Book Chapter

Error of the Heretic, Error of the Controversialist. Error and Deception in Sixteenth-Century Religious Polemics

  • Giorgio Caravale

In a confessional age in which Catholics and Protestants accused each other (and for a long time) of misinterpreting the Holy Scriptures and deceiving the faithful, some churchmen made religious controversy their life’s mission. One of the most famous among them was Ambrogio Catarino Politi, a Dominican polemist from Siena who lived in the first half of the sixteenth century. His entire existence revolved around the concept of error: errors of which he accused Luther and his Italian followers in some of the most effective pamphlets of the time; errors of which he himself was repeatedly accused by his Dominican adversaries before and during the Council of Trent; but also errors of which Politi accused himself in some revealing and at time merciless autobiographical reconstructions. Through the figure of the Sienese controversialist, this essay highlights all the semantic nuances assumed by the idea of error in sixteenth-century confessional controversy: from presumption to credulity, from delusion to deception.

  • Keywords:
  • Ambrogio Catarino Politi,
  • Lutheranism,
  • justification by faith,
  • religious controversy,
  • Immaculate Conception,
+ Show More

Giorgio Caravale

Roma Tre University, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-6016-7545

  1. Camaioni, Michele. 2018. Il Vangelo e l’Anticristo. Bernardino Ochino tra francescanesimo ed eresia (1487-1547). Bologna: Il Mulino.
  2. Caravale, Giorgio. 2013. “Tra benedettini e domenicani. Ambrogio Catarino Politi nella prima fase del Concilio di Trento,” in G. Spinelli (ed.), Cinquecento Monastico italiano, 211-222. Cesena, Badia di Santa Maria del Monte: Centro Storico Benedettino It
  3. Caravale, Giorgio. 2017. Beyond the Inquisition. Ambrogio Catarino Politi and the Origins of the Counter-Reformation. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.
  4. Faldi, Luca. “Una conversione savonaroliana. Ambrogio Catarino Politi: Il suo ingresso e i primi anni nell’ordine domenicano,” Vivens homo 5, 1994: 553–74.
  5. Firpo, Massimo. 2015. Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation. Farnham: Ashgate.
  6. Flaminio. Marcantonio. 1996. Apologia del Beneficio di Christo e altri scritti inediti, ed. D. Marcatto. Florence: Olschki.
  7. Keen, Ralph. 2001. “The Fathers in Counter- Reformation Theology in the Pre- Tridentine Period,” in I. Backus (ed.), The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West from the Carolingians to the Maurists. 2 vols. Vol. 2: 701–73. Leiden: Brill.
  8. Mortier, Daniel-Antonin. 1911. Histoire des maîtres généraux de l’Ordre des frères prêcheurs. 8 vols. 1903 [1902]–20. Vol. V. Paris: A. Picard.
  9. Politi, Ambrogio Caterino. 1540. Speculum haereticorum. Cracoviae: per Ioannem Haeliz neochristianum.
  10. Politi, Ambrogio Caterino. 1541. De perfecta iustificatione a fide et operibus. Lugduni: apud Antonium Vincentium.
  11. Politi, Ambrogio Caterino. 1548. Discorso contro la dottrina di fra Girolamo Savonarola. Venice: Giolito.
  12. Politi, Ambrogio Caterino. 1956. Apologia pro veritate catholicae et apostolicae fidei ac doctrinae adversus impia ac valde pestifera Martini Lutheri dogmata (1520), herausgegeben von J. Schweizer. Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlun
  13. Preston, Patrick. 2003. “Catharinus versus Luther,” History, 88: 364-78.
  14. Prosperi, Adriano. 2000. Il concilio di Trento. Un’introduzione storica. Turin: Einaudi.
  15. Sarpi, Paolo. 1974. Istoria del concilio tridentino, ed. C. Vivanti. 2 vols. Turin: Einaudi.
  16. Schweizer, Josef. 1908. “Ambrosius Catharinus Politus und Bartolomeo Spina,” Römische Quartalschrift, 22: 3-16.
  17. Schweizer, Josef. 1910. Ambrosius Catharinus Politus (1484–1553), ein Theologe des Reformationszeitalters: Sein Leben und seine Schriften. Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung.
  18. Spina, Bartolomeo. 1535. Opuscula edita per reverendum Magistrum Bartholomeum de Spina pisanum. Venetiis: in aedibus Stephani Sabiensis.
  19. Ughelli, Ferdinando. 1720. Italia sacra. Vol. VI. Venezia: Sebastiano Coleti.
  20. Verde, Armando. 1983. “La congregazione di San Marco dell’ordine dei frati predicatori. Il ‘‘reale’’ della predicazione savonaroliana.” Memorie domenicane, n.s. 14: 151-237.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 17-26
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Error of the Heretic, Error of the Controversialist. Error and Deception in Sixteenth-Century Religious Polemics

Authors

Giorgio Caravale

Language

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0266-4.03

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Errors, False Opinions and Defective Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Authors

Marco Faini, Marco Sgarbi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

145

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0266-4

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0265-7

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0266-4

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-0267-1

Series Title

Knowledge and its Histories

114

Fulltext
downloads

149

Views

Export Citation

1,347

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,421

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 380 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations