The Venetian Interdict of 1606 and 1607

Frank Avenue
Sep 5, 2018 · 6 min read

The “Venetian Interdict” of 1606 and 1607 was a diplomatic quarrel between the Roman Church and the Republic of Venice, the term “Interdict” refers to a temporary excommunication by the Pope of all Christians living in the Venetians territories. While it was active, the Interdict forced Venice to close several religious orders, a pamphlet war and heavy diplomatic interventions by France and Spain in order to resolve the matter peacefully.

There was several other cases where the Roman Church used the Interdict as retaliatory action against Venice: In 1202 for the Venetian siege of Zadar during the Fourth Crusade, in 1284 when Venice refused to support Pope Martin IV’s crusade, between 1482 and 1484 during the “War of Ferrara” and then later in 1509 for the “ War of the League of Cambrai”.

This time the confrontation took a different approach, since the battle wasn’t fought on fields but took place in court rooms and using pamphlets instead of muskets and cannons.

In 1605 most of the Italian territories were under Spanish control, pressing the Venetian borders. It all started when the Republic prosecuted two members of the clergy, Scipione Saraceno and Marcantonio Brandolini, for the crimes of murder and rape, the latter was also an aristocrat and an abbot. This, on top of two laws enacted shortly before, one prohibiting religious orders to establish new hospitals, churches and other places of worships without authorization of the Venetian Senate and another one prohibiting the donation of properties from private citizens to any member of the church (common practice in those times), unleashed the wrath of the new Pope Paul V who declared in two separate statements that Venice where to immediately repeal the two laws and to deliver the two clergy members to an emissary of the Roman Curia to be convicted and judged in a Roman tribunal.

On January 14th, 1606 the recently elected Doge Leonardo Donà, who was famous even before for his anti-Papal positions, asked council to several Canon Lawyers practicing in Venice in order to prepare an adequate response of the Republic to the Pope’s requests, already considered “out of line”. Shortly afterwards, on January 28th, the Doge nominated Fra Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian historian, scientist, writer and theologist from the Servite Order, famous for his work “History of the Council of Trent” and his critics of the secular power of the Church, as official Canon Lawyer to debate the matter on behalf of the Republic of Venice. The Theologist published several pamphlets (later collected and sold as “Istoria dell’interdetto”) where he argued against the Pope’s pretentious claims recalling the independence of the Republican law from the Canon Law, and therefore, the two convicted members of the Clergy, had to be judged and sentenced, if found guilty, by a Venetian Court, reasserting the principles of the Council of Constance and of the Council of Basel, denying the Pope’s authority in secular matters

The response from Rome came shortly after, by the hand of the Jesuit Cardinal Bellarmine, then Archbishop of Capua, one of the most known Inquisitors, whose notoriety came straight from the Giordano Bruno Case, where he served as a Judge and voted in favor of the decision to burn the writer at the stakes as a heretic. The Cardinal’s arguments where met by the Venetian scholar in a new pamphlet, where he debunked any and all of the Cardinal’s accusations.

On May 6th, the Pope, willing to assert the superiority of the Church over the Republic, excommunicated the Council of Ten, guilty of following the orders of the Doge, and then put under Interdict the whole Republic. The Doge and the Senate where not impressed at all by the Pope’s move, and responded on April 17th by the hand of Sarpi, who published a new pamphlet where he defined the Roman decree “void and with no worth whatsoever”, while acting in order to block a scheduled papal bull. The Interdict decreed an official ban of any kind of rite celebrated in all Venetian communities, with the exception of the five feasts of the Christian year: Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and the feast of the Assumption of Mary.

The Senate in Venice invited all priests and clergy members to keep celebrating the rites as usual, and everyone followed suit, with one big exception that obeyed the Pope’s orders: the Jesuits, who were officially expelled along with two other religious orders, the Minor Capuchin Friars and the Theatines, who protested in favor of the Pope. In Rome the hope was that with an excommunication, an Interdict, and the three religious orders expelled by the government, the people would revolt against the Doge and the Senate, but the city kept on as nothing ever happened, and all branches of the Venetian Government were united against the foreign interference.

At the time Venice was close ally with France and kept the English Crown alongside with the Ottoman Empire in good diplomatic relations, the Habsburg Monarchy however where trying to undermine the venetian hegemony in the Adriatic Sea, by supporting pirates targeting both Venetian and Turkish convoys. In this scenario, August 10th, Spanish soldiers, dressed as Venetians “fanti da mar” (Marine Infantry) attacked and sacked Durrës, in order to move the stall between Rome and Venice by provoking the Ottomans. The trick was easily unveiled and the Ottomans offered full support of their Navy to Venice against Rome and the Spanish.

On October 10th, the Inquisition officially summoned Sarpi in Rome, so he may answer for his “reckless, slanderous, scandalous, seditious, schismatic, erroneous and heretical” allegations, call that, obviously, went unanswered, and, as retaliation, brought the Pope to excommunicate Paolo Sarpi as well, on January 5th 1607.

The Pope then declared himself in favor to bring war to Venice, but his only ally in this endeavor, was the Spanish Empire, who would have to face open war with France, England and the Ottoman Empire.
A diplomatic solution was in order, orchestrated by the French Cardinal François de Joyeuse. Venice then released the convicted Clergies and retired any official publications against the Catholic Church in exchange for the revoke of the Interdict and the excommunications, maintaining the laws promulgated the year before and the Jesuit ban from the city. As a reward, Sarpi was nominated state councilor in jurisprudence and granted liberty of access to the state archives, infuriating the Pope.

That would have been the end of it normally, but the Pope couldn’t stand such a loss by the hands of a man who he thought was “one of his”. So, some day in 1607, Paolo Sarpi received a visit from the German scholar Kaspar Schoppe, who openly warned him that the Pope wasn’t at all happy with his actions, and that if He wanted him dead, he wasn’t short on instruments; but the German also told Sarpi that the best path for him to follow was to surrender himself to the Inquisition and ask for mercy. The Venetian heard the warning, but remained troubled on the “two proposals, one to kill and one to get the priest alive”, so he decided to stay in Venice, where he was sure to be safe.
A first assassination attempt was tried in September, but the perpetrators where discovered and when crossed into Venetian territory from Bologna, arrested and imprisoned on the spot, relieved by the news, Sarpi thought that would be the end of it.
But it wouldn’t, on the 5th day of October, late at night, while going back to his convent to sleep, Paolo Sarpi was assaulted by five assassins, who successfully stabbed the scholar with several stiletto thrusts. They left him to die and fled, leaving one blade still in him. Unfortunately, for the assassins, the wounds didn’t damaged any vital organ, so after treatment by the famous surgeon Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, who commented on the strange patterns of the wounds; Paolo Sarpi recovered from the attack, and publicly declared “Agnosco stylum Curiae Romanae” (“I recognize the style of the Roman Curia”); Sarpi’s would-be assassins escaped the city and with help from authorities of Ravenna’s port, hitched a ride on a ferry to Naples where they hid and later granted an allowance by the viceroy of Naples, Pedro Téllez-Girón.
Another assassination was later attempted, unsuccessfully, by two priests that managed to get a copy of Sarpi’s room. Fearing for his life even in the cloister, Sarpi started to consider to take offer of refuge in England, but never accepted, too much devoted to Venice and his duties as official counselor. So much so that even the day before his death (15 January 1623) he dictated three replies to questions from Republic’s state affairs. He died peacefully, with his last words dedicated to Venice: “Esto perpetua” (“may she last forever”).

Frank Avenue

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