The Italian Reformation (Renaissance and Reformation)

Introduction
Why did Renaissance Italy not accomplish a religious reformation like that which occurred in 16th-century Germany? This question, raised by Jacob Burckhardt in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), nourished intense debates in Italy between the Risorgimento and Fascism, becoming a recurrent point of contention in the controversies between church and state that followed unification. Generations of scholars and intellectuals saw the consequences of the failed Italian Reformation as extending well beyond the early modern period and informing the precarious national consciousness. During the 1930s, studies by Benedetto Croce, Federico Chabod, and Delio Cantimori as well as the opening of Italian scholarship to new trends in European and Northern American historiography marked a crucial shift, leaving aside the quarrels of the Risorgimento and creating the basis for all successive research on the religious crisis of the long 16th century. Particularly notable was the controversy between Croce and Cantimori that found expression also in Cantimori’s preface to the Italian translation of a classic pioneering study, Frederich C. Church’s The Italian Reformers, originally published in 1932 (New York: Columbia University Press) and translated into Italian in 1935 (Florence: La Nuova Italia). Another turning point was represented by Hubert Jedin’s “Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation?” (Lucern, Switzerland: Stocker, 1946), which opened the way to a new era of studies on early modern Catholicism, recently reassessed in John O’Malley’s Trent and All That (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). In the following decades, while historical anthropology led Italian scholars to focus on popular beliefs in the wake of Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), the influence of German historiography gave life to a new wave of research on social discipline and the age of confessions. In the same period Italian and Anglophone scholars also debated the meaning of the Beneficio di Cristo and shed new light on the influence of Juan de Valdés on Italian Evangelism. Finally, in 1998, the opening of the Archive of the Holy Office allowed the access of new documents and a reconsideration of the procedures and the functioning of the institution through which the Catholic Church fought the spread of heresy. Today we have a detailed map with which to study the chronology and the geography of the Italian Reformation. Following Seidel Menchi 1994 (cited under General Overviews), we can divide the religious crisis of the long 16th century into four main periods: the “theological call to arms” (1518–1542), marked by the convergence between the philo-Protestant movement and the spirituali; the “spontaneous diffusion” (1542–1555), in which religious dissent moved from elite circles into streets and squares circulating especially among merchants and artisans in the urban centers of northern Italy; “repression” (1555–1571), which coincided with the pontificates of Paul IV and Pius V; and finally “extinction” (1571–1588), when the trials for heresy declined and the Inquisition turned its attention to magic and witchcraft. With the repression of religious dissent in Italy, several groups of reformers were forced into exile and Italian Protestant communities continued to exist in Northern Europe, from Switzerland to England and Poland. As indicated by John Tedeschi, while participating in the theological controversies of the age of confessions and defending the principle of religious tolerance, the Italian reformers also contributed to the European dissemination of the Italian Renaissance, publishing and circulating prohibited books such Dante’s Monarchy, Machiavelli’s Prince, and Sarpi’s History of the Council of Trent.
General Overviews
Welti 1985, Caponnetto 1992, Firpo 1993, and Seidel Menchi 1994 are all useful introductions on the Italian Reformation, especially on its history and geography. For surveys of more recent scholarship, see Delph, et al. 2006; Benedict, et al. 2007; and Brundin and Treherne 2009. Also, a useful introduction is Firpo 1996, in which—along with several articles on Francesco Pucci—is collected a magisterial essay on the history of the Italian Protestant Church in 16th-century London.
Benedict, Philip, Silvana Seidel Menchi, and Alain Tallon, eds. La réforme en France et en Italie: Contacts, comparaisons et contrastes. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 2007.
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A collection of articles by leading scholars in the field that compares and contrasts the eruption of the Reformation in Italy and France.
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Brundin, Abigail, and Matthew Treherne. Forms of Faith in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
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A collection of articles and a rich introduction to the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy that takes into account figures such as Pontormo, Titian, Aretino, and Tasso.
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Caponnetto, Salvatore. La Riforma protestante nell’Italia del Cinquecento. Turin, Italy: Claudiana, 1992.
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A useful and detailed outline of the Reformation in 16th-century Italy that examines the spread of religious dissent from Venice and Ferrara to Naples and Messina.
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Delph, Ronald K., Michelle Fontaine, and John Martin. Culture and Religion in Early Modern Italy: Contexts and Contestations. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2006.
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A collection of articles by leading scholars and a useful overview of the spread of religious dissent in Renaissance Italy from Venice to Florence, and from Modena to Mantua.
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Firpo, Massimo. Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento. Rome and Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1993.
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An excellent and comprehensive introduction to the Italian Reformation, which charts the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy from north to south and within different social groups.
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Firpo, Luigi. Scritti sulla Riforma in Italia. Naples, Italy: Prismi, 1996.
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Along with several articles on F. Pucci, this collection also includes a magisterial essay on the history of the Italian Protestant Church in 16th-century London.
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Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “Italy.” In The Reformation in National Context. Edited by Robert Scribner, Roy Porter, and Mikuláš Teich, 181–201. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511599569Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A brief but penetrating and useful chronology of the rise and fall of the Reformation in Italy (see Introduction).
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Welti, Manfred. Kleine Geschichte der italienischen Reformation. Gütersloh, Germany: Gutersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1985.
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A useful introduction to the history of the Italian Reformation, which charts the spread of religious dissent in Italy and follows the emigration of the Italian reformers throughout Europe.
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Bibliographies, Dictionaries, and Other Reference Resources
Tedeschi 2000 is an indispensable resource to study any aspect of the Italian Reformation. Schutte 1983 is needed for any investigation on religious literature in the vernacular. Prosperi 2010 is a comprehensive resource on the history of the Inquisition and its victims. For critical bibliographies dedicated to several Italian heretics and their associates, see the entries in Séguenny 1980– and Hillerbrand 1996.
Hillerbrand, Hans Joachim, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. 4 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
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This includes coverage of the Catholic as well as the Protestant Reformations, and entries on Italian themes.
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Prosperi, Adriano. Dizionario storico dell’Inquisizione. Collaboration with Vincenzo Lavenia and John Tedeschi. Pisa, Italy: Edizioni della Normale, 2010.
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A monumental work, indispensable to study the history of the Roman, Spanish, and Portuguese Inquisitions. It takes into account the methods of the prosecutors and the ideas of the prosecuted.
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Schutte, Anne J. Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books, 1465–1550: A Finding List. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1983.
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Extremely useful resource. It contains a list of 3678 religious texts published in the vernacular in Italy between 1465 and 1550.
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Séguenny, André, ed. Bibliotheca dissidentium: répertoire des non-conformistes religieux des seizième et dix-septième siècles. Baden-Baden, Germany: Koerner, 1980–.
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In collaboration with I. Backus and J. Rott, an indispensable resource that includes entries dedicated to several Italian reformers such as C. Renato (1984), S. Simoni (1988), and G. Aconcio (1994), with a detailed list of their writings.
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Tedeschi, John. The Italian Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and the Diffusion of Renaissance Culture: A Bibliography of the Secondary Literature (ca. 1750–1997). Modena, Italy: Panini, 2000.
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With the assistance of James M. Lattis, an indispensable resource that examines in detail 250 years of studies on the Italian Reformation.
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Editions and Translations of Primary Sources
After the anthologies published in Comba 1883–1886 and Cantimori and Feist 1937, several primary sources were published in critical editions by the Corpus Reformatorum Italicorum, a series edited by L. Firpo and G. Spini with the collaboration of A. Rotondò and J. Tedeschi, and published jointly by Sansoni (Florence) and the Newberry Library (Chicago; see Firpo and Spini 1968–). Subsequently, A. Rotondò founded the series Studi e testi per la storia religiosa del Cinquecento, published by Olschki (Florence). More recently, E. Campi has launched The Italian Reformation Online (see Campi 2006), published by Brill (Leiden, The Netherlands), which makes available in digital copies a wide range of titles from the Fondo Guicciardini of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence. In 1994, J. P. Donnelly and J. McLelland began editing the Peter Martyr Library (see Donnelly and McLelland 1994–), while in 2010, S. Cavazza and U. Rozzo started publishing the works by P. P. Vergerio (see Vergerio 2010–). Other editions and translations are listed in other sections (Correspondence, Reginald Pole and Giovanni Morone, the Beneficio di Cristo, Peter Martyr Vermigli and Bernardino Ochino, Vittoria Colonna, Women of the Italian Reformation, the Toleration Controversy, Pucci Francesco, and Socinianism and Antitrinitarianism). Publishing the inquisitorial trials against Pietro Carnesecchi and Vittore Soranzo, Firpo and Marcatto 1998–2000 and Firpo and Pagano 2004 revealed new aspects of the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy. A useful collection of sources in English translation is Gleason 1981.
Campi, Emidio, ed. The Italian Reformation Online. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
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It offers access to a wide range of texts on the Italian Reformation from the Fondo Guicciardini in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence.
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Cantimori, Delio, and Elizabeth Feist, eds. Per la storia degli eretici italiani del secolo XVI in Europa. Rome: Reale Accademia d’Italia, 1937.
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It contains writings by C. Renato, L. Sozzini, M. Gribaldi, G. Biandrata, F. Pucci, F. Sozzini, and S. Castellio.
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Comba, Emilio, ed. Biblioteca della Riforma italiana: Raccolta di scritti evangelici del secolo XVI. 6 vols. Rome and Florence: Claudiana, 1883–1886.
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Publishes texts by P. P. Vergerio, P. M. Vermigli, B. Ochino, and J. de Valdés.
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Donnelly, John Patrick, and Joseph C. McLelland, eds. The Peter Martyr Library. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994–.
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An indispensable resource to study the theology of Vermigli and the Italian Reformation. Nine volumes have been published so far, including the early writings, the treatise on Eucharist, the sections of the Loci communes on predestination and justifications, the philosophical works, and the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.
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Firpo, Massimo, and Dario Marcatto, eds. I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi (1557–1567). 2 vols. Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 1998–2000.
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Critical edition divided into three parts, presents the inquisitorial trials regarding the apostolic protonotary Pietro Carnesecchi. Fundamental resource for the reconstruction not only of Carnesecchi’s wide network of patrons and friends, but also of the history of the Roman Inquisition and its impact on early modern Italy.
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Firpo, Massimo, and Sergio Pagano, eds. I processi inquisitoriali di Vittore Soranzo (1550–1558). 2 vols. Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2004.
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Critical edition, presents the inquisitorial trials regarding the bishop of Bergamo, Vittore Soranzo. The edition sheds light not only on the spread of heresy in the Catholic Church, but also on the tensions between the Republic of Venice, the Papacy, and the Roman Inquisition.
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Firpo, Luigi, and Giorgio Spini, eds. Corpus Reformatorum Italicorum. Florence: Sansoni, 1968–.
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With the collaboration of A. Rotondò and J. Tedeschi, this series has published critical editions of works by C. Renato, B. da Mantova (see Beneficio di Cristo), M. Celsi (see the Toleration Controversy), and A. Brucioli along with I costituti di Don Pietro Manelfi (see Anabaptism and Popular Reform). Following imprints include Naples: Prismi, and DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
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Gleason, Elisabeth G. Reform Thought in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981.
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An anthology of texts by B. Ochino, B. da Mantova, M. A. Flaminio, and C. Renato in English translation.
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Studi e testi per la storia religiosa del Cinquecento. Florence: Olschki, 1986–.
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Founded by A. Rotondò, this series has published texts of several Italian reformers including L. Sozzini, F. Pucci, and F. Valentini.
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Vergerio, Pietro Paolo. Scritti capodistriani e del primo anno dell’esilio. Trieste, Italy: Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Venezia Giulia, 2010.
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Edited by S. Cavazza and U. Rozzo with the collaboration of L. di Leonardo, it contains Vergerio’s reply to Giovanni Della Casa’s Index, promulgated in 1549.
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Correspondence
As demonstrated in Schutte 1975, Fragnito 2011, and Braida 2009, correspondence provides crucial evidence to reconstruct the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy, as long as the historian is able to read between the lines and decode the literary conventions and the mechanisms of self-censorship that shaped Renaissance letter writing. Moroni 1986 also provides crucial information on the circle of the spirituali, from Della Casa to Pole. Hartmann and Jenny 1942 and Marchetti and Zucchini 1982 are fundamental resources for following the history of the Italian Protestant diaspora through the correspondence of the Amerbach and the Sozzini family. The connections between the Italian reformers and English diplomacy can be studied through the domestic and foreign series of the State Papers Online, 1509–1714. On the activity of the papal nuncios in Germany, see the reports published in Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland,–.
Braida, Ludovica. Libri di lettere: Le raccolte epistolari del Cinquecento tra inquietudini religiose e “buon volgare.” Rome: Laterza, 2009.
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Examines collections of letters circulating in 16th-century Italy and their relationship with contemporary religious turmoil.
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Fragnito, Gigliola. “Per lo studio dell’epistolografia volgare del Cinquecento: Le lettere di Ludovico Beccadelli.” In Cinquecento italiano: Religione, cultura e potere dal Rinascimento alla Controriforma. Edited by Gigliola Fragnito, Elena Bonora, and Miguel Gotor, 231–265. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2011.
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Originally published in 1981. A magisterial study of the letters of Ludovico Beccadelli, secretary to Contarini and Morone and later papal nuncio in Venice.
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Gale Cengage Learning. State Papers Online, 1509–1714. 2008.
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Both the domestic and the foreign series contain plenty of references to figures like P. M. Vermigli, G. Aconcio, John Florio, and several Italian reformers in England.
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Hartmann, Alfred, and Beat R. Jenny, eds. Die Amerbachkorrespondenz. Im Auftrag der Kommision für die Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universitàt Basel. Basel, Switzerland: Verlag der Universitätsbibliothek, 1942.
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The correspondence of the Amerbach family, an important source on the Italian Reformation. The correspondents include L. Sozzini, C. S. Curione, O. Morato, P. P. Vergerio, and others.
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Marchetti, Valerio, and Giampaolo Zucchini. Aggiunte all’epistolario di Fausto Sozzini, 1561–1568. Warsaw and Lodz, Poland: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1982.
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A rich group of letters by or to members of the Sozzini family.
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Moroni, Ornella, ed. Corrispondenza Giovanni della Casa—Carlo Gualteruzzi (1525–1549). Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1986.
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Contains more than four hundred letters and offers important evidence of the years spent in Venice by Giovanni Della Casa as papal nuncio.
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Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland: Nebst ergänzenden Actenstücken. Gotha, Germany: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1892–.
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The aim of the series is to publish the reports of the papal nuncios in Germany, starting with the dispatches of P. P. Vergerio and G. Morone.
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Schutte, Anne J. “The Lettere Volgari and the Crisis of Evangelism in Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 639–688.
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It provides new evidence on Italian Evangelism by examining several printed anthologies of vernacular letters circulating in Italy the first half of the 16th century, thus giving evidence of the relationship between the emergence of the vernacular and the impulse toward religious reform.
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The Historiographical Debate and Terminology
Modern historiography on the Italian Reformation began with Croce 1933, Chabod 1938, and Cantimori 1992. Despite their confessional agendas, 19th-century Protestant historians such as T. M’Crie and P. Comba (see M’Crie 1827 and Comba 1895–1897) had long been interested in the lives of the Italian reformers and have published important contributions. On the historiographical debate, see Spini 1984, the introduction by Prosperi in Cantimori 1992, and Firpo 2000. On the dialogue between Italian and North American historiography, see Tedeschi 2002.
Cantimori, Delio. Eretici italiani del Cinquecento e altri scritti. Edited by Adriano Prosperi. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1992.
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Originally published in 1939. A magisterial study of the radical wing of the Italian reformers, the “rebels against every form of ecclesiastical organization” (p. 9), who argued against both old and new orthodoxies. Prosperi’s introduction (pp. xi–lxii) offers a highly valuable reconstruction of the genesis of the Eretici.
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Chabod, Federico. Per la storia religiosa dello stato di Milano durante il dominio di Carlo V: Note e documenti. Bologna, Italy: Zanichelli, 1938.
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A classic study of the spread of the Reformation in the 16th-century Duchy of Milan, which connects religious turmoil with the political and social crisis provoked by the Italian wars.
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Comba, Emilio. I nostri protestanti. 2 vols. Florence: Claudiana, 1895–1897.
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Composed of two volumes, the first focuses on precursors, from Peter Waldo to Savonarola, and the second on the Reformation in the Veneto and Istria.
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Croce, Benedetto. “Un calvinista italiano: Il marchese di Vico Galeazzo Caracciolo.” La Critica 31 (1933): 81–104, 161–178, 251–265, 321–339.
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One of Croce’s most famous essays. It reconstructs the life of Galeazzo Caracciolo and his exile from Naples to Geneva.
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Firpo, Massimo. “Historiographical Introduction.” In The Italian Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and the Diffusion of Renaissance Culture: A Bibliography of the Secondary Literature (ca. 1750–1997). Edited by John Tedeschi, xviii–xlix. Modena, Italy: Panini, 2000.
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With the assistance of J. Lattis, an extremely detailed study on the history of the historiography of the Italian Reformation between the 16th and 20th centuries.
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M’Crie, Thomas. History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy in the Sixteenth-Century. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1827.
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A Scottish dissident clergyman, M’Crie’s History is the first modern synthesis on the Italian Reformation.
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Spini, Giorgio. “Qualche riflessione su ‘Per una storia religiosa dello Stato di Milano’ di Federico Chabod.” In Federico Chabod a la “nuova storiografia italiana 1919–1950.” Edited by Brunello Vigezzi, 233–241. Milan: Jaca, 1984.
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A penetrating essay that reconstructs the genesis of Chabod’s interest in the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy and its impact on Italian historiography.
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Tedeschi, John, ed. The Correspondence of Roland H. Bainton and Delio Cantimori, 1932–1966: An Enduring Transatlantic Friendship between Two Historians of Religious Toleration. Florence. Olschki, 2002.
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Presents the correspondence between Bainton and Cantimori, and provides important insight into the history of scholarship on the Italian Reformation between Italy and North America.
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Luther and Calvin in Italy
Protestant doctrines circulated widely in 16th-century Italy, especially in the urban centers of the North. Along with Cantimori 1975, on the Italian reactions to Luther and on his clandestine circulation, particularly useful are Gleason 1969, Seidel Menchi 1977, and Perrone 1983. Mazzetti 1984 examines the copies of Luther’s works held in Italian libraries. Calvin’s dialogue with Italian Protestantism is reconstructed in Bozza 1985, Felici 2010, and Peyronel Rambaldi 2011.
Bozza, Tommaso. “Italia Calvinista: Traduzioni italiane di Calvino nel secolo XVI.” In Miscellanea in onore di Ruggero Moscati. Edited by Ruggero Moscati, 237–251. Naples, Italy: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1985.
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Useful study on the 16th-century Italian translations of Calvin.
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Cantimori, Delio. “Atteggiamenti della vita culturale italiana nel secolo XVI di fronte alla Riforma.” In Umanesimo e religione nel Rinascimento. Edited by Delio Cantimori, 3–39. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1975.
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Published for the first time in 1936. A study of the first reactions to Luther and the Reformation, taking into account on the one hand the theological indifference of humanist circles, and on the other the Anabaptism of the popular classes in the Veneto.
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Felici, Lucia. Giovanni Calvino e l’Italia. Turin, Italy: Claudiana, 2010.
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Reconstructs the exchanges between Calvin and Italy, starting with the relationship that the French reformer had with Renée de France in Ferrara.
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Gleason, Elisabeth G. “Sixteenth-Century Italian Interpretations of Luther.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 60 (1969): 160–173.
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Takes into account Italian responses to Luther by both Catholic controversialists and sympathizers of the Reformation.
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Mazzetti, Giulio. Le prime edizioni di Lutero (1518–1546) nelle biblioteche italiane. Florence: Olschki, 1984.
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Describes carefully 378 Luther imprints held in Italian libraries.
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Perrone, Lorenzo, ed. Lutero in Italia: Studi storici nel V centenario della nascita. Casale Monferrato, Italy: Marietti, 1983.
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An excellent collection of articles on the reactions to Luther in Italy, from the 16th century to modern historiography. It contains essays by A. Biondi, S. Cavazza, D. Menozzi, G. Miccoli, O. Niccoli, A. Prosperi, and S. Seidel Menchi.
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Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna, ed. Giovanni Calvino e la Riforma in Italia: Influenze e conflitti. Turin, Italy: Claudiana, 2011.
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A rich collection of articles that investigates Calvin’s dialogue with the Italian Reformation. It takes into account figures like Valdés and Renée of France, Curione, Pucci, and the Waldensians.
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Seidel Menchi, Silvana. “Le traduzioni italiane di Lutero nella prima metà del Cinquecento.” Rinascimento 17 (1977): 31–108.
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An important study of the Italian reception of Luther and of its clandestine circulation in Italy.
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Waldensians
Since the work of Emilio Comba in the 19th century, Waldensian historiography has been crucial in recovering the history of the Italian Reformation. Comba 1923 is a good introduction to the history of the Waldensians, while Gonnet 1953 provides an important bibliographical guide on the subject. On the ways in which the persecution of the Waldensians was perceived in early modern Europe, see Spini 1991 and Gilmont 1982. The Waldensian confessions of faith can be found in Gonnet 1967 and Vinay 1975.
Cameron, Euan. The Reformation of the Heretics: The Waldenses of the Alps, 1480–1580. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
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Based on a wide range of inquisitorial records and legal proceedings. It challenges traditional scholarship in its reconstruction of how the Waldensians embraced the Protestant Reformation.
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Comba, Ernesto. Storia dei Valdesi. Torre Pelice, Italy: Libreria “La Luce”, 1923.
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One of the standard histories of the Waldensians. Several chapters focus on the age of the Reformation.
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Gilmont, Jean-François. “Aux origines de l’historiographie vaudoise du XVIe siècle: Jean Crespin, Étienne Noël et Scipione Lentolo.” In I Valdesi e l’Europa. By Società di Studi Valdesi, 165–202. Torre Pelice, Italy: Brandoni, 1982.
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An examination of the first historiography on the Waldensians. Discusses Lentolo’s and Crespin’s accounts of the persecutions of the Waldensians, and attributes the Histoire des Persecutions to Noël.
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Gonnet, Giovanni. Bibliografia valdese. Torre Pelice, Italy: Tipografia Subalpina, 1953.
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Includes 3500 entries, with a table of contents and a list of authors that covers all aspects of Waldensian history from the Middle Ages to World War II.
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Gonnet, Giovanni. Le confessioni di fede dei valdesi prima della Riforma. Turin, Italy: Claudiana, 1967.
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A useful discussion of the Waldensian confessions of faith that also includes the account of the Chanforan’s agreement between Waldensians and northern reformers.
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Spini, Giorgio. “I Valdesi nell’opinione pubblica del seicento italiano.” In Barocco e puritani: Studi sulla storia del Seicento in Italia, Spagna e New England. Edited by Giorgio Spini, 119–141. Florence: Vallecchi, 1991.
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Points out the silence that in the 17th century fell on the persecutions of the Waldensians, with the exceptions of P. Sarpi and G. Leti.
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Vinay, Valdo. Le confessioni di fede dei valdesi riformati: Con documenti del dialogo fra “prima” e “seconda” Riforma. Turin, Italy: Claudiana, 1975.
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Continuation of Gonnet 1967. Includes Latin texts with facing Italian translation.
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Geography of the Italian Reformation
In the wake of Chabod 1938 (cited under Historiographical Debate and Terminology) and Berengo 1965, scholars have focused extensively on the geography of the Italian Reformation, examining its diffusion in the different states of the peninsula. Northern cities have received more attention, but the South has also been studied, especially Naples and Sicily. On the Veneto, see Olivieri 1992 and Martin 1993; on Tuscany, see Marchetti 1975 and Adorni Braccesi 1994. On Bologna, see Dall’Olio 1999; and on Modena, Peyronel Rambaldi 1979. Scaramella 1999 is an important study of the Waldensian communities in Early Modern Calabria.
Adorni Braccesi, Simonetta. “Una città infetta”: La repubblica di Lucca nella crisi religiosa del Cinquecento. Florence: Olschki, 1994.
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A detailed study of the religious crisis in 16th-century Lucca, which emerges as one of the centers of the Reformation in Italy.
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Berengo, Marino. Nobili e mercanti nella Lucca del Cinquecento. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1965.
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Chapter 6 (pp. 357–454) is still one of the best accounts of the impact of the Reformation in 16th-century Lucca.
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Dall’Olio, Guido. Eretici e inquisitori nella Bologna del Cinquecento. Bologna, Italy: Istituto per la Storia di Bologna, 1999.
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An important study that, through documents of the archive of the Holy Office, sheds new light on the history of the Inquisition and on the spread of heresy in 16th-century Bologna.
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Marchetti, Valerio. Gruppi ereticali senesi del Cinquecento. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975.
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An indispensable study that explores the spread of heresy in Siena among different social levels between 1540 and 1560.
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Martin, John. Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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A detailed and well-researched study based on the records from the archives of the Roman Inquisition that situates the eruption of heresy in 16th-century Venice in its social and political context, taking into account moderate and radical groups of different social classes.
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Olivieri, Achille. Riforma ed eresia a Vicenza nel Cinquecento. Rome: Herder, 1992.
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Reconstructs the impact of the Reformation in 16th-century Vicenza, with a special focus on Alessandro Trissino and Fulvio Pellegrino Morato.
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Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna. Speranze e crisi nel Cinquecento modenese: Tensioni religiose e vita cittadina ai tempi di Giovanni Morone. Milan: F. Angeli, 1979.
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A solid and useful study of the impact of the Reformation in 16th-century Modena.
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Scaramella, Pierroberto. L’Inquisizione romana e i Valdesi di Calabria (1554–1703). Naples, Italy: Editoriale Scientifica, 1999.
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A detailed study of the history of the Waldensian communities in Calabria during the early Modern period.
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Gasparo Contarini, the Spirituali, and Italian Evangelism
Introduced for the first time by Pierre Imbart de la Tour in 1914, and later discussed by Cantimori as well as in Jedin 1947, the term “Evangelism” has nourished intense debate among historians, especially after Jung 1953. In the following decades historians have discussed it further while reconstructing the biographies of Cardinal Contarini and his associates, as with the research presented in Prosperi 1969, Fragnito 1988, Gleason 1993, Bowd 2002, and Furey 2006. For a critical reevaluation of the term, see Gleason 1993. (For Pole, Morone, and the Beneficio di Cristo, see the sections Reginald Pole and Giovanni Morone and the Beneficio di Cristo.) On the crisis of Evangelism and on the problems that it raises to the periodization of 16th-century Italian history, see Schutte 1975.
Bowd, Stephen D. Reform before the Reformation: Vincenzo Querini and the Religious Renaissance in Italy. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
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A careful study of the reform movement that took place in early-16th-century Italy, with special attention to Vincenzo Querini, the Venetian patrician friend of Contarini, who gave up his political career to become a Camaldolese hermit.
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Fragnito, Gigliola. Gasparo Contarini: Un magistrato veneziano al servizio della Cristianità. Florence: Olschki, 1988.
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A detailed study of Contarini, on his connections with Ochino and the spirituali, and on the posthumous fame of the Venetian Cardinal during the Counter-Reformation.
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Furey, Constance M. Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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Demonstrates how the spirituali were direct participants in Europe’s Renaissance culture of intellectual exchange, and how this became the context for much of the period’s religious debates.
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Gleason, Elisabeth G. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome and Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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Together with Fragnito 1988, this constitutes the best study available on Contarini. It also includes a useful critical discussion of the concept of Italian Evangelism.
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Jedin, Hubert. Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando. Translated by Frederic C. Eckhoff. London: Herder, 1947.
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Classic study on the General of the Augustinians, Girolamo Seripando; on his connections with Valdés and the spirituali; and on his interest in Protestant theology.
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Jung, Eva Maria. “On the Nature of Evangelism in Sixteenth-Century Italy.” Journal of the History of Ideas 14 (1953): 511–527.
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After Cantimori’s and Jedin’s seminal studies, Jung contributed by introducing the term “Evangelism” in modern historiography, considering it “the last Catholic reform movement before the Council of Trent and the first ecumenical movement after the schism of the Reformation.”
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Prosperi, Adriano. Tra Evangelismo e Controriforma: Gian Matteo Giberti (1495–1543). Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 1969.
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A detailed and careful study of the life of Giberti, bishop of Verona who was closely associated with several figures of Italian Evangelism.
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Schutte, Anne J. “The Lettere Volgari and the Crisis of Evangelism in Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 639–688.
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Provides new evidence of Italian Evangelism by examining several printed anthologies of vernacular letters circulating in Italy the first half of the 16th century, thus giving evidence of the relationship between the emergence of the vernacular and the impulse toward religious reform.
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Reginald Pole and Giovanni Morone
Along with Contarini, the intense debate on the spirituali and Italian Evangelism has focused on Reginald Pole and Giovanni Morone. Pole’s career can be followed through his correspondence in Querini 1744–1757 and more recently in the modern edition of his letters in Mayer 2002–2008. On Pole, see Fenlon 1972, Simoncelli 1977, Prosperi 1997, and Mayer 2000. Indispensable resources on Morone are Firpo and Marcatto 1981–1995 and Firpo 2005.
Fenlon, Dermot. Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
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By focusing on Pole and the circles associated with him, it reconstructs the influence of the Reformation on the Catholic Church.
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Firpo, Massimo. Inquisizione romana e Controriforma: Studi sul Cardinal Giovanni Morone (1509–1580). Brescia, Italy: Morcelliana, 2005.
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An important collection of articles that sheds new light on the trial against Cardinal Morone and on the ways in which the Inquisition was used against the “spirituali.”
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Firpo, Massimo, and Dario Marcatto. Il processo inquisitoriale del Cardinal Giovanni Morone. 6 vols. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1981–1995.
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A monumental, critical edition in six volumes of the trial against Morone. A fundamental work to study the history of the Italian Reformation.
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Mayer, Thomas F. Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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The most comprehensive modern study of Pole’s career, from the early years in England under Henry VIII, to the years in Italy as cardinal and legate of Viterbo, to the final return to England under Mary Tudor as archbishop of Canterbury.
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Mayer, Thomas F. The Correspondence of Reginald Pole. 4 vols. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002–2008.
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The letters of the English cardinal Reginald Pole from his years spent as papal legate in Viterbo to his return to England under Mary Tudor, spanning from 1518 to 1558.
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Prosperi, Adriano. “Il principe, il cardinale, il papa: Reginald Pole lettore di Machiavelli.” In Cultura e scrittura di Machiavelli: Atti del Convegno di Firenze-Pisa, 27–30 ottobre 1997. 241–262. Rome: Salerno, 1997.
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Examines Pole’s De summo pontifice and points out the cardinal’s engagement with Machiavelli’s ideas on the political value of religion.
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Querini, Angelo Maria, ed. Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli S. R. E. Cardinalis et aliorum ad ipsum. 5 vols. Brescia, Italy: Gian-Maria Rizzardi, 1744–1757.
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A collection in five volumes of Pole’s correspondence in the years 1520–1558, along with several of Pole’s writings.
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Simoncelli, Paolo. Il caso Reginald Pole: Eresia e santità nelle polemiche religiose del Cinquecento. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1977.
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Studies the posthumous fame of Cardinal Pole, first accused of heresy by P. P. Vergerio, and then transformed in a model of sanctity by Catholic historiography.
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Nicodemism
Introduced in Cantimori 1992a in modern historiography, and further discussed in several following contributions including Cantimori 1992b and Rotondò 2008, Nicodemism has been reexamined in Ginzburg 1970. The publication of Ginzburg’s study nourished a wide debate on the practice of religious simulation especially in Italy (Biondi 1974, Simoncelli 1979) and in North America (Eire 1986, Zagorin 1990).
Biondi, Albano. “La giustificazione della dissimulazione nel Cinquecento.” In Eresia e riforma nell’Italia del Cinquecento. By Albano Biondi, 7–68. Florence: Sansoni, 1974.
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After discussing Cantimori, Rotondò, and Ginzburg, this study situates Nicodemism in a broader context examining the 16th-century controversies on religious dissimulation.
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Cantimori, Delio. Cantimori, Delio: Eretici italiani del Cinquecento e altri scritti. Edited by Adriano Prosperi. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1992a.
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A magisterial study of the radical wing of the Italian reformers, the “rebels against every form of ecclesiastical organization” (p. 9) who, in practicing Nicodemism, argued against both old and new orthodoxies.
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Cantimori, Delio. “Prospettive di storia ereticale, in Cantimori, Delio.” In Eretici italiani del Cinquecento e altri scritti. Edited by Adriano Prosperi, 419–481. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1992b.
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Originally published in 1960. A reappraisal of the Eretici italiani, intended to lead to a study of the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy, from Savonarola to Sarpi. Chapter 5 (pp. 447–455) is dedicated to Nicodemism.
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Eire, Carlos M. N. War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. By Carlos M. N. Eire, 234–275. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511528835Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 7 raises objections against Ginzburg’s reconstruction and questions the idea that Nicodemism was a coherent and clearly defined movement.
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Ginzburg, Carlo. Il nicodemismo: Simulazione e dissimulazione religiosa nell’Europa del ’500. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1970.
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Brilliant and controversial study that considers Nicodemism as a coherent movement and traces it back to the thought of the Strasbourg reformer Otto Brunfels.
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Rotondò, Antonio. “Atteggiamenti della vita morale italiana del Cinquecento: La pratica nicodemitica.” In Studi di storia ereticale del Cinquecento. Vol. 1. Edited by Antonio Rotondò, 201–247. Florence: Olschki, 2008.
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Published for the first time in 1967. It provides rich evidence about Nicodemism in Italy and among the Italian exiles in northern Europe.
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Simoncelli, Paolo. Evangelismo italiano del Cinquecento: Questione religiosa e nicodemismo politico. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1979.
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A comprehensive study of Italian Evangelism. It argues that its crisis was produced not only because of Inquisitorial prosecution, but also by its theological and organizational feebleness.
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Zagorin, Perez. Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674866379Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Broad and useful study of the history of religious dissimulation across confessional boundaries. Chapter 5 (pp. 83–99) is dedicated to the history of Nicodemism in Italy.
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The Beneficio di Cristo
Published in Venice in 1543, the Beneficio di Cristo circulated widely in 16th-century Italy and was soon translated into several vernaculars, constituting one of the most important documents of the Italian Reformation. For the Italian text and its 16th-century translations, see Benedetto da Mantova 1972. While Bozza 1976 presents it as a Calvinist text, Ginzburg and Prosperi 1975 and Collett 1985 trace it back to a Benedictine and Pelagian tradition. On its circulation in 16th-century Italy, see Ossola 1985, Firpo 1995, and Prosperi 2000. The English translations are examined in Overell 2008.
Benedetto da Mantova. Il Beneficio di Cristo, con le versioni del secolo XVI. Florence: Sansoni, 1972.
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Critical edition by S. Caponnetto of the 1543 edition of the Beneficio, with the 16th-century translations of the work into French, English, and Croatian, together with the confutation by A. C. Politi, the Compendio d’errori e inganni luterani (1544).
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Bozza, Tommaso. Nuovi studi sulla Riforma in Italia. Vol. 1, Il “Beneficio di Cristo.” Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1976.
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Argues that the main source of the Beneficio is Calvin’s Institutes.
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Collett, Barry. Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation: The Congregation of Santa Giustina of Padua. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
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Argues that the Beneficio is indebted to the Benedictine tradition and that its theology is largely influenced by Chrysostom.
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Firpo, Massimo. “Il Beneficio di Cristo e il Concilio di Trento (1542–1546).” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura religiosa 31 (1995): 45–72.
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Examines the scribal circulation of the Beneficio before its appearance in print in 1543 through the circle of the spirituali led by Pole and Morone.
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Ginzburg, Carlo, and Adriano Prosperi. Giochi di pazienza: Un seminario sul “Beneficio di Cristo.” Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1975.
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Distinguishes two drafts of the Beneficio: the first Pelagian by Benedetto Fontanini, and the second rewritten by Marcantonio Flaminio.
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Ossola, Carlo. “‘Li summarii,’ ‘Li beneficii’ e una ‘Sposizione’ Nicodemita: Castelvetro in contesto.” In Culture et société en Italie du Moyen  ge à la Renaissance: Hommage à André Rochon. By André Rochon, 251–264. Paris: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1985.
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Examines the presence of the theme of the “beneficio di Cristo” among the members of the Modenese Academy, including Ludovico Castelvetro.
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Overell, Anne. Italian Reform and English Reformations, c. 1535–c. 1585. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
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Useful study of the influence of the Italian reformers in early modern England. Takes into account Vermigli, Ochino, Vergerio, Spiera, and the English translation of the Beneficio by Edward Courtenay.
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Prosperi, Adriano. L’eresia del Libro Grande: Storia di Giorgio Siculo e della sua setta. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000.
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Discovered by Cantimori in the Eretici italiani, the Benedictine monk Giorgio Siculo—Nicodemite and radical heretic—is the protagonist of this book. Chapters 3 and 4 are dedicated to the Beneficio di Cristo and contain the results of research on this text and its circulation that Prosperi has conducted for decades.
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Juan de Valdés
In the last few decades, scholars have demonstrated the centrality of Juan de Valdés in 16th-century Italy. Firpo 1990 is the best introduction to the topic, while Addante 2010 explores the radical wings of Italian Valdesianism. On the Spanish origins of Valdés’s mysticism, see Hamilton 1992; while on his dialogue with northern Protestantism, see Gilly 1983. Some of his most significant woks, including the Alfabeto cristiano, can be found in Valdés 1985, Valdés 1988, and Valdés 1994. For a detailed bibliography of his works, see Kinder 1989.
Addante, Luca. Eretici e libertini nel Cinquecento italiano. Rome: Laterza, 2010.
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Explores the radical ramifications of Valdesianism in 16th-century Italy and its relationship with emerging libertinism and atheism.
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Firpo, Massimo. Tra Alumbdrados e “Spirituali”: Studi su Juan de Valdés e il Valdesianesimo nella crisi religiosa del ’500 italiano. Florence: Olschki, 1990.
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An excellent study on the influence of Valdés in 16th-century Italy, with a special focus on Naples and on the radical appropriations of Valdesianism by Nicodemites, Anabaptists, and Antitrinitarians.
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Gilly, Carlos. “Juan de Valdés: Übersetzer und Bearbeiter von Luthers Schriften in seinem Diálogo de doctrina christiana.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 74 (1983): 257–305.
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Examines the influence of Luther on Valdés’s Dialogo, demonstrating the impact of northern Protestantism in 16th-century Spain.
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Hamilton, Alastair. Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The Alumbrados. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
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Examines Valdés and the relationship between Alumbrados and Evangelism.
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Kinder, A. Gordon. “Juan de Valdés.” In Bibliotheca Dissidentium: XI Répertoire des non-conformistes religieux des seizième et dix-septième siècles. Edited by André Séguenny, 111–195. Baden-Baden, Germany: Koerner, 1989.
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In collaboration with I. Backus and J. Rott, a detailed bibliography of Valdés’s writings and 16th-century documents on the Spanish reformer.
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Valdés, Juan de. Two Catechisms: The Dialogue on Christian Doctrine and the Christian Instruction for Children. Edited by José C. Nieto and translated by William B. Jones and Carol D. Jones. Lawrence, KS: Coronado, 1981.
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Useful English introduction to Valdés.
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Valdés, Juan de. Lo evangelio di San Matteo. Edited by Carlo Ossola and Anna Maria Cavallarin. Rome: Bulzoni, 1985.
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The Italian translation of Valdés’s Matthew commentary. Edited and with an introduction by C. Ossola, the critical text is edited by A. M. Cavallarin.
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Valdés, Juan de. Alfabeto cristiano. Edited by Adriano Prosperi. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 1988.
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Edited and with a brief but thoughtful introduction by A. Prosperi.
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Valdés, Juan de. Alfabeto cristiano. Edited by Massimo Firpo. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1994.
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Contains the Alfabeto cristiano, Domande e risposte, Della predestinazione, and Catechismo. The introduction by Firpo documents the circulation of Valdesianism in Italy and Protestant Europe.
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Peter Martyr Vermigli and Bernardino Ochino
Having both left Italy in 1542 after the death of Contarini and the establishment of the Roman Inquisition, Vermigli and Ochino were decisive in bringing the legacy of the Italian Reformation to northern Protestantism. The life and thought of these two prominent reformers have been treated extensively by scholarship, and the following titles are only some preliminary indications. Bainton 1940 constitutes the best modern biography of Ochino. On his decision to leave Italy in 1542, see Fragnito 2011. Ochino’s works kept appearing in new editions: see Ochino 2004 and Ochino 1988 for an English translation. Vermigli has attracted even more attention from scholars, as suggested in Olivieri 2003; James 2004; and Campi, et al. 2009. McNair 1967 is an excellent biography of Vermigli’s Italian years and still a useful point of departure. For the Peter Vermigli Library, see Donnelly and McLelland 1994– (cited under Editions and Translations of Primary Sources).
Bainton, Roland. Bernardino Ochino: Esule e riformatore senese del Cinquecento, 1487–1563. Florence: Sansoni, 1940.
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The most detailed modern study with a bibliography of Ochino’s writings and an appendix of documents.
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Campi, Emidio, Torrance Kirby, and Frank A. James III, eds. A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
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A collection of articles by leading scholars covering different aspects of Vermigli’s life and thought, from the biblical commentaries to the Loci communes and his legacy.
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Fragnito, Gigliola. “Gli ‘Spirituali’ e la fuga di Bernardino Ochino.” In Cinquecento italiano: Religione, cultura e potere dal Rinascimento alla Controriforma. Edited by Gigliola Fragnito, Elena Bonora, and Miguel Gotor, 141–188. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2011.
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Originally published in 1972. An indispensable study for reconstructing Ochino’s decision to go into exile and the crisis of the spirituali that followed the death of Contarini. It also contains a critical reappraisal of the notion of Evangelism. With an appendix of documents.
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James, Frank A., III. Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformations: Semper Reformanda. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004.
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A rich collection of articles with a particular focus on Vermigli’s theology and its impact on the European Reformation.
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McNair, Philip M. J. Peter Martyr in Italy: An Anatomy of an Apostasy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967.
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An excellent biography of Vermigli based on extensive research with primary sources. It also offers a critical reappraisal of the notion of Evangelism.
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Ochino, Bernardino. Seven Dialogues. Ottawa, Canada: Dovehouse, 1988.
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An English translation of Ochino’s Dialogi Sette. Translated with an introduction and notes by R. Belladonna.
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Ochino, Bernardino. Laberinti del libero arbitrio. Edited by Marco Bracali. Florence: Olschki, 2004.
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It offers an edition of the Laberinti, originally published in 1561 in Basel, Switzerland, by Pietro Perna.
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Olivieri, Achille, ed. Pietro Martire Vermigli (1499–1562): Umanista, riformatore, pastore; Atti del Convegno per il V centenario; Padova, 28–29 ottobre 1999. Rome: Herder, 2003.
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In collaboration with Pietro Bolognesi, a rich collection of articles published from the 1999 conference for the fifth centennial anniversary of Vermigli’s birth. It offers a detailed portrait of the Italian reformer, his life, thought, and legacy.
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Vittoria Colonna
As demonstrated in Robin 2007, Brundin 2008, and Cox 2008, Colonna was among the most celebrated female writers of the Renaissance and a central figure in the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy. Firpo 1988 examines her relationship with Morone and the spirituali, while Campi 1994 and Colonna 2005 contain useful material for evaluating her friendship with Michelangelo. Dionisotti 1981 examines Colonna’s relationship with Bembo. Colonna 1982 is a useful critical edition of her Rime.
Brundin, Abigail. Vittoria Colonna and the Spiritual Poetics of the Italian Reformation. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
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The best, modern full-length study of Colonna in English, examining her contacts with 16th-century Evangelism and the ways in which Petrarchism became a tool to spread religious reform.
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Campi, Emidio. Michelangelo e Vittoria Colonna: Un dialogo artistico-teologico ispirato da Bernardino Ochino e altri saggi di storia della Riforma. Turin, Italy: Claudiana, 1994.
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Explores the friendship between Michelangelo and Colonna, finding evidence of their religious ideas in their literary and artistic creations. The appendix contains Colonna’s “Meditatione del Venerdì Santo” and seven letters between Colonna and Michelangelo.
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Collett, Barry. A Long and Troubled Pilgrimage: The Correspondence of Marguerite D’Angoulême and Vittoria Colonna, 1540–1545. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 2000.
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Outlines the epistolary networks, spiritual interests, and religious anxieties in the letters between Vittoria Colonna and Marguerite d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre.
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Colonna, Vittoria. Rime. Edited by Allan Bullock. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1982.
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This is a good critical edition of the Rime, with a detailed apparatus of notes and bibliography.
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Colonna, Vittoria. Sonnets for Michelangelo: A Bilingual Edition. Edited by Abigail Brundin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226113937.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The volume collects Colonna’s sonnets originally presented in manuscript form as a gift for Michelangelo.
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Cox, Virginia. Women’s Writings in Italy, 1400–1650. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
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An important and comprehensive study that publishes years of research on women’s writings in early modern Italy, before and after the Council of Trent. It devotes ample space to Colonna.
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Dionisotti, Carlo. “Appunti sul Bembo e su Vittoria Colonna.” In Miscellanea Augusto Campana. Vol. 1. Edited by Rino Avesani, 257–286. Padua, Italy: Antenore, 1981.
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Examines Colonna’s Canzoniere; her relationship with Bembo; and the exchange of letters, sonnets, and art between them.
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Firpo, Massimo. “Vittoria Colonna, Giovanni Morone e gli ‘spirituali.’” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura religiosa 24 (1988): 211–261.
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Sheds new light on Colonna’s relationship with Pole, Morone, and her active involvement with the spirituali.
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Robin, Diana. Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
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A detailed study on the publication of women’s writings in early modern Italy, starting with Colonna’s Rime in 1538, to Giolito’s anthology of women poets that appeared in 1559.
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Women of the Italian Reformation
With the exception of Vittoria Colonna, women did not receive, until recently, much attention by scholars of the Italian Reformation. A good starting point is still Bainton 1971. The prominent role that women played in the religious crisis of 16th-century Italy is clear from the examples of Renée of France and G. Gonzaga, studied in Belligni 2011 and Peyronel Rambaldi 2012. Smarr 2005 investigates the Protestant humanism of O. Morata, whose works and letters can be read in Morata 2003. On I. Bresegna and C. Cibo, see Nicolini 1953 and Vasoli 1992.
Bainton, Roland H. Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1971.
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Part 2 contains biographical studies of G. Gonzaga, C. Cibo, V. Colonna, I. Bresegna, Renée of Ferrara, and O. Morata.
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Belligni, Eleonora. Renata di Francia (1510–1575): Un’eresia di corte. Turin, Italy: Utet, 2011.
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A biographical study of Renée of France and of the Protestant court that existed under her protection in 16th-century Ferrara, which offered refuge to several groups of religious dissidents.
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Morata, Olimpia. The Complete Writings of an Italian Heretic. Edited and translated by Holt N. Parker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226536712.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Collects Morata’s letters and poems along with contemporary documents of her correspondents and friends, including Curione.
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Nicolini, Benedetto. “Una calvinista napoletana: Isabella Bresegna.” Bollettino dell’Archivio Storico del Banco di Napoli 6 (1953): 121–141.
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A brief but useful biographical profile of the Neapolitan Calvinist Isabella Bresegna, of her relationship with G. Gonzaga and Neapolitan Valdesianism as well as on her contacts with other religious exiles, from Vergerio to Curione and Morata.
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Peyronel Rambaldi, Susanna. Una gentildonna irrequieta: Giulia Gonzaga fra reti familiari e relazioni eterodosse. Rome: Viella, 2012.
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Reconstructs the biography of Giulia Gonzaga with a special attention, on the one hand, on her relationship with Valdés and, on the other, on the role that aristocratic women played in the religious and political crisis of 16th-century Italy.
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Russell, Camilla. Giulia Gonzaga and the Religious Controversies of Sixteenth-Century Italy. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2006.
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Focuses on Giulia Gonzaga’s religious ideas and associates. It analyzes her role as patron of the Neapolitan circle of the spirituali, and her epistolary networks beyond Naples, with special focus on her correspondence with Pietro Carnesecchi.
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Smarr, Janet. “Olimpia Morata: From Classicist to Reformer.” In Phaethon’s Children: The Este Court and Its Culture in Early Modern Ferrara. Edited by Dennis Looney and Deanna Shemek, 321–343. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005.
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A detailed study of Morata’s humanist education and how this was reshaped after she went into exile in Germany. The appendix republishes the dialogue between Morata and Lavinia della Rovere.
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Vasoli, Cesare. “Una donna tra il potere e il Vangelo: Caterina Cibo Varano.” Res Publica Litterarum 15 (1992): 171–183.
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An excellent study of Cibo’s religious ideas with a particular focus on her relationship with Ochino. It also suggests that Cibo embraced Nicodemism after Ochino’s decision to go into exile. It is reprinted in C. Vasoli, Civitas Mundi: Studi sulla cultura del Cinquecento (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1996), pp. 121–138.
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Anabaptism and Popular Reform
Since the controversy between Croce, Chabod, and Cantimori in the 1930s, scholars tried to verify the influence of the Reformation in Italy outside of the main urban centers and among the popular classes. On Italian Anabaptsim, see Cantimori 1936, Ginzburg 1970, and Stella 1996. Seidel Menchi 1987 and Martin 1993 provide ample evidence of the circulation of religious dissent beyond the elite. The classic work on popular culture in 16th-century Italy is Ginzburg 1976. Menocchio’s trials can be read in del Col 1990.
Cantimori, Delio. “Anabattismo e Neoplatonismo nel XVI secolo in Italia.” Rendiconti della Regia Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 12 (1936): 521–561.
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Examines the influences of Marsilio Ficino’s Platonism and of Lorenzo Valla’s philology on Italian Anabaptsim. Revised and expanded in Cantimori’s Eretici italiani.
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Del Col, Andrea. Domenico Scandella detto Menocchio: I processi dell’Inquisizione, 1583–1599. Pordenone, Italy: Bilioteca dell’Immagine, 1990.
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Edition of the trials against Menocchio by A. Del Col. Translated into English by J. Tedeschi and A. Tedeschi, Domenico Scandella known as Menocchio: His Trials before the Inquisition (1583–1599) (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1996).
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Ginzburg, Carlo. I costituti di don Pietro Manelfi. Florence: Sansoni, 1970.
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Revises and expands the edition given by E. Comba in 1885. Manelfi’s confession given in 1551 in Bologna, Italy, to L. Alberti constitutes a crucial resource to reconstruct the history of Italian Anabaptism.
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Ginzburg, Carlo. Il formaggio e i vermi: Il cosmo di un mugnaio del ’500. Turin: Einaudi, 1976.
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A classic study on the 16th-century miller Domenico Scandella, alias Menocchio. By examining the ways in which Menocchio appropriated the texts that he could access, Ginzburg highlights the exchanges between elite and popular culture.
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Martin, John J. Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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This detailed and well-researched study is based on the records from the archives of the Roman Inquisition and situates the eruption of heresy in 16th-century Venice in its social and political context, taking into account moderate and radical groups of different social classes.
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Niccoli, Ottavia. Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
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An original study on the circulation of prophecies among different social and cultural strata in the decades of the Italian wars.
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Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia, 1520–1580. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987.
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A magisterial study that, through the repositories of Inquisitorial trials, reconstructs the circulation of Erasmus in 16th-century Italy at different social levels.
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Stella, Aldo. Dall’Anabattismo veneto al “Sozialevangelismus” dei Fratelli Hutteriti e all’Illuminismo religioso sociniano. Rome: Herder, 1996.
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An important study of the origins of Italian Anabaptism and its relationship with Antitrinitarianism and with the Italian heretical diaspora in Moravia.
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Biographical Studies
It is impossible to include here a comprehensive list of the biographical studies dedicated to the Italian reformers. Among scholars of the Italian Reformation, biography had become a particularly common historiographical genre through Croce’s work on Galeazzo Caracciolo (1933). Spini 1940, Schutte 1977, and Prosperi 2000 shed light not only on the lives of single individuals (Brucioli, Vergerio, and Siculo), but on the complexity of 16th-century Italian religious history. On the lives of some of the protagonists of the Italian Protestant emigration (Curione, Aconcio, Bizzarri, de Dominis, Tremelli), see Kutter 1955, O’Malley 1955, Firpo 1971, Belligni 2003, and Austin 2007.
Austin, Kenneth. From Judaism to Calvinism: The Life and Writings of Immanuel Tremellius (1510–1580). Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007.
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Reconstructs the career of Tremellius, born in the Jewish community in Ferrara and converted to Calvinism to become one of the most influential biblical scholars of the 16th century.
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Belligni, Eleonora. Auctoritas e potestas: Marcantonio de Dominis fra l’Inquisizone e Giacomo I. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2003.
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A detailed biography of the archbishop of Split, M. de Dominis, with a special focus on his apostasy and on his theological and political ideas.
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Firpo, Massimo. Pietro Bizzarri: Esule italiano del Cinquecento. Turin: Giappichelli, 1971.
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Reconstructs the life of the Italian reformer Pietro Bizzarri. A careful examination of Bizzarri’s literary and historical works, it also includes a rich appendix of letters.
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Kutter, Markus. Celio Secondo Curione: Sein Leben und sein Werk (1503–1569). Basel, Switzerland: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1955.
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Still the only comprehensive study of the life and thought of Curione, the prominent Italian reformer, sophisticated humanist, and author of—among other works—the Pasquillus extaticus and the De amplitudine beati regni Dei (examined also by Cantimori in the Eretici italiani).
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O’Malley, Charles D. Jacopo Aconcio. Translated by Delio Cantimori. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955.
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Comprehensive study on the Italian heretic Giacomo Aconcio, author of the famous Stratagemata Satanae. The first section is dedicated to Aconcio’s life and the second to his works. Translated from the English manuscript.
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Prosperi, Adriano. L’eresia del Libro Grande: Storia di Giorgio Siculo e della sua setta. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000.
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Discovered by Cantimori in the Eretici italiani, the Benedictine monk Giorgio Siculo—supporter of Nicodemism and critical of both old and new orthodoxies—is the protagonist of this book, in which Prosperi reconstructs in detail his religious ideas and his influence in 16th-century Italy and Europe.
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Schutte, Anne J. Pier Paolo Vergerio: The Making of an Italian Reformer. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1977.
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Excellent study of the life of Vergerio before his apostasy (1549) and the religious turmoil in Italy before the Council of Trent.
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Spini, Giorgio. Tra Rinascimento e Riforma: Antonio Brucioli. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1940.
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Classic biography of Antonio Brucioli, indefatigable propagandist of the Reformation in Italy, prolific translator of biblical and classical texts, and follower of Machiavelli. His Dialoghi are available in the Corpus Reformatorum Italicorum.
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The Toleration Controversy
Since Ruffini 1991, Cantimori 1992, and Bainton 1951 substantial attention has been dedicated to the Italian reformers’ role in the history of religious toleration, especially in the controversies that erupted after the execution of Servetus in 1553. Primary sources can be accessed in Aconcio 1946, Firpo 1978, and Celsi 1982. Guggisberg 2002 reconstructs the life and thought of Castellio, while Caravale 2013 investigates the impact of Aconcio’s Stratagemata in early modern Europe.
Aconcio, Giacomo. Stratagematum Satanae libri VIII. Edited by Giorgio Radetti. Florence: Vallecchi, 1946.
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Provides readers with a modern edition of Aconcio’s classic work and with a facing Italian translation.
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Bainton, Roland H. The Travail of Religious Liberty: Nine Biographical Studies. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1951.
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The history of religious tolerance though nine biographies that include B. Ochino, M. Servetus, and S. Castellio.
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Cantimori, Delio. Eretici italiani del Cinquecento e altri scritti. Edited by Adriano Prosperi. Turin: Einaudi, 1992.
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Originally published in 1939. A magisterial study of the radical wing of the Italian reformers, the “rebels against every form of ecclesiastical organization,” who argued against both old and new orthodoxies.
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Caravale, Giorgio. Storia di una doppia censura: Gli “Stratagemmi di Satana” di Giacomo Aconcio nell’Europa del Seicento. Pisa, Italy: Edizioni della Normale, 2013.
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Investigates the double censorship that hit Aconcio’s Stratagemata in 17th-century Italy and England.
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Celsi, Mino. In haereticis coërcendis quatenus progredi liceat. Edited by Peter Bietenholz. Naples, Italy: Prismi, 1982.
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Originally published by P. Perna in 1577, Celsi’s In haereticis draws on Castellio to attack the intolerance of both old and new orthodoxies.
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Firpo, Massimo. Il problema della tolleranza religiosa nell’età moderna dalla Riforma protestante a Locke. Turin: Loescher, 1978.
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A useful anthology of sources in Italian translation with plenty of documents on the execution of Servetus and the history of Socinianism.
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Guggisberg, Hans R. Sebastian Castellio, 1515–1563: Humanist and Defender of Religious Toleration in a Confessional Age. Translated by Bruce Gordon. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002.
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A rich and detailed study on S. Castellio and on his role in the 16th-century controversies over religious toleration. Originally published in German in 1997.
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Ruffini, Francesco. La libertà religiosa: Storia dell’idea. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1991.
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A classic study on the history of religious freedom, originally published in 1901. The 1991 edition is expanded with an introduction by A. C. Jemolo and an afterword by F. Margiotta Broglio.
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Pucci Francesco
After being examined in Cantimori 1992 (cited under Historiographical Debate and Terminology), who published for the first time the Forma d’una republica catolica in Cantimori and Feist 1937 (cited under Editions and Translations of Primary Sources), Pucci has attracted growing attention by scholars, especially in the wake of L. Firpo, who with R. Piattioli collected several letters and documents in Pucci 1955–1959. Barnavi and Eliav-Feldon 1988 situate Pucci in the history of Renaissance utopianism, while Baldini 1999, Carta 1999, Prosperi 2000, and Caravale 2011 shed new light on the life and influence of Pucci, through new documents found in the archive of the Holy Office. Pucci 2000 and Sozzini and Francesco 2010 give access to the works of the Florentine heretic in modern editions.
Baldini, Artemio E. “Tre inediti di Francesco Pucci al Cardinal Nipote e a Gregorio XIV alla vigilia del suo ‘rientro’ a Roma.” Rinascimento 39 (1999): 157–224.
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Collects three previously unpublished letters by Pucci that shed new light on his decision to return to the Catholic Church.
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Barnavi, Élie, and Miriam Eliav-Feldon. Le périple de Francesco Pucci: Utopie, hérésie et vérité religieuse dans la Renaissance tardive. Paris: Hachette, 1988.
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Based on Firpo’s studies, this is the first monographic study on Pucci, with a special focus on the relationship between heterodoxy and utopianism in the late Renaissance.
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Caravale, Giorgio. Il profeta disarmato: L’eresia di Francesco Pucci nell’Europa del Cinquecento. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2011.
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The most recent and comprehensive biography of Pucci, with new evidence on the relationship between the Florentine heretic and 16th-century Irenicism.
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Carta, Paolo. Nunziature ed eresia nel Cinquecento: Nuovi documenti sul processo e la condanna di Francesco Pucci (1592–1597). Padua, Italy: Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1999.
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Reconstructs Pucci’s last years and his decision to return to the Catholic Church in hopes that a future general council would solve religious controversies. Includes a rich appendix of documents, some of them previously unpublished.
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Prosperi, Adriano. L’eresia del Libro Grande: Storia di Giorgio Siculo e della sua setta. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000.
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Discovered by Cantimori in the Eretici italiani, the Benedictine monk Giorgio Siculo—supporter of Nicodemism and critical of both old and new orthodoxies—is the protagonist of this book. At pp. 365–374, the author carefully examines Siculo’s influence on Pucci.
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Pucci, Francesco. Lettere, documenti e testimonianze. 2 vols. Edited by Luigi Firpo and Renato Piattioli. Florence: Olschki, 1955–1959.
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An indispensable resource; the two-volume collection of Pucci’s letters, edited by L. Firpo and R. Piattioli, also includes other documents on the family history of the Florentine heretic.
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Pucci, Francesco. De praedestinatione. Edited by Mario Biagioni. Florence: Olschki, 2000.
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Edited with introduction and notes by M. Biagioni. Using the autograph manuscript held in Salzburg, Austria, it publishes Pucci’s De praedestinatione, an ambitious work drafted in Prague in 1589 to intervene in the European controversies over predestination.
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Sozzini, Fausto, and Pucci Francesco. De statu primi hominis ante lapsum disputatio. Edited by Mario Biagioni. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2010.
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This is an edition of the controversy between F. Sozzini and F. Pucci on original sin and on the original immortality of Adam.
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Socinianism and Antitrinitarianism
In the wake of Cantimori, scholars have explored the impact of Socinianism on early modern thought, trying to reconstruct the influence of the Italian heretics on the origins of the Enlightenment. Sozzini 1986 and Sozzini 2004 provide the best introduction to the works of L. Sozzini and F. Sozzini. Pintacuda de Michelis 1975 and Priarolo and Scribano 2005 investigate the legacy of Socinianism in Early Modern Europe. On Antitrinitarianism and on the impact of Socinianism in eastern Europe, see Stella 1967, Caccamo 1970, Firpo 1977, and Balázs 1996.
Balázs, Mihály. Early Transylvanian Antitrinitarianism (1566–1571): From Servet to Paleologus. Baden-Baden, Germany: Koerner, 1996.
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Originally published in 1988, this is a fundamental study on the history of Antitrinitarianism in Transylvania, with special attention on its Italian sources, starting with G. Aconcio.
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Caccamo, Domenico. Eretici italiani in Moravia, Polonia, Transilvania (1558–1561). Florence: Sansoni, 1970.
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A useful study on the Italian heretical emigration in eastern Europe, based on Polish and Czech sources, with a rich appendix of documents.
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Firpo, Massimo. Antitrinitari nell’Europa orientale del ’500. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1977.
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Publishes several texts on the history of Antitrinitarianism that were previously unknown, such as Szymon Budny, Niccolò Paruta, and Iacopo Paleologo.
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Pintacuda de Michelis, Fiorella. Socinianesimo e tolleranza nell’età del razionalismo. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975.
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In the wake of Cantimori, it examines the influence of Socinianism in the history of religious toleration.
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Priarolo, Mariangela, and Emanuela Scribano. Fausto Sozzini e la filosofia in Europa. Siena, Italy: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 2005.
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A collection of articles by leading scholars in the field that investigates the life and thought of F. Sozzini, and documents the influence of Socinianism on early modern philosophy, taking into account Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke, among others.
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Sozzini, Lelio. Opere. Edited by Antonio Rotondò. Florence: Olschki, 1986.
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An excellent critical edition of Sozzini’s works by A. Rotondò. It includes the De Resurrectione, De Sacramentis Dissertatio ad Tigurinos et Genevenses, Confessio Fidei, and Brevis Explicatio in Primum Johannis Caput, along with fifty-three letters.
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Sozzini, Fausto. Opera omnia. Siena, Italy: Ciaccheri, 2004.
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Republishes the Opera omnia by F. Sozzini that appeared posthumously in 1656, with a rich and detailed introduction by E. Scribano.
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Stella, Aldo. Dall’Anabattismo al Socinianesimo nel Cinquecento veneto. Padua, Italy: Liviana, 1967.
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A rich and useful study of religious radicalism in the Republic of Venice during the 16th century. It demonstrates the influence of Paduan rationalism on the development of Socinianism, with a special focus on Fausto Sozzini’s friend Nicolò Buccella who became physician at the Polish court of Stefan Báthory.
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The Inquisition and the Index of Prohibited Books
The opening of the Archive of the Holy Office in 1998 has nourished a new wave of studies on the methods and procedures of the Roman Inquisition, shifting attention from the prosecuted to the prosecutors. Fundamental starting points are Tedeschi 1991, Prosperi 1996, Firpo 2005, and Del Col 2006. Inquisitorial records are used in Seidel Menchi 1987 and Barbierato 2012 to reconstruct the spread of heresy and unbelief in Early Modern Italy. Among the recent studies on the Roman Inquisition in English language, see Black 2009 and Mayer 2013. On the history of ecclesiastical censorship, see Fragnito 2001.
Barbierato, Federico. The Inquisitor in the Hat Shop: Inquisition, Forbidden Books and Unbelief in Early Modern Venice. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012.
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Using the archives of the Venetian Holy Office and of the Inquisitori di stato, this study reconstructs the emergence of various forms of unbelief in early modern Venice, including skepticism, libertinism, and atheism.
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Black, Cristopher. The Italian Inquisition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
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A broad and useful survey of the history of the Inquisition in Italy, comparing and contrasting it with its Spanish counterpart.
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del Col, Andrea. L’Inquisizione in Italia dal XII al XXI secolo. Milan: Mondadori, 2006.
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A study divided into three parts: the Inquisition in Italy during the Middle Ages, the 16th century, and from the 17th to the 21st centuries.
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Firpo, Massimo. Inquisizione romana e Controriforma: Studi sul Cardinal Giovanni Morone (1509–1580). Brescia, Italy: Morcelliana, 2005.
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An important collection of articles that sheds new light on the trial against Cardinal Morone and on the ways in which the Inquisition was used against the spirituali.
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Fragnito, Gigliola, ed. Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Useful collection of articles on the history of ecclesiastical censorship in Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries. It examines the impact of censorship on several fields, such as astrology, spiritual literature, the Talmud, treatises on dueling, law books, and Italian literature.
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Mayer, Thomas F. The Roman Inquisition: A Papal Bureaucracy and Its Laws in the Age of Galileo. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
DOI: 10.9783/9780812207644Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A rich and well-documented study of the procedures of the Roman Inquisition, with special attention to its bureaucratic organization.
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Prosperi, Adriano. Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1996.
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A classic study on the ways in which the Catholic Church reacted to the eruption of the Reformation and established its cultural hegemony over Italy. The first section is entirely dedicated to the Inquisition.
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Seidel Menchi, Silvana. Erasmo in Italia, 1520–1580. Turin, Italy: Bollati Boringhieri, 1987.
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A magisterial study of the circulation of Erasmus in Italy, based on the repositories of Inquisitorial trials.
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Tedeschi, John. The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies on the Inquisition in Early Modern Italy. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.
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A fundamental work that reframed the study of the Roman Inquisition. The articles collected in the volume deal with the organization and the procedures of the Inquisition after its reconstitution in 1542.
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Renaissance Art and Religious Dissent
The relationship between Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna, and the spirituali has often led scholars to discuss the dialogue between art and heterodoxy in the Renaissance. On Michelangelo and the Italian Reformation, see de Tolnay 1960, Steinberg 1975, and De Maio 1978. More recently, scholarship has taken new directions, as suggested in Firpo 1997, Firpo 2001, and Firpo 2010, which shed new light on Pontormo and Lotto, and Nagel 2011, which investigates the controversy over religious images in the first half of the 16th-century. Paleotti 1990 provides access to the Counter-Reformation debate on the power of images through the famous text of the Bolognese cardinal.
De Maio, Romeo. Michelangelo e la Controriforma. Rome and Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1978.
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Examines Michelangelo’s friendship with Vittoria Colonna and its connections with the circle of the spirituali in Viterbo.
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de Tolnay, Charles. The Final Period: Last Judgment, Frescoes of the Pauline Chapel, Last Pietàs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.
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Chapter 3 (pp. 51–69) focuses on Michelangelo’s friendship with Vittoria Colonna and on his involvement in the religious turmoil of 16th-century Italy.
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Firpo, Massimo. Gli affreschi di Pontormo a San Lorenzo: Eresia, politica e cultura nella Firenze di Cosimo I. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1997.
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A magisterial study on Pontormo’s religious beliefs and on the influence of Valdesianism in Medicean Florence.
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Firpo, Massimo. Artisti, gioielleri, eretici: Il mondo di Lorenzo Lotto tra Riforma e Controriforma. Rome and Bari, Italy: Laterza, 2001.
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Reconstructs Lotto’s contacts with the circle of religious dissent in 16th-century Venice and sheds new light on his religious ideas.
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Firpo, Massimo. Storie di immagini, immagini di storia: Studi di iconografia cinquecentesca. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2010.
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A collection of articles, previously published but here revised and expanded, that explores the impact of the 16th-century religious crisis on figures such as Pontormo, Lotto, Michelangelo, and Zuccari.
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Nagel, Alexander. The Controversy of Renaissance Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
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A rich and thoughtful study about the controversy over religious images in Renaissance Italy, focusing on the decades between the 1490s and the 1540s. It explores the ways in which the Reformation radically questioned the functions of art.
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Paleotti, Gabriele. Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane. Bologna, Italy: Forni, 1990.
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With an introduction by P. Prodi. It constitutes a fundamental resource for reconstructing the controversy over images in Counter-Reformation Italy. Available also in an English translation by W. McCuaig (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2012).
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Steinberg, Leo. “Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgment’ as Merciful Heresy.” Art in America (1975): 49–63.
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Controversial but highly stimulating study of the theological meaning of the Last Judgment and of Michelangelo’s ties with the circles of Italian heterodoxy.
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The Italian Reformers and the Diffusion of Renaissance Culture
As indicated in Tedeschi 1987, the Italian reformers played a decisive role not only in the theological controversies of the Reformation, but also in the European dissemination of Renaissance culture. On the Italian Protestant printer Pietro Perna and the Italian community in Basel, Switzerland, see Rotondò 1974 and Perini 2002. Firpo and Mongini 2008 constitutes a useful introduction on the philologist Ludovico Castelvetro. On England and the lexicographer John Florio, see Yates and Florio 1934 and Wyatt 2005. The prominent lawyer Alberico Gentili is examined in Panizza 1981 and Maclean 2009.
Firpo, Massimo, and Guido Mongini. Ludovico Castelvetro: Letterati e grammatici nella crisi religiosa del Cinquecento; Atti della XIII Giornata Luigi Firpo, Torino, 21–22 settembre 2006. Florence: Olscki, 2008.
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A collection of articles on the prominent Italian Protestant philologist Ludovico Castelvetro. It includes essays on Castelvetro’s commentaries to Aristotle’s Poetics and Dante’s Commedia.
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Maclean, Ian. Learning and the Market Place: Essays in the History of the Early Modern Book. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2009.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004175501.i-460Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 11 (pp. 291–337) is a detailed study on the Italian Protestant lawyer Alberico Gentili and his printers between England and Germany.
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Panizza, Diego. Alberico Gentili giurista ideologo nell’Inghilterra elisabettiana. Padua, Italy: La Garangola, 1981.
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A useful intellectual biography of the prominent Italian Protestant lawyer Alberico Gentili, regius professor of civil law at Oxford from 1587.
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Perini, Leandro. La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2002.
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The result of decades of research, this is the most comprehensive study of the prominent Italian Protestant printer Pietro Perna. It includes in the appendix a detailed catalogue of Perna’s publications.
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Rotondò, Antonio. Studi e ricerche di storia ereticale italiana del Cinquecento. Turin, Italy: Giappichelli, 1974.
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Chapter 7 (pp. 273–391) is dedicated to Pietro Perna. By studying the books that Perna published between 1570 and 1580, Rotondò reconstructs the intellectual and religious atmosphere of late-16th-century Basel, Switzerland.
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Tedeschi, John. “I contributi culturali dei riformatori protestanti nel tardo Cinquecento.” Italica 1 (1987): 19–61.
DOI: 10.2307/478509Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An excellent study of the role played by the Italian Protestant diaspora in the European dissemination of Renaissance culture.
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Wyatt, Michael. The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511484094Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An indispensable study on the role of translation in the early modern period that reconstructs the cultural exchanges between Italy and England in the 16th century, with a special focus in the second part on John Florio.
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Yates, Frances A., and John Florio. The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare’s England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1934.
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The first classic study by Frances Yates, which through Florio’s biography reconstructs the arrival of the Italian and Continental Renaissance in early modern England. The first chapter is dedicated to Florio’s father Michelangelo, first minister of the Italian Protestant Church in London.
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