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The Council of Trent has been described by one of the great historians of the world, Fra Paolo Sarpi, whom Macaulay considered second only to Thucydides. Entirely ineffective for the purpose of securing universal concord, it did in reality separate Protestant from Catholic Europe, and establish Papal authority over the Church of Rome.
Sarpi had been fearfully wounded, but he recovered. The action of the Republic in this affair is a comforting refutation of the saying that Republics are ungrateful, and the common belief that Venice was particularly so. The most strenuous and unprecedented efforts were made to take the assassins, and the most terrific penalties were denounced against them.
The next day it was proclaimed on the Piazza, as a bit of news for the people of Venice for which, indeed, those who had not witnessed the contest in the church of the Frari cared little and understood nothing that "in the Philosophical Contest which had taken place between the Friars of the Frari and the Friars of the Servi, the victory had been won by Fra Paolo Sarpi, of the Servi, who had honorably triumphed through his vast understanding of the wisdom of the Fathers of the Church."
Meantime the assassins had found their way back to Rome, and were welcomed with open arms; but it is some comfort to know that later, when such conscience as there was throughout Italy and Europe showed intense disgust at the proceeding, the Roman Court treated them coldly and even severely. The Republic continued in every way to show Sarpi its sympathy and gratitude.
Hardly was the decree known, when the Vatican authorities sent notice that, should any monument be erected to Sarpi, they would anew and publicly declare him excommunicate as a heretic. At this, the Venetian Senate hesitated, waited, delayed. Whenever afterwards the idea of carrying out the decree for the monument was revived, there set in a storm of opposition from Rome.
He tried to enforce his will on the state of Lucca, which, in the days of Pope Paul, had submitted to the Vatican decrees abjectly; but that little republic now seized the weapons which Sarpi had devised, and drove the papal forces out of the field: the papal excommunication was, even by this petty government, annulled in Venetian fashion and even less respectfully.
Leading men in all parts of Europe recognized Sarpi as both a great statesman and a great historian. Among his English friends were such men as Lord Bacon and Sir Henry Wotton; and his praises have been sounded by Grotius, by Gibbon, by Hallam, and by Macaulay. Strong, lucid, these works of Father Paul have always been especially attractive to those who rejoice in the leadership of a master mind.
The whole extent of his assistance to Cave is not known. The Lives of Paul Sarpi, Boerhaave, Admirals Drake and Blake, Barretier, Burman, Sydenham, and Roscommon, with the Essay on Epitaphs, and an Essay on the Account of the Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough, were certainly contributed to his Miscellany by Johnson.
One evening, as he was returning from the Ducal Palace in company with a lay-brother of the convent, and an old patrician, very infirm and helpless, he was attacked by these nuncios of the papal court: one of them seized the lay-brother, and another the patrician, while a third dealt Sarpi innumerable dagger thrusts. He fell as if dead, and the ruffians made off in the confusion.
Its first step was to consult Sarpi. His answer was prompt and pithy. He advised two things: first, to prevent, at all hazards, any publication of the papal bulls in Venice or any obedience to them; secondly, to hold in readiness for use at any moment an appeal to a future Council of the Church. Of these two methods, the first would naturally seem by far the more difficult.
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