LUDWIG VON PASTOR'S

HISTORY OF THE POPES FROM THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

VOLUMES XXV & XXVI . PAUL V. (1605-1621)

CHAPTER IV.

Ecclesiastico-Political Struggle with Venice and Proclamation of the Interdict.

Venice has always been the point of contact between East and West; in many respects it may be described as a bit of the East in the midst of the West. To begin with the church of St. Mark, the heart and symbol of the republic, gives the impression of having been brought over from Byzantium. The East is called to mind by the Venetian administration of justice with its arbitrary verdicts and its secret condemnations and executions. The whole constitution bears an eastern stamp in that it jealously checks one branch of the executive by another and allows even the doge to be sent to the block. In Venice, says an account written towards the end of the XVIth century, there are not many monuments of the great men of bygone centuries; the republic sees even in the outstanding worth of her captains and statesmen a danger against which it guards itself. Andrea Contarini, the conqueror of Genoa, deemed it expedient to leave instructions that not even his name should appear on his tomb. Even as regards manners Venice was the most oriental city of Europe. There was a counterpart to the joyous sensuality and the delight in splendour and display which Titian and other Venetian artists paint with such glowing colours. Venice was the abode of luxurious, self-indulgent frivolity and the rendezvous of pleasure-seeking, dissipated foreigners. Above all relations with the Church, in Venice, seem to have been modelled on a Byzantine pattern.

The republic set store by a reputation for orthodoxy and its frequent boast was that of being an obedient daughter of the Roman Church and a bulwark of Christendom against Islam. The numerous churches and pious foundations of the city as well as the splendour of the liturgical functions might well convey an impression that here religion flourished greatly. However, at least among the upper classes, there prevailed much religious indifference which was being steadily fostered by constant business relations with the Greeks and Mohammedans. The philosophy of Averroes, with its denial of the immortality of the individual soul, flourished at the Venetian university of Padua. As late as the beginning of the XVIIth century one of the masters there, Cremonini, was able to propagate such ideas with impunity. Free-thinkers such as Aretino and Giordano Bruno sought refuge precisely at Venice and nowhere in Italy did protestantism meet with so much success as in that city.

If in private life, seemingly at least, religion meant everything, little room was left for it in political life.  “We are Venetians first, and Christians after that”, was the motto of the leaders of the State. True there was then elsewhere also a party which held that the interests of the State take precedence over everything, religion included; that all religions should be tolerated and that the State should claim sovereignty over the Church. But, in the opinion of a contemporary, Venice was perhaps the birthplace of these principles which there had passed into the political system.

No more than her captains or her statesmen was the Church allowed to gain such prestige as might stand in the way of the men in power. For this reason the Signoria went so far as to foster the deplorable decadence observable in the ranks of the clergy, and jealously protected both priests and monasteries against the Pope and the bishops who in the nature of things should have reformed them. Moreover the liberty of the Church was impeded by laws against the right of ownership of mortmain; by the surveillance of churches and monasteries; by the putting of the clergy on the same footing as the laity before the law; by the stringent exercise of placet and exequatur; by the Signoria’s right of nomination of the patriarch and the bishops, and by the exclusion of clerics, even if they belonged to the ranks of the nobility, from all public offices. All these dispositions the Republic justified by an appeal either to established custom or to papal concessions.

The years immediately preceding the accession of Paul V had been particularly rich in such encroachments on the rights of the Church. Clement VIII repeatedly had occasion to complain of the violation of episcopal jurisdiction by the Senate of Venice. In 1603 a dispute arose at Brescia between the town and its clergy about the latter’s obligation to contribute towards the repairing of the city walls. The Signoria decided against the clergy, and because in consequence of the dispute many citizens had been refused absolution in confession, it was resolved to issue a legal summons against those who had instigated this line of action. The clergy of Brescia refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Signoria in such a matter. They complained to the Pope that they were made to pay twice as much as the laity and asked him to proceed with ecclesiastical censures against their oppressors. Thereupon the Signoria, in support of its right, appealed to a century-old custom, but the Holy See instructed the bishop of Brescia to protest against the execution of the decrees of the government. The bishop, however, did not dare to carry out his orders.

Rome was even more perturbed by two decrees passed at Venice in the last years before the election of Paul V which were intended not only for the city but for the whole territory of the Republic. Anyone erecting a monastery, a church, a hospital or similar buildings without leave of the Senate was to be punished, in virtue of one of these laws, with perpetual banishment or, should he return, with perpetual imprisonment; the buildings were to be pulled down, the site on which they stood was forfeit and was to be divided between the official who carried out the sentence and him who denounced the delinquent. Remissness in the execution of the law was punishable with a fine of 500 ducats. The second law ordained that immovable property could not be handed over to ecclesiastical persons either by purchase or by a free gift, or in any other way, without leave of the State, under pain of confiscation for the benefit of the Republic, the officials who carried out the law and the informer; as regards granting such permissions, the Senate should make as many difficulties as if it were a question of the alienation of State property.

Such ordinances could not be justified by any papal concessions; they were, in fact, an interference with the existing law as it had grown up in the course of more than a thousand years. In addition to this the republic violated the immunity which the clergy had enjoyed from time immemorial though, of course, not in order that culprits might go unpunished, but because men wished to see the dignity of the clerical state respected even in its unworthiest members. One Saraceni, a canon of Vicenza and a man of ill repute, and who, as a matter of fact, had not received major orders, was accused of having defiled, by night, out of revenge, the door of a lady of the town. The woman would not endure the humiliation and the affair ended by being brought before the Council of Ten. Cardinal Delfino, himself a Venetian, advised the authorities to have nothing to do with the case. “To defile a door was no crime against the State”, he said; “papal concessions would not avail to justify a secular tribunal in taking proceedings in such a matter; should the Pope hear of it there might be trouble”. The answer for the Republic was that the papal concessions included not only the city, but the whole territory of Venice; that, moreover, every day fresh crimes of Saraceni’s were being brought to light. Rome was not satisfied with these explanations. On December 24th Delfino wrote that much dissatisfaction obtained there on account of Saraceni whom the Ten had summoned to appear before their tribunal on October 21st, and that he found it difficult to restrain the Pope from intervening.

At about the same time a lawsuit was pending against another most unworthy priest, one Brandolino, abbot of Nervesa, who was actually suspected of homicide. In September the Ten commissioned the Podesta of Treviso to take action against him; a month later they called the case before their own tribunal. The Council of Trent had already stressed the fact that the liberty and immunity of the Church were no mere demand of Canon Law, but were based on a divine ordinance: as a matter of fact they have their roots in the divine origin of the Church. Moreover the interference of the secular power in spiritual affairs proved one of the main causes of clerical decadence and the chief hindrance to its reform: hence the attitude to be taken in regard to these usurpations was a most delicate as it was a most awkward problem for the protagonists of Church reform, the Fathers of the Council of Trent, Pius V and Charles Borromeo. Paul V had been brought up from his youth in the spirit of the existing law, and he was exceedingly keen on the reform; hence it was natural that he should strongly resent the arbitrariness of the Signoria.

It is, therefore, easy to understand, notwithstanding some show of friendliness towards the new Pope on the part of the Republic, that Paul V, particularly from the end of October,1605, should have made earnest remonstrances to the Venetian ambassador, Agostino Nani : “With indescribable ardour and incredible emotion”, he declared at the end of one of these discussions, that his duty as Pope demanded the defence of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; with all the energy of which he was capable he affirmed that he would maintain it, “ with all zeal, with all his strength, even to the shedding of his blood”. As an experienced lawyer the Pope was of course but little impressed by the arguments of the ambassador who sought to defend the Venetian legislation and to justify the action of the Signoria against the clergy by papal privileges the existence of which he was unable to prove; or when he excused its despotism with the hyperbolic assertion that if donations to the Church were not checked, she would soon own all the land right up to the walls of the cities, for even now more than a fourth part of the ground was in her possession. Paul V insisted on the repeal of the laws against the liberty of the Church as well as on the Republic handing over for punishment the two guilty ecclesiastics, if not to their own bishops, then to himself, otherwise measures would have to be taken which would not be agreeable to the signori in Venice. Similar representations were made to the Signoria, but without success, by the none-too-worldly-wise nuncio Orazio Mattei. The Senate decided not to alter the two laws and not to give up the two ecclesiastics.

Paul V now judged that the time had come when he must carry out his threats. A few years earlier the Interdict which Clement VIII had pronounced against Ferrara in 1597, had met with prompt and complete success. Other States also, such as the republics of Genoa and Lucca, had ended by yielding in similar conflicts. Paul V hoped for a like result in Venice. The republic had repeatedly been laid under interdict and excommunication; as recently as the pontificate of Julius II the scorn with which such punishments were at first looked upon in the city of the lagoons was not kept up for very long. On December 10th, 1605, therefore, Paul V published two briefs, one of which condemned the two Venetian laws and the other the procedure against the two ecclesiastics. In the event of further obstinacy, the briefs threatened with ecclesiastical penalties.

At this juncture the Signoria sought above all things to gain time. As the day drew near on which the briefs might be expected in Venice, a fresh envoy was appointed with a view to further negotiations; he seemed, however, in no hurry to set out for Rome. It is significant that in the selection of an envoy, the choice should have fallen on Lunardo Donato, a man who maintained that his Venetian birth took precedence over his Christian baptism, and that his first duty was not to the Church, but to his country. Whilst Donato delayed his departure the briefs arrived, but the nuncio was persuaded to keep them back for a time, in view of the alleged good dispositions of the Senate. Mattei allowed himself to be taken in; on the other hand when Rome rebuked him for his conduct and ordered him to deliver the briefs at once, he took the command too literally for he handed them in on the morning of Christmas day, whilst the doge Grimani lay dying and the Senators were in the act of going to High Mass. After Grimani’s death the briefs remained unopened until a new doge was elected. When they were opened at last, another untoward event occurred; by an oversight the drafts only of the briefs, not the originals, had been despatched from Rome. In the Senate’s reply all this was duly pointed out to the Pope in mordant fashion, reproaches being but thinly veiled by gushing professions of respect. As a matter of fact by that time all hope of an amicable settlement of the dispute had practically vanished for the choice of a new doge fell on none other than Donato, the avowed enemy of the Church. Pietro Duodo took Donato’s place as envoy to Rome, but he too delayed his departure for as long as possible.

However, the Signoria failed in its attempt at an indefinite procrastination of the affair. So far from this being the case, on February 20th, 1606, the Pope had to take exception to yet another law directed against the Church, by which clerics or religious associations who had let to laymen immovable property on a long lease were debarred from ever again claiming it for their own personal use. The Pope declared he would wait another ten or twelve days for the arrival of Duodo but after that he would proceed against the republic. The second brief of December 10th also, which through an oversight had not been despatched, he caused to be subsequently delivered, on February 25th by the nuncio Mattei. On March 11th the Senate categorically declined to accept it, declaring that all explanations would be given by the extra ordinary envoy. On the same day, March 11th, information came at last from Venice that Duodo had set out on his journey, but that he would travel by slow stages and that he had no powers to conclude anything. The envoy arrived on Monday in Holy Week so that the discussion was naturally deferred until after Easter. Needless to say Duodo achieved nothing.

Moreover, at that very time, another dispute was pending between the Curia and the Signoria. Clement VIII had given a ruling that the Italian bishops would not receive papal confirmation until they had come to Rome for an examination. The Venetians would have liked to see their Patriarch exempt from this obligation. The embassy, which came to pay homage to the newly-elected Paul V, was instructed to secure this exemption. But the Pope would not hear of it. Nor was the embassy more successful with regard to two other requests, viz. that Paul V should settle the long-standing dispute over the town of Ceneda4 and impose on the Venetian clergy the payment of a tenth.

Whilst the Curia was still awaiting Duodo’s arrival it received sufficiently disquieting information from Venice without him. Extreme embitterment, dating as far back as the reign of Clement VIII, prevailed in that city against Rome. There had been a feeling that in his defence of the rights of the Church Clement allowed himself to be led by interested advisers and that he was bent on treating the republic like a stubborn donkey out of whom nothing was to be got except with the stick. The action of Paul V could not soothe this unfortunate mood. When the nuncio to Venice was taken ill his secretary Tommaso Palmegiani, with many excuses for the boldness of his speech, sent repeated and earnest warnings to Rome. The Signoria is determined, so he wrote on February 4th, 1606, not to yield an inch; as a matter of fact there prevails an incredible exasperation. If the Pope were to show some consideration and if a man experienced in debate were here, these gentlemen, he thought, might be brought to reason, to the advantage, perhaps, of the Apostolic See. But the threats on the one side, and the obstinacy on the other, are surely fraught with evil consequences, in fact they will be so disastrous that I wonder if this aspect of the case is sufficiently realized. The Government would rather see Venice in ruins than give way. Minds had been still further inflamed by the delivery of the second brief on February 25th. If the Pope insists on the repeal of the two laws he will be compelled to take extraordinary measures. But if he merely demands the surrender of the two prisoners and the examination of the Patriarch, he may well succeed; the Signoria would send the Patriarch to Rome and in time an opportunity would present itself for settling the matter of the two laws. If the affair were to take a bad turn, a conflagration would break out in Italy which would be put out only God knows when. Either the Pope remains firm, and it will mean the end of ecclesiastical liberty if he loses, or he gives way and the prestige of the Apostolic See suffers.

Even in Rome there was no unwillingness to make concessions, but it was felt that the Pope must obtain some satisfaction from the republic. Venice, however, would concede nothing, consequently, on April 17th, 1606, a decisive step was taken. In the Consistory the Pope announced that he intended to excommunicate the Senate and to lay the whole territory of Venice under an interdict if the three laws were not repealed and the prisoners surrendered within twenty-four days, with an additional three days’ grace. With the exception of the two Venetian Cardinals, Valiero of Verona and Delfino of Vionga, the thirty-seven Cardinals expressed their approval. Immediately after the consistory the edict, which was already in print, was published in due legal form. The departure of the Venetian envoys from Rome and that of the nuncio from Venice sealed the breach between the Curia and the Signoria.

The republic had long ago taken measures for the coming struggle. Even before the delivery of the first papal brief it had appealed, through its representatives, to the emperor, the kings of England and France as well as to Florence and Milan. The Signoria felt assured of the approval of the princes, so long as it kept representing its case as the common cause of all the secular potentates. But since in the conditions then obtaining excommunication might easily prove a pretext for armed intervention on the part of neighbouring States, the military captains and commanders were summoned to Venice, a precaution which, as we know on the authority of Palmegiani, was not meant to be taken too seriously. The most important measure taken by the republic was the preparation for a big-scale paper war against Rome by means of learned consultations and pamphlets in the vernacular. As early as January, 1606, the Collegio resolved to submit all the documents relevant to the controversy to the judgment of the celebrated lawyer Giacomo Mennocchio (died 1607) who had declared his readiness to act in defence of the republic. Already on January 15th, 1606, a jurist of Padua of the name of Pellegrini had prepared a memoir and on March 26th an order was given to have three of his pamphlets translated into Italian as soon as possible.

Even more significant was the fact that the Signoria, so that it might be ready for every eventuality, decided to hire an extraordinary State divine of its own. The choice fell on Paolo Sarpi, a Servite, who had already rendered good service to the republic in its numerous quarrels with Clement VIII and who, in the dispute with Paul V had also several times stated his opinion by word of mouth. When on January 14th, 1606, the Senate had guaranteed its protection to the defenders of the rights of the State Sarpi felt bold enough to give public utterance to his views. His very first memoir convinced the Senate they had found the man they needed in their struggle with Rome. As soon as his pamphlet had been publicly read Sarpi received his appointment as State theologian with a salary of 200 ducats. On February 25th Palmegiani writes that Sarpi was at work on a pamphlet on the invalidity of the impending excommunication. Thereafter Sarpi became the real protagonist of the republic in its struggle with the Pope; his learned memoirs were decisive factors in the conduct of the Signoria and it was owing to his intervention that the struggle round particular rights and laws developed into a fight for principles, a battle for the relationship between Church and State.

Sarpi was born at Venice in 1552, of poor parents, and in 1575 he entered the Servite Order in his native city. He was an extraordinarily gifted man. From childhood he was consumed by an ardent thirst for knowledge; mathematics, Hebrew, botany, Canon law, ecclesiastical history, medicine, especially anatomy, all attracted him alike. He succeeded in acquiring considerable knowledge in all these branches owing to an amazing memory which enabled him, as a boy, to repeat thirty lines of Virgil after but one hearing. Only one branch of knowledge was not to his liking: he hated scholastic theology. Had he had constancy enough to apply the full power of his keen intellect to his favourite subject, the new science of physics, which was then gathering force, he might have secured a place among the pioneers in this field, for Galileo, Porta and Acquapendente speak highly of his ability and perspicacity. But it could hardly have been conducive to a really deep and thorough formation, especially could it not have been favourable to his religious life that, when only eighteen years of age and after a brilliant disputation, he should have been summoned to the court of Mantua in the capacity of theologian. There he was frequently made to shine before visitors and to display his dialectical skill in the defence of the most daring theses. At the same time the bishop appointed him professor of dogmatic theology. In 1579, when not yet twenty-seven, he became provincial and in 1585 he went to Rome in the capacity of Procurator-General of his Order. There he appears to have made a not unfavourable impression. In 1593, Cardinal Santori proposed him for the See of Milopotamo, in Crete. However, not many years later the Curia thought differently, for when in 1600 and 1601 Sarpi applied successively for the sees of Caorle and Nona, he met with a refusal each time, notwithstanding the backing of the Signoria: his dealings with heretics as well as other circumstances were giving offence.

Thereafter Sarpi became increasingly estranged from the Church. It is impossible to say how far he strayed. The British envoy in Venice, Wotton, in his report to his Sovereign, described Sarpi as a true Protestant in a monk’s habit and Wotton’s information was derived from his chaplain Bedell who was wont to spend half a day every week with the Servite friar. On these occasions he made it his business to ascertain the friar’s religious opinions. To the French envoy, Bruslart, Sarpi was represented as a man without religion, without faith, without conscience and as one who denied the immortality of the soul. The Church which venerates the Pope as its visible head, Sarpi invariably describes in his letters in terms and with the apocalyptic imagery which were current among the Protestants; he did all he could to bring about her destruction and to introduce Protestantism into Italy.

On the other hand he also declared he could see no difference between Calvinism and Lutheranism. He owed allegiance to none of the existing religious bodies; as a matter of fact he had been excommunicated since January, 1607. This did not prevent him from frequently saying Mass and, for instance, from beginning one of his pamphlets with these words : “The republic of Venice has always held that the chief foundation of the State is true religion and piety and it has always seen a special favour of God in the fact that it was born and reared and has grown up in the true service of God”. In point of fact in his memoirs on behalf of the republic he was constrained to keep up a Catholic appearance; he was a chameleon, he says in a letter, and had to wear a mask like everyone else in Italy.

After his appointment as State theologian the influence of Sarpi was promptly felt in the changed attitude of the republic. Until then the Senate had justified its action against criminal ecclesiastics by an appeal to papal privileges and concessions, thus acknowledging that it possessed no real jurisdiction over the clergy. From the moment of Sarpi’s appointment it adopted the view that God Himself had immediately conferred on it all power over the subjects of the State. Sarpi suggested this line of conduct from the first. The question as to how the republic was to defend itself against the papal excommunication he had already answered in the memoir which had secured him his post of official theologian. In this work he explained that it would be best not to appeal from the Pope to a general council but to treat the excommunication as invalid and non-existent and to forbid its publication. The republic followed this advice when, on April 17th, 1606, a courier brought word that the Pope was resolved to proceed against Venice. The religious Orders were at once forbidden, under pain of death, to publish the sentence of excommunication. On the same day, in the Senate, the doge represented to the Spanish envoy that in all this the Pope was actuated by no other motive than a desire of securing unlimited authority over the princes even in temporal affairs.

When on April 20th news arrived that the excommunication had actually been pronounced further measures were taken. Through the foreign envoys in Venice, as well as through its own representatives abroad, the republic sought to win over the princes. From the vicar of the Patriarch the parish priests received instructions to give up unopened all documents they might receive from Rome and not to have them posted up in the churches. Troops were recruited, and though excommunicated, the Senate did not forget to give public proof of its piety by dividing 500 ducats among the hospitals to the end that prayers be offered there for the unjustly persecuted republic. The doge, in a full assembly of the Collegio, told the nuncio to his face that the Pope, inexperienced as he was, knew nothing of the management of the world; he even hinted pretty bluntly that Venice might go so far as to cut itself off from the Church and draw others along with it. On May 5th the monasteries were reminded of the previous injunction, with its accompanying threat of the death penalty; those who proved pliant could feel assured of the protection of the republic; those who withdrew themselves from its authority, by leaving its territory, would never be permitted to return.

On May 6th the doge issued to the whole body of the clergy an instruction which was posted up everywhere. In this document, in accordance with the opinion of the theologians and lawyers whose signatures were appended, solemn protest was made against the papal censures. In temporal matters, the doge declared, he acknowledged no superior except the divine Majesty. He solemnly attested before God and man that he had had recourse to every imaginable means in order to make His Holiness see the strong and incontrovertible grounds of the justice of his claims, but he had preached to deaf ears. Hence he was applying the means which their forbears had used whenever the Pope went beyond his bounds. A similar edict was issued, in the name of the Senate, to all the towns and communes.

Notwithstanding every precaution, on the night of May 2nd to 3rd, 1606, the brief containing the threat of excommunication was nailed up in five churches in Venice itself, though, as elsewhere, it was promptly torn down. However the substance of the brief, if not the brief itself, soon became generally known, as may be gathered from the very conduct of the Senate. The effect of the Brief was slight. If the bishops and the greater part of the regular clergy had fearlessly protested their loyalty to their highest Superior, so we read in a pamphlet of the period, there can be no doubt that the doge would have been impressed. As things were they pleaded that obedience to the Pope was punishable by death, so they strove to convince themselves that in such circumstances a human law was not binding, even though it was an open secret that the threatened death penalty was meant to be no more than a mere threat, to enable the priests to cover their disobedience with the thin cloak of fear ; for the rest everybody knew that they would not have observed the interdict even had there been no pressure.

The Pope was so dissatisfied with the Venetian bishops that he thought of taking action against them and of deposing every one of them. True, the bishop of Brescia seemed at first disposed to obey the Pope, but when the Senate threatened to deprive his aged parents of their property and their title of nobility, he too gave up all further resistance.

Generally speaking no resistance was to be expected from the lower clergy in Venice. As a consequence of the interference of the State in the affairs of the Church, there was a good deal of demoralization in its ranks. No one from among the better classes in Venice ever becomes a priest, says a pamphlet of the period; the parish priests are chosen by the people, and in these elections considerations of friendship and various intrigues are the decisive factors, so that it is invariably the most ignorant and the least qualified that are appointed; the priests are despised; towards the rich their attitude is that of mere lacqueys. The condition of the monks was even worse. At the time of Paul V they were deemed the dregs and the scum of all the Orders and it was they who furnished the republic with its keenest champions in the quarrel over the interdict. The convents of nuns were to a large extent little more than asylums for the daughters of nobles. But that the decadence of the Venetian clergy was far from universal was presently to be shown in the struggle over the interdict.

The first to declare their submission to the interdict were the Jesuits. To them also the doge represented that the threatened death penalty was sufficient ground for regarding the Pope’s command as not binding. However the General of the Order, Aquaviva, had directed them in the name of the Pope to submit to the Bull and if obedience was impossible to leave Venice. If they were prevented from leaving they were rather to die than to offend God. The government of Venice had no love for the Jesuits; Sarpi, its chief adviser, cherished a deadly hatred of them. The occasion was now seized to get rid of them; if possible, for good. They were banished from the entire territory of the republic. When the Capuchins and the Theatines also indicated their willingness to obey, they were forbidden, under pain of death, even to leave the city. However, they remained firm and were allowed to depart. A special law affecting the Jesuits alone was passed on June 14th, 1606, by which they were permanently banished from Venice; their return was made dependent on conditions which would hardly ever be fulfilled. Under threat of being sent into exile, or to the galleys, all citizens were commended on August 17th, to refrain from all epistolary intercourse with the Jesuits and to withdraw any members of their families from their colleges. The revenues of those thus banished were conferred on more pliant religious.

Not a few ecclesiastics, besides the above named, were found ready to go to prison rather than disobey the Pope; a considerable number were even secretly executed for having laid on their penitents the duty of observing the interdict. Many took to flight, disguised as peasants or soldiers and even as women, thereby forfeiting all their possessions but escaping from an intolerable pressure on their conscience. Even where the clergy gave way, it was apparent that they only yielded to violence and against their convictions.

More detailed information about the period of the interdict is available from Brescia. There the publication of a decree of the Senate against the interdict on May 10th was followed, on the next day, by a proclamation of the Rectors forbidding the priests to leave the city and ordering them to carry out the Church services as before. The penalty for disobedience was death, and to a confidential representative of the clergy the Podesta declared that he would have strung up in front of his church any priest who spoke of leaving the town. Nevertheless on May 13th, Whitsun Eve, and the day on which the interdict came into force, no church services were held. However, the Rectors visited the various churches, gave orders for Mass to be said everywhere, set up sentries to prevent the posting up of the sentence of excommunication and had the gates guarded in order to detain the religious who one after another were trying to flee from the city. Nevertheless very many made good their escape. The Capuchins declared they would rather die than disobey the Pope. They were banished, to the great sorrow of the people, and replaced by more pliant Capuchins from Drugolo. Some priests yielded to the ceaseless demands, warnings and threats of the Rectors and resumed the practice of saying Mass; others, who had failed in their attempted flight, preferred to go to prison. Amongst those who fled were the archpriest, who was subsequently banished; one canon; the Abbots of St. Faustino and St. Euphemia and many others, so that in July the government set a prize of 500 berlingotti on the capture of every fugitive priest. The Olivetans of Rodengo made good their escape in August, though their movements were watched by fifteen policemen; their flight had been favoured by an officer formerly in the service of Venice and now in that of Mantua. Far greater than the monks’ was the embarrassment of the nuns. On learning that Mass was not being said in their chapels the governors, on November 9th, cut off their supplies of necessaries, a weapon similarly adopted against the Bernardine Sisters at Murano. When the nuns of Brescia gave the excuse that their chaplain had fled other priests were appointed in their place.

In many churches in Brescia, notwithstanding the interdict, the services suffered no interruptions and were attended by the people. The bulk of the ordinary people did not understand the nature of the quarrel; they grumbled at the interdict and applauded the monks who went on with the performance of the wonted services. Those who did not side with the government would flock together, in great numbers, and then walk in procession to a holy image which stood over the fountain in the market place, where they prayed for the cessation of the interdict; in consequence the governors forbade these processions. Many consciences were gravely perturbed by the action of the bishop when, on Rosary Sunday, in October, he celebrated a pontifical High Mass in memory of the battle of Lepanto. Vast crowds passed over into the territory of Cremona, or that of Mantua, in order to attend the offices of the Church. During the night lampoons against the republic and the Podesta were stuck on the walls whilst satirical inscriptions against those clergy who were in sympathy with Venice, were scribbled on the walls of the churches; however their author was discovered and suffered for his action on the gallows. But this did not put a stop to the epidemic of satirical writings. Whilst the bulk of the common people stood by the authorities, the greater part of the nobles, since the proclamation of the interdict, ceased to attend church and, to safeguard their freedom, retired to their country houses outside the city. Small wonder that the Podesta declared that the administration of Brescia, always a difficult business, became an almost unbearable burden; he complained of great difficulties with the religious Orders; had he not on occasion proceeded with severity Brescia and its surrounding territory would have been almost without priests; even those of the laity who were loyal to the government failed to show the keenness he could have wished for.

In other Venetian cities the position was more favourable to the government than at Brescia. At Cividal di Belluno only the Capuchins, and even they only for a time, made any attempt to observe the interdict. At Crema only a few priests were banished; at Feltre a few Reformati and at Legnago only one priest took to flight. At Orzi-Novi the archpriest and a few others at first observed the interdict but by the end of December they had been brought round by the Podesta. Treviso and Udine were praised by their respective Podestas. Serious opposition only came from Padua and Verona. According to the Podesta it was due to the influence of the Jesuits that the people of Verona, always so loyal to the government, failed on this occasion to show their wonted readiness and zeal. For this reason he observed a studied moderation. According to official reports from Padua priests in that city upset people’s consciences under pretext of religion. Hence many religious who were not natives of Padua were banished; others were forced to lie in hiding or to flee in disguise. Special difficulties arose in the convents of nuns from the attitude of the confessors who insisted on observing the interdict. The Podesta deemed it within his power to compel them to say Mass. He forced them to do so at times in his own presence, at the palace, at other times in some of the churches; but not all complied. The Provveditore of Legnago boasts of a similar abuse of authority. It seemed to him that the archpriest of the place no longer said Mass as often as he used to do; so, having first closed every avenue of escape, he ordered him to obey punctually the commandments of the republic. The monasteries were daily visited by a layman whose duty it was to ascertain whether the offices were being celebrated. By order of the Senate the governors of the ten largest cities were to see to it that preaching was not stopped and that the task was entrusted to priests loyal to the State. Towards the end of September, as the time drew near when the faithful were in the habit of going to confession, the public officials of Padua were instructed to summon the confessors before them in order that they might ascertain their attitude towards the interdict and inflict suitable penalties on those who proved loyal to the Pope. They were likewise to bring pressure to bear on the bishops, to the end that, in confession, consciences might not be troubled. These measures throw light on the way in which, under Sarpi’s influence, the republic interpreted the relationship between Church and State and what it understood by the alleged encroachments of the Pope on the temporal domain. The domain of the Church, according to this theory, is exclusively constituted by what concerns the inner life of the soul; whatever is external comes within the competence of the State, even such functions as saying Mass, hearing confessions and preaching.

One wonders whether it was possible to humiliate the Church still further. Yet even more galling indignities were in store for her. The intention of the government was not to remain content with isolated encroachments, on the contrary, violence was to be given a permanent status by being put as a logical basis. It was for this that the republic had its Paolo Sarpi with his two hundred ducats a year, an honorarium which was doubled on September 28th, 1606, and trebled the year after. It was precisely the writings of Sarpi and his sympathizers that imparted to the struggle between the Pope and the Signoria its bitterness and its special significance in the history of the Church.

Long before the proclamation of the interdict the republic had seen to its own defence in the theological field. As early as January and February, 1606, certain lawyers of Padua had drawn up three reports which were published there in September, in the name of the whole university. As a matter of fact the author of the most important of these three pamphlets, Pellegrini, contradicts therein his own earlier writings. More sensational, however, were the pamphlets of the ex-Jesuit Giovanni Marsiglio, the Senator Marcantonio Quirini, and the Franciscan-Conventual Capello. But they were all surpassed by Sarpi whose ideas these others endeavoured to make their own. He began by printing, with an introduction, but without his signature, a translation of two small works of Jean Gerson in which the great chancellor, in the midst of the troubles of his time, had said many things concerning resistance to the abuse of the papal power and to unjust excommunication which, later on, proved greatly to the taste of the Gallicans. This was followed, under Sarpi’s name, by Considerations on the Censures of Paul V against the Republic of Venice. In a tone devoid of all respect the pamphlet claims to show the injustice of almost every assertion and every sentence of the brief of excommunication of April 17th. But Sarpi’s chief effort in his quarrel with Paul V is his  Treatise on the Interdict. It is Sarpi’s work although it is published in the name also of six other divines of the republic. The brief of the interdict, it is asserted, cannot create an obligation inasmuch as it was not properly promulgated and from its observance grave disadvantages would ensue for the mass of the people and for the priests who obeyed it. If the Venetians, before accepting the brief, submitted it to an examination, they were within theft rights, for both the Pope’s power and the obedience due to him have their limits and blind obedience is immoral. Examination of the brief shows that the Pope had exceeded his powers; that it is contrary to God’s law and is therefore not binding. What then is to be thought of the excommunication under threat of which the brief promulgates its orders? It is null and void; the Pope has misused his power ; he must be resisted and to obey him is a sin.

Sarpi’s assertions caused an enormous sensation throughout Europe and started a controversy which, in the years immediately following, seemed likely to go on indefinitely. Gretser, who entered the lists in 1607, in the opening pages of his pamphlet, enumerates twenty-eight works in support of Venice and thirty-eight in favour of Paul V. In 1607, seventeen such writings for and against the Pope were gathered into one volume and published at Chur, and we are told in that same year that this was only a tenth part of all that had appeared. Moreover some of these documents won the honour of being several times reprinted and translated into various languages! The most important replies to the Venetian divines came from Bellarmine who, in point of fact, excused himself for taking part, he a Cardinal, in such a controversy. Cardinal Caetani, though under an assumed name, likewise wrote a defence of the Pope, and Cardinal Baronius wrote at least an admonition to the republic. Among the universities, Padua sided with the republic, Bologna with the Pope. The most noted theologians of the time, such as Francesco Suarez and Adam Tanner devoted special treatises to the questions then so hotly controverted. In France, where the Gallicans, in Germany and Holland, where the Protestants applauded Venice, translations were published of more than one pamphlet; even in Spain a defence of the Pope saw the light. Marsiglio and Sarpi were summoned to Rome, to explain their conduct, and when they failed to put in an appearance they were excommunicated and their writings fell under the ban of the Roman Inquisition.

It is easy to understand the excitement of the Catholic as well as the Protestant world. On the one hand there was fear, on the other hope, that in Italy also another Luther had arisen who, in the very heart of the Catholic world, would promote apostacy from Rome. Prompted by Sarpi, the republic had made the acceptance of papal briefs dependent on a previous examination; in other words, on its own caprice. From this to a complete denial of papal jurisdiction it was but one step. Moreover, by his views on the relation between Church and State, Sarpi took up a position which was at variance with the conception hitherto maintained by scholars; in fact he challenged the whole traditional teaching in this respect. In the opinion of his admirers the merit of Sarpi’s writings lies precisely in this that by their means he became a pioneer and one of the founders of modern statecraft. So we must submit Sarpi’s writings to a brief examination from just this point of view.

The Catholic conception of the relationship between Church and State starts from the fact that Christ founded the Church; that as God-man all power was given to Him in heaven and on earth, and that in virtue of this power He bestowed on His Church, in the person of the Apostles, all the rights and powers that she needs for the fulfilment of the task entrusted to her. The authority of the Church is, therefore, not limited to the interior life of the soul. Christ sends forth His Apostles to teach and to administer the Sacraments; hence, they and their followers are free to take up their abode anywhere on earth, even though the secular princes may banish them; they may convene assemblies, build churches, acquire property and in none of these things has any secular power a juridical right to interfere with them. Were it otherwise the Church could never have struck roots on earth, for from the first the State was ill disposed towards her so that any obligation in conscience to obey its laws of proscription would have made her existence impossible from the very outset.

Sarpi does not openly deny these principles but he observes a complete silence in their regard. In other ways also it would not do for him to oppose Catholic convictions openly; Venice was still too religious for that. Even during the time of the interdict a pamphlet by the Calvinist Nicholas Viguier which was hostile to the papacy was banned by the Senate and the republic boasted to the French ambassador that it had never tolerated any abusive writings against the Pope. Accordingly, Sarpi did not openly deny the jurisdiction of the Pope or his infallibility : in principle at least he even recognized the immunity of Church property; his claim was that the laws of the republic were not at variance with this immunity.

However, when viewed in the light of the code then obtaining, the laws to which the Pope objected could not be defended and, when he undertook to defend them in the name of Canon Law, Sarpi condemned himself to the role of a sophist and pamphleteer. Thus, for example, the prohibition of the free erection of churches is, according to him, no more than a decision concerning the ground on which the church was to be raised; now questions of ground or land are within the competence of the State so that ecclesiastical interests are not in any way affected by the prohibition. The obvious answer to such reasoning was that the republic might with equal right forbid millers and bakers to grind corn and to bake bread for the priests, and then pretend that it had merely given its orders to millers and bakers without in any way interfering with the clergy. In defence of the same law Sarpi further argued that any private citizen might prevent the erection of a church on his own property, hence a similar right belonged to the State within the whole of its territory, since the soil of the whole State was the private property of the prince! Apart from this there can be no serious doubt that the better type of pamphlet written against Sarpi far surpassed his as regards objectivity and thoroughness. True, Sarpi’s knowledge ranged over an immense field but he was no specialist. His numerous references to legal sources were shown to be inaccurate and inadequate; he had the mortification of being told that often enough he made long-winded attacks against positions which no one defended, and it will scarcely be denied that he frequently talked against his own better knowledge.

It remains, nevertheless, that Sarpi’s writings did their work. They are clever, seasoned with witty sallies, and they drown the reader in a flood of arguments and texts which only a few are able to put to the test; moreover, in literature of this kind boldness in the attack invariably puts the defence at a disadvantage. Most of the ideas of Sarpi and his followers are already found in Marsilius of Padua, Wyclif, Hus and Luther; Gretser went to the trouble of furnishing detailed proof in every single instance. On the other hand the significance of these writings lies precisely in the fact that they advocate an anti-Catholic conception of the State at the very gates of Rome. In his writings James I of England adopted Sarpi’s ideas. From the point of view of Church history Sarpi, by allying himself with the Protestants, was the first, on the Catholic side, to start an evolutionary process which, through Richer, Barclay, the Gallicans, Febronius, leads up to Josephism. From the standpoint of secular history it must be said that he helped to loosen the subordination of the secular to the spiritual authority and thus paved the way for absolutism which in its turn led up to the revolution with its incalculable consequences. In the story of his native city Sarpi also has his place; through him Venice already in decay became for a last time the centre of world politics and once more riveted all eyes on itself. There was but little need of any polemical writings to raise the excitement of the Venetians against the Pope to fever heat. Such was its embitterment, Tommaso Palmegiani wrote to Borghese, that the republic was capable of extreme measures; there was reason to fear a catastrophe that might well prove irreparable; not everything could be entrusted to writing but if the Secretary of State could hear what was being said at Venice he would have a surprise. It is well known, Bellarmine wrote, that at Venice many who formerly were but seldom at Mass now hear it daily, just to display their rebelliousness. The Corpus Christi procession of 1606 was more gorgeous than it had been for years and the ornaments in gold and silver which were displayed at it were valued at three to four millions.

Fresne writes that on all feast days sermons were preached all over the city to proclaim that the excommunication was null and void; that the people looked on the Pope as the enemy of their spiritual welfare; the Jesuits, and their conduct in the confessional, were hotly discussed in the public houses; the Inquisition was despised and the booksellers scattered broadcast all kinds of writings. The sermons of Fulgenzio Manfredi, a friar minor, in particular were remarkable for their abuse of the Pope.

In these circumstances the fear lest Venice should end by going over to Protestantism took an ever more concrete shape. Already in the reign of Clement VIII it was known in Rome that English agents were making propaganda in favour of Calvinism. At the time of England’s apostasy from the Church, diplomatic relations between London and Venice were broken off; they were only resumed in the last year of Elizabeth. James I had sent as his representative in Venice Sir Henry Wotton who caused his chaplain to hold Protestant services. True, Wotton had given a pledge that no one, beside his own household, was to be admitted to the Protestant sermons, but on one occasion he himself declared that “an ambassador was a gentleman sent abroad to tell lies for reasons of State!” For Wotton this definition was a joke only in its wording. Soon news reached Rome that the Anglican sermons at Wotton’s house were much frequented and that dreadful things were said in them. When the nuncios Offredo and Orazio Mattei lodged a protest both Wotton and the Signoria met them with a complete denial.

As soon as the struggle with the Pope had begun Protestantism began to rear its head still higher in Venice. Wotton got in touch with Geneva in order to secure from there a Calvinist preacher for the city of the lagoons; Protestant writings in vast quantities were smuggled into the city and into the very chamber of the doge; from Catholic pulpits friends of Sarpi began to preach thinly disguised Protestant doctrines; the doge himself, whom Paul V would have liked to summon before the Inquisition, notwithstanding many assurances of orthodoxy, let fall on occasion mysterious threats; in June, 1606, a printed sheet which openly advocated apostacy from the Pope was publicly posted up at Vicenza though, as a matter of fact, the government suppressed it.

There can be no doubt that Paul V seriously misjudged the effect of the interdict. A century earlier the Signoria had at least made an attempt to have the ecclesiastical censures raised, but within the last decades a change had come over the city. Since the last war against the Turks, so we read in a memoir of 1590, eighteen years of age was deemed sufficient for membership of the Council. The result was that youths outnumbered the older and experienced men. Venerable old men could be seen courting the favour of these youths for the distribution of all offices lay with them. This brought about a change in the moral as well as the political condition of the republic. The Council of Ten saw its power curtailed to the advantage of the Senate in which the young people were in the majority. The spirit of parsimony and frugality of former times vanished; levity and immorality became rampant; only a few years previous to the interdict a preacher had the courage to proclaim that if the city did not amend in this respect, he himself feared lest God should punish Venice by taking from it the light of faith. Not many months after the interdict it became apparent that things could not go on in this strain: either Venice must openly secede from the Church or, by mutual concessions, a reconciliation with Rome must be brought about. Paul V showed an early readiness to parley; all he insisted on was that he should be given some kind of satisfaction. The Senate, however, seemed unwilling to relent; with unbending obstinacy it sought to humiliate the Pope by insisting on an unconditional surrender on his part.

However, since some time already the final decision no longer lay exclusively with the Senate. The strife had had its repercussion as far as England and Denmark. The immediate neighbours of the republic especially could not be indifferent to the formation of a Protestant State in Venice; such an eventuality could easily lead to civil war in Italy and would constitute a danger for the whole of Europe. The leading ministers of France and Spain, Villeroi and Lerma, were the first, at any early date, to tackle the Venetian problem. The head of the German empire would have had good ground for similar action but only in the beginning and at the end of the struggle did the impotent Rudolph II rouse himself sufficiently to take a few measures. As for the smaller Italian States, they only saw in the quarrel an opportunity, by means of the double-faced flatteries with which they encouraged the two principals, to acquire yet another strip of territory. Charles Emmanuel of Savoy was seemingly prompted by loftier motives when he strove for a league between the Pope, Tuscany and Mantua, with a view to keeping Spain and France out of these purely Italian questions. Yet at the same time he entered into negotiations with Spain in the hope of securing Montferrat, and with France in order to get possession of Milan. The duke of Mantua earned the thanks of the Venetian Senate for informing it of his refusal to listen to the Spanish solicitations. For all that the duke engineered a conspiracy among the Venetian troops, supplied the papal army with officers and courted the friendship of Spain and the Spanish governor of Milan. But even this friendship did not prevent the duke from working for an alliance with France and Venice. The dukes of Mantua, Savoy, and Florence also declared their willingness to act as mediators between Rome and Venice, but their proposals were of little importance. A decisive change in the situation could only be brought about by the great powers, France and Spain, inasmuch as the Venetian complications furnished each of them with an opportunity of cutting out the other in their mutual struggle for preponderance in the Italian peninsula.

Henry IV had expressed the opinion that in this contest he would be both for the Pope and for Venice; for the Pope against all comers; for Venice against all, with the sole exception of the Pope. Of all the powers Venice had been the first to recognize him as king, hence he felt under some obligation to the republic. On the other hand he durst not offend the Pope for fear of making his reception into the Church suspect. So the king decided to take sides for neither party in order not to forfeit their confidence in him as a mediator. His envoy to Venice, Philippe Canaye, Seigneur de Fresne, showed himself less impartial than the king and his sympathy with the republic frequently set him at variance with the instructions given him by Henry.

At the first threat of the interdict Henry IV took a preliminary step, which aimed at securing a prolongation of the truce of twenty-four days which had been granted. But since the Venetians showed no desire for it the Pope could not consider the request of the king.

The disappointment of the French owing to this first ill-success, gave the Spaniards a chance to intervene. On July 5th the Spanish envoy in Rome, the Duke of Escalona, presented a letter of Philip III in which the king expressed his determination to throw his person and his power into the scales on the Pope’s side. The king said that he had spoken in that sense to the Venetian envoy at Madrid and had caused the viceroys and other officials in Italy to be informed of his attitude. A covering letter to Escalona mentions the orders given to the latter to be ready for every emergency with the necessary forces on land and sea as well as the instructions to the governor of Milan who was commanded under no circumstances to permit the passage of troops.

Thus, to the great joy of the Spanish sympathizers in Rome, Philip III appeared to be in earnest. However, he himself weakened the value of his letter by the explanations given in Venice. When he expressed his devotion to the Pope, he explained the king had merely sought to win the Pontif’s confidence to the end that he might the more readily be accepted as mediator.

An attempt at mediation was made before the Senate on July 13th by Iñigo de Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, but in the circumstances there was all the less hope of success as the English envoy, on May 16th, had held out to the republic the prospect of a secret alliance with the Protestant powers. For the time being, therefore, there was no hope of a reconciliation. To the pressing demands of the French envoy, Alincourt, that he would raise the censures at least for a time, the Pope had replied, with the consent of nearly all the Cardinals, that before he could do anything it was the duty of the republic to take at least the first step to meet him half-way. To the representative of France who handed over this answer, as well as to the Spanish intermediary, the Senate declared on September 14th that unless the censures were first raised there could be no question of reconciliation. Nevertheless, under the impression of the king’s letter, the Senate decided, not without many reservations, to agree to the proposal that the King of Spain should ask for the raising of the censures and that the request might also be made in the name of Venice.

The Spanish peace proposal was followed by two similar ones by France, in August and November. The first was submitted by Henry IV, the second came from the French Cardinals in Rome. Spain then re-appeared on the scene with a great show of energy. The king decided to send an envoy extraordinary; his choice fell on no less a personage than the former viceroy of Naples, Francisco de Castro, nephew of the duke of Lerma. After the grand duke of Tuscany had likewise made peace proposals the Pope made known his terms. All was in vain. The republic would not have been unwilling to deliver the prisoners to the Pope, or to the King of France, but it was not prepared to repeal the laws concerning Church property, nor would it even go so far as to consent to their provisional repeal. In these transactions a sinister role was played by Fresne who repeatedly spoke of papal concessions; he was not empowered to do so and he thereby put the Pope in an unfavourable light.

Outside Venice and Protestant or Gallican circles the attitude of the republic caused but little surprise. Cardinal Du Perron wrote as follows to Henry IV: “What risk would Venice have run if, out of regard for your Majesty, it had suspended the application of the laws whilst peaceful negotiations were proceeding, as between Prince and Prince, seeing that the Church took exception to them? But Venice is no longer the shrewd republic of former times and the most weighty affairs of State are in the hands of a band of young people”. The Pope had long been under the impression that the tension caused by the Venetian situation would lead to a European war and he ordered preparations to be made which were to be under the direction of a commission of thirteen Cardinals. A Spanish memoir counselled that Venice should be threatened with war; fear would make more impression on them than all the arguments of St. Paul and all the eloquence of Cicero; these people worshipped no other god than their personal advantage and their independence. Philip III wrote in the same sense to his new ambassador in Rome, the Marquis de Aytona : “Since the Venetians, so far from humbling themselves before the Apostolic See, have scattered abroad writings against it which teem with harmful and anti-religious teaching, and since to defend their erroneous principles they have asked for the help not only of the Catholic princes, but even for that of heretical ones, thus at one and the same time jeopardizing both religion and the peace of the world, he felt compelled to take his stand beside the Pope. He therefore orders the governor of Milan, Conde de Fuentes, to levy an armed force of 26,000 foot and 4,000 horse”. Fuentes was an able soldier and a decided opponent of the Venetians. For some time already he had been urging both the Pope and the king to go to war for, so he urged, the Venetians would not yield to persuasion and there was a danger that if they could get help from the Grisons, Switzerland and France, they would invade the territory of Milan. Thereupon, as was to be expected, Venice pushed forward her armaments with greater energy than ever. France also mobilized 24,000 foot and 4,000 horse, as a counterpoise to Spain. Rudolph IV put at the Pope’s disposal 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. The Pope himself also prepared for a military expedition since the republic clung so obstinately to its “diabolical writings”, and he did not want Venice to become another Geneva.

Great was now the embarrassment of Venice for the Senate knew perfectly well, and even said so, that the republic could not long resist unaided the combined forces of Spain and the Pope. About that time Cardinal Du Perron expressed the opinion that there remained now for the Signoria only one way out of its difficulties, that is, to give satisfaction to the Pope and then, leagued with France, to turn its whole strength against Spain.

In these circumstances, on January 8th, 1607, Castro was in a position to renew his offer with a better prospect of success. The republic, he asked, should pledge itself not to apply the laws in dispute during the discussion; otherwise he would take his leave. On January 13th Fresne demanded a similar promise. Nothing throws a clearer light on the situation as the fact that now the doge himself strove for the suspension of the laws so hotly fought for until then. In his speech on the proposal he openly conceded the greatness of the peril, the inadequateness of Venice’s armed forces and the lack of reliable allies, for the unwarlike James I was too far away and Henry IV was content with good advice. Once again the national pride of the Venetians reared itself against the humiliation; once again the old slogan about the intangible freedom and autonomy of the republic proved effective at the sittings of the Senate, and the doge’s proposal fell through. Nevertheless, in a subsequent vote, he secured a majority of two, though this was insufficient in affairs of State and Castro was put off with the excuse that for the time being no one knew what exactly were the demands of the Pope. More and more the conviction gathered strength that a compromise must be arrived at. The common people had long ago wearied of the strife. When, in August, 1606, the mediation of Henry IV was invited, even Fresne wrote that the Jews had not more impatiently longed for the Messias than people now awaited the reply of the King of France. A speaker in the Senate insisted on the fact that, however much Venetian polemists might seek to put the Pope in the wrong, the views of the Pope were bound to have the greater weight with the faithful since by common consent he was the judge in all disputed questions. Moreover many internal disadvantages had ensued from the quarrel. Since a whole year, so the same speaker pointed out, the republic was as it were on a war footing. Every day, so it is said, inflicts some fresh damage; those of the princes who are friendly with Venice hesitate; the undecided fall away and the enemies grow stronger; trade suffers; taxes remain unpaid and revenue decreases in a thousand ways by reason of the huge sums swallowed by war preparations. Moreover the citizens are divided in their opinions, troubled in conscience, weary of existing conditions, and all the time a superstitious populace sees in their calamities the effects of the excommunication. And who can tell what will happen if the Pope takes yet sterner measures? If he insists on punishing the disobedience of bishops and priests and inflicts severer censures? On the part of Venice so many fresh and shocking excesses have taken place that the original cause of the quarrel is almost forgotten; there have been so many extravagant sermons and pamphlets, confiscations of Church property, banishments, persecutions; the prisons are full of religious whose only crime is their submission to the interdict which is treated with greater contempt and is scoffed at in worse fashion than it would be in a heretical land. Add to this the external difficulties. Does anyone believe the republic capable of maintaining three armies of 16,000 men each, in Lombardy, in Friuli and Polesina? Can we rely on the subjects? We have taken possession of their land, hence there prevail amongst us luxury and an intolerable arrogance in stark contrast with the manners of our forbears, whilst among the people there is poverty, discontent and a longing for a change. Add to this that we have no ally whom we could really trust.

The attitude of the foreign countries also was sufficiently humiliating for the republic. The interdict was published in Savoy and the Venetian envoy was forbidden to enter the churches; in Venice the envoy of Savoy refused to attend services forbidden by the Pope and in order to avoid contact with the excommunicated Senate he retired to a country house outside the city, alleging the example of the Imperial and the Spanish Court. At the court of Rudolph II, at Prague, the nuncio Ferreri broke off all relations with the envoy of the Signoria and forbade him to take part in the procession of Corpus Christi; the Emperor himself would not give him audience and his ministers openly avoided him. The Spanish nuncio declared at Madrid that he would not take part in the services in the chapel royal if the Venetian representative was present. With a view to avoiding a decisive step the king ceased to attend his own chapel till at last, in January, 1607, he yielded to the pressure of the Pope and decided to exclude the envoy. At Warsaw the ambassador of the Signoria had the mortification of seeing some gentlemen of his suite excluded from church by order of the nuncio, though in this matter the archbishop did not agree with the action of the nuncio and whilst the envoy remained in Poland the king withheld the publication of the interdict. Henry IV, notwithstanding his efforts at mediation, would not allow the Venetian ambassador to be present at the christening of his children.

The best hopes of the Senate rested on the King of France. At the end of December, 1606, Fresne had counselled getting the Grisons to make an irruption into Milanese territory; in such an eventuality France would surely side with Venice. Towards the end of January the Venetian envoy in Paris vainly besought Henry IV to come to the assistance of the republic. Heated discussions ensued; not long after the envoy had a stroke of apoplexy which was thought to have been caused by the controversy. An alliance which Fresne had suggested the Venetians should ask for, Henry flatly refused. As a matter of fact, notwithstanding all these warlike preparations, the king had not yet given up hope of a peaceful settlement. At this very time he informed his ambassador of an important arrangement he had just concluded with the Pope. Seeing how difficult Venice found it to promise suspension of the laws in dispute, the king was prepared to make the promise in its name, only the republic must give him some token which would win for his word respect and trust.

The king took a step fraught with even graver consequences when at the end of 1606 he commissioned his kinsman, Cardinal de Joyeuse, who was eager to go to Italy, to inquire, whilst there, into the state of the quarrel and, should reports be favourable, to betake himself to the city of the lagoons with a view to acting as a mediator.

When he had entered Italian territory, Joyeuse made a show of journeying Romewards; in reality he set out for Papozze, a village on the Po, where he spent the whole of January and part of February at the country house of a nobleman, a friend of his. There he had several conferences with Fresne. On February 2nd, 1607, the King ordered him to proceed to Venice and on February 10th de Joyeuse informed Rome of his impending departure.

Though Paul V had not summoned the French Cardinal he was not displeased to see him, for he hoped that here at last there might be a chance to settle the tiresome quarrel. In his instructions to Joyeuse the Pope insisted on the strict observance of the interdict; the promise of the republic not to apply the contentious laws must not be limited to a determined period; to this the Pope would never consent, the promise to be made by the Signoria under the guaranty of the French king, must be perfectly clear and defined in its smallest detail. Rome would be greatly gratified if the King of Spain also pledged his word. As a matter of fact it had been the wish of the Pope that Spain and France should settle the dispute by a joint action; however the rivalry between the two courts allowed but little hope of such an eventuality.

Joyeuse reached Venice on February 15th. He met with a hearty welcome for the arrival of the Frenchman was held as a guarantee that Henry IV would fall in with the republic’s proposals for a league with France. It was only when the king’s reply of February 20th and March 3rd had destroyed this hope that a beginning could be made of the discussions which, it was hoped, would lead to an amicable solution of the quarrel.

It is open to reasonable doubt whether Joyeuse was the best exponent of Rome’s point of view. Henry IV had no intention to draw the sword on behalf of the Pope, but he cherished the ambition of being considered the great pacifier of Italy; hence his envoy strove for peace at all costs, the Spaniards and all others being excluded from the discussions. In these endeavours the Cardinal more than once exceeded the instructions he had received from Rome. The cunning statesmen on the Rialto soon saw that not only did France not seriously threaten them, but that on the contrary she averted the storm that threatened them from Spain. Hence they took up a position as follows : as regards concessions to the Pope, only a bare minimum must be agreed to, so as to get their necks out of the noose ; this minimum must be granted with as little publicity as possible, so that it would be easier, later on, to deny that a promise was ever made ; throughout the transaction they must display towards the Pope as much disrespect and arrogance as was possible without compromising the continuation of the discussion. As a matter of fact, even after the arrival of the Cardinal, the excommunicated Franciscan, Fulgenzio Manfredi, was allowed to renew from the pulpit his extravagant denunciations of the Pope. True, Joyeuse succeeded in getting Manfredi removed from Venice, though only for a time. As late as February 26th, the Senate instructed the governors of Padua and those of nine other large towns to see to it that there were frequent services and that those who obstinately submitted to the interdict were banished. They were particularly to keep an eye on the confessors. Cardinal Borghese even writes that after the arrival of the peace-maker, contempt for all things ecclesiastical and divine became more pronounced; the protest of the doge against the excommunication, as well as the proclamation of the Senate to the citizens, was once more posted up on the church doors; by shutting them off from the outer world, nuns were made to choose between death by starvation and breaking the interdict ; one noble lady was cast into prison for refusing to hear Mass and blasphemous publications were once more broadcast.

The discussions with Joyeuse started from the concessions consented by the Senate in the preceding November, though in a somewhat altered form. Accordingly, France and Spain were to pray the Pope for the revocation of the censures; out of regard for the King of France, the two prisoners were to be delivered into the hands of a prelate who would take charge of them in the name of the Pope, without prejudice, however, to the right of the republic to judge these ecclesiastics. With the raising of the censures, Venice’s protest against them would cease, and with regard to the polemical writings published at Venice, the republic would deal with them as Rome deals with those published in Rome. After the removal of the censures an envoy would go to Rome to thank the Pope for having paved the way for an amicable discussion. The republic persisted, however, in its refusal to suspend the laws, but promised that in the application of them it would not depart from its traditional piety.

In the last mentioned condition lay the chief difficulty, hence Joyeuse took the greatest pains to make it easy for the Senate to grant some concession on this point. The Pope, he explained, demanded a promise of non-application of the laws; King Henry was prepared to give it to the Pope; but there was no need for the republic to issue a written declaration or to pass a special act in the matter ; all that was required was that the king should have a guarantee that his word would not be dishonoured. Moreover the required nonapplication of the laws meant very little, inasmuch as they were only prohibitions ; therefore, as long as they remain, the erection of churches, for instance, which they forbade, would not be practicable and this state would continue so even if they were suspended; there was really question of no more than an act of courtesy towards the Pope, a “false coin” as Fresne put it. Joyeuse had likewise endeavoured to secure a certain concession on the part of the Pope, but in this he had been so far unsuccessful: it was that the Church agreed on looking upon everything as in suspense, and in consequence no new church building would take place. In this way the Venetian law would be purposeless and would fall into abeyance.

After an inconclusive vote on March 9th, the Senate on the 14th reached an agreement on the text of an explanation to be presented to Joyeuse and Castro. Since the republic, it was stated, did not wish to depart from its traditional piety and religious spirit in the application of the laws, in that declaration the two kings had enough to go on with to justify them in settling the whole affair for they could rest assured of the republic’s straightforwardness and the purity of its motives. The republic prayed for such good offices of the two monarchs as could be expected from their prudence and kindly disposition. Joyeuse, on being informed of the decision on the following day, declared himself satisfied, whereas Castro remarked that he understood the decision to mean no more than that the laws would not be applied whilst further deliberation was in progress. To the query implied in this remark the doge gave an evasive answer though in the letter in which Castro and Cardenas, on the same day, prayed in the name of Venice for the removal of the censures, both spoke as if a definite promise had been made. Yet another point in the letter of the two Spaniards demands attention: they give an assurance that the priests and religious who had fled by reason of the interdict, would be allowed to come back, though with one exception: thereafter the city of the lagoons would be closed to the Jesuits.

The Society of Jesus had bitter enemies in Venice of whom Sarpi was not the least dangerous. From the first the decree which banished them had been so worded that they could not benefit by the city’s reconciliation with Rome, for it was not the interdict that was alleged in the decree of expulsion as the ground of their banishment, but the evil dispositions towards the republic with which they were credited. The polemical writings of Bellarmine and other Jesuits against Sarpi and his associates, and their exhortations to observe the interdict, were not likely to lessen the existing hatred for them. Notwithstanding the intervention of Henry IV both the doge and the Senate repeatedly declared that they would never again be admitted. On the other hand Paul V felt in honour bound to exert himself on their behalf and he reasserted his determination in this matter in his last instructions to Joyeuse. Hence the French peace-maker was faced with a difficulty which for a time seemed destined to wreck every attempt to settle the quarrel.

However, by the time the question of the Jesuits threatened to become acute the scene of the peace parleys had been transferred from Venice to Rome. This is what had happened. In March, 1607, the emperor Rudolph II, through the duke of Savoy and the marquis of Castiglione, had made a show of throwing his weight into the scales in favour of peace. To preclude so undesirable an intervention, Joyeuse now made out that a settlement had already been reached and he forthwith set out for Rome: all that the marquis could do was to follow him thither.

It was an arduous task that awaited the peace-maker in Rome. In their mortification the Spaniards had already seen to it that the Pope was well informed as regarded the not very brilliant success achieved at Venice. The marquis expressed surprise that Joyeuse should dare to approach the Holy See, when he had but such slender concessions to offer. The Cardinal needs must begin by trying to obtain a brief which would grant him full power to absolve the Venetians without a demand for the return of the Jesuits. He reached Rome on the evening of March 22nd, took counsel all that night with the friends of France and only presented himself to Paul V on the evening of the next day. He expatiated on the impending danger of Venice turning Protestant and the difficulty of an accommodation, but made no reference to the Jesuits. Only as he was about to leave he casually remarked that on the following day he would suggest a means by which a satisfactory settlement of their affairs could be reached.

The whole of that night Paul V racked his brains as to the nature of the mysterious way out which the Frenchman claimed he had been ingenious enough to discover. Early in the morning he sent a messenger to Joyeuse asking for details of the secret. The Pope must have been not a little disappointed when the Cardinal came in person to inform him that discussions led nowhere but that he would be able to achieve something if the Pope would first give him a brief with full powers to pronounce absolution. Paul V would not allow the longed-for brief to be wrung from him in such a fashion. He replied that the whole quarrel had started because of two priests; he could not end it by sacrificing an entire religious Order. Joyeuse had to leave without having obtained anything. Where he had failed, Du Perron was now expected to succeed. The latter represented to the Pope that he could assuredly not risk a war because of the Jesuits. Meanwhile Joyeuse got in touch with Aquaviva, the General of the Jesuits, who expressed his readiness for peace to be concluded regardless of his Order. On April 1st the Pope dropped the question not indeed of the Jesuits’ return, but of their immediate return.

Even so they were very far from having cleared the ground of all obstacles. Everybody in Rome deemed the French terms of settlement humiliating. It was felt that if the French had acted in Venice in concert with the Spaniards and if jointly with the latter they had brought to bear on the Senate the pressure they were now applying to the Pope, affairs would be in a very different state. A compromise like the French one, Castro wrote, he could have secured himself without the aid of Joyeuse, and if the latter had not stood in his way either he or Fuentes would have succeeded in getting the objectionable laws repealed. Moreover on April 3rd it became known that on the occasion of the handing over of the two priests the Venetians were determined to make an express declaration that they meant to uphold their pretension that the two clerics were justiciable to their city. Hence arose fresh difficulties. Late at night Du Perron called once more on the Pope to give him a solemn assurance that Joyeuse would not make use of his powers of absolution unless the prisoners were surrendered without reservation. For the time being Joyeuse would absolve the bishops and prelates only in so far as their individual conscience was concerned, but not publicly.

At last, on April 1st, Joyeuse, in conjunction with the French envoy Alincourt, was able to draw up two documents. In the first it was stated that Alincourt, in the name of his king and in that of the republic, prayed for the repeal of the censures. It gave expression to the republic’s deep regret for all that had happened, its eagerness to recover the Pope’s goodwill and its readiness to give him every satisfaction. In the second document Joyeuse and Alincourt, in the name of Henry IV, pledged themselves as follows : The two prisoners shall be handed over to the Pope; Venice agrees not to apply the laws in dispute whilst the discussions are in progress; the protest against the interdict and the doge’s letter shall be withdrawn simultaneously with the repeal of the censures; religious who fled because of the interdict are free to return; any proceedings taken against persons, or property by reason of the observance of the interdict, are declared null and void and compensation will be made. On March 10th Castro and Cardenas had pledged their king’s word in respect to these same points and with the consent of the republic had prayed, in the king’s name, for the removal of the censures. An instruction to Joyeuse enumerates the conditions under which he is empowered to absolve the Senate. In addition to the non-application of the laws and the above mentioned promises, the Pope now demands the immediate despatch of an envoy to Rome. In the event of no settlement ensuing the Pope was resolved to stiffen the existing censures.

Easter, so he thought, everything could be settled. However, whilst under this impression, the Cardinal had forgotten that beside the doge, the Senate and the Counsel of Ten there was yet another power in Venice, namely Sarpi, for whose hatred of Rome a settlement was most unwelcome. On his advice the Senate would not hear of a public absolution and of a public recantation of the former protest against the censures. This led to a further lengthy discussion and it was with the greatest difficulty that an agreement was come to at last. Saturday after Easter, April 21st, was fixed upon for the reconciliation. Castro had been previously informed by the Senate of the terms of the settlement.

No one can maintain that in this affair of the reconciliation the Senate showed the faintest trace of either dignity or magnanimity; on the contrary, no trick or artifice was too petty if by using it it was possible to whittle down and to lessen the value of what it could not help agreeing to. To begin with, early in the morning the two prisoners were handed over to the French envoy, at the Cardinal’s lodgings. It was explained that this was done out of regard for the King of France and without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the republic over the two ecclesiastics. After that a deputation called upon the Cardinal to whom Fresne handed the prisoners; at this ceremony no mention was made of the jurisdiction of the republic. Thereupon Joyeuse proceeded to the assembly hall of the Collegio where he absolved from their censures both the doge and the Senate represented by sixteen of its members. Thus the republic permitted an act by which it acknowledged the existence both of the excommunication and the interdict, but, as was seen at once, it did so only with the intention of subsequently denying everything. In order that all might see that the interdict was at an end, the Cardinal resolved, immediately after the absolution, to say Mass with all possible solemnity, for until then, to the keen chagrin of the Senate, he had strictly observed the interdict. To add to the annoyance of the Senate a vast concourse of people had assembled in the piazza of San Marco to await the arrival of the Cardinal. The Senate now ordered the main door to be closed. When Joyeuse was about to set out for St. Mark’s he was told that the key could not be found; so he had to make his exit through a narrow postern gate. However, a dense mass of worshippers assisted at his Mass. Finally the wording of the Senate’s statement concerning the recall of its protestations caused general indignation in Rome, for its most important paragraph was couched in these terms : “Since both sides have done all that was required and the censures have been removed, the protest is likewise revoked”. Obviously if the Pope no longer insisted on the censures Venice’s protest was purposeless and the fact was disguised that an absolution had taken place and that the recall of the protest had preceded it. The document, in this form, was then broadcast by means of the printing press. When the Pope complained, the Senate declared itself ready for further explanations, but opinion in Rome was that it was best not to insist. So it was deemed that enough had been done when Fresne and Joyeuse attested by an official written document that the protest had been revoked previous to the absolution. Rome had likewise demanded the recall of a circular dealing with the interdict which the doge had addressed to the subjects of the republic. However, the Pope declared himself satisfied with an attestation of the Senate that it was not responsible for its publication. In the letters of April 6th and 21st, Joyeuse had been instructed to exert himself on behalf of the Jesuits, but in this respect his efforts proved in vain. The Senate would inform the Pope, he was told, why it insisted on the continuation of the banishment of the Society. The other Orders were allowed to return, but they were to do so unostentatiously. The Senate refused to draw up a formal document concerning the settlement; to do so would be against the laws of the republic, it was said, and a thing attested by a Cardinal and the envoys of two such great kings needed no further guaranty. As a matter of fact both kings confirmed by special letters all that their envoys had promised and performed and guaranteed the non-execution of the laws to which Rome took exception. Nevertheless when in the consistory of 30th April Paul V gave an account to the Cardinals of what had taken place in Venice they were not given an opportunity to express their opinion for the Pope was afraid lest they should signify their disapproval. The Senate had refused to observe the interdict for two or three days previous to the absolution and just before the solemn Mass of Cardinal de Joyeuse several priests had been compelled to say Mass. For two whole days the waiting rooms of the Cardinal were encumbered with priests and religious who flocked to him in order to get absolution from the censures they had incurred by their non-observance of the interdict, so that Joyeuse saw himself compelled to delegate his powers to ten suitable priests and these also found themselves surrounded by an extraordinary concourse. In this respect also the republic took counter measures lest the pressure it had exercised on consciences should become too evident. However, many priests refrained from saying Mass until they had received absolution and in this way the interdict was after all observed. Joyeuse informed the bishops and prelates by letter that they were absolved, though with certain limitations. This letter made things awkward for the Senate, since it stated the fact that the republic had been absolved, and consequently, that absolution had been needed; accordingly the locum tenens of the bishop of Padua received orders not to publish the document without the Senate’s leave for it was enough that the censures no longer existed de facto ; moreover he was to take care not to grant to any priest or religious power to absolve from the consequences of their non-observance of the interdict; let him soothe anxious consciences with this assurance, all the more as in Venice absolution was neither needed nor demanded by the Senate. Thus, by every means imaginable, did the republic vent its spite against the Pope.

At the time of the death of Cardinal Valier of Verona, who had always counselled peace with Venice, Villeroi had written to Cardinal Givry that he regretted both the death of the Cardinal and the prolongation of the quarrel; that the latter would cause more injury to the Holy See and grief to the Pope than is realized by those who oppose the reconciliation. The successor of Paul V, Gregory XV, begins his instructions to the new nuncio of Venice with these words : “The best results had been hoped for from the use of spiritual weapons which Paul V took up for the defence of the Church’s freedom, not for destruction but for building up; however, the existing evil dispositions towards them, the influence of persons who, by reason of their age and, discretion were not entitled to as much authority as they exercised, the inspiration of a man of genius for evil who exerted greater influence through his tongue and his friends than by reason of his position, all these things produced as many evils as would have been the case had these weapons been used at the worst periods of history. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and discipline, respect for the Pope and the Apostolic See suffered such damage, to the no small danger of the Catholic religion, that instead of gain and recovery no small loss had to be registered”. Such an admission suggests a comparison with the action of Pius V: like his successor that Pope had had difficulties with Venice of a similar nature, yet notwithstanding his great zeal he could not make up his mind to take steps such as were taken by Paul V. If Paul V had made a miscalculation, so had Venice. The Senate imagined that it stood for the cause of all the princes as against the Pope, so that all the European powers would range themselves by its side. In this the Senate, or its advisor Sarpi, was mistaken: in the end the republic was forced to yield to the combined pressure of Spain and France. The very fact that it strove to deny, or to whittle down by unseemly tricks, the concessions it was finally compelled to make to the Pope, was the surest proof that the republic only yielded because it could not help itself. At the beginning, as a speaker in the Senate remarked, they were not afraid of the censures, on the contrary, they welcomed them, for if they now became an object of contempt, the power of Venice would be confirmed for all time. But our republic, he adds, is more powerful in name than in reality. A contemporary writer declares that Venice would never have allowed things to go as far as a war had the Pope seriously contemplated taking up arms. At the close of his history of the interdict the Senator Antonio Quirini sets down the following twelve conclusions. The event, he writes, has shown that the republic begins everything eagerly but fails to hold out; that wars in which religion enters are exceedingly dangerous; that in all contests with the Pope the latter has an enormous advantage over his opponents. Fourthly that nothing so jeopardizes the independence of the State as a misunderstanding with the Pope. Our forbears were well aware of the necessity of not rousing the Turk; of being on good terms with the Pope, of rewarding the good and punishing the wicked. These things, in their opinion, were the four wheels which must carry forward on the right road the chariot of a republic. The ship of our republic will be secure when, by means of a good understanding, it is anchored to the Church! In the ninth place Quirini points out to the merchants on the Rialto the losses incurred by them as a result of the quarrel, namely two millions in gold for armaments, the losses resulting from irregularities in the collection of taxes and the sixty thousand ducats annually paid to the army, and all to no purpose. His eleventh point is that all the calculations of the republic were wrong from the beginning. At first people thought the Pope would not really make use of the weapon of excommunication; then they imagined that no secular prince would take sides against Venice; lastly they fancied that at least the king of France would surely come down with his whole weight on the side of Venice as soon as Spain had decided to support the Pope. They were mistaken. Again people deceived themselves when, after the statement made by Spain, it was thought that the main purpose both of the Spaniards and the Pope was the oppression of the republic. Neither France nor Spain sought a real compromise; if they did, the attempt of the one must nullify that of the other; in a word, if in the end things did not go badly, it was all due not to the action of men, but to the kindly intervention of Providence. Quirini ends with an attack on the party of the youths who, during the struggle, had arrogated to themselves a preponderant role. Venice must maintain itself by prudence rather than by force of arms, hence the republic honours age and its maturity of judgment, at least it used to do so once upon a time.

CHAPTER V.

Sarpi’s Political Theories and his Attempts to Protestantize Venice.