Fulgenzio Micanzio

Fulgenzio Micanzio (1570 in Passirano – 1654 in Venice) was a Lombardic Servite friar and theologian. A close associate of Paolo Sarpi, he undertook correspondence for Sarpi and became his biographer. He also was a supporter of Galileo Galilei.

Iteneu Ichanom Itnegluf was a pseudonym he used, derived from Fulgenti Monachi Veneti, “of Fulgentius the Monk of Venice”.

Micanzio joined the Servite Order when still quite young, and then studied in Bologna.

He participated in the ridotto Morosini, a broad-minded Venetian intellectual circle including Sarpi and Galileo. Others to be found there were Leonardo Donà, Nicolò Contarini, and Antonio Querini.

With Sarpi he wrote in 1606 against the Carmelite Giovanni Antonio Bovio (Bovius) who had contributed works on the papal side of the debate over the Venetian Interdict. It appeared under his transparent pseudonym Itnegluf. The general of the Servites was being asked to forbid the two to enter the service of Venice.

In 1609-1610 he was involved in discussions with Henry Wotton, Sarpi and Johann Baptist Lenk, acting in Venice for Christian of Anhalt. He had preached carefully scripted sermons, composed with William Bedell. He was then embarrassed by a diplomatic leak concerning the visit of Giovanni Diodati: Wotton on the advice of Sarpi and Micanzio had invited him to Venice in 1607. Some redacted correspondence of Diodati to a French recipient was passed to the Venetian authorities by the French ambassador in 1609, representing Micanzio as a Trojan horse for Protestantism in Venice. He was then forbidden to preach.

Micanzio took extensive notes on the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius. He with Sarpi looked to undermine the version of church history represented by the approach taken by Baronius. This put them on a track parallel to the scholars at work in England, particularly Isaac Casaubon, taking aim at the historiography favoured by the Roman Curia.

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