Francesco Stancaro

Francesco Stancaro (also Latin: Franciscus Stancarus) (1501 in Mantua – 1574 in Stopnica) was an Italian Catholic priest, theologian, and Protestant convert, who became professor of Hebrew at the University of Königsberg.

A scholar in theology and Lutheranism, conciliarist, and a trained physician, he was an opponent of antitrinitarianism, but his views on Christ's mediatorship were actually used by antitrinitarians to popularize their views in Poland and Hungary. His teachings never achieved widespread credibility amongst Calvinists, but he received a considerable following, particularly amongst the Polish and Hungarian aristocracy, and is considered one of the most successful Reformists in Poland. He was imprisoned on numerous occasions and much of his life was spent as an itinerant theologian, traveling extensively across eastern Europe. From 1551 he was involved in the Osiandrian controversy, an extensive Lutheran debate in Germany and Prussia which extended into the mid 1560s. While acknowledging both natures, human and divine, of Christ, Stancaro claimed that Jesus Christ was a mediator not as God but as a man: this doctrine was challenged by the theologian Andreas Musculus in a public discussion held in Berlin on October 10, 1552. Stancaro authored De Trinitate et Mediatore Domino nostro Iesu Christo adversus Henricum Bullingerum...Ad magnificos et generosos Dominos Nobiles ac eorum Ministeros a variis Pseudoevabelicis seductis a decade later in which he offered his views on the issue, mainly in response to Peter Martyr Vermigli, a strong critic of Stancaro. In 1562 he settled in Stopnica, where he led a comparatively quiet life in retirement. He died on November 12, 1574.

Stancaro was born in Mantua in 1501. He devoted himself to the humanities and scholarly learning, and was ordained as a priest in Padua. He published De modo legendi Hebraice institutio brevissima in 1530. Brought up a Roman Catholic, he became a Protestant in 1540, while teaching Hebrew at the University of Padua. He left for Venice, where he was arrested and imprisoned for sometime, joining another Protestant Italian, Francesco Negri. He left Venice in 1541, and arrived in Vienna by 1544. He was professor of Greek and Hebrew there, but lost his post in 1546.

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