Language, Rhetoric and Reformation in Bernardino Ochino’s Prediche ([Geneva, Jean Gérard], 1542)

Bernardino Ochino of Siena, former Vicar-General of the Capuchin Friars,\r\nconverted to Protestantism and fled Italy in 1542. After reaching Geneva in the same year,\r\nhe published a book of Prediche (sermons) together with other works. These sermons were\r\naddressed to the Italian people (probably with the aim of promoting the breakthrough of\r\nProtestantism in Italy) and show some influence from Calvin’s Institutio Christianae Religionis.\r\nWhile never preached, Ochino’s Prediche have all the features typical of the genre to\r\nwhich they are supposed to belong: personal deixis, questions and exhortations, and repetition\r\nof words and clauses. Moreover, Ochino’s sermons show a distinctive rhetorical feature,\r\nthe frequent use of corrections. Rather than being linked to Ochino’s polemical view of the\r\nCatholic Church, this feature relates to his way of conceiving arguments, both before and\r\nafter his conversion to Protestantism.