Preaching and Inquisition in Renaissance Italy

As has been well documented, the printed word was an essential vehicle for the transmission of reformed theology, and one that has left a tangible record for historians to explore. Yet as contemporaries well recognised, books were only a part of the process, and it was the spoken word - especially preaching - that created the demand for printed works. Sermons were the plough that prepared the ground for Lutheran literature to flourish. In order to better understand the relationship between oral sermons and the spread of protestant ideals, this book draws upon the records of the Roman Inquisition, to see how that institution confronted the challenges of reform on the Italian peninsula. Bringing together two historiographical traditions that developed in parallel - the history of the Inquisition and the history of preaching - it puts into context an inquisitorial trial in Northern Italy in the sixteenth century and in the process casts light on the extent to which heterodox Lutheran ideas had infiltrated the Italian scene. At the heart of its subject matter is the increasingly sophisticated rhetorical skill of heterodox preachers at the time, who achieved their ends by silence and omission rather than positive affirmations of Lutheran tenets. The book draws upon the trial of Don Ippolito Chizzola (1521-1565) to dramatize and illustrate this central theme. A careful reading of the trial and the study of other previously unpublished documents reveals the techniques of dissimulation used by Chizzola (and other preachers) to elude checks by Catholic authorities and secretly convey messages deemed dangerous to orthodox belief. This book is an English translation of Girogio Caravale's 'Predicazione e Inquisizione nell'Italia del Cinquecento' (Il Mulino, 2012).