Historians understand Calvin’s stay in Strasbourg (1538-41) either as a brief gap between his two periods in Geneva or as a crucial stage in his theological development. It is undeniable that his three years in Strasbourg were fruitful in literary terms (Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, Letter to Sadolet, Brief Treatise on the Lord’s Supper, second Latin and first French editions of the Institutes of the Christian Religion) as well as in Church organisational terms. On the other hand, it is difficult to quantify the importance of the nature of the role played by the Strasbourg Reformers (with Martin Bucer at the helm) in Calvin’s theological evolution between 1538 and 1541.
Keywords: Strasbourg; Bucer, Martin; Church organisation.

In August 1561, in the first words of his dedication to the lessons on Daniel, Calvin reminds that he left France, his country, «for the space of twenty-six whole years already» («déjà par l’espace de vingt et six ans entiers»). The article of Max Engammare analyses the mentions of France, his native land, in John Calvin’s written works (treaties and commentaries in particular) and sermons, as all over during his adulthood the reformer lived and saw himself as a French refugee. We discover a Calvin sympathizing with France, but sometimes giving way to a certain nostalgia for the abandoned homeland. From these observations the author deduces a refugees’ theology, better a “theology of the exile”, the main figure of which is Abraham, who left his native land to obey to God’s appeal.
Keywords: John Calvin; Abraham; theology of exile.

The new studies have more and more appreciated the Calvin’s preaching, looking not only at its rhetorical form, but also at its theological content.

Howewer, when we read Calvin’s preaching we have to point out the situation he was living through. From this point of view the Book of Job Calvin preached from 1554 until 1555 is really a perfect pattern. Even though Serveto’s trial is ended, the situation is very tense in Geneva: the Conservative Party rules and Berna is impending. The reformed plan is on the verge of failure. How is all this possible? Where is the Lord? The Bible says that Satana puts the just to the test, but Calvin is obliged to admit that, however Job is right, he is wrong in front of God.
Calvin preaches about Job, but he is preaching about himself: in 1554 he is Job.
Keywords: Job; preaching; Geneva.

Following the execution of M. Serveto in 1553, John Calvin and Sebastian Castellio open a heated debate on tolerance which has long been celebrated by critical literature. In response to those who maintain as unclear God’s word in order to ground their foolish interpretations and appeal for tolerance, in his Defensio orthodoxae fidei (1554) Calvin refers to the everlasting mirror of Scripture where Christian faith can always recognize the Father’s perfect image and distinguish truth from error, martyrs from blasphemers. On the contrary, such a distinction is impossible according to Castellio. In Contra libellum Calvini, the Savoyard humanist separates the dangerous heretic, who denies the Veritas he knows, and the believer with a different opinion, who interprets the Veritas he doesn’t know perfectly and becomes a martyr as far as he is persecuted in spite of his faith in God. These pages aim to clarify the reasons why Castellio’s doctrine of tolerance is rejected by Calvin, who argues heresy is not just an incorrect interpretation; it is always a shameless blasphemy, since errors generate a wrong idea of God the Father putting trust in an idolatrous worship. The condemnation of wrong interpretation of Scripture is thus necessary in order to keep true religion, to recognize holy Church and to kee believers away from the maze of human doubt.
Keywords: tolerance; doubt; reformation.

Emidio Campi, John Calvin and Peter Martyr Vermigli in the opinion of their contemporaries, in their letters, in their works The paper analyses the relationship between John Calvin and Peter Martyr Vermigli, examining the biographical accounts of the two reformers written by Théodore de Bèze (Vie de Calvin, 1564) and Josia Simler (Oratio de vita et obitu Petri Martyris Vermilii, 1563), their correspondence, and their exegetical works, in particular the commentaries on Genesis. In addition, the paper focuses on some theological themes that they had in common (Predestination, Eucharist), concentrating on the ecclesiology. While Calvin identifies the marks of the Church as the Word and Sacrament and considers church discipline as an indispensable organizational instrument, Vermigli throughout his writing explicitly numbers the discipline among the distinctive signes of the church. He considers the use of discipline, that he calls «evangelii regula de correctione», to the extreme  consequences – damnation and excommunication. It is Vermigli, rather than Calvin, who offers the arguments for the inclusion of discipline among the notae ecclesiae in some Reformed confessions such as the Belgian Confession (1561) or the Westminster Confession (1648).
Keywords: John Calvin; Peter Martyr Vermigli; biblical hermeneutics; wcclesiology; Church ordinances.

The article observes the crossway between reformation and reformed orthodoxy, Italian evangelism and Italian calvinism abroad. Recent researches have shown the continuity between Calvin and Calvinists, but there is a particular Italian heritage in the development of the early reformed theology. First, the discovery of aristotelism of the school of Padua had been the philosophical basis of the most part of the reformed orthodoxy. Second, the development of reformed political thought received some important inputs by Italian republicanism and by right of defiance. Last, from Vermigli to Francesco Turrettini, through Zanchi and Diodati, the presence of Italian theologians may be shown as a golden belt that develops itself by the teaching of Lord’s Supper to the orthodox doctrine of predestination (Dort) and the inspiration of the Bible (Formula consensus).
Keywords: reformation in Italy; Italian calvinism; reformed orthodoxy.

This essay deals with the relationship between John Calvin and the Italians since Valentino Gentile to Benedetto Croce. The first part analyzes the peculiar attitude against any restrictions, due to the curiosity, that many of the Italian community in Geneva adopted, while in the second part the aim is to focus the great Italian historiographical vacuum about Calvin.
Italian scholars (Cantimori, for instance) preferred Servetus’ claims, while Croce exalted the calvinistic intransigence.
Keywords: Calvin; Italians; historiography; toleration.

John Calvin has played a major role in the birth of Italian Protestantism in the sixteenth century. Even his Institues have been translated at that time into Italian by a Sicilian calvinist, Giulio Cesare Paschali. But that Protestantism has been completely destroyed by the Counter-Reformation (only the Waldensian Church could survive, segregated in some secluded valleys in Northern Italy). Since then the Italian religious culture has ignored Calvin until the thirties of twentieth century, when Giuseppe Gangale wrote an essay entitled Calvino, which has awoken a new interest in the thought and the undertaking of the Reformer of Geneva. Around Gangale and in his track a “reformed generation” started in Italy: this article is about its leading characters.
Keywords: Calvin’s thought; twentieth century Italy; Giuseppe Gangale; Neo-Calvinism.

This article considers the role of migration within Calvinism by means of a case-study of the Christian-Hebraist, Immanuel Tremellius (c.1510-80). Born a Jew in Italy, Tremellius converted to Calvinism in his early thirties. His conversion obliged him to go into exile; for almost four decades he lived an itinerant life, serving as Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at several of the most prestigious Reformed institutions of Northern Europe. Tremellius’ career was thus itself a remarkable example of migration.
This article highlights some of the effects of this migration on Tremellius, most notably the links he formed with other migrants, and the international perspective which he adopted, both in his life, and his published works. In addition, the article uses Tremellius to reveal broader aspects of Calvinism, including its readiness to draw on external influences, and the formation of an international identity, both of which may in part be attributed to the processes of migration.
Keywords: Tremellius; calvinism; exile; judaism; migration.

This contribution, that analyses the religious development in the principality of Anhalt in the second half of the sixteenth century, is presupposing the thesis of confessionalization elaborated by Heinz Schilling and others. According to this paradigma the rearrangement of public and private life in confessional terms during the early modern epoch (ca.1550-1650) is a fundamental process, that in its main features took place similarly in the different confessional contexts. Under these circumstances it was not possibile to affirm, in the long run, an intermediate position. This thesis is exemplified here by the central german principality of Anhalt, in which humanistic and Melanchthonian influences had brought about, in the middle of the sixteenth century, a position that intermediated between Lutheranism and Calvinism.
Initially, the principality of Anhalt participated in the process of Lutheran confessionalization, that was concluded in 1580 by the Book of Concord; later on, however, it maintained a critical distance to it, and until the end of sixteenth century the principality gradually joined the Reformed party.
Keywords: confessionalisation; Philippism; Book of Concord.

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Huguenots participated in the French unsuccessful attempts to establish military outposts and to found colonies in Brazil and Florida. The Huguenots played also an important role in the creation of New France. Their migration ? interrupted by the war of religion ? resumed after the Edict of Nantes, and it was officially halted when all Protestants were excluded from New France on 1628. Therefore, Calvinism became an important element in the settlement of the New World only during the first half of the seventeenth century with the Puritan migration. The Puritans’ project to build a Christian Commonwealth in New England was framed within a Calvinist theological and political vision. One of the most important expressions of this vision was the Body of Liberties, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court in 1641, which applied a series of rights and general protections to everyone, beyond the norms of Common Law. The Body of Liberties was finally incorporated into the Massachusetts Constitution.
Keywords: Calvinsim; America; Huguenots; Puritans.

This paper examines the present status of Calvinism in Russia pointing out some characteristic features and the variety of its testimony. Actually in Russia there are two groups of “Presbiterian” Churches: the first one results from “Jesus Mission of Russia” of the Presbiterian Church in South Korea; the second one, the “Reformed Presbiterian Church of Russia” is closely connected to conservative wing of Dutch and United State Calvinism.
Besides, there is the “Evangelic Reformed Church of Russia”, which is the most interesting. Born in Tver’ in the first ninenthies, the Reformed Church has translated the chief reformed textes (Calvin’s Institutio, Dordrecht Creed, Westminster Cathechism, and many others) and concentrates all its attention and all its efforts on the conversion of Russian people and Russian country.
Keywords: twenty-first century Russia; Presbiterian Churches; Evangelic Reformed Church.

The essay gives a general survey and examines some special aspects. It starts with four exemplary cases from Marburg in 1527-28, significant for the early problems: individual adherents of the Reformation found shelter in a territory which had become Protestant and, on the other hand, Catholic monks unwilling to open up to the new ideas had to leave town and territory. It then sketches the great migration movements that started with Calvinist refugees from the Netherlands in the 1540s, were then accompanied by various waves of refugees from the continent to England and vice versa, and reached their culmination in the 1570s in the times of the Counter-Reformation, especially in the Habsburg lands.
The paper then describes the judicial problem regarding the right to emigrate, depicts the discussion about emigration as a matter of conscience and a moral issue, and finally addresses the problem of the emigrants’ integration in their new surroundings.
Keywords: Marburg University; migration; integration.

In 1769 the Anglican priest Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-78) published an English translation of a minor work by the Italian reformed theologian Girolamo Zanchi (1516-90), titled The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination. Toplady’s translation was in fact part of a larger polemical campaign against the arminian party in the Church of England, whose major exponent was John Wesley (1703-91). The essay reconstructs both the circumstances that led to the publication of Toplady’s translation and the reactions that ensued, thus shedding light on an important chapter in the history of the reception of reformed continental theology in England.
Keywords: history of reception; predestination; Calvinism.

Calvin qualified the Institutes as a collection of disputationes and loci communes already in 1539. He intended his work to be just that: a collection of doctrinal commonplaces or themes which would save him lengthy digressions in his biblical commentaries. By doing this and by calling the work Institutio (“Instruction”) he indicated that it was a handbook for teaching Christian doctrine. Calvin used the term locus communis as synonymous with disputatio or subject put forward for consideration.
This was the standard meaning of locus communis (topos) and so relegated it implicitly to the realm of rhetoric, as Melanchthon, Agricola, Cicero and Aristotle had done. For these writers the division of a text into loci communes was primarily a rhetorical procedure. Ramism, however, conflated rhetoric and logic and there was nothing stopping Ramist theologians and writers generally from imposing their own framework on the Institutes or on any other text. This article examines the method of Johannes Piscator in his digest of Calvin’s Institutes which he derived from Olevianus’ work and its extraordinary success throughout Europe.
It seems as if Calvin’s successor Théodore de Bèze, although as much of anti-Ramist as Calvin himself, did not object to the use of Ramism if it served to promote Calvin’s key-work.
Keywords: Calvin; Piscator; Olevianus; Ramism; locus communis.

Calvin’s prayers, extracted from La forme des prières and from the 1542 Catechisme, have been able to circulate in France, hidden in particular in a Trésor de prières printed in Lyons in 1572, and then in Paris at the end of the religions warsunder the name of the “curé de Ferrières”. Behind this mixed book, apparenty a catholic one, there is an “evangelical” collection, thanks to Wolfgang Capiton, translating from latin into french, Le livre des prières et oraisons (Geneva, 1555).
Keywords: sixteenth century France; Prayer Book; W. Capiton; C. Schwenkfeld; G. Schmaltzing; J. Calvin.

The new concept of “vocation” proposed by the reformers highly enhanced the tasks and performances of the worldly activity and “labour” of the faithful. The diffusion of this doctrine throughout Europe is summarized in the sections of the report that concern, first, some of the writings of Calvin, secondly the Treatise of the Vocations (1603) by William Perkins, and thirdly the Politica of the German calvinist Johannes Althusius (ed. 1614, where Perkins is mentioned). The views of the authors were however still distant from the patterns of the “professional ethics” which were shaped by the later puritan literature in the last decades of the seventeenth century. In its earlier stages the doctrine of “the vocation” was grounded in the ideas of mutuality and common interaction, and therefore priority was given to public life, in a strong institutional context: that is the Compagnie des fidèles (Calvin), the Church and Commonwealth (Perkins) and the political consociatio (Althusius).
Keywords: calling; vocational activity; mutuality; Calvinism; Puritanism.

John Robinson, minister of the English Separatist Church in Leiden and pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, was renowned in his times as an accomplished reformed theologian. He engaged in public debate the famous arminian Episcopius, professor of theology in the University of Leiden, and wrote one of the most widely-circulated defence of the Synod of Dort. Nevertheless, his strong separatist stance distanced him gradually from synodal and presbyterian calvinism; in his last years he advanced concepts of religious life and ideas of Church government close to the anti-confessionalist tendencies of the spiritualists.
Keywords: Separatism; Spiritualism; Second Reformation; Predestination; Baptism/Baptists.