taken root, the main impulse coming from the Swiss Cantons. Here he ministered, generally at Poschiavo, until his death in 1571. The Florentine scholar Antonio JBrucioli, banished from his own city, had come to Venice and set up a printing-press. In 1532 (two years before Luther's German translation was completed) he published his Italian translation of the whole Bible, based upon Santi Pagnani's learned Latin version from the original languages; and this he followed up subsequently by a voluminous commentary. In 1546 he was in the prisons of the Inquisition, accused of publishing heretical books; and although it may be doubted whether anything of his could justly be so described, his troubles at the hands of the Holy Office ended only with his life. A more striking personality was that of Baldo Lupetino of Albona in Istria, uncle of the well-known Mattia Vlacich (M. Flacius Illyricus). He was a conventual Franciscan, and had held the office of provincial; an acute scholar and a devout man. Accused of preaching heresy in the Duomo at Cherso, he fell into the hands of the Venetian Inquisition in 1541; and, although the Lutheran Princes interceded on his behalf, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life, it being clear from depositions made then and subsequently that he was a Lutheran. In 1547 he was again in trouble for preaching to his fellow-prisoners, and was sentenced to be beheaded, his body to be burned, and his ashes to be cast into the sea " to the honour and glory of Jesus Christ." The Doge relaxed the sentence; but in 1555 he was again accused, and the following year he was degraded and drowned.
Nor were disciples lacking. The letters of Aleander, when Nuncio at Venice, speak of a great religious association of artisans existing there in 1534, the leaders being one Pietro Buonavita of Padua, a carpenter, a French glover, and several German Lutherans. The two first-mentioned were taken and imprisoned for life; but Aleander continues to lament the progress of heresy and the apathy of the Senate. We learn more about the Reformed in Venetian lands from the letters of Baldassare Altieri of Aquila in the Abruzzi, a literary adventurer who came to Venice about 1540, served Sir Edmund Hastwell, the English ambassador, till 1548, and after two years of wandering died at Ferrara in August, 1550. He acted as a kind of secretary to the Reformed, and wrote on behalf of "the brethren of the Church of Venice, Vicenza, and Treviso" to Luther, Bullinger, and others, begging for the good offices of the Lutherans with the Venetian government. The brethren are, he says, in the sorest need, and cannot improve their state whilst the Signory allows them no liberty. They have no public churches; each is a church to himself. There are plenty of apostles, but none properly called; all is disorder, and false teachers abound. Nevertheless, they adhere to Luther in doctrine as against the Sacramentaries, and do not despair, since " God can raise up new Luthers amongst them.1" But their appeals were in vain; the Lutheran Princes had their hands full already, and the Swiss were not
