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38 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
saw he was vain of his preaching, and (14) he used frequently go
to hear him, and visit him afterwards, and under the praises he
administered to him for his eloquence, conveyed the poison of his
sentiments. Ochino had a great opinion of his own merits, and
hoped, when he was made General of his Order, that the Pope
would raise him to some higher dignity ; but when he saw that
neither a Cardinal s Hat, nor even a Mitre, fell to his lot, he
entertained the most rancorous feeling against the Roman Court,
and Valdez made him an easy prey. Being now infected with
the poisonous sentiments of Zuinglius and Calvin, he began in
the pulpit to speak derogatory of the Pope and the Roman See,
and preaching in the Archbishopric of Naples, after Peter
Martyr, he began to deride the doctrines of Purgatory and
Indulgences, and sowed the first seeds of that great revolution,
which afterwards, in 1656, convulsed the city.
When the Pope
received information of this, he commanded him to come to
Rome, and account for his doctrine. His friends advised him to
go ; but, as he felt himself hurt by the order, he was unwilling
to obey. While he was thus wavering, he went to Bologna, and
called on the Cardinal Legate, Contarini, to solicit his protection
and interest. The Cardinal was then suffering from sickness, of
which, in fact, he died soon after ; so he received him coldly,
hardly spoke to him, and dismissed him. He now suspected
that the Cardinal knew all, and would have him put in prison ;
so he threw off the habit, and went to Florence, where he met
Peter Martyr, and concerted with him a flight to Geneva, then
the general refuge of apostates. In fact, he arrived there even
before Peter Martyr himself, and, though sixty years old, he
brought a young girl of sixteen along with him, and married
her there, thus giving a pledge of his perpetual separation from
the Catholic Church. He then wrote an Apology of his Flight,
and abused, in the most violent terms, the Order of St. Francis,
and the Pope, Paul III. The Pope for a while entertained the
notion of dissolving the Capuchin Order altogether, but relin
quished it on finding that Ochino had made no perverts among
that body.
39. Calvin received Ochino most kindly on his arrival in
04) Varill, cit. p. 100.