1570 Edition | Book 7 | Page 1105 
CloseFoxe's knowledge of protestant martyrs from the Italian peninsula was as patchy as that for the Spanish peninsula. He indicated as much in the prelude to his table, where he admitted that his information for the kingdom of Naples and Sicily - then part of the patrimony of the Spanish Habsburgs - was almost completely deficient. He cites just one example of an unnamed Genevan who went to Sicily as a protestant missionary, only to end up being prosecuted and burned by the Inquisition, presumably at Palermo. The individual concerned here was probably Jacopo Bonello ('Jacobus Bovellus') whom he mentions later in the context of the Calabrian Waldensian repression. He does not seem to have made the connection.
[Back to Top]For the main table of Italian martyrs, his sources were, as he himself explicitly states, Pantaleon (lib 6), Crespin 'and others'. Of the 'others', the most important source was undoubtedly Celio Secondo Curione (1503-1569). The latter was a distinguished Italian humanist who had cultivated Augustinian views among the evangelical circles of Turin in his youth. Like many of the Italian evangelisti, he found himself under threat of persecution and fled, first to Venice, then Ferrara (1541), briefly to Lucca, and then to Switzerland. He spent some years in Lausanne before finally moving to Basel to be the professor of rhetoric at the university there, where he published extensively. He maintained extensive literary contacts with the Italian evangelisti in the 1550s, when there seemed still much to play for in the evolution of Italian ecclesiastical reform. There is nothing in Foxe which had not already appeared in Heinrich Pantaleone, Martyrum historia (1563) and the Historia rerum in Ecclesia gestarum (1563). For Curione's biography, see the Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, (Rome: Istituto dell Encylopedia Italiana, 1960-), 31, pp. 443-449 and refs. In one further instance, Foxe had also picked up some information relating to the execution of two protestant former monks in Rome from Johann Manlius, Locorum communium collectanea (2 parts, Basel, 1563), a widely-consulted common-place book by protestant humanists.
[Back to Top]Only at one point does Foxe break from the tabular presentation of information concerning the Italian martyrs to provide more detailed documentation. This was in respect of the story of Pomponio Algieri ('Pomponius Algerius'). He chose to translate the letter that Algieri wrote, reproduced in Pantaleon, fols 329A-332B, and the printers were instructed to offset it with elaborate border woodblocks to emphasise further the status Foxe accorded it (1570, pp. 1070-1072). Algieri had been arrested on suspicion of heresy by the Venetian authorities and imprisoned there in 1555. Crespin provided extensive documentation relating to his trial in the French editions (Crespin [1564], p. 674 et seq; Crespin [1570], fols 366 et seq) but Foxe concentrated uniquely on the material conveniently available to him in Latin from Pantaleon. The reasons that he cites for interrupting his table to furnish this letter are interesting, noting the impact of Plato's 'Phaedo' (the Socratic Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul) upon 'Thebrotus' (it is not clear to whom Foxe is referring here) who was 'so moved and perswaded therewith, that he caste hym selfe down headlong from an high wall, to be rid out of thys present life'. Foxe's commitment to the humanist project of the power of rhetorical persuasion is fully evident here. Pomponio Agieri wrote his letter from what he described, with appropriate irony, as the 'agreeable orchard' ('ex delectabili pomario') of the Leonine prison in Venice, so-called because of its proximity to the bronze lion statue in the piazza San Marco, and renowned for its squalid and cramped conditions. The letter was addressed (apparently) to exiled protestants from the Venetian territories now north of the Alps. Foxe cites it in extenso. As Pantaleon explained, he (and possibly Foxe independently) had received a copy of it from Celio Secondo Curione, the professor of rhetoric at the university of Basel. It is dated 12 August 1555 in Pantaleon, which is misprinted as 12 July in Crespin (Crespin/Benoit, 2, p.276). The letter itself is infused with intense Biblical references, particularly to the Pauline epistles and Gospels.
[Back to Top]M. Greengrass
University of Sheffield
| Persecuters. | Martyrs. | The Causes. |
MarginaliaEncenas, or Dryander, Martyr.Certeine Popishe Spany- ardes at Rome. | N. Ence- nas, other wise called Dryan- der. At Rome. an. 1546. | This Encenas, or Dryander, a Spanyarde borne at Burges, was brother to Franciscus Ence nas the learned mā, so oft before mentioned, and was also the teacher or instructor in know- ledge of Religion, to Diazius the godly martyr aboue recorded. He was sent of his superstitious pa- rentes, beyng yonge, vnto Rome. Who there, after lōg continuāce, growyng vp in age, and know- ledge, but especially beyng instru cted by the Lord, in the truth of his word, after he was knowē to mislike the Popes doctrine, & the impure doings at Rome, was ap- prehended & taken of certein of his own countreymen, & some of his owne housholde frendes, at Rome, at the same time, when he was preparyng to take hys ior- ney to his brother Fraūces Ence nas, in Germanie. Thus he being betrayed and taken by his owne coūtreymen, was brought before the Cardinalls, and there cōmit- |
ted to streit prison. Afterward he was brought forth to geue testimonie of his doctrine, whiche hee in the presence of the Cardinals, and in the face of all the Popes retinue, boldly & constantly defended: So that not onely the Cardinals, but espe cially the Spanyardes, beyng therewith offended, cryed out vpon him that he should be burned. The Cardinals, first be- fore the sentēce of death should be geuē, came to him, offeryng if he would take it (after the maner of the Spanyardes) the badge of reconciliation, which hath the name of Sanbenites cloth, made in forme of a Mantell, goyng both before him and behind him, with signes of the red crosse. But Ence- nas, still constant in the profeßion of truth, denied to receaue any other cōdition, or badge, but onely the badge of the Lord: which was, to seale the doctrine of his religion, with the te- stimonie of his bloud. At last, the matter was brought to that issue, that the faithfull seruaunt and witnes of Christ, was iudged, and condemned to the fire, where hee in the sight of the Cardinals, and in the face of the Apostolicall Sea preten- sed, gaue vp his life for testimonie of the Gospell. Ex Pan- tal. lib. 6. Ex Crisp. & alijs. |
MarginaliaThe imprisonment and escape of Franciscus Encenas.☞ And for somuch as mention hath bene made both in this storye, & many other before, of Franciscus Encenas, his brother: here is not to be pretermitted, how the sayd Franciscus being a man of notable learnyng, as euer was any in Spayne, beyng in the Emperours Court at Bru- xelles, offered vnto the Emperour Charles v. the newe Testament of Christ, translated into Spanishe. For the whiche he was cast into prison, where he remayned in sorowfull captiuitie, and calamitie, the space of xv. monethes, lookyng for nothyng more, then present death. At last throughe the meruelous prouidence of al- mighty God, the first day of February, an. 1545. at eight of the clocke after supper, he founde the doores of the pri- son standyng open, & he secretly was aunswered in hys mynde, to take the occasion offered, and to shift for hym MarginaliaGod prouidence for hys seruauntes.self: and so he issuyng out of þe prison without any hasty pase, but goyng as leisurely as he could, escaped from thence and went straight to Germany. |
| Persecuters. | Martyrs. | The Causes. |
MarginaliaFaninus, Martyr.Pope Iu- lius the thyrd. | Faninus. At Ferra- ria. an. 1550. | Faninus, borne in Fauentia, a towne in Italie, throughe the readyng of godly bookes transla- ted into the Italian tongue (ha uing no perfecte skill in the La- tin) was conuerted from great blindnes, to the wholesome know ledge of Christ, and of his worde: Wherin he tooke such a swetnes, and so grewe vp in the medita- tion of the same, that hee was a- ble in short tyme, to instructe o- ther. Neither was there any di- ligence lacking in him to commu nicate that abroad, whiche he had receaued of the Lord: beyng so in his minde perswaded, that a man receauing by the spirite of God, the knowledge & illumina tiō of his veritie, ought in no case to hyde the same in silence, as a candle vnder a bushell: And therfore beyng occupied diligent ly in that behalfe, albeit he vsed not publickely to preache, but by priuate conference to teache, hee was at length by the Popes cli- |
entes, espied, apprehended, and committed to prison. Albeit MarginaliaFaninus ouercome by his wife & brethren.he remayned not long in that prison: For by the earnest per- suasions and prayers of hys wife, hys children, and other frendes, hee was so ouercome, that hee gaue ouer, and so was dimissed shortly out of prison. After this, it was not long, but he fell into horrible perturbation of mynde: In so much that, vnles the great mercy of God had kept him vp, hee had fallen in vtter desperation, for slippyng from the truth, and preferryng the loue of his frendes and kinred, before the seruice of Iesus Christ, whom he so earnestly be- fore had professed. This wound went so depe into his hart, that he coulde in no case bee quieted, before hee had fully fixed & determined in his minde, to aduenture his life more faithfully in the seruice of the Lord. Wherupon he beyng thus inflamed with zeale of spirite, went about all the countrey of Romaigna, publickely prea- chyng the pure doctrine of the Gospell, not without great frute and effect in places as he went. As hee was thus labo- MarginaliaFaninus agayne imprisoned.ring, it so fell out, that he was apprehended againe. an. 1547. in a place called Bagnacauallo, where also he was condem- ned to be burned: but he said his houre was not yet come, and the same to be but the beginnyng of his doctrine, and so it was, for shortly after hee was remoued vnto Ferraria, where he was deteined ij. yeares. At last the Inquisitors of the Popes heresies, condemned him to death. an. 1549. and yet his tyme beyng not come, he remained after that, to the moneth of September. an. 1550. In the meane time, ma ny faythfull and good mē came to visite him: for the whiche the Pope commaunded him to be inclosed in streiter custody: wherin he suffered great tormētes the space of 18. monethes, and yet had suffered greater, if the Dominicke Fieres might haue got him into their house, as they went about. Thus Fa- nius remoued from prison to prison, many tymes chaunged his place, but neuer altered his constancie. At length he was brought into a prison, where were di- uers great Lordes, Captaines, and noble personages, there cō- mitted, for stirring vp cōmotions & factions (as that coūtrey of Italy is full of such) who at first, hearyng him speake, be- gan to set him at light, and to deride him, supposing that it was but a melācholy humour that troubled his braine, wher- |