the venetian intellectual world 597
Benzoni lists alphabetically for the period 1550–1630: “gli accesi, gli acuti,
gli adorni,... i cacciatori, i desiosi, i dubbiosi,... i Gelosi, i Generosi, gli
immaturi, gli immobili, gli incogniti.. ., i laboriosi, i Marittimi,.. .,
gli ordinati, i Pellegrini, i Peripatetici, l’accademia Platonica, i riuniti.. .,
l’accademia Veneziana o della Fama, l’accademia Veneziana seconda,
i Venturati.”82 The infiammati, or “flaming ones,” who gathered at Padua
in the 1540s had many Venetian patricians on its rolls; as did the “incog-
niti,” or “unknown ones,” also at Padua, a principal center of italian anti-
romanism in the early Seicento.83
other circles of literati and the not-so-learned were heterodox. Venice
was a center for the publication, circulation, and discussion of prohibited
books—not least by members of the nobility84—encouraged both by the
proximity of Venice to the Protestant north and by the boldly autono-
mous Venetian church which, though orthodox, resisted instruction or
intervention from rome. The path Venice chose was exceptional. refus-
ing to accept the operation of the roman inquisition in its territories, it
nonetheless instituted a Venetian process, latitudinarian in many ways but
still unfriendly to any forces disruptive of social harmony.85 it suppressed,
mildly at first and later steadily, the publication of illicit books,86 gather-
ings of reform-minded activists, especially among the artisan ranks,87 and
the rumblings of witchcraft and feigned sanctity.88
Tensions between Venice and rome became intense in the late decades
of the 16th century and exploded in the crisis of 1606, when the newly
ascended Pope Paul V rebuked Venice with a papal interdict. at this
pivotal moment, the heroic voice that rose to defend Venice against
82 Benzoni, “la cultura: contenuti e forme,” p. 584, drawing his names from Michele
Maylender, Storia delle accademie d’Italia, 5 vols (Bologna, 1926–30).
83 For the incogniti, see especially Monica Miato, L’Accademia degli Incogniti di Giovan
Francesco Loredan: Venezia (1630–1661) (Florence, 1998); and Muir, Culture War; see also
Benzoni, “la vita intellettuale”; and Zorzi, “la produzione e la circolazione del libro.”
84 Federica ambrosini, Storie di patrizi e di eresia nella Venezia del ’500 (Milan, 1999).
85 Paul F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Printing Press, 1540–1605
(Princeton, 1977); Pio Paschini, Venezia e l’Inquisizione Romana da Giulio III a Pio IV
(Padua, 1959).
86 For the impact of inquisition and censorship on printing and book circulation,
see Grendler, The Roman Inquisition; Zorzi, “dal manoscritto al libro”; and Zorzi, “la
produzione e la circolazione del libro.”
87 For which see John J. Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance
City (Berkeley, 1993).
88 ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650 (oxford, 1989); anne
Jacobson Schutte, Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the
Republic of Venice, 1618–1750 (Baltimore, 2001).