The Lettere Volgari and the Crisis of Evangelism in Italy*

Abstract

On September 27, 1540, Paul III issued the bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae, formally recognizing the foundation of the Society of Jesus. The following May participants in the Regensburg Colloquy, a final effort at confessional reunion sponsored by Charles V, acknowledged their failure to agree on the definition of the Eucharist, and the compromises previously reached on other doctrinal issues were quickly disavowed in Rome, Wittenberg, and elsewhere. Six weeks later, in mid-July 1541, Juan de Valdés, the expatriate Spanish master of semimystical spirituality, died in Naples. On May 22, 1542, Initio nostri huius pontificatus, the bull convoking an ecumenical council at Trent, was read in the papal consistory. The reconstitution of the Roman Inquisition was officially announced in the promulgation of Licet ah initio on July 21 in the same year.