For John Preferred Citation: Gleason, Elisabeth G. Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and Reform. Berkely: University of California Press, 1993. For John Preface The standard but hagiographic biography of Cardinal Gasparo Contarini appeared in 1885. Franz Dittrich, its author, was an assiduous scholar who managed to gather much documentary material during a stay of only five months in Italy and working under difficult conditions. Ost to pst converter with crack torrent download8001794. His hefty volume has established Contarini's physiognomy, as it were, and many of his judgments have gone unchallenged for over a hundred years. Dittrich interpreted his subject primarily as an orthodox and exemplary Catholic. In fact, the vindication of Contarini's Catholicism is the underlying theme of the entire work.
A learned and political Catholic himself, influenced by events of the German nineteenth-century Kulturkampf, Dittrich chose the Italian sixteenth-century cardinal as an example and, one suspects, an inspiration for readers at a time when heroes of their faith were particularly appreciated by Catholics in Germany. Contarini has had a good press ever since. In scholarly literature his name has come to be identified with exceptional moderation and reason in an age of increasingly sharp religious controversy. Protestant writers have generally found him one of the few respectable members of the Roman curia and thought him more sympathetic with their theology than he actually was. Catholic historians have frequently exaggerated his role in the movement for church reform. Thus Contarini has been portrayed, on the one hand, as almost Lutheran in his theology of justification and, on the other hand, as staunchly Catholic despite a temporary lapse into theological 'unclarity' in Regensburg in 1541. ― x ― This book is the result of my attempt to understand the thought of a good and devout man after I found many previous interpretations unconvincing.
I came to realize that Contarini was emblematic of many Catholics not just in Italy but in all of Europe during the turbulent years of the Reformation, and I wondered about the nature of beliefs he held that prevented him from becoming another Gianpietro Carafa, a persecutor of those with whom he disagreed. It won't do simply to put him into a slot labeled 'party of the middle' or 'Erasmians,' as if these terms explained his stand. The inquisitors have been given undue prominence because they had the power of coercion; what about those, like Contarini, who had only the power of conviction? Reading Contarini's letters and works, placing them in their historical context, and meditating on their meaning has been a slow and at times frustrating process.
Search Emule download Source the dark knight Search the dark knightDownload via Hotfile Rapidshare FileServe Megaupload & the dark knightfree torrent download. Windows 7 activator v2 by orbit 30 2009 hyundai 2. Batman Il Cavaliere Oscuro: Il Ritorno trailer italiano, trailer ita, Streaming Batman Il Cavaliere Oscuro: Il Ritorno ITA, Batman Il Cavaliere Oscuro: Il Ritorno.
Of course I am not sure that I have found the one 'key' to his mind. But at least I can offer the reader a fresh interpretation of a figure who continues to excite interest and stimulate disagreement. That he was one of the leading churchmen of the pre-Tridentine period is certain. Equally important is the fact that he was a Venetian noble. But here we enter a hall of mirrors: Did he internalize the ethos of actual or ideal Venetian patricians?
By extension, did he see in Paul III, that enigmatic pontiff so difficult of access to the historian, an actual or an ideal pope? Was reform a practical matter for him, to be pursued in the face of the Lutheran threat, or something to which he was committed on principle? Venice, Rome—meaning the Rome of Popes Clement VII and Paul III—and reform are three intersecting and inextricably linked themes in Contarini's thought. I hope that I have made sense of their connection, and that my book has wider implications not only for the sixteenth century but for our own time as well. ― xi ― Acknowledgments My debts for assistance received from institutions and individuals are many, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge them. A grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation enabled me to spend a semester in Venice, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities made possible another semester's work in Rome. A sabbatical leave from the University of San Francisco facilitated the completion of research in Italy.