93. Michael Servetus is Murdered, Geneva, Republic of Geneva 1553

Michael Servetus was one of those brilliant people who can be a bit annoying. He read and/or spoke Spanish and French and Hebrew and Latin and Arabic and Greek and who knows what all. He studied and/or wrote books on theology, medicine, mathematics, law, and some other stuff. He wrote poetry. He had a bunch of degrees. But he had to leave the Studium of Zaragoza because of a fight with the High Master; he nearly got the death penalty in Paris for translating Cicero's De Divinatione (but they decided to just make him withdraw the book instead); he was in prison for a few days for injuring a physician who attacked him out of jealousy; he was arrested in France for heresy, and the Catholics were going to burn him at the stake; but he escaped --- and then, instead of going to Italy, he went to Geneva, where John Calvin, who disagreed with Servetus in lots of ways, was instrumental in getting him burned at the stake there. So it was the Protestants who finally killed him, rather than the Catholics. It wasn't John Calvin's finest moment. But on the other hand, Calvin had argued for cutting Servetus's head off rather than burning him with his books. Well, almost all of his theolgy. Three copies of the theology text survived, and Michelle will tell you all about them.