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For here, one could only think of the moping and mumming herd of monks, who were certainly not worth remembering, while the fame of Paolo Sarpi, and the good which he did, refused to be localized. That good is an inheritance which has enriched the world; but the share of Venice has been comparatively small in it, and that of this old convent ground still less.
The 52nd Division was allotted a camping ground on the south side of the bay, the camp being known as Sarpi camp. After the Battalion area had been pointed out, canvas was issued and the camp pitched. The only canvas available at the time consisted of a large number of hospital marquee tents which were to accommodate the men and about a dozen bell tents for the use of officers.
With internal safety thus provided for, the Republic intrusted her moral, religious, and political defense entirely to Sarpi, who devoted himself to his trust with fidelity, zeal, and power.
She defies Paul V in the name of freedom, in the days of Sarpi, as she had defied Innocent III in the name of empire in the days of Dandolo. Hellas still lives, still forms an element, vitalizing and omnipresent, in the life of States and in human destiny. Roman grandeur is not dead whilst Sulla, Tacitus, Montesquieu, Machiavelli survive.
I was so curious as to make some inquiry among the workmen on the old convent ground, whether any stone or other record commemorative of Sarpi had been found in the demolished cells. I hoped, not very confidently, to gather some trace of his presence there to have, perhaps, the spot on which he died shown me.
So, too, during various sojourns at Venice my old interest in Father Paul Sarpi, which had been aroused during my early professorial life while reading his pithy and brilliant history of the Council of Trent, was greatly increased, and I collected a considerable library with the idea of writing a short biography of him for American readers.
As to his position, he accepted fully the theories and practices of his boldest predecessors, and in this he had good warrant; for St. Thomas Aquinas and Bellarmine had furnished him with convincing arguments that he was divinely authorized to rule the civil powers of Italy and of the world. For details of these cases of the two monks, see Pascolato. Fra Paolo Sarpi, Milano, 1893, pp. 126-128.
The hostility of the Pope to authors who did not agree with his political views has been excited by many others, amongst whom we may mention the learned Pietro Sarpi, born at Venice in 1552. He joined the order of the Servites, who paid particular veneration to the Blessed Virgin, and of that order Sarpi and a satirical writer named Doni were the most distinguished members.
In the library of Cornell University are no less than nine quartos filled with selected examples of these polemics on both sides. Of all the weapons then used, the most effective throughout Europe was the solemn protest drawn by Sarpi and issued by the Doge.
But another theory, hostile to the despotism of the Church over the State, had been developed through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; it had been strengthened mainly by the utterances of such men as Dante, aegidio Colonna, John of Paris, Ockham, Marsilio of Padua, and Laurentius Valla. Sarpi ranged himself with the latter of these forces.
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