ERETICOPEDIA

Dictionary of Heretics, Dissidents, and Inquisitors in the Mediterranean World
Edizioni CLORI | Firenze | ISBN 978-8894241600 | DOI 10.5281/zenodo.1309444
HOW TO CITE | EDITORIAL GUIDELINES | CODE OF CONDUCT | LIST OF ABREVIATIONS

The Republic of Venice was the largest and most powerful Italian state of the sixteenth century, the only one capable of competing with the great powers such as France and Spain in the European political, diplomatic and military arena. It was also the Italian state where the ideas of the Protestant Reformation enjoyed the greatest success, threatening to destabilize its own political balance and at times generating bitter conflicts with Rome over the procedures and jurisdictions of the persecution of heretics.

Heterodox printing

The spread of Reformation ideas was facilitated by the significant circulation of heterodox books in Venice from the earliest days of Lutheran dissent. Venice was, after all, one of the capitals of the printing and book trade. The considerable presence of German merchants, gravitating around their Fondaco, could only encourage the circulation of Luther’s works, which were available in the booksellers’ shops as early as 1520. Venice was also a privileged centre of publication for the main texts through which the ideas of the Reformation penetrated Italy. In 1525 the printer Nicolò di Aristotile Rossi, known as Zoppino, published for the first time an anthology of Lutheran writings, disguised under anonymity (though already in the 1526 edition the authorship of the writings was falsely attributed by the printer to Erasmus of Rotterdam).

In 1530 the printer Lucantonio Giunta, with permission from the Venetian Senate, printed the translation of the New Testament by the Florentine Antonio Brucioli (1487–1566), followed in 1531 by the translation of the Psalms and in 1532 by the translation of the entire Scriptures. Brucioli’s work, described by Caponetto as “one of the most effective vehicles for the dissemination of Reformation doctrines”¹, aimed to make the sacred text accessible to everyone, especially the lower classes.

In 1543 the fundamental text of the Italian Reformation, the Beneficio di Cristo by Benedetto Fontanini of Mantua and Marcantonio Flaminio, was published anonymously in Venice by Bernardino de’ Bindoni. The extraordinary fortune of this work is well known and documented. According to a testimony by Pier Paolo Vergerio, by 1549 as many as 40,000 copies had already been printed and sold in Venice.

In 1545 the Alfabeto cristiano by Juan de Valdés, written in Spanish at Naples in 1536 but unpublished until then, was printed in Venice in the Italian translation of Marcantonio Magno; the work was reprinted twice in 1546. The dialogue between Valdés and Giulia Gonzaga combined the ascetic demands of Spanish alumbradismo (with its resulting devaluation of outward devotional practices, such as daily attendance at mass) with the affirmation of the central doctrine of Lutheranism, justification by faith alone.

The dissemination of books announcing the doctrines of the Reformation was certainly encouraged by the relatively tolerant policy of the Venetian government toward heterodox printing until the early 1540s. From then on things changed radically. Taking up the complaints of the papal nuncios (especially those of Giovanni Della Casa, author in 1549 of a substantial catalogue of prohibited books), the authorities proceeded to confiscate and burn books.

Heterodox propaganda

The “cursed brood” ("maledetta nidata")

A particular impetus to the spread of the Protestant Reformation in the Republic of Venice was given by the preaching of a group of itinerant clerics whom Gian Pietro Carafa, who resided permanently in the territory of the Republic with his Theatines from 1527 to 1536, described as “that cursed brood” ("quella maledetta nidata") in his celebrated Memorial of 1532 addressed to Clement VII. The future Paul IV referred especially to the figures of Bartolomeo Fonzio, Girolamo Galateo and Alessandro of Pieve di Sacco.

The interventions of Melanchthon and Luther

Very soon the leading foreign exponents of the Reformation took an interest in the Venetian case.

In January 1539 Melanchthon addressed a letter “ad Venetos quosdam studiosos Evangelii” (perhaps, though not with certainty, directed to the Venetian Senate), advocating the cause of the Reformation, significantly stressing its fundamental aim of restoring the purity of the primitive church, and appealing to the Venetian sentiment of independence from Rome.

Baldassarre Altieri, secretary of the English ambassador in Venice Edmond Harwel, in a letter of 26 November 1542 signed in the name of the evangelical communities of Venice, Vicenza and Treviso, addressed Luther, asking him to intercede with the princes of the Schmalkaldic League to exert pressure on the Venetian government to end persecutions in the territory of the Serenissima. Luther’s intercession led the Elector of Saxony, John Frederick, to address the Doge Pietro Lando (the German prince pleaded in particular for Baldo Lupatino). Then Luther, again urged by Altieri, who continued his tireless defence of the Protestant cause before the Venetian government, entrusted Mattia Flacio Illirico, nephew of Lupatino, with doing everything possible to obtain his release.

The defeat of the Schmalkaldic League at Mühlberg in 1547 (one year after Luther’s death) was decisive in orienting Venetian political choices unfavourably toward the Reformation and caused the failure of Altieri’s efforts.

The “hopes” of Ochino and Vergerio

The leading Italian reformers, for their part, cultivated the hope that the Reformation could take root permanently in the Venetian state, and some of them addressed the authorities of the Serenissima, explicitly urging them to become promoters of the Reformation. On 7 December 1542 Bernardino Ochino wrote from Geneva to the Signoria of Venice:

[…] God knows how much I desire to see Christ reigning in my Venice, and that it be free from every diabolical yoke, especially from that which under the guise of good oppresses it the most, and I exhort you to be true friends of Christ and to wish to understand the pure Gospel, and not persecute but favour those who preach the word of God to you […] Christ has already begun to penetrate Italy; but I would like him to enter gloriously, openly, and I believe that Venice will be the gate, and happy are you if you accept him, and woe to those who, like Herod, persecute him out of human fear².

The same hope appears in the oration that in 1545 Pier Paolo Vergerio addressed to the newly elected Doge Francesco Donà, in which the bishop of Capodistria explicitly asked his prince to promote the Reformation in the Venetian Republic.

The Republic of Venice, moreover, constituted an exemplary model of state structure, attracting exiles for political and religious reasons from all over Italy, in whose imagination it represented a model of state founded on evangelical principles, an alternative model to the papacy and to Spain.

Venetian Anabaptism

See Venetian Anabaptism

Geography and history of the Protestant Reformation in the Republic of Venice in the sixteenth century

If Venice itself must certainly be considered the “centre” of the Protestant movement, one should not overlook the significant penetration of Reformation doctrines in the cities of the Venetian mainland. The diffusion of these ideas affected the whole territory of the Republic, generating hopes, illusions and inner conflicts within individual consciences, and giving rise to genuine reformed communities endowed with a certain organisation and consistency, whose presence was in some cases particularly strong and had notable repercussions on the forms and organisation of civic life.

Venice

A notable characteristic of the Protestant movement in Venice was its socially composite nature. The Reformation attracted illiterate textile workers, artisans, schoolteachers, physicians, lawyers, prominent members of the merchant class and patricians. Community life was organised in small groups, spontaneous cells that established an efficient system of mutual aid. These groups did not operate in complete secrecy but carried out a certain amount of propaganda, an attitude that reveals their confidence in their own numbers and capacity for expansion.

It is important to note the ambiguous attitude adopted by Venetian patricians toward the ideas of the Reformation. Several high-ranking patricians were fascinated by the Reformation, while others were simply anti-curial in outlook, like most of the leading doges of the sixteenth century, who generally came from families with anti-papal inclinations. The most paradigmatic case is that of Andrea Gritti, who throughout his long dogeship (1523–38) firmly supported Venetian autonomy in the face of Roman interference. This stance fostered a climate of greater religious freedom and thus the spread of heresies. The hopes raised by the dogeship of Francesco Donà (1545–1553) have already been mentioned. The same hope placed by Vergerio in Donà was shared by the Messinese exile Bartolomeo Spadafora, who placed it in Francesco Venier (ambassador to Rome from 1542 to 1546, doge from 1554 to 1556). Among other prominent Venetian political figures with pronounced anti-clerical leanings were Alvise Mocenigo (ambassador to Rome from 1558 to 1560, doge from 1570 to 1577) and Nicolò Da Ponte (ambassador to Rome twice, under Paul III and Julius III, doge from 1578 to 1585). Also famous is the figure of Gasparo Contarini, until his death in 1542 the leading figure of the so-called “spirituali.” Two other Venetian politicians and diplomats who later became cardinals were refined humanists, which attracted suspicions of heresy: Bernardo Navagero and Marcantonio Da Mula. As Federica Ambrosini has observed, the Venetian patriciate showed from the outset a lively interest in the works of the reformers beyond the Alps. In some cases patricians sincerely embraced the ideas of the Reformation, protected and welcomed reformist teachers into their homes, and entrusted them with the education of their children. The tribunal of the Venetian Inquisition conducted several investigations involving patricians, especially in the 1560s, but very often the inquiries were not pursued in depth for obvious reasons of political expediency. Those condemned were for the most part patricians of lesser rank, and the sentences were very mild. The patricians condemned submitted to the proceedings and to the penances imposed. The alternative would have been exile beyond the Alps and a consequent break with the patria, a solution that the sense of honour and attachment to their own community made difficult to accept for a Venetian patrician. Striking was the case of Andrea Da Ponte (brother of Nicolò Da Ponte): he chose exile beyond the Alps, in Geneva, and was subjected to the damnatio memoriae of his family, one of the most eminent of the Venetian patriciate, and of the entire ruling class of the Serenissima. According to Ambrosini, a highly significant indicator of the penetration of the new religious ideas among Venetian patricians is provided by testaments, which took on the character of true confessions of faith when they revealed the devaluation of the outward aspects of funeral rites and the absence of requests for suffrages and invocations to the Virgin and the saints.

More spontaneous and less “shielded” than that of the patriciate was the adherence of the popular classes of Venice to Protestant doctrines. In them the desire to rediscover a primitive and purified Christianity, centred on the figure of the Christus pauper as opposed to the Christus dives, was combined with demands for social emancipation and redemption of the lower classes.

Significant, as an example of the doctrinal features of dissent, are the words with which donna Franceschina of the parish of San Pantaleon addressed her neighbours, demonstrating a striking awareness of her religious ideas, very distant from the ritualistic, idolatrous and paganising doctrines (from her perspective) of the Roman Church:

It is a bad thing to go to mass, because Christ did not ordain it. It is in the Old Testament that when the golden calf was lifted up, all rushed to adore it and thus were led astray by that idol. So we, when the consecrated host is raised, run to adore it, having faith in that calf, and we are lost, for it is an idol… And one must pray to God, because he is the principal one… And one must adore Christ in spirit and truth, not in that piece of dough… And he is our purgatory, and when we die we go to paradise or to hell³.

Padua

Protestant doctrines enjoyed great success in Padua, whose prestigious University, cradle among other things of the ruling class of the Serenissima, assumed almost the features of a true refuge for heretics. The University was attended by many German and Swiss students, mostly Protestants, who enjoyed broad freedoms and privileges. Pier Paolo Vergerio (from 1536 bishop of Capodistria) carried out there active propaganda in favour of the Reformation until the eve of his flight to the Grisons (1549). The celebrated jurist from Chieri Matteo Gribaldi Mofa taught civil law there from 1548 to 1555. In Padua, between 1517 and 1526, the Florentine Pietro Martire Vermigli, later a leading theologian in sixteenth-century Europe who embraced the Reformation in 1542, received his intellectual formation.

From Padua began the singular drama of Pomponio Algieri, a young student from Nola, arrested in 1555 and then handed over by the Republic of Venice to Paul IV, who had him burned at the stake in Piazza Navona in August 1556.

Cittadella

Not far from Padua, Reformation and heresy found a welcome in Cittadella, where they were first propagated by the grammar teacher Pietro Speciale (who abjured in 1551 after a long imprisonment), then by Agostino Tealdo (executed in 1555), who gathered around himself a small conventicle of followers oriented towards Anabaptist ideas.

At Cittadella there took place, between 1547 and 1548, the drama of Francesco Spiera, who fell into despair after his abjuration and died of self-starvation despite the care of the most eminent physicians. The case aroused scandal and debate throughout Europe.

Vicenza

Particularly significant is the case of Vicenza, where the most influential families of the local nobility (Trissino, Pellizzari, Thiene, Da Porto, Pigafetta and others) showed themselves especially receptive to Reformation doctrines. Fundamental was the role played by Fulvio Pellegrino Morato, who oriented the Vicentine movement decisively towards Calvinism. The substantial heterodox community came to organise itself around a nucleus of “capi grossi,” among whom Alessandro Trissino and Niccolò Pellizzari stood out, and developed a network of relations with the main European centres of the Reformation. The protest also deeply involved the lower classes.

Rovigo

A substantial heterodox community of Calvinist orientation also developed in Rovigo, where Reformation ideas were introduced by certain foreign teachers.

Bergamo

In Bergamo a flourishing trade in heterodox books developed, a clear sign of the penetration of Protestant doctrines in the city. The bishop Vittore Soranzo, who governed the diocese from 1544, oriented his pastoral activity decisively in a Lutheran sense, which provoked against him the offensive of the Holy Office.

Verona and Brescia

The influence of the Reformation was considerable in the cities of Verona and Brescia, which because of their geographical position maintained strong contacts with the German world. In Verona the spread of Protestant ideas was curbed by the pastoral activity of the bishops Gian Matteo Giberti and Alvise Lippomano. Nevertheless, the trial of the Veronese heretics of 1550 is clear evidence of the diffusion of Protestant ideas, especially in the world of the workshops. By contrast, the heterodox movement of Brescia had a predominantly bourgeois and aristocratic character.

Friuli and Istria

Adhesion to Protestant doctrines was also notable in the border regions of Friuli and Istria.

Friuli constituted the portion of the patriarchate of Aquileia under Venetian dominion. This was the largest diocese in Europe and within it interacted populations of three different nationalities (Italian, German and Slavic), with four different languages (Friulian, Venetian Italian, German and Slovene) and subject politically to three different lords (the Habsburgs, the bishop of Bamberg and the Republic of Venice). In such a context the penetration of Lutheran doctrines in the Venetian part of the diocese of Aquileia is closely linked to the success they enjoyed in the German territories (Carinthia and Styria). The widespread circulation of heterodox books was the most evident manifestation.

In Istria Protestant doctrines were introduced by a group of Conventual Franciscans led by the notable figure of Baldo Lupetino of Albona. But the Reformation found its most distinguished exponent in Pier Paolo Vergerio, bishop of Capodistria, who, like Bishop Soranzo in Bergamo, oriented his pastoral activity decisively in a Lutheran sense. Nor were Anabaptist conventicles lacking in Istria.

Repression and defeat

For the Venetian rulers heresy represented a problem for the stability of the state. There were diplomatic relations with Protestant princes, whose political strength was however gravely weakened by the catastrophe of Mühlberg in 1547. In that same year the “new” Inquisition was established in Venice, alongside which were appointed the Tre Savi sopra l’eresia, a new lay magistracy entrusted with overseeing the work of the ecclesiastical inquisitors. They were chosen with the greatest care from among the most senior and experienced patricians; former ambassadors to the Holy See were frequently elected among the Savi sopra l’eresia. Patricians from families known for their papalist leanings were systematically excluded. Thus inquisitorial power in the Republic of Venice was divided between the nuncio and the inquisitors on the one hand (representing Roman interests) and the patriarch of Venice together with the Tre Savi on the other (representing Venetian interests). Tensions were constant, but repression intensified considerably from these years onwards. In 1549 the nuncio Giovanni Della Casa published a substantial index of prohibited books (the first printed in Italy). The nuncio’s uncompromising action forced Pier Paolo Vergerio to flee abroad. In 1551 the denunciation of Pietro Manelfi dealt a very heavy blow to Venetian Anabaptism, unleashing a wave of exiles toward Eastern Europe.

Yet there were also episodes of hostility against overly intransigent inquisitors, which affected even two future popes. In December 1550 Michele Ghislieri was compelled to flee in haste from Bergamo, where he was proceeding against Soranzo, after the discovery of a plot against his life. And in 1560 the Venetian government obtained the recall to Rome of Felice Peretti, then inquisitor of Venice.

In short, Venice was determined not to concede excessive authority to the inquisitors. A striking example of how the Venetian rulers approached heresy in a manner very different from the Roman Church and the Inquisition is provided by the organisation of executions in Venice. While the Holy See wanted the executions of heretics to be public and spectacular (as also the solemn abjurations of heretics, another cause of friction between Venice and Rome), in order to “educate” and strengthen the population in the Catholic faith through terror, following the same model as the Spanish auto-da-fé, and to provide the most explicit demonstration of the Republic’s submission to Rome, the Venetian government preferred the isolation of prisoners and the secret execution of heretics (who were usually drowned at night in the lagoon). This was both to avoid excessive publicity for heretics, conceived primarily as subversives of political and social order, and because heresy represented a “stain” upon the civic community which ought not to be too openly displayed. Thus the Milanese humanist Publio Francesco Spinola, a relapsed heretic, after long imprisonment, was drowned silently in the lagoon on the night of 31 January 1567, despite the insistence of the papal nuncio in Venice, Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti, that he be burned publicly. Also significant are the cases of three poor Conventual Franciscan friars who were not handed over to Rome but were prosecuted directly (and severely) by the Venetian government: Girolamo Galateo, Baldo Lupetino and Bartolomeo Fonzio. Galateo, whose case Paul IV still remembered vividly in October 1557, after alternating judicial events (an initial imprisonment followed by release and then a new definitive arrest, caused, according to Paul IV, by the fact that this friar, once liberated, “behaved worse than ever […] going into the shops of booksellers, apothecaries and shoemakers to sow his poison”), was left to die in the Venetian prisons in 1541. Lupetino, on the other hand, after a very long imprisonment, was drowned in the lagoon in August 1556, as prescribed by the “Venetian rite” against heretics. Bartolomeo Fonzio met the same fate: accused of heresy as early as 1530, he was drowned in the lagoon on 4 August 1562. To the same punishment, by decision of the Venetian rulers, were subjected the Anabaptists who fell into the net of the Venetian Inquisition: the icy waters of the Venetian lagoon silently swallowed, one after the other, Giulio Gherlandi (15 October 1562), Antonio Rizzetto (17 February 1565) and Francesco Della Sega (26 February 1565); very probably the same fate befell Gian Giorgio Patrizi of Cherso in 1570. In most of these cases the victims were subjects of the Serenissima of humble social origin, whom the Venetian government had no difficulty in punishing with maximum severity.

Another issue was constituted by requests for extradition of heretics from Venice to Rome. The Republic of Venice generally raised no great obstacles to handing over to the Holy Office those heretics present on its territory who were foreigners, provided they were not figures of some importance whose extradition might entail diplomatic incidents with other states (for example, the Florentine patrician Pietro Carnesecchi, then protected by Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, remained safe and tranquil in Venice while at Rome Paul IV had him tried in absentia). But the Republic decisively opposed surrendering its own subjects to Rome. The extradition to Rome was decreed by the Council of Ten on 13 March 1554 for the former Olivetan monk Lorenzo Tizzano alias Benedetto Florio, who nevertheless managed to escape arrest. In November 1555 the extradition was granted of the Frenchman Guillaume Postel and the Florentine Giuliano Nerini. In March 1556 it was the turn of Pomponio Algieri. But when Venetian subjects of some standing were accused of heresy, things became more complicated. The Venetian government protected Pier Paolo Vergerio, bishop of Capodistria, by not allowing in 1546 the nuncio to examine his papers and books, though in the end it yielded, ordering his arrest in 1549 and even his extradition (in vain, since Vergerio had already fled). Aurelio Vergerio, his nephew, was not handed over to Rome despite the vehement pressures of Paul IV; after abjuring and regaining freedom, he was tried again in 1581 and, though relapso, was spared. Regarding the patrician Giovanni Grimani, patriarch of Aquileia accused of heresy since 1546, the Venetian government repeatedly advocated his cardinalatial appointment. It then obtained in 1561 that his case be examined by a commission of the Council of Trent, which acquitted him of all charges. The heretical bishop of Bergamo Vittore Soranzo was also unhesitatingly defended by the Venetian government, which did not grant his extradition to Paul IV despite the latter’s vehement pressures.

The ecclesiastical policy of the Serenissima was marked by a strong spirit of independence from Rome. The Venetian politico-ecclesiastical tradition implied a certain tutelage of the ecclesiastical authorities by the political authorities. It was precisely on this spirit of independence from Rome that the hopes of those who entertained the idea of implanting the Reformation in the territory of the Serenissima were based. Political expediency was decisive in orienting the choices of the Venetian rulers unfavourably toward the Reformation. The defeat of Mühlberg weakened the front of the German princes, whom the Serenissima regarded as potential allies. The consequent participation, imposed by Charles V, of Protestant delegates in the second phase of the Council of Trent ended in outright failure. In the conclave of 1549–50 the candidacy to the papacy of Reginald Pole, leader of the “spirituali” (a group that, while formally remaining within the Roman Church, advocated a religiosity not far removed from Protestantism and was clearly oriented toward dialogue and confrontation with the reformers), had failed by a narrow margin. The progressive rise to the top of the Roman Church of the intransigent group led by Gian Pietro Carafa, head of the Holy Office from 1542 and then Pope Paul IV (1555–59), who significantly during his Venetian sojourn of 1527–36 had formed the general lines of the conduct to be adopted against heretics, closed every door to dialogue and inaugurated a policy of violent and organised repression of all forms of religious dissent. In a turbulent political context in which heresy moreover represented a danger to the stability of the state, the Venetian rulers collaborated in the ecclesiastical repression of heresy (as did the rulers of other Italian states), while attempting to control it and sometimes to contain it so as to safeguard the jurisdictional prerogatives of the state and to protect the honour of their patricians. This attitude was decisive in causing the defeat of the Protestant Reformation in the Republic of Venice.

Bibliography

• Luca Addante, Eretici e libertini nel Cinquecento italiano, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2010.
• Federica Ambrosini, Storie di patrizi e di eresia nella Venezia del ‘500, Franco Angeli, Milano 1999.
• Federica Ambrosini, L' eresia di Isabella. Vita di Isabella da Passano, signora della Frattina (1542-1601), Franco Angeli, Milano 2005.
• Gino Benzoni, Una città caricabile di valenze religiose in La Chiesa di Venezia tra Riforma protestante e Riforma cattolica, Venezia 1990, pp. 37-61.
• Gino Benzoni, Venezia nell’età della Controriforma, Mursia, Milano 1973.
• Romano Canosa, Storia dell'Inquisizione in Italia: dalla metà del Cinquecento alla fine del Settecento, vol. 2: Venezia, Sapere 2000, Roma 1987
• Delio Cantimori, Eretici italiani del Cinquecento in Eretici italiani del Cinquecento e altri scritti, edited by A. Prosperi, Einaudi, Torino 1992.
• Salvatore Caponetto, Bartolomeo Spadafora e la riforma protestante in Sicilia nel sec. XVI in « Rinascimento », 7, 1956, pp. 219-341.
• Salvatore Caponetto, La riforma protestante nell’Italia del Cinquecento, Torino 1997².
• Bartolomeo Cecchetti, La Republica di Venezia e la corte di Roma nei rapporti della religione, P. Naratovich, Venezia 1874: vol. 1 | vol. 2.
• Emilio Comba I nostri protestanti, vol. II, Durante la Riforma nel Veneto e nell'Istria, Claudiana, Firenze 1897 (cfr. anche la riedizione I nostri protestanti. Durante la Riforma nel Veneto e nell'Istria, edited by Vincenzo Vozza, Aracne, Roma 2017).
• Gaetano Cozzi, Il doge Nicolò Contarini. Ricerche sul patriziato veneziano all’inizio del Seicento, Venezia – Roma 1958 (nuova edizione in Id., Venezia barocca. Conflitti di uomini e idee nella crisi del Seicento veneziano, Venezia 1995, pp. 1-245).
• Gaetano Cozzi, I rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa in G. Gullino, La Chiesa di Venezia tra riforma protestante e riforma cattolica, Venezia 1990, pp. 11-36.
• Gaetano Cozzi Stato e Chiesa: un confronto secolare in Id. Venezia barocca. Conflitti di uomini e idee nella crisi del Seicento veneziano, Il Cardo, Venezia 1995, pp. 247-287.
• Benedetto Croce, Pomponio de Algerio in Id., Aneddoti di varia letteratura, vol. II, Bari 1953.
• Luigi De Biasio, L’eresia protestante in Friuli nella seconda metà del secolo XVI in “Memorie storiche forogiuliesi”, LII, 1972, p. 71-139.
• Giuseppe De Blasiis, Processo e supplizio di Pomponio de Algerio Nolano in “Archivio storico per le province napoletane”, XIII, 1888, p. 569-614.
• Carlo De Frede, Pomponio Algieri nella riforma religiosa del Cinquecento, Napoli 1972.
• Carlo De Frede, Una notizia postuma su Pomponio Algieri e i costituti del suo processo padovano in “Campania sacra”, XXV, 1994, p. 27-46.
• Andrea Del Col, Organizzazione, composizione e giurisdizione dei tribunali dell’Inquisizione romana nella repubblica di Venezia (1500-1550) in “Critica storica”, XXV, 1988, pp. 189-250.
• Andrea Del Col, L’Inquisizione romana e il potere politico nella repubblica di Venezia (1540-1560) in “Critica storica”, XXVIII, 1991, p. 189-250.
• Andrea Del Col, L’Inquisizione nel patriarcato e diocesi di Aquileia. 1557-1559, Trieste 1998.
• Andrea Del Col, L’Inquisizione in Italia. Dall’XI al XXI secolo, Mondadori, Milano 2006.
• Lucien Faggion, «Saint-Office, familles et conflits à Venise, le cas d'Alessandro Trissino (1540-1560 env.)», in G. Audisio (edited by), Inquisition et pouvoir, Publications de l'Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 2003, p. 119-130.
• Lucien Faggion, Une biographie revisitée. Humanisme, identité et altérité en Italie au XVIe siècle: Giangiorgio Trissino, in T. Picquet, L. Faggion, P. Gandoulphe (dir.), L’humanisme italien de la Renaissance et l’Europe, Publications de l'Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 2010, pp. 257-270.
• Massimo Firpo, Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento, Laterza, Roma–Bari 1993.
• Massimo Firpo, Vittore Soranzo vescovo ed eretico, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2006.
• Gigliola Fragnito, Gasparo Contarini: un magistrato veneziano al servizio della cristianità, Olschki, Firenze 1988.
• Carlo Ginzburg, I costituti di don Pietro Manelfi, Sansoni-The Newberry Library, Firenze-Chicago 1970.
• Paul F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1977 (trad. it.: L’Inquisizione romana e l’editoria a Venezia 1540-1605, Il Veltro, Roma 1983).
• Paul F. Grendler, The Tre Savi sopra eresia 1547-1605: a Prosopographical Study in “Studi Veneziani”, n.s., III, 1979, p. 283-340.
• Anne Jacobson Schutte, Pier Paolo Vergerio e la Riforma a Venezia 1498-1549, Il Veltro, Roma 1988.
• John J. Martin, Venice's hidden enemies: Italian heretics in a Renaissance city, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993.
• Gennaro Maria Monti, Ricerche su papa Paolo IV Carafa, Benevento 1925.
• Bernardino Ochino, I “dialogi sette” e altri scritti del tempo della fuga, edited by Ugo Rozzo, Claudiana, Torino 1985.
• Achille Olivieri, La riforma in Italia. Strutture e simboli, classi e poteri, Mursia, Milano 1979.
• Achille Olivieri, Riforma ed eresia a Vicenza nel Cinquecento, Herder, Roma 1992.
• Achille Olivieri, Fra collettività urbane e rurali e «colonie» mediterranee: L’eresia a Venezia in Storia della cultura veneta, vol. III (G. Arnaldi, M. Pastore Stocchi, dir.), Dal primo Quattrocento al concilio di Trento, t. 3°, Venezia 1980, p. 467–512.
• Achille Olivieri, Pietro Bolognesi (dir.), Pietro Martire Vermigli (1499-1562). Umanista, riformatore, pastore. Atti del convegno per il V centenario (Padova, 28-29 ottobre 1999), Herder, Roma 2003.
• Pio Paschini, Un umanista disgraziato nel Cinquecento: Publio Francesco Spinola in “Nuovo archivio veneto”, n.s., XXXVII, 1919, p. 65-189.
• Pio Paschini, San Gaetano Thiene, Gian Pietro Carafa e le origini dei chierici regolari teatini, Scuola Tip. Pio X, Roma 1926.
• Pio Paschini, Un vescovo disgraziato nel Cinquecento italiano: Vittore Soranzo in Tre ricerche sulla storia della Chiesa nel Cinquecento, Edizioni liturgiche, Roma 1945, p. 89-151.
• Pio Paschini, Venezia e l’Inquisizione romana da Giulio III a Pio IV, Antenore, Padova 1959.
• Paolo Prodi, Chiesa e società in in Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, vol. VI, Dal Rinascimento al Barocco, Roma 1994, pp. 305-339.
• Paolo Prodi, Una storia della giustizia, Il Mulino, Bologna 2000.
• Adriano Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza. Inquisitori, confessori, missionari, Einaudi, Torino 1996.
• Adriano Prosperi, L’eresia del Libro Grande. Storia di Giorgio Siculo e della sua setta, Feltrinelli, Milano 2000.
• Francesco Ruffini, Studi sui Riformatori italiani, edited by Arnaldo Bertola, Luigi Firpo, Edoardo Ruffini, Torino 1955.
• Daniele Santarelli, Paolo IV, la Repubblica di Venezia e la persecuzione degli eretici. I casi di Bartolomeo Spadafora, Alvise Priuli e Vittore Soranzo in “Studi Veneziani”, n.s., XLIX, 2005, pp. 311-378.
• Daniele Santarelli, Il papato di Paolo IV nella crisi politico-religiosa del Cinquecento le relazioni con la Repubblica di Venezia e l'atteggiamento nei confronti di Carlo V e Filippo II, Aracne editrice, Roma 2008.
• Daniele Santarelli (edited by), La nunziatura di Venezia negli anni del papato di Paolo IV: i dispacci di Filippo Archinto e Antonio Trivulzio (1555-1557), Aracne editrice, Roma 2010.
• Daniele Santarelli (edited by), La corrispondenza di Bernardo Navagero, ambasciatore veneziano a Roma (1555-1558). Dispacci al Senato, 8 novembre 1557-19 marzo 1558. Dispacci ai Capi dei Dieci, 4 ottobre 1555-13 marzo 1558, Aracne editrice, Roma 2011.
• Daniele Santarelli (edited by), La corrispondenza di Bernardo Navagero, ambasciatore veneziano a Roma (1555-1558). Dispacci al Senato, 7 settembre 1555 – 6 novembre 1557, Aracne editrice, Roma 2011.
• Silvana Seidel Menchi, Protestantesimo a Venezia in Giuseppe Gullino (edited by), La Chiesa di Venezia tra Riforma protestante e Riforma cattolica, Venezia 1990, pp. 131-154.
• Giovanni Sforza, Riflessi della Controriforma nella Repubblica di Venezia in “Archivio storico italiano”, XCIII, 1935, vol. 1°, p. 5-34, 189-216, vol. 2°, p. 25-52, 173-186.
• Aldo Stella, Il processo veneziano di Guglielmo Postel in “Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia”, XXII, 1968, p. 425-41.
• Aldo Stella, Dall’anabattismo al socinianesimo nel Cinquecento veneto, Liviana, Padova 1967.
• Aldo Stella, Anabattismo e antitrinitarismo in Italia nel XVI secolo, Liviana, Padova 1969.
• Aldo Stella, La riforma protestante in Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, vol. VI, Dal Rinascimento al Barocco, Roma 1994, pp. 341-363.
• Aldo Stella, Dall’anabattismo veneto al “Sozialevangelismus” dei fratelli hutteriti e all’illuminismo religioso sociniano, Herder, Roma 1996.
• Lorenzo Tacchella, Il processo agli eretici veronesi nel 1550. Ignazio di Loyola e Luigi Lippomano (carteggio), Morcelliana, Brescia 1979.
• Juan de Valdés, Alfabeto cristiano, edited by M. Firpo, Einaudi, Torino 1994.
• Pier Paolo Vergerio, Scritti capodistriani e del primo anno dell’esilio (edited by Silvano Cavazza e Ugo Rozzo), vol. II, Il catalogo de’ libri (1549), edited by Ugo Rozzo, Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Venezia Giulia, Trieste, 2010.
• Vincenzo Vozza, Eresia e Riforma protestante a Padova nel Cinquecento, in "Quaderni eretici", 1, 2013, pp. 5-40.
• Ester Zille, Gli eretici a Cittadella nel Cinquecento, Rebellato, Cittadella 1971.

Related entries

• Anabattismo veneto
• Inquisizione romana

et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos
invidia inter dum contemptim in Tartara taetra
invidia quoniam ceu fulmine summa vaporant
plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque
[Lucretius, "De rerum natura", lib. V]