resume preaching on giving a pledge to keep clear of polemics. On the establishment of the inquisition in the summer, he was at once cited before it. Ochino forthwith fled to Geneva, where, after a rigorous catechisation by Calvin, he was licensed to preach on 23 Oct. His flight he justified by apostolic precedents in several published letters (cf. bibliographical note, infra). During his residence at Geneva he began the publication of his sermons in Italian, and printed, in the same language, an ‘Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans,’ which was severely censured by Lancellotto Politi (Ambrosio Catharino) in his ‘Compendio d'Errori et Inganni Luterani,’ Rome, 1544, 4to (cf. Ochino's animated Risposta alle false Calunnie et impie Biastemmie di frate Ambrosio Catharino, 1546, 4to). In 1545 Ochino (now married) settled at Augsburg, where (3 Dec.) he was appointed pastor of the Italian church. On the eve of the surrender of the city to the imperial forces in January 1547 (N.S.) he escaped to Basel, whence, at Cranmer's invitation, he migrated to England, arriving in London with Peter Martyr on 20 Dec. following [see Vermigli, Pietro Martire]. Cranmer received the exiles under the hospitable roof of Lambeth Palace, and provided Ochino, 9 May 1548, with a non-residentiary prebend in the church of Canterbury. He was also granted a crown pension of one hundred marks, and appointed preacher to the Italian church. Some of his sermons were translated into English [cf. Bacon, Ann, Lady]; and in London, in 1549, appeared the unique edition of his most trenchant polemic against the papacy, viz. ‘A Tragedie or Dialoge of the unjust usurped Primacie of the Bishop of Rome.’ This curious pasquinade consists of nine colloquies, the interlocutors being sometimes celestial, sometimes diabolic, sometimes historical personages. It does not lack dramatic power, but the view of the origin of the papacy which it presents is unhistorical. It is dedicated, in a somewhat fulsome style, to Edward VI.
On the accession of Mary, Ochino returned to Basel, and was deprived of his prebend. Removing to Zürich, he was for some years pastor there of a congregation of refugees from Locarno. During this period he published a volume of ‘Apologues’ defamatory of the pope, the higher clergy, and the religious orders; a ‘Dialogue on Purgatory,’ and some tracts on the Eucharist, of which he had adopted the Zwinglian theory; besides perplexing still further the vexed question of free will in a curious treatise, entitled ‘The Labyrinth.’ This book probably inspired Milton's fine passage (‘Paradise Lost,’ ii. 557–61) about the ‘wandering mazes,’ in which the speculative thinkers of the infernal regions ‘found,’ like Ochino, ‘no end.’ In his ‘Thirty Dialogues,’ published in 1563, he handled with a certain freedom both the doctrine of the Trinity and the relations between the sexes. The book was at once censured by the theologians, and its author was, by decree of the senate (22 Nov.), banished from the town and territory of Zürich. Refused an asylum at Basel and Mühlhausen, and expelled, after a brief sojourn, from Nürnberg, Ochino sought the protection of the Polish Prince Nicolaus Radziwill, a Lutheran, to whom he had dedicated the obnoxious dialogues. He was suffered to preach to the Italian residents at Cracow, but, in deference to the representations of the Roman curia, was banished from Poland, by royal edict of 6 Aug. 1564. He died at Slakow in Moravia towards the end of the same year.
As a thinker, Ochino is distinguished rather by ingenuity and agility than by originality or depth. Disgusted by his mental instability, catholic, Calvinist, and Zwinglian combined to misrepresent his opinions and traduce his character. Though he dealt with delicate questions in an incautious manner, there is no reason to suppose that his own life was impure; and, though he has been commonly ranked among anti-trinitarians, his language does not necessarily imply more than a leaning towards Arianism (Dialogi XXX, lib. ii. Dial. xx. ad fin.). Ochino's works were prohibited in Italy upon his flight to Geneva, and in England in 1555. The three earliest, the ‘De Confessione,’ ‘Vita Nuova,’ and ‘Quædam Simplex Declaratio,’ were effectually suppressed (Vergerio, Cat. Lib. Condann. 1548, and Archiv. Stor. Ital. 1ma ser. vol. x. App. p. 168). Addit. MS. 28568 contains the autograph of his dialogues ‘Dello Peccato’ and ‘Della Prudenza Humana.’ The latter is printed in Schelhorn's ‘Ergötzlichkeiten,’ pp. 2009 et seq. A Latin translation of one of his sermons, done by the Princess Elizabeth, and dedicated to Edward VI, is among the autographs in the Bodleian Library (No. B. 6.).
The following are the principal editions of his extremely rare extant works: 1. ‘Prediche Nove,’ Venice, 1539, 1547, 8vo. 2. ‘Prediche,’ Geneva, 1542, 8vo. 3. ‘Sette Dialogi,’ Venice, 1542, 8vo. 4. ‘Responsio ad Mutium Justinopolitanum,’ Venice, 1543, 8vo. 4. ‘Epistola alli molto Magnifici li Signori di Balia della Città di Siena,’ Geneva, 1543, 8vo. 5. ‘Sermones,’ Geneva, 1543–4, 8vo. 6. ‘L'Image de l'Antichrist composé en langue Italienne par Bernardin Ochin de Siene, translaté en Françoys,’ Geneva, 1544,
