Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7): The Catholic ReactionSymonds, John Addington
History
Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7): The Catholic Reaction
Symonds, John Addington
Catholic Church -- Italy -- History; Renaissance -- Italy
Similar deductions may be drawn from the life of Paolo Manuzio in Rome.
He left Venice in 1561 at the invitation of Pius IV., who proposed to
establish a press 'for the publication of books printed with the finest
type and the utmost accuracy, and more especially of works bearing upon
sacred and ecclesiastical literature.'[145] Paolo's engagement was for
twelve years; his appointments were fixed at 300 ducats for traveling
expenses, 500 ducats of yearly salary, a press maintained at the
Pontifical expense, and a pension secured upon his son's life. The
scheme was a noble one. Paolo was to print all the Greek and Latin
Fathers, and to furnish the Catholic world with an arsenal of orthodox
learning. Yet, during his residence in Rome, no Greek book issued from
his press.[146] Of the Latin Fathers he gave the Epistles of Jerome,
Salvian, and Cyprian to the world. For the rest, he published the
Decrees of the Tridentine Council ten times, the Tridentine Catechism
eight times, the _Breviarium Romanum_ four times, and spent the greater
part of his leisure in editing minor translations, commentaries, and
polemical or educational treatises. The result was miserable, and the
man was ruined.
[Footnote 145: See Renouard, _op. cit._ pp. 442-459, for Paulus
Manutius's life at Rome.]
[Footnote 146: _op. cit._ pp. 184-216.]
It remains to notice the action of the Index with regard to secular
books in the modern languages. I will first repeat a significant passage
in its statutes touching upon political philosophy and the so-called
_Ratio Status_: 'Item, let all propositions, drawn from the digests,
manners, and examples of the Gentiles, which foster a tyrannical polity
and encourage what they falsely call the reason of state, in opposition
to the law of Christ and of the Gospel, be expunged.' This, says Sarpi
in his Discourse on Printing, is aimed in general against any doctrine
which impugns ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the civil sphere of
princes and magistrates, and the economy of the family.[147] Theories
drawn from whatever source to combat Papal and ecclesiastical
encroachments, and to defend the rights of the sovereign in his monarchy
or of the father in his, household, are denominated and denounced as
_Ratio Status_. The impugner of Papal absolutism in civil, as well as
ecclesiastical affairs, is accounted _ipso facto_ a heretic.[148] It
would appear at first sight as though the clause in question had been
specially framed to condemn Machiavelli and his school. The works of
Machiavelli were placed upon the Index in 1559, and a certain Cesare of
Pisa who had them in his library was put to the torture on this account
in 1610. It was afterwards proposed to correct and edit them without his
name; but his heirs very properly refused to sanction this proceeding,
knowing that he would be made to utter the very reverse of what he meant
in all that touched upon the Roman Church.
[Footnote 147: Sarpi's Works, vol. iv. p. 4.]
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