Peter Martyr Research Articles

André Thevet's ‘true’ portrait of Moctezuma and its European legacy

André Thevet's ‘true’ portrait of Moctezuma and its European legacy

Martin Bucer: Reforming Church and Community;<br>The Peter Martyr Library, Volume One. Early Writings: Creed, Scripture, Church

Martin Bucer: Reforming Church and Community;<br>The Peter Martyr Library, Volume One. Early Writings: Creed, Scripture, Church

More, Erasmus, Vives and Peter Martyr: an Updated Comparison

This article compares More’s Utopia to Peter Martyr’s De Orbe Novo and to its plagiarized version Paesi nouamente ritrouati…. The point is made in this article of the fact that, given the number of editions and translations, including Latin and French, of Paesi between 1507 and 1516, More might have had the opportunity to read it. The new philosophy of De Orbe Novo shows several points of contact with the Northern European Humanists. They differed with the Italian traditional humanists in the method and the language. They were in favor of new ideas and a new language, in order to explain a new reality.

"Synne and Sedition": Peter Martyr Vermigli's "Sermon Concernynge the Tyme of Rebellion" in the Parker Library

An autograph sermon by Peter Martyr Vermigli with Matthew Parker’s annotation “Sermo Petri Martir manu propria scripta in seditionem Devonensium” is included among the Reformation manuscripts in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Preached at St. Paul’s (although not by Vermigli himself), the sermon constitutes a ’response to the popular uprising in Devon and other parts of the realm precipitated by the promulgation of the first Edwardine Act of Uniformity of 1549 with its prescription of the new vernacular liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. Vermigli offers a measured response to the actions of both the rebels and the governing authorities based upon an appeal to the principles of an Augustinian political theology. All parties to the conflict—government, gentry, and commons—are found to be at fault and Vermigli proposes penance all round as the “remedie of al our plags.”

John Jewel and the English National Church: The Dilemmas of an Erastian Reformer (review)

Reviewed by: John Jewel and the English National Church: The Dilemmas of an Erastian Reformer Andreas Loewe John Jewel and the English National Church: The Dilemmas of an Erastian Reformer. By Gary W. Jenkins. [St Andrews Studies in Reformation History.] (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2006. Pp. viii, 293. $99.95; £55.) In this monograph Gary Jenkins successfully balances John Jewel's public persona—thirty-sixth Bishop of Salisbury and a staunch defender of the Elizabethan settlement—with his privately held theological views. While much of Jewel's published work suggests a model conforming prelate,"fully in support of his prince, and archbishop's actions" (p. 186), his copious correspondence with his friend and theological mentor Peter Martyr Vermigli reveals the bishop's private longings for purer reformed teaching on the lines of Bullinger's Zurich. Indeed, at the peak of his ecclesiastical career after his election to the see of Salisbury, Jewel confided to Martyr:"O Zurich, Zurich, how much more often do I now think of you than ever I thought of England when I was in Zurich!" (p. 178). Jenkins presents a Janus figure, who "faced on the one side the life and duties of an English Protestant prelate; and on the other, that of a sheltered, pilgrim émigré" (p. 155). John Jewel and the English National Church provides a much-needed new reflection on Jewel's life,as well as much welcome background information on the mid-Tudor reformations. At times Jenkins is too generous with his material: the short biographical summaries of key players, events, and places, give the work an encyclopaedic feel. Some excursions, such as Jenkins's investigation of the pre-Norman origins of Jewel's home church (pp. 6–7), the potted history [End Page 382] of Merton College (pp. 8–9), and his lengthy excursus on the pre-Reformation history of the diocese of Salisbury (pp. 203–08), would have been better placed among the copious footnotes. As in all biographies of Jewel, much of the detail in this monograph is gleaned from Laurence Humphrey's Vita Iuelli (London, 1573), though Jenkins rightly acknowledges the adulatory and somewhat hagiographic nature of Humphrey's account (p. 226).Humphrey's account is balanced by Jewel's correspondence, published both in contemporary works and the comprehensive Parker Society edition (Cambridge, 1845–50),which furnishes further valuable insights into the second-generation reformer's life and thought. The author offers a close reading of Jewel's written output, in particular his reaction, whether in disputation at home or in correspondence with friends and opponents abroad, to the Elizabethan settlement. From the time of his election to the episcopate in 1559 to his enthronement a year later, Jewel defended the settlement no less than seven times. Jenkins's careful analysis of some of the key works, among them Jewel's seminal Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (London, 1562) and his rebuttals of Thomas Harding's sustained theological attacks, covers an enormous range of contested theological ideas. These not only include the royal supremacy itself but also address the usage of vestments, the veneration of images, the language of the liturgy, and the question of the real presence. As part of his investigation, Jenkins offers interesting insights into the dialectical methods employed by Jewel and his contemporaries. Many rejoinders are based on scoring points in rhetorical gamesmanship rather than genuine theological engagement as Jenkins makes clear: "Jewel's usual manner of answering arguments entails listing one authority after another; he seldom treated the assertions of his antagonists on either theological or dialectical grounds" (pp. 72–73). In public, Jewel sought to hold the theological center ground, steering a careful course between traditional Catholicism and English Puritanism: his theological audience included both Protestants in Zurich and Catholics in France, and both groups, on the whole, commended Jewel's "moderation in tone" (p. 93). However, far more interesting than Jenkins' analysis of the bishop of Salisbury's public persona is the Jewel he reveals through the pages of his private correspondence. Here, Jenkins succeeds in adding some fine and detailed brushstrokes to the portrait of a man of many contradictions who, "having embraced Protestantism under Edward VI . . . recanted under Mary only...

The Assassin-Saint: The Life and Cult of Carino of Balsamo

St. Peter Martyr was a thirteenth-century preacher and inquisitor who achieved rapid canonization and attained a worldwide cult. Less well known was his assassin, Carino of Balsamo. Hired as a cutthroat thug to murder Peter of Verona, Carino escaped, repented, and lived out his life as a humble Dominican penitent. After his death, a local cult developed around him. Although the story of the famous Inquisitor and the humble penitent were inextricably intertwined, their cults hardly ever intersected. This article lays out Carino's biography and his cultic afterlife, and sheds light on early Dominican practice, on the continuing importance of local cults in Italy, and on the Christian ideal of conversion.

Locke's Travel Books


 
 
 Peter Martyr, papal legate to the court of Spain and learned humanist, solemnly informed his readers that children were turned into frogs on one of the newly discovered Caribbean islands. Columbus thought his ship was caught in the powerful current of one of the rivers that flowed out of Eden, when he encountered the mouth of the Orinoco. Amerigo Vespucci invented an entire voyage so that he could claim priority in the discovery of the American continent. If we were to leaf through the travel books that the philosopher John Locke had on his shelves we would find these and even stranger stories of shape-shifting enchanters, lakes of gold, Amazon warrior women, societies where equality and liberty reigned and property was held in common, as well as sophisticated, well-organized societies where the educated class were all materialists and atheists. Travel literature seems a most unsuitable body of material for John Locke, the father of British empiricism, to study, but study it he did.
 
 

Peter Brown (1939–2007)

Software: Practice and ExperienceVolume 37, Issue 5 p. 463-463 ObituaryFree Access Peter Brown (1939–2007) Nigel Horspool, Nigel HorspoolSearch for more papers by this author Nigel Horspool, Nigel HorspoolSearch for more papers by this author First published: 21 March 2007 https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.823AboutRelatedInformationPDFPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessClose modalShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume37, Issue525 April 2007Pages 463-463 RelatedInformation RecommendedVermigli, Peter Martyr (1499–1562)Timothy M. McAlhaney, The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, [1]Peter, Coptic Apocalypse ofMarvin Meyer, The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, [1]Peter, Saint (d. c.64)Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, [1]Peter of BloisJohn D. Cotts, The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, [1]Tracy, David (b. 1939)Bruce Riley Ashford, The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, [1]

Idolatrous Cultures and the Practice of Religion

In the fifteenth century, idolatry could be understood as one in a diversity of religious rites. Nicholas of Cusa and subsequent Platonists emphasized that no rite was necessary, only love, and drew on prisca theologia to understand religion throughout the world. By the turn of the sixteenth century, cosmographers such as Peter Martyr Anglerius incorporated these ideas into descriptions of religious and cultural practice. Early Reformation concerns about removing superstitious rites and images, and the Counter-Reformation response to that critique, led to a vilification of heterodox religion as idolatrous and the increasing location of idolatry in cultures outside of Europe.

:Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformations: Semper Reformanda

Preface Dedication. In Memoriam: Heiko Augustinus Oberman, 1930-2001 Abbreviations Introduction: Nunc Peregrinus Oberrat - Peter Martyr in Context, Frank A. James III PART I. REFORMERS IN COMMUNITY 1. Praeceptor Carissimus: Images of Peter Martyr in Girolamo Zanchi's Correspondence, John L. Farthing 2. Strangers in a Strange Land: The English Correspondence of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli, N. Scott Amos 3. Peter Martyr and the Church of England after 1558, Gary Jenkins 4. The Early Reformed Covenant Paradigm: Vermigli in the Context of Bullinger, Luther and Calvin, Peter A. Lillback 5. Sacramental Continuity among Reformed Refugees: Peter Martyr Vermigli and John Calvin, Richard Gamble PART II. BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS 6. Vermigli on Tradition and the Fathers: Patristic Perspectives from his Commentary on I Corinthians, Douglas H. Shantz 7. Patriarchy and Prophetesses: Tradition and Innovation in Vermigli's Doctrine of Woman, John L. Thompson 8. And All Israel Shall Be Saved: Peter Martyr and John Calvin on the Jews according to Romans, Chapters 9, 10 and 11, Dan Shute 9. Christological Currents in Vermigli's Thought, John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. 10. Nature, Virtue, and Humanism: Cross-Disciplinary Reflections on Vermigli's Romans Commentary (10-16), Norman Klassen PART III. CHURCH AND REFORM 11. Sacrifice and Sacrament: Another Eucharistic Contribution from Peter Martyr Vermigli, Donald Fuller 12. Valdes and Vermigli: Spirituality and the Degrees of Reform, Joseph C. McLelland 13. The Preces Sacrae of Peter Martyr Vermigli, Emidio Campi 14. Law and Order: Vermigli and the Reform of Ecclesiastical Laws in England, John F. Jackson 15. Peter Martyr Vermigli and Pope Boniface VIII: the Difference Between Civil and Ecclesiastical Power, Torrance Kirby Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index

Travel writing and humanistic culture: A blunted impact?

AbstractAn influential historiographical tradition has opposed the accounts of extra-European worlds produced by sixteenth-century travel writers to the concerns of humanists and other European men of learning, even detecting a 'blunted impact' up until the eighteenth century, when the figure of the philosophical traveller was proclaimed by Rousseau and others. It is my argument that this approach is misleading and that we need to take account of the full influence of travel writing upon humanistic culture in order to understand how the Renaissance eventually led to the Enlightenment. A first step consists in analysing the collective impact of accounts of America, Africa and Asia, rather than opposing the 'New World' to other areas. Moreover, whilst quantitative estimates offer a route for the assessment of 'impact', it is the qualitative aspect which is most clearly central to the cultural history of the period. Even 'popular' observers were often subtly influenced by concepts and strategies formulated by the intellectual elites. Under close scrutiny, it appears that humanists—and here I adopt a broad definition—had a crucial role in the production and consumption of travel accounts, as editors and travel collectors, as historians and cosmographers, and eventually—from the turn of the seventeenth century—as 'philosophical travellers'. The article seeks to illustrate these roles with reference to some examples from the first phase of the encounter. In particular, the early accounts of the Columbian expeditions by Nicolaus Scyllacus and Peter Martyr of Anghiera can be shown to have elaborated Columbian material more faithfully than is usually understood to be the case. Similarly, the historiography of conquest published after the middle of the sixteenth century reveals the widespread application of humanist standards to the literature of encounter produced in the previous sixty years.

Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice (review)

and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice. By Patricia Meilman. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. xvi, 260, 8 colored plates. $75.00.) Of the many catastrophes to have befallen works of Italian Renaissance art, among the worst was the fire that ravaged the sacristy of Venice's Santi Giovanni e Paolo in 1867. Still known by its dialect name, San Zanipolo is the principal Dominican church in that city, like Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Both are treasure-houses of Renaissance art, despite the accidental and, sad to say, intentional demolition of some of their major monuments. From 1530 until fire destroyed it, the greatest painting in San Zanipolo was the St. Peter Martyr Altarpiece by Titian. Regarded as the master's crowning achievement long before his death in 1576, to cinquecento critics the picture was to Venetian assertions of supremacy in the art of painting what Michelangelo's and Raphael's accomplishments in the Sistine Chapel were to Central Italian claims to the same distinction. Moreover, the altarpiece inspired generations of artists well into the nineteenth century, as witness a handsome copy made by the young Gericault while the painting was on view in the Louvre, along with other Italian spoils of Napoleon's wars. When Titian's work returned from exile in a condition too ruinous for public viewing, the Dominicans stored it in the sacristy and thus unwittingly consigned it to the flames. Patricia Meilman's book, and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, is a monograph on this appalling loss from the corpus of European painting. As one might expect from a revised dissertation, the apparatus occupies almost half the book's 260 pages and offers material not available elsewhere. A fully illustrated excursus discusses twelve drawings that have always been associated with the painting. After an even-handed treatment of opinions supporting attributions of these drawings to himself, Meilman rightly argues that none can be sustained. Following the excursus, the first of four appendices provides transcriptions of all the known documents; the second presents the full texts of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century critical commentaries. Even more valuable are Meilman's third and fourth appendices, which supply the history of restorations and an exceptionally interesting as well as useful list of all known significant painted copies, both extant and lost. These valuable research tools are welcome additions to the literature. main body comprises three parts of three chapters each. Part One, The Environment, discusses the artistic and religious milieu of Titian's picture. Part Two treats the altarpiece itself, beginning with a chapter on the cult of Peter Martyr in Venice. second chapter faces two intractable conundrums confronting all students of Titian: (1) the documents reveal but do not explain a long series of misunderstandings and/or misrepresentations between the artist and the patron, which was a committee (a recipe for trouble if there ever was one); and (2) the possibility that actually had to compete with rivals to win the assignment. In the third chapter, Titian at Work, Meilman relates her understanding of how got the painting out of his mind and onto the picture surface. As its title,Modifications, suggests, Part Three offers a series of arguments designed to show how Titian's painting changed the course of history: first, in its representational tours de force', second, as the paradigmatic exemplum of Venetian painting in cinquecento art theory; and, third, as a reference-point for religious art made in response to the Council of Trent. …

Myth, Ritual and Orthodoxy: Cosimo de' Medici and St Peter Martyr

This article will explore the relationship between the Medici and their patron saints, and in particular, between Cosimo de’ Medici and St Peter Martyr. It will suggest that the choice of St Peter Martyr instead of St Peter Apostle to be the name saint of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici was related to Cosimo's interest in the Observant reform and the Council of Florence. A cult devoted to the Dominican saint, famous for both monastic reform and his conquest of heresy, would benefit both Cosimo de’ Medici and the recently installed Observant Dominicans at San Marco.

From Chrysostom to Luther: The roots of magisterial office in Martyr Vermigli’s political theology

Peter Martyr Vermigli played a key role in developing and formulating the Reformational version of the political covenant for legitimating the political order. Three important perspectives shaped Vermigli’s covenantal views: first, St. John Chrysostom’s idea of political office; second, Luther’s work on the divine origin of magisterial government and third, Heinrich Bullinger’s commentaries on the Biblical covenant. These perspectives were integrated by Vermigli into an influential paradigm of covenantal politics. The impact of the ideas emanating from Vermigli’s theologico-political federalism was not limited to the 16th-century Reformation, but also exerted considerable influence on the development of political contractarianism in 17th - and 18th-century liberalism. In this contribution the emphasis is on Chrysostom’s and Luther’s contributions to Vermigli’s political theology.

‘Relics of the Amorites’ or ‘Things Indifferent'? Peter Martyr Vermigli's authority and the Threat of Schism in the Elizabethan Vestiarian Controversy

In the years following the enactment of the Elizabethan Settlement, the threat of schism loomed over the Church of England with respect to provisions governing uniformity of ecclesiastical dress. Were the traditional vestments and ornaments of worship ‘relics of the Amorites’ whose use was inconsistent with a truly Reformed ecclesiastical order? Or were they rather ‘adiaphora’ and therefore to be tolerated? Numerous appeals by both parties to the dispute were made to Peter Martyr Vermigli, now settled in Zurich, for his judgement of the matter. Although Vermigli's authority was cited by both sides, he emerges a staunch defender of the Settlement. Consistent with his intervention of 1550 in John Hooper's brief period of resistance to the Edwardine vestments rubric, Vermigli counselled conformity with careful nuance. Vermigli's stance in the vestiarian controversy in turn raises important questions about the ‘Reformed’ identity of the Elizabethan Church.

Applying Cultural Criticism to the Study of Early Popular Romances

Applying Cultural Criticism to the Study of Early Popular RomancesCourtland, Joseph. 2001. A Cultural Studies Approach to Two Exotic Citizen Romances by Thomas Heywood. Studies in the Humanities. 58. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. $49.95 he. xvi + 159 pp.Newcomb, Lori Humphrey. 2002. Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern England. New York: Columbia University Press. $49.95 he. $19.50 sc. xiv + 332 pp.Rejecting static distinctions between popular and elite culture, and high and low art, cultural critics seek to understand the discursive and interactive nature of a society's values, practices, and institutions. When literature is the object of study, they question the notion of masterpiece and hierarchies, and using analytical procedures developed in a variety of disciplines, they examine lesser known or marginalized texts, sometimes in relation to masterpieces, at other times in relation to how these texts are produced, marketed, or read by various audiences. Though their methods vary, all cultural critics perceive literature as a form of discourse, which both shapes and competes with other forms of discourse within a given culture, and not as an unproblematic reflection of history, or of aesthetic value. Rather than evaluating what literature is, they seek to understand how literature functions in a given society and what these functions mean.The two works under review demonstrate how difficult it is to practice cultural criticism, and the rich insights about society that can be gained if that practice is successful. Joseph Courtland's A Cultural Studies Approach to Two Exotic Citizen Romances by Thomas Heywood, and Lori Humphrey Newcomb's Reading Popular Romance in Early Modem both study lesser-known popular romances, and both use the last decade of the sixteenth-century as their starting points. This is where all similarities end. Courtland stays within a narrow two-decade period-from 1590-1608-while Newcomb considers a much broader period, to the beginning of the nineteenth-century. Because Newcomb consistently investigates the ways that popular romances function in society, her work is ultimately more successful as a work of cultural criticism, while Courtland's study prematurely terminates lines of inquiry to describe and evaluate what is found.Though Courtland claims his book is a cultural studies approach to Heywood's romances, formalism and structuralism actually are the critical methodologies that shape this work. This is unfortunate, since the book demonstrates deep knowledge of Elizabethan culture and literature and begins in a promising manner. Courtland defines exotic romances as hybrids of chivalric romances which were popular from 1590-1608 and which characteristically featured citizen heroes, usually London tradesmen or apprentices on some heroic quest outside of England (2001, xiii). His stated aim is to historicize Heywood's novice effort, The Four Prentices of London with the Conquest of Jerusalem and the later play, The Four Maids of the West: Part I. Regretably, the three chapters that precede the reading of Heywood's two plays largely stand alone. There is little synthesis or integration between or within these chapters and, when the plays are finally analyzed, they are read as unproblematic reflections of two moments in history.Chapter 1 discusses Elizabethan foreign policy and trade, economic hardships of the British poor, the Nine Years' War with Ireland, and two colonial discourses seen as representative of the time: Peter Martyr's The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West Indies (ca. 1555) and Edmund Spenser's A View of the Present State of (1596). Reminiscent of Russian nesting dolls, these two colonial discourses are then read separately within the triple context of capital adventurism, English Christian Imperialism, and Masterlessness/ Mastery, and the chapter itself ends flatly with the statement: Wandering customs and itinerant lifestyles had no place in Spenser's reformed Ireland (2001, 21-22). …

Bernardino Ochino’s Books and English Religious Opinion, 1547–80

Bernardino Ochino was one of the less famous and more unpredictable of the Protestant refugees whom Thomas Cranmer invited to England in 1547. He remained in the limelight throughout Edward VI’s reign, largely because of his writing. A study of the English publication of his works throws some light on the complex interaction between English books and European Protestantism. Collinson’s comment that ‘English theologians were as likely to lean on Bullinger of Zurich, Musculus of Berne or Peter Martyr as on Calvin or Beza’ is important here. In Edward VI’s reign they leant quite confidently on more unsteady props, of whom Ochino was one.

Die neulateinische Historiographie der frühen Entdeckungen

Columbus' first letter on his revolutionary discoveries was first published in Spanish, but soon spread all over Europe in its Latin version. The first history of America was originally written in Latin by the Italian humanist Peter Martyr and the world came to know about its first circumnavigation again through a Latin text, written by the emperor's secretary Maximilianus Transylvanus. The role of the Latin language in this important phase of European historiography has always been limited to its function as the international European idiom. But even in the renaissance writing and reading in Latin was not as popular as English would be today. The true function of the Latin language in the historiography of early discoveries lies in its ability to integrate the experience of strange new worlds into European culture and thinking. Latinization worked as assimilation and played an imported role in the institution of a new, globalized European identity.

“The Charge of Religion Belongeth unto Princes”: Peter Martyr Vermigli on the Unity of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Untersucht wird eine Kontroverse um das Fasten, die in England im Herbst 1562 ausgetragen wurde und die den Klerikern der englischen Staatskirche deutlich werden ließ, wie stark das elisabethanische „church settlement“ Elemente katholischer Frömmigkeit aufrechterhielt. Daher bemühten sich die calvinistisch Denkenden unter den Kleriker der Church of England in der Kontroverse mit John Sanderson einerseits, die Wichtigkeit des Fastens hervorzuheben, andererseits, sich von der katholischen Praxis mit ihren Vorschriften und Verboten zu distanzieren.

Review: Peter Martyr Vermigli. Commentary on the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah

Review: Peter Martyr Vermigli. Commentary on the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah