BRUCIOLI, ANTONIO. — A man of letters and translator of heretical doctrines, born in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century, died in Venice in 1566. He frequented the famous “academic gardens of Rucellai.” Involved in the conspiracy against Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, later Clement VII, he fled to Lyon in 1522, where he first came into contact with the new heretical doctrines. Returning to Italy in 1527, he wrote against ecclesiastical abuses, real or supposed, and Varchi says of him that “he was so constant in this matter of priests and friars that, however much he was warned and reproved by his closest friends, there was never any way of inducing him to desist, since he would say: He who speaks the truth does no harm.” Condemned to exile, he took refuge in Venice, where, apart from some absences, he remained until the end of his life.
There he wrote various works: Dialoghi filosofici; the translation of Pliny’s natural history; the political essay Del Governo dello ottimo principe e capitano dello esercito, etc., but his principal work was the translation of the Bible into the vernacular in 1532 and the Commentari on that same Bible, in seven volumes, between 1542 and 1546. Of this translation the Protestant Di Silvestri Falconieri says: “His style is harsh and unadorned; it is said that he translated the Bible not from the Hebrew and Greek original, but from the poor Latin translation of Sante Pagnino.” This translation led to several trials before the Inquisition. The first (1548) ended with a sentence of a fine and banishment to Ferrara; the second (1555) ended with a condemnation to abjure, to submit to certain penances, and to compose “a retractation”; the third (1558–59) was brought against him for having neglected to write the retractation. The points on which he was considered guilty of heresy can be gathered from his abjuration, in which he confessed to having held “that man is saved by faith alone, excluding the merits of works; that the Sacraments are two, namely Baptism and the Eucharist, tacitly excluding the others; that the saints ought not to be invoked, being likened to various creatures; that those who fall away from Christ have never belonged to Christ; that only the elect can have faith, and the others cannot.” The explanations he gave to the tribunal may be understood in an orthodox sense, but his writings could not; he was therefore condemned to imprisonment. He died shortly after serving his sentence.