CARACCIOLO, GALEAZZO. - Italian Protestant, b. in Naples in 1517, d. in Geneva on 7 May 1586. Among the Italian heretics of the sixteenth century he was, by birth, the most prominent of all. Calvin and Beza called him "marquis" of Vico, but in reality he never possessed this title, which, on the death of his father, Colantonio I, passed to Galeazzo's brother, Colantonio II. He did, however, hold the title of chamberlain and knight of the Golden Key of the empire. In Naples, he frequented the meetings held in his own palace on Via Chiaia by Juan Valdés and allowed himself to be drawn to his doctrines, which led him to Protestantism. It seems that he attended (1542) the Diet of Regensburg, at which themes such as the primacy of St. Peter and ecclesiastical celibacy were discussed.
On 21 March 1551, when the tribunal of the Inquisition was instituted in Naples, C. emigrated to Augsburg. In Geneva he met with Calvin, who always held him in great esteem, especially after his great-uncle, Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa, ascended to the pontificate under the name of Paul IV (23 May 1555). In Geneva, together with other refugees, he established the first Italian dissident church. The Brescian Massimiliano Martinenghi was its first minister and Galeazzo its deacon. Later C. became a member of the small and the great council and of the consistory. His request to enter into a second marriage, after his wife donna Vittoria, heiress of the duchy of Nocera, had refused to adhere to her husband's heresy and to follow him out of Italy, created serious embarrassments for Calvin. It was the first case of its kind to arise, and Calvin remained uncertain, since it was a question either of stirring up a scandal throughout all Christendom, or of losing the noble Neapolitan. The controversy was publicly treated in the churches with the Bible in hand and was brought before the ecclesiastical consistory and the civil magistracy. The marquis ended up obtaining the dissolution of his first marriage, and the freedom to contract a second, which he did by marrying (10 Jan. 1560) a very wealthy Frenchwoman originally from Rouen, Anna Framery. Beza emphatically called C. a "second Moses", and Calvin dedicated to him the second edition of his commentary on the epistle to the Corinthians.
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Piero Chiminelli