Reformas franciscanas y Reforma: el caso de los primeros capuchinos (1525-1542)

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the historiographical debate about the impact of the Protestant Reformation among the Friar Minors by discussing the case-study represented by the first development of the Capuchin Order. The Capuchins were approved by Clement VII in 1528, just few years after the bull Ite vos (1517) attempted to prevent new divisions within the Franciscans. Their reform movement stood out for its asceticism and mystical spirituality, which attracted the accusation of Lutheranism from the more conservative exponents of the Roman Church. Actually, the «freedom of the Spirit» preached by the Capuchins was not linked to the idea of the «freedom of the Christian» fostered by Luther; it was, instead, influenced by the medieval mystical radicalism of the Spiritual Franciscans whose doctrines were taken up again in 16th century writings. Friars read such works like the heterodox Union of the the soul with God by the observant Bartolomé Cordoni. Nevertheless, a minority of the first Capuchins adhered to Lutheran ideas. Among them was the renowned preacher Bernardino Ochino, who in 1542 left the Catholic faith with some companions from Italy to Calvin’s Geneva and put at risk the very same existence of the Capuchin Order.