CAMILLO RENATO. — Pseudonym of the Italian antitrinitarian and Anabaptist heretic, born in Sicily at the beginning of the 15th century, died after 1571 in Casparo. He is most probably the Franciscan friar Paolo Ricci, also known as Lisia Fileno. In 1542 he is found in exile in Valtellina with Curione; in 1545 he was a schoolmaster in Chiavenna.
Like Stancaro and Lelio Socini, he developed in his own radical way, based on a philological-rationalistic interpretation of the Bible, the Christian doctrine, particularly regarding Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, under the influence of Zwinglian symbolism. He regarded Baptism as a simple profession of faith and thus valid only for adults, indeed as a mere sign of the spiritual rebirth already accomplished and not in itself necessary. In the Lord’s Supper he saw no special pledge of grace nor a source of spiritual renewal, but only a testimony of the believers’ faith in the Kingdom of God. Such a spiritual rebirth, with justifications and developments proceeding from Platonic influence in combination with anti-Trinitarian motifs, appears in Renato’s doctrine of the sleep of the souls after death and the true life reserved for the saved souls at their resurrection after the Last Judgment. For these ideas, expressed in a restricted circle in a Treatise on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and in a profession of faith sent to a friend, Renato was soon attacked by Agostino Mainardi (v.) and Pier Paolo Vergerio (v.). At Mainardi’s instigation, the Synod of the Grisons Canton (Chur, 1547, 1549–50) intervened in the controversy; it first limited itself to recognizing Mainardi’s profession of faith as orthodox, then required Renato’s followers to subscribe to it and Renato himself to cease preaching and teaching, and finally excommunicated him. Through Vergerio’s intervention, in 1551 Renato signed an abjuration and submission to the Zwinglian creed (Confessio Raetica). Yet he did not remain long quiet; the condemnation of Michael Servetus (v.) prompted him to write a long Latin poem in defense of freedom of conscience; Calvin replied by denouncing him as a libertine. No longer compromising himself in public manifestations, he cultivated close personal relations with Italian exiles unwilling to accept unreservedly the doctrines of others, especially with Lelio Socini, who probably derived from Renato not a few points of his anti-Trinitarianism. Despite his abjuration, he was not admitted to the Synods of the Grisons; indeed, in 1570 he was expelled from the territory by the communal Diet.