VERMIGLI, PIETRO MARTIRE. – Canon regular, apostate. Born in Florence on 8 Sept. 1500, died in Zurich on 12 Nov. 1562.
He entered the order of Canons Regular at Fiesole at the age of sixteen, studied at Padua at nineteen, and became preacher and teacher at twenty-six. For three years he was abbot at Spoleto, and in 1528 prior at S. Pietro ad Aram (Naples). There he came into contact with the circle gathered around Juan Valdés and met Brother Bernardino Ochino. As visitor of the Order in 1541, he was prior at S. Frediano in Lucca in June of that year, where he set out to create a centre of studies in harmony with the new doctrines then spreading; he therefore invited Celso Martinengo of Brescia, Paolo Lazise of Verona, and Emanuel Tremellius for Hebrew, as well as Celio Secondo Curione who was already there, taking advantage of the indulgence of the civic authorities, and also published an anonymous pamphlet in a heretical sense. Called to Genoa to assist the superiors, he met Ochino in Florence and then, welcomed by Bucer in Strasbourg, taught Hebrew and married (1546). Invited to Oxford by Cranmer the following year, he collaborated in the reform of the English Church and ecclesiastical law. Forced to leave England with the accession of Queen Mary, he returned to teach in Strasbourg, then in Zurich, and took part in the Colloquy of Poissy (1561). He was the most systematic and consistent theorist of Zwinglian-Calvinist doctrines, pushing them to their extreme conclusions especially regarding the Eucharist and predestination. He left biblical commentaries and other theological works and was one of the most resolute opponents of the Italian antitrinitarians who sought favour among the Reformed circles.