Italian Studies in Early Modern English History: Two Recent Publications

Stefano Villani, Stefania Tutino, and Chiara Franceschini, eds.
Questioni di storia inglese tra cinque e seicento: cultura, politica e religione. Atti del seminario tenutosi presso la Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa l’11 e 12 aprile 2002.
Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2003.  viii + 318 pp.
[ISBN 88-7642-149-1]

Stefano Villani, ed.
A True Account of the great Tryals and Cruel Sufferings undergone by those two faithful servants of God Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers: La vicenda di due quacchere prigioniere dell’inquisizione di Malta.
Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2003. xiv + 366 pp.[€ 30,00 ISBN 88-7642-121-1]

Michael J. Redmond
Università di Palermo

M. J. Redmond, "Italian Studies in Early Modern English History: Two Recent Publications", Cromohs, 9 (2004): 1-6
< URL: http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/9_2004/redmond_villani.html >

1. It is difficult to study any aspect of early modern England without referring to Italy. Given the place of Rome as the administrative centre of Catholicism, where the papacy sought to regain authority over the English church, the peninsula acquired a specific association with real and perceived efforts of religious subversion.
What is striking, in spite of consistent anti-Catholic paranoia, is the extent of secular contacts between the two countries. The English were eager to exploit the benefits of economic and cultural trade with the Italian states. The intellectual ferment of the Cinquecento, producing radical innovations in political thought and artistic endeavour, confirmed Italy’s position as a net cultural exporter. The profitable career of the London publisher John Wolfe, noted for his surreptitious original language edition of Machiavelli’s Principe and Discorsi, underlines the market value at the time of Italian authors diverse as Gentili, Ubaldini, and Aretino. For although there was a conscious desire to assert an autonomous English identity, marked by unique religious and cultural formations, domestic nationalists felt obliged to acknowledge the appeal of Italian ideas and fashions. It is telling that even Roger Ascham, author of the widely imitated warning against travel to Italy in The Schoolmaster (1570), did see any logical incoherence in his enthusiastic promotion of Castiglione’s models of courtly conduct.
With the increasing recognition of the importance of Italy to our understanding of England in the period, Italian early modernists have the opportunity to make a significant contribution to current academic debates. In the area of literary criticism, for example, traditional source studies have been transformed in recent years by the work of scholars based in Italy. The most effective research taking place in the country at the moment draws on local archival materials and Italian language texts to address wider problems in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. What comes to the fore in two recent volumes published by the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa is the extent to which young Italian historians are now bringing their home field advantage to bear upon religious conflicts. In his edition of A True Account of the Great Tryals and Cruel Suffering Undergone by those two faithful servants of God Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers, a 1663 report of the experiences of two Quakers imprisoned for heresy in Malta, Stefano Villani’s introduction uses extensive archival sources to place the original narration within the context of how the Englishwomen were documented by the Maltese Inquisition and the church hierarchy in Rome. The impact of religious tensions on Anglo-Italian relations from the Renaissance to the Restoration is a particular concern of the contributors to Questioni di storia inglese tra cinque e seicento: cultura, politica e religione, a collection of papers taken from a conference held at the Scuola Normale Superiore in 2002. In the volume, edited by Stefano Villani, Stefania Tutino, and Chiara Franceschini, the reader gains an appreciation of the great variety of issues involved in theological and political opinion during the period.

2. The True Account of the Great Tryals and Cruel Suffering, a compilation of records, letters, and personal recollections regarding the three and a half year incarceration of the two Quakers, provides a remarkable testimony of the emotional and spiritual life of women in trying circumstances. By the time that Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers decided to go to the Mediterranean to promote the nascent religious movement it was clear that collaborators with the Inquisition devoted special attention to all British travellers and residents in Catholic states. The highly publicized case of the Scotsman William Lithgow, who sought revenge for his torture in Malaga by attacking the Spanish ambassador in the presence chamber of James I, was among the well known examples of the perils of arousing the interest of the church’s enforcement organization. Despite the persecution that Quakers faced in England during the final years of Cromwell’s rule, Evans and Cheevers seem to have been remarkably insensible to potential dangers in the course of their intended voyage to Alexandria in Egypt at the end of 1658. At their first stop in Livorno, they took the opportunity to distribute proselytizing tracts and were eventually denounced by a resident Irish priest. Before the accusation was processed by the bureaucracy of the Holy Office there, the two peculiarly attired women had already arrived in Malta and, as objects of intense curiosity within the small island community, became the subjects of a further denunciation. For although they had been warned immediately by the local English consul that "there was an Inquisition", as they concede at the beginning of the 1663 volume, the would be missionaries were keen to make the most of the interest they had provoked: "there came many to see us, and we called them to repentance, and many of them were tender" (89-90). When they were warmly received by a group of bored nuns, handing out a tract by George Fox, it was only a matter of time before their actions would be curtailed.
The interrogation tactics in the Maltese prison, as represented in the women’s letters and recollections, were based upon the continual threat of violence. Katherine Evans takes care to emphasize that, bed ridden by the harsh conditions, the inquisitors would come into her cell and promise her further torments: "Then he said, He would lay me in Chains, where I should neither see Sun nor Moon. They say, The Father hath almost killed you, said he, but I will kill you quite, before I have done" (138).

3. As a complement to his annotated and indexed rendering of the original English text, Stefano Villani’s comprehensive introduction uses Italian and Maltese archival sources to offer a valuable insight into how the Holy Office itself conceived the actions of the two women. The records of the numerous interrogations of Evans and Cheevers detail not only their responses under interrogation but also the motivations behind the questions they were asked and the hardships they were forced to endure. The opinion of Cardinal Barberini, secretary of the Holy Office, was that the inquisitors should consider the women insane, an approach that had already been taken with Quakers incarcerated in Rome.
Apart from the details of their voyage and confinement, Villani’s introduction underlines how the subsequent publication of the experiences of the two women, initially in a shorter format in 1662 while Evans and Cheevers were still being held in Malta, formed part of a propaganda effort on the part of the English Quaker movement after the Restoration to demonstrate to domestic critics that it had nothing to do with Catholicism. In the contested religious climate under Charles II, as Villani makes clear, "i quaccheri [...] si rifiutavano di prestare il giuramento di fedeltà antipapista e venivano per questo accusati dagli altri protestanti inglesi di essere cattolici" (71). By documenting their interrogation and deprivations in the prison of the Inquisition, in a text compiled by the London Quaker activist Daniel Baker, the movement was able to assert its Protestant credentials and offer an inspiring testimony of faith and endurance to its own followers.
With the impeccable critical apparatus provided in this edition, the narrative of Evans and Cheevers will appeal not only to specialists in religious history but also those with a broader interest in the area of seventeenth century women’s writing.

4. The experience of the two Quakers is one example of the continuous traffic of people, texts, and ideas that moved to and from England in the early modern period. While much has been said in the past about the insularity of English history, as Mario Rosa suggests in his introduction to Questioni di storia inglese tra cinque e seicento, developments in the country were profoundly affected by exchanges with the continent as a whole, and Italy in particular. Though the use of Italian documentary evidence, especially from the archives of church organizations, many of the most compelling essays in the volume trace the signs of English events that were recorded at a distance by observers and Vatican officials in the peninsula. Such a strategy is especially fruitful in dealing with the controversies surrounding the place of Catholicism in England, where both adherents and opponents saw Rome as the centre of operations for the diffusion of the faith. Apart from religious history, however, other essays consider domestic political debates and philosophical movements. The insertion of a short chapter at the beginning of the text commemorating the life of Onofrio Nicastro, a major historian of early modern English philosophical culture and former professor at the University of Pisa, is a appropriate tribute to a vibrant academic community. By including the work of young researchers in a number of subject areas, Stefano Villani, Stefania Tutino, and Chiara Franceschini have produced a book that is noteworthy for the diversity of its themes and methodological approaches.

5. The first six of the thirteen essays included in the volume deal with English history prior to the Civil War. As with many collections of conference papers published in Italy, the editors have chosen the historical order of events as their organizing principle. While this structure does have the advantage of simplicity, the range of interdisciplinary work on offer might be better served by dividing the essays into specific categories.
The collection begins with Daniela Bianchi’s survey of the growth of an identifiable Puritan identity in the period from 1572 to 1588, as opponents of state endorsed Anglicanism began to see themselves and be seen as a distinct theological faction. In opposing what was seen as the inherently Catholic structure of the official church, Bianchi argues, Puritan ideology came to imply a conflict between popular belief and state authority. The contribution of Ginevra Crosignani, presenting the discovery of new documentation in the Archivio romano della Compagnia di Gesù about the life and works of the former Jesuit Thomas Wright, offers a provocative account of a possible textual controversy between Wright and Robert Parsons, a Jesuit leader based in Rome, about the legitimacy of participating in Anglican services. Given the penalties faced by avowed Catholics in England, the idea that they could show themselves in public at the state church without committing heresy was not unappealing to those who saw the costs of dissension. With the support of a manuscript distinguishing official Vatican doctrine from the claims of an Incerto Autore, Crosignani argues that Parsons must have been responding to proposals by Wright when he denied any possibility of religious conformism. The focus on the difficult position of English Catholics persists in the essay by Stefania Tutino, recounting the efforts to influence James I’s religious policies at the start of his reign. Although the accession of the new monarch raised Catholic hopes for increased tolerance, encouraged by James’s liberation of Thomas Pound after thirty years imprisonment, committed Protestant activists like Andrew Willet demanded a continuation of Elizabeth I’s suppression of the faith. For Willet, as shown in cited passages which surely recall Roger Ascham’s concept of the Italianate Englishman, Catholics were an internal threat to the state because they had "English faces, but Romish hearts" (69). A more positive vision of Anglo-Italian cultural exchanges emerges in Chiara Franceschini’s study of the English experiences of Giacomo Castelvetro, an important ambassador of the country’s language and culture who is also known for being one of the first Italians to criticize the failings of English cuisine. Throughout his life, spent for the most part in exile as a language tutor and diplomatic agent, Castelvetro had a number of encounters with branches of the Inquisition. When he was arrested by the Holy Office in Venice in 1611, Franceschini shows, his standing was such that the English ambassador threatened a diplomatic incident to obtain his release. In the case of Marcantonio De Dominis, recounted in the chapter by Elenora Belligni, refuge in England was only a reprieve from the Inquisition. What led to the downfall of De Dominis, burnt in Rome in 1624, was his persistent challenge to papal authority. Amidst the efforts of James I to build closer relations to the Catholic powers of the continent, Belligni notes, there was not the political or moral will to protect such an outspoken figure when wider political interests were at stake. The final chapter to deal with the Stuart period is Mauro Simonazzi’s discussion of the theological and medical implications of melancholy. For the people of the time, the symptoms of melancholy were so disturbing that even members of the College of Physicians were inclined to see them as a manifestation of the devil. With the efforts of Timothy Bright to separate the treatment of psychological problems from religious prejudices, Simonazzi argues, England witnessed the beginning of modern diagnostic practices.

6. The final seven chapters of the volume consider historical questions arising from the period between the English Civil War and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Mario Caricchio surveys the publishing activity of Giles Calvert, one of the most aggressive proponents of radical ideas in the years leading up to the Revolution. Noted for his desire to make a quick profit, as Caricchio emphasizes, Calvert’s aggressive exploitation of a market for seditious ideas seems to be symptomatic of the ideological climate of the time. The complex negotiations required of English residents in Italy, affected by the changing political and religious climates of both countries, comes to the fore in Stefano Villani’s fascinating account of the expatriate merchant community in Livorno during the rule of Ferdinand II. The economic advantages of trade encouraged the leader of the state to tolerate the English as much as possible, permitting a notable level of de facto religious tolerance. However, as Villani demonstrates, the task of managing the community became more difficult as the "piccola epitome di Inghilterra" began to reflect increasing divisions at home, separating not only Protestant from Catholic but also Royalist from Parliamentarian. The subject of Luisa Simonutti’s contribution is the advocacy of the liberty of conscience in the writings of William Popple and William Penn. After the Restoration, with the pressures to quell dissent once and for all, Simonutti argues that the potential repression of minority sects encouraged both Popple and Penn to place spiritual beliefs within the context of a wider call for personal liberty. The discussion of the social and political implications of religious tolerance continues in Giovanni Tarantino’s stimulating essay on the terms of the debate about the liberty of conscience during the reign of James II. By highlighting the economic advantages of avoiding conflict, as Tarantino makes clear, apologists for the policies of the new ruler sought to minimize the relevance of theological concerns. Nonetheless, amidst the real fears concerning a potential restoration of Catholicism, such bland rhetoric about commercial prosperity had little appeal to entrenched interests in the Anglican hierarchy and aristocracy. With his account of the changing face of Anglican culture after the Glorious Revolution, Guglielmo Sanna extends the range of religious issues covered in the volume. In line with current scholarly trends, Sanna argues that the traditional doctrine of royal legitimacy promulgated by the Church of England remained intact in spite of the dynastic upheaval. To account for the installation of William of Orange on the throne, Anglican theologians rationalized the "rivoluzione come un caso tipico di intervento diretto della provvidenza nelle vicende umane" (243). In opposition to the continuity within the theological establishment, as the contribution of Dario Pfanner suggests, the latter part of the seventeenth century also witnessed the emergence of a vibrant community of free thinkers. Pfanner provides an introduction to the life and career of Charles Blount, a minor writer who carved out a prominent role as a publicist for the latest developments in science and social thought. The increasing circulation of knowledge comes into view in Tomaso Cavallo’s chapter on the manner in which the great Encyclopédie represented the political thought of Thomas Hobbes. In an apt conclusion to the volume, underlining England’s ever increasing connection to the continent, Cavallo proposes that the influence of the materialist theories of Hobbes was felt well beyond the explicit discussion of his ideas in Diderot’s section on Hobbisme.
The contemporaneous publication of two rewarding volumes on early modern English history is an indication of the vitality of current studies in Italy and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in particular. To encourage the circulation of such research, it is to be hoped that many of the authors will go on to present their work on an international level.

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