406 cecilia cristellon and silvana seidel menchi
national or ecumenical council, as an authority superior to the pope, was
taken into serious consideration.60
The interdict dispute ended in 1607, thanks to the mediation of the
french king Henry iV; but internationally the image of Venice would be
marked by the conflict long after that date. The compromise to which
the two parties agreed, quite honorable for the Signoria, was less than
satisfactory to sarpi, who would have preferred a more intransigent line;
still, the resistance offered to the pope in 1606–07 aroused much attention
throughout europe, particularly in Reformed states, and had the effect of
qualifying Venice as a potential ally of the Protestant powers (england,
the united Provinces) in view of the serious tensions that were emerg-
ing in europe by the second decade of the century.61 The correspondence
between sarpi and his follower fra fulgenzio Micanzio and the diplo-
matic representatives of england and the french Calvinists supports the
hypothesis that the two servite friars aimed to introduce the “evangelio”
in italy,62 looking with favor, that is, upon the possible creation, or at least
the tolerance, of a reformed community in Venice.63
- Venice: “Gate of the Reformation in Italy”
The Protestant or otherwise heterodox movements which formed in italy
had an extremely irregular geographical distribution. large parts of the
peninsula seem to have been completely untouched by Reformation doc-
trines, while elsewhere their spread is documented in multiple centers,
60 gaetano Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia e l’Europa (Turin, 1979); gaetano and luisa
Cozzi, Paolo Sarpi, in girolamo Arnaldi, and Manlio Pastore stocchi, eds., Storia della
cultura veneta, 6 vols (Vicenza, 1976–86), vol. 4 (1984): Dalla Controriforma alla fine della
Repubblica. Il Seicento, part 2, pp. 1–36. Vittorio frajese proposes a different, less variegated
interpretation, Sarpi scettico. Stato e Chiesa a Venezia tra Cinque e Seicento (Bologna, 1994).
filippo de Vivo offers an innovative reading of the interdict controversy through the lens
of political communication, Information and Communication in Venice, Rethinking Early
Modern Politics (oxford, 2007), pp. 157–248.
61 The compromise did not force the Signoria to revoke the measures which in 1605 had
provoked Rome’s condemnation.
62 The complete correspondence is published in sarpi, Opere, pp. 635–719, with an
introduction by gaetano Cozzi.
63 gaetano Cozzi and Michael Knapton, La Repubblica di Venezia nell’età moderna.
Dalla guerra di Chioggia al 1517 (Turin, 1986). for the very limited tolerance that merchants
of the lutheran evangelical confession enjoyed in Venice, see stefan oswald, Die Inquisi-
tion, die Lebenden und die Toten. Venedigs deutsche Protestanten (stuttgart, 1989).