Sally Metzler
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Though an obscure figure today, for many years Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) loomed large in the ecclesiastical, scientific, and political arenas of Europe. Macaulay praised him as his “favorite modern historian,”¹ Boswell called him a genius, and Samuel Johnson considered translating him to the English-speaking world. A venerable polymath, he was a voracious scholar, penning among a retinue of great works The History of the Council of Trent (1619) and The History of the Inquisition (1638). He entered religious life with the Servite Order at the tender age of fourteen, yet he achieved much outside the spiritual realm, particularly in science. Sarpi is credited with being the first to demonstrate that the pupil of the eye dilates under the action of light.² His explorations in optics engendered a friendship with the famed Galileo, who thanked Fra Sarpi for assistance in constructing his telescope, acknowledging the help of “mio padre e maestro Sarpi” (my father and master Sarpi).³ Further, Sarpi’s belief and promulgation of the Copernican viewpoint of the universe led to Galileo’s eventual adoption thereof, influencing centuries of scientific exploration. More specifically, Sarpi first embraced the Copernican theory of the tides, later espoused by Galileo.⁴ Sarpi demonstrated his sagacity by presciently defending Galileo against the heretical claims of Rome: “The day will come, I am almost sure, when men, better versed in these matters, will deplore the disgrace of Galileo and the injustice dealt so great a man.”⁵

Today best known for his cogent theological arguments on behalf of the Venetian Republic against papal hegemony, Sarpi contributed to medicine and science. In anatomy, at the peak stands his discovery of the valves of veins that facilitate the circulation of blood⁶; Sarpi’s findings are said to predate the research of William Harvey by 25 years or more.⁷ Lauded as a mathematical wizard, he also possessed a command of botany and chemistry, in which he investigated magnetism.

In addition to pure scientific research, Sarpi advocated a form of “religious medicine,” as demonstrated in his book Pensieri, a compendium of his philosophy. Sarpi referred to religion as “medicine” that would heal an unhealthy society.⁸ Further, “religion was, therefore, the healing power that could balance political and moral life in human society. … only religion could bring relief and heal sickness.”⁹

The trials and tribulations of his life read as Shakespearean tragedy. Austere eating habits contributed to his poor physical health. He suffered from the cold, and in his staunch belief that all air was dangerous, he constructed a makeshift paper bubble around himself when sitting at his desk. The English Ambassador to Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, with whom Sarpi was well acquainted, admired him, giving the following account: “Excellent in scholastic and polemical divinity; a rare mathematician even in the most abstruse parts thereof, and yet withal so expert in the history of plants as if he had never perused any book but Nature.”¹⁰

Such a scholarly, unassuming friar would usually not represent a target of invective controversy and vituperation. However, when Pope Paul V excommunicated the Venetian Republic, no one was better suited to challenge the papal interdict than Fra Paolo Sarpi, a brilliant theologian and master of religious law.¹¹ The Venetian Senate appointed Sarpi at the age of 53 as official counselor, who launched a courageous defense, challenging the Pope by advocating the separation of church and state. He wrote, “countless letters and polemics, preaching, disputing, debating, striving…to define the boundary between the celestial paths of the Church and the terrestrial paths of temporal princes.”¹² Sarpi advised Doge Leonardo Donà to banish the Jesuits, Theatines, and the Capuchins from Venetian territory on account of their papal leanings, and audaciously advised the Doge to reply to the Papal Nuncio “We ignore your excommunication: it is nothing to us.”¹³ And indeed, religious life in Venice continued as normal for most. For these strong convictions, Sarpi became a divisive figure of his time. Venetians kissed his feet, but in Rome and Madrid, his writings were publicly burned.¹⁴ Some critics lobbed attacks declaring Sarpi was a secret Protestant who feigned being a Catholic to infiltrate and cause disruption from within; others decried him as a “seducer dressed as a Christ…an avid wolf dressed in lamb’s clothing.”¹⁵ Feelings against Sarpi were so intense in some camps that he became a target of assassination, one shockingly orchestrated high up in the papacy. The public and blatant truth that the Pope’s interdict failed brought papal ire upon Sarpi. On October 25, 1607, Sarpi left his office at the Doge’s Palace for his daily walk home to the Servite monastery. The moment he descended the Santa Fosca bridge, three assassins stabbed him, twice in the neck and once in his right ear. Amazingly, he survived, but whispers insinuated that the marks of his wounds were in the “Roman style,” leading naturally to the conclusion of Curia involvement.¹⁶ A portrait of Sarpi displays on his cheek a black patch covering his scar of honor (Fig. 1). As expected from the steadfast and humble Friar Sarpi, he refused the offer from the Republic of an apartment near the Doge’s Palace to better ensure his safety and avoid the long walk to work from home. He did accept the gift of a gondola to transport him to work. Even so, two more unsuccessful attempts would be made on his life, one stemming from his own monastery. He died from unknown causes on January 15, 1623, declaring on his deathbed: “Esto perpetua” (“May she endure for ever”), referring no doubt to his beloved Venetian Republic.¹⁷

References

1. See Peter Burke, “The Great Unmasker: Paolo Sarpi, 1552-1623,” History Today 15, no. 6 (June 1965).
2. Vincent Cronin, “Paolo Sarpi: Italian theologian,” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paolo-Sarpi.
3. See John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 512.
4. For a detailed discussion on Copernicus, Sarpi, Galileo, and Drake, see R. Naylor, “Paolo Sarpi and the first Copernican tidal theory,” BJHS (British Journal for the History of Science) 47, no. 4 (December 2014): 661-75.
5. Cronin, “Paolo Sarpi: Italian theologian.”
6. Cronin, “Paolo Sarpi: Italian theologian.”
7. There exist many discussions as to whom should be credited with the actual discovery of the circulation of the blood. See: Philip R. Liebson, “William Harvey,” Hektoen International, https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/william-harvey/; “William Harvey before King Charles I,” Hektoen International https://hekint.org/2020/04/28/william-harvey-before-king-charles-i/
8. See pp. 65-66 in N. Riverso, “Paolo Sarpi: A Baroque Chameleon, MLN (Modern Language Notes) 129, no. 1 (Italian, January 2014): 62-78.
9. Riverso, 66.
10. Norwich, 513. Wooten continued his praise: “…Lastly, a great canonist, which was the title of his ordinary service with the state, and certainly in the time of the Pope’s interdict, they had their principal light from him.”
11. The incident causing the last straw leading up to the interdict was “in autumn 1605 when Venice imprisoned two priests. Rome claimed that only she had the right to try clerics, but Venice did not hand them over.” See Gerald Curzon, “Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623),” Philosophy Now 101 (March/April 2014).
12. Norwich, 515.
13. Norwich, 514. As noted, this interdict was not the first under which Venice suffered: one in 1284, 1309, and 1483. To the horror of Pope Paul V, this current interdict had failed completely, what in the past had been “The most dreaded weapon in the papal armoury.”
14. Norwich, 515.
15. Riverso, 63.
16. Norwich, 516.
17. Norwich, 517.