Lupetino, Fra Baldo

Lupetino, Fra Baldo one of the first martyrs to the Protestant cause in Italy in the 16th century, was born of ancient and noble parents in Albano, and actively propagated the reformed opinions in Venice. On becoming provincial within the Venetian territories of the Franciscan monks (to whose order he had been previously admitted) he urged the young men not to assume monastic orders. One of his contemporaries gives the following account of his further career. "After having long preached the Word of God in both the vulgar languages (the Italian and Sclavonian) in many cities, and defended it by public disputation in several places of celebrity with great applause, he was at last thrown into close prison at Venice by the inquisitor and papal legate. In this condition he continued during nearly twenty years to bear an undaunted testimony to the Gospel of Christ, so that his bonds and doctrine were made known not only to that city, but to the whole of Italy, and even to Europe at large, by which means evangelical truth was more widely spread.... At last this pious man, whom neither threatenings nor promises could move, sealed his doctrine by an undaunted martyrdom, and exchanged the filth and protracted tortures of a prison for a watery grave." See M'Crie's History of the Reformation in Italy (Phila. 1842), pages 105, 221.