The theologian Pietro Martire Vermigli (sometimes simply…

The theologian Pietro Martire Vermigli (sometimes simply Peter Martyr), originally Piero Marian Vermigli, had taken the name Peter Martyr, after St. Peter Martyr, when he had been ordained into the Augustinian order.

Born in Florence and educated in the Augustinian cloister at Fiesole, he had been transferred in 1519 to the convent of St. John of Verdara near Padua, where he had graduated D.D. about 1527 and made the acquaintance of the future Reginald Cardinal Pole.

He had been employed from that year onward as a public preacher at Brescia, Pisa, Venice and Rome; and in his intervals of leisure he had mastered Greek and Hebrew.

He had been elected abbot of the Augustinian monastery at Spoleto in 1530, and in 1533 prior of the convent of St. Peter ad Aram at Naples.

About this time, primarily through the influence of Spanish religious writer Juan de Valdes, he had read Martin Bucer's commentaries on the Gospels and the Psalms and also Huldrych Zwingli's De vera et falsa religione; and his Biblical studies began to affect his views.

He had then been accused of erroneous doctrine, and the Spanish viceroy of Naples had prohibited his preaching.

The prohibition had been removed on appeal to Rome, but in 1541 Martyr had been transferred to Lucca, where he had again fallen under suspicion.

Summoned to appear before a chapter of his order at Genoa, …