RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Verbesserungspunkte Vermigli
Analecta Romana, pp. 128 sqq., Schaffhausen; 1861; W. Friedensburg, in Nuntiaturberichte, i., 589 sqq., Gotha, 1898). Although Vergerio achieved little in the way of his appointed task, which was to induce the Protestants to send delegates to the council, Paul III. twice dispatched him across the Alps; and meanwhile rewarded him, first with the bishopric of Modrusz in Croatia, next with Capodistria. In the year 1540, Vergerio again entered active diplomatic service; he was at Worms at the religious conference as commissioner for King Francis I. (ef. Ad oratores principum ... in F. Hubert, Vergerio’s publizistische Thitigkeit, Bibliography, no. 9, Gottingen, 1893). It was in memory of the council that he dedicated the tract De unitate et pace ecclesie. Like Cardinal Contarini (q.v.), beside whom he also appeared at Regensburg in 1541 (see RrcmNSBURG, CONFERENCE OF), he was charged with having conceded too much to the Protestants. He then resolved to return to Capodistria and pursue thoroughgoing studies. Vergerio had yet no thought of withdrawing from the Roman Catholic Church, nor did he overstep the line of reformatory attempts within that church, such as were espoused by Contarini and others (cf. K. Benrath, Geschichte der Reformation in Venedig, p. 47, Halle, 1887). But suspicion was awakened; so that Dec. 13, 1544, a denunciation of Vergerio was lodged with the Venetian Inquisition; and although after due examination Vergerio was released, Cardinal Cervini took advantage of the fact that Vergerio was not yet formally absolved to prevent his participation in the council, for which he had labored so many years. Vergerio had to return from Riva, and began a publicistic activity which turned more and more against the Roman Catholic Church. In connection with the Historia of Francesco Spiera (q.v.) of Dec. 7, 1549, Vergerio directed a sharp reply to the suffragan bishop of Padua; and instead of responding to a second summons, by the Nuncio Della Casa, to appear before the tribunal in Venice, on May 1, 1549, he left Italy forever. The experiences at Spiera’s sick-bed had brought Vergerio to inward decision. The twelve treatises which he produced at Basel in 1550 supply information regarding his dogmatic position. Meanwhile the second trial had been conducted in Venice, and was confirmed at Rome, July 3, 1549. Vergerio was convicted of heresy in thirty-four points, deposed from his episcopal dignity, and made subject to arrest. At that time, however, he was in the Swiss Grisons, and became active in a brisk round of polemics (cf. Hubert, ut sup.). His themes were the papacy, its origin and policy; the jubilees; saint and relic worship, and the like. Vergerio continued in the Grisons till 1553, when he heeded a call from Duke Christopher of Wirttemberg to write and travel in behalf of Evangelical doctrine. While he never again set foot in Italy, in 1556 he made his way to Poland, and incidentally conferred with Duke Albrecht of Prussia. He was in Poland in 1559 with the twofold object of meeting the moves of the Nuncio Lipomano, and of working counter to Johannes & Lasco (q.v.). In vain he sought permission to: take part in the religious conference at, Poissy in 1560, and he was not allowed to appear
at the Council of Trent as the duke’s delegate. During all these years he continued his polemical authorship, and worked toward the publication of his Opera, though but the first volume appeared (1563). “A just appreciation of the man is difficult. That Rome saw in him only the apostate is a matter of course. But the Protestants, in turn, had to complain of his vanity, his excessive pragmatism. Open honest simplicity is not to be sought in Vergerio. Yet it is to his merit that he accomplished the transition to which his conscience and outward conditions impelled him, whereas most of his countrymen at the last moment faced about ”’ (Kausler and Schott, in Vergerios Briefwechsel mit Herzog Christoph, Tiibingen, 1875). K. Benratu.
Bisiiograpuy: A review of the writings of Vergerio will be found in Niceron, Hommes illustres, xxxviii. 69 saq.; Weller, in Serapeum, vols. xix (1858), and xxvi (1866), and F. Hubert, Die publizistische Thitigkeit Vergerios, pp. 259 sqq., Gottingen, 1893. Some of his tracts were reprinted in Brblioteca della Riforma, Florence, 1883. Highty of his letters to Bullinger are in Quellen zur Schweizergeschichte, vol. xxili., Basel, 1902, forty-three to Duke Albrecht are in Sixt (see below), those to Duke Christoph are in Kausler and Schott’s work named in the text. A number unprinted are in various libraries and other repositories in Venice, Mantua, Zurich, and Munich. Consult: J. Sleidanus, De statu religionis et reipublice, in the ed. of his Opera, Frankfort, 1786; Bayle, Dictionary, v. 451-461 (useful for its quotation of sources); C. A. Salig, Hist. der augsburgischen Confession, ii. 1148-1200, Halle, 1730; F. Meyer, Die evangelische Gemeinde in Locarno, 2 vols., Zurich, 1836; C. H. Sixt, P. P. Vergerio, 2d ed., Brunswick, 1871; C. Cantu, Gli Hretict d'Italia, parts i— iii., Turin, 1865-66; idem, Italiani dllustri, vol. ii., Milan, 1875; A. Dittrich, Regesten und Briefe des Cardinals G. Contarini, Braunsberg, 1881; L. A. Ferrai, Jl Processo di Pier Paolo Vergerio, in Archivio storico italiano, xv (1885), 201 sqq., xvi (1886), 25 sqq.; P. Stancovich, Biografia deglt uomint, 2d ed., Capodistra, 1888; E. Comba, I Nostri Protestanti, ii. 395-476, Florence, 1897; Cambridqe Modern History, ii. 233, 394-395, 588, New York, 1904; Schaff, Christian Church, vol. vii. passim; the works of Friedensburg (i. 1533 sqq.) and Benrath named in the text; the introduction to the Quellen zur Schweizergeschichte, vol. xxili., ut sup.; KL, xii. 769-776.
VERMIGLI, ver-mi’lyi, PIETRO MARTIRE: Italian Reformer; b. at Florence Sept. 8, 1500; d. at Zurich Dec. 12, 1562. He entered the Augustinian cloister near Fiesole at the age of sixteen, and studied afterward in Padua and Bologna; after 1525 he was frequently employed as Lenten preacher and lecturer. arly in his career he became prior of the great convent of S. Pietro ad Aram, in Naples, where he joined the devout circle that gathered about Juan de Valdés (q.v.), to which band came, in 1538, Bernardino Ochino (q.v.). Both Vermigli and Ochino at first taught and preached without coming into open conflict with the traditional system; yet their tone, like that of Valdés, was already Evangelical. In 1541 Vermigli became visitator in his order, and in 1542 was dispatched to Lucca as prior of San Frediano. There he introduced strict discipline, while in behalf of better equipment of the novices he summoned such capable teachers as Celio Secondo Curione (q.v.); at the same time he issued his first Evangelical tract, Una semplice dichiarazione sopra t dodici articoli della fede cristiana (reissued in Biblioteca della Riforma italiana, vol. i., Florence, 1883), for which he was summoned before the chapter of his order in Genoa. He preferred to quit his native land that he might be able
Vermigli Vessels, Sacred