Background
Paolo Sarpi was born on August 14, 1552 in Venice, Italy. His father was a merchant, although not a successful one, his mother a Venetian noblewoman.
historian scientist statesman prelate canon lawyer
Paolo Sarpi was born on August 14, 1552 in Venice, Italy. His father was a merchant, although not a successful one, his mother a Venetian noblewoman.
The financial straits of the family, after the death of Sarpi's father, shifted the responsibility for Sarpi’s education to his uncle, Ambrogio Morelli, the head titular priest of St. Hermangora.
Sarpi was assigned to a monastery in Mantua around 1567, where he studied mathematics and oriental languages. He then went to Milan in 1575, where he was an adviser to Charles Borromeo, the saint and bishop, but was transferred by his superiors to Venice, as professor of philosophy at the Servite convent. In 1579, he became Provincial of the Venetian Province of the Servite order, while studying at the University of Padua.
Sarpi returned to Venice in 1588, and passed the next 17 years in study, occasionally interrupted by the internal disputes of his community.
Notwithstanding the opposition of his relatives, Sarpi entered the order of the Servi di Maria, a minor Augustinian congregation of Florentine origin, at the age of thirteen.
He assumed the name of Paolo, by which, with the epithet Servila, he was always known to his contemporaries.
After leaving Mantua, he repaired to Milan, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Borromeo, but was soon transferred by his superiors to Venice, as professor of philosophy at the Servite convent.
The sense of injury, no doubt, contributed to exasperate Sarpi's feelings towards the court of Rome.
For the time, however, he tranquilly pursued his studies, writing those notes on Vieta which establish his proficiency in mathematics, and a metaphysical treatise now lost, which, if Foscarini's account of it may be relied upon, anticipated the sensationalism of Locke.
His anatomical pursuits probably date from a somewhat earlier period.
They illustrate his versatility and thirst for knowledge, but are far from possessing the importance ascribed to them by his disciples.
His claim to have anticipated Harvey's discovery rests on no better authority than a memorandum, probably copied from Caesalpinus or Harvey himself, with whom, as well as with Bacon and Gilbert, he maintained a correspondence.
The only physiological discovery which can be safely attributed to him is that of the contractility of the iris.
At the same time Venice was adopting measures to restrict it still further.
In January 1606 the papal nuncio delivered a brief demanding the unconditional submission of the Venetians.
He prudently began by republishing the anti-papal opinions of the famous canonist Gerson.
In an anonymous tract published shortly afterwards (Risposta di un Dottore in Teologia) he laid down principles which struck at the very root of the pope's authority in secular things.
Material arguments were no longer at the pope's disposal.
The Venetian clergy, a few religious orders excepted, disregarded the interdict, and discharged their functions as usual.
These honours exasperated his adversaries to the uttermost.
On the 5th of October he was attacked by a band of assassins and left for dead, but the wounds were not mortal.
The bravos found a refuge in the papal territories.
The only question can be as to the degree of complicity of Pope Paul V. The remainder of Sarpi's life was spent peacefully in his cloister, though plots against him continued to be formed, and he occasionally spoke of taking refuge in England.
When not engaged in framing state papers, he devoted himself to scientific studies, and composed several works.
A Machiavellian tract on the fundamental maxims of Venetian policy (Opinione come debba governarsi la repubblica di Venezia), used by his adversaries to blacken his memory, is undoubtedly not his.
Nor did he complete a reply which he had been ordered to prepare to the Squitinio della libertd veneta, which he perhaps found unanswerable.
In 1610 appeared his History of Ecclesiastical Benefices, " in which, " says Ricci, " he purged the church of the defilement introduced by spurious decretals. "
In 1611 he assailed another abuse by his treatise on the right of asylum claimed for churches, which was immediately placed on the Index.
The result is not highly favourable to either; neither can be taxed with deliberate falsification, but both have coloured and suppressed.
Ranke rates the literary qualities of Sarpi's work very highly.
The day before his death he had dictated three replies to questions on affairs of state, and his last words were " Esto perpetua. "
Sarpi longed for the toleration of Protestant worship in Venice, and had hoped for a separation from Rome and the establishment of a Venetian free church by which the decrees of the council of Trent would have been rejected, and in which the Bible would have been an open book.
It must further be considered that, though Sarpi admired the English prayer-book, he was neither Anglican, Lutheran nor Calvinist, and might have found it difficult to accommodate himself to any Protestant church.
As a historian and thinker in the realist tradition of Tacitus, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini, Sarpi stressed that patriotism as national pride or honor could play a central role in social control.
Sarpi's father was a merchant, although not a successful one, his mother a Venetian noblewoman. While he was still a child his father died. The brilliant and precocious boy was educated by his maternal uncle, a school teacher.