Paolo Sarpi - Other Works

Other Works

In 1615, a dispute occurred between the Venetian government and the Inquisition over the prohibition of a book. In 1613 the Senate had asked Sarpi to write about the history and procedure of the Venetian Inquisition. He argued that this had been set up in 1289, but as a Venetian state institution. The pope of the time, Nicholas IV, had merely consented to its creation. This work appeared in English translation by Robert Gentilis in 1639.

A Machiavellian tract on the fundamental maxims of Venetian policy (Opinione come debba governarsi la repubblica di Venezia), used by his adversaries to blacken his memory, dates from 1681. He did not complete a reply which he had been ordered to prepare to the Squitinio delia libertà veneta, which he perhaps found unanswerable. In folio appeared his History of Ecclesiastical Benefices, in which, says Matteo Ricci, "he purged the church of the defilement introduced by spurious decretals." It appeared in English translation in 1736 with a biography by John Lockman. In 1611, he attacked misuse of the right of asylum claimed for churches, in a work that was immediately placed on the Index.

His posthumous History of the Interdict was printed at Venice the year after his death, with the disguised imprint of Lyon. Sarpi's memoirs on state affairs remained in the Venetian archives. Consul Smith's collection of tracts in the Interdict controversy went to the British Museum. Francesco Griselini's Memorie e aneddote (1760) was based on Sarpi's unpublished writings, later destroyed by fire.