CURIONE, CELIO, SECONDO. - Italian Protestant, born at Ciriè (Piedmont) on 1 May 1503, died at Basilea on 24 Nov. 1569.
Having distinguished himself among the foremost Piedmontese humanists and, when little more than thirty years old, having been called to teach at
Pavia, he there became acquainted with Mainardi (v.), who led him into the errors of the Reformers. Subsequently moving to Venezia, Ferrara, and Lucca, where VERMIGLI, PIETRO MARTIRE (v.), he was finally obliged to leave Italy for fear of the Inquisition. He took refuge in Switzerland and obtained a chair of eloquence at the University of Basilea, where, having declined flattering invitations from numerous European universities, he spent the rest of his life, devoting equal zeal to philological studies and theology.
He engaged in vigorous controversies with various Reformed currents and repeatedly had to defend himself against charges of impiety and antitrinitarianism; against Calvino himself he composed a work, De amplitudine beati regni Dei (1544), maintaining that the number of the elect is far greater than that of the reprobate.
The most famous of his numerous writings is a collection of pasquinades against the Roman Church and Catholicism: the Pasquillus ecstaticus, published anonymously in 1544 and repeatedly reprinted and translated into Italian, French, and German.