The Collegia Vicentina consisted of a series of meetings in

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; or , archaically ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, where it straddles the Bacchiglione, River Bacchiglione. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and e ...

in 1546. 40 Italian intellectuals met to re-evaluate the Christian Faith.

Lelio Sozzini Lelio Francesco Maria Sozzini (; 29 January 1525 – 4 May 1562), often known in English by his Latinized name Laelius Socinus ( ), was an Italian Renaissance humanist and theologian, and, alongside his nephew Fausto Sozzini, founder of the Non ...

presided and only the Old and New Testaments were admitted as valid source material. They found that there was no scriptural evidence for the

Holy Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three ...

, the union of two natures in Christ, Predestination or Original Sin. All Christians are equal and the Apostolic Church has no visible head. Because there is no original sin, there is no necessity for grace, therefore the Lord's Supper and baptism are not sacraments, but remembrances and confessions of faith. The source of life is the ''word'', equated with Christ and linking with the Neo-Platonic theology of

Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neo ...

.Xavier Durrieu, Les Socin et le Socinianisme, originally in Revue des deux mondes, 1843. Kindle edition locations 160-374 The findings of the Collegia Vicentina formed the basis of

Socinianism Socinianism ( ) is a Nontrinitarian Christian belief system developed and co-founded during the Protestant Reformation by the Italian Renaissance humanists and theologians Lelio Sozzini and Fausto Sozzini, uncle and nephew, respectively. ...

and also for the Anabaptist

Council of Venice The Council of Veneto or Synod at Venice 1550 was a meeting in Venice of the anabaptist radicals of Northern Italy. History The Council had been preceded by the antitrinitarian '' Collegia Vicentina'' (Lat. ''Vicenza colloquia'') in Vicenza ...

.Roberto de Mattei, A Sinistra di Lutero, Solfanelli 2017, pp82-86 Apart from Sozzini, attendees included Niccolò Paruta,

Giorgio Biandrata Giorgio Biandrata or Blandrata (15155 May 1588) was an Italian-born Transylvanian physician and polemicist, who came from the De Biandrate family, powerful from the early part of the 13th century. He was an antitrinitarian. Biandrata was born i ...

, Giovanni Valentino Gentile, Gian Paolo Alciati, Bernardino Ochino, and Matteo Gribaldi.

References

{{Reflist 1546 in Italy Italian Protestants Nontrinitarianism Unitarianism