The Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy.

Salvatore Caponetto, The Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy

(Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 18.) Trans. Anne C. Tedeschi and John Tedeschi. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999. xxii + 449 pp. n.p. ISBN: 0-943549-67-1.

One is forcefully reminded when reading this book of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, an impression reinforced by the numerous illustrations somewhat resembling the famous woodhiocks in Foxe's text. This impact is not accidental, for just like Foxe, Salvatore Caponetto set out to chronicle the Protestant martyrs (his word) of sixteenth-century Italy. The first edition of his book appeared in Italian in 1992, and a revision in 1997. This translation is taken from the latter which has a slightly augmented bibliography. The major difference between the Italian and English editions is an accident of production: the fifty-five illustrations hors de texte were omitted, although they are still discussed in appendix 4. Apparently the subvention from the American Waldensian Society and the Waldensian National Board in Italy did not include funds for the production. This helped to leave other problems, including the failure to translate the maps, a line or two of type left out, and some misaligned footnotes, but for th e first production of Thomas Jefferson University Press after the major upheaval of its founder's retirement, these are comparatively minor difficulties. The index presents a separate set of problems, which can be overcome by contacting John Tedeschi for a complete errata sheet. The translation is fluent and faithful to the original, although it encounters predictable problems with proper names, especially when the nationality of the person in question is sometimes overlooked (Carlo da Sesso, for example, a native of Verona, once becomes Carlos, although, to be fair, he was executed in Spain).

The book is Caponetto's summa of a lifetime, embracing a survey of Italian scholarship right down to 1996. It is therefore extremely useful to have in translation, as one of the very few books to whom students studying the "missing" Italian Reformation can be directed. The essentially narrative presentation makes the book readily accessible. Unfortunately, those students will have to be strictly enjoined to discount the framework of interpretation which literally sees heroes of the faith and insists on denominating virtually everyone included as Protestant, even when it is usually impossible to decide what kind, and Caponetto is often forced to use elastic categories. This rather old-fashioned view necessarily leaves out much of the Italian Reformation, whether Valdesian, "spiritual" (despite Caponetto's own invaluable edition of the chief "spiritual" classic, the Beneficio di Cristo) or Roman, for that matter. A perhaps even more serious distortion is that the Inquisition is painted in unrelievedly black co lors (a view one of the translators has done much to undermine). Confessional blinkers get in the way of understanding what happened. Then again, it is salutary to be reminded of the degree to which native Italian Waldensianism contributed to the story, as it is to see almost graphically displayed the numerous links between philo-Protestant groups, not just within Italy, but throughout Europe. (A couple of chapters at the end touch even on England.)

In addition to manifesting the geographical diffusion of religious dissidence, another potential strength of Caponetto's approach is an attempt at sociological analysis, but this too often founders either on lack of evidence or on pious presuppositions leading to explanations in terms of the power of the Gospel of why various social groups embraced reformed doctrines. Chronological confusion makes any other kind of explanation difficult. This, of course, is something else Caponetto shares with Foxe, and as in Foxe's case, God is in the details. The most useful aspect of Caponetto's book is the numerous vignettes of his heroes, including the two figures he knows best, Aonio Paleario and Bartolomeo Spadafora. Not by accident, a humanist intellectual and a Sicilian nobleman neatly frame Caponetto's argument: Paleario stands for the necessity of toleration (a term deployed loosely) and Spadafora for the role of politics. This last point is the most important one Caponetto makes. It has been hard for historians o f northern Europe to learn that the success of reformation almost invariably depended on the attitude of the political authorities. No test case could be clearer than Italy, especially in Caponetto's masterful hands.