Juan de Valdés

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Juan de Valdés
Diálogo de la Doctrina christiana , 1529.

Juan de Valdés , also Valdez or Valdesso (* around 1490 in Cuenca in Castile , † August 1541 in Naples ) was a Reformation -minded Roman Catholic theologian and humanist from Spain .

Live and act

Valdés was a son of Councilor Fernando de Valdés and a twin brother of the Imperial Secretary of State Alfonso de Valdés . He studied in Alcalá de Henares and in 1528 was in correspondence with the humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam . Later he entered the service of a Marquesado de Villena , the Margrave de Villena named Diego López Pacheco y Portocarrero , who promoted him in his further religious education.

Valdé's first book, Diálogo de doctrina cristiana , which appeared in 1529, was not condemned by the Spanish Inquisition , but was soon withdrawn from circulation. So he fled to Rome in 1531 , and he stayed in Italy until the end of his life. There he dealt in detail with the Protestant reform movement.

From 1533 onwards, a mystical-religious group called “The Blessed Comradeship”, an open-minded network that included nobles, church leaders, writers and later reformers, gathered around him in Naples . The religious meetings took place in different places, but mostly in a palace near Chiaia or in other palaces and villas of influential people, including the residence of the viceroy himself. This group included Peter Martyr Vermigli , Bernardino Ochino , Giovanni Mollio , Marcantonio Flaminio , Pietro Carnesecchi , Jacopo Bonfadio , Lattanzio Ragnoni , Bartolomeo Spataforo , Donato Kullo , Mario Galeata , Placido di Sangro , Giovan Galeazzo Caraccioli , Gian Tommaso Sanfelice and the noble women Vittoria Colonna , Giulia Gonzaga , Isabella Bresegna and Vittoria .

Valdes wrote religious treatises, translated biblical books into Spanish and also wrote commentaries on biblical books, in particular on the Psalms, the Gospel of Matthew, Romans and 1st Corinthians.

Valdés went through a development in his life from humanism to the spiritual renewal of Christianity. Because of his life situation and as a spiritualist, he understood this regeneration mainly internally and not dogmatically. Although he was shaped by the Protestant understanding of justification , Valdés remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church until his death in 1541; probably also because he could have justified hopes for changes and innovations, since the repressive forces of the Counter-Reformation had not yet fully established themselves in Italy.

Effect and reception

Valdés had many students, patrons and friends; However, due to his living conditions and during his lifetime, he was not able to publish much. Giulia Gonzaga, one of his closest students, translated many of his writings into Italian and had them printed mostly in Venice after his death . An Italian friend took Le cento & dieci divine Consideratione to Basel, where it was translated into Italian by the reformer Pietro Paolo Vergerio and published in 1550 by Celio Secondo Curione under the name of Señor Giovañi Valdesso . This work has also been translated into French and English; three French and two English editions appeared between 1563 and 1546, for example Lyon in 1563 and Paris in 1565. After the Council of Trento , during the Counter-Reformation, as many books by Valdés as possible were withdrawn from circulation in the Catholic areas. After the confessional wars, interest in Valdés and his works largely died out.

It was not until the 19th century that Luis Usoz y Río, Benjamin Wiffen and Eduard Boehmer rediscovered and published his well-known works. From 1840 to 1865, Spanish intellectual Luis Usoz y Río worked with wealthy British industrialist and bibliophile Benjamin Wiffen to publish the works of the sixteenth-century Spanish reformers, which included Valdés' books. They were in the tradition of viewing Valdés as a heretic who was influenced by mystics such as Johannes Tauler and the Lutheran reformers. He was also a forerunner of the Quakers .

In the 20th century, the French scholar Marcel Bataillon emphasized the influence of Erasmus on Valdés and his work. Benedetto Croce, on the other hand, emphasized the more introspective and spiritual side. Emondo Cione classified Valdés as tolerant and undogmatic, who agrees with the Anabaptist and spiritual prophets. Valdés began as a religious reformer, worked as a courtier in Rome, but suffered from the delusions of court life and returned to religious reform in Naples.

The Renaissance connoisseur Daniel A. Crews, on the other hand, drew a decidedly sober picture of Valdés: he was a skilled courtier as an imperial secretary. His work included gathering information, acting as a court attorney and advising the Viceroy of Naples and the Chief Minister of Charles V.

In the late 20th and 21st centuries, some researchers tried to prove the influence of the Spanish enlightened, the Alumbrados , to which Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz belonged. The effects of Valdés on the Italian radical reformers were also traced.

Works

  • Diálogo de doctrina christiana, nuevamente compuesto por un religioso (German: Dialogue on Christian teaching, newly compiled for a religious person ), Alcalá de Henares 1529 (newly published by Marcel Bataillon, Coimbra 1925)
  • Diálogo de la lengua (German: Dialogue about Language ), 1535 (Newly edited by Kormi Anipa, MHRA Critical Texts, Volume 38, MHRA, 2014, ISBN 978-1-9073-2282-2 )
  • Alphabeto christiano (German: Christian alphabet ), Venice 1545 (newly published by Massimo Firpo, Einaudi, Torino 1994)
  • In che maniera il Christiano ha da studiare nel suo proprio libro (German: In what way a Christian has to study his own book ), 1545
  • Modo che si de tenere nel'insegnare & predicare il principio della religione Christiana (German: On the attitude of how one teaches and preaches the principles of the Christian religion ), 1545
  • Qual maniera si devrebbe tenere a informare insino della fanciullezza i figliuoli de Christiani delle cose della religiosa (German: On the way one should inform the children of Christians about religious things in their childhood ), Rome 1545 (?)
  • Le cento & dieci divine Consideratione (German: The hundred and ten divine considerations ), Basel 1550

literature

  • Marcel battalion: Juan de Valdés , Luminar 7, 1945.
  • Fermín Caballero: Alonso y Juan de Valdés , Instituto de Juan de Valdés, Cuenca 1995.
  • Emondo Cione: Juan de Valdés: La sua vita e il suo pensiero religioso con una complete bibliografia delle opere del Valdés e degli scitti intorno a lui . Florence and Naples 1963.
  • Daniel A. Crews: Twilight of the Renaissance. The life of Juan de Valdés . University Press, Toronto 2008. ISBN 978-0-8020-9867-2 .
  • Massimo Firpo: Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation, Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700 , Routledge, Ashgate 2015/2016, ISBN 978-1-3171-1023-1 .
  • José C. Nieto: Juan de Valdés and the Origins of the Spanish and Italian Reformation , Droz, Geneva 1970.
  • Wolfgang Otto: Juan de Valdés and the Reformation in Spain in the 16th century . Frankfurt am Main 1988. ISBN 3-631-40508-1 .
  • Domingo de Santa Teresa: Juan de Valdés, 1498–1541: Su pensamiento religioso y las corrientes espirituales de su tiempo , Apud Uedes Universitatis Gregorianae, Rome 1957.
  • Manfred Edwin Welti: Little History of the Italian Reformation , Volume 193, writings of the Association for Reformation History , Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 1985, digitized 2006 University of Michigan, ISBN 978-3-5790-1663-4 , pp. 8-103
  • Benjamin Wiffen: Life and Writings of Juan de Valdés, otherwise Valdesso, Spanish Reformer in the 16th Century by Benjamin B. Wiffen: With a Translation from the Italian of His Hundred and Ten Considerations by John T. Betts , Bernard Quartich, London 1865.
  • Erich Wenneker :  Valdés, Juan de. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 12, Bautz, Herzberg 1997, ISBN 3-88309-068-9 , Sp. 1040-1051.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel A. Crews: Juan de Valdés - Introduction and important biographical studies in Oxford Bibliographies (English)
  2. ↑ Benedetto Niccolini: Valdés, Juan de in Website Treccani, Enciclopedie online (Italian)
  3. ↑ Stefania Salvadori: Review of: Massimo Firpo: Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation , Aldershot: Ashgate 2015 in: sehepunkte 16 (2016), No. 4 of April 15, 2016 (accessed October 21, 2017)
  4. ↑ Kormi Anipa: Diálogo de la lengua , MHRA Critical Texts, Volume 38, MHRA, 2014, ISBN 978-1-9073-2282-2 , pp. 131 f.
  5. ↑ Daniel A. Crews: Juan de Valdés - Introduction and important biographical studies on Oxford Bibliographies (English)
  6. ↑ digital at Google Books
personal data
SURNAME Valdés, Juan de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Valdez; Valdesso
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish Reformation-minded Catholic theologian and humanist
DATE OF BIRTH around 1490
PLACE OF BIRTH Cuenca , Spain
DATE OF DEATH August 1541
Place of death Naples