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Gasparo Contarini and His Friends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

James Bruce Ross*
Affiliation:
Vassar College
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Extract

The discovery of letters of friendship written by ‘young great men’ in their period of conflict and self-discovery may enable us at last to see the shaping of their lives, in youth as in maturity. The momentous decisions and public commitments of their maturity, long regarded by posterity as sudden and inexplicable, may now appear as the natural outcome of early impulses and influences. In the case of Martin Luther such an unlikely find would probably illuminate a stage in his development now considered as crucial but obscured by lack of reliable evidence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1970

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References

1 A phrase used by Erikson, E. in Young Man Luther (New York, 1962), p. 22 Google Scholar.

2 The classic biography of Dittrich, F., Gasparo Contarini: eine Monographie (Braunsberg, 1885)Google Scholar, based upon his Regesten und Briefe des Cardinals G. C, 1483-1542 (Braunsberg, 1881), remains indispensable but contains little for the period before 1520. Earlier and later biographical studies, also without substance for this period, are listed by Hubert Jedin in his masterly survey, ‘G. C , in Diet, d'his. et de geog. ecch, vol. XIII (1956), cols. 771-784, and will be noted here only in special cases. My indebtedness to Professor Jedin and to Professor Felix Gilbert will be apparent throughout.

3 Jedin's discovery of these letters in 1943 at the Sacro Eremo Tuscolano of the Eremiti Camaldolesi near Frascati was due to De Luca, Don Giuseppe, as Jedin recounts in his contribution to Don Giuseppe De Luca: Ricordi e Testimonianze, ed. M. Picchi (Brescia, 1963), pp. 208226 Google Scholar. After referring briefly to the letters in several works Jedin considered them more fully in ‘Ein “Turmerlebnis“desjungen Contarini’, HistorischesJahrbuchLXX (1951), 115-130, even before the publication of his edition of the letters, first in 1953 in the form of a fascicle of 67 folio pages ('Contarini und Camaldoli’, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome), designated as an ‘offprint’, which later appeared as part of the journal for which it was originally destined (Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà, n [1959], 53-117). (References in the present essay are to the pages of the ‘offprint’, called C. und C.) Considerable attention has been paid to the letters by Mackensen, H., ‘Contarini's Theological Role at Ratisbon in 1541’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, LI (1960), 3657 Google Scholar, and by Gilbert, F., 'Religion and Politics in the Thought of Gasparo Contarini’, in Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory ojE. H. Harbison, ed. T. K. Rabb and J. E. Seigel (Princeton, 1969)Google Scholar, pp. 90-116. The broader significance of the letters has been discussed briefly by Jedin, in the Introduction to C. und C, and in ‘G. Ceil contributo veneziano alia Riforma Cattolica’, in La civiltà veneziana del Rinascimento (Florence, 1968), pp. 103124 Google Scholar; by R. Cessi, in ‘Paolinismo preluterano’, Rendiconti dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche, efilologiche, ser. VIII, vol. XII (1957), pp. 3--30, and in other studies noted below.

4 Concerning the older and inadequate lives of Giustiniani see Jedin, C. und C, p. 6, n. 1. The recent study of Leclercq, Dom Jean, Un humaniste ermite, le bienheureux Paul Giustiniani, 1476-1528 (Rome, 1951)Google Scholar, is based upon a rapid examination of his collected manuscripts belonging to the Sacro Eremo Tuscolano of the Eremiti Camaldolesi of the Congregazione of Monte Corona (near Frascati) among which Jedin found Contarini's letters. To Dom Leclercq we also owe a summary of Giustiniani's monastic thought, La dottrina del Beato Paolo Giustiniani (Frascati, 1953). (An English version from the French text made by E. McCabe is entitled Alone with God, New York, 1961.) The title of 'Beato’ rests on tradition rather than formal action by the Church. When ultimately edited and published the manuscripts of Giustiniani will make possible a critical biography of signal importance for the spiritual history of his time. To date the letters and treatises of Giustiniani himself have been inventoried by Dom Leclercq, Un humaniste, App. m, pp. 147-176; the whole collection selectively by Kristeller, P. O. in Iter Italicum, I (London, 1965), 235 Google Scholar, and with rigorous analysis by E. Massa in Beato Paolo Giustiniani, I manoscritti originali custoditi nell’ Eremo di Frascati, vol. 1 (Rome, 1968) of the projected Opera omnia, Trattati Lettere e Frammenti to be published in nine or more volumes by Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome.

5 No modern study of Vincenzo Quirini (c. 1479-1514) exists though a basis was laid by Cicogna, E. in Iscrizioni veneziane, v (Venice, 1843), 63 Google Scholar. and materials for his early diplomatic career (1504-1507) are available. See Jedin, , ‘V. G. und Pietro Bembo’, in Miscellanea G. Mercati, vol. iv (Citta del Vaticano, 1946), pp. 407424 Google Scholar (reprinted in Kirche des Glaubens, 1, 153-166). Of the relevant materials in the Giustiniani manuscripts only a small portion have been published, in the Annates Camaldulenses, ed. J. B. Mittarelli and A. Costadoni, vol. rx (Venice, 1773) (hereafter referred to as A. C).

6 The validity of such an approach has recently been noted, by C. Dionisotti, ‘Chierici e laid nella letteratura italiana del primo Cinquecento’, in Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento (Padua, i960), pp. 167-185, esp. pp. 175-176; by Cervelli, I., ‘Storiografia e problemi intorno alia vita religiosa e spirituale a Venezia nella prima metà del ‘500’, in Studi Veneziani, VIII (1967), 447-476Google Scholar, esp. pp. 461-462, 465-466, 474; and by Gilbert, F., ‘Cristianesimo, umanesimo e la bolla “Apostolici Regiminis” del 1513’, Rivista Storica Italiana, LXXIX (1967), 976990 Google Scholar, esp. 988-990. (I am presently engaged on a study of this kind.)

7 Contarini to Quirini, letter no. 14, 13 June 1514, C. und C, p. 44.

8 Contarini to Quirini and Giustiniani, letter no. 13, 26 Nov. 1513, C. und C , p. 42.

9 Nicolo Tiepolo, d. 1551, of whom no study exists, was the only one of the group to found a family and pursue a wholly secular career. Materials concerning his diplomatic service are available (seejedin, C. und C, p. 18, n. 30); letters to and from Giustiniani in the latter's manuscripts will illumine his youth. He and Quirini were the only members of the group who received doctorates in arts from the Studium of Padua; both were conferred at the papal court, Quirini's by Alexander VI in 1502, Tiepolo's by Julius II in 1507; see Nardi, B., Saggi sull’ aristotelismo padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI (Florence, 1958), p. 167 Google Scholar.

10 Trifone Gabriele (c. 1470-1549) enjoyed fame in his time as a gifted writer and pure spirit, known as ‘the Venetian Socrates’, who maintained an ascetic regime of contemplation and discussion with friends in Venice and at his villa. To Cicogna's account, Iscrizioni, m, 208-223, little has been added since Cian's, V. VI decennio della vita del Bembo, 1521- 1531 (Turin, 1885)Google Scholar, passim. Seejedin, C. und C , p. 28, n. 16.

11 Concerning the humanist Giambattista Egnazio (c. 1478-1553), of the non-noble family Cipelli, see Jedin, C. und C , p. 26, n. 17. Of the group he was the only cleric, prior from 1511 of the Ospedale of San Marco, and professional scholar, becoming public teacher of eloquence in Venice in 1520. Concerning his ambivalence towards the religious life see below n. 70.

12 Little is known about Sebastiano Giorgi except that he accompanied Quirini to the Hermitage, entered the order with him on 22 Feb. 1512, and subsequently as Father Girolamo held various offices in the order. See Cicogna re Quirini, Iscrizioni, v, 63-64. Dom Leclercq (Un humaniste, pp. 68, 72) errs in identifying him with ‘Zorzi’, the brother of Vincenzo Quirini who in 1512 married a niece of Giustiniani, as is made clear in A.C., ix, nos. XVI-XIX.

13 ‘The circle of Murano’, often referred to as existing after Giustiniani's return from Padua in 1505, has been little studied. Giustiniani later said of his life there that it was more like that of a pagan philosopher than of a religious Christian soul; letter of 20 July 1518, A.C., ix, col. 595, no. XL.

14 Letter of 12 March 1512, A.C., IX, col. 559, no. XXII, exhorting Egnazio, Tiepolo, and Contarini to follow Quirini to the Hermitage.

15 An invaluable four-fold catalogue of the letters is given by Professor Massa in vol. I of the Opera omnia, pp. 502-527.

16 Judging by two recent uses of the term, ‘Evangelism’ no longer seems an adequate characterization. Equated by P. McNair with the doctrine of justification by faith, ‘discovered' by Luther, it excludes all religious experience in Italy before the impact of Lutheran tracts (Peter Martyr in Italy, Oxford, 1967, esp. pp. 6-8). Used by W.J. Bouwsma as a comprehensive term, broadly defined, to indicate long-continued trends in Italian religious life in the 16th century, it includes Venetian currents reflected by Contarini as early as 1511 (Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty, Berkeley, 1968, pp. 40-41,123- 133, and passim). The ‘Augustinian or Pauline ethos’ in Italy is noted by Logan, O. M. T., ‘Grace and Justification: Some Italian Views of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century’, Journal of Eccl. Hist., xx (1969), 6778 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as it was by R. Cessi in ‘Paolinismo preluterano’ (see above, n. 3).

17 The inclusion of a chair of moral philosophy, ‘ad decern Aristotelis Ethicorum libros' in the universitas artium is attested by Favaro, A. in his classic survey of the Studium, ‘Lo Studio di Padova al tempo di Niccolo Coppernico’ in Atti del R. Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, vi (1880), 285356 Google Scholar; see p. 318. See P. O. Kristeller, ‘The Moral Thought of Renaissance Humanism’, in Renaissance Thought, II, Harper Torchbooks, 1965, esp. pp. 32-36.

18 The following is a distillation, largely verbatim, of relevant passages in Books vni and ix of The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, tr. J. A. K. Thompson, Penguin Classics, pp. 227-228, 233-237, 239, 264, 267, 280-285 (Book VIII, i. 3-5; iii. 6-8; v. 3; vi. 7: Book rx, ii. 9; ix. 10; x. 4-5; xii. 1-2).

19 The Ethics, p. 234 (Book VIII, iii. 9).

20 The two poles of Venetian life; there is only one ‘piazza’ in Venice, that of San Marco.

21 These round figures are based on a list of noble families represented in the Grand Council in 1513 (147 families with 2622 members in the G. C.) found in Bib. Marc, CI. It. vn, Cod. 90 (8029), fs. 349-350, and are supported by earlier (1493) and later (1527) data from Sanudo, Marino, Cronachetta, ed. R. Fulin (Venice, 1880), pp. 221-222Google Scholar, and Diarii, ed. Fulin et al., vol. XLV, cols. 569-572. A total population of over 100,000 is estimated by Luzzatto, G. in his last summary, ‘L'economia veneziana nel secolo XVI’, in Rinascimento europeo e rinascimento veneziano, ed. V. Branca (Florence, 1967), pp. 345355 Google Scholar. Sanudo, estimating the population at 150,000 (Cronachetta, pp. 33-35) notes three classes: 'zentilhomeni, che governano il stato’, ‘cittadini’, and ‘artesani o vero populo menudo’. On the difficulties of securing reliable figures for the early 16th century see Davis, J. C., The Decline of the Venetian Nobility as a Ruling Class (Baltimore, 1962)Google Scholar, critical note 2, pp. 133-138.

22 Functioning as described by Contarini, G. in his treatise, De magistratibus et republica Venetorum libri V, in Opera omnia (Paris, 1571), pp. 259326 Google Scholar, composed in the early 1520s, according to Gilbert, F., ‘The Date of the Composition of Contarini's and Giannotti's Books on Venice’, Studies in the Renaissance, xiv (1967), 172184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Among modern works that of Maranini, G. remains outstanding, La costituzione di Venezia dopo la serrata del Maggior Consiglio (Venice, 1931)Google Scholar. For the best analysis in English see ‘The Venetian Political Tradition’, Chapter ii of Bouwsma's Venice.

23 The Ethics, p. 271 (Book ix, vi. 2).

24 Ibid., p. 251 (Book VIII, xii. 6). On the continued idealization of friendship in Venetian culture see G. Cozzi, ‘Una vicenda della Venezia barocca: Marco Trevisan e la sua “eroica amicizia” ‘, Boll. delvinst. di Storia della Società e dello Stato Veneziano, II (1960), 61-154.

25 See Lane, F. C., ‘Family Partnerships and Joint Ventures in the Venetian Republic’, Journal of Economic History, IV (1944), 178196 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted in his collected papers, Venice and History, Baltimore, 1966).

26 As pictured by Gentile Bellini (1429-1507) in ‘The Procession of the Holy Cross in Piazza San Marco, 1496’, Galleria delFAccademia, Venice, and in comparable works of Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465-c. 1525).

27 These schools represent two directions in Venetian culture, competing and interpenetrating, according to B. Nardi, the earlier (at the Rialto from 1408) philosophic, that is, Aristotelian-Averroistic, naturalistic and scientific, the two later (at San Marco after 1446 and 1460) Platonic, humanistic-philosophic, moralistic-religious; see his fundamental study, ‘La scuola di Rialto e l'umanesimo veneziano’, in Umanesimo europeo e umanesimo veneziano, ed. V. Branca (Florence, 1963), pp. 93-139, esp. pp. 98-99, and also his ‘Letteratura e cultura veneziana’ in La civilta veneziana del Quattrocento (Florence, 1957), pp- 99-147.

28 It was the policy of the Republic from 1407 to preserve Padua as the sole Studium Generate within her domain, and efforts to develop such a Venetian center out of the school at the Rialto were checked in 1445; see Nardi, ‘La scuola’, pp. 96-98. Venetian subjects were forbidden to study elsewhere in Italy and to obtain a degree in foreign lands; see Kibre, P., Scholarly Privileges in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 69, 76 79 Google Scholar. No general study of the Studium at this time has appeared since Favaro's ‘Lo Studio’ of 1880 (see n. 17) but his classic bibliography of the Studium (1922) has been brought up to date by Rossetti, L., in Quaderni per la storia dell’ Universita di Padova, 1 (1968), 179311 Google Scholar, and n (1969), 109-188.

29 The honored office of Grand Chancellor, also elected for life, was held by a nonnoble; he was a kind of'prince of the common people’, according to Contarini, De magistratibus, Opera omnia, pp. 323-324.

30 See the suggestive comments of Branca, V., ‘Ermolao Barbaro e l'umanesimo veneziano’, in Uman. em. e uman. ven., pp. 207-209; see also his recent edition of Barbaro's early treatise De coelibatu, together with De officio legati (Florence, 1969)Google Scholar.

31 For example, of the seven brothers in Gasparo's family, only he and Tommaso, both celibate, achieved public distinction, and only two of the five others continued the line. A rapid survey of the genealogies of Contarini's closest friends in'Il Barbaro’ (Arbori de' patritii veneti of Barbaro, Marco, 1511-1570, A. S. V., Misc. Cod. 898) reveals a high incidence of celibacy and limitation of offspring within families who were among the most ancient in the Venetian nobility; see the anthology Venezia e le sue lagune, vol. 1 (Venice, 1847)Google Scholar, App. III.

32 Data in ‘II Barbaro’ and Sanudo's Diarii indicate that five of Gasparo's brothers were active in die Eastern Mediterranean, four in Alexandria, and one in Cyprus. For many aspects of Venetian economic history see the collected papers of F. C. Lane, Venice and History; also Pullan, B., ed., Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

33 See Bouwsma, Venice, pp. 71-80.

34 Evidence of this inclination on the part of all of the members of the group is scattered within the thirty letters and others in A.C., vol. IX. For Quirini's slow progress towards the spiritual life, see esp. Giustiniani's letter of 1512, A.C., rx, no. XXII; Giustiniani's scoffing letter, still unpublished, is quoted by Leclercq, Un humaniste, p. 38; concerning Gabriele's recoil see Cicogna, Iscrizioni, m, 208. None of the circle was attracted to the episcopate, though Contarini later idealized the exemplary pastoral role of Pietro Barozzi, famous bishop of Padua (1487-1507) in his student days; see De officio episcopi, in Opera omnia, pp. 399-431 (see below, n. 135). In Bembo's turning away from the traditional civic career of his class, Dionisotti sees a significant break in the Venetian cultural tradition, visible also in the lives of the friends of his youth, Giustiniani and Quirini, as well as in Contarini's later entrance into the Church ('Chierici e laid’, Problemi, pp. 175- 176). Bembo's correspondence reveals him also as a close friend of Tiepolo and Gabriele (Opere del Cardinale Pietro Bembo, Venice, 1729, vol. n, pp. 130-133, 102-107, 165).

35 For a general account of this neglected subject see Penco, G., Storia del tnonachesimo in Italia (Rome, 1961)Google Scholar, chap, viii; the early chapters of I. Tassi's Ludovico Barbo, 1381-1443 (Rome, 1952); also suggestive pages in Cantimori, D., ‘Le idee religiose del Cinquecento’, in Storia della letterature kaliana, v (Rome, 1967)Google Scholar, esp. 7-15, and in Evennett, H. O., The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar, chap. 1; also parts of Colosio, I., ‘I mistici italiani dalla fine del Trecento ai primi del Seicento’, in Ilpensiero della Rinascenza e della Riforma (Milan, 1964)Google Scholar, vol. rx of Grande Antologia Filosqfica, esp. Introd., section iv, and relevant texts. Concerning the dual strains in Camaldoli, see Penco, pp. 211-219.

36 Central figures in the group were the cousins Antonio Correr and Gabriel Condulmer (the future Eugenius IV), encouraged by their uncle Angelo Correr (the future Gregory XII); see esp. Tassi, Ludovico Barbo, pp. 13-17.

37 Recognition of Barbo's character and achievement has only recently emerged, especially in Tassi's biography; see also Pratesi, A., ‘L. B.’ in Diz. biog., vi (1964), 244249 Google Scholar, and Cracco, G., ‘;La fondazione dei canonici secolari di S. Giorgio in Alga’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, XIII (1959), 7088 Google Scholar.

38 A modern study of St. Lorenzo Giustiniani is greatly needed.

39 The rapid growth of the community of Santa Giustina, from three to nearly two hundred between 1409 and 1418, was due largely to the response of university students at Padua to the young abbot's form of'devotion’; see Tassi, pp. 45-50.

40 His practice at Santa Giustina was later (1440-1441) formulated theoretically in his 'Forma orationis et meditationis’; text in Tassi, pp. 143-152, analysis 132-137. See also Picasso, G. M., ‘La preghiera nel movimento spirituale di S. Giustina’, in Preghiera nella Bibbia e nella tradizionepatristica e monastica (Rome, 1964), pp. 735769 Google Scholar. Possible connection between the ‘devotio’ of the north and that of the south is a moot point but the affinity of spirit is clear.

41 ‘Paolinismo’, Rendicotiti, p . 8. Whether Barbo's serene spirituality should be regarded as ‘mysticism’ seems doubtful; see Tassi's evaluation, pp. 121-128, 134-135.

42 That Giustiniani frequented this abbey as a student we know from an unpublished letter cited by Leclercq, Un humaniste, p. 22.

43 According to a retrospective letter of Giustiniani, 20 July 1518, in A. C, rx, cols. 594-595, no. XL.

44 Founded in 1212, by 1474 it had become the head of an independent cenobitic congregation modeled on that of Santa Giustina, reunited with the eremitic Camaldoli only in 1513 by Leo X, at the insistence of Giustiniani; see Penco, Monachesimo, pp. 330-331, and Meneghin, V., San Michele in Isola di Venezia, 2 vols. (Venice, 1962)Google Scholar. Giustiniani also frequented this house where his young friend, the poet and scholar Paolo Canale (1483- 1508), one of the ‘circle of Murano’, died a few weeks after taking the habit; see Agostini, G. degli, Notizie … intorno … scrittori viniziani, 11 (Venice, 1754), 549 Google Scholar.

45 The conditions of entrance were specified in a letter to the general of the whole order, Pietro Delfino, 10 May 1510; see Leclercq, Un humaniste, pp. 43-44. The standard monograph on Delfino is by Schnitzer, T., Peter Delfin, Munich, 1926 Google Scholar.

46 As revealed in excerpts from his letters quoted (or paraphrased) in A.C., vol. VII. Of his vast epistolario only a part has been published (Epistolae, Venice, 1524). See Soranzo, G., ‘Pietro Dolfin e il suo epistolario’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, XIII (1959), 131 Google Scholar. 157-195.

47 A summary of this complex and painful episode can be found in A. C , VII, 413-436, and in the works cited above.

48 P. Toubert in the ‘Bulletin historique’, Revue Historique, ccxxxv (1966), 182, asserts that Toriginalité du monachisme italien en Occident tient à la place importante qu'y a toujours tenue l'érérnitisme’. Among other works of Dom Leclerq see ‘Le jugement du Bx Paul Giustiniani sur Damien’, S. Pierre, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, xi (1957), 423426 Google Scholar, and ‘Le B x Paul Giustiniani et les ermites de son temps’, in Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento (Padua, 1960), pp. 225-240.

49 For a summary account of the War of the League of Cambrai (1509-1517) see Ady, C.M., ‘The Invasions of Italy’, in The New Cambridge Modern History, 1 (Cambridge, 1957), esp 359365 Google Scholar; for interpretation see Chabod, F., ‘Venezia nella politica italiana ed europea del Cinquecento’, in La civiltà veneziana del Rinascimento (Florence, 1968), pp. 2755 Google Scholar. Contemporaries were impressed by the great loss of life; see the casualty statistics in Bib. Marc, Ital. CI. XI, Cod. 110 (7238), fs. 169r-170r, according to which 15,000 died at 'Gieradada’ and 4600 in the siege of Padua in Sept.-Oct., 1509. The strains imposed on Venetian society by this war are apparent in all the great diaries of the period; in addition to the published ones of Sanudo and Girolamo Priuli see the Diario of Marcantonio Michiel (1511-1520), Museo Civico Correr, Venice, MS Cicogna 284.8. In his recent valuable analysis, ‘Venice Preserved’, chap, m of Venice, Prof. Bouwsma relates this civic ordeal to Contarini's personal experience (pp. 123-125). The prestige won by Venice in surviving the ordeal of these years did much to create ‘the myth of Venice’, according to Gaeta, F., ‘Alcune considerazioni sul mito di Venezia’, Bib. d'hum. et de Ren., XXIII (1961), esp. 6364 Google Scholar. To this stability the long reign of Leonardo Loredan as doge (1501-1521) must have contributed; see the comments of Sanudo on his death, Diarii, xxx, cols. 378 ff.

50 His gifts and trials as diplomat are seen in his dispatches (Feb.-Nov., 1507), thoroughly analyzed by Brunetti, M., ‘Alia vigilia di Cambrai. La legazione di Vincenzo Querini all’ imperatore Massimiliano 1507’, Archivio Veneto-Tridentino, x (1926), 1108 Google Scholar, and in the account of his punitive exile from the imperial court by Lutz, H., ‘V. G. in Augsburg, 1507’, H.J., LXXIV (1955), 200212 Google Scholar, as well as in his own relazione to the Senate in E. Alberi, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato, ser. 1, vol. VI, 5-58.

51 As we learn from Sanudo, Diarii, ix, cols. 146, 204-210: Gasparo with ‘provisionati sei’ was part of a force comprising ‘174 zentilhomeni, 23 citadini, 645 provisionati’, total 884, sent to Padua on 7 Sept. 1509; retrospective references to this service are made by Sanudo, xn, cols. 327, 353, and XXI, col. 85, where it is stated that he was with his brothers at the siege of Padua ‘con homeni 20’.

52 It is generally agreed that public instruction in the Studium was disrupted in 1509 and was not formally resumed until 1517; see the latest judgment of Sandre, G. de, ‘Dottori, università, commune a Padova nel Quattrocento’, Quaderni, 1 (1968), 4445 Google Scholar. Although few entries relating to the Studium during this time appear in Sanudo's Diarii (see A. Favaro, ‘Lo Studio di Padova nei Diarii di Marino Sanuto’, Nuovo Archivio Veneto, XXXVI, 1918, 65-128), it is clear that a considerable number of degrees were conferred in these years (see Acta Graduum Academicorum ab anno 1501 ad annum 1525, ed. E. M. Forin, Padua, 1969).

53 Owned by his father Alvise (according to ‘II Barbara’, n, 466), it lay on the far north shore of Venice in the sestiere Cannaregio. It is identified with present number 3539, Fondamenta della Madonna dell'Orto, next to the Sacca della Misericordia, by Tassini, G., Alcunipalazzi ed antichi edificii di Venezia (Venice, 1879), p. 273 Google Scholar, and is represented in an engraving of c. 1700 by V. M. Coronelli, Palazzi de Venezia (Venice, no date), between folios 135 and 136. Nearby stands the fine Gothic church which gave its name to bis branch of the family, containing their chapel with marble busts by A. Vittoria of the brothers Gasparo and Tommaso (d. 1578) and four later members of dais branch; see Cicogna, , Iscrizioni, a (Venice, 1827), 226 Google Scholar.ff. The fame of the family as one of the most ancient, illustrious, and numerous of the Republic is attested by the pages of their genealogy in ‘II Barbaro’, n, 439-516. In a list of noble families of 1513, among 147 families the Contarini are represented in the Grand Council of 2622 by 188, the next highest being the Morosini with 85 (Bib. Marc, Ital. Cl. vn, Cod. 90, 8029).

54 But, like Giustiniani after eleven years, clearly without a doctorate, the conferment of which was systematically recorded in the episcopal records and by Sanudo. Data in the Archivio della Curia Vescovile di Padova, Diversorum, vol. XLVII (1500-1508), have now been published together with all the other extant records of conferment in the Acta Graduum, ed. Forin, 1969. Both Contarini's and Giustiniani's names appear only as witnesses, the former in six entries of 1502, 1503, 1504, 1506. No Contarini is present in the list (1511) of doctors (16 in number) in the Nozze di nobili veneti, Venice, Museo Civico Correr, MS Cicogna 3638 (folios not numbered) or in Sanudo's numerous lists of dottori enjoying an honored position in ceremonial processions as well as other privileges (see Sanudo, Cronachetta, p . 223). Concerning the fame of certain Venetian doctors, see Nardi, ‘La scuola’, in Uman. eur. e uman. ven., pp. 126-132.

55 As first surviving child (b. 1483) of Alvise, son of Ferigo, and of Polissena Malipiero, married in 1479, he was named Gasparo for one of the three kings, in gratitude, according to his sixteenth-century biographers, G. della Casa and L. Beccadelli whose uitae are printed in Epistolarum Reginald! Poli… collectio, ed. A. M. Quirini, vol. HI (1748), pp. cxlii-cxcviii and xcvii-cxli. Brief data concerning the seven sons are recorded in ‘II Barbaro’, vol. n, p . 466; female children are not entered here but can be found, nameless, as daughters of identifiable fathers in chronological lists of marriages, by families, in the Libro dei matrimoni (Nozze dei nobili) of Marco Barbaro, Bib. Marc, Ital. CI. VII, Cod. 156 (8492), where four daughters of the family are indicated, one as ‘bastarda’. A fifth daughter became a nun, Serafina, at Santa Chiara of Murano.

56 Della Casa, Vita, p. cxliv, Beccadelli, Vita, p. xcix; della Casa, Vita, pp. cxliv-cxlvi, says that Gasparo equitably divided the family interests, part in Apulia, part in Alexandria (the major center), and part in Venice, among his brothers, ‘bene domi constitutis rebus’, before returning to Padua.

57 Letter no. n , to Giustiniani and Quirini, 17 July 1512, C. und C, p. 37.

58 Letter no. 1, to Giustiniani, 1 Feb. 1511, C. und C, p. 11. Giustiniani's departure on 6 Dec. 1510 could hardly have come as a surprise since he had spent the previous July at the Hermitage, testing its eremitic regime. The following analysis of Contarini's prolonged crisis differs from Prof. Gilbert's recent treatment (‘Religion and Polities’, in Action, 1969, pp. 91-101) in tracing more fully the stages of his affective experience and relating them causally to the bonds of intimacy with Quirini and Giustiniani rooted in their earlier Paduan comradeship. It also differs from the recent approach of I. Cervelli (see n. 6) who uses the crisis of Contarini and his friends as a measure by which to distinguish between different currents in contemporary historiography.

59 Written to Egnazio, Quirini, and ‘voi tutti altri amici’, naming several including Tiepolo but not Contarini; A. C, ix, cols. 467-496, no. VI.

60 These may be the letters of Jan., Feb., and March, 1511, all directed to Quirini, which are listed in Massa's Manoscritti, p. 32.

61 San Giorgio Maggiore, facing the Basin of San Marco, the great tenth-century Benedictine abbey, restored in our time to its later Palladian beauty by the Giorgio Cini Foundation. Only the second cloister and adjoining quarters of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century would have been familiar to Contarini.

62 Recounted to Giustiniani in letter no. 2, 24 April 1511, C. und C , pp. 12-15; Easter fell on April 20th. San Sebastiano was served by the Poor Hermits of St. Jerome.

63 For consideration of this experience as a parallel to Luther's see Jedin, “Turmerlebnis’, H.J.,LXX (1951),esp.pp. 117-120. Any influence upon Contarini either of Luther (whose tower-experience took place probably between 1513 and 1519) or of the author of the Beneficio di Cristo (who was at San Giorgio, Venice, c. 1519-1534) is obviously impossible. Concerning the latter see V. Vinay, ‘Die Schrift II Beneficio’, Archiv, Lvni (1967), 29- 72, esp. section 2. The interplay of religious currents in Venice, ‘Evangelical’ (Bouwsma, Venice, pp. 123-127), Pauline, eremitic, etc. seems adequate to account for the particular insight of this troubled young patrician, faced with an acute personal dilemma. It resembles the phenomenon of ‘conversion’, marked by self-surrender, new perception, and joyous conviction, noted by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, chaps. 9-10.

64 Letter no. 3,10 August 1511, C. und C, pp. 15-17. He rejects Aristotle's dictum that separation of friends, if prolonged, dims the memory of friendship (The Ethics, p. 236; Book VIII, v. 1).

65 Letter no. 4, 22 Sept. 1511, C. und C, pp. 17-19.

66 That these four letters, from Feb. to Sept., 1511, all to Giustiniani, do not comprise the whole correspondence is clear from internal evidence.

67 Giustiniani's failure to persuade Quirini and Egnazio to accompany him to the Hermitage in Dec. 1510, despite Quirini's favorable response (A. C, IX, nos. m-v) to his July letters only strengthened his efforts. Of the stream of letters between them from Jan. 1511 to Jan. 1512 listed in Massa.'s Manoscritti, twelve of Quirini's are printed in A. C , rx, nos. VII-XIII, XV-XIX, poignant witnesses to his relentless self-examination and persistent ambivalence, enhanced by illness en route (Oct.-Dec. 1511) and the honor shown him by the intellectuals of Florence where he lingered for about a month (Jan. 1512).

68 Letter no. 5, late Nov. 1511, C. und C , pp. 19-21.

69 Letter no. 6, 3 Dec. 1511, C. und C, pp. 21-22.

70 See references to him in letters nos. 8, 12, 13, 14, in C. und C ; also Quirini's persuasive letter to him in A. C , ix, cols. 564-566, no. xxv, and Giustiniani's bitter comments on Egnazio's ‘hardness of heart’ in A. C, IX, cols. 589-594, no. xxxix.

71 Letter no. 7, 26 Dec. 1511, C. und C, pp. 22-26, the only letter edited by Jedin which had previously been published, in A. C, IX, cols. 520-524, no. XIV; it probably reached Quirini in Florence.

72 The Ethics, p. 277 (Book IX, ix.3).

73 Letter no. 8, 26 Feb. 1512, C. und C , pp. 26-29. He refers only to the joy of Father Paolo on Quirini's final arrival at the Hermitage, 30 Jan. 1512.

74 The day was the feast of Saint Peter's Chair.

75 Since this letter (printed in A.C., ix, cols. 539-543, no. xx) is missing from the Frascati collection of Contarini's letters, Jedin (C. und C , p. 30. n. 29) questions whether it was ever sent to Camaldoli. Perhaps the act of writing it sufficed to express the anger felt by Contarini that is revealed in the formal language and objective tone, at times cold and critical, totally unlike that of his other letters to Quirini.

76 Two letters of Quirini to the pair are noted in Massa's Manoscritti, p. 149 (letter of 25 Feb. 1512); pp. 131-132 (letter of Feb.-March 1512).

77 Letter of Feb. 1512, A. C , IX, cols. 544-550, no. XXI, a masterpiece of Ciceronian eloquence in which he reveals to them Quirini's gradual adherence to ascetic practices, begun some ten years before.

78 Letter no. 9, 10 March 1512, C. und C , pp. 29-33, his longest letter.

79 The famous Cretan scholar, Marcus Musurus (d. 1517), who held the chair of Greek at Padua from 1503 to 1509, found a home in Venice from 1509 to 1516 among his former students including Contarini and held the public chair of Greek there from 1512. See Geanakoplos, D.J., ‘Marcus Musurus, Cretan Editor With the Aldine Press and Professor at Padua University’, in Greek Scholars in Venice (Cambridge, Mass., 1962)Google Scholar, pp. III-166.

80 See The Ethics, p. 305 (Book x, vii.8), for a similar statement.

81 Letter no. 10, 10 March 1512, C. und C, pp. 34-36; addressed to ‘Messer Vincentio Quirino Doctore’, it must have been written before he knew of Quirini's formal entrance into the order on Feb. 22 and would therefore antedate the Latin letter noted above.

82 The Ethics, Book IX, passim.

83 John 15:12.

84 Letter no. 11, 17 July 1512, C. und C, pp. 37-39.

85 Letter of 12 March 1512, A. C, ix, cols. 550-560, no. XXII.

86 He asks: Will Aristotle place him in Heaven? will Euclid measure for him the celestial stairs? will Cicero persuade the Lord to receive him? (A. C, ix, col. 553).

87 Letter of 18 April 1512, A.C., IX, cols. 560-563, no. XXIII.

88 Letter no. n , I7 july 1512, C. und C, pp. 37-39. He begins by reviewing his studies since leaving Padua, as noted above, n. 57.

89 Ibid., p. 38; these qualities well characterize the mature Contarini.

90 Four times here and twice in the previous letter.

91 Letter no. 12, 20 April 1513, C. und C, pp. 39-40.

92 The Medici were restored to Florence in Sept. 1512, by the so-called ‘Holy League' of Julius II; Leo X was elected on 11 March 1513.

93 Letter no. 13, 26 Nov. 1513, C. und C, pp. 40-43.

94 The first printed edition of Plato's complete works in the original tongue appeared in Sept. 1513, edited by Musurus and Aldus Manutius; see Geanakoplos, Greek Scholars, p. 149.

95 An echo of Dante, Inferno, Canto 1.

96 On 8 Aug. 1512, Giustiniani, Quirini, and Giorgi were able to make their final professions as hermits thanks to papal dispensations from the normal requirements of priestly orders and a previous period of three years in a monastery. The reforming efforts of the first two soon took them both to Rome in the spring of 1513, and Quirini again in May 1514, whence came rumors of the red hat astounding his friends in Venice and at the Hermitage. For brief summaries of these events see A. C, VII, 413-436, and Leclercq, Un humaniste, pp. 72-84. Of the letters revealing the conflicting attitudes of Quirini's friends and his own spiritual anguish in confronting the choice, hermit or cardinal, some are printed in A. C , IX, nos. XXXI-XXXVII; see also Jedin, ‘V. Q. and Pietro Bembo’, Misc. Mercati, iv, 407-423.

97 His last letter to Giustiniani invites and anticipates death: ‘I have travelled over the surface of the sea but now I see the strong wind is against me and I begin to go under’, A. C, ix, col. 585, no. xxxv.

98 Letter no. 14, 13 June 1514, C. und C, pp. 43-46.

99 In unpublished letters cited by Jedin, ‘V.Q. and P. Bembo’, pp. 414-415.

100 Contarini here unconsciously foreshadows his own future career as reforming cardinal, 1535-1542, under Paul III.

101 Letter no. 15, 11 July 1514, C. und C, pp. 46-48.

102 This was in effect the final attitude of Giustiniani w h o passed through stages of incredulity, consternation, anxiety for Quirini's soul, fear of losing him and pangs of conscience in restraining h im in view of the possibility of his launching their j o i n t program of reform, the Libellus ad Leonem X of 1513; see A. C , IX, letters no. XXXII , XXXIII, XXXVII , written in June-July 1514. For t h e text of the Libellus see A. C, ix, cols. 612 - 719; closely related to it is a fragment by Quirini, June-July 1513, printed by Jedin as an appendix to ‘V. G. and P . B ‘ , p p . 423-424.

103 It was also a turning-point for Giustiniani; see Leclercq, pp. 84 ff.

104 Letters nos. 16-24, 26-28, C, und C , pp. 48-63 (including no. 25 to the young novice at the Hermitage, Don Constantino, pp. 60-61).

105 See note 89. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, chap. 8, William James notes the qualities of firmness, stability, and equilibrium succeeding a period of storm and stress in the ‘process of unification’.

106 With two friends he met Giustiniani at Ravenna, site of the Chapter General of the Congregation; he returned via Florence, spending in all about a m o n t h away from Venice.

107 Letters nos. 16-19, of late April, May, and June 1515, C. und C , pp. 48-51.

108 The Aldine Vergil had come out in October 1514. The Florentines named are Raphael Pitti and his son Alfonso, Marcello (Adriani), Giovanni Rucellai, Francesco da Diacceto, and the less-known Pier Francesco Gagliano, Contarini's favorite. See Jedin, C. und C, notes on pp. 49-51; also Kristeller, P. O., ‘Francesco da Diacceto and Florentine Platonism in the Sixteenth Century’, in Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters (Rome, 1956), pp. 287336.Google Scholar Gagliano has recently been identified by Prof. Gilbert from archival sources in Florence as the son of a former partner in the Medici bank who had been gonfalionere in 1484; see ‘Contarini on Savonarola: An Unknown Document of 1516’, in Archiv, LIX (1968), p. 146, n. 6. Among the hermits Contarini's favorites are ‘the recluse' (Fra Michele de’ Pini) and the young novice Don Constantino; concerning the former see Jedin, C. und C, pp. 22, n. 11, and 57, n. 13.

109 In letters of Jan., 1512, A. C, IX, nos. XV-XVII, cols. 524, 528, 530-531; but Contarini never refers to Quirini here or in later letters except indirectly.

110 Letter no. 20,28 June 1515, C. und C , pp. 52-54; see Kristeller,'The Philosophy of Man in the Italian Renaissance’, in Studies, pp. 261-278. Delio Cantimori sees in these passages (confusingly joined to excerpts from Contarini's last letter, no. 30, of 1523) an emotional fervor, shared by Quirini and Giustiniani, evidence of a passionate element, ‘mystical’ in quality, in current religious preoccupation. See ‘Le idee religiose del Cinquecento’ in Storia della letterature italiana, v (1967), esp. 11 - 17.

111 Letter no. 20, pp. 53-54. Gagliano's reciprocal admiration of Contarini's character and learning is clear in an unpublished letter of 8 July 1515 to Giustiniani quoted byjedin, C. und C, p. 49, n. 8, and p. 51, n. 6.

112 Letter no. 21, 9 July 1515, C. und C , pp. 54-55. Among the works of Quirini listed in A. C , vn, 432, is Grammaticae introductionis Hebraeorum libri tres. Luca Bonfiglio was one of Quirini's few trusted friends during his last days in Rome; see his letter in A. C, rx, col. 584, no. xxxv.

113 Letters nos. 22-28, C. und C, pp. 55-63, except no. 25 to Don Constantino.

114 Letter no. 22, 1 and 16 Nov. 1515, C. und C , pp. 55-57. Although this is Contarini's first, and last, mention of civic ambition in the letters, it is clear from Sanudo's Diarii that he had already been nominated, though not elected, many times: in 1511 twice; in 1512 five times; in 1514 once. The three ‘advocates’, elected like most magistrates by the Grand Council in an elaborate process combining lot and secret balloting, were public prosecutors in criminal cases; see Contarini, De magistratibus, Book in. His own brief account of his failure is supplemented by Sanudo, Diarii, xxi, cols. 15-17, 85- 87: on 2 Sept. although ‘his brother’ offered to lend the state 3,000 ducats, he was defeated by a nominee who offered only 2,000; on 16 Sept. Gasparo let it be known that he had lent 3,000 and offered 500 more, and that he had served at the siege of Padua (1509) ‘with his brothers and twenty men’ but he lost to a nominee who had lent only 500. As usual, Sanudo records the exact votes. These efforts seem to indicate electioneering for office, an offense against Venetian law from 1303 called ‘il broglio’, never eradicated despite repeated prohibitions and severe penalties. See Ferro, M., Dizionario del diritto comune e veneto (Venice, 1778), 1 Google Scholar, 297 ff.

115 Contarini's failure to secure election is probably related to the sustained political antagonism of the ‘new’ families towards the twenty-four ‘old’ families of the patriciate, which was demonstrated strongly in i486 in explicit opposition to five of the ‘old’ (‘Morosini, Contarini, Zustignani, Zeni, e Sanudi’) according to the Annali Veneti of Domen ico Malipiero, Arch. Stor. ltd., vol. vn, Part n (1844), sec. 5, 681-683. See the comments of Clough, C. H. in Studi Veneziani, VIII (1966)Google Scholar, 531, and Labalme, P. H., Bernardo Giustiniani: A Venetian of the Quattrocento (Rome, 1969), pp. 225231 Google Scholar. Only Hackert, H. has recognized, though not fully, the frequency of Contarini's failures; see Die Staatschrift Gasparo Contarinis (Heidelberg, 1940), p. 4 Google Scholar.

116 Letter no. 22, p. 56; that is, a life freely shared with close friends in study and discussion, but without the bonds of monastic garb, vows, and duties; the letter to Calino is lost. The family villa was at Pieve di Sacco, southeast of Padua.

117 Letters nos. 23-28, Jan.-Nov. 1516, all to Giustiniani except no. 25.

118 Letter no. 24, 4 March 1516, C. und C , pp. 58-59.

119 He often promises to visit the Hermitage; in Aug. 1516 he asserts that he and the Veronese astronomer, Gianbattista della Torre (a Paduan friend) are coming for ‘at least’ two months (letter no. 27, p . 62).

120 The occasion was the ceremonial meeting between Leo X and Francis I (11-15 Dec. 1515); letter no. 23, p . 58.

121 As host he regrets that the customs of Venice, ‘more restrictive than those of Florence’, preclude Pitti's viewing of 'thejewels’ of San Marco (probably the treasury); letter no. 26, p. 61.

122 In letters nos. 24, 26, 27; in no. 29 he mentions ‘una nostra nave’ bound for Alexandria and carrying Luca, ‘our brother’, p. 65.

123 The first brother to be named by Gasparo, in nos. 27, 28, 29.

124 In letter no. 25, suggesting Cicero as a better model than Apuleius.

125 References to Gagliano are found in letters nos. 20, 23, 28 with relevant notes by Jedin. Concerning the Friar's late following in Florence see F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Giucciardini, Princeton, 1965, pp. 144-152. To Prof. Gilbert we owe the identification of this letter (or ‘little treatise’) and the publication in full of its text, c. 1500 words, in Archiv, LIX, 145-150. After a careful study of the Friar's writings, Contarini states his conclusions modestly but firmly: he questions, on the grounds of ‘love of one's neighbor’, the condemnation of the Friar for disobedience to the pope; he rejects the charges of false prophecy and heresy in view of his vast learning and saintly life, raising the question ‘Chi sa tutti li sensi della scriptura?’ and affirms the need for a ‘renovation’ of the Church.

126 In 1516 he was nominated four times; in 1517 three times; in 1518 six times before 17 Oct. when he was elected as Provedador sora la Camera d'imprestedi (Sanudo, Diarii, XXVI, col. 129), one of three, elected by the Senate for two years, without salary, concerned with the reduction of the public debt (Sanudo, Cronachetta, ed. Fulin, pp. 148-149). While holding this office he was nominated to more important ones four times in 1518, nine times in 1519, once in 1520 before being elected as oratore to Charles V 24 Sept. 1520, at age thirty-seven.

127 Letter of March 1517, A. C, rx, cols. 589-594, no. XXXIX. Leclercq also notes two unpublished letters of Giustiniani to Contarini in 1516, a commentary on Haggai (Un humaniste, p. 86) and an account of his pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Romuald at Fabriano (ibid., pp. 96, 99).

128 Letter no. 29, 19 April 1518, C. und C, pp. 64-65; this also is signed ‘uti films’.

129 Early in 1517 three Venetian nobles, all ‘doctors’, were elected to restore public instruction at Padua with the broad authority over appointments, salaries, etc., previously enjoyed by four Paduan citizens; see Favaro, ‘Lo Studio di Padova nei Diarii di Marino Sanuto’, items 129 ff. (Contarini was elected to this office in 1530.)

130 The editions of his Opera omnia, first printed in Paris, 1571, through a nephew, oratore at the French court, and also of his separate works are listed by Jedin, ‘G. C , Diet., xm, cols. 782-784. In his treatment of Contarini's early writings Prof. Gilbert is primarily concerned with their common philosophic ideas; see ‘Religion and Polities’, pp. 101-115.

131 Of many current works of this sort the best known is Il cortegiano of Castiglione (published 1526).

132 Text in Opera omnia, 1571, p p . 399-431. Evaluation by jedin, , Il tipo ideale di vescovo seconda la reforma cattolica (Cremona, 1950), pp . 3237 Google Scholar (German original in Jedin, Kirche des Glaubens, n, 75-117).

133 Qpera omnia, p. 414.

134 Ibid., p . 416.

135 Barozzi is mentioned explicitly three times, p p . 418, 421, 429; concerning him see Gaeta, F., Il vescovo Pietro Barozzi e il Trattato, ‘Defactionibus extinguendis’ (Venice, 1956)Google Scholar, and ‘ Il, P.B. in Diz. biog., VI (1964), 510512 Google Scholar. Contarini's reference to heresy may imply sympathy with Barozzi's prompt action against the ‘poisonous’ Averroistic doctrine of the soul, the ‘Decretum contra disputantes de imitate intellectus’ of 1489, directed against philosophers of the Studium. See Napoli, G. di, L'immortalita dell’ anima nel Rinascimento (Turin, 1963), pp.185193 Google Scholar, 197.

136 ‘Nihil enim magis noxium Christiano gregi quam improbus atque inhonestus sacerdos’, Opera omnia, p. 423.

137 Opera omnia, p. 431; his moral indignation rings out in several other places, esp. pp. 412, 413, 422, 430.

138 it Would become a potent force in the Church when embodied in such saintly men as Giammatteo Giberti, bishop of Verona (1524-1542), according to Jedin, Il tipo, pp. 36-39.

139 Jedin, C.undC., p. 56.

140 Opera omnia, p. 209, also similarly p. 211. In 1515 Pomponazzi had dedicated to Contarini one of two short treatises, the Tractatus de reactione, composed and published at Bologna; see Oliva, C., ‘Note sulT insegnamento di Pietro Pomponazzi’, Giornale critico dellafilosqfia italiana, VII (1926), 266 Google Scholar.

141 Pomponazzi left Padua in 1509 and was now teaching at Bologna (1511-1525). Current intellectual concern with the doctrine is clear in provisions of the decree of Leo X in 1513 at the Fifth Lateran Council, affirming that the soul is immortal by its nature and enjoining masters of philosophy to support this truth by rational arguments. See di Napoli, L'immortalità, text of decree and analysis, pp. 220-224. Prof. Gilbert has thrown new light on the origins of this decree and its pervasive anti-humanistic tone, especially the provisions curbing the secular studies of priests, by suggesting as likely authors the two hermits Giustiniani and Quirini, ; see ‘Cristianesimo, umanesimo e la bolla “Apostolici Regiminis” del 1513’, Rivista Storica Italiana, LXXIX (1967), 976990 Google Scholar, esp. 983 ff. Although Contarini expresses scruples about the educational value of the pagan poets in his De officio episcopi (pp. 423,425-426), he remained faithful to the humane intellectual training of his youth.

142 The textual sequence is succinctly presented by E. Gilson in App. I to his ‘L'affaire de l'immortalité de l'ame a Venise au début du XVIe siècle’, in Uman. eur. e uman. ven., 1963, pp. 31-36, and is incorporated in his longer ‘Autour de Pomponazzi: problématique de l'immortalité de l'ame en Italie au début du XVIe siècle’, in Archives d'his. doc. et lit. du moyen âge, XXVIII (1961), 163-279. For our purposes the following will suffice: 1) Pomponazzi's Tractatus de immortalitate animae, Bologna, 1516. 2) Contarini's ‘objections’, composed ‘anonymously’ probably in 1517, published by P. in fragments in his Apologia (in Book 1), Bologna, 1518, and as a whole (Tractatus contradictoris) following text of the Apologia, Venice, 1525, where he characterizes it as ‘copiosus, doctus, gravis, acutissimus et divino artificio conflatus’. 3) C.'s reply to P.'s Apologia, probably written in 1518, not published in lifetime of either. It constitutes Book n of C.'s composite work De immortalitate animae adversus Petrum Pomponatium in Opera omnia, pp. 177-231; Book I contains C.'s original treatise.

143 Opera omnia, pp. 179-180. This was apparently suppressed by Pomponazzi in 1518 and again in 1525, presumably in the interest of anonymity.

144 For a summary discussion of the various philosophic currents in Padua, the character of ‘Averroism’ (or ‘radical Aristotelianism’), and ‘Alexandrism’, see among many other works of Kristeller, P. O., ‘Paduan Averroism and Alexandrism in the Light of Recent Studies’, in Proc. of the XII Intern. Congress of Philosophy, IX (Florence, 1961), 148 Google Scholar. 155, and J. H. Randall, ‘Padua Aristotelianism: An Appraisal’, ibid., pp. 200-206; also C. Giacòn, ‘L'aristotelismo avicennistico di Gasparo Contarini’, ibid., 109-119, which explores another possibility.

145 poran analysis of these texts see Gilson, ‘Autour de Pomponazzi’, esp. pp. 206-230, and di Napoli, L'immortalità, chaps, v-vi.

146 See Gilson, ‘Autour de Pomponazzi’, pp. 212-213.

147 Nothing attributed to Contarini appears in various manuscripts in the Bib. Marc, Venice, containing Italian rime by other members of the group: for example It. CI. ix, Cod. 213 (6881), poems by Quirini, Canale, Giustiniani, Gabriele, Tiepolo; It. CI. rx, Cod. 202 (6755-56), the same except Tiepolo.

148 See above, n. 9.

149 Pomponazzi, De immortalitate, chap, xv (English version in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. E. Cassirer et al., Chicago, 1948).

150 Ibid., chap, XIV; for relevant passages in Contarini's letters see esp. C. und C, pp. 3i, 47, 56, 59.

151 Ibid.; whereas in the ‘theoretical’ (speculative) or ‘productive’ (mechanical) intellects man can participate only relatively, Ren. Phil, of Man, pp. 353-356.

152 Letter no. 30, 7 Feb. 1523, C. und C, pp. 65-67, the first extant letter since no. 29 of 1518.

153 See n. 126 above. Elected 17 Oct. 1518, he was commissioned on 7 Feb. 1518 modo veneziano (7 Feb. 1519); see A. S. V., Secreta Collegio, Cominissioni 1513-1559, fs. 37r- 3 8v. It was an onerous post involving the supervision and sale of public lands in the Polesine di Rovigo; frequent references to C. in this post are found in Sanudo, Diarii, in entries of 1518-1520.

154 His pride in his new role is expressed in a letter to Tiepolo: ‘Tal vita è bellissima et honoratissima, simillima a quella di studii, se non che questa e magior’ (Sanudo, xxx, cols. 215-217).

155 Elected to office by the Senate on 24 Sept. 1520 from 16 nominees, the second being Tiepolo (Sanudo, xxrx, col. 200), he did not set out until 16 March 1521, delayed by the marriage of a sister to ‘Matteo Dandolo, con dota di ducati 8000 in tutto’ (Sanudo, xxx, col. 29). His commission dates from 18 March 1521 (Commissioni 1513-1559, fs. 52r-53r), and was sent to him en route. To his new brother-in-law and to Tiepolo the new oratore sent letters from Worms soon after his arrival describing his warm reception by the emperor and evincing great interest in Martin Luther whom only discretion restrained him from seeing or speaking to; letters of 25 and 26 April 1521 copied by Sanudo in Diarii, xxx, cols. 210-214, 215-217.

156 Letter no. 30, from Valladolid, 7 Feb. 1523, C. und C, pp. 65-67. Communication between them had apparently been interrupted by mischance, distance, and preoccupation on Contarini's part.

157 Securing an imperial letter to Adrian VI, probably in support of Giustiniani's new eremitic congregation, according to Jedin, C. und C, p. 66, n. 11.

158 Contarini's terminology in this letter of 1523 seems to indicate some knowledge of Luther's written works; see Jedin, ‘Turmerlebnis’, H.J., LXX, 128; he notes in a letter to Dandolo that Luther's three early treatises (1520) were easily accessible.

159 The Latin text of De magistratibus et republica Venetorum libri V was first published in Paris, 1543; it appears in Opera omnia, Paris, 1571, pp. 259-326. Since the study of P. Gilbert (seen. 22 above) there seems no doubt that it was substantially composed in Spain in the early 1520s. It was soon translated, into Italian (first in 1544), into French (1544), into English by Sir Lewes Lewkenor (1598); see Jedin, ‘G. C.’ Diet, col. 782. Contarini's contribution to the ‘myth of Venice’ has often been noted; see esp. F. Gaeta, ‘Alcune considerazioni’, Bib. d'hum., XXIII, 64-67. The work is analyzed as an early example of Venetian political discourse by Bouwsma, Venice, pp. 144-153. Both Professors Bouwsma (p. 145) and Gilbert (‘Religion and Polities’, pp. 113-114) relate the composition of the treatise to the ordeal of Venice in the War of the League of Cambrai (1509- 1517) and Contarini's desire to strengthen Venetian traditions. Prof. Gilbert also suggests the possible influence of the Utopian ideal coming from Contarini's encounter with ‘a learned English gentleman’, Thomas More, in Bruges in 1521 en route to Spain, reported briefly in his dispatches (Cal. of State Papers: Venetian, m, London, 1869, p. 163).

160 His original ‘letterbook’ of 479 finely written folios is Bib. Marc, It. CI. VII, Cod. 1009 (7447); many excerpts from it are included by Rawdon Brown in Cal. of State Papers: Venetian, vol. III

161 His aversion to the regime is apparent in his relazione to the Senate on 16 Nov 1525; text in Albèri, Relazioni, Ser. 1, vol. n, pp. 9-74, esp. pp. 40-50; his antipathy to the 'terror and tyranny’ of the Inquisition (p. 40) becomes more explicit in a letter to his brothers of 7 Feb. 1524 (Sanudo, Diarii, XXXVIII, cols. 202-203).

162 His is a static picture rather than an historical study such as his Florentine contemporary Donato Giannotti undertook, though Contarini occasionally notes recent changes in practice.

163 Jedin (Did., cols. 774-775) also attributes to this period, 1522-1525, the first draft of Contarini's Primae philosophiae compendium libri VII, later revised and sent to Giustiniani in 1527; text in Opera omnia, pp. 91-176; see Gilbert, ‘Religion and Polities’, pp. 102-107. While in Spain Contarini's earlier scientific interests were stimulated by the voyages of exploration and problems of navigation; see, for example, his conversations with Sebastian Cabot (Cal. of State Papers: Venetian, III, passim), and references to his discussions with Pietro Martire d'Anghiera in the relazione, p. 50.

164 On Contarini's ecclesiastical career seejedin, , History of the Council of Trent, tr. Dom E. Graf, vol. I (London, 1957), pp. 376390 Google Scholar, 418-445, and passim. I should like to express my gratitude for the hospitality shown me at the Sacro Eremo Tuscolano in 1968 and 1969 and especially for the counsel of Father Michael Farrell, B.C.