Baldo Lupetino

Baldo Lupetino , actually Baldo d'Albona (* 1502 or 1503 in Albona , † 1556 in Venice ) was a Venetian Franciscan and Lutheran martyr .

Life

Early years and first criticism of the Catholic Church

Lupetino was born in Albona (Labin) as a subject of the Republic of Venice . At the age of 14 he entered the minorite monastery in his hometown, which was part of the order's Dalmatian province. At the end of the 1530s he came into contact with Reformation literature. He induced his nephew Matthias Flacius not to join the Franciscan order, but to continue his humanistic studies north of the Alps.

In 1541 Lupetino stood out because of his sermons in which he was critical of free will, indulgences , purgatory and other points of Catholic teaching, which made him recognizable as a Lutheran. In 1542 he was arrested on the island of Cherso after a confrere, Jacopo Curzolo, had denounced him for the heretical content of his fasting sermons. On November 4, 1542 he was therefore transferred to Venice and imprisoned.

Arrest and conviction

In 1543 Matthias Flacius traveled to Venice to visit relatives; he brought a letter (dated 23 June 1543), in which John Frederick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse in the Doge Pietro Lando related to Lupetino. The anonymous author of this letter was Philipp Melanchthon . The government of the Republic of Venice declared that it was a matter within the church, on which politics should not have any influence. Baldo Lupetino was sentenced to life imprisonment and payment of a fine. However, under pressure from the Inquisition , the Republic of Venice took increasingly tough action against dissidents.

On September 22, 1547, Lupetino was tried again. He was presented with 16 articles, statements that he had made in his sermons, which he was supposed to withdraw after five days of reflection. Baldo Lupetino refused to withdraw, referring to the Holy Scriptures and a future free council. On October 27th, the nuncio Giovanni Della Casa sentenced him to death for heresy, namely to be beheaded in public on St. Mark's Square and then to display the body to deter others. However, the Council of Ten did not implement the judgment, although the Nuncio protested, and with him the faction of the Senate, which was close to the Pope.

Life in custody

Baldo Lupetino remained in prison for years, from where he continued to express himself critical of the church. The moisture in his cell increasingly damaged his health. German merchants in Venice secretly made donations of money to ease his prison conditions. He was questioned several times by the Inquisition . In July 1555 Duke Christoph von Württemberg campaigned unsuccessfully for Lupetino with Doge Marcantonio Trevisan . He offered that Lupetino could spend the rest of his life in Württemberg. On September 17, 1556, Baldo Lupetino was finally sentenced to death by drowning in the lagoon, a sentence that was carried out on a November night.

literature

• Silvano Cavazza:  Lupetino, Baldo. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 66:  Lorenzetto – Macchetti. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2006.
• Stephan Oswald: The German Protestant community in the Republic of Venice . In: Uwe Israel, Michael Matheus: Protestants between Venice and Rome in the early modern period, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2013, pp. 113–127.
• Luka Ilic: Theologian of Sin and Grace. The Process of Radicalization in the Theology of Matthias Flacius Illyricus. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Luka Ilic: Theologian of Sin and Grace . S. 82 .
2. ^ Stephan Oswald: The German Protestant Congregation . S. 113-114 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Luka Ilic: Theologian of Sin and Grace . S. 83 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Stephan Oswald: The German Protestant community . S. 114 .
5. ↑ Luka Ilic: Theologian of Sin and Grace . S. 85 .