of his opinions, which, although they were nearest to those of Calvin and Zwingli, were calculated to give the least possible offence to the Lutherans, raised great hopes of him as a mediator. But he died in 1560, having effected nothing.
Protestant dissensions continued, and the Protestant cause was further discredited by the activity of the anti-Trinitarians. Lismanini had openly denied the Trinity, and Bernardino Ochino in 1564 found many hearers. He was expelled, however, very shortly. The Unitarians had their centre at Pinczow, near Cracow, and among their leaders were first Stancari and Lismanini, and afterwards Georgio Biandrata, and Peter Gonesius, a Pole. Even in the face of this double danger, from their own advanced wing and from the Catholic side, the Protestants failed to achieve unity. At length at the synod of Sandomir, 1570, mutual toleration rather than union was arranged between the Lutherans on the one hand, and the united Church of Genevans and Bohemians on the other. Thus the critical time of the death of Sigismund Augustus in 1572 found the Protestant sects widely spread in the Polish dominions, enjoying virtual toleration, but probably not very deeply rooted in the Polish people, compromised by advanced freethinkers, and barely concealing their mutual antagonism.
Meanwhile dangers were arising. The direct efforts of Stanislaus Hosius, the mission of Lippomani in 1555, and that of Commendoni in 1563, did little to check the Reformed opinions. But from the introduction of the Jesuits into Poland at the suggestion of Cardinal Hosius in 1564, and from the transfer into their hands of the institutions of higher education founded by him in Poland, dates the beginning of a more insidious and effective opposition, which was destined in a period beyond our present scope to attain complete success.
This brief note may serve to show the position of the new religions in Poland down to the death of Sigismund Augustus. But the name of Socinus is so closely linked with the religious history of that country and with that of the dissidentes de religione (the appellation given in Poland in 1573 to the adherents of the Reformation, though afterwards extended in its significance), that a word must be said about the two well-known teachers of that name. Lelio Sozzini was a native of Siena, born in 1525. Attracted early by the writings of Luther, he made himself suspected at home, and travelled widely throughout Europe, coming into contact with all the leading Reformers. He visited Poland twice, and doubtless found kindred spirits there; he probably influenced Lismanini; but although the audacity of his opinions and the free expression of his doubts seem to have caused him to be regarded with suspicion by more orthodox Reformers, he does not appear to have actually denied the doctrine of the Trinity. He died in 1562. His nephew, Fausto Sozzini, passed the line. He also was born at Siena in 1539. He came to Poland in 1579, after the anti-Trinitarian
