Italian Nicodemites amidst Radicals and Antitrinitarians

Many Italians in exile ‚religionis causa‘ had learned to dissimulate well before they left their homeland: nicodemism was part of the necessary life preparation for becoming a radical or an antitrinitarian. Examining the careers of Italian refugees in the mid-sixteenth century, this essay shows that, by the time they crossed the Alps, they were already programmed to keep quiet, evade and deceive. Initially, exile felt like utopia: yet there was also a dawning realisation that restraint, evasion and silence would remain essential in relatively closed Swiss cities. When the exiles’ views turned to dangerous topics like the Trinity, baptism, the immortality of the soul or ‚il cielo aperto‘, they already knew the core nicodemite strategies: evasion, secrecy, ambiguity, pretence, being terse and hiding risky ideas within humanist dialogue form. Three examples are taken from those in and around Basel in the troubled 1550s: Bernardino Ochino, Celio Secondo Curione, and Lelio Sozzini. The burning of Miguel Servetus in nearby Geneva in 1553 appalled all three, crystallised their resistance to the dogma of reformers, and pointed to the dangers of not remaining a nicodemite. Concealment learned in Italy served to keep them alive in Swiss cities. Italian experience had also prepared them to write in forms whereby they might elude the attention of the authorities: spiritual letters (Curione), dialogues (Ochino) and ambiguous comments (Sozzini). All three spread their views by tactics known to nicodemites all over Europe but especially in Italy.