Aonio Paleario facts for kids

Aonio Paleario (born around 1500 – died July 3, 1570) was an Italian Christian thinker. He is known as a reformer because he wanted to change some things about the church during his time.

Aonio Paleario's Early Life and Education

Aonio Paleario was born around the year 1500 in a town called Veroli, which is in the Roman Campagna area of Italy. His name is sometimes also written as Antonio Della Paglia or A. Degli Pagliaricci.

In 1520, he moved to Rome. There, he joined a group of very talented writers and thinkers who were connected to Pope Leo X.

Moving Around and Writing Important Works

When the city of Rome was attacked in 1527, Paleario left. He first went to Perugia and then settled in Siena. In Siena, he became a teacher of Greek and Hebrew.

In 1536, he published a long poem in Latin called De immortalitate animarum. This poem had three parts. The first part shared his ideas about God. The other two parts gave reasons why he believed people's souls live on after death. The poem ended with a powerful description of what he believed would happen in the future.

Facing Challenges from the Church

In 1542, a powerful church court called the Inquisition accused Paleario of having wrong ideas. This was because of a writing he had done called Della Pienezza, sufficienza, et satisfazione della passione di Christo, also known as Libellus de morte Christi (which means "The Benefit of Christ's Death"). However, he was able to defend his ideas successfully at that time.

While in Siena, he wrote another strong piece called Actio in pontifices romanos et eorum asseclas. In this writing, he argued against what he saw as mistakes in the Roman Catholic Church. He believed the Bible should be more important than church traditions. He also disagreed with some ideas, like purgatory. This work was not printed until after he died, in 1606.

Later Life and Final Years

In 1546, Paleario became a professor in Lucca. Then, in 1555, he moved to Milan to teach Greek and Latin.

Around 1566, his opponents started to cause trouble for him again. In 1567, he was officially accused by the inquisitor of Milan. He was put on trial in Rome. In October 1569, he was found guilty and put to death in July 1570.

Aonio Paleario's Published Works

An edition of Paleario's works, called Ant. Palearii Verulani Opera, was published in Lyon in 1552. It included four books of letters (Epistolae) and twelve speeches (Orationes), along with his poem De immortalitate. More editions were published later, with the most complete one appearing in Amsterdam in 1696.

A famous work called Benefizio di Cristo ("The Benefit of Christ's Death") has sometimes been thought to be written by Paleario, but there isn't enough proof.

In 1855, a man named Churchill Babington translated Benefizio di Cristo into English.

Aonio Paleario is also the main character in a novel from 2014 called A Dream of Shadows by Diana M. DeLuca. This book won awards for Spiritual Fiction and Best in the Rocky Mountain region in 2014.