Fra Paolo Sarpi: The Greatest of the Venetians. By Alexander Robertson, D.D., Venice. London: George Allen & Company. 3rd Edition, enlarged, 7s. 6d.
DR. ALEXANDER ROBERTSON’S “Life of Sarpi,” the first edition of which appeared in 1893, takes rank as the best English biography of the great Venetian. A second edition of this valuable work appeared in 1894, but it, too, was soon sold out, and the book had been reckoned for some time as out of print. A third edition, with which the public are now happily supplied, was a real desideratum.
Dr. Robertson has unbounded admiration for his hero, and his “Life of Sarpi” is felt from outset to finish to have been a labour of love. Dr. Robertson is naturally disposed to sympathise with all his heart with Sarpi’s ruling passion, “freedom of thought and love of country,” and his long residence in Venice has placed him in the most advantageous position for his coming to know all the facts.
PAOLO SARPI (1552-1623) is best known as the author of a History of the Council of Trent, as “the incomparable historian of the Council of Trent,” to use Gibbon’s description of him. But he was a many-sided man, a colossal personality, a man indeed who is coming to his own, and readers of Dr. Robertson’s “Life” will have a good idea of the reason why that should have been so. At all events, Sarpi, on account of his intrinsic personal worth and greatness, is well worth knowing. To the student of history, an acquaintance with his life and opinions is simply indispensable. Who would know Italy as it now is must know Sarpi.
He was an altogether remarkable man. He was born in comparatively poor circumstances in Venice. At the time of his death he was the most highly honoured citizen of the Republic. He was left a fatherless orphan when yet a child, yet he rose to distinction in almost every intellectual pursuit known to his age. Galileo reckoned him as second to none in Europe in his knowledge of mathematics. In anatomy, his discovery of the arterial valves led to Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood. Gladstone placed him second to Thucydides as an historian. With natural philosophy in all its branches he was profoundly conversant. And he was good as he was great, “a miracle of learning and of modesty,” as Bishop Sanderson of Lincoln, his contemporary, called him. He seemed to know the Greek New Testament by heart, and in an acquaintance with the history of Christian doctrine none in that age excelled him. At the age of fourteen he became a fratri of the Servite Order, and for fifty-seven years scarcely spent a night out of his cell, yet his influence was nowhere exerted as in the Council Chamber of his country’s Senate, or in his Doge’s palace. He was not a Protestant, in the sense of being either a Lutheran, or a Calvinist, or an Anabaptist, yet his principles were essentially reformatory, and these found expression on a splendid scale when he victoriously led the Venetian Republic on the historical occasion of its contest with Pope Paul V., when the Pope placed the Republic under interdict. He never quite quitted the Roman Catholic fold, yet by his constant opposition to the Jesuits, and by his powerful, and whilst he lived, successful advocacy of the doctrine of a Free Church in a Sovereign State, he brought upon himself the undying hatred of the Papacy. At the instigation of Pope Paul V. he was waylaid by would-be assassins, who, when he had yet fifteen years to live, wounded him so that he carried the scar to his grave. Nor did he only in his life-time win the mortal hatred of the Papacy. After his death the Papacy, which with Sarpi away could and did dominate the Republic, was influential and spiteful enough to bring it about that his mortal remains should have come to a tenth re-burial ere they found their present resting place, and that a statue to Sarpi’s memory, which was decreed in 1623, was erected only in 1892.
Dr. Robertson’s “Life” of this powerful and interesting personality is one very pleasant to read. The type is all that could be wished for, and Dr. Robertson’s own style appears to us to have been modelled on that of Sarpi, “flowers and ornaments it has none, yet is a delight to read.” The interest of the book centres in Sarpi’s great contest with Pope Paul V., already referred to, but what relates to Sarpi’s life antecedently to and subsequently to this pivotal event is told with ample fulness from the point of view of a biography. The value of the book is enhanced by numerous full-paged illustrations, and a fac-simile letter of Sarpi.
J. R. M.