A GLA
E ITALIAN INQUISITIO
HBHi
A GLANCE
ITALIAN INQUISITION.
A SKETCH OF
PIETRO CARNESECCHI
HIS TRIAL BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
PAPAL INQUISITION AT ROME, AND HIS
MARTYRDOM IN 1566.
V
Translated from the German of La ~ field ! : ."
JOHN T. B E T T S.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
56 PATERNOSTER Row, AND 65 ST. PAUL S CHURCHYARD.
1885.
However seldom the Tribunal of the Roman Inquisition
has been induced to reveal its secrets to anyone, however
powerful he might be, and even then but restrictedly, never
theless, there are instances of processes having been sent to
Foreign Courts. Paul IV., most jealous of those secrets,
when he sent his nephew, Cardinal Caraffa, to Philip of Spain,
sent with him in his suite Girolamo of Nichisola, a Dominican
monk, fully informed of the process instituted by that Pontiff
against Cardinal Pole, and gave orders that a copy of that
process should be handed to them in order that the Cardinal
should show it to the King and to his ministers, a thing quite
unusual with the venerated decrees of the Holy Office, but so
decreed by the Pope that it should be seen that he did not proceed
against that personage under passionate impulse.
1 These words in Italics are found in Bartholomeo Carrara s
Life of Pope Paid IV. Carrara is styled by Padre Lagomarsini
cntditus ac diligens, hisforicus, in a note on page 26 of Vol. I.
delle Lettere Poggiane. See Preface to the Extract from the
Record of the Proceedings against Pietro Carnesecchi,
addressed by Count Manzoni di Lugo to the Reale Depu-
tazione di Storia Patria Italiana.
PREFACE.
THIS little book was published in Germany as one of
the many contributions to the literature of the Luther
Commemoration of 1883. It deals with the life of a
man little known in England, but one who deserves to
be held in honoured remembrance by all Protestants.
His life is all the more interesting because of his ac
quaintance with Juan de Valdes and the circle he collected
at Naples. The Romish Church condemned these men
and women seeking after the true light as heretics, and
judged them worthy only of death ; but in so doing has
enabled us to see the true spirit of Roman Catholicism
at the time when it was beginning to lose its absolute
sway over Europe. The articles of condemnation in
Carnesecchi s case, the statements of belief for which he
died, are in almost every instance simple statements of
Evangelical truth. The Papacy in condemning him
wrote its own condemnation, and made it evident that
the high official who claimed to be Christ s Vicar-
General on earth was in reality Antichrist himself, alien
in thought, in life, and spirit from the Master he professed
to serve.
6 PREFACE.
Pietro Carnesccchi was an earnest seeker after the
truth. He was the friend and the associate of the
most brilliant and the best men and women of his time.
He sealed his testimony with his blood, and he died
rather than deny the great doctrine of justification
by faith. He is a mirror in which we may see what
was best in Italian life and thought in the sixteenth
century, and in which we may also sec what a cruel,
pitiless, wholly unchristian system the Italian Inquisi
tion was.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
INTRODUCTORY . . . . -9
CHAPTER II.
CARNESECCHI S YOUTH AND EARLY LIFE AT ROME l6
CHAPTER III.
INFLUENCE OF JUAN DE VALDE\S . . -S
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN FLORENCE, VENICE, AND PARIS . . 40
CHAPTER V.
ACCESSION OF PAUL IV. . . . -51
CHAPTER VI.
PERSECUTION UNDER PAUL IV. .. . 58
CHAPTER VII.
REVERSAL OF THE FIRST SENTENCE . . 6/
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FINAL TRIAL, ARTICLES OF CONDEMNATION,
THE SENTENCE, AND MARTYRDOM OF CARNE-
SECCHI . . . . . .76
A GLANCE
ITALIAN INQUISITION.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
A HISTORY of the Spanish Inquisition was writterb
in the year 1817 by the Spaniard, Don Juan
Antonio Llorente. First as advocate, then as.
priest, he attained high position in both careers.
He occupied himself in clearing up what had
transpired in the preceding century, and his task,
one imposed by the French Government, then
dominant, was a commission to investigate the
archives of the Inquisition. When Joseph Bona
parte lost paramount rule in Spain, and after the
restoration of Ferdinand VII., bringing in as it
did absolute government, the Spanish Inquisition
was again re-established, and Llorente incurred,
as did other Liberals, sentence of exile. He went
to Paris, where, filled with deadly enmity to the
Papacy, he wrote the book which, by the publica
tion of important documents, became of permanent
interest for the attainment of the knowledge of
io PIETRO CARNESECCHL
this, the darkest page in the history of religious
fanaticism. Would that some one might some
day be able to write the history of the Roman
Inquisition ! There was a time when opportunity
presented itself for doing so. The great central-
iser, Napoleon I., purposed erecting at Paris a
central depot for the archives of Europe ; and
toward the close of the year 1809, innumerable
wagons carried the records and archives of the
oo
German Empire and of other countries to Paris.
Even Rome was compelled to reveal her secrets,
and from the 27th February, 1810, up to the year
1813, the most secret and the most carefully pre
served correspondence, trials, documents, manu
scripts, &c., passed from Papal control, beyond the
Alps. From the archives of the Vatican there
went no less than 45,818 volumes, contained in
3,239 cases, weighing 408,459 kilogrammes. 1
Until the restoration of the Bourbons this
immense collection remained in Paris, but science
profited little thereby, for access to the col
lection was prohibited.
Protected by Prussian Grenadiers, and after the
fall of the Usurper, the pictures which had been
stolen from Florence, and pre-eminently the Vision
of Ezekiel, that jewel of Raphael s most brilliant
1 According to Benrath, Upon the Romish Archives in Trinity
College Library, Dublin, contained in Von Sybel s Historic
Periodical, 1879, p. 254.
INTRODUCTOR Y. \ i
period, were taken down from the walls of the
Louvre, and carried back in triumph. 1 Thus the
victory of the Allies brought about likewise the
restoration of the Romish archives to the Curia.
By the month of July, 1817, Louis XVIII. had
again delivered up to Pius VII. the invaluable
sources of secret Papal history.
In the meanwhile, however, all had not been
restored. After the Curia itself, by repeated
reclamations, had obtained further deliveries, in the
year 1846 Papal documents suddenly turned up
in Paris, which were offered by a private indi
vidual for sale to the British Museum ; but the
price he fixed upon them was held to be too high.
However, the late Duke of Manchester bought
them for ^600, and then brought them to London ;
subsequently he took them over to Ireland. There
they were investigated by a clergyman of the Irish
Established Church, the Rev. Richard Gibbings,
who three times consecutively, in 1852, 1853,
and 1856, astonished the world with publications
from the original MSS. of the Roman Inquisi
tion, which in themselves undoubtedly bore the
stamp of authenticity.
The first intimation given by Mr. Gibbings as to
the source whence his orio-inals came was in the
c>
third publication, entitled: Report of the Trial and
1 Alfred Von Reumont, Contributions to Italian History,
1853. Vol. ii., p. 282.
12 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
Martyrdom of Pietro Carnesecchi, sometime Secre
tary to Pope Clement VIL, and Apostolic Proto-
notary. Transcribed from the original MS. The
Duke of Manchester determined to dispose of
the records, and he sold them for ^500 to the
Rev. Richard Gibbings, D.D. an outlay which
possibly trenched upon the latter s means. They
were again offered for sale to the authorities of
Trinity College, but were finally purchased by
the Vice-Provost, Dr. Wall, and by him presented
to Trinity College Library, Dublin.
A German scholar, Professor Karl Benrath, of
Bonn, who had occupied himself for years with
the history of the Italian Reformation, found these
valuable records to be, in the year 1876, in a per
fectly disordered state, and by way of recognition
of the friendly reception given him by the Libra
rian, he put the fifty-seven bound volumes and the
twelve unbound ones into classified order. Four
teen of the comprehensive volumes of the collection
contain original Records of the Romish Inquisition^
comprising as they do the final judgments of the
Inquisition in the trials of Italian heretics, which
were given between the i6th December, 1564,
and the year 1659, with, however, some intervals.
The above-mentioned publication by Gibbings
upon Carnesecchi is an instance of a final judgment
extracted by the publisher of these documents, in
relation to which Professor Benrath judiciously
INTROD UC TOR Y. 1 3
presumed that they are the remains of Papal
Records left in Paris in the year 1817.
It would, indeed, be impracticable to write a
continuous history of the Romish Inquisition,
taking it from these Dublin Records. In the
o
meanwhile, however, they comprise extremely
important materials, throwing a clear light upon
the reaction to the Reformation, just when it was
in its fullest activity. It is possible that other
important material may come to hand as in this
instance, which was not only a record of some
twenty printed pages, as described by Mr. Gibbings,
in the final judgment of Carnesecchi s process
but is also a detailed extract of the whole conduct
of the trial.
Count Giacomo Manzoni of Lugo had the good
fortune, in the year 1860, to be able to purchase a
great portion of the archives of the Dandini family
through the bookseller, Guidi, of Bologna. The
Dandini family was one whence issued several
distinguished prelates, even during the time of the
Reformation. This collection likewise contained
important documents upon the Reformation move
ment in Italy during the sixteenth century, and
upon the most distinguished persons engaged in
it Flaminio, Cardinal Pole, Donato Rullo, Luigi
Priuli, Vittoria Colonna, Cardinal Morone, and
others. Manzoni, in order to show what may be
expected from these archives for learning and the
14 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
Church, has given a specimen, selected from his
rich store, of a process, which he printed at Turin
in 1870, in a volume which appeared in the Mis
cellanea of patriotic Italian history. This process
was entitled, Extract of Pietro Carnesecchi s Trial,
which will, in many respects, be probably found
to be the most interesting and the most instructive
of all the Records of the Inquisition!
Manzoni presumes that his documents are the
contemporary copy of an extract from the papers
of that trial, which the Romish Court itself sent by
the hand of its Nuncio at Paris, Cardinal Girolamo
Dandini, to Oueen Catherine de Medici, she beino-
/ *- O
Queen of France, and Carnesecchi s patroness.
Carnesecchi himself spent several years in Paris,
subsequently to the year 1547. Catherine retained
her friendly feeling for her nephew Cosimo s
favourite ; Cosimo bein^ Duke of Florence.
/ *^>
This process brings before us the proceedings
of the tribunal of the Inquisition in the most
definite and clear manner. We shall in the follow
ing pages have an opportunity of witnessing the
tactics of the Inquisitors in detail. But the record
assumes great importance, for Carnesecchi by no
means belonged to the most radical representatives
of Reformation principles, but strove throughout to
retain his connection with the Romish Church.
The thirty-four articles of accusation, upon which
sentence of death was passed on the former Papal
INT ROD UCTOR V. 15
Protonotary, are partly composed of the simplest
Christian axioms, embodied in quotations from the
Scriptures. They nowhere express extreme views,
such as those of which certain anti-Catholic Italians
of that period made themselves the representatives.
Were we to remember how little of unadulterated
Bible truth the Papal Church can tolerate, we
should then feel thankful that our Evangelical
o
Confession has reached its present position of
influence, and there is nothing more calculated to
make us do so than the contemplation of the
eventful fate of a man like Carnesecchi. In our
statement we shall often need to let the Romish
Church but speak officially, and we shall then be
furnished with the keenest weapon of Protestant
polemics. Roma locuta est, Rome has spoken.
She has done so here, and has spoken her own
condemnation. It were idle and injurious for us
to add anything thereto.
Now let us learn to know Carnesecchi more
intimately.
CHAPTER II.
CARNESECCHl s YOUTH AND EARLY LIFE AT ROME.
DANTE S native city, where scholars and artists
congregated under the intellectual guidance of the
Medici, was the place where Pietro Carnesecchi
was born. His ancestors had long occupied an
honourable position among the leading families
of the Florentine Republic. Carlo Carnesecchi
was one of the three distinguished citizens
whose deaths the inflexible Dominican, Girolamo
Savonarola, foretold, in the month of April, 1492,
he being then in the vestry of St. Mark s ;
together with their deaths he foretold those of
Lorenzo the Magnificent, of Pope Innocent VIII.,
and of the King of Naples. 1 One Pier Antonio
Carnesecchi figures in the year 1507 as Govern
ment Commissary to the Republic, acting in the
district of the Maremma ; and the terms of auto
graph letters addressed to him by Macchiavelli,
upon the part of the Florentine Council of Ten,
witness the confidence which the Florentines
attached to Pier Antonio s foresight and sagacity. 2
1 Pasquale Villari, On Girolamo Savonarola, translated into
German by Von Berduschek. Leipzig, 1868. I.S. in.
- Pasq. Villari. On Niccolo Macchiavelli. Florence, 1877. Vol. i.,
pp. 49 2 > 6l 7> 621.
EARL Y LIFE A T ROME. 1 7
The details connected with Pietro s birth are
unknown, but it must have been in the first decade
of the sixteenth century that he first saw the light,
for Camerarius, Melancthon s friend, in his eulogy of
Carnesecchi reports, We know nothing definitely
as to his age, nevertheless at his death, which was
on the 3rd of October, 1567, he cannot have been
less than 58 years of age.
That Pietro had the advantage of a careful
education, and that, living amidst the newly
awakened classical studies, no branch of classical
development was alien to him, is to be presumed
from the importance of the Carnesecchi family
and from his own position in Florence, in addition
to the evidence furnished by his posthumous letters
and papers. Amongst his masters, Francisco
Robertello is mentioned, who taught Greek and
Greek literature in several Italian cities, his
teaching of that then recently revived language
having been successful ; whilst it is reported that
the pupil still a youth outstripped his master
in facility of expression, both in eloquence and in
composition.
Pietro as a youth was most intimate with the
Medici family. The Carnesecchis attached them
selves to the fortunes of the Medici, both pros
perous and adverse. They did so in 1494, when
the Medici were for the first time expelled ; they
did so in 1512, after a successful counter-revolution
B
1 8 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
in Florence, which issued in their recall. The lad
was Catherine s playfellow, she being of the elder
branch of the family, as he also was of Cosimo,
who subsequently figured in the Grand-Ducal line.
Catherine and Cosimo were both born in the
year 1519. No one of the three ever dreamt that
Carnesecchi, the friend, would be disgracefully
betrayed by Cosimo, and that Catherine would
be instrumental in the instruction of posterity
as to the incidents connected with Carnesecchi s
fate.
Another and somewhat elder member of the
Medici family who assisted Pietro, by becoming
his patron, was Giuliano, the illegitimate son of
Giulio, the younger brother of Lorenzo the Magni
ficent. He became a Churchman, and was made
a Cardinal by his cousin, Pope Leo X., after whose
death, in 1521, he became a candidate for Peter s
chair, a position which he actually attained on
the igth November, 1523, assuming the title of
Clement VII.
Pietro Carnesecchi likewise took orders whilst in
Florence. In the final judgment of his process he
is styled a Florentine clergyman. Whilst but a
youth we cannot accurately indicate the year
his friend Clement VII., elevated to the highest
tj
dignity in Christendom, summoned him to his
Court at Rome. The most honourable reception
awaited him there. Such men as Cardinal Bembo,
EARL Y LIFE A T ROME, 19
the last representative of a period of civilization
then fast fading away, the creator of the Italian
Grammar and the unrivalled master of Latin com-
o
position ; as Cardinal Sadoleto, who combined
Bembo s erudition with the piety of a really prin
cely prelate ; as the poet Marc Antonio Flaminio ;
as Antonio Brucioli, the then recent tran
slator of the Bible into Italian, who, like Carne-
secchi, was by birth a Florentine ; with other men
distinguished by intellect and by position, at whose
head was Caspar Contarini, the Venetian, then a
layman and ambassador, representing his Republic
at the Papal Court, and, like the majority of those
who were called Members of the Oratory of
Divine Love/ was one of the union of clergymen
and laymen, who met even in the days of Adrian
VI., to promote the inward renovation and
animation of the Church all these came to meet
the handsome and intelligent young Florentine,
whose moral purity and exalted spirit were written
upon his brow, with benevolent, friendly, and
respectful feelings. Sadoleto praised him as a
young man distinguished by good qualities and
brilliant talents, Bembo spoke of him in terms of
the highest respect and affection, and Benvenuto
Cellini, the Florentine goldsmith, thanked him for
his intercession, whereby he re-acquired Papal
grace. 1
1 Goethe s Works, Vol. xxviii. Bk. ii., Cap. 2.
20 P1ETRO CARNESECCHI.
Clement VII. heaped proofs of his supreme
good- will upon his favourite. He made him his
secretary, he honoured him with the title of Papal
Protonotary, he presented to him two Abbeys
with all their revenues, one being in France, the
other in the kingdom of Naples, at Eboli, near
Salerno, and he granted to his intelligent counsellor
in the many storms which he encountered during
his rule over the States of the Church, many
of them being directed against his own person,
such widespread influence that it was commonly
reported that the Church was more controlled by
Carnesecchi than by Clement. In his indictment
it was expressly alleged against Carnesecchi, that
although he was brought up at this Court of
Rome, and had been most liberally endowed with
dignities, ecclesiastical benefices and revenues, that
nevertheless, despising the authority of the Holy
Roman and Apostolic Church, he had fallen into
divers heresies.
Notwithstanding his youth, and his being so
manifestly favoured, he nevertheless succeeded,
amidst the innumerable intrigues prompted by
hatred and envy, to preserve himself uninjured
and unprejudiced ; nay, he, by modesty and intelli
gent consideration, acquired the general affection
of both high and low, and this was not withdrawn
o
from him even after the death of his patron, which
occurred on the 26th September, 1534.
EARL Y LIFE A T ROME. 2 1
Whilst Clement filled the Papal Chair, Car-
nesecchi formed the personal acquaintance of those
individuals whose mental influence subsequently
gave the decisive tone to his life.
Throughout the Lent of the year 1534, there
was a Capuchin monk, Fra Bernardino Ochino
of Sienna, who preached the Lent sermons in
Rome, in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso.
He had recently left a less austere Franciscan
Order of the Observants to join this the most
austere, and therefore that which, upon the part
of ecclesiastical superiors, was the least approved
branch of the congregation. Carnesecchi heard
him preach, he learned to know him personally, and
he visited him twice or thrice. The troubles which
befell the Capuchin Order, and with it Ochino, just
as that Order attained the sixth year of its existence,
doubtless affected Carnesecchi greatly. The more
lax Franciscans won over certain cardinals to their
side, in order to bring about, by Papal decree, the
dissolution of this new division of the Order.
Drawn by this threatened danger, all the Capuchins,
who then numbered but one hundred and twenty-
five, were assembled at Rome. At first, by
Clement s decree of April 25th, they were only
expelled the city ; but all the lower classes in
Rome took part with them, and made demonstra
tions on their behalf.
Two noble women, who from the beginning of
22 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
the foundation of the Capuchin Order had joyfully
hailed it as a protest against the worldliness of
the cloister, combined their influence with the
movement. Caterina Cibo, the Dowager Duchess
of Camerino, the Pope s niece, who to her death
was a warm friend of Ochino, was one of them,
whilst the other was the celebrated Vittoria
Colonna, the widow of Ferrante Pescara, she
being at that time at Marino on a visit to her
relatives, the Colonna family. These gentlewomen
hurried to Rome, and so wrought upon the Pope
that he withdrew his decree of expulsion. Shortly
after that Clement died. Vittoria remained in
Rome, and there Carnesecchi, introduced by
Vittoria s friend, Cardinal Palmieri, made her ac
quaintance, and kissed her hand for the first time.
In 1531, at Rome, Carnesecchi learnt to know
the Spanish nobleman Juan de Valdes, the spiritual
founder, and subsequently the centre of the Refor
mation movement in South Italy, but at that time
he knew him only as a noble knight by grace of
the Emperor, not having a notion that Valdes
had that nobler knighthood which is by the grace
of Christ. Carnesecchi was an able statesman,
and patronised classical scholarship ; he was a
conscientious official, and performed all the obliga
tions of his office ; a pious man, discharging as
a Catholic all his ecclesiastical duties but the
decisive vital question, how man is to stand
EARL Y LIFE A T ROME. 23
justified before God ? had never as yet presented
itself to him as a vital one, and hence his ear
had never been roused to hear the answer,
which in relation to this question had been given
loudly enough in other countries.
Shortly after the death of Clement VII.,
Carnesecchi left Rome and wended his way home
to Florence. Here he was once more brought into
contact with Ochino. This was in 1536 or 1537.
Ochino, the most powerful pulpit orator in Italy
since the days of Savonarola, was himself, however,
still entangled in Roman Catholic doctrines. He
was principally indebted for his extraordinary
success to the personal sincerity of his testimony,
to that sympathy and love for his hearers which
found expression in his sermons ; whilst his absolute
avoidance of scholastic disputations, which then .
absorbed very much of pulpit oratory, formed that
element in his success which was by no means the
least important.
It was Valdes influence that first brought Ochino
to the clear knowledge of the way of salvation.
Ochino s testimony, however, was already a signi
ficant advance, of which many gratefully availed
themselves. Assembled around his pulpit in
Florence as hearers were Carnesecchi, the Duchess
of Camerino, Caterina Cibo, Giberto, Bishop of
Verona, Caraffa, Bishop of Chieti, afterwards
Paul IV., and one who lived under the same roof
24 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
as Carnesecchi the Englishman, Reginald Pole,
who had just received the Cardinal s hat, or was
just about receiving it from the Pope as a recom
pense for his emphatic defence of the rights of
the Papal throne, as opposed to the ecclesiastical
caprices of Henry VIII. His nomination bears
elate 22nd December, 1536.
CHAPTER III.
THE INFLUENCE OF JUAN VALDES AT NAPLES.
IN the summer of 1538, Carnesecchi was at the
baths of Lucca, in company with Vittoria Colonna
and Cardinal Pole. In 1540 he took a journey
which led to his soul s turning-point. He went to
Naples, probably for the purpose of being nearer
to his abbey at Eboli, with a view, when necessary,
to control matters there.
Juan de Vald^s had several years previously
settled in Naples, being a member of the Viceroy s,
Don Pedro de Toledo s, suite, but not his secretary.
Valdes must have been in every respect a distin
guished personage. He was the twin brother of
that Alfonso de Valdes who went with Charles V.,
as his Imperial Secretary, to the Diet at Augsburg;
there he had varied relations with Melancthon, and
translated the Augsburg Confession into Spanish
for the Emperor and his Spaniards. His friend
Erasmus of Rotterdam, who died in July, 1534,
survived Alfonso, who died in the autumn of 1532.
His brother Juan was likewise upon intimate terms
with Erasmus.
Juan penetrated much deeper into the mysteries
of the Holy Scriptures than did Alfonso, and
26 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
especially into the Pauline doctrine of the justifi
cation of the sinner by faith. In Naples he
occupied himself with philology, he studied the
writings of the German Reformers, but more than
them, the source of truth, the Bible itself. In it
he lived and moved and had his beino- and in
o
intercourse with the magnates of the Viceregal
Court he managed by a quiet testimony to
exert a religious influence which worked with
irresistible enchantment. A contemporary styled
him a missionary to the aristocracy.
That which absorbed him most was the trans
lation and exposition of Holy Scripture. He trans
lated the Psalms from the Hebrew, and all Paul s
Epistles, with the exception of that to the Hebrews,
from the Greek. Carnesecchi, however, never
heard Valdds express a doubt as to who penned
that Epistle ; such was his testimony in one of
his later examinations. Valdes wrote profound
expositions upon all his translations.
His personal address, however, was most
effective ; his discourses, whether delivered in
Naples or in the neighbouring island of Ischia
which then had been committed by King Federigo
of Naples to the family of Vittoria Colonna s
husband, as Governors or Castellanes were
always delivered in the presence of the most dis
tinguished, the most pious, and the most learned
inhabitants of Naples. There was the foundation
INFLUENCE OF JUAN VALDES. 27
laid for the practical Christian treatises of which
many are only known to us by their titles.
Here the CX. Divine Considerations may have
been written, of which the Spanish original has
been lost, except thirty-nine of them, recently dis
covered in the Emperor Maximilian s papers in
the Aulic Library at Vienna. An Italian edition
of them was printed at Basle in the year 1 550, and
they were republished by Dr. Edward Boehmer
in the year 1860.
Those who took part in these edifying con
ferences could, after Valdes death, but look back
upon them with regret. Would to God/ said
Bonfadio one who had attended them in a letter
to Carnesecchi, that we could once more assemble
in Naples as we formerly did, although I, indeed,
never dare cherish the wish, now that Valdes is
dead. This has truly been a great loss to us, as it
has been to all the world, for Valdes was one of
the rare men of Europe, as those writings which
he has left behind him testify. He was, without
doubt, in his actions, in his speech, and in all his
conduct a perfect man. With but a particle of his
soul he governed his frail and spare body ; but
with the noblest part of him, with his pure under
standing, as though out of the body, he was always
absorbed in the contemplation of truth.
And what names the men bore whom we find
gathered around Valdes ! Marc Antonio Flaminio,
28 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
Carnesecchi s friend, the gentle-spirited poet, who
spent two years at Naples for the recovery of his
health, living at his villa near Caserta, who devoted
himself to Valdes, as did his friends who gathered
there around him. Flaminio stands a repre
sentative of the thousands in Italy who, at that
time, could not resolve to break with the Papal
Church, notwithstanding that they were convinced
of the truth of Evanq-elical doctrine. There was
<j
that richly-endowed and distinguished youth,
Galeazzo Caracciolo, who subsequently, for his
faith s sake, severed himself from his wife and
children, and fled to Switzerland, having been
O
moved to do so by the testimonies given in this
blessed circle. Aonio Paleario, who for a long
time was looked upon as the author of that little
book which figured in every heretical process in
Italy, entitled The Benefit of Christ, here strength
ened his faith. Peter Martyr Vermiglio, the
Florentine, who from 1530 was the Abbot of the
Augustines in the Monastery of St. Peter ad Aram
in Naptes, here learned of Valdes the right inter
pretation of the Pauline Epistles.
Ochino, already in 1536 in Naples, and after
1539 as General of his Order, was upon the most
intimate terms with the pious Spaniard, and owed
to Valdes much of the marvellous influence which
he exerted in all that he did. He frequently, as
Carnesecchi reports in his examination, received
INFLUENCE OF JUAN VALDES. 29.
from Valdes, in a note written on the previous
evening, the theme upon which he was to preach
his sermon on the ensuing morningr
o o
And what a bevy of noble women were they
who illuminated this assembly of distinguished
spirits! one of whom showed Carnesecchi the way
to life eternal. We first mention Vittoria Colonna,
of whom we have spoken, as having fixed her resi
dence in Ischia, where she, about this time, passed
some years, living in the castle with her sister-
in-law, the Duchess of Francavilla. Still crushed
under bereavement in the loss of her husband,
whom she loved passionately, and whom she in her
poems frequently styles the sun of her life/ she
first found a firm stay and permanent consolation
in the proclamation of mercy, of which she first
heard in Valdes circle :
Now is the Lord, who wisely has combined
Two natures in one body, become
My Sun and my God. I shall drink
From the fountain, that true Helicon
For healing all my wounds.
Thus does she sing, and thus does she confess,
in the spirit of Valdes :
Lord, wrapped in the mantle of Thy grace,
Do I bewail my guilt, and, disburdened of all works,
The sacred shield of faith alone protects me.
Associated with Vittoria was Donna Isabella
Brisegna ; she was the sister of the Cardinal and
30 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
Supreme Inquisitor for Spain, Alfonso Manriquez
de Lara. Isabella, when the storm broke forth in
Italy against the Evangelicals, fled to Switzerland,
and settled at Chiavenna, in the Orisons, where
she lived modestly and quietly, confessing Christ,
pensioned by Giulia Gonzaga with a hundred
dollars a year.
From the intimations furnished in Carnesecchi s
process, we learn that this tribute of love was
faithfully and regularly paid by Giulia, a near
relative of Vittoria s, who, like herself, was only
saved by death from the persecutions of the Inqui
sition. Donna Giulia Gonzaga, the Duchess of
Trajetto, was the widow of Vespasian Colonna,
Vittoria s cousin. She was held to be the most
beautiful woman in Italy, and even after retirement,
in the profoundest seclusion of widowhood, and
when living in the castle over her own town of
Fondi, in the year 1534, the Sultan Soliman
attempted to lay hands on her. His corsairs, led
on by Chaireddin Barbarossa, assailed Fondi, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that the terrified
Duchess hurriedly escaped. Litigation with her
husband s family constrained her to live at Naples,
whilst her tender susceptible heart had been
agonized by other painful experiences ; and it was
under such emotions that she first joined the
Valdes circle.
An awe-inspiring sermon of Ochino s, preached
INFLUENCE OF JUAN VALDES. 31
during Lent of 1536, stripped her of her last shred
of trust in her own good works and in her
personal holiness a trust which had been but a
tottering one previously. On her way home from
the sermon, she, having previously placed her
confidence in V aides, now poured forth to him her
burdened heart ; and he, like a wise lay-pastor,
took this disturbed spirit in charge. He stayed
with her until the night was far advanced, and
directed her with all due earnestness to the Lord,
to seek His grace, going on from repentance to
faith. Giulia entreated him to reduce this night s
conversation into writing ; and we still possess it,
as it appeared in Venice, in Italian, in 1546. It
enables us to appreciate the soul-nursing wisdom
of the man, whilst the name which he modestly
assigned it was The Christian Alphabet; that
which but teaches the elements of Christian per
fection, which, when they have been appropriated,
the book is to be laid aside, in order that the
mind may be raised to higher considerations.
The alarm which Ochino s sermon wrought in
Giulia, represents the terrors which the demands
of the law impose upon the conscience. These
are not to be allayed by any vows or cloistral
works (Giulia was lodged in the Franciscan Con
vent). Faith is indispensable. Clearing this up,
he added, When I say faith, I do not thereby
mean the faith which believes in the history of
32 PIETRO CARA ESECCHI.
Christ ; for that can, and does, exist without love ;
whence St. James calls it " dead faith ; " for false
Christians and the devils in hell possess that ; but
when I speak of faith, I mean that which lives in
the soul, not attained by human exertion and tact,
but by means of the grace of God, by supernatural
light, a faith which embraces all God s Word, His
threats no less than His promises ; so that he, when
he hears that Christ said : " He who believes and
is baptized shall be saved ; but that he who does
not believe shall be damned ; " his faith in these
words, which he fully holds, inspires such confi
dence, that he has not the slightest doubt about
his salvation.
When Giulia thereupon replied that no man
should outdo her in faith, he exhorted her to self-
knowledge. l For, said he, should some one
ask you whether you believe in the Creed, in every
article of it, the one as much as the other, you say
you do. But if, when in the act of confession
you be suddenly asked whether you believe that
God has forgiven you your sins, you will reply,
that you think so, but that you are not
sure. Now know that this uncertainty is due to
want of faith. Now accept Christ s words fully
which He said to the Apostles, " What ever you
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
all that you shall loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven ; " and if you thoroughly believe what
INFLUENCE OF JuN VALDES. 33
you confess in the Creed, when you say, (f I believe
in the forgiveness of sins," you will, whilst you feel
pained in the soul that you should have insulted
God, be able unhesitatingly to say that God has
forgiven you all your sins.
These are utterances worthy of Luther, and
they penetrated Giulia s soul with vivifying power.
The Duchess associated herself most thankfully
with V aides, and there was no member of his
circle who understood him as she did. He
dedicated his translations and expositions of the
Psalms, of the Epistle to the Romans, and of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians, to her.
Into this society, absorbed as it was in subjects
of the most vital interest, did Carnesecchi enter,
when he emigrated to Naples in the year 1540.
The majority of them were already personally
known to him. His friend Flaminio was the first
to suggest doubts as to the truth of all the doc
trines taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and
Carnesecchi suggested others, whilst such doubts
were, in this circle, bandied to and fro. A passage
quoted from St. Augustine upon the Psalms,
where it was questioned whether there was a third
place besides heaven and hell, led Carnesecchi to
doubt as to Purgatory ; in relation to oral confes
sion, his friend maintained that no passage
could be found in the Bible which ratified its
Divine institution. It was Flaminio likewise who,
c
34 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
after he had written the last sentence of his
revision, which he made in Naples, of the golden
book, written by the Benedictine monk, Don
Benedetto da Mantova, entitled, The Benefit of
Christ, gave it to Carnesecchi to read, who was
so delighted with it that he sent transcribed
copies of it to several of his friends.
Giulia Gonzaga, Carnesecchi s high-spirited friend,
assisted him to apprehend Valdes. She was the
star of his life, even though Carnesecchi s innumer
able letters to her, which the Inquisition afterwards
laid hands on, offered his judges the most ample
material whereupon to condemn him as a heretic.
For years they used cypher, when mentioning
either friends or enemies ; thus, oo means Giulia ;
55, Isabella Brisegna; 5, Carafa ; 68, Valdes.
Donna Giulia was ever to him a blessing from
God. She helped him even during his youth,
directing his future life by line and by rule, so that
he avoided the rocks encountered by youth. Then
she brought him to know Valdes as he without her
never could have dene, since he previously had
known Valdes, without ever learning what that
imported. Or, as he expresses himself in a
letter of the 2Qth April, 1559 : God has certainly
employed her in order to bring me into the
kingdom of God, for as soon as she had accepted
Valdes teaching she led me to adopt it. And
somewhat later : Donna Giulia has by her example
INFLUENCE OF JUA\ 7 VALDES. 35
kept me back from much that was forbidden and
dishonourable, whilst she has especially delivered
me from superstition and from false religion/ an
observation which Carnesecchi in an examination
thus interprets : ( The false religion was that
which differed from the teaching and faith of
Valdes, that which he had taught her and me ; in
that the false based salvation upon good works,
whilst the latter remitted itself to faith, even as I
have already so repeatedly said and declared.
That the Neapolitan circle were conscious of
a certain contradiction between official ecclesi
astical teaching and their own is indubitable.
They held that they could continue to be good
Catholics, even when they constituted justification
by faith alone the centre of their personal religious
life. When the Church condemned this sentiment
as heretical, and the fearful light of its vindictive
rays fell upon Paul s Epistles, and amidst the
willingly retained darkness of this pious com
munity, the strong-minded ones became martyrs,
the more tenderly organized and embarrassed
spirits yielded and submitted themselves, as in
stanced in the persons of Vittoria Colonna, of
Flaminio, and of so many other persons of high
rank who preferred high ecclesiastical dignity to
the martvr s crown.
Many admissions made by Carnesecchi at his
trial show how they at Naples and elsewhere who
36 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
then half unconsciously found themselves in oppo
sition to Romish teaching, sought to put them
selves right. We quote but one. Carnesecchi had
written that Giulia had liberated him from the false
religion. Whereupon the Inquisitors ask him,
What, then, is religion ? It is not faith alone, but
all Catholic doctrine. To which the accused re
plied : I never held it to be so. It is faith, however,
which alone gives energy to religion. Had Luther
and others stopped short, preaching but faith, and
had they not attacked the Papacy, then would
they, as V aides and Flaminio often said to me,
have been left to rank as Catholic. This doctrine
of justification by faith alone embodies senti
ments held by all the Fathers of the Church, by
Augustine, by Chrysostom, Bernard, Origen, Hilary,
Prosper, and others, and if it be not still generally
received doctrine, that arises hence, that scholas
ticism has been more studied than the Bible/
The Inquisitors objected that the doctrine of
justification by faith admitted of other heretical
inferences, such as those proved by Luther, by
Valdes, by the book The Benefit of Christ, and
by that writing found amongst the accused s papers,
written by Flaminio, entitled, An Apology for the
Book The Benefit of CJirist. Carnesecchi exclaimed,
Domine, vim patior, responde pro me ! Lord,
I suffer violence, answer Thou for me. Such
was never my purpose. If I later went beyond
INFLUENCE OF JUAN VALDES. 37
Valdes teaching, we all nevertheless believed
that the doctrine of faith was truly Catholic.
* Why then has the accused spoken of a false
religion ? Because we held the religion which
we believed to be Catholic ; and that that, on
the other hand, was false, which was generally
preached, especially by monks, who were much
more philosophers than theologians, rather scho
lastic than versed in the Bible, and in the doctrine
of the old Fathers. They taught, He that does
what is right will go to heaven, whilst he that does
that which is wrong will go to hell and that was
called Catholic, whereby they were inadvertently
lapsing into Pelagianism. Did he, then, believe
that they who deviated from the teaching of the
Catholic Church could be saved ? That is a
question which should be addressed to a theologian,
and not to me ; nevertheless, I believe it, if they
deviate unwittingly ; an expression which Car-
nesecchi thus modified at his next examination :
I would fain rectify what I stated, it being both
that which is impossible and scandalous, brought
upon me by what I suffer since I am here from
sleeplessness, and partly by the mere weariness
and exhaustion of the examinations. I stated that
they who, in matters of faith, deviate from the
Holy Roman Church, doing it consciously and
determinedly, are out of the way of salvation. To
which, however, I ought to have added : that they
38 P1ETRO CARNESECCHL
who deviate from the old Church do so, whilst
they that deviate from the modern one do not do
so. For with relation to this modern Church, we
held, that it, wanting attention and care upon the
part of recent Popes, has ceased to retain that
purity and sincerity of faith which existed in the
Apostles.
In this manner they pacified the mind in relation
to a difference with the authorities of the Church,
which they themselves could not deny. The
position in relation to German and Swiss Reformers
followed logically, as the result of what had been
submitted. Carnesecchi was constrained to admit
that a member of the Valdesian circle who had
been examined before himself, Victor Soranzio, the
Bishop of Bergamo, and others, had called Dr.
Luther a great and holy father, a good old man,
or our most distinguished teacher. Soranzio
himself was in the habit of speaking of him as
il S2io buon i-ecchio. When questioned, how
he, Carnesecchi, judged Luther, he replied, We
all held that Luther, so far as doctrine and
eloquence were involved, was a great man ; we
also held that he was personally sincere in what
he did ; and that he only misled others when he
had been misled himself by his own sentiments.
We adopted some of his doctrines, whilst we
repudiated others. It always displeased me that
he and others had severed themselves from the
INFLUENCE OF JUAN VALDES. 39
Catholic Church, partly through difference of sen
timent, partly through disobedience ; for he did
not submit to Councils, and he opposed Popes.
Flaminio and Luigi Priuli, an intimate friend of
Cardinal Pole, whom the Inquisition subsequently
threatened, likewise disapproved of it, for they
said : He who is outside of the pale of the
Church is necessarily beyond charity. Thus they
endeavoured to pick the gold out of the dirt, and
handed over what remained to the cook.
Carnesecchi expressly and repeatedly thanked
his friend Giulia, that she, by her counsels and
exhortations, had preserved him from falling away
into Lutheranism. But he felt more alienated from
Swiss Reformers than from Lutherans. Their
doctrine in reference to the Sacrament terrified
him, and though opportunity did not fail him to
escape to Geneva, to Zurich, or to Chiavenna, he
did not avail himself of it. A letter of his upon
the teaching of the Lord s Supper, written in reply
to Flaminio, whose letter is dated from Trent,
ist January, 1543, is couched in very decided ex
pressions against those who deny Christ s presence
in the Sacrament : Where such present them
selves, no confessors of, or witnesses for, the
Christian faith will be found amongst them. On
O
the other hand, it is indeed true that he calls the
Romish doctrine, an absurd and venal offering,
which had long been held, to be an insult to the
Lamb of God.
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN FLORENCE, VENICE AND PARIS.
AFTER Valdes death, which occurred towards the
close of the year 1540 or the beginning of 1541,
that charming circle of Neapolitan friends was
dispersed. The regulations established by the
Inquisition, even as affecting Italy, by the Bull
Licet ab initio of July 2ist, 1542, soon swept away
the most faithful confessors, Ochino, Peter Martyr,
Galeazzo and others, out of the country ; they who
remained were admonished to be prudent and on
their guard. It seems that Carnesecchi had,
possibly before Valdes death, or more probably in
May, 1541, left Naples in company with his friend
Flaminio, and with Donate Rullo, and that they
went to Rome. There they lodged with the old
Cardinal of Mantua ad arcum Portugallia:. Rullo
remained in Rome ; Carnesecchi went with
Flaminio to Florence, living in Carnesecchi s
house from May till the middle of October. At
the Capuchin Convent, three miles outside
Florence, they once more saw their friend Ber
nardino Ochino, who had just got his sermons
ready for the press, and who, but a few months
subsequently, had to fly from the Inquisition.
LIFE IN FLORENCE. 41
His enthusiastic friend, Caterina Cibo, visited
them in Florence, and in the autumn she accom
panied them to Viterbo, where rich spiritual feasts
awaited them.
Cardinal Pole had in 1539 returned to Rome,
after having made several journeys on behalf of
the Curia, and in the summer of 1541 he had been
appointed Legate to the patrimony of St. Peter,
with the residence at Viterbo. In his suite there
were many adherents to the new doctrines. Luigi
Priuli, the Venetian, the Abbot of San Soluto, who
at the time of Carnesecchi s process was the am
bassador of the Court at Savoy to the Papal Court ;
Fabrizio Brancuti, who subsequently fled with
Piero Gelido, the Sacramentarian, to France ;
Apollonio Merenda, the Cardinal s chaplain, who,
persecuted by the Inquisition, and subjected to
torture, was condemned, and afterwards fled from
Venice to Geneva, assured against further snares ;
Vincenzo Gherio, who, under Pius IV., was
Archbishop of Ischia, Morone s adviser, and
moreover that of the Pope himself, Donate Rullo,
Soranzo, and others. Vittoria Colonna, in Octo
ber 1541, had looked up for herself quiet quarters
in Viterbo, in the cloister of St. Caterina,
stating that she did so, because she could
worship God there better and more quietly than in
Rome.
Thus when Carnesecchi and Flaminio arrived at
42 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
the Cardinal s palace, there were assembled a com
pany of similarly minded persons, who in the
intimacy of confidence weighed questions affecting-
man s salvation, they being all mutually interested
in them. Donna Giulia sent them from Naples
not only conserve of roses for the Cardinal and his
friends, but also Vald^s writings, whilst the works
of the Reformers circulated from hand to hand.
There it was that Carnesecchi read for the first
time Luther s writings, also his exposition of the
gradual Psalms, and Bucer s Commentary upon the
Gospel of St. Matthew. Flaminio had already-
given him Calvin s Institutes in Florence. It must
have been there that Vittoria studied Luther s
exposition of Psalm xlv., without being aware
that the German Reformer was the author of it.
Carnesecchi reports that she felt such joy and
refreshment in the perusal of it, as she had never
previously experienced in reading any other
modern work.
Carnesecchi remained for a year in this
Instructive and edifying society. Confirmed in
faith, enlightened in knowledge, and strengthened
to testify for Christ, he left the scene of rich
blessing, in company with Donato Rullo, for
Venice, the city of Rullo s birth, in order to consult
the medical men there in relation to an affection
with which he had been tried for some time. For
the first three weeks he lived under Rullo s roof.
LIFE IN VENICE. 43.
Then he moved into his own quarters, and lived
in the City of the Lagoons fully three years,
until 1545.
The Republic of Venice had vindicated to itself
the greatest freedom and independence of any
Government in Italy, as against the pretensions of
Rome. Even during the Lent of 1542, though
Bernardino Ochino was already held to be a heretic
at Rome, and though the Roman Nuncio pur
posed forbidding him to preach in Venice, yet he
had been appointed Lent Preacher for that year,
and such was his popularity with the citizens, that
the Nuncio was forced to relinquish his purpose.
After the introduction of the Inquisition into Rome,,
the Senate of the Republic refused for a long time
to raise a hand in the erection of a scaffold within
its dominions ; and it was not until the year 1560
that Venice carried out the first sentence of death
upon matters of faith into execution. The writings
of the Reformers found their way through Venice
into Italy. Here Italian Bibles and other religious
books were printed. The Evangelicals (the
believers) of the city already, in the year 1530,
warned Melancthon at the Diet at Augsburg, that
he should not faint and desist from the confession
of the truth ; and in 1542 a letter was sent by the
Churches at Venice, Vicenza, and Treviso to Luther,
in which he was entreated to become the inter
cessor with the German Evangelical Princes for
44 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
the Italian Churches, under the oppression then
beginning to manifest itself.
Carnesecchi, during the three years he passed
in Venice and in the cities within the Venetian
territories, found numbers who sympathised with
him in his religious views. The final sentence
reproaches him thus : That has come to pass
concerning thee which the Apostle says (2 Tim.
iii. 13), u But evil men and seducers shall wax
worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived ;
for in Venice, and throughout many following
years, proceeding from bad to worse, not only hast
thou persisted in former heresies, but thou hast
adopted others, imparting them to other persons
similarly heretical and suspected, as well by reading
many of the heresiarch s, Martin Luther s works,
and those of other heretical and prohibited authors,
as also by thy sustained intercourse with many and
divers heretics.
Amongst them the document mentions Peter
o
Paul Vergerio, formerly the Bishop of Capo
d I stria, who just about that time was entirely won
over to Evangelical views by the study of the
writings of the Reformers, which he had designed
to controvert ; and so likewise was his brother,
Giovanni Battista, Bishop of Pola. Peter Paul,
after laying down his episcopal dignity in 1 540,
went to the Grisons, where he became a Pro
testant pastor. Lattanzio Ragnone, of Sienna, an
LIFE IN VENICE. 4S
enthusiastic pupil of V aides and of Ochino, first a
Lutheran, but afterwards a Zwinglian or Calvinist ;
and finally Baldassare Altieri of Aquila, in the
Kingdom of Naples, for some time Secretary
to the English Embassy at Venice, and subse
quently agent there for the Protestant German
Princes, and as such safely protected, the record
mentions as being so many persons of his faith.
The sentence stigmatizes Altieri as an apostate
and a Lutheran, in correspondence and in harmony
with the German Princes and heretical Protestants,
and who assumed the monopoly of vending heretical
and suspected books. It then continues : And
without any concern or fear, thou didst give
lodging, shelter, encouragement, and money to
many apostates and heretics, who, on account of
heresy, fled into heretical ultramontane countries ;
and thou didst by letter recommend to an Italian
Princess, to Giulia Gonzaga, two heretical apos
tates, with as much warmth as though they had
been two apostles sent to preach the faith to the
Turks, as thou thyself confesses!, which apostates
wished to open a school, with the intention of
teaching their tender little scholars certain heretical
catechisms ; but who, as soon as they had been
discovered, were forthwith sent prisoners to this
Holy Office.
It naturally came to pass that, with the ever-
increasing diffusion of the new teaching, and with
46 PIE7RO CARNESECCHI.
the severity of the measures employed to repress
it, that a man like Carnesecchi could not long
escape the suspicion and the proceedings of the
Inquisition. Paul III., in 1546, summoned him
to Rome, that he should justify himself against
accusations of heresy raised against him. We
cannot now ascertain the motive which induced
the Pope peremptorily to drop a suit which had
been instituted by the Inquisition against the
Secretary and Protonotary of a predecessor in the
Papal Chair. Was it an act of complacency shown
to Carnesecchi s patron, Cosimo, Duke of Florence,
who well knew of the Pope s desire to gain
Florence ? The Duke formerly wrote 1 concerning
the Pope : He has succeeded in many of his
undertakings, and now desires nothing so much as
to alienate Florence from the Emperor ; but he
will go down into the grave with his wish unful
filled. Did the striking tenderness of this suc
cessor to St. Peter, shown to an aristocratic and
distinguished favourer of Evangelical doctrines,
illustrate Paul s then tendency to support those
who had not been, up to that time, conquered by
the mighty Emperor, then daily becoming more
mighty ? This was a tendency which Leopold von
Ranke thus puts forward in his work on the Popes
of Rome, vol. i., p. 167 : It sounds strange,
but there is nothing more true, that whilst all
1 Ranke s Popes, 1874, vol. i., p. 164.
LIFE IN VENICE. 47
Northern Germany quaked at the prospect of the
re-introduction of Papal power, the Pope felt him
self to be the confederate of the Protestants.
Let this be as it may, anyhow Paul himself
intervened to protect Carnesecchi ; and the exas
peration which this proceeding awakened amongst
the fanatical persecutors of Protestantism still
rings, twenty years afterwards, in the words with
which that liberation of the accused was repre
hended. For Carnesecchi s judgment goes on to
say : When a report of all these things reached
the ears of Pope Paul III., of blessed memory,
thou wast in the year 1546 cited to Rome, where
appearing, thou wast examined by the Cardinal of
Burgos, of happy memory, then an Inquisitor
deputed by the Pope to be the commissary in this
Holy Office of this process; and making many
feigned and false excuses and replies, thou
clidst deny everything, and didst so palliate thy
faults that thy cause was not judicially closed ;
but, rebuked for thy past errors and above-
mentioned practices, and admonished that thou
shouldest in future abstain from them, from that
Holy Pontiff thou didst fraudulently extort a bene
diction and absolution, whilst still remaining, as
thou confessest, in the heresies, and under the
censures and penalties thereby incurred, deluding
thine own soul, and this tribunal of truth.
That Carnesecchi, notwithstanding the Papal
48 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
pardon, no longer felt himself safe in Italy, is
proved by his having left for France immediately
after the trial had been stayed, in 1547, and by
his stopping there no less than five years.
Although, in relation to this period, he must have
confessed that he had lived there soberly, and that
he had concluded a truce if not a peace with senti
ments adopted in Italy, and that there was an
interregnum of the devil in his soul, still it must
have been quite alien to a man like Carnesecchi
to hold himself wholly aloof from the circles of
French Protestantism. The Evangelical faith
had, in spite of all the persecutions practised after
Francis I. s death (1547), under Henry II. widely
extended ; and there were many adherents both
amongst the upper circles and the Court who
protected and befriended it. Such were the two
Margarets in the house of Valois ; the sister of-
Francis I., the Queen of Navarre, and mother-in-
law of Antoine de Bourbon, an enlightened
o
Protestant ; Margaret, Francis daughter, and
Henry I I. s sister, afterwards Duchess of Savoy,
a quiet adherent to the new doctrine.
These at Catherine de Medici s Court must
naturally have been intimate with the well-intro
duced and aristocratic Florentine, drawn also
the closer by sympathy in matters of faith. In
his examination immediately afterwards, he main
tained that in his intercourse with the Grand
LIFE IN PARIS. 49
Chancellor Olivier, a friend to Protestants, he
had spoken much more upon scientific subjects,
upon the Latin verses of Vida and of Flaminio,
upon ebb and flood, upon the vacant Papal chair
and the new Pope, than upon matters of faith.
Carnesecchi likewise visited the celebrated
Parisian bookseller, Robert Stephens (Etienne),
who had long been very strongly suspected of
heresy at the Sorbonne. He left Paris in 1550,
in order to join the Reformed faith and to settle
permanently at Geneva. Carnesecchi brought
him a collection of Latin hymns, written by
Flaminio shortly before his death, which occurred
in the year 1550. This collection Priuli had
sent to Carnesecchi, l as being rightfully his by
inheritance/ The deceased poet s friend would
willingly have seen the collection, which bore the
title, Upon Divine Subjects (De Rebus Divinis),
printed by Stephens, and then personally have
placed them in the hands of the Princess Mar
guerite, their destination, for they had been
dedicated to her by Flaminio, in this his swan-
like song. But Stephens would not respond to
his suggestions. Carnesecchi assumed he did
not, because the book was too small and the
business equally so, to admit of profit, whilst in
reality the bookseller was engaged in trans
porting his business to Geneva. Carnesecchi
then placed Flaminio s original manuscript in the
50 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
Princess s hands. This is probably the very same
book of which it is said in the final judgment :
Out of Italy thou hadst a book sent to thee
which was stained with Valdes heresy, and didst
present it as a gift. Similarly it was there
objected against him, that he, when visiting-
Lyons, both in going and in returning, as in Paris
and at that Court, held intercourse with heretics,
and that he there read Melancthon s Common
Places, and other suspected books.
CHAPTER V.
THE ACCESSION OF PAUL IV.
UPON Carnesecchi s return journey, his friend,
Lattanzio Ragnone, being in Lyons, and having
in the meanwhile become pastor of the Church
of fugitive Italian Protestants, sought to move
Carnesecchi not to return to his unsafe Italy, but
to settle down amongst them in Geneva. But
Pietro withstood him, under the influence partly
-of the longing once more to see his friend, Donna
Giulia Gonzaga, and partly of the hope that under
the gentle sway of the then Pope, Julius III., who
acquiesced in comfortable life too much to trouble
himself about the State, the Church, and the
Inquisition, he might be able to live unmolested,
especially in the territory of the Republic of
Venice, where he purposed again to reside. These
motives caused his friend s counsel to be rejected,
and he, in the year 1552, fixed his domicile
at Padua, frequently alternating it with Venice.
Julius III. died March 23rd, 1555. The
worthy Cardinal, Cervini, filled the Papal chair
but twenty-one days, under the title of Mar-
cellus II. After his death, which happened on
Ascension Day, May ist, the Cardinals on May
52 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
23rd, 1555, elected a man who anticipated that
choice as little as did any one else, he being the
most uncouth man of their number, who afterwards
said, speaking of himself : That he never had
done a kindness to any one, and that he did not
know how it was that the Cardinals had fallen on
him that it must be God who made Popes. He
was Gian Pietro Caraffa, an old fellow 79 years of
age, the founder and soul of the Italian Inquisi
tion ; he assumed as his own title, Paul IV. r
that having been the name of the Pope under
whom he had been enabled to found this fearful
tribunal.
Had this fanatic not been animated with one
other thought of equal power with that of libera
ting the Church by force from the stains of heresy
that storm would have immediately broken forth
upon his elevation, which during the latter half of
his reign filled the prisons of Italy and fired the
fagots in which the heretics were burned. But
oo
Paul hated the Hapsburgers no less passionately.
I will extirpate the accursed race, both father
and son ! Charles V. and Philip II. are heretics ;
they are unworthy of the earth that bears them
Charles bedeviled soul can no longer remain in
his filthy body, which, after that it is impotent, is
still lecherous. The Pope frequently indulged
in such utterances as these. 1
1 Morilz Brosch, Gesch. dcs Kirchenstaats, 1880, p. 200.
ACCESSION OF PAUL IV. 53
It was fortunate for all who were not found to
be immaculate in matters of faith that Paul,
carried away by this passion to liberate Italy
from the House of Hapsburg, occupied himself
for two years perpetrating the most incredible
political follies. If he throughout all that time
never lost sight of his projected reform of the
Church, and of the working of the Inquisition,
nevertheless, the one passion of his life must
necessarily have first developed itself in all its
impotence, ere the other could assume despotic
sway in his mind. In the mad struggle against
Spain, the raving old man had to realize that
that Catholic bigot, the Duke of Alba, as Philip
II. s Viceroy at Naples, marched at the head of
good Catholic soldiers against Rome, whilst
Paul s own troops fled before a single company
of Spaniards. Christ s Vicegerent would have
come to orrief had not Pietro Strozzi come to the
o
relief of the princely head of the Church by lend
ing German Protestant warriors, who scoffed at
the figures of the saints by the road-side and in
the churches, who ridiculed the Mass, who made
a joke of fasting, and who did a hundred things
any one of which, at another time, he would have
visited with death. 1
After the disgraceful peace of Cavi, concluded
on September i4th, 1557, with which the Pope
1 Von Ranke s Roman Popes, vol. i., p. 190.
54 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
terminated the political dream of his inglorious
life ; after having laid waste half Italy, the
irritated and thwarted old man spent his rage
upon heresy, which still raised its head all over
the peninsula. Already in the summer the pri
sons of the Inquisition were full. On June 5th,.
1557, Carnesecchi, being in Venice, \vrote to
Giulia Gonzaga, that together with San FeHce,
Bishop of La Cava, one of the most distinguished
of all the Cardinals had had to go into the Castle
of St. Angelo as a prisoner ; Giovanni Morone,.
the son of Girolamo Morone, the Milanese
Chancellor, who had been so deeply involved in
an intrigue with Vittoria Colonna s gallant hus
band, Pescara.
Carnesecchi stood in relation to Morone in the
position of a most intimate adherent and friend.
Their fathers had mutually honoured and loved
each other. Pietro called Giovanni Morone (born
in 1509) his earliest master and patron, into whose
service he had entered in 1527, before he became
Bishop of Modena. When Clement VII., in 1535,
made Morone Bishop of Modena, he dispensed
him from the canonical altar, on account of his
rare virtues. That Morone, in spite of his many
embassies to Germany in the service of the Papal
chair, believed in justification by faith after the
view of Valdes, and that he was guilty of sympathy
with the Evangelicals, is not to be denied. Never-
ACCESSION OF PAUL IV. 55
theless, his imprisonment made men shudder.
Carnesecchi wrote to Giulia in Naples on June I2th,
1557, Why Morone is imprisoned, no one knows ;
many say that the Cardinals have brought it about,
in order that he may be out of their way at the
next election of a Pope, when he would get the
greatest number of votes. The Pope intends
summoning all the Cardinals to Rome, that they
as a College may judge Morone. Paul IV. has
also summoned Soranzio of Bergamo, and Fos-
carari, Bishop of Modena, and a Dominican monk,
to Rome. Now that temporal war has been
brought to a close, it appears that a spiritual one
shall commence, in order that the world be not
idle, but shall ever have opportunity to exercise
both spirit and flesh.
Besides those above named, there \vere many
other Church dignitaries arrested and proceeded
against ; the Abbot Yillamarino, Morone s house
o
steward ; a Venetian, called Bishop Centanni, Don
Bartholomeo Spatafora ; the Archbishop Mario
Galeota of Sorrento, the Bishop Verdura, and
others. Cardinal Pole, too, who sought, at the
Court of Bloody Mary, first as Cardinal-Legate
and then as Archbishop of Canterbury, in the
exercise of a wise moderation, to bring England
back to her dependence on the Papal See, did
not escape Paul IV. s keen sense of suspicion.
By a Brief, dated August Qth, he was cited to
56 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
Rome to purge himself from suspicion of heresy.
Violent intermittent fever, and the Queen s
resistance, who would not allow her friend to
be dragged away, fortunately for him, retained
him in England till his death, which took place on
November iSth, 1558, sixteen hours after that of
the Queen, and delivered him from all the dangers
that Paul IV. had devised, notwithstanding all
Pole s devotion to the Papal See, which was such
as to be scandalous to his former friends, for Pole s
last years could not but be offensive to his old
associates at Naples and Viterbo.
Carnesecchi wrote to Donna Giulia : r t Would
that Pole had died when he came forth so
gloriously out of Pope Julius conclave. For at
his death he was held at Rome to have been
a Lutheran, in Germany a Papist, at the Court
of Flanders a Frenchman, and at the French
Court an Imperialist. Shortly before his death
Pole made a declaration that he firmly held the
Catholic faith, and that he held the Pope, and not,
indeed, excluding the one then in the chair, to be
really the vicar of Christ and Peter s successor.
Carnesecchi, moreover, taking up an expression of
Giulia s, stated that in a letter to her which after
wards weighed heavily upon him. He wrote on
February nth, 1559: It has gratified me extra
ordinarily that Donna Giulia disapproves Pole s
1 Page 130 of MS.
ACCESSION OF PAUL IV. 57
declaration, for it practically is superfluous, if not
offensive, and especially so at the present time.
Although Carnesecchi thought of it just as did
Donna Giulia, still, from diffidence, he would say
nothing. Nevertheless, there is a great difference
between Pole and Vald^s, and with both is that
verse verified :
"As evening characterises the day, so does death life."
Well, then, we will thank God that our faith
does not depend on men, neither are its founda
tions laid on sand, but on the everlasting rock,
upon which the Apostles and Prophets, and all
God s saints have similarly built theirs. May
God be pleased to grant us grace to live and to
die steadfastly therein !
CHAPTER VI.
THE PERSECUTION UNDER PAUL IV.
IN the meanwhile, Carnesecchi, too, found himself
brought into unpleasant personal contact with the
Inquisition. Paul IV. on his part could not allow
the man who so unexpectedly had escaped him to
pass unassailed. He cited him by a Decree of
October 25th, 1557, to appear before a General
Assembly of the Holy Cardinals of the Inquisition
at their tribunal at Rome, there personally to clear
himself from the accusation of having long adhered
to many Lutheran articles, of having had heretical
books, and of having maintained intercourse with
heretics. The citation was personally served on
him at Venice, on November 6th.
Carnesecchi refused to appear at Rome, and
was bold enough to remain at Venice. The
Republic had just withstood inducements held out
to it by Paul to enter into a confederation against
the Spaniards, as also against his extensive pro
mises that the Island Queen should hold Sicily for
evermore as her own. These propositions she
obstinately rejected, for she met them with deep
distrust hence there arose, as frequently happened,
strained relations between Venice and Rome.
PERSECUTION UNDER PAUL IV. 59-
Carnesecchi, in his reliance thereupon,, dared to
defy the Pope and his citation. The consequence
was that the accused was declared, by a decree
issued by the Inquisition, dated March 24th, 1558,
having the expressed assent of the doctors, theolo
gians, and canonists, to have incurred the censures
and penalties threatened in the citation ; and this
declaration was published contemporaneously in
Rome and in Venice.
As this step likewise achieved nothing, final judg
ment was delivered on April 6th, 1559, whereby
Carnesecchi was declared to be a heretic in con
tumacy, and he was sentenced to the punishments
which attach to impenitent heretics. All his pro
perty, movable and immovable, was confiscated ;
he was deprived of his benefices, and the warrant
issued against him notified that he, when seized,
would be handed over to the secular arm.
It may be imagined that Carnesecchi, in spite of
the protection which he anticipated in Venice, must
nevertheless have lived an oppressive and anxious
life during these years. Describing it, he says
that he felt like a wild beast, in continuous fear and
anxiety amidst the hostility which surrounded him.
The zeal of the decrepit old Pope waxed with
every additional person cast into the dungeons of
the Inquisition, as also at the escape of every one
who evaded them. Distinguished Church digni
taries in the cells of Roman prisons were daily
6o PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
threatened with the rack ; even Cardinal Morone
\vas, according to a letter of Donna Giulia,
exposed to torture. Paul IV. was so enraged at
Pole s death, that he declared that he would by
every possible means reveal what a heretic and
rebel he had been. Carnesecchi, writing upon this
subject to Donna Giulia, said, Whereby the Pope
will assuredly more reveal his own folly and
iniquity, than obscure the memory and the fame
which so excellent a man had bequeathed to all,
and especially to good men/
The Duchess of Trajetto, Vittoria Colonna, did
not dare to leave Naples, because she feared
lest she should fall into the Pope s hands as one
suspected of Vald($sian heresy. The Duke Cosimo
of Florence interceded for Carnesecchi, but in
vain. The Pope requested the Venetian Senate
to deliver up the condemned one ; the first time un
successfully. But Carnesecchi doubted whether
a second application would not issue in his being
banished from their territory. The refugees in
Switzerland likewise often sought to move him
to spontaneous flight. The Count Galeazzo
Caracciolo entreated him to flee, when he, in the
summer of 1558, having a safe-conduct from the
Viceroy, to visit his family left behind by him in
the kingdom of Naples, went there in order to
move them to share his exile an effort in which
he was vigorously supported by Carnesecchi.
PERSECUTION UNDER PAUL IV. 6r
Freedom to be able to live after a man s heart
felt religious convictions ; the Gospel preached in
all its purity in the countries to which the Refor
mation had extended; the zeal with which the Holy
Scriptures was read and expounded ; the more
frequent administration of the Lord s Supper ;
the temptation to insult God by daily recurring
idolatry and other reckless acts performed by the
man who irresolutely limps when seeking to follow
both sides all this powerfully attracted Carne-
secchi to the reformed Swiss Cantons, besides his
being at all times threatened with personal danger.
But, on the other hand, there was much to retain
him in alienation from the doctrines held by
Zwingle and by Calvin on the Sacrament ; his
heart s yearning to remain as near as possible to
his friend Giulia, in the hope of resuming his
intimacy with her ; the hesitancy lest he, by his
flight, should possibly injure his patrons and friends
who were in the prisons of the Inquisition in
Rome. Then again, he, like many others, hoped
that a new Pope might, from Paul s great age, ere
long present himself, the strings of whose adminis
tration would not be strung up so taut.
On March 25th, 1559, and hence on the day
after his definitive condemnation in Rome, where,
as he thought, his effigy would have been publicly
burnt by the Inquisition, Carnesecchi writes to
Giulia: When I think on the good grounds which
62 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
Carnesecchi has to calculate on the favour and
help which present themselves in different direc
tions to him, as also on the goodwill and amiability
which Popes are wont to manifest when they begin
their rule, I do not for a moment doubt but that
he will be rehabilitated and honourably reinstated
unless a Bull have been issued against him, which
the Pope shall have launched against persons in
the same predicament as his. In the meanwhile
this has not been published, and will, on the other
hand, from what I hear, be so unjust that it is to be
hoped that his successor will not carry it out
unless he should prove to be an Alessandrino ; (by
whom he meant Cardinal Michele Ghislieri, Paul
IV. s Commissary General of the Inquisition, who
in 1566 actually became Pope, styling himself Pius
V.) from him or any one like him, may God
preserve us !
The tough, wiry frame of the old monk filling
the Papal chair still resisted death. Carnesecchi
felt perplexed as to what he ought to do. The
Cardinal of Trent, kindly disposed to him, advised
that he should write to the Pope, apparently
submitting himself to him, and stating that he
was too unwell to ride on horseback ; and that
this would help him, if not with the present Pope,
at least with his successor. Carnesecchi thought
of migrating to his native Tuscany, where he
anticipated assured protection by Cosimo, or to
PERSECUTION UNDER PAUL IV. 63
France, or to England. But the news of Caraffa s
death came at last.
With what a shout of joy this was hailed
throughout the earth ! Whilst the Pope was still
struggling with the agony of death, the Romans
already rose in revolt. This was on August i8th,
1559. In the Capitol a decree was formulated
by which the prisons were to be opened ; then the
wild masses spread themselves throughout the
city. They first stormed the building of the
Inquisition, they threw all its documents out of
the windows, and they plundered Cardinal
Ghislieri s apartments, he being the highest resi
dent authority; they did the same to the other
officials, personally maltreating them ; they set
fire to and burned part of the palace down. The
news of the Pope s death having spread, they
hurried to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, they
liberated those who were incarcerated there, and
would have burnt down that convent, and have
thrown the monks out of the windows, had they
not been prevented by Giuliano Cesartni. The
other prisons, the Torre Savella, the Tor di
Nona, and that of the Senators, were also broken
open ; they set at liberty four hundred prisoners,
of whom but seventy had been placed in charge
by the Inquisition, however, of them forty-two
were arch-heretics. But they went on worse the
day after Paul s death. Some months previously,
64 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
when Paul s two nephews fell, a statue had been
erected to the Pope in the Capitol. This statue
now became the object upon which the people
vented their fury. The magistracy assembled
very early. The open space was soon thronged.
The populace pulled the statue down from its
pedestal, and broke it up ; whilst the magistracy
and the higher orders looked on and laughed
when they saw a Jew put his yellow cap upon
the Pope s head. Throughout that live-long day
did this head remain as the butt for the contempt
of the rabble, but towards evening some persons,
moved by commiseration, threw it into the
Tiber. And when the festivities attained their
height upon the third day, the Sunday, all the
inscriptions and arms of the Caraffa were
smashed and obliterated. Such is the report
of a decidedly Catholic historian. 1
Can any one blame Carnesecchi if he ex
perienced joy at this death ? Nevertheless he
was blamed for doingf so. In as late an exami-
O
nation as that of December 14th, 1566, the
Inquisitors put this interrogatory to him Why
had he so earnestly desired the Pope s death ? and
when consummated, why had he so greatly rejoiced ?
This was his noble reply I do not think that
such a question needs to be answered ; the thing
1 Alfred von Reumont, in his History of tJic City of Rome, vol. iii.,
part 2, pp. 542, 543.
PERSECUTION UNDER PAUL IV. 65
speaks for itself. The Cardinals proceeded
Had he rejoiced at the fire which burnt the palace
of the Inquisition, situate in the Ripetta, in con
nection with the death of Paul IV. of happy
memory ? Certainly, I cannot conscientiously
deny it ; because I hoped in relation to myself and
to others that my process would be dispatched by
this fire, and that theirs would be facilitated.
Asked whether he attributed this fire to the
judgment of God, visited because of the persecu
tion of heretics ? Neither would he deny this; for
if indeed he had never said or written it, he
assuredly had thought it. Whether he had re
joiced over the liberation of those who were being
examined by the Inquisition in that palace ?
Indeed he had. Why did he hold them to be
innocent ? Because he thought that they had but
retained the article of justification by faith.
Carnesecchi fortunately answered all these
questions correctly for frequently he never
surmised with what purpose the questions were
put to him as, for instance, whether he had
ever wished that Paul should meet an early death,
&c., &c. These questions were based upon
statements made by Carnesecchi in his correspon
dence, but which he had long forgotten. The
following reflections by the accused, made in a
letter to Donna Giulia, on September 2nd, 1559,
were adduced against him as evidence : Your
66 PIETRO CARNESECCHL
ladyship will have heard that the Holy Inquisi
tion has died the same death by which she was
wont to put others to death, that is by fire. And
certainly this is a very remarkable event, from
which the conclusion may be drawn, that it can
not be acceptable to the Divine clemency that
this Office henceforth proceed with the same
strictness and severity as it has in the past. It
ought rather to deal amiably, as exemplified by
former Popes a line of conduct which is much
more becoming.
CHAPTER VII.
REVERSAL OF THE FIRST SENTENCE AGAINST
CARNESECCHI.
CARNESECCHI, believing in the merits of his cause,
now went to Rome to get his process reviewed.
The Duke Cosimo had promised him that he would,
were it needed, put horses and cavaliers in motion
to support him, and to assist him to attain his
rights. Morone for a long period had the greatest
prospect of ascending the Papal throne ; but he,
when Paul IV. closed his eyes, was a prisoner in
the Castle of St. Angelo. The College of Cardinals
determined Carnesecchi states it in writing that
his process was null and void, false and iniquitous ;
and as such, deserving to be burnt ; and the
burning was actually carried out before them all.
Cosimo, too, at Florence, supported Morone s
nomination with unusual earnestness. Carne-
secchi s letters of this period speak out respect
ing the Papal election with great openness.
Should Morone become Pope, says he, on Octo
ber 1 8th, 1559, we could wish him to lay aside
one fault which he showed when he voted for
Paul IV., viz., his faint-heartedness.
The Cardinal Medici, who was nominated at
68 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
the same time as Morone as the future Pope, and
who was actually elected by the Conclave, had
given the promise Carnesecchi vouches it
that were he appointed Pope, he would give the
German clergy permission to marry, and the Com
munion in both kinds, if they would come back to
the other teaching of the Church. Even Aracceli
has hopes, (so says Carnesecchi in a letter to
Giulia, written when travelling from Florence to
Rome, on December 2nd, 1559), although he is
a monk, which is looked upon as a second original
sin added on to that which man ordinarily has.
Giovanni Angelo Medici, a Milanese upstart,,
insignificant by birth, but an amiable, kindly-dis
posed man, was elected Pope on December 25th,
as Pius IV. On January 3rd, 1560, Carnesecchi
wrote from Pisa : I start for Rome the day
after to-morrow, where I hope that my matter will
issue well, not only because of its inherent good
ness and rectitude, which cause it to be commended
to His Holiness, but because of the authority and
of the favour which my Prince has in his sight.
But, in the meanwhile, things did not move
forward so smoothly as he had hoped. Carne
secchi, by the advice of his patrons, lived in great
retirement. " He only went out at night, or if by
day, in a carriage. Morone exercised great influ
ence upon Pius IV. in his decisions ; but Morone
at first did not dare to open his mouth on behalf
REVERSAL OF THE FIRST SENTENCE. 69
of his friend, and acted as though apparently he
did not know him. His others patrons also inter
posed on his behalf rather by consolatory pro
mises than by practical assistance. The revision
of his process dragged its weary way from week
to week and from month to month. In spite of
the favour that Carnesecchi enjoyed amongst those
who surrounded the Pope, he had to remain in a
sort of imprisonment in the Cloister of the Servites,
St. Marcellus, on the Corso. He was not confined
within its walls, but he only went out at night, and
then with the modesty and quietness that had been
imposed upon him.
He wrote on August 3ist that he no longer
looked for his liberation from men, nor from the
Pope, but from God only. The Cardinal of Trent,
who had been appointed an Inquisitor, visited him
in his convent in September, and in October
Cardinal Seripando, who likewise was one of his
friends, and who had been nominated one of the
Holy College, came to him. At length the Duke
Cosimo made his appearance in Rome, and sought
personally to move the Pope on his behalf. But
his destiny was again controlled by his evil star.
The Duke fell sick, and the Duchess, who also
had promised Carnesecchi to help him, could do
nothing, for she was wholly absorbed in nursing.
At last Pius declared that he would judge this
matter himself, partly because he had Carnesecchi s
70 PIETRO CARKESECCHL
honour at heart, and partly out of consideration for
the Duke and Duchess. Then, i changeable as a
leaf, he withdrew his promise, and said that he
would see to it that no injustice should be done
to Carnesecchi.
Under date of December 5th, 1 560, Pietro writes
in despair : Nothing progresses ! The fault
lies with the Inquisitors, partly because they will
not judge as right and duty dictate, for they sug
gest scrupulous hesitancy where there is no ground
for it, and interpret that prejudicially which, rightly
apprehended, is good and praiseworthy. O God,
pardon them who sin through ignorance ; but the
others so convert or ruin, that they may be unable
daily to injure the innocent ! As to m Seripando,
there is no placing reliance on him, for he does not
take his seat at the tribunal ; he is sick, and would
willingly act the truant, for he well knows the diffi
culties, and wants the courage to encounter them
single-handed.
Later on the Pope permitted Carnesecchi himself
to visit the Duke, and to plead his own cause, but
only in Ghislieri s presence. I never feared
but that my innocence would make itself manifest,,
even had there been seven Alessandrinis instead of
one. On December I3th, Carnesecchi was admitted
to the Pope s presence, for the Pope determined to
withdraw the process from the tribunal, and to
deliver judgment thereupon himself. But this was
REVERSAL OF THE FIRST SENTENCE. 71
unsatisfactory to Carnesecchi, who feared that
benevolence exaggerated would but lead to pro
tracted proceedings. In a letter on January 23rd,
1561, he says : I have had so much to do, in
reflecting upon the answers, and how to formulate
them which I have to give to my shall I call
them judges or opponents ? that I have scarcely
found time to eat and to sleep, less time to write
about my affairs, which, after all, encountered such
a storm that I at times was constrained to fear
shipwreck. But now it is all right, and I am so
near the haven that I can say I am in safety. My
storms sprang from my refusal to deny the favour
able opinions which I hold of Valdes and of
Galeazzo Caracciolo, in doing which I necessarily
vindicated certain propositions of Valdds, by which
the judges were the more exasperated. But since
I have cleared myself, they must digest their
choler.
Finally, on May 8th, 1561, after a year and
a-halfs anxiety and privation, he was able to
write : All has been considered, deliberated upon
and ventilated by these my illustrious and most
reverend Lords Cardinals, and has issued well, as
the tenor of the subjoined sentence proves, which,
dictated and composed by my own advocate, concurs
fully and entirely with what I could have wished.
I beg you to send it on to Monsignor Mario
(Galeota, the Archbishop of Sorrento), in order
72 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
that he may see that I too am an Israelite, and
that he henceforth will not have so much to fear
in responding to my salutations, since he himself
may now rejoice over my liberation.
Carnesecchi appears to have remained in Rome
until October. Then he went to Naples, to salute
his friends, who had taken such heartfelt interest
in his fate. He lodged with the monks of San
Giovanni in Carbonaria, whom the Cardinal
Seripando had to order over and over again
to give Carnesecchi his own room ; it was
only with suppressed rage that the monks re
ceived the suspected person. He afterwards
must have travelled about a great deal. In his
final judgment he was reproached that after his
liberation he still occupied himself with heretics
and heresy, in Rome, in Naples, in Florence, in
Venice, and in other parts of Italy, upholding
suspected persons with counsel and with funds.
The last letter cited in extracts in the proceedings
was one addressed to Donna Giulia of November
24th, 1563, from the Abbey of Casal Nuovo (she
died in 1566). He says, Be not surprised at my
great activity or wantonness, when you contemplate
me rushing, like Ccesar, with such rapidity through
out all Italy. I feel more robust than ever. It
appears to be God s will to compensate me here
on earth for the sicknesses and other afflictions
which, sent me by Him, I have patiently borne.
REVERSAL OP THE FIRST SENTENCE. 73
God, too, has given me this abbey, after that He
had taken the other, Eboli, from me.
Surely everyone will understand that this,
Carnesecchi s second liberation from the toils of
the Inquisition, would be borne with the greatest
exasperation both by it and its friends. The
mode in which this act of the Pope was judged
in these circles finds expression, notwithstanding
all prudence and reverence, in Carnesecchi s final
judgment. There it states, in relation to this last
depicted period : After Paul IV. s death, thou
hast by various ways and means endeavoured
with many artifices and importunate entreaties,
and with certain feigned excuses, made to Pope
Pius IV., of happy memory, that thou shouldest
be admitted to an audience, which thou couldest
not have been admitted to, had it not been for
his clemency, since thou hadst been legally con
demned as a convicted heretic. And to excuse thy
faults, which thou hast dissimulated and concealed,
according to thy habit, at thy examinations of that
period, partly by feigning ignorance, and partly
by not only not revealing thine errors against
the holy faith, but likewise by not satisfying
general interrogatories upon the subjects upon
which thou wast inquisited, it appearing to thee
that thou wert not under obligation to reveal
them. And then in the special interrogatories
by equivocating and avoiding to answer them
74 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
simply, and partly by taking counsel with the
talent of thy prison, thou hast had certain answers
and declarations put in thy mouth, both by some
others who had been inquisited for heresy, but who
had been set at liberty, and by certain theologians,
making every effort, by fraudulent persuasions and
illicit modes, in order that thou mightest be set free
as being innocent, and absolved by the Holy Office
from the imputations alleged against thee, which
thou oughtest, for thy salvation, sincerely to con
fess, and publicly to abjure and detest, in order
to be admitted by grace into the bosom of the
Church. Which thou hast done out of regard to
worldly honour, and to avoid the punishments due
to heretics, causing many witnesses to be examined
to confirm thy falsehoods, and in order, as thou
saidst, to canonize thee, and for the justification of
thy masters and companions. Whence by thy
artifices and false pretences, and through certain
writings and proceedings having been burnt in the
fire of the Ripetta, by which the truth might have
been cleared up, thou didst so far succeed that,
instead of a severe condemnation, thou hast extorted,
and that iniquitously, a sentence of absolution, as
though thou hadst always been an innocent and
good Catholic ; and, nevertheless, thou hast under
thine own hand declared and confessed that all the
accusations made against thee were most true, and
that thy excuses and justifications were simulated
REVERSAL OF THE FIRST SENTENCE. 75
and feigned, as well those of the process made in
the days of Pius as in those of Paul, and to the
greater damnation of thy soul; and, deceiving His
Holiness the first-named Pope, thou hast obtained
from him, surreptitiously and clandestinely, a motu
propio confirmatory of the above sentence.
That such a head of game should have escaped
it was constantly present to the mind of the Holy
Office. It was on the watch for a more favourable
opportunity to spend its wrath upon the man who
had twice got out of its meshes. And this oppor
tunity presented itself.
In spite of all the warnings from abroad, from
those friends of Carnesecchi who had fled and lived
there in safety, he could not make up his mind to
leave his native land. In 1565 he was again in
Venice, where he was the year prior to that in which
Giulia died, he having induced her, in 1564, to send
to him at Venice the writings of Valdes which she
had, lest possession of them should imperil her. In
the meanwhile Carnesecchi s ruin was rapidly
hastening on.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FINAL TRIAL, ARTICLES OF CONDEMNATION AND
MARTYRDOM OF CARNESECCHI.
Pius IV., the gentle Pope, died early in December,
1565. The Pope elected by the Conclave was
Paul IV. s supreme Inquisitor, the ferocious and
inexorable Dominican, Michael Ghislieri, the
Cardinal of Alessandria, who assumed the title
of Pope Pius V. Under his control, which with
keen and persistent energy insinuated itself where -
ever opportunity offered, clemency became a thing
of the past, and one Alessandrino, occupying
the Papal chair, was perfectly able to ruin
Carnesecchi.
We have witnessed with what repeated welcomes
Duke Cosimo of Florence had received the friend
of his house. It was with him that Carnesecchi
sought protection when his most bitter enemy
attained the supreme rule of the Church. But how
did Ghislieri s reckless energy paralyse others !
Cosimo, too, was destined to feel its influence.
Carnesecchi was a guest at his sovereign s table
when the friar Tomaso Manrique, the Master of
the Papal Palace, was announced, as sent on a
special mission to Florence, and desiring an inter-
THE FINAL TRIAL. 77
view with the Duke. The Pope had furnished his
messenger with a letter bearing date June 2Oth,
1566, in which, after greeting Cosimo with the
Apostolic Benediction, he was called upon, in an
affair which nearly affected obedience to the Divine
Majesty and to the Catholic Church, and which
the Pope had greatly at heart, as being of the
highest importance, to give to the bearer of this
letter the same faith as though His Holiness were
present conversing with him. Manrique claimed
in the Pope s name the delivering over of Carne-
secchi into the hands of the Inquisition. The Duke
made his friend and guest rise from the table and
surrender himself on the spot to the Papal mes
senger. And he abjectly added, that, had His
Holiness which God forefend called upon him
to surrender his own son for the same motive, he
would not have hesitated one moment to have him
bound and surrendered.
Carnesecchi found opportunity before his incar
ceration in Florence to give orders to his house
hold to get all his suspected books, by Luther, by
Peter Martyr, by Calvin, together with Flaminio s
Apology for The Benefit of CJirist, out of the
way. Whilst being transported to Rome, he wrote
that they should be thrown into a well. It seems
that the only suspected books found were the
Apology and a manuscript in quarto of twenty-four
sheets, which had been dedicated to the Duchess
78 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
Giulia Gonzaga, entitled, Meditations and Prayers
upon St. PauPs Epistle to the Romans. Carne-
secchi at his examination of March 7th, 1567,
declared it to be a work of Marcantonio Flaminio.
It is also possible that the extraordinarily volumi
nous correspondence of Carnesecchi with the
Duchess may after her death have been returned
to him by her relatives, and have subsequently
been found in his dwelling by the Inquisition. Any
how, these letters furnished the leading evidence
which the tribunal of the Inquisition availed itself
of to his condemnation.
The Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace
led his prisoner to Rome, where he was lodged in
the prison of the Holy Office. The first examina
tion was held on July i3th, I566, 1 upon which there
followed an interminable series of hearings, in the
highest degree fatiguing and galling. Moreover,
the rack was employed upon Carnesecchi ; and his
judges made it a subject of special reproach that he,
under torture sotto resamine rigoroso remained
obstinate, and expressed himself unintelligibly.
The Duke of Florence, who now earnestly
exerted himself upon behalf of the man whom he
had so basely surrendered, received as reply to his
intercession for mercy, that the Pope, since the
prisoner was in the hands of the Inquisition, could
1 There were other examinations prior to that of July 1 3th.
Manzoni, in his preface to the Estratto, alludes to them.
THE FINAL TRIAL. 79
no longer do anything himself for him. Carne-
secchi wrote from his dungeon to Morone, to the
Cardinal of Trent, to the Abbot of San Soluto, to
Bartholomeo Concino, that he was being tortured ;
that his judges held him to be insincere : They
would fain have me say of the living and of the
dead things which I do not know, and which they
would so fain hear. These letters were seized,
.and served with the judges of that tribunal but to
enhance Carnesecchi s guilt.
These investigations were carried on through
fifteen months imprisonment. Sentence was de
livered by the tribunal of the Inquisition on August
i6th, 1567, and was published to the world on
September 2ist, in Santa Maria sopra Minerva,
when the prisoner was handed over to the secular
arm , and was then led away to the most terrible
prison in Rome, to the Tor di Nona, situate near
the Ponte St. Angelo, where isolated cells were
rendered pestilential and disgusting by having
putrid water in them, from which he was only to
be delivered by death, inflicted with the infamy of
a public execution.
But the articles of faith, the acceptance of which
Rome declared to be a crime worthy of death,
deserve to be published throughout the world. A
Church which visits such things with death at the
stake has not condemned the heretic, but it has
condemned itself. Carnesecchi was found guilty
So PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
upon thirty-four points of accusation ; and our
readers may insist that no one of them be withheld
from their knowledge. The version given here
coincides with that found in Manzoni s Estratto,
in Italian, and with that given by Schelhorn, in
Latin.
That thou, from the year 1540, and in suc
ceeding years, hast held and believed the following
propositions, which are severally heretical, erron
eous, rash, and scandalous :
i. Justification by faith alone, and that our works have no
part in it ; according to Luther s, the heresiarch s, teaching, in
connection with the Epistle to the Galatians.
2. The certainty of grace and of salvation, according to the
same Luther.
3. That our works are not essential to salvation, which is
to be obtained through faith but that the justified man would
inevitably perform them whenever he should find time and
opportunity.
4. And, consequently, that the said good works could not
merit everlasting life ; but would indeed be rewarded with a
higher degree of glory after the general resurrection.
5. Thou hast held concerning Fasts, that it is not a mortal
sin not to observe them, unless this omission should arise from
contempt ; but that they are useful for mortification only.
6. That we have by nature a free will to do evil ; and, before
grace, only to commit sin.
7. That it is not possible to keep the commandments in
the Decalogue, and especially the first two, and the last,
" Thou shalt not lust after," without the most effectual influence
of the grace of God, and without a great abundance of faith
and of the Spirit, which is found but in few; and the
THE ARTICLES OF CONDEMNATION. 81
case is not so with every ordinary Christian, but with the
perfect, such as the holy Martyrs and Doctors of the Church
have been.
* 8. That we ought not to believe anything save that which
is the word of God expressed in Holy Scripture.
9. That not all General Councils are assembled in the Holy
Ghost, and therefore that we should not have faith in the
decisions of them all ; exercising a critical judgment as to which
may be those assembled in the Holy Ghost ; and questioning
whether the power to convoke them belonged to the Emperor or
to the Pope, or to others.
10. Thou hast been undecided respecting the number of the
Sacraments, having heard that Calvin held two, namely, Baptism
and the " Supper " (as thou art wont sometimes to call the most
Holy Eucharist) ; and that Luther added to them Orders, which
thou termest " the Imposition of Hands."
* 1 1. Thou hast in like manner been uncertain as to whether
the Sacrament of Confirmation was instituted by Christ or by
the Church, holding that it was the ratification of the promises
made in Baptism.
12. That Sacramental Confession was not established by
Divine command, nor appointed by Christ ; and that it cannot
be proved by Scripture ; and that none was indispensable except
that which is made to God ; and therefore that it was left at the
option of a Christian to go, or not to go, to confess ; although
it might be beneficial and consolatory to the penitent, as to the
comfort which he might derive from absolution, and as to the
advice and the remedies which he might receive ; and such was
thy opinion up to the time when thou didst acknowledge thy
delinquency before this tribunal.
13. Thou hast held that the satisfaction which consists of
penitential works, imposed by priests upon those who are con
trite, was not necessary (upon the presumption that it took the
place of the merit of Christ, as sufficient to atone for the sirs
of the whole world) ; but that such works were good for the
purposes of mortifying the flesh, and giving life to the spirit.
F
82 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
4 14. That Indulgences were not founded on Holy Scrip
ture, but were invented by the Popes ; and were not available
except for the living, as to the penances imposed on them by
the Pope, or by other priests.
15. Thou hast maintained the uncertainty of Purgatory,
concerning which thou hast entertained strong doubts, or rather
hast actually held, that it has no real existence after the present
life ; but that the blood of Christ was the purgatory for our
sins not having become convinced by the places of Holy.
Scripture which are cited in support of this truth, up to the
period of thy aforesaid confession,
( 1 6. Thou hast considered as apocryphal the Book of the
Maccabees, in which mention is made of prayers for the dead.
17. That in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist
the substance of bread remained, while there was also in it the
presence of the Body of Christ, without Transubstantiation
having taken place, according to the opinion of Luther, to
which thou hast adhered since the year 1543 ; although some
times thou wast pleased with, and favourable to, the heresy of
Calvin ; to which also thou gavest attention, and discussing
which with others, thou hast reasoned as well as written.
1 8. Thou hast held and believed that it was better that
the laity should communicate in both kinds than in one.
19. That the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass was not
truly propitiatory, except so far as it excites in us the remem
brance of the passion of Christ, and consequently that faith by
which the forgiveness of sins is obtained.
20. That the Pope possessed supremacy over other
Bishops, not in the way of jurisdiction, but simply by pre
eminence ; and this thou hast for some time believed.
21. And thus that the Pope was only Bishop of Rome,
and that he had no ascendency over other Churches, beyond
what might be conceded by the world, from respect to the See
of Peter ; as also on account of the dignity and greatness of
THE ARTICLES OF CONDEMNATION. 83
Rome ; and because that city had been ennobled by the blood
of so many thousands of martyrs.
22. That the Roman Pontiffs had unjustly claimed for
themselves, in sundry matters, more authority than they had
received from God ; and especially with regard to Indulgences
and predominance over other Churches.
1 23. And thou hast for a certain period suspected that the
succession of the Roman Pontiffs terminated with the Apostle-
ship of St. Peter.
24. Thou hast blamed several Orders and Rules of
Monks and Friars (as those of St. Benedict, and others), for
leading an idle and useless life, and for being persons who had
as it were been " born to consume the fruits of the earth ; " and
thou foundest fault with some fraternities of Mendicants also,
and their bags ; saying such things as that, " they took the
bread out of the hand of the poor ; " and that " they would do
better to work with their own hands, and live by the sweat of
their brows."
25. And although thou hast approved of the zeal of those
monks who labour hard in the vineyard of the Lord, preaching
and watching over the salvation of their neighbours, thou hast,
nevertheless, held that their zeal was not " according to know
ledge ; " as it appeared to thee that works were put forward too
prominently in their preaching.
26. With respect to celibacy, thou hast conceived that it
would be better to restore wives to priests than to have deprived
them of them.
27. That to the vow of single life members of the Religious
Orders could not, and should not, bind themselves ; and that it
would be inexpedient for them to do so ; chastity and conti
nence being gifts of God ; and on this account that they cannot
be promised, except by those who by long experience have
been enabled to ascertain that they have received such a faculty
from Him ; and for this reason thou didst advise and encourage
S 4 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
a Benedictine monk (equally heretical, and thy accomplice),
who was disposed to desert his Order, to leave it.
28. And thou hast had the same opinion relative to Nuns
and Virgins who devote themselves to God ; and such has also
been thy judgment with regard to the mere vow of permanent
continence.
29. Thou hast questioned whether Pilgrimages and visits to
churches, undertaken spontaneously, or in consequence of vows,
are suitable for all kinds of persons ; nay, rather thou hast said
that these vows respecting Pilgrimage are worthless to every
one without exception.
30. That all sorts of food, without any choice, may be
eaten, according to the conscience of him who partakes of them,
and thou hast acted upon this supposition;
31 . And that it would not be a mortal sin to disregard the
observance of days and seasons of restraint by making use of
forbidden kinds of food ; but that it would be a greater or less
offence in proportion to the scandal thereby occasioned, and
according to the accusing or excusing of one s own conscience.
32. That it is not a sin to keep or to read heretical or
prohibited books ; but a matter of indifference, and one to be
decided by the conscience of him who possesses them, notwith
standing the interdict of the Holy Church.
33. From the year 1543 until 1545, and from 1557 till
1559, thou hast held that, Christ being the only Mediator
between God and men, it was unnecessary to pray to the saints ;
and for some time thou hast not done so.
34. And, lastly, thou hast believed all the errors and
heresies comprised in the said book Of the Benefit of Christ, as
well as the false doctrine and principles taught by the said
JU/N VALDS, thy master.
These were the articles of faith, for holding of
which Carnesecchi was condemned to death. How
will the Lord of the Church have judged His
THE SENTENCE. 85
servant, who dared, as His Vicar upon earth, to
condemn doctrines which may almost all of them
be traced back as utterances of Christ or of His
Apostles ? Nevertheless, the wisdom and moder
ation with which Carnesecchi must have spoken
upon all questionable points are admirable, and it
seems marvellous that they did not blot out a
tribunal so malevolent. To say anything more
upon this judgment of the holy Inquisition is
unnecessary.
The no less hypocritical sentence itself we here
give verbatim :
Taking into consideration the numerous deceptions prac
tised upon the Holy Church, and the very many perjuries,
inconstancies, fluctuations, and vacillations, and also thine
inconsistencies and instability, how hard it has been for thee to
confess the truth, and the impenitence which thou hast by many
tokens manifested, and, amongst others, by writing to and coun
selling heretics even whilst in prison, and, as has been stated,
thine inveterate career in error and in intercourse with heretics,
and thine incorrigibility, since, on three other occasions besides
this, sentence has been passed on thee and upon thy cause,
and that thou hast in reference to them deluded and deceived
the Holy Office ; and that neither hast thou, after the two above-
mentioned absolutions, either amended or corrected thyself:
taking which into consideration, the Holy Office can no longer
trust thee, or have assurance that thou hast truly and sincerely
repented, or may expect any amelioration on thy part ;
For this reason, we accordingly declare and adjudge that
thou art an impenitent heretic, a dissembling convert, and
debased ; and that by the very law thou art deprived, and, so
far as it is necessary, we do deprive thee anew, of every rank,
privilege, and eminent position ; and of thy preferments, emolu
ments, and occupations, ecclesiastical and secular, whatsoever
86 PIETRO CARNESECCHI.
they may be, and howsoever designated ; and that they have
ceased to be enjoyed by thee from the date of thy heresies ;
and that thenceforward thou wast incapable of obtaining them.
And AVC condemn thee to the forfeiture of all thy property,
personal and real, and of all consequent rights and claims,
agreeably to the appointment of the sacred canon ; to be
applied, as we do apply it, to the purpose to which it should be
justly assigned.
And, as one irreclaimable, without remorse, and whose
change of mind has only been fictitious, we in like manner
pronounce and ordain, that thou oughtest to be degraded, as we
direct, that thou be actually degraded, from the Orders
which thou hast attained. And, as a person thus degraded,
henceforward, as well now as previously, we expel thee as an
unprofitable branch from our Ecclesiastical Court, and from the
safeguard of our Holy Church, and we surrender and deliver
thee up to the Secular Court ; that is, to your Lordship the
Governor of Rome, that you may take him under your jurisdic
tion ; and that he may be subject to your decision ; so as to be
punished with due chastisement beseeching you, however, as
\ve do earnestly beseech you, so to mitigate the severity of your
sentence in respect to his body, that there may be no danger
either of death or of shedding of blood.
So we, Cardinals Inquisitors-General, whose names are
hereunder written, decree.
1 BERNARDINO DI TRAM.
SCIPOINE DI PISA.
FRANCESCO PACHECO.
GIOVANNI FRANCESCO DI GAMBARA.
For a month and more had Carnesecchi to await
his death, in that horrible prison, the Tor di Nona,
whither he was now transported. Once more did
the Duke Cosimo of Florence seek to save his
former friend. He besought the Pope to be mer-
THE MARTYRDOM. 87
ciful : and execution was deferred, A Capuchin
monk visited the prisoner in his cell, and announced
to him that he might save his life if he would now
adopt the faith of the Romish Church, But the
monk himself was well nigh converted by Carne^
secchi s spirited testimonies to his faith, and he
returned to the person who had sent him, having
achieved nothing.
Early on the morning of October 3rd, 1567, a
scaffold was erected on the Ponte St. Angelo, He
who had been at one time Papal Protonotary, and
who by birth was a member of a patrician family,
was not to be hanged, but beheaded ; his body was
then to be committed to the flames,
Carnesecchi retained his composure and strength
of faith until the last moment. They dressed him
in a sanbcnito, an heretical garb, painted over with
flames and devils ; but he insisted that he would
at least appear in clean linen, He wore a white
shirt, he had a new pair of gloves, and a white
handkerchief in his hand.
His noble head fell, whilst he was the object of
the execrations and curses of those who held them
selves to be members of that Church which exclu
sively arrogates salvation to them who are within
its pale. And whilst the ashes to which his
body was reduced were cast into the Tiber, his
soul was with his Lord ; for he was faithful unto
death, and received the crown of life.
