GENTILE, GIOVANNI VALENTINO. – Italian heretic, born in Cosenza in 1520 and died in Berne on 10 September 1566. He led an agitated and wandering life; compelled, in fact, to leave Italy for religious reasons, he took refuge in Geneva in 1556, where he met other Italian heretics and exiles, such as Giovanni Paolo Alciati, the physician Giorgio Biandrata, and the jurist Matteo Gribaldi Mofa.
Won over to the ideas of the latter, he soon became one of the most zealous propagators of antitrinitarian doctrines, which led him to deny the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, maintaining that it was impossible to justify the dogma of the Trinity on the basis of Sacred Scripture. Because of this, and even more because of his open opposition to Calvin, he fell under suspicion with the authorities of Geneva; he was arrested and, after a long series of interrogations, condemned to decapitation by a special commission of jurists. He nevertheless managed to escape the penalty; however, despite his promise to remain in Geneva, he fled and took refuge with Gribaldi at Farges, where he continued to disseminate his ideas with even greater zeal. From there he went to Lyons, then to Grenoble, and subsequently back to Farges; arrested by the bailiff of Ges, he succeeded in having himself released and in returning to Lyons, where he had his profession of faith printed. This, however, was to compromise him still further; he also encountered difficulties there, and therefore, in 1562, went to Biandrata in Poland, from where he was expelled in 1564. After spending some time first in Moravia and then in Austria, taking advantage of Calvin’s death he returned once more to Berne, where he sought to convene all the French Protestants for a public disputation on the Trinity. But, arrested once again, he tried in vain to justify himself; he was therefore condemned and decapitated, without having been willing to recant.