CARACCIOLO, GALEAZZO. — Italian Protestant, born in Naples in 1517, died in Geneva on 7 May 1586. Among the Italian heretics of the sixteenth century, he was by birth more prominent than any other. Calvin and Beza called him the “marquis” of Vico, but in reality he never possessed this title, which upon the death of his father, Colantonio I, passed to Galeazzo’s son, Colantonio II. He did, however, hold the title of chamberlain and Knight of the Golden Key of the Empire. In Naples, he attended the meetings held in Juan Valdés’s own palace on Via Chiaia and allowed himself to be attracted by his doctrines, which led him toward Protestantism. It seems that he attended (1542) the Diet of Regensburg, at which such subjects as the primacy of St Peter and ecclesiastical celibacy were discussed.
On 21 March 1551, when the tribunal of the Inquisition was established in Naples, C. emigrated to Augsburg. In Geneva he met Calvin, who always held him in high regard, especially after his great-uncle, Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa, ascended to the papacy under the name of Paul IV (23 May 1555). In Geneva, together with other exiles, he founded the first small Italian dissident church. The Brescian Massimiliano Martinenghi was its first minister, and Galeazzo its deacon. Later C. became a member of the lesser and greater councils and of the consistory. His request to marry a second time, after his wife, Donna Vittoria, heiress to the duchy of Nocera, had refused to embrace her husband’s heresy and to follow him outside Italy, created serious difficulties for Calvin. It was the first case of its kind to arise, and Calvin remained uncertain, since he would either have to provoke a scandal throughout Christendom or lose the Neapolitan nobleman. The controversy was publicly debated in the churches with the Bible in hand and was brought before the ecclesiastical consistory and the civil magistracy. The marquis ultimately obtained release from his first marriage and permission to contract a second, which he did by marrying (10 January 1560) a very wealthy Frenchwoman 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.