412 cecilia cristellon and silvana seidel menchi
- Libertine Venice
if Venetian religious history appears to be dominated in the 16th century
by the figure of the heretic in all its guises, the history of the 17th and
18th centuries seems to prefer that of the libertine. Between 1950 (giorgio
spini) and 2007 (edward Muir), the proposal to apply the term “libertine”
to the philosophical and religious culture of the 17th century, not to men-
tion the 18th (to italian culture in general, and Venetian culture in par-
ticular) has met with much approval.83 it must be specified, however, that
in this historiographical period of more than 50 years the term “libertine”
has evolved into an eminently flexible category. “libertine” has been used
to label attitudes, convictions, utterances, and professions of faith that are
quite heterogeneous and partly contradictory:
- The philosophical doctrine of the mortality of the soul, of neo-
Aristotelian stock, taught by Cesare Cremonini at the university of
Padua in the first half of the 17th century - Practices of natural magic and beliefs linked to these practices
- Necromancy and the belief in demons
- Widespread skepticism with regard to the soul’s survival after death,
the very existence of the soul, the system of punishment and reward
awaiting the faithful beyond the grave, Purgatory, the cult of saints - “Machiavellism” and its various reincarnations
- occasional outbreaks of anti-clericalism
- isolated remains of doctrines linkable to the Reformation (lutheran,
Calvinist) - Affirmations traceable to a substratum of popular Deism, according to
which “everyone in his own law [= religion] can be saved” - systematic atheism or proselytism in favor of atheism
- Blasphemous rituals and dissolute behavior of a sexual nature
- Religious relativism and, in rare cases, the defense of islam.84
The multiform disaffection for the religion of previous generations as man-
ifested in these inclinations and actions is linked to a crisis in Venetian
83 giorgio spini, Ricerca dei libertini. La teoria dell’impostura delle religioni nel Seicento
italiano, Nuova edizione (florence, 1983) (with ample bibliography); Muir, The Culture
Wars.
84 federico Barbierato, Politici e ateisti. Percorsi della miscredenza a Venezia tra Sei e
Settecento (Milan, 2006) (with ample bibliography).