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discussion of literary and religious to * pics . The period assigned fo * its dispersion is the yea * 1546 : anc | it is worthy of observation , tha £ on the first of May , in fchat very year , the Pope addressed a Bull tp the Senate of Venice , directing * them tp suppress
the Lutheran heresy at Vincenza . ? There can be no question but that ij was this Papal mandate which occasioned the breaking up of the Protesrtant society at that place . There belonged to it at t ^ bis period , James de Chiar , Julius Trevi 3 anus , find Francis de Ruego , who were seized by the
inquisitors ; the first died in prisqn > and the otker two were put to death at Venice : —Laelius Socinus , Niccola Paruta , Valentine Gentilis , Darius So * cinus , Francis Nig ^ r , and John Paul Alciatus , who all escaped , and obr tained an asylum among the Reformers on the other side of the Alps . +
The Senate of Venice , by permitting the Pope ' s Bull to be acted uppn with such promptness and sanguinary vio * - lence , departed , for the first time , from that cautious and lenient policy which it had usually observed towards the favourers of the Reformation in the
countries under its jurisdiction . Whatever might have been the reasons of its conduct in this instance , they did not at once cpase to operate 2 for the measures to which it now assented proved to he the forerunners of others
upon a still larger scale , which ultimately effected the ruin of the cause of the Reformers in these states . The Pope , finding that the Reformed doctrines were gaining over proselytes in great numbers , throughout Ital y , issued strict orders to the officers 0 / the
Inquisition to use the utmost vigilance to detect and seize the heretics , and to suppress their books . These orders obtained the ready adoption and the active corope ^ ation of the several go ~
vernments into which they were sent . The Senate of Venice , on this occasion , evinced its zeal for thp interests of the holy see , by re-enaeting a decree which it had passed against heretics in the year 1521 , probably on the
* Gardes , ut supra , pp . 7 \ , ct s ^ qq . This writer has given tfre & M \\ ^ t tengtji . t Rees > I ^ covijui CatBchfcw , H ist orical Introduction , pip . . &Q . . witJx the authorities referred , to in the Note ,
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puMlepMon of the Ball agiuftst Lu $ er hull which it hvul allowed to regain a daad letter upon its statute-books . In consequence of tjie severity vpith which it was now carried into qxscu , iion , BultUasar Alterius again interested himself for the persecuted Prote& .
fftnts , and with the yiew of obtaining sqoiq tnitigaition of the edict which had been passed against th § * n , vm ) te on their behalf to the Duke of S&xony , and the other leaders of the Reformation in Germany , and went himself with th # same view into Switzerlan d to intercede with the Swiss
Governments to take up their cause . His benevolent exertions failed of their object , and only served to incense against himself the power which he had ^ imed to soften : for oij hig return { ie was ordered either to rejoia the Church of Rome or quit the states , and he immediately chose the latter alternative . *
Besides the territories of Venice , the principles of the Reformation obtained a favourable reception in other states in the north of Italy . The celebrated Paguinus , writing to Pope Clement VII ., in January , 1525 , states , that naapy of the citizens of Florence were infected by the Lutheran heresy ; and he is careful to add , that he had
laboured among them not without be ^ nefit to many souls , - ^ There were , also , several Protestants at Modena in 1642 and U > 45 , who attracted the notice of the See of Rome ; and at Milan , so late as the
year 1636 , Pope Paul III . complains , in a letter to Moronus , bishop of Modena , that there were many heresies condemned b y the Church , openly professed . The same Pope , writing to Cardinal Mantuanus in 1545 , states ,
that he had been informed that there wore at Mantua some of the clergy and others who not only doubted but denied the doctrines of the Roman Church , whom he exhorts him to
take the proper methods to puniah or reclaim . At Bologna , also , there were many convert ^ to the Protestant cause ; and , it is stated , that in their number thqy reckoned one individual of 6 iiuh influence and authority , thft *
* De Porta , ut supra , Toau . I . Lib * li ppu 31 ' , et scqq . + Gerdes , pp . 9 , 10 .
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90 Tte Noncanfarmkf . Nq . XXHI .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1822, page 90, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2509/page/26/
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