«Che volete mo’, ch’io guasti un libro?»

• Main Author: Giani, Marco
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari 2019-04-01
• Series: Quaderni Veneti
• Subjects: Republic of Venice. Council of Trent. Catholic Counter-Reformation. History of Cyprus. History of Censorship.
• Online Access: https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/riviste/quaderni-veneti/2019/1/che-volete-mo-chio-guasti-un-libro/

The Venetian political writer Paolo Paruta presented Filippo Mocenigo, the last Catholic Archbishop of Nicosia (Cyprus) before the Ottoman conquest, as an important character of his 1579 dialogue Della Perfettione della vita politica. Mocenigo, a most prominent member of the contemplative party, is depicted by Paruta as a sort of bishop-philosopher, very optimistic about the fact that Aristotelian philosophy (as it was still taught in the University of Padua in the mid-16th century) could help the search for human reason. Yet, Mocenigo was persecuted by the Roman Inquisition for his not-fully orthodox religious beliefs. In the essay, a comparison between Mocenigo as historical man and Mocenigo as Perfettionez/em>’s fictional character is developed.