LEGER, ANTONIO and GIOVANNI. — Waldensian pastors of the seventeenth century. ANTONIO, after studying in Geneva and serving as pastor from 1626 to 1628, went to Constantinople with the Calvinist ambassador of Holland. He was among those who collaborated in publishing the confession of faith of Patriarch Cirillo Lukaris, which caused such scandal among the Eastern Churches. Returning to the valleys in 1637, he was pastor of S. Giovanni until 1643, when, condemned to death for serious violations of the laws governing Protestant propaganda, he took refuge in Geneva, where he d. in 1662.
His nephew, GIOVANNI, b. at Villasecca, in the Waldensian valleys, in 1615, d. at Leida in 1670, likewise completed his studies in Geneva, which at that time was the city hostile to the House and Duchy of Savoy.
There, together with Calvinist doctrines, he absorbed that anti-Catholic spirit hostile to every non-Calvinist confession which was the source of so many civil and religious wars. In 1639 he became pastor of several Waldensian villages, and in 1643 succeeded his uncle Antonio as pastor of S. Giovanni. In this office he began to incite the people against the recent ducal decrees prohibiting the construction of chapels outside the tolerated places and preaching outside the permitted territory. The struggles therefore broke out, culminating in the famous Piedmontese Easters (24 Apr. 1655). Giovanni L.
fled to France on 27 Apr., where, working with energy and audacity, he not only provoked, through his exaggerations, the indignation of the Protestant world, but also induced Cromwell, the executioner of the Irish Catholics, to send Samuele Moreland to Turin as his extraordinary commissioner, in order to incline the Duke in favor of the Waldensian rebels. Giovanni L. was then able to return to the valleys, and on 31 July 1655 he took part in the agreement of Pinerolo, which was fairly favorable to the Waldensians. Despite this agreement, L. resumed preparations for a new insurrection in S. Giovanni, which in fact broke out in 1663–64.
Accused of very serious crimes and condemned to death, Giovanni went abroad in 1661.
His work is the famous Histoire générale des Eglises évangéliques des vallées de Piémont ou vaudoises (Leida 1669). Of this history, at least as regards the Piedmontese Easters, Protestant writers, and especially Waldensian ones, have the highest regard, considering everything narrated in it to be indisputable truth. But Botta calls it a «most mendacious account», Claretta describes it as «packed full of fables and lies»; and the celebrated and voluminous Turin manuscript Histoire véritable des vallées du Piémont, cited by Claretta, Melia, Perrone, etc., notes that «Giovanni L. has filled his large volume with calumnies, falsehoods, and cleverly invented fables». Giovanni L.’s history must therefore be regarded as a poorly fashioned apology for the Waldensians, scandalously exaggerated and so one-sided as to cast doubt even on the few true things it may contain.