VERMIGLI, PIETRO MARTIRE. - Regular canon, apostate. Born in Florence on 8 Sept. 1500, died in Zurich on 12 Nov. 1562.
He entered the regular canons at Fiesole at the age of 16, at 19 he was studying at Padua, at 26 he was a preacher and teacher. He was abbot at Spoleto for three years, and in 1528 prior at S. Pietro ad Aram (Naples). Here he came into contact with the circle that gathered around Juan Valdes and met Friar Bernardino Ochino. A visitor of the Order in 1541, in June he was prior at S. Frediano in Lucca, where he set out to create a center of studies in harmony with the new doctrines that were by then spreading; he therefore called to teach Celso Martinengo of Brescia, Paolo Lazise of Verona, and Emanuele Tremello for Hebrew, in addition to Celio Secondo Curione who was already there, taking advantage of the complaisance of the city authorities, and he also published an anonymous pamphlet of a heretical bent. Summoned to Genoa by his superiors, he met with Ochino in Florence and then, welcomed by Butzer in Strasbourg, he taught Hebrew and took a wife (1546). Summoned to Oxford by Cranmer the following year, he collaborated in the initiative to reform the English Church and ecclesiastical law. Forced to leave England upon the accession of Queen Mary, he returned to teaching in Strasbourg and then in Zurich, and took part in the Colloquy of Poissy (1561). "He was the most systematic and consistent theorist of the Zwinglian-Calvinist doctrines," which he pushed to extremes especially as regards the Eucharist and predestination. He left biblical commentaries and other theological works, and was among the most resolute adversaries of the Italian anti-Trinitarians who were trying to gain favor in Reformed circles.
Bibliography3 works
Pio Paschini