VERGERIO, var-jar-f'o, PIETRO PAOLO: Reformer; b. at Capodistria (8 m. s. of Trieste), Austria, in 1498; d. at Tübingen Oct. 4, 1565. He
studied jurisprudence in Padua, where he
delivered
lectures in 1522; he also practised law in Verona,
Padua, and Venice. In 1526 he married Diana
Contarini, whose early death wax at least a partial
cause of his entering upon an ecclesiastical career.
Here his advancement was so rapid that as early
as 1533 he was papal nuncio to King Ferdinand in
Germany; and he was there again in 1535 on business connected with the council. The nuncio's
eagerness in the cause of the council brought him
into a personal encounter with Luther at Wittenberg, which he himself reports (cf. H. Lammer,
Analecta Romans, pp. 128
sqq., Schaffhausen;
1861;
W. Friedensburg, in
Nuntiaturberichte, i., 539
sqq.,
Gotha,
1898).
Although Yergerio achieved little in
the way of his appointed task,
which was to induce
the Protestants to send delegates to the council,
Paul III. twice dispatched him across the Alps; and
meanwhile rewarded him, first with the bishopric
of Modrusz in Croatia, next with Capodistria. In
the year
1540,
Vergerio again entered active diplomatic service; he was at Worms at the religious
conference as commissioner for King Francis I.
(cf. Ad oratores principum . . . in
F. Hubert,
Vergerio's publizistische Thdtigkeit, Bibliography, no.
9,
Göttingen,
1893).
It was in memory of the council
that he dedicated the tract
De unitate et pace
ecclesice.
Like
Cardinal Contarini
(q.v.), beside whom he also
appeared at Regensburg in 1541 (see
Regensburg, Conference of),
he was charged with having
conceded too much to the Protestants. He then resolved to return to Capodistria and pursue thoroughgoing
studies. Vergerio had yet no
thought of withdrawing from the Roman Catholic Church, nor did
he overstep the line of reformatory attempts within
that church, such as were espoused by Contarini
and others (cf. K. Benrath,
Geschichte der Reformation in Venedig, p. 47,
Halle,
1887).
But suspicion
was awakened; so that Dec.
13, 1544,
a denunciation of Vergerio was lodged with the Venetian Inquisition; and although after due examination
Vergerio was released, Cardinal Cervini took advantage of the fact that Vergerio was not yet formally
absolved to prevent his participation in the council, for which he had labored so many years. - Vergerio had to return from Riva, and
began a publicistic activity which turned more and more against
the Roman Catholic Church. In connection with
the
Historic
of
Francesco Spiera (q.v.) of Dec.
7, 1549,
Vergerio directed a sharp reply toAhe suffragan bishop of Padua; and instead of responding to
a second summons, by the Nuncio Dells Casa, to
appear before the tribunal in Venice, on May 1, 1549, he left Italy forever. The experiences at
Spiera's sick-bed had brought Vergerio to inward
decision. The twelve treatises which he produced
at Basel in
1550 supply
information regarding his
dogmatic position. Meanwhile the second trial had
been conducted in Venice, and was confirmed at
Rome, July
3, 1549.
Vergerio was convicted of heresy in thirty-four points, deposed from his episcopal dignity, and made subject to arrest. At that
time, however, he was in the Swiss Grisons, and became active in a brisk round of polemics (cf. Hubert, ut sup.). His themes were the papacy, its
origin and policy; the jubilees; saint and relic
worship, and the like. Vergerio continued in the
Grisons till 1553, when he heeded a call from Duke
Christopher of Württemberg to write and travel in
behalf of Evangelical doctrine. While he never
again set foot in Italy, in 1556 he made his way to
Poland, and incidentally conferred with Duke Albrecht of Prussia. He was in Poland in 1559 with
the twofold object of meeting the moves of the
Nuncio Lipomano, and of working counter to Johannes b.
Lasco (q.v.). In vain he sought permission to
take
part in
the religious conference at
Poissy in 1560, and he was not allowed
to
appear
at the Council of
Trent as the duke's delegate. Dur
ing all these years he continued his polemical author
ship, and worked toward the publication of
his
Opera,
though but the first volume appeared
(1563).
"A just appreciation of the man is difficult. That
Rome saw in him only the apostate is a matter of
course. But the Protestants, in turn, had to com
plain of his vanity, his excessive pragmatism.
Open
honest simplicity is not to be sought in Yergeria.
Yet it is to his merit that he accomplished the tran
sition to which his conscience and outward condi
tions impelled him, whereas most of his country
men at the last moment faced about" (Kausler and
Schott, in
Vergerios Briefwecitsed mit Herzog Chris
toph,
Tübingen,
1875).
K. Benrath.
Bibliography:
A review of the writings of Vergerio will be
found in Niceron,
Hommes ilLustres, xxxviii. 69 sqq.;
Weller, in
Serapeum, vols. xix (1858),
and xxvi (1888), and F. Hubert,
Die
publizistische Thatigkeit Vergerios, pp.
259 sqq.,
Göttingen,
1893.
Some of his tracts were reprinted in
Biblioteca dells Rijorma,
Florence,
1883.
Eighty of his letters to Bollinger are in
Quellen zur Schweizergeschichte, vol,
xxiii.,
Basel, 1902, forty-three to Duke
Albrecht are in Sixt (see-below), those to Duke Christoph
are in Kausler and Schott's work named in the text. A
number unprinted are in various libraries and other repositories in Venice, Mantua, Zurich, and Munich. Consult: J. Sleidanus,
De atatu religionia et reipubliae,
in the
ed. of his
Opera,
Frankfort, 1788; Bayle,
Dictionary, v.
451-461 (useful for its quotation of sources); G. A. Salig,
Hist. der augsburgischen Confession, ii.
1148-1200, Halle,
1730; F. Meyer,
Die evangelische Gemeinde in Locarno,
2 vols., Zurich, 1836; C. H.. Sixt, P. P.
Vergerio,
2d ed.,
Brunswick, 1871; C. Canto, Gli
Eretici d'Italia,
parts i.iii., Turin, 1865-68; idem,
Italiarei illosfri, vol.
ii., Milan,
1875; A. Dittrieh,
Regesten urud Briefs des Cardinals G.
Contarini,
Braunsberg, 1881; L. A. Ferrai, It
Procesao
di Pier Pdolo Vergerio,
in
Archivio storieo italiano, xv
(1885), 201 sqq., xvi (1886), 25 sqq.; P. Stancovich, Bio
grafa degli uomisi,
2d ed., Capodiatra, 1888; E. Combs,
I Nostri Protestanti, ii.
395-476, Florence, 1897;
Cambr3'dve Modern History, ii.
233, 394-395, 588, New York,
1904; Schaff,
Christian Church, vol. vii.
passim; the works
of Friedensburg (i. 1533 sqq.) and Benrath named in the
text; the introduction to the
Quellen zur Schweizergeschichte, vol. xxiii.,
ut sup.;
KL, xii.
769-776.
