Peter Martyr Vermigli: The Forgotten Reformer

Chris Castaldo chronicles the remarkable life and work of the extraordinary forgotten Reformer, Peter Martyr Vermigli.

Fretting over Family Drama in Gnapheus’s Acolastus

Humanist drama as a medium for retelling Bible stories is one of the most fascinating genres of Latin literature of the Reformation. All over Europe Protestants and Catholics alike wrote biblical comedies and tragedies for their schools, each camp often using the other’s plays since in the first decades they rarely strayed from narrative into confessional statements. These plays aimed instead to teach good Latin style and to teach piety and virtue by example. If this sounds like a recipe for bland moralizing devoid of theology, we need only turn to the granddaddy of all humanist biblical plays to see that they can indeed explore the depths of God’s mysteries delightfully through story.

Reason Diabolical, Reason Divine: Melanchthon on Philosophy, Humanism and Scripture

  This article appeared in Volume II, Issue 4 of Ad Fontes.