TURRETTINI. — A Lucchese family, whose progenitor, FRANCESCO, abandoned Lucca in 1574 and settled in Geneva in 1593.
Among his descendants the following became distinguished: BENEDETTO, son of Francesco (1588–1631), minister of the Calvinist Italian Church of Geneva, sent to the Synod of Dort (or Dordrecht), whose doctrine he ardently defended and propagated. Against Fr. Cotton’s book, Ginevra plagiaria, he wrote Difesa della fedeltà delle traduzioni della S. Bibbia fatte a Ginevra; he also published a Storia della Riforma in Ginevra. FRANCESCO, son of the preceding (1623–87), likewise a minister of the Italian Calvinist Church, wrote against the Pope De circulo pontificio and, in defense of justification without works, the Concordia Pauli et Jacobi in instificationis articulo; he also published the Instituto theologiae Helveticae, used in various Calvinist academies. GIOVANNI ALFONSO, son of the preceding (1671–1737), was the most celebrated; he successively served as professor of ecclesiastical history and rector of the academy and of the Church of Geneva. Throughout his life he worked actively for the union of Protestants; for this purpose he wrote De pace protestantium ecclesiastica and, in 1707, the Oratio de componendis protestantium dissidiis. He entered into relations with Leibnitz, with several cardinals (A. M. Quirini and D. Passione), and also with the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury (Wake). Taking occasion from his letter to Wake, he wrote in 1719 Nubes testium pro moderato et pacifico de rebus theologicis iudicio et instituenda inter protestantes concordia. He attempted to suppress the absolute formulas of the Protestant confessions and to lessen the differences among the doctrines of the various sects; indeed, in 1725 he had the absolute formula of the Calvinists of Dort removed from the Church of Geneva: « not to teach the contrary (to the canons of Dort), either orally or in writing, either privately or publicly », replacing it with Calvin’s formula. He professed to hold the doctrine of the Prophets and the Apostles as contained in the books of the Old and New Testaments. Nevertheless, toward the end of his life he had to confess that union was impossible among those who disagreed on fundamental points of the Gospel, adding that it could nonetheless be achieved among those whose disagreement was only accidental. Against Bossuet’s work, Variations des Eglises protestantes, he wrote the Pyrrhonismus pontificius, or Tesi storico-teologiche sulle variazioni dei pontificii intorno all'infallibilità della Chiesa. Because of his writings, some clearly heretical and others tending to reconcile the various doctrines with one another, it was said of him that he was the last of the good Protestants and the first of the bad. His works were published in 3 vols. in Geneva, 1774–76.