Protestant Italy

In the 1500's, Italy

-Was very urbanized

-Had an economy that, much more than most other places in Europe, depended on trade, banking, finance, etc.

-Had a lot of universities and, in general, was a center of scholarship and the arts.

-Was divided into a number of small states, many of which had conflicts with the Pope at one point or another

-Had had some religious dissidents (most notably Savonarola) in the 1400's

All of these things would seem to suggest that Italy should have been receptive to Protestantism...but it wasn't. It not only didn't wind up becoming Protestant, but, to my knowledge, there wasn't even a significant Protestant movement in Italy. No large underground body that needed to be shown the error of its ways by the Jesuits/Inquisition, no group of protestant nobles who needed to be pressured back into the fold by their lords, no France-style potracted religious conflict.

Why was this, what PODs might make Italy more receptive to Luther and Calvin, and what might some of the butterflies be?
 
The reason why Protestantism took root in Germany was, among many reasons, also partly due to the Emperor's weakness. While the Emperor remained a mostly determined Catholic, he was unable to enforce this and the princes succesfully changed the religious structure of the church in their domain.

Also, you have to remember, a major complaint by the Germans was german funds going to pay for an Italian Pope's building projects. The Pope was far away.

In Italy, the Pope was right there. And he had an army. He also had far tighter control over the clerics in the area. None of them were about to rock the boat or the Church would come down on them like a sack of bricks.

Also if you want to get cynical, think about it in terms of ambition. Many powerfull people who in Northern Europe would change the Church had no chance of actually attaining the Papacy (if they were a Cleric) or putting an ally cleric on the throne of St. Peter (if they were a monarch). The Italians did have every chance to become Pope or put an ally in the Vatican. By going protestant, you would be denying yourself the ability to gain the prestige and power of the papacy.

I really cannot think of a way for Italy to go Protestant with perhaps the exception of all of Europe embracing Protestantism.
 
Also, if you want an almost half joking explanation, Luther and Calvin and Zwingli were a bunch of dour killjoys and who really appealed to the kind of piety popular in Northern Europe. This Killjoy piety was not as popular in Italy.
 
Also, if you want an almost half joking explanation, Luther and Calvin and Zwingli were a bunch of dour killjoys and who really appealed to the kind of piety popular in Northern Europe. This Killjoy piety was not as popular in Italy.

And actually that kind of works, the Italian churches bombast and celebration was a huge advantage they held, that and they where not nearly as abusive in their position as the German bishops.
 
n Italy, the Pope was right there. And he had an army. He also had far tighter control over the clerics in the area. None of them were about to rock the boat or the Church would come down on them like a sack of bricks.


Savaronala would beg to differ, as would Venice.
 
Also, remember that at the time that Protestantism was spreading all of Southern Italy (and eventually the Duchy of Milan) was personally controlled by Emperor Charles V and later by the Spanish, not to mention many Northern Italian States were under Spanish Influence. He and his son were definitely anti-protestant so I doubt any Italian Duke or Prince would want to bring down the Emperors wrath on themselves, especially after what the Imperial army did to Rome in 1527.
 
In the 1500's, Italy

-Was very urbanized

-Had an economy that, much more than most other places in Europe, depended on trade, banking, finance, etc.

-Had a lot of universities and, in general, was a center of scholarship and the arts.

-Was divided into a number of small states, many of which had conflicts with the Pope at one point or another

-Had had some religious dissidents (most notably Savonarola) in the 1400's

All of these things would seem to suggest that Italy should have been receptive to Protestantism...but it wasn't. It not only didn't wind up becoming Protestant, but, to my knowledge, there wasn't even a significant Protestant movement in Italy. No large underground body that needed to be shown the error of its ways by the Jesuits/Inquisition, no group of protestant nobles who needed to be pressured back into the fold by their lords, no France-style potracted religious conflict.

Why was this, what PODs might make Italy more receptive to Luther and Calvin, and what might some of the butterflies be?

Italy had some Protestant underground groups and a conspicuous amount of religious dissidence, some of it with some degree of occasional political support from the above (Tuscany, Lucca, Venice are the foremost examples).
The basic reason why, with the exception of the Valdensian minority in Piedmont, this never really took root is that the Church was much more strict in policying her "motherland" (note that from this age on, until John Paul II, all Popes have been Italians) than elsewehere, and had also in general much more leeway and political clout in enforcing repressive policies, partly exactly because of the weakness of most Italian states.
I am not sure how you could change that, but at times, Venice and Lucca could have probably turned Protestant with some POD.
 
Also, remember that at the time that Protestantism was spreading all of Southern Italy (and eventually the Duchy of Milan) was personally controlled by Emperor Charles V and later by the Spanish, not to mention many Northern Italian States were under Spanish Influence. He and his son were definitely anti-protestant so I doubt any Italian Duke or Prince would want to bring down the Emperors wrath on themselves, especially after what the Imperial army did to Rome in 1527.

Well he didn't have that much success in preventing the spread of Protestantism in the Low Countries and Germany? Yes Charles V was immensely powerful but he was also massively overstretched.
 
This is just impossible.

Italy was the part of Europe which profited most from the catholic church. Thanks to the Papacy, it drained important amounts of money from the rest of Europe, and especially from the HRE and from England (whose king was legally a vassal of the Pope since John Lackland). This explains also why Protestantism spread more successfully in the HRE and in England. They did not have a king as strong as the king of France, or to a lesser degree the kings of Castile or Arago who could more easily resist to the financial drains the Papacy exerted on the HRE.
 
The English monarchy was strong, it was just stupid, in a series of moronic attempts to get the Pope onside in it's wars against France it made concession after concession and got precisely nothing in return.
 
Might it help if Italy was no longer the seat of the papacy? Perhaps during the Italian Wars, the Aragonese/Spanish abduct the pope and the cardinals and bring him to Spain; in a sort of replay of the Avignon situation. If the pope is seen as foreign puppet ordering Italian priests around for the benefit of his Spanish masters, than a presbyterian system of church government might look attractive.
But I still think that the typical protestant trait of frugality and sobriety probably will not attract the majority.
 
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