This is the English translation of a study first published in Italian in 2007. The author is a well-known scholar with several important works to his credit, and the translator is the greatly missed Donald Weinstein (1926–2015), an expert on Savonarola. The book is a detailed study of the life and works of Fra Ambrogio Catarino Politi (1484–1553), a Dominican friar who wrote numerous tracts against Lutheranism, Italian apostates, and anonymous vernacular Italian books that guilefully propagated Protestantism. Historians have traditionally viewed Politi as a ferocious anti-Lutheran polemicist, and this was true. However, this study also shows that Politi was an eclectic theologian impatient with rigid scholastic positions who sought truth wherever it was to be found. He espoused views that some rejected as too close to Protestantism, and he befriended men who sought reunion with Lutherans.

Politi was born Lancellotto (chivalric names were fashionable at the time) into a prominent Sienese family, and he obtained a doctorate in civil law from the University of Siena in 1502. He taught law in Siena, whether at the university or privately is unknown. He also taught civil law at the University of Rome in 1514 and possibly other years—the 1514 roll (list of professors and courses) is the only surviving roll for the first forty years of the century—and he wrote legal works. Inspired by the books of Savonarola, the controversial Dominican executed by the Florentine government in 1498, Politi entered the Dominican Order on April 5, 1517, at the convent of San Marco in Florence. He took the name Ambrogio Catarino for two holy Sienese, St. Catherine and Blessed Ambrose Sansedoni, and he studied theology.

Possessed of a keen mind and a lawyer's zest for verbal combat, Politi plunged into the controversies of his times. His first religious works defended Savonarola; an anti-Luther work followed in 1520. As he rose in the ranks of his order, he met many of the most important Italian religious figures of the day. He criticized the biblical exegesis of Cardinal Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, the most important theologian and biblical scholar of the Dominicans, for following the “deviant” opinions of Erasmus. On the other hand, he supported the efforts of Cardinal Gasparo Contarini to find a formula for justification that both Catholics and Protestants could accept. In 1540, Politi had direct contact with the circle around Juan de Valdés in Naples, including Vittoria Colonna and Bernardino Ochino, whose sermons made Politi uneasy.

From 1530 through 1553, Politi unleashed a torrent of short theological works. He used the vernacular to denounce heresy found in the works of Ochino and such anonymous works as the Beneficio di Christo, believing that the multitude was confused by theological subtleties and needed strong guidance. In his Latin works intended for his fellow theologians, Politi addressed certitude of faith and justification. His position on the latter was double justification. First justification meant that man could not do good works without the aid of divine grace and that man's justification came from Christ's sacrifice. But justification was not accomplished until man performed good works, which was second justification. Politi demonstrated “extraordinary fluidity of positions in the matter of justification in the years preceding the Tridentine decree” (209). Politi was appointed a theologian to the first session (1545–1547) of the Council of Trent, at which time Domingo de Soto, an influential Dominican scholastic, attacked Politi in print, to which Politi responded. The council opted for a position close to that of Soto.

Although Politi denounced heresy and heretics in strong terms, he was not an inquisitor.

He agreed with Ignatius Loyola and other first Jesuits, with whom he had a long working relationship, that persuasion was better than repression and that many heretics could and should be brought back to the church through the confessional rather than by inquisitorial prosecution.

In a departure from his usual subject matter, Politi denounced Machiavelli in a short tract of 1552. He stated that Machiavelli viewed religion as nothing more than an instrument by which princes persuaded and ruled their subjects. He argued that if they followed Machiavelli, Catholic princes might abandon their religious convictions and permit another religion in order to secure peace in the state. Thanks to his tireless efforts and the support of Cardinal Giovanni Maria Del Monte, who became Pope Julius III (1550–1555), Politi became a bishop and an archbishop. In late 1553, he was summoned to Rome with the expectation of that he would be raised to the cardinalate, but he died on the way on November 8, 1553.

This is an excellent and very well documented book. Indeed, nearly half of it is given to endnotes that provide copious quotes from Politi's works and citations from the voluminous secondary scholarship on this critical period of Italian religious history. But the work is not always easy to follow. It assumes a good deal of knowledge of the people and issues. Caravale sometimes approaches a treatise of Politi indirectly, first with a brief mention followed later by a more detailed explication. The paragraphs are very long and lack topic sentences. A reader might approach the book by first reading the conclusions (210–211), then turning to the beginning. The index of names is sparse and omits Domingo de Soto.

The dominant position of historians of the past half-century on the period 1530 to 1560 is that Counter Reformation hardliners such as Gian Pietro Carafa (Pope Paul IV 1555–1559), for whom the Inquisition and Index of Prohibited Books were the solutions, triumphed over the Spirituali, men and women who were clandestine or near-Protestants. Caravale suggests an older point of view, that there was doctrinal fluidity. Hence, even a heresy denouncer like Politi was willing to support Contarini and double justification. This older historiographical position is worth reconsideration.