SCETTICISMO RELIGIOSO E CONTRORIFORMA: IL DOLIUM DIOGENIS DI CHRISTIAN FRANCKEN.

The late sixteenth-century case of Christian Francken, an ex- Lutheran, ex-Jesuit, and ex-Socinian, seems to confirm Richard Popkin's hypothesis that fideism was the main consequence of modern religious skepticism. However, a comparative analysis of three of Francken's works, Epistola Nicolai Regi Germani (1583), Dolium Diogenis (1594), and Analysis rixae Christianae (1595), in which he expresses contradictory points of view about the Counter- Reformation's conception of Christendom, calls into question Popkin's opinion. Francken's thought was indeed so corrosive towards every religion as to bring him to a position very close to atheism. Probably Francken discovered Sextus Empiricus' skepticism at the end of the 1580's. However, unbelief was still a difficult choice in the sixteenth century, as it was a cause of loneliness, marginalization, and suffering. Francken feared such a doctrine in his own historical context of wars and persecutions, and thus ended up accepting the authority he knew best: the Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]