Reformation in Italy

During the 12th and 13th centuries a wide variety of religious dissidents appeared in Northwestern Italy and in Rome (like the patarini, the dulcinians, Arnaldo da Brescia); however, all were eliminated. Only one small group from the 12th century – Waldensians – was an exception. The Waldensians settled in inaccessible valleys of the western Alps where, thanks to their effective defence, they obtained a reduced freedom of faith (in 1561), after they had adhered to Reformation about 1532.

Girolamo Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1498, Museo di San Marco, Florence.

A Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), is regarded as the predecessor of Martin Luther in Italy:[2] he stigmatized the debauchery and abuses of the Catholic clergy, as well as demanding a "moral revival" and the destruction of statues and images at churches. However, in contrast with Luther, Savonarola did not gain the protection of influential patrons, and his action was of short duration. It was limited only to Florence, and soon Savonarola was hanged and burned.[3] Savanarola's Florentine contemporaries Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola attempted what has been termed a “Hermetic Reformation,"[4] but their Hermetic and Neoplatonic doctrines did not result in the emergence of a Protestant denomination.

Prof. Dr. Emidio Campi writes that the history of the Italian Reformation has been not yet thoroughly examined.[5] Naples was one important centre of the Reformation. There, at the end of the 15th century, a so-called Spirituali circle was formed. It was concentrated around Spanish immigrant Juan de Valdés, who propagated Christian mysticism. In the 16th century, Venice and its possession Padua were temporarily places of refuge for Italian Protestants. These cities, along with Lucca, were important centres of the Italian Reformation because they were easily reached by new religious ideas spreading from the North. However, Protestantism there was quickly destroyed by the Inquisition. Italian Protestants fled mainly to German duchies and to Switzerland.[1]

Causes of the Italian Reformation were diverse: the precociousness of humanism, associated with the Italian revival; the rule of foreign powers (e.g. Spain in southern Italy, the Holy Roman Empire in the North), which were propagating other forms of Catholicism contrary to the Italian tradition; need of a deeper and more personal relation with God; a defence of Italian democratic and republican traditions against authoritarian monarchies in Spain and Germany; reaction to the ostentatious wealth and immoral conduct of the Catholic clergy, particularly Pope Alexander VI, who openly supported corruption and nepotism.[6] The papacy was often accused (among others by Niccolò Machiavelli) of supporting the political division of Italy.[6]

In the 1520s, soon after publication of the first letters of Martin Luther, the first few Italian Lutherans appeared (e.g. Pier Paolo Vergerio, Aonio Paleario). However, the effect of Lutheranism was minimal because Luther wrote in German and directed his mission mainly at Germans, and the Church censorship in Italy was very effective.[6]

Bartolomeo Fonzio probably first translated Luther tract An den christlichen Adel into Italian. Later he was active promoter of Lutheranism in Italy, but in 1558 was sentenced to death and drowned.[7] Other notable reformers were Baldo Lupetino of Albona in Istria and Baldassare Altieri of Aquila in Neapolitan territory.

All mentions of Lutheranism were immediately destroyed: in 1530 Antonio Bruccioli was expelled from Florence because he had cited works of Luther and Martin Bucer. Later he rendered the Reformation great service by elucidating and printing Biblical writings in the Italian language. He was repeatedly brought to trial, and died in prison in 1566.[7] In 1531 Luther's theses were discussed at the University of Padua. It was the only known case of such an academic discussion in Italy.[1]

Italian Protestants quickly radicalised their views under the influence of religious persecutions, and started propagating Calvinism, Anabaptism or Nontrinitarianism. Its followers Pietro Martire Vermigli, Girolamo Zanchi, Lelio and Fausto Sozzini acted mainly amongst higher social classes, frequently in princes' courts thus protecting themselves to some extent from the Inquisition.[1] In 1550, Pope Julius III affirmed that 1,000 Venetians might be counted as belonging to the Anabaptist sect. Among them Giulio Gherlandi and Francesco dells Saga fell a sacrifice to the Venetian Inquisition in 1565.[7]

About 1528 many French radical Protestants (among others Clément Marot and John Calvin) gathered around the prince Ercole d'Este in Ferrara, invited there by the prince's wife Renée – the daughter of the King Louis XII of France. For this reason the princess was accused by the Inquisition of heresy and came back to France after the death of her husband.[1]

Waldensianism was revitalized with the Protestant Reformation, and aligned itself to Calvinism by becoming a part of it.

On the fringes of the Protestant Reformation there is the Biblical Unitarian Movement.[9] Today, biblical Unitarianism (or "Biblical Unitarianism" or "biblical unitarianism")[10] identifies the Christian belief that the Bible teaches God is a singular person—the Father—and that Jesus is a distinct being, his son. A few denominations use this term to describe themselves, clarifying the distinction between them and those churches[11] which, from the late 19th century, evolved into modern British Unitarianism and, primarily in the United States, Unitarian Universalism.