VERGERIO, PIER PAOLO the Younger. – Apostate bishop, born between 1497-98 in Capodistria to Girolamo, a local nobleman, died in Tübingen on 4 October 1565. He studied in Venice, perhaps at the school of Egnazio, then earned a doctorate in law at Padua (1522), where he taught notarial art (1522) and law (1523), and practiced as a lawyer and magistrate.
He was the brother of Giovanni Battista, later bishop of Pola (1532); initially a friend of Girolamo Muzio, Antonio Elio (later bishop), and Arminio. In 1526 he married Diana Contarini, who died the following year; he traveled to Dalmatia and acquired knowledge of Slovene and Croatian. After the death of his brother Aurelio, a papal secretary (1532), he entered the Roman Curia as a notary and was sent as a papal nuncio to Austria and Bohemia to Emperor Ferdinand of Habsburg in 1533, remaining there even after the death of Clement VII, when he was recalled by Paul III. In February 1535 he returned as nuncio to Germany to the king and princes to prepare for the Council, and in November he met with Lupero (November 1535). By the end of 1535 he left Germany and went to Rome and Naples, but fell into disgrace and quickly became a fierce hater of the Farnese. On 5 May 1536 he was appointed bishop of Modrusa in Croatia, and on 6 September following he was transferred to Capodistria with the burden of a pension in favor of Elio. Though consecrated bishop, he did not trouble himself to reside there; he was present in Vicenza on 12 May 1538 when the opening of the Council was discussed, then stayed in Mantua with Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga (1539), then in Ferrara with Cardinal Ippolito d'Este (1540), and accompanied him to France, where he also met Margaret of Navarre. Francis I sent him as his confidential agent to the Diet of Worms (November 1540), where he met with the most notable heretics; then he went to Speyer (January 1541) and to Regensburg, arousing suspicion of heretical leanings. After a futile visit to Rome he went to Capodistria (July 1541), where he could only stir up civil discord, acting recklessly, slandering the local friars and provoking a denunciation of them before the Council of Ten in Venice (December 1544), for which he had to leave Capodistria and take refuge in Ferrara, Mantua, and Brescia (1546). Meanwhile, Giovanni Della Casa had arrived as nuncio to Venice (1544) and had to begin the process against Vergerio (25 January 1545), who was sent to Rome. On 15 January 1546 Vergerio was cited before the Inquisition. That same month he dared to appear at the Council of Trent but was not admitted because of his conflict with the Pope over his conduct and slanders, so he alternated his residence between Istria and Venice. Meanwhile, in June 1547 the process against him concluded and he was sent to Rome. In December an order was dispatched from there to imprison him in Rome, where he was judicially cited. Vergerio agitated, declared himself a fugitive, and stayed in Padua and elsewhere; yet it was only on 3 July 1549 in consistory that Paul III declared him deposed from the episcopate. Anticipating imminent condemnation, on 1 May Vergerio left Italy, and by 15 May he was found in Chiavenna, then in Chur, Poschiavo, in June in St. Gallen, and in December in Basel. He immediately began to circulate his polemical writings, publishing them without place of printing in Italian to spread his doctrines more easily. Appointed parish priest at Vicosoprano in January 1550, he held the parish until 1553, hoping to become the leader of Italian religious refugees like himself. But he was not a man who could win goodwill, being quarrelsome and ambitious, quick to denounce those who could not tolerate his arrogance or shared his views. His ideas were neither original nor systematic: fundamentally they were those of Luther with a more pronounced iconoclastic tendency, diluted into a multitude of hastily written, rough-and-ready polemical pamphlets by which he constantly aimed to introduce heresy into Italy, denigrating the papacy, Catholic practices, and the Council. Thus he aided the efforts of Primo Trubar to spread Protestantism in Slovenia, promoting the dissemination of Bibles and pamphlets translated into Slovene and Croatian. He soon fell out with the Swiss heretical pastors and placed himself under the protection of Christoph, Duke of Württemberg (1553), aligning himself with the Augsburg Confession. Thereafter, no year passed without his making a long journey from Tübingen. In April-May 1555 he was among the Grisons. In October 1556 SLEIDANUS, JOHANN (v.) to whom he supplied material for his history. Later he turned his gaze toward Poland and dealt personally with Albert, Duke of Prussia, and Prince Radziwiłł in Vilnius. In the spring of 1558 he dared to reappear in Italy, crossing Friuli from Pontebba to Duino while distributing books; but by the end of April he was back in Tübingen (cf. P. Paschini, *Eresia e riforma cattolica ecc.*, Rome 1951, pp. 58ff.). In the spring of 1559, after polemicizing with Bishop Hosius of Warmia, he was again in Poland, clashing with other heretical confessions that sought to take root in that nation. In 1560 he hoped to attend the Council of Trent, and in 1561-64 he traveled again through the Grisons until he ended his life in Tübingen. Of restless temperament, ever ready to meddle in everything insidiously, he gave even the Protestants ample cause for complaint. He corresponded with Celio Curione, Boniface Amerbach, and the leading heretics of various persuasions, and for a time even with Elizabeth of England. Muzio (v.), who vainly tried to enlighten him, exchanged the *Vergeriane* with him in 1559.
His correspondence as nuncio in: *Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland: I. Nuntiaturen des V. (1533-36)*, Gotha 1899, ed. Friedensburg. His early works: *De republica veneta*, 1526; *De pace et unitate Ecclesiae*, Venice 1542; *Storia di Francesco Spiera*, Padua 1548: tendentious propaganda work, often reprinted and translated. *Dodici trattatelli di M. Pietro Paulo V.*, 1550, and *De' fratelli d'Italia*. A collection of his writings appeared in a single volume of *Opera* in 1563 with the support of Albert of Prussia.