Pier Paolo Vergerio

Pier (also: Pietro) Paolo Vergerio (c. 1498 – October 4, 1565) (Latin: Vergerius, Slovene: Peter Pavel Vergerius mlajši, also spelled Vergerij), the Younger, was an Italian religious reformer. Although at first opposed to Primož Trubar, the consolidator of the Slovene language, he later supported him and was his mentor for some time. He also contributed to the development of Croatian literature.

He was born at Capodistria (Koper), Istria, then part of the Venetian Republic and studied jurisprudence in Padua, where he delivered lectures in 1522. He also practiced law in Verona, Padua, and Venice. In 1526, he married Diana Contarini, whose early death was at least a partial cause of his entering upon an ecclesiastical career.

His advancement was so rapid that as early as 1533 he was papal nuncio to King Ferdinand in Germany, and he was there again in 1535 on business connected with the council. The nuncio's eagerness in the cause of the council brought him into a personal encounter with Martin Luther at Wittenberg.

Although Vergerio achieved little in the way of his appointed task, which was to induce the Protestants to send delegates to the council, Pope Paul III twice dispatched him across the Alps; and meanwhile rewarded him, first with the bishopric of Modruš in Croatia, and in the year 1536 with the bishopric of Capodistria. In the year 1540, Vergerio again entered active diplomatic service; he was at Worms at the religious conference as commissioner for King Francis I of France. It was in memory of the council that he dedicated the tract De unitate et pace ecclesiae. Like Cardinal Contarini, beside whom he also appeared at the religious conference of Regensburg in 1541, he was charged with having conceded too much to the Protestants. He then resolved to return to Capodistria and pursue thorough studies.

...
Wikipedia