Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/412

 Galateo was already in prison on suspicion of heresy for certain sermons preached "Bible in hand" at Padua; but under the lenient system of the Venetian Inquisition he was soon at liberty. Caraffa now commenced a new process against him; he was found guilty, and sentenced to degradation and death. This led to a contest with the Signory, who delivered him from Caraffa's hands and consigned him to prison. Here he had been for seven years, when, on the intercession of a friendly senator, he was allowed to make his defence in writing. This Confession is remarkable. It is Augustirrian rather than Lutheran in doctrine. It affirms the doctrine of saving faith without any extravagant depreciation of free-will or of good works; the system of the Church as a whole is defended, and the Pope is " the chief of shepherds.1' Galateo was allowed out on bail, but directed to amend his Confession on some points. He refused to do this, and three years later was cast into prison again, where he died in 1541.

Of Galateo's two companions, Alessandro was already in prison, and is not heard of again. Bartolommeo Fonzio had already incurred the enmity of Caraffa by his advocacy of Henry VIH's divorce; he managed however to clear himself of heresy, and soon left Venice for Germany, where he was employed as a papal agent. But he fell under the suspicion of Aleander and others by his intercourse with the Lutherans; and not without reason, for it was probably he who translated Luther's letter An den christlichen Adel into Italian. On retiring from the papal service he was transferred by Clement VII from the Order of Friars Minor to the Third Order of St Francis and permitted to return to Venice; but he was still an object of suspicion, which was not diminished by a little Catechism which he produced. After years of wandering he settled at Padua and opened a school; but it was broken up by order of Caraffa, now Inquisitor-General. Thence he passed to Cittadella, where reformed opinions were widespread, and again began to teach, soon winning the love of the people. But in May, 1558, he was again arrested, by order of the Died, and condemned after four years' examination for the general unsatisfactoriness of his teaching. He was called upon to abjure but refused; then gave way to persuasion and recanted; then recanted his recantation. At length he was sentenced to death at the stake; the sentence was as usual commuted into one of drowning, and he was cast into the sea on August 4>, 1562.

Meanwhile, other teachers were going further in the direction of Lutheranism than Galateo and Fonzio. Giulio della Rovere, an Austin Friar of Milan, got into trouble at Bologna in 1538 for a course of sermons preached there. Three years later he came to Venice, and preached at San Cassiano in Lent, staying in the house of Celio Seconde Curione, of whom more presently. His doctrine was attacked; he abjured, and was sentenced to be imprisoned and then banished. He escaped and fled to the Grisons, where the Reform movement had already