On this day in 1566 the Italian humanist and anti-trinitarian, who had once been personally denounced by John Calvin, was executed in Berne.
One of those amazing intellects at the edge of the Reformation, unable to shut up, he fled from Italy to Switzerland, where he had his unfortunate moment with Calvin, and from where he escaped execution by being willing to renounce his heresies and to march barefooted through the city, from Switzerland to Poland, and from Poland back to Berne, where the authorities, tired of his restless mind, finally killed him.
A cheer for the freethinkers…
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