1557 the edict of equal toleration for Protestants and Roman Catholics in Valtellina was renewed after the Jesuits had already firmly established themselves in the district toward the end of the fifth decade.
The most powerful factor in the crushing of Protestantism in this district, however, was the great archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (q.v.),
while the external dangers confronting
The the adherents of the new tenets were Counter- complicated by internal doctrinal dis- Reforma- putes. In 1564 Philip IT. made an un-
tion. successful demand of the Grisons for
the surrender of Protestant heretics, and in 1579 Borromeo established at Milan the Collegium Helveticum, largely to provide priests for Valtellina, whereupon the Grisons renewed their exclusion of foreign priests. Another powerful agency in the reorganization of the Roman Catholie Church here was found in the resumption of ecclesiastical visitations, interrupted since 1532. Two visitations were made by Giovanni Francesco Bonhomini in 1578 and by Borromeo himself in 1580. Nine years later Feliciano Ninguarda, bishop of Como, made a more extensive visitation, since, as a native of Valtellina, the Grisons were unable to forbid him to exercise pastoral activity in the Adda valley. In 1639, moreover, the chapter of Milan conferred upon the bishop of Como plenipotentiary powers for ecclesiastical visitations and for the execution of papal bulls. Closely associated with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation here were the fortunes of the school established by the Grisons for the education of both Protestants and Roman Catholics (apparently the first school of this character) at Sondrio, though Milanese opposition forced its transference to Chur in 1585.