Pietro Paolo Vergerio

This article is about the theologian of the sixteenth century. For the humanist, see Pietro Paolo Vergerio (Humanist) .

Signature of a letter to Heinrich Bullinger

Vergerio in a church window of the Reformed Church of San Niculò (Pontresina)

Pietro Paolo Vergerio

Pietro Paolo Vergerio , also Pier Paolo Vergerio (* 1498 in Capodistria ; † October 4, 1565 in Tübingen ) was an Italian clergyman and until 1549 a Roman Catholic priest and bishop in Koper , then a Lutheran theologian, reformer and pastor in the Grisons Vicosoprano , Author, Bible translator and diplomat for the Württemberg Duke Christoph in Tübingen.

Live and act

Vergerio was in time for the Republic of Venice belonging place Capodistria (today Koper born in Slovenia). He studied law in Padua and in 1530 accompanied the legate Campeggi to Augsburg . In 1533 he became nuncio . Pope Paul III sent him again to Germany in 1535 to persuade the German princes to take part in a council in Mantova .

He got to know Martin Luther personally in Wittenberg . After returning to his homeland, he studied his writings in order to refute them.

On May 5, 1536 he was appointed bishop of Modrus . On September 6, 1536 he became bishop in his native city of Koper. Little by little he became a staunch supporter of Protestantism . In his development, in which he first read the Bible to refute the Reformation writings, and was thereby led to Reformation thinking himself, Pietro Paolo Vergerio was similar to Giovanni Mollio . Vergerio began to rearrange his diocese according to the humanistic and Reformation insights by trying to prevent abuses in cult and corruption in church offices. So he restricted the widespread and exuberant veneration of saints. In 1546 he left his diocese after being reported to the Inquisition in Venice in 1545 , suspected and charged with heresy . In 1548 Vergerio, warned by the revocation, the subsequent repentance and the sad end of Francesco Spiera , declared in a letter his agreement with the evangelical doctrine. He resigned as Bishop of Koper on July 3, 1549 and was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. In the same year he fled to Chiavenna in the more tolerant Grisons, where he was initially accepted by the reformer Agostino Mainardi .

In 1550, after being accepted into the Graubünden Synod , he became the Protestant pastor of Vicosoprano in Bergell in Graubünden , where he strengthened and helped establish the Reformation in the Italian-speaking world. He also preached in many villages in the Engadine , Poschiavo and Valtellina and visited northern Italy unrecognized. He wrote Protestant tracts and translated some German Reformation writings into Italian, which were published by Dolfino Landolfi's printing works in Poschiavo from 1549 . He also made contact with the reformers in Zurich, Basel and Bern; the correspondence with Heinrich Bullinger deserves special mention .

As early as 1553 he followed a call from the Württemberg Duke Christoph to Tübingen, where he took on diplomatic missions for him in the German Empire, in the Three Leagues and in Poland. He wrote several writings against the papacy and against the Tridentine Council . He helped the Slovenian reformer Primož Trubar (English: Primus Truber) in his efforts to translate the New Testament into the Slovenian language.

Works (selection)

A complete list of Vergerio's works can be found in Angelika Hauser: Pietro Paolo Vergerio's Protestant Period .

• Iurisconsulti de Republica Veneta liber primus (German: The first book of the Legal Consul of the Republic of Venice ). Tusculanum 1526.
• Ad oratores Principum Germaniae qui Vormatiae convenerund. De unitate, et pace Ecclesiae . Venice 1541.
• Della afflittione et persecutione fatta sopra quei di CapodiStria all'anno 1548 (German: Of distress and persecution that came over the von Koper in 1548 ). Dolfino Landolfi , Poschiavo 1549.
• Istruttione Christiana (German: Christian education ). Landolfi, Poschiavo 1549.
• Oratione de perseguitati et forusciti per lo Evangelio, et per Giesu Christo (German: prayers of the persecuted and expelled for the Gospel and for Jesus Christ ). Landolfi, Poschiavo 1549.
• Le otto difesioni del Vergorio vescovo di Capodistria (German: The eight defenses of Vergerio, Bishop of Koper ). Basel 1550.
• Dodici trattatellio di M. Pietro Paulo Vergerio Vesvoco di Capodistria, fatti poco avanti il ​​suo partire d'Italia (German: Twelve tracts by M. Peter Paul Vergerio, Bishop of Koper, written shortly before his departure from Italy ). Basel 1550.
• Epistola del Vergerio, nella quale sone descritte molte cose della Cità, et della Chiesa di Geneva (German: Epistel von Vergerio, in which many things about the city and the church of Geneva are described ). Geneva 1550.
• La historia di M. Francesco Spiera, il quale per havere in varii modi negata la conosciuta verità dell'Evangelio, casco in una misera desperatione (German: The story of M. Francesco Spiera, who negated the known truth of the Gospel in various ways, surrounded by dire despair ). Basel 1551.
• Historia di Papa Giovanni VIII, che fu femmina . Tuebingen 1556.
  • Des Babsts Kindtbett: A full and green histori of Babst Hansen, the name of the eighth who was a woman and sorceress . Tuebingen 1558.
• Retrattatione del Vergerio . Tuebingen 1556.
  • Revocation of Petri Pauli Vergerij. Which at the time he was Bishop of Capodistria twice in the Teütschland was sent by the Bapst . Tuebingen 1558.

literature

• Emidio Campi : Pietro Paolo Vergerio. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . December 10, 2014 , accessed February 14, 2020 .
• Angelika Hauser: Pietro Paolo Vergerio's Protestant period . Dissertation, University of Tübingen 1980
• Anne Jacobson Schutte: Pier Paolo Vergerio. The making of an Italian reformer . Edition Dróz, Geneva 1977, ISBN 978-2-600-03072-4
• Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer: Protestant religious refugees in Switzerland (1540–1580) . In: Hartmut Laufhütte , Michael Titzmann (Ed.): Heterodoxy in the early modern times . De Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-1109-2869-3 (= early modern times , vol. 117), pp. 119-160.
• Robert A. Pierce: Pier Paolo Vergerio the propagandist . Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2003, ISBN 88-8498-077-1
• Silvana Seidel Menchi: Erasmus as heretic: Reformation and Inquisition in Italy in the 16th century , Studies in medieval and reformation thought, Volume 49, Brill 1993, ISBN 978-9-00409-474-1 , pp. 67-72: Comparison between the Vergerio and Nacchianti cases ( digitally on Google Books)
• Silvana Seidel Menchi : Heretics in Italy in the 16th Century . In: Uwe Israel; Michael Matheus: Protestants between Venice and Rome in the early modern period , studies in the series of publications by the German Study Center in Venice, Walter de Gruyter, 2013, ISBN 978-3-05006-326-3 , pp. 25-46 ( digitally on Google Books)
• Fulvio Tomizza: Evil comes from the north. The story of Pier Paolo Vergerio, bishop, heretic, reformer . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-462-01870-1
• Manfred E. Welti: Small history of the Italian Reformation . Mohn, Gütersloh 1985, ISBN 3-579-01663-6 (= writings of the Association for Reformation History, Vol. 193), pp. 72-138 ( digitized in the Google book search).
• Erich Wenneker :  Vergerio, Pietro Paolo. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 1242-1256.
• Erich Wenneker: Heinrich Bullinger and the Reformation in the Engadine . In: “Bündner monthly newspaper. Journal for Graubünden history, regional studies and building culture ”, issue 4, Chur 2004

Web links

Commons : Pietro Paolo Vergerio  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Pietro Paolo Vergerio in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Paul Vergerius (Pietro Paolo Vergerio il giovane) , biography on flacius.net
• Pietro Paolo Vergerio the Younger in Italian encyclopedia Treccani
• Vergerio in Controversia et Confessio. Source edition on confession formation and confessionalization (1548-1580)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ludwig Theodor Elze: Primus Trubers Briefe , Literarischer Verein in Stuttgart, Tübingen 1897, p. 28.
2. ↑ Peter Paul Vergerius (Pietro Paolo Vergerio il giovane) ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Biography on flacius.net. 
3. ↑ Silvana Seidel Menchi: Heretics in Italy in the 16th century . In: Uwe Israel; Michael Matheus: Protestants between Venice and Rome in the early modern period , studies of the series of publications of the German Study Center in Venice, Walter de Gruyter, 2013, ISBN 978-3-05006-326-3 , pp. 25–46.
4. ↑ Silvana Seidel Menchi: Erasmus as Heretic: Reformation and Inquisition in Italy of the 16th Century , Studies in medieval and reformation thought, Volume 49, Brill 1993, ISBN 978-9-00409-474-1 , pp. 67-72: Comparison between the Vergerio case and the Nacchianti case .
5. ↑ Paolo Tognina: Pier Paolo Vergerio (1498-1565), vescovo eretico ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: “Voce Evangelica”. 
6. ^ Simona Rauch: La Riforma in Bregaglia . In: "Vicosoprano", 5 October 2014.
7. ^ Emidio Campi : Pietro Paolo Vergerio. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . December 13, 2014 , accessed February 14, 2020 .
8. ↑ Erich Wenneker: Heinrich Bullinger and the Reformation in the Engadine . In: “Bündner monthly newspaper. Journal for Graubünden history, regional studies and building culture ”, issue 4, Chur 2004.
9. ↑ Rudolf Pfister: For the sake of faith. The Protestant refugees from Locarno and their admission to Zurich in 1555 . Evangelischer Verlag, Zollikon 1955, pp. 52–53.

predecessor	Office	successor
Defendo Valvassori	Bishop of Koper 1536 - 1549	Tommaso Stella