band of pure, amiable, and high-minded, but not large-minded men, who fondly hoped that, by the amendment of some practical abuses, and a mutually forbearing give-and-take arrangement of some nice questions of metaphysical theology, peace on earth and good-will among men might yet be made compatible with the undiminished pretensions and theory of an universal and infallible church, were still lapped in the happiness of their day-dream. Of this knot of excellent men, which comprised all that was best, most amiable, and most learned in Italy, Vittoria was the disciple, the friend, and the inspired Muse. The short examination of her religious poetry, therefore, which will be the subject of the next chapter, will not only open to us the deepest and most earnest part of her own_mind, but will, in a measure, illustrate the extent and nature of the Protestantizing tendencies then manifesting themselves in Italy. CHAPTER VII. Oratory of Divine Love.-Italian Reformers.-Their Tenets.-Consequence of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith.-Fear of Schism in Italy.-Orthodoxy of Vittoria questioned.-Proofs of her Protestantism from her Writings.-Calvinism of her Sonnets.-Remarkable Passage against Auricular Confession.-Controversial and Religious Sonnets.-Absence from the Sonnets of Moral Topics.-Specimen of her Poetical Power.-Romanist Ideas.-Absence from the Sonnets of all Patriotic Feeling. THE extreme corruption of the Italian church, and in some degree also the influence of German thought, had even as early as the Pontificate of Leo X. led several of the better minds in Italy to desire ardently some means of religious reform. A contemporary writer cited by Ranke,* tells us that in Leo's time some fifty or sixty earnest and pious men formed themselves into a society at Rome, which they called the "Oratory of Divine Love," and strove by example and preaching to stem as much as in them lay the tide of profligacy and infidelity. Among these men were Contarini, the learned and saint-like Venetian, Sadolet, Giberto, Caraffa (a man, who, however earnest in his piety, showed himself at a later period, when he became pope as Paul IV., to be animated with a very different spirit from that of most of his fellow-religionists), Gaetano, Thiene, who was afterward canonized, etc. But in almost every part of Italy, not less than in Rome, there were men of the same stamp, who car ried the new ideas to greater or lesser lengths, were the objects of more or less ecclesiastical censure and persecution; and who died, some reconciled to and some excommunicated by the church they so vainly strove to amend. * Caracciolo, Vita di Paolo 4, Ms. Ranke, Popes, vol. i. p. 136, edit. cit. In Naples, Juan Valdez, a Spaniard, secretary to the viceroy, warmly embraced the new doctrines; and being a man much beloved and of great influence, he drew many converts to the cause. It was a pupil and friend of his, whose name it has been vainly sought o ascertain, who composed the celebrated treatise, "On the Benefits of the Death of Christ," which was circulated in immense numbers over the whole of Italy, and exercised a very powerful influence. A little later, when the time of inquisitorial persecution came, this book was so vigorously proscribed, sought out and destroyed, that despite the vast number of copies which must have existed in every corner of Italy, it has utterly disappeared, and not one is known to be in existence. It is impossible to have a more striking proof of the violent and searching nature of the persecution under Paul IV. Another friend of Valdez, who was also intimate with Vittoria, was Marco Flaminio, who revised the treatise On the Benefits of Christ's Death." In Modena, the Bishop Morone, the intimate friend of Pole and Contarini, and his chaplain, Don Girolamo de Modena, supported and taught the same opinions. In Venice, Gregorio Cortese, abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore, Luigi Priuli, a patrician, and the Benedictine Marco, of Padua, formed a society mainly occupied in discussing the subtle questions which formed the " symbolum" of the new party. "If we inquire," says Ranke, "what was the faith which chiefly inspired these men, we shall find that the main article of it was that same doctrine of justification, which, as preached by Luther, had given rise to the whole Protestant movement. The reader fortunate enough to be wholly unread in controversial divinity will yet probably not have escaped hearing of the utterly interminable disputes on justification, free-will, election, faith, good works, prevenient grace, original sin, absolute decrees, and predestination, which, with much of evil, and as yet little good consequence, have occupied the most acute intellects and most learning-stored brains of Europe for the last three centuries. Without any accurate knowledge of the manner in which the doctrines represented by these familiar terms are dependent on, and necessitated by, each other, and of the precise point on which the opposing creeds have fought this eternal battle, he will be aware that the system popularly known as Calvinism represents the side of the question taken by the reformers of the sixteenth century, while the opposite theory of justi fication by good works was that held by the orthodox Catholic Church, or unreforming party. And with merely these general ideas to guide him, it will appear strangely unaccountable to find all the best, noblest, and purest minds adopting a system which in its simplest logical development inevitably leads to the most debasing + Ed. cit., vol. i. p. 188. * Banke, ed. cit., vol. i. p. 217. demonolatry, and lays the axe to the root of all morality and noble action; while the corrupt, the worldly, the ambitious, the unspiritual, the unintellectual natures that formed the dominant party, held the opposite opinion, apparently so favorable to virtue. An explanation of this phenomenon by a partisan of either school would probably be long and somewhat intricate. But the matter becomes intelligible enough, and the true key to the wishes and conduct of both parties is found, if, without regarding the moral or theological results of either scheme, or troubling ourselves with the subtleties by which either side sought to meet the objections of the other, we consider simply the bearings of the new doctrines on that ecclesiastical system, which the orthodox and dominant party were determined at all cost to support. If it were admitted that man is justifiable by faith alone, that his election is a matter to be certified to his own heart by the immediate operation of the Divine Spirit, it would follow that the whole question of his religious condition and future hopes might be, or rather must be, settled between him and his Creator alone. And then what would become of ecclesiastical authority and priestly interference? If the only knowledge possible to be attained of any individual's standing before God were locked in his own breast, what hold can the Church have on him? It is absolutely necessary to any system of spiritual tyranny that no doctrine should be admitted by virtue of which a layman may tell a priest that despite the opinion he, the priest, may form upon the subject, he, the layman, has the assurance of acceptation before God, by means of evidence of a nature inscrutable to the priest. Once admit this, and the whole foundation of ecclesiastical domination is sapped. Nay, by a very logical and short route, sure to be soon travelled by those who have made good this first fundamental pretension, they would arrive at the negation and abolition of all priesthood. Preachers and teachers might still have place under such a system, but not priests, or priestly power. To this an externally ascertainable religion is so vitally necessary that the theory of justification by good works was far from sufficient for the purposes of the Catholic priesthood, as long as good works could be understood to mean a general course of not very accurately measurable virtuous living. This was not sufficient, because, though visible, not sufficiently tangible, countable, and tariffable. Hence the good works most urgently prescribed became reduced to that mass of formal practices so well known as the material of Romanist piety, among which, the most valuable for the end in view, are of course those which can only be performed by the intervention of a priest. But it must not be supposed that all this was as plainly discerned by the combatants in that confused strife as it may be by lookers back on it from a vantage-ground three centuries high. The innovators were in all probability few, if any of them, conscious of the extent and importance of the principle they were fighting for. And on the other hand, there is no reason to attribute an evil consciousness of motives, such as those nakedly set forth above, to the conservative party. The fact that a doctrine would tend to abridge church power and endanger church unity would doubtless have appeared to many a good and conscientious man a sufficient proof of its unsoundness and falsity. Indeed, even among the reformers in Italy the fear of schism was so great, and the value attached to church unity so high, that these considerations probably did as much toward checking and finally extinguishing Protestantism in Italy as did the strong hand of persecution. From the first, many of the most earnest advocates of the new doctrines were by no means prepared to sever themselves from the Church for the sake of their opinions. Some were ready to face such schism and martyrdom also in the cause; as, for instance, Bernardino Ochino, the General of the Capuchins, and the most powerful preacher of his day, who fled from Italy and became a professed Protestant, and Carnesecchi, the Florentine, who was put to death for his heresy at Rome. But it had not yet become clear how far the new doctrines might be held compatibly with perfect community with the Church of Rome at the time when Vittoria arrived in that city from Ferrara. The conference with the German Protestants, by means of which it was hoped to effect a reconciliation, was then being arranged, and the hopes of Vittoria's friends ran high. When these hopes proved delusive, and when Rome pronounced herself decisively on the doctrines held by the Italian reformers, the most conspicuous friends of Vittoria did not quit the church. She herself writes ever as its submissive and faithful daughter. But as to her having held opinions which were afterward declared heretical, and for which others suffered, much of her poetry, written probably about this time, affords evidence so clear that it is wonderful Tiraboschi and her biographers can deem it possible to maintain her orthodoxy. Take, for example, the following sonnet : "Quand' io riguardo il nobil raggio ardente Ch' illustra 'l intelletto, infiamma il core Raccoglie tutte insième a fargli onore; C'ha dal favor del ciel maggior sostegno." Thus rendered into English blank verse, with a greater closeness to the sense of the original than might perhaps have been attained in a translation hampered by the necessity of rhyming: "When I reflect on that bright noble ray Of grace divine, and on that mighty power, With virtue, strong with more than human strength, Who most by Heaven's free favor is upheld." The leading points of Calvinistic doctrine could hardly be in the limits of a sonnet more clearly and comprehensively stated. Devotional meditation inclines the heart to God; but the soul is powerless even to worship, except in such measure as she is enabled to do so by freely-given grace. By this means only can man make sure his election. To strive after virtue is useless to the non-elect, seeing that man can safely run his course only in proportion as he has received the favor of God. Again, in the following sonnet will be remarked a tone of thought and style of phrase perfectly congenial to modern devotional feeling of what is termed the evangelical school; while it is assuredly not such as would meet the approval of orthodox members of either the Roman Catholic or Anglo-Catholic churches: "Quando dal lume, il cui vivo splendore Si dissolve per grazia il ghiaccio duro, Cader delle mie colpe il manto oscuro, Serro quel raggio; egli è scivo e sottile, Rimango, e 'l prego che d' ogni ombra vile Which may be thus, with tolerable accuracy, rendered into English "When by the light, whose living ray both peace By one low thought 'tis scared and put to flight. May purge me, so the light come sooner back to me," |