uments of reason. The
minatory words he uttered were all the more significant because neither
he nor the State he represented sought to break with Catholic
traditions. His voice was terrible and mighty, inasmuch as he denounced
Rome by an indictment which proclaimed her to be the perturbing power in
Christendom, the troubler of Israel, the whore who poured her cup of
fornications forth to sup with princes.

[Footnote 136: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 312.]

After sixteen months, the quarrel of the interdict was compromised.
Venice, in duel with Islam, could ill afford to break with Rome, even if
her national traditions of eight centuries, intertwined with rites of
Latin piety, had not forbidden open rupture. The Papal Court, cowed into
resentful silence by antagonism which threatened intellectual revolt
through Europe, waived a portion of its claims. Three French converts
from Huguenot opinions to Catholicism, Henri IV., the Cardinal du
Perron, and M. de Canaye, adjusted matters. The interdict was dismissed
from Venice rather than removed--in haughty silence, without the
clashing of bells from S. Pietro di Castello and S. Marco, without
manifestation of joy in the city which regarded Papal interdicts as
illegitimate, without the parade of public absolution by the Pope. Thus
the Republic maintained its dignity of self-respect. But Camillo
Borghese, while proclaiming a general amnesty, reserved _in petto_
implacable animosity against the theologians of the Venetian party. Two
of these, Marsilio. and Rubetti, died suddenly under suspicion of
poison.[137] A third, Fulgenzio Manfredi, was lured to Rome, treated
with fair show of favor, and finally hung in the Campo di Fiora by order
of the Holy Office.[138] A fourth, Capello, abjured his so-called
heresies, and was assigned a pittance for the last days of his failing
life in Rome.[139] It remained, if possible, to lay hands on Fra Paolo
and his devoted secretary, Fra Fulgenzio Micanzi, of the Servites.

[Footnote 137: Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. ii. pp. 179, 284.]

[Footnote 138: _Ibid._ pp. 100-102.]

[Footnote 139: Bianchi Giovini, _Vita di Fra P. Sarpi_, vol. ii. p. 49.]

Neither threats nor promises availed to make these friends quit Venice.
During the interdict and afterwards, Fulgenzio Micanzi preached the
gospel there. He told the people that in the New Testament he had found
truth; but he bade them take notice that for the laity this book was
even a dead letter through th