Egidio Foscarari—Giovanni Morone: Carteggio durante l'ultima fase del Concilio di Trento (1561–1563) ed. by Matteo Al Kalak (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Egidio Foscarari—Giovanni Morone: Carteggio durante l'ultima fase del Concilio di Trento (1561–1563) ed. by Matteo Al Kalak Paul V. Murphy Egidio Foscarari—Giovanni Morone: Carteggio durante l'ultima fase del Concilio di Trento (1561–1563). Edited by Matteo Al Kalak. (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018. Pp. 267. €64,00. ISBN: 9783402105276). For more than a century, historians of the Council of Trent have sought to overcome stark and often cliched judgements on the council born in a more sectarian era through examination of the substantial documentation left behind by participants in the form of letters and diaries. This has allowed for greater nuance in judgements on the Council of Trent. Matteo Al Kalak has made a significant contribution to this work. His recent biography of Bishop Egidio Foscarari, Il riformatore dimenticato: Egidio Foscarari tra Inquisizione, concilio, e governo pastorale (1512–1564) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2016) shed light on the life and career of this Dominican bishop who succeeded Cardinal Giovanni Morone as bishop of Modena where he took a conciliatory position towards Modenese Protestants and was subsequently imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo by Pope Paul IV. At the council, Foscarari continued to seek reconciliation where possible not only between the emperor and the pope but between Protestants and the Catholic Church. Al Kalak has since edited and published Egidio Foscarari—Giovanni Morone: Carteggio durante l'ultima fase del Concilio di Trento (1561–1563), a valuable collection of the correspondence between Foscarari and his patron Morone during the final phase of the Council. These 133 letters, all but three of them from Foscarari, show the efforts made by the two to find practical means to obtain agreement not only between the often polarized Catholic factions at the Council but even in the hope of bringing some Protestants on board. Foscarari's efforts at conciliation are seen on three principal issues. One concerned whether the renewed meetings of the council in 1561 should be considered a continuation of the previous sessions and therefore prohibited review of previously decided issues. The Bull of convocation makes it clear that the pope considered it a continuation of the earlier sessions. Nevertheless, Foscarari sought middle ground by suggesting that flexibility as to the interpretation of the previously agreed upon decrees would allow for the possible reconciliation of at least some Protestants. Foscarari wanted similar room for maneuver regarding the Index of Prohibited Books of Pope Paul IV. If a complete retraction of it were not possible, in Al-Kalak's terms, they should propose "corrective measures that worked either [End Page 409] by moderating excessively severe prohibitions or by interpreting existing provisions in an accommodating key with respect to the requests of the Protestant reformers." (p. 11) Foscarari took a similarly flexible position on emending the text of the Bible for publication. If Foscarari and Morone found common ground on many issues, they came to strong disagreement on the issue that nearly wrecked the council, the residence of bishops, and whether that obligation was understood as according to jus divinum and therefore not open to exemptions. Foscarari strongly supported the jus divinum interpretation as necessary for a real reform of the clergy, a position rejected by Morone. This correspondence not only sheds light on the debates at the final sessions of the Council of Trent but also brings new issues into focus regarding these two well-known figures. The letters reveal Foscarari to have remained largely faithful to the path of reform he had followed from the time he became bishop of Modena, thus illustrating a great deal of continuity with an earlier generation of Italian reform. The letters raise questions about Morone, in contrast, as one who in the end opted for positions, on the residence of bishops in particular, that stood in contrast with those of Foscarari and a number of his earlier defenders. Al Kalak suggests that as one who had only recently been rehabilitated by Pope Pius IV after his imprisonment at the hands of Paul IV, Morone not only wanted to see the council come to a successful conclusion but also may have continued to feel vulnerable to the suspicions of some in the Roman...