From Heretics to Martyrs

‘A holy anchor, and a secure refuge’: that was how Vincenzo Paravicini described Zurich in the preface to his translation of Johann Jakob Breitinger’s Fundamental instruction as to whether a sect may endure more or less than 100 years, published in 1622. ¹ Paravicini, as minister to the congregation of Valtellinese exiles established in Zurich following the infamous ‘sacro macello’ of July 1620 – in which up to 600 Protestants perished at the hands of their Catholic neighbours – had more reason than most to be aware of the benefits that the Italian-speaking Reformed of the Valtellina and other parts of Graubünden had derived from their association with the Swiss city. During the early decades of these communities’ existence, their relationship with Zurich was dogged by controversy over doctrine, as orthodox ministers like Mainardi and Lentolo struggled (with the assistance of the Zurichers) to subdue ‘heretical’ and other dissenting elements within the Italian churches. After 1572, religious radicalism was more or less a spent force in Graubünden: Lentolo and his allies in the Rhaetian pastorate would henceforth set the theological tenor for the Reformed churches of Chiavenna, the Valtellina and the Valbregaglia. Those churches remained in close contact with Zurich, but the latter now functioned more as a provider of practical assistance (in the form of education, books and advice) than as an arbiter in intra-community disputes. The relationship was, it must be stressed, one of mutual benefit: for their part, Rhaetia’s Italian-speaking congregations offered the Zurich church a means of continued access to the world of Italian culture and scholarship at a time of hardening intellectual divisions between Catholic and Protestant Europe.