ABSTRACT
During the wait for the opening of the long-delayed first session of the council of Trent in 1545, one of the papal legates to the council sought relief from studies and the heat. Two of his emissaries arranged an outing to a suburban garden. They also proposed the topic of conversation: the republic and religion. The temporary lodger in the garden agreed, and ten years later he produced what purported to be a record of the day’s disputes. Marco Gerolamo Vida, Christian epic poet, theorist of chess, sometime favourite of Leo X, and bishop of Cremona, published his Dialogues on the dignity of the republic in 1556.1 By then its dedicatee, Reginald Pole, had become even more famous than he had been as legate at Trent. Cousin of Henry VIII, Pole had broken with the king and been made cardinal of England in reward, had been a nearly successful candidate for the papal tiara in the conclave of 1550 and five years later became papal legate for the reconciliation of England and, finally, Archibishop of Canterbury. His friends were Alvise Priuli, a Venetian noble, and the famous humanist Marcantonio Flaminio. The audience included the other two legates, Marcello Cervini and Giulio del Monte, both later popes.
