Agostino Valier (7 April 1531 – 24 May 1606), also Augustinus Valerius or Valerio, was an Italian cardinal and
bishop of Verona. He was a reforming bishop, putting into effect the decisions of the
Council of Trent by means of administrative and disciplinary measures.[1] He was one of the
Christian humanist followers of
Filippo Neri.[2]
Life
He was born in
Venice on 7 April 1531. He became a doctor of
canon law.
Valier took part in the intellectual life of his time. In Venice around the year 1560 he was associated with the
Academy of Fame of
Federico Badoer;[3] he later also took part in the Noctes Vaticanae.[4] As a dedicatee of one of the works of
Jacopo Zabarella he may have been a patron.[5]
Agostino was the nephew of Cardinal
Bernardo Navagero (1507 – 1565), and assumed his position as bishop when his uncle died. Valier as bishop from 1565 was influenced by his reforming predecessor at Verona,
Gian Matteo Giberti, as well as the
Council of Trent, and his association with
Carlo Borromeo.[6] He followed Borromeo's
Milan model but not slavishly, working within local tradition, while also handling the Venetian dominance in a diplomatic fashion.[7] In 1576 he requested that the Jesuits be called to Verona to found a school.[8]
Valier wrote a biography of
Carlo Borromeo shortly after his death in 1584,[10] and a history of
Venice to 1580.[11] He later became prefect of the
Congregation of the Index. The atmosphere of close scrutiny of works is thought to have affected his wish for publication in his own lifetime.[12] One work left unpublished was Philippus sive de laetitia Christiana, referencing Filippo Neri in its title, and dwelling on Carlo Borromeo and his nephew
Federigo Borromeo, whom Valier had mentored, in a
neostoic vein.[13]
Rhetorica Ecclesiastica (1570) in Latin, a work based on mission work in the
Veneto.[14] This work by Valier employing classical rhetoric as a resource for preaching, with subsequent works by
Luis de Granada and
Diego de Estella, is considered a significant development in the Catholic tradition.[15] A French translation by
Joseph Antoine Toussaint Dinouart [
fr], La rhétorique du prédicateur,[16] was published in 1750.
Instruttione delle donne maritate (1575), a book for wives, in the form of a letter to his married sister.[17]
De cautione adhibenda in edendis libris (1719).[9]
^Ethel Ross Barker, Rome of the Pilgrims and Martyrs: a study in the martyrologies, itineraries, syllogæ, and other contemporary documents (1913), p. 130;
archive.org.