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Peter Martyr Vermigli

Peter Martyr Vermigli (8 September 1499 –12 November 1562) was an Italian-born Reformed theologian. His early work as a reformer in Catholic Italy and his decision to flee for Protestant northern Europe influenced many other Italians to convert and flee as well. In England, he influenced the Edwardian Reformation, including the Eucharistic service of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. He was considered an authority on the Eucharist among the Reformed churches, and engaged in controversies on the subject by writing treatises. Vermigli's Loci Communes, a compilation of excerpts from his biblical commentaries organised by the topics of systematic theology, became a standard Reformed theological textbook.

Born in Florence, Vermigli entered a religious order and was appointed to influential posts as abbot and prior. He came in contact with leaders of the Italian spirituali reform movement, and read Protestant theologians such as Martin Bucer and Ulrich Zwingli. Through reading these works and studying the Bible and the Church Fathers, he came to accept Protestant beliefs about salvation and the Eucharist. To satisfy his conscience and avoid persecution by the Roman Inquisition, he fled Italy for Protestant northern Europe. He ultimately arrived in Strasbourg where he taught on the Old Testament of the Bible under Bucer. English reformer Thomas Cranmer invited him to take an influential post at Oxford University where he continued to teach the Bible. He also defended his Eucharistic beliefs against Catholic proponents of transubstantiation in a public disputation. Vermigli was forced to leave England on the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary. As a Marian exile he returned to Strasbourg and his former teaching position. Vermigli's beliefs regarding the Eucharist and predestination clashed with those of leading Lutherans in Strasbourg, so he transferred to Reformed Zürich where he taught until his death in 1562.

Vermigli's best-known theological contribution was defending the Reformed doctrine of the Eucharist against Catholics and Lutherans. Contrary to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, Vermigli did not believe that the bread and wine are changed into Christ's body and blood. He also disagreed with the Lutheran view that Christ's body is ubiquitous and so can be physically present at the Eucharist. Instead, Vermigli taught that Christ remains in Heaven even though he is offered to those who partake of the Eucharist and received by believers.

Vermigli developed a strong doctrine of predestination independently of John Calvin. His interpretation was that God's will determines election and the reprobation of the non-elect. Vermigli's belief is similar but not identical to Calvin's. Vermigli's political theology was important in the Elizabethan religious settlement; he provided theological justification for royal supremacy, the doctrine that the king of a territory, rather than any ecclesiastical authority, rules the church.

Early life (1499–1525)
Vermigli was born in Florence, the centre of the Florentine Republic, on 8 September 1499 to Stefano di Antonio Vermigli, a wealthy shoemaker, and Maria Fumantina. He was christened Piero Mariano the following day. He was the eldest of three children; his sister Felicita Antonio was born in 1501 and his brother Antonio Lorenzo Romulo was born in 1504. His mother taught him Latin before enrolling him in a school for children of noble Florentines. She died in 1511, when Piero was twelve. Vermigli was attracted to the Catholic priesthood from an early age. In 1514 he became a novice at the Badia Fiesolana, a monastery of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. The Lateran Canons were one of several institutions born out of a fifteenth-century religious reform movement. They emphasised strict discipline, and could be transferred from house to house rather than being bound to stability in one place, as was the custom of Benedictine monasticism. They also sought to provide ministry in urban areas. Peter's sister followed him into the monastic life, becoming a nun the same year.

On completing his novitiate in 1518, Vermigli took the name Peter Martyr after the thirteenth-century Dominican Saint Peter of Verona. The Lateran Congregation had recently decided that promising young ordinands should be sent to the monastery of Saint John of Verdara in Padua to study Aristotle, so Vermigli was sent there. The University of Padua, with which Saint John of Verdera was loosely affiliated, was a highly prestigious institution at the time. At Padua, Vermigli received a thorough training in Thomistic scholasticism and an appreciation for Augustine and Christian humanism. Vermigli was determined to read Aristotle in his original language despite the lack of Greek teachers, so he taught himself. He also made the acquaintance of prominent reform-minded theologians Pietro Bembo, Reginald Pole, and Marcantonio Flaminio.

Early Italian ministry (1525–1536)
Vermigli was ordained in 1525 and probably received his Doctor of Divinity around that time. The chapter-general of the Congregation elected him to the office of public preacher in 1526. His first series of sermons was in Brescia later that year. He then preached for three years, travelling around northern and central Italy. Unlike the practice of other preaching orders which usually only preached at Lent and Advent, the Augustinians preached year-round. He also gave lectures on the Bible as well as Homer in Lateran Congregation houses.

In 1530 Vermigli was appointed vicar of the monastery at San Giovanni in Monte, Bologna. There he learned Hebrew from a local Jewish doctor so he could read the Old Testament scriptures in their original language. Even among those who sought deeper biblical study, it was uncommon for clergy to learn Hebrew, though not unheard of. In 1533 the chapter-general elected Vermigli abbot of the two Lateran monasteries in Spoleto. At this post he was also responsible for two convents. The discipline in the monastic houses in Vermigli's care had been lax before his arrival, and they had become a source of scandal in Spoleto. There was also a history of a power struggle between the Bishop of Spoleto, Francesco Eroli, and the Spoletan abbacy, to the point that the bishop had excommunicated Vermigli's predecessor, only to be overturned by Rome. Vermigli brought order to his houses and mended the relationship with the bishop.

The chapter general re-elected Vermigli to the Spoletan abbacy in 1534 and again in 1535, but he was not elected to lead any house the following year. He may have been identified as a promising reformer who could help with reform efforts in higher places. Vermigli was in contact with the Catholic leaders working on the Consilium de emendanda ecclesia, an internal report on potential reforms of the Church commissioned by Pope Paul III. He may have even travelled to Rome to assist in writing it.

First controversial preaching and ministry in Lucca (1537–1541)
The Congregation elected Vermigli abbot of the monastery at San Pietro ad Aram, Naples in 1537. There he became acquainted with Juan de Valdés, a leader of the spirituali movement. Valdés introduced Vermigli to the writings of Protestant reformers. Toward the end of his time in Naples, he read Martin Bucer's commentaries on the Gospels and the Psalms, and Zwingli's De vera et falsa religione. Reading these works was an act of ecclesiastical defiance, but not an uncommon one in reformist circles. Vermigli seems to have slowly moved in a Protestant direction primarily through the study of the Bible and the Church Fathers, especially Augustine. He probably read Protestant literature critically; it was common for those in reform-minded circles to do so while remaining in the Catholic Church. Vermigli embraced the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone during this time, and he had probably rejected the traditional Catholic view of the sacraments. Vermigli also seems to have influenced Valdés. Scholars believe that Valdés's strong doctrine of double predestination, that God has chosen some people for salvation and others for damnation, was learned from Vermigli. Vermigli in turn had acquired it from his study of either Gregory of Rimini or Thomas Aquinas at Padua.

Vermigli's move away from orthodox Catholic belief became apparent in 1539 when he preached on 1 Corinthians 3:9–17, a passage commonly used as proof of the doctrine of purgatory. Vermigli did not take this view in his preaching, though he did not openly deny the existence of purgatory. Gaetano da Thiene, an opponent of the spirituali, reported his suspicions of Vermigli to the Spanish viceroy of Naples Don Pedro de Toledo, who prohibited Vermigli's preaching. The prohibition was removed on Vermigli's appeal to Rome, with which he received some help from powerful friends he had made in Padua, such as Cardinals Pole and Bembo. Despite this controversy, Vermigli continued to rise in the Lateran Congregation. He was made one of four visitors by the chapter general in 1540. The visitors assisted the rector general by inspecting the Congregation's religious houses.

In 1541 the Congregation elected Vermigli to the important post of prior of Basilica of San Frediano in Lucca. The prior at San Frediano exercised some episcopal authority over half the city, as well as control of the Lateran's religious houses. As at his earlier post in Spoleto, the monks of the San Frediano monastery, as well as the clergy of Lucca, were known for moral laxity, which led to an openness to the new Lutheran religion there. Vermigli saw his task as one of education as well as moral correction. He set up a college based on humanist principles of education and modelled on the newly founded St John's College, Cambridge, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Instruction was in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Among the professors were the humanists Immanuel Tremellius, Paolo Lacizi, Celio Secondo Curione, and Girolamo Zanchi, all of whom would later convert to Protestantism. The Congregation recognised Vermigli's work by appointing him to a disciplinary commission of seven canons in May 1542.

Flight from Italy and first Strasbourg professorship (1542–1547)
Vermigli was widely respected and very cautious. He was able to continue his reform efforts in Lucca without any suspicion of unorthodox views, despite a papal meeting there with Emperor Charles V in 1541. His eventual downfall was caused by two of his followers, one of whom openly questioned papal authority and another who celebrated a Protestant form of the Eucharist. The reconstitution of the Roman Inquisition in 1542 may have been in part a response to the fear that Lucca and other cities would defect from the Catholic Church. The authorities of the Republic of Lucca began to fear that their political independence from the Holy Roman Empire was at stake if their city continued to be viewed as a Protestant haven. Bans on Protestant books heretofore ignored were enforced, religious feasts which had been dropped were reinstated, and religious processions were scheduled to assure Rome of Lucca's loyalty.

Vermigli was summoned to a Chapter Extraordinary of the Lateran Congregation, and his friends warned him that he had powerful adversaries. These increasingly foreboding events contributed to his decision to ignore the summons and flee, but he was finally persuaded by his conscience against the Masses he was bound to perform. Vermigli fled Lucca for Pisa on 12 August 1542 by horse with three of his canons. There he celebrated a Protestant form of the Eucharist for the first time. When he stopped in Florence, staying in Badia Fiesolana where he had entered religious life, Vermigli learned that Bernardino Ochino had arrived there. Vermigli convinced Ochino, a popular preacher with Protestant leanings, to flee Italy as well. On 25 August Vermigli left for Zürich by way of Ferrara and Verona.

Once Vermigli arrived in Zürich he was questioned regarding his theological views by several Protestant leaders including Heinrich Bullinger, Konrad Pellikan, and Rudolph Gualther. They eventually determined that he could be allowed to teach Protestant theology, but there was no position vacant for him to fill there or in Basel, where he went next. In a letter to his former congregation in Lucca, he explained his motives for leaving and also expressed discouragement at not being able to find a post. Basler humanist Bonifacius Amerbach assisted him with money, and reformer Oswald Myconius recommended him to Martin Bucer in Strasbourg, with whose writings Vermigli was already familiar. Vermigli moved to Strasbourg and became a close personal friend and ally of Bucer, who granted him the chair of Old Testament at the Senior School, succeeding Wolfgang Capito. He began by lecturing on the minor prophets, followed by Lamentations, Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. Vermigli was delighted to be able to teach from the original-language text of the Old Testament, as many of his students could read Hebrew. He was well-liked by his students and fellow scholars. Vermigli was known for precision, simplicity, and clarity of speech in contrast to Bucer's propensity for digressions which sometimes left his students lost.

Two of Vermigli's former colleagues in Lucca—Lacizi and Tremellius—would join him in Strasbourg. In 1544 he was elected canon of St. Thomas Church, Strasbourg. In 1545 Vermigli married his first wife, Catherine Dammartin, a former nun from Metz. Catherine knew no Italian, and Peter very little German, so it is assumed that they conversed in Latin.

England (1547–1553)
Edward VI acceded to the English throne in 1547, and the Protestant reformers there hoped to take the opportunity to more thoroughly reform the Church of England. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer invited Vermigli and Ochino to assist in the effort. In addition, the victory of the Catholic Emperor Charles V in the Schmalkaldic War and the resulting Augsburg Interim led to a hostile environment for Protestants in Germany. Vermigli accepted the invitation in November and sailed with Ochino to England. In 1548, he replaced Richard Smyth, becoming the second Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. This was a very influential post at a university which had been slow to accept reform.

On arriving in Oxford, Vermigli began lecturing on 1 Corinthians, denouncing Catholic doctrines of purgatory, clerical celibacy, and lenten fasting. He then spoke against the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, the most sensitive area of disagreement between Protestants and Catholics in England at the time. Conservative faculty, led by Smyth, challenged Vermigli to defend his views in a formal disputation. Smyth fled to St Andrews and finally to Leuven before the disputation could be held, so three Catholic divines, William Tresham, William Chedsey and Morgan Phillips, stepped forward to take his place. The disputation was held in 1549 before Richard Cox, the University Chancellor and a firm Protestant. It focused on the doctrine of transubstantiation, with Vermigli's opponents arguing for it and him against. Chancellor Cox made it obvious that he considered Vermigli to have the better argument, but did not formally declare a winner. The disputation put Vermigli at the forefront of debates over the nature of the Eucharist.

In 1549, a series of uprisings known as the Prayer Book Rebellion forced Vermigli to leave Oxford and take up residence at Lambeth Palace with Cranmer. The rebellion involved conservative opposition to a vernacular liturgy, which was imposed with the Book of Common Prayer at Pentecost in 1549. Rioters in the streets of Oxford threatened Vermigli with death. At Lambeth, Vermigli assisted Cranmer by helping write sermons against the rebellion. After some time he returned to Oxford, where he was made first canon of Christ Church in January 1551. Vermigli, the first married priest at Oxford, caused controversy by bringing his wife into his rooms overlooking Fish Street at the Great Quadrangle. His windows were smashed several times until he moved to a location in the cloisters, where he built a fortified stone study.

Vermigli became deeply involved in English church politics. In 1550, he and Martin Bucer provided recommendations to Cranmer for additional changes to the Book of Common Prayer Eucharistic liturgy. Vermigli supported the church's position in the vestarian controversy, over whether bishop John Hooper should be forced to wear a surplice. Vermigli agreed with Hooper's desire to rid the church of elaborate garments, but he did not believe they were strictly prohibited. He advised Hooper to respect the authority of his superiors. Vermigli was probably instrumental in convincing Hooper to drop his opposition in February 1551. In October 1551 he participated in a commission to rewrite the canon law of England. In the Winter he assisted in the writing of a draft set of such laws, which was published by John Foxe as Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum in 1552.

King Edward died in 1553, followed by the accession of Mary I of England, who opposed the Protestant reformers. Vermigli was placed under house arrest for six months, and his Catholic opponents at Oxford would likely have had him executed, as Cranmer eventually was in 1556. Despite this risk, he agreed to a public disputation with Cranmer against the new Catholic establishment, but this never came to fruition because Cranmer was imprisoned. Vermigli was able to receive permission from the Privy Council to leave England, and was advised by Cranmer to do so.

Vermigli's wife, Catherine, had become well known in Oxford for her piety and ministry to expectant mothers. She also enjoyed carving faces into plum stones. She had died childless in the February before Vermigli left. Soon after Vermigli's departure, Cardinal Pole had her body disinterred and thrown on a dungheap. Following the accession of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth in 1558, she was re-interred with the relics of Saint Frithuswith (Frideswide) in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

Strasbourg and Zürich (1553–1562)
Vermigli arrived in Strasbourg in October 1553, where he was restored to his position at the Senior School and began lecturing on Judges as well as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Vermigli often gathered with other Marian exiles for study and prayer in his home. His lectures on Judges often addressed the political issues relevant for the exiles, such as the right to resist a tyrant. Since Vermigli's departure and the death of Bucer in 1551, Lutheranism had gained influence in Strasbourg under the leadership of Johann Marbach. Vermigli had been asked to sign both the Augsburg Confession and the Wittenberg Concord as a condition of being reinstalled as professor. He was willing to sign the Augsburg Confession, but not the Concordat, which affirmed a bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He was retained and reappointed anyway, but controversy over the Eucharist, as well as Vermigli's strong doctrine of double predestination, continued with the Lutherans. Another professor in Strasbourg, Girolamo Zanchi, who had converted to Protestantism while under Vermigli in Lucca, shared Vermigli's convictions regarding the Eucharist and predestination. Zanchi and Vermigli became friends and allies. Vermigli's increasing alienation from the Lutheran establishment led him in 1556 to accept an offer from Heinrich Bullinger to teach at the Carolinum school in Zürich. John Jewel, a fellow Marian exile, came along with him.

In Zürich, Vermigli succeeded Konrad Pellikan as the chair of Hebrew, a position he would hold until his death. He married his second wife, Catarina Merenda of Brescia, Italy, in 1559. Vermigli was able to share his teaching duties with fellow Hebraist Theodor Bibliander, allowing him time to study and prepare the notes from his previous lectures for publication. He began lecturing on the books of Samuel and Kings. While in Zürich, Vermigli declined invitations to desirable positions in Geneva, Heidelberg, and England.

Vermigli's Eucharistic views were accepted in Zürich, but he ran into controversy over his doctrine of double predestination. Similarly to John Calvin, Vermigli believed that in some way God wills the damnation of those not chosen for salvation. Vermigli attempted to avoid confrontation over the issue, but Bibliander began to openly attack him in 1557, at one point allegedly challenging him to a duel with a double-edged axe. Bibliander held the Erasmian view that God only predestines that those who believe in him will be saved, not the salvation of any individual. Reformed theologians during this time held a variety of beliefs about predestination, and Bullinger's position is ambiguous, but they agreed that God sovereignly and unconditionally chooses whom to save. They believed salvation is not based on any characteristic of a person, including their faith. Bullinger and the Zürich church did not necessarily agree with Vermigli's double predestinarian view, but Bibliander's view was deemed unallowable. He was dismissed in 1560, in part to assure other Reformed churches of the Zürich church's orthodoxy. Vermigli was involved in predestinarian controversy again when Zanchi, who had remained in Strasbourg when Vermigli left for Zürich, was accused of heretical teachings on the Eucharist and predestination by the Lutheran Johann Marbach. Vermigli was selected to write the official judgement of the Zürich church on the matter in a statement signed by Bullinger and other leaders in December1561. His affirmation of a strong doctrine of predestination represented the opinion of the Zürich church as a whole.

Vermigli attended the abortive Colloquy at Poissy in the summer of 1561 with Theodore Beza, a conference held in France with the intention of reconciling Catholics and Protestants. He was able to converse with queen mother of France Catherine de'Medici in her native Italian. He contributed a speech on the Eucharist, arguing that Jesus' words "this is my body" at the Last Supper were figurative rather than literal. Vermigli's health was already declining when he succumbed to an epidemic fever in 1562. He died on 12 November 1562 in his Zürich home, attended by the physician Conrad Gesner. He was buried in the Grossmünster cathedral, where his successor Josias Simler gave a funeral oration, which was published and is an important source for Vermigli's later biographies. Vermigli had two children by his second wife, Caterina, while he was alive, but they did not survive infancy. Four months after his death she had their third child, Maria.

Works
Vermigli is best known for the Loci Communes (Latin for "commonplaces"), a collection of topical discussions scattered throughout his biblical commentaries. The Loci Communes was compiled by Huguenot minister Robert Masson and first published in 1576, fourteen years after Vermigli's death. Vermigli had apparently expressed a desire to have such a book published, and it was urged along by the suggestion of Theodore Beza. Masson followed the pattern of John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion to organise it. Fifteen editions of the Loci Communes between 1576 and 1656 spread Vermigli's influence among Reformed Protestants. Anthony Marten translated the Loci Communes into English in 1583, adding to it considerably.

Vermigli published commentaries on I Corinthians (1551), Romans (1558), and Judges (1561) during his lifetime. He was criticised by his colleagues in Strasbourg for withholding his lectures on books of the Bible for years rather than sending them to be published. Calling his lecture notes on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and the Minor Prophets "brief and hasty annotations", he found it difficult to find time to prepare them for publication. His colleagues edited and published some of his remaining works on the Bible after his death: prayers on the Psalms (1564) and commentaries on Kings (1566), Genesis (1569), and Lamentations (1629). Vermigli followed the humanist emphasis on seeking the original meaning of scripture, as opposed to the often fanciful and arbitrary allegorical readings of the medieval exegetical tradition. He occasionally adopted an allegorical reading to interpret the Old Testament as having to do with Christ typologically, but he did not utilise the quadriga method of medieval biblical interpretation, where each passage has four levels of meaning. Vermigli's command of Hebrew, as well as his knowledge of rabbinic literature, surpassed that of most of his contemporaries, including Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli.

Vermigli published an account of his disputation with Oxford Catholics over the Eucharist in 1549, along with a treatise further explaining his position. The disputation largely dealt with the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Vermigli strongly opposed, but the treatise was able to put forward Vermigli's own Eucharistic theology. Vermigli's Eucharistic views, as expressed in the disputation and treatise, were influential in the changes to the Book of Common Prayer of 1552. Vermigli weighed in again on the Eucharistic controversy in England in 1559. His Defense Against Gardiner was in reply to Stephen Gardiner's 1552 and 1554 Confutatio Cavillationum, itself a reply to the late Thomas Cranmer's work. At 821 folio pages, it was the longest work on the subject published during the Reformation period.

Vermigli's Eucharistic polemical writing was initially directed against Catholics, but beginning in 1557 he began to involve himself in debates with Lutherans. Many Lutherans during this time argued that Christ's body and blood were physically present in the Eucharist because they are ubiquitous, or everywhere. In 1561, Johannes Brenz published a work defending such a view, and Vermigli's friends convinced him to write a response. The result, the Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ, was written in the form of a dialogue between Orothetes ("Boundary Setter"), a defender of the Reformed doctrine that Christ's body is physically located in Heaven, and Pantachus ("Everywhere"), whose speeches are largely taken directly from Brenz's work. Brenz published a response in 1562, to which Vermigli began to prepare a rebuttal, but he died before he was able to complete it.

Theology
Vermigli was primarily a teacher of scripture rather than a systematic theologian, but his lasting influence is mostly associated with his doctrine of the Eucharist. This can be explained by the close relationship he saw between the exegesis of scripture and theological reflection. Vermigli's method of biblical commentary, similar to that of Martin Bucer, was to include extended discussions of doctrinal topics treated by the biblical texts. Like other Protestants, he believed scripture alone held supreme authority in establishing truth. Nevertheless, he was familiar with the church fathers to a higher degree than many of his contemporaries, and he constantly referred to them. He saw value in the fathers because they had discovered insights into the scriptures that he might not have found, and because many of his Catholic opponents placed great weight on arguments from patristic authority. Often, though, he used the fathers as support for interpretations he had already reached on his own and was not concerned when his interpretation had no patristic precedent.

Vermigli is best known for his polemics against the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and for the Reformed doctrine of "sacramental presence". He argued that transubstantiation, the belief that the substance of bread and wine are changed into Christ's body and blood, was not based on any argument from scripture. He also argued on the basis of Chalcedonian Christology, that because Christ retained his divine nature when he became man (the divine nature was added to the human nature rather than his human nature being made divine), the substance of the bread and wine remain the same rather than being changed into the substance of Christ's body and blood. Finally, he used the analogy of the believer's union with Christ against the idea of transubstantiation. Because believers retain their human nature even though God has joined them with Christ, it follows that the Eucharistic elements do not need to be transformed to be Christ's body. Instead of the substance of the elements changing into Christ's flesh, Vermigli emphasised the action of the sacrament as an instrument through which Christ is offered to the partaker. He also disagreed with the Anabaptist belief that the Eucharist is simply symbolic or figurative, a view called memorialism or tropism.

Vermigli did not see predestination as central to his theological system, but it became associated with him because of controversies in which he became entangled. Vermigli developed his doctrine independently of John Calvin, and before Calvin published it in his 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion. Vermigli saw God as sovereign over every event, and believed that all things, including evil, were used by him to accomplish his will. Nevertheless, Vermigli did not hold that humans are compelled to good or evil actions. Vermigli held that God had chosen some people for salvation on the basis of grace or unmerited favour alone, with no consideration for any good or evil characteristics, a view referred to as "unconditional election". Vermigli also believed that God passed over the reprobate, those who were not elected to salvation. He saw this as included in the will of God, but different in character from the decision to choose the elect for salvation. Because all people have fallen into sin, the reprobating will of God treats them as by nature fallen and deserving of damnation. Vermigli's formulation of reprobation as within God's decree while distinct from his saving election was slightly different from Calvin's. Calvin saw predestination to salvation and reprobation as two sides of a single decree. Vermigli's doctrine was to prove more influential in the Reformed confessions. In his early formulation of predestination (ca. 1543–1544), Vermigli drew heavily on Aquinas's Summa theologiae.

Vermigli's biblical writings frequently address political matters. He followed the Aristotelian view that political authority is instituted to promote virtue, and that this includes religion as the chief virtue. Vermigli defended the standard English Protestant doctrine of Royal Supremacy, that kings, so long as they obey God, have the right to rule the church in their land, while Christ is the only head of the universal church. He denied the idea that the pope or any other ecclesiastical authority could exercise authority over a civil ruler such as the king, an important issue at the time given the conflicts between Pope Clement VII and Henry VIII at the beginning of the English Reformation. While Vermigli charged the civil magistrate with enforcing religious duties, he followed Augustine's distinction in the City of God between the spiritual sphere (in Vermigli's words the "inward motions of the mind") and the "outward discipline" of society. The civil magistrate's authority is only on external matters rather than inward and spiritual religious devotion. Vermigli's theological justification for Royal Supremacy was used by the framers of the 1559 Elizabethan Settlement, the imposition of Protestant worship based on the Book of Common Prayer as the state religion.

Legacy
Vermigli's leadership in Lucca left it arguably the most thoroughly Protestant city in Italy. The Inquisition led many of these Protestants to flee, creating a significant population of Protestant refugees in Geneva. Several important leaders in the Reformation can also be tied to Vermigli's work in Lucca, including Girolamo Zanchi and Bernardino Ochino.

Scholars have increasingly recognised the importance of figures other than John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli in the early formation of the Reformed tradition. Richard Muller, a chief authority on the development of this movement, has argued that Vermigli, Wolfgang Musculus, and Heinrich Bullinger were as influential if not more influential than Calvin on the development of Reformed theology in the sixteenth century. Vermigli was a transitional figure between the Reformation period and the period known as Reformed orthodoxy. In the Reformed orthodox period, the theology first articulated by Reformation figures was codified and systematised. Theologians increasingly resorted to the methods of scholastic theology and the tradition of Aristotelianism. Vermigli was the first of the Reformed scholastic theologians, and he influenced later scholastics Theodore Beza and Girolamo Zanchi.

Vermigli had a profound influence on the English Reformation through his relationship with Thomas Cranmer. Before his contact with Vermigli, Cranmer held Lutheran Eucharistic views. Vermigli seems to have convinced Cranmer to adopt a Reformed view, which changed the course of the English Reformation since Cranmer was primarily responsible for revisions to the Book of Common Prayer and writing the Forty-two Articles. Vermigli had a direct role in the modifications of the Book of Common Prayer of 1552. He is also believed to have contributed to, if not written, the article on predestination found in the Forty-two Articles of Religion of 1553. In Elizabethan Oxford and Cambridge, Vermigli's theology was arguably more influential than that of Calvin. His political theology in particular shaped the Elizabethan religious settlement and his authority was constantly invoked in the controversies of this period.

Various of Vermigli's writings were printed about 110 times between 1550 and 1650. The 1562 Loci Communes became a standard textbook in Reformed theological education. He was popular especially with English readers of theology in the seventeenth century. John Milton probably consulted his commentary on Genesis when writing Paradise Lost. The English edition of the Loci Communes was brought to the Massachusetts Bay Colony where it was an important textbook at Harvard College. More of Vermigli's works were found in the libraries of seventeenth-century Harvard divinity students than those of Calvin. Vermigli's works were highly regarded by New England Puritan theologians such as John Cotton and Cotton Mather.

title: Peter Martyr Vermigli


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National nature reserves in Cumbria

National nature reserves in England were established by English Nature, now Natural England, which manages them either directly or through non-governmental organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or the National Trust.

There are 25 national nature reserves in Cumbria, including the large Moor House-Upper Teesdale reserve which is shared with County Durham.

All national nature reserves include all or part of a named Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Moor House-Upper Teesdale is also a Biosphere reserve.

Types of habitat

 * Wetlands

A number of the reserves are bogs (often called "moss" in local dialect), a type of habit which the European Union is keen to protect. Bassenthwaite Lake, one of the largest lakes in the English Lake District, is a habitat for the Osprey.

Whitbarrow and Park Wood are limestone habitats.
 * Limestone pavements

List

 * Bassenthwaite Lake
 * Blelham Bog
 * Clawthorpe Fell
 * Cliburn Moss
 * Drumburgh Moss
 * Duddon Mosses
 * Finglandrigg Woods
 * Gowk Bank
 * Great Asby Scar
 * Hallsenna Moor
 * High Leys
 * Moor House-Upper Teesdale
 * North Fen
 * North Walney
 * Park Wood
 * Roudsea Wood & Mosses
 * Rusland Moss
 * Sandscale Haws
 * Sandybeck Meadow
 * Smardale Gill
 * South Solway Mosses (Bowness Common, Glasson Moss, Wedholme Flow SSSI's)
 * Tarn Moss
 * Thornhill Moss and Meadows
 * Walton Moss
 * Whitbarrow

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: National nature reserves in Cumbria


text:
National nature reserves in Derbyshire

National nature reserves in Derbyshire, England, are established by Natural England, and managed by them or by non-governmental organisations including the National Trust.

List of reserves:

 * Calke Park NNR
 * Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve
 * Dovedale
 * Kinder Scout NNR

Other national nature reserves all over England:
 * National nature reserves in England
 * Natural England

title: National nature reserves in Derbyshire


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Daguerreotype

Daguerreotype (daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process, widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.

Invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839, the daguerreotype was almost completely superseded by 1856 with new, less expensive processes, such as ambrotype (collodion process), that yield more readily viewable images. There has been a revival of the daguerreotype since the late 20th century by a small number of photographers interested in making artistic use of early photographic processes.

To make the image, a daguerreotypist polished a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish; treated it with fumes that made its surface light-sensitive; exposed it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; made the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; removed its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried it; and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.

The image is on a mirror-like silver surface and will appear either positive or negative, depending on the angle at which it is viewed, how it is lit and whether a light or dark background is being reflected in the metal. The darkest areas of the image are simply bare silver; lighter areas have a microscopically fine light-scattering texture. The surface is very delicate, and even the lightest wiping can permanently scuff it. Some tarnish around the edges is normal.

Several types of antique photographs, most often ambrotypes and tintypes, but sometimes even old prints on paper, are commonly misidentified as daguerreotypes, especially if they are in the small, ornamented cases in which daguerreotypes made in the US and the UK were usually housed. The name "daguerreotype" correctly refers only to one very specific image type and medium, the product of a process that was in wide use only from the early 1840s to the late 1850s.

History
Since the Renaissance era, artists and inventors had searched for a mechanical method of capturing visual scenes. Using the camera obscura, artists would manually trace what they saw, or use the optical image as a basis for solving the problems of perspective and parallax, and deciding color values. A camera obscura optically reduces a real scene in three-dimensional space to a flat rendition in two dimensions.

In the early 17th century, the Italian physician and chemist Angelo Sala wrote that powdered silver nitrate was blackened by the sun, but did not find any practical application of the phenomenon.

The discovery and commercial availability of the halogens—iodine, bromine and chlorine a few years earlier (iodine was discovered by Courtois in 1811, bromine by Löwig in 1825 and Balard in 1826 independently, and chlorine by Scheele in 1774)—meant that silver photographic processes that rely on the reduction of silver iodide, silver bromide and silver chloride to metallic silver became feasible. The daguerreotype is one of these processes, but was not the first, as Niépce had experimented with paper silver chloride negatives while Wedgwood's experiments were with silver nitrate as were Schultze's stencils of letters. Hippolyte Bayard had been persuaded by François Arago to wait before making his paper process public.

Previous discoveries of photosensitive methods and substances—including silver nitrate by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century, a silver and chalk mixture by Johann Heinrich Schulze in 1724, and Joseph Niépce's bitumen-based heliography in 1822—contributed to development of the daguerreotype.

The first reliably documented attempt to capture the image formed in a camera obscura was made by Thomas Wedgwood as early as the 1790s, but according to an 1802 account of his work by Sir Humphry Davy:

"The images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver. To copy these images was the first object of Mr. Wedgwood in his researches on the subject, and for this purpose he first used the nitrate of silver, which was mentioned to him by a friend, as a substance very sensible to the influence of light; but all his numerous experiments as to their primary end proved unsuccessful."

Development in France

In 1829 French artist and chemist Louis Daguerre, when obtaining a camera obscura for his work on theatrical scene painting from the optician Chevalier, was put into contact with Nicéphore Niépce, who had already managed to make a record of an image from a camera obscura using the process he invented: heliography.

Daguerre met with Niépce and entered into correspondence with him. Niépce had invented an early internal combustion engine, (the Pyréolophore), together with his brother Claude and made improvements to the velocipede, as well as experimenting with lithography and related processes. Their correspondence reveals that Niépce was at first reluctant to divulge any details of his work with photographic images. To guard against letting any secrets out before the invention had been improved, they used a numerical code for security. 15, for example, signified the tanning action of the sun on human skin (action solaire sur les corps); 34 – a camera obscura (chambre noir); 73 – sulphuric acid.

The written contract drawn up between Nicéphore Niépce and Daguerre includes an undertaking by Niépce to release details of the process he had invented – the asphalt process or heliography. Daguerre was sworn to secrecy under penalty of damages and undertook to design a camera and improve the process. The improved process was eventually named the physautotype.

Niépce's early experiments had derived from his interest in lithography and consisted of capturing the image in a camera (then called a camera obscura), resulting in an engraving that could be printed through various lithographic processes. The asphalt process or heliography required exposures that were so long that Arago said it was not fit for use. Nevertheless, without Niépce's experiments, it is unlikely that Daguerre would have been able to build on them to adapt and improve what turned out to be the daguerreotype process.

After Niépce's death in 1833, his son, Isidore, inherited rights in the contract and a new version was drawn up between Daguerre and Isidore. Isidore signed the document admitting that the old process had been improved to the limits that were possible and that a new process that would bear Daguerre's name alone was 60 to 80 times as rapid as the old asphalt (bitumen) one his father had invented. This was the daguerreotype process that used iodized silvered plates and was developed with mercury fumes.

To exploit the invention, 400 shares would be on offer for 1,000 francs each; secrecy would be lifted after 100 shares had been sold, or the rights of the process could be bought for 20,000 francs.

Daguerre wrote to Isidore Niepce on 2 January 1839 about his discussion with Arago:

"He sees difficulty with this proceeding by subscription; it is almost certain – just as I myself have been convinced ever since looking on my first specimens – that subscription would not serve. Everyone says it is superb: but it will cost us the thousand francs before we learn it [the process] and be able to judge if it could remain secret. M. de Mandelot himself knows several persons who could subscribe but will not do so because they think it [the secret] would be revealed by itself, and now I have proof that many think in this way. I entirely agree with the idea of M. Arago, that is get the government to purchase this discovery, and that he himself would pursue this in the chambre. I have already seen several deputies who are of the same opinion and would give support; this way it seems to me to have the most chance of success; thus, my dear friend, I think it is the best option, and everything makes me think we will not regret it. For a start M. Arago will speak next Monday at the Académie des Sciences ..."

Isidore did not contribute anything to the invention of the Daguerreotype and he was not let in on the details of the invention. Nevertheless, he benefited from the state pension awarded to him together with Daguerre.

Miles Berry, a patent agent acting on Daguerre's and Isidore Niépce's behalf in England, wrote a six-page memorial to the Board of the Treasury in an attempt to repeat the French arrangement in Great Britain, "for the purpose of throwing it open in England for the benefit of the public."

"Inform party that Parliament has placed no funds

at the disposal of the Treasury

from which a purchase of this description could be made

(indecipherable signature)"

The Treasury wrote to Miles Berry on 3 April to inform him of their decision:

"(To) Miles Berry Esq 66 Chancery Lane

Sir,

Having laid before the Lords &c your application on behalf of Messrs Daguerre & Niepce, that Government would purchase their Patent Right to the Invention known as the "Daguerreotype" I have it in command to acquaint you that Parliament has placed no Funds at the disposal of their Lordships from which a purchase of this description could be made

3rd April 1840 (signed) A. Gordon

(entry in margin) Application Refused"

Without bills being passed by Parliament, as had been arranged in France, Arago having presented a bill in the House of Deputies and Gay-Lussac in the Chamber of Peers, there was no possibility of repeating the French arrangement in England which is why the daguerreotype was given free to the world by the French government with the exception of England and Wales for which Richard Beard controlled the patent rights.

Daguerre patented his process in England, and Richard Beard patented his improvements to the process in Scotland    During this time the astronomer and member of the House of Deputies François Arago had sought a solution whereby the invention would be given free to the world by the passing of Acts in the French Parliament. Richard Beard, controlled most of the licences in England and Wales with the exception of Antoine Claudet who had purchased a licence directly from Daguerre.

In the US, Alexander S. Wolcott invented the mirror daguerreotype camera, according to John Johnson's account, in one single day after reading the description of the daguerreotype process published in English translation.

Johnson's father travelled to England with some specimen portraits to patent the camera and met with Richard Beard who bought the patent for the camera, and a year later bought the patent for the daguerreotype outright. Johnson assisted Beard in setting up a portrait studio on the roof of the Regent Street Polytechnic and managed Beard's daguerreotype studio in Derby and then Manchester for some time before returning to the US.

Wolcott's Mirror Camera, which gave postage stamp sized miniatures, was in use for about two years before it was replaced by Petzval's Portrait lens, which gave larger and sharper images.

Antoine Claudet had purchased a licence from Daguerre directly to produce daguerreotypes. His uncle, the banker Vital Roux, arranged that he should head the glass factory at Choisy-le-Roi together with Georges Bontemps and moved to England to represent the factory with a showroom in High Holborn. At one stage, Beard sued Claudet with the aim of claiming that he had a monopoly of daguerreotypy in England, but lost. Niépce's aim originally had been to find a method to reproduce prints and drawings for lithography. He had started out experimenting with light-sensitive materials and had made a contact print from a drawing and then went on to successfully make the first photomechanical record of an image in a camera obscura – the world's first photograph. Niépce's method was to coat a pewter plate with bitumen of Judea (asphalt) and the action of the light differentially hardened the bitumen. The plate was washed with a mixture of oil of lavender and turpentine leaving a relief image. Later, Daguerre's and Niépce's improvement to the heliograph process, the physautotype, reduced the exposure to eight hours.

Early experiments required hours of exposure in the camera to produce visible results. Modern photo-historians consider the stories of Daguerre discovering mercury development by accident because of a bowl of mercury left in a cupboard, or, alternatively, a broken thermometer, to be spurious.

Another story of a fortunate accident, which modern photo historians are now doubtful about, and was related by Louis Figuier, of a silver spoon lying on an iodized silver plate which left its design on the plate by light perfectly. Noticing this, Daguerre supposedly wrote to Niépce on 21 May 1831 suggesting the use of iodized silver plates as a means of obtaining light images in the camera.

Daguerre did not give a clear account of his method of discovery and allowed these legends to become current after the secrecy had been lifted.

Letters from Niépce to Daguerre dated 24 June and 8 November 1831, show that Niépce was unsuccessful in obtaining satisfactory results following Daguerre's suggestion, although he had produced a negative on an iodized silver plate in the camera. Niépce's letters to Daguerre dated 29 January and 3 March 1832 show that the use of iodized silver plates was due to Daguerre and not Niépce.

Jean-Baptiste Dumas, who was president of the National Society for the Encouragement of Science (Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale) and a chemist, put his laboratory at Daguerre's disposal. According to Austrian chemist Josef Maria Eder, Daguerre was not versed in chemistry and it was Dumas who suggested Daguerre use sodium hyposulfite, discovered by Herschel in 1819, as a fixer to dissolve the unexposed silver salts.

First mention in print (1835) and public announcement (1839)
A paragraph tacked onto the end of a review of one of Daguerre's Diorama spectacles in the Journal des artistes on 27 September 1835, a Diorama painting of a landslide that occurred in "La Vallée de Goldau", made passing mention of rumour that was going around the Paris studios of Daguerre's attempts to make a visual record on metal plates of the fleeting image produced by the camera obscura:

"It is said that Daguerre has found the means to collect, on a plate prepared by him, the image produced by the camera obscura, in such a way that a portrait, a landscape, or any view, projected upon this plate by the ordinary camera obscura, leaves an imprint in light and shade there, and thus presents the most perfect of all drawings ... a preparation put over this image preserves it for an indefinite time ... the physical sciences have perhaps never presented a marvel comparable to this one."A further clue to fixing the date of invention of the process is that when the Paris correspondent of the London periodical The Athenaeum reported the public announcement of the daguerreotype in 1839, he mentioned that the daguerreotypes now being produced were of considerably better quality than the ones he had seen "four years earlier". The father of Viollet-le-Duc wrote in September 1836 that he saw a photograph made by Daguerre from the top of his diorama. The picture showed the hills of Montmartre. With a weak magnifying glass it was possible to distinguish the details of the telegraph tower more than one and a half miles away. In April 1837, Daguerre remarked to Isidore Niépce that his equipment for taking daguerreotypes was ready, and the only thing he needed was good weather.

At a joint meeting of the French Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts held at the Institut de Françe on Monday, 19 August 1839 François Arago briefly referred to the earlier process that Niépce had developed and Daguerre had helped to improve without mentioning them by name (the heliograph and the physautotype) in rather disparaging terms stressing their inconvenience and disadvantages such as that exposures were so long as eight hours that required a full day's exposure during which time the sun had moved across the sky removing all trace of halftones or modelling in round objects, and the photographic layer was apt to peel off in patches, while praising the daguerreotype in glowing terms. Overlooking Nicéphore Niépce's contribution in this way led Niépce's son, Isidore to resent his father being ignored as having been the first to capture the image produced in a camera by chemical means, and Isidore wrote a pamphlet in defence of his father's reputation Histoire de la découverte improprement nommé daguerréotype ("History of the discovery improperly named the daguerreotype").

Daguerre was present but complained of a sore throat. Later that year William Fox Talbot announced his silver chloride "sensitive paper" process.

Together, these announcements caused early commentators to choose 1839 as the year photography was born, or made public. Later, it became known that Niépce's role had been downplayed in Arago's efforts to publicize the daguerreotype, and the first photograph is recorded in Eder's History of Photography as having been taken in 1826 or 1827. Niépce's reputation as the real inventor of photography became known through his son Isidore's indignation that his father's early experiments had been overlooked or ignored although Nicéphore had revealed his process, which, at the time, was secret.

The phrase the birth of photography has been used by different authors to mean different things – either the publicizing of the process (in 1839) as a metaphor to indicate that previous to that the daguerreotype process had been kept secret; or, the date the first photograph was taken by or with a camera (using the asphalt process or heliography), thought to have been 1822, but Eder's research indicates that the date was more probably 1826 or later. Fox Talbot's first photographs, on the other hand, were made "in the brilliant summer of 1835."

Daguerre and Niépce had together signed a good agreement in which remuneration for the invention would be paid for by subscription. However, the campaign they launched to finance the invention failed. François Arago, whose views on the system of patenting inventions can be gathered from speeches he made later in the House of Deputies (he apparently thought the English patent system had advantages over the French one) did not think the idea of raising money by subscription to be a good one, and supported Daguerre by arranging for motions to be passed in both Houses of the French parliament.

Daguerre did not patent and profit from his invention in the usual way. Instead, it was arranged that the French government would acquire the rights in exchange for lifetime pensions to Daguerre and to Niépce's son and heir, Isidore. The government would then present the daguerreotype process "free to the world" as a gift, which it did on 19 August 1839. However, five days previous to this, Miles Berry, a patent agent acting on Daguerre's behalf filed for patent No. 8194 of 1839: "A New or Improved Method of Obtaining the Spontaneous Reproduction of all the Images Received in the Focus of the Camera Obscura". The patent applied to "England, Wales, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in all her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad". This was the usual wording of English patent specifications before 1852. It was only after the 1852 Act, which unified the patent systems of England, Ireland and Scotland, that a single patent protection was automatically extended to the whole of the British Isles, including the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man. Richard Beard bought the patent rights from Miles Berry, and also obtained a Scottish patent, which he apparently did not enforce. The United Kingdom and the "Colonies and Plantations abroad" therefore became the only places where a license was legally required to make and sell daguerreotypes.

Although Daguerre's early work survived when his studio caught fire on 8 March 1839, while the painter Samuel Morse was visiting from the US, fewer than 25 of them are known to be around today.

Camera obscura
The camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber") in its simplest form is a naturally occurring phenomenon.

A broad-leaved tree in bright sunshine will provide conditions that fulfill the requirements of a pinhole camera or a camera obscura: a bright light source (the sun), the shade that the leafy canopy provides, a flat surface onto which the image is projected and holes formed by the gaps between the leaves. The sun's image will show as a round disc, and, in a partial eclipse, as a crescent.

A clear description of a camera obscura is given by Leonardo da Vinci in Codex Atlanticus (1502): (he called it oculus artificialis which means "the artificial eye") "If the facade of a building, or a place, or a landscape is illuminated by the sun and a small hole is drilled in the wall of a room in a building facing this, which is not directly lighted by the sun, then all objects illuminated by the sun will send their images through this aperture and will appear, upside down, on the wall facing the hole."

In another notebook, he wrote:"You will catch these pictures on a piece of white paper, which placed vertically in the room not far from that opening, and you will see all the above-mentioned objects on this paper in their natural shapes or colors, but they will appear smaller and upside down, on account of crossing of the rays at that aperture. If these pictures originate from a place which is illuminated by the sun, they will appear colored on the paper exactly as they are. The paper should be very thin and must be viewed from the back."

In the 16th century, Daniele Barbaro suggested replacing the small hole with a larger hole and an old man's spectacle lens (a biconvex lens for correcting long-sightedness), which produced a much brighter and sharper image.

By the late 18th century, small, easily portable box-form units equipped with a simple lens, an internal mirror, and a ground glass screen had become popular among affluent amateurs for making sketches of landscapes and architecture. The camera was pointed at the scene and steadied, a sheet of thin paper was placed on top of the ground glass, then a pencil or pen could be used to trace over the image projected from within. The beautiful but fugitive little light-paintings on the screen inspired several people to seek some way of capturing them more completely and effectively—and automatically—by means of chemistry.

Daguerre, a skilled professional artist, was familiar with the camera obscura as an aid for establishing correct proportion and perspective, sometimes very useful when planning out the celebrated theatrical scene backdrops he painted and the even larger ultra-realistic panoramas he exhibited in his popular Diorama.

Plate manufacture
The daguerreotype image is formed on a highly polished silver surface. Usually the silver is a thin layer on a copper substrate, but other metals such as brass can be used for the substrate and daguerreotypes can also be made on solid silver sheets. A surface of very pure silver is preferable, but sterling (92.5% pure) or US coin (90% pure) or even lower grades of silver are functional. In 19th century practice, the usual stock material, Sheffield plate, was produced by a process sometimes called plating by fusion. A sheet of sterling silver was heat-fused onto the top of a thick copper ingot. When the ingot was repeatedly rolled under pressure to produce thin sheets, the relative thicknesses of the two layers of metal remained constant. The alternative was to electroplate a layer of pure silver onto a bare copper sheet. The two technologies were sometimes combined, the Sheffield plate being given a finishing coat of pure silver by electroplating.

In order that the corners of the plate would not tear the buffing material when the plate was polished, the edges of the plate were bent back using patented devices that could also serve as plate holders to avoid touching the surface of the plate during processing.

Polishing
To optimize the image quality of the end product, the silver side of the plate had to be polished to as nearly perfect a mirror finish as possible. The silver had to be completely free of tarnish or other contamination when it was sensitized, so the daguerreotypist had to perform at least the final portion of the polishing and cleaning operation not too long before use. In the 19th century, the polishing was done with a buff covered with hide or velvet, first using rotten stone, then jeweler's rouge, then lampblack. Originally, the work was entirely manual, but buffing machinery was soon devised to assist. Finally, the surface was swabbed with nitric acid to burn off any residual organic matter.

Sensitization
In darkness or by the light of a safelight, the silver surface was exposed to halogen fumes. Originally, only iodine fumes (from iodine crystals at room temperature) were used, producing a surface coating of silver iodide, but it was soon found that a subsequent exposure to bromine fumes greatly increased the sensitivity of the silver halide coating. Exposure to chlorine fumes, or a combination of bromine and chlorine fumes, could also be used. A final re-fuming with iodine was typical.

Exposure
The plate was then carried to the camera in a light-tight plate holder. Withdrawing a protective dark slide or opening a pair of doors in the holder exposed the sensitized surface within the dark camera and removing a cap from the camera lens began the exposure, creating an invisible latent image on the plate. Depending on the sensitization chemistry used, the brightness of the lighting, and the light-concentrating power of the lens, the required exposure time ranged from a few seconds to many minutes. After the exposure was judged to be complete, the lens was capped and the holder was again made light-tight and removed from the camera.

Development
The latent image was developed to visibility by several minutes of exposure to the fumes given off by heated mercury in a purpose-made developing box. The toxicity of mercury was well known in the 19th century, but precautionary measures were rarely taken. Today, however, the hazards of contact with mercury and other chemicals traditionally used in the daguerreotype process are taken more seriously, as is the risk of release of those chemicals into the environment.

In the Becquerel variation of the process, published in 1840 but very rarely used in the 19th century, the plate, sensitized by fuming with iodine alone, was developed by overall exposure to sunlight passing through yellow, amber or red glass. The silver iodide in its unexposed condition was insensitive to the red end of the visible spectrum of light and was unaffected, but the latent image created in the camera by the blue, violet and ultraviolet rays color-sensitized each point on the plate proportionally, so that this color-filtered "sunbath" intensified it to full visibility, as if the plate had been exposed in the camera for hours or days to produce a visible image without development. Becquerel daguerreotypes, when fully developed and fixed, typically take on a somewhat bluish hue. The image quality may not be as magnificently sharp as a daguerreotype developed using mercury vapor, although modern photographers pursuing daguerreotypy tend to favor the Becquerel process due to the hazards and expense of working with mercury.

Fixing
After development, the light sensitivity of the plate was arrested by removing the unexposed silver halide with a mild solution of sodium thiosulfate; Daguerre's initial method was to use a hot saturated solution of common salt.

Gilding, also called gold toning, was an addition to Daguerre's process introduced by Hippolyte Fizeau in 1840. It soon became part of the standard procedure. To give the steely gray image a slightly warmer tone and physically reinforce the powder-like silver particles of which it was composed, a gold chloride solution was pooled onto the surface and the plate was briefly heated over a flame, then drained, rinsed and dried. Without this treatment, the image was as delicate as the "dust" on a butterfly's wing.

Casing and other display options

Even when strengthened by gilding, the image surface was still very easily marred and air would tarnish the silver, so the finished plate was bound up with a protective cover glass and sealed with strips of paper soaked in gum arabic. In the US and UK, a gilt brass mat called a preserver in the US and a pinchbeck in Britain, was normally used to separate the image surface from the glass. In continental Europe, a thin cardboard mat or passepartout usually served that purpose.

There were two main methods of finishing daguerreotypes for protection and display:

In the US and Britain, the tradition of preserving miniature paintings in a wooden case covered with leather or paper stamped with a relief pattern continued through to the daguerreotype. Some daguerreotypists were portrait artists who also offered miniature portraits. Black-lacquered cases ornamented with inset mother of pearl were sometimes used. The more substantial Union case was made from a mixture of colored sawdust and shellac (the main component of wood varnish) formed in a heated mold to produce a decorative sculptural relief. The word "Union" referred to the sawdust and varnish mixture—the manufacture of Union cases began in 1856. In all types of cases, the inside of the cover was lined with velvet or plush or satin to provide a dark surface to reflect into the plate for viewing and to protect the cover glass. Some cases, however, held two daguerreotypes opposite each other. The cased images could be set out on a table or displayed on a mantelpiece. Most cases were small and lightweight enough to easily carry in a pocket, although that was not normally done. The other approach, common in France and the rest of continental Europe, was to hang the daguerreotype on the wall in a frame, either simple or elaborate.

Conservators were able to determine that a daguerreotype of Walt Whitman was made in New Orleans with the main clue being the type of frame, which was made for wall hanging in the French and continental style. Supporting evidence of the New Orleans origin was a scrap of paper from Le Mesager, a New Orleans bilingual newspaper of the time, which had been used to glue the plate into the frame. Other clues used by historians to identify daguerreotypes are hallmarks in the silver plate and the distinctive patterns left by different photographers when polishing the plate with a leather buff, which leaves extremely fine parallel lines discernible on the surface.

As the daguerreotype itself is on a relatively thin sheet of soft metal, it was easily sheared down to sizes and shapes suited for mounting into lockets, as was done with miniature paintings. Other imaginative uses of daguerreotype portraits were to mount them in watch fobs and watch cases, jewel caskets and other ornate silver or gold boxes, the handles of walking sticks, and in brooches, bracelets and other jewelry now referred to by collectors as "daguerreian jewelry". The cover glass or crystal was sealed either directly to the edges of the daguerreotype or to the opening of its receptacle and a protective hinged cover was usually provided.

Unusual characteristics
Daguerreotypes are normally laterally reversed—mirror images—because they are necessarily viewed from the side that originally faced the camera lens. Although a daguerreotypist could attach a mirror or reflective prism in front of the lens to obtain a right-reading result, in practice this was rarely done.

The use of either type of attachment caused some light loss, somewhat increasing the required exposure time, and unless they were of very high optical quality they could degrade the quality of the image. Right-reading text or right-handed buttons on men's clothing in a daguerreotype may be the only evidence that the specimen is a copy of a typical wrong-reading original.

The experience of viewing a daguerreotype is unlike that of viewing any other type of photograph. The image does not sit on the surface of the plate. After flipping from positive to negative as the viewing angle is adjusted, viewers experience an apparition in space, a mirage that arises once the eyes are properly focused. When reproduced via other processes, this effect associated with viewing an original daguerreotype will no longer be apparent. Other processes that have a similar viewing experience are holograms on credit cards or Lippmann plates.

Although daguerreotypes are unique images, they could be copied by re-daguerreotyping the original. Copies were also produced by lithography or engraving. Today, they can be digitally scanned.

A well-exposed and sharp large-format daguerreotype is able to faithfully record fine detail at a resolution that today's digital cameras are not able to match.

Reduction of exposure time
In the early 1840s, two innovations were introduced that dramatically shortened the required exposure times: a lens that produced a much brighter image in the camera, and a modification of the chemistry used to sensitize the plate.

The first daguerreotype cameras could not be used for portraiture, as the exposure time required would have been too long. The cameras were fitted with Chevalier lenses which were "slow" (about f/14). They projected a sharp and undistorted but dim image onto the plate. Such a lens was necessary in order to produce the highly detailed results which had elicited so much astonishment and praise when daguerreotypes were first exhibited, results which the purchasers of daguerreotype equipment expected to achieve. Using this lens and the original sensitizing method, an exposure of several minutes was required to photograph even a very brightly sunlit scene. A much "faster" lens could have been provided—simply omitting the integral fixed diaphragm from the Chevalier lens would have increased its working aperture to about f/4.7 and reduced the exposure time by nearly 90 percent—but because of the existing state of lens design the much shorter exposure would have been at the cost of a peripherally distorted and very much less clear image. With uncommon exceptions, daguerreotypes made before 1841 were of static subjects such as landscapes, buildings, monuments, statuary, and still life arrangements. Attempts at portrait photography with the Chevalier lens required the sitter to face into the sun for several minutes while trying to remain motionless and look pleasant, usually producing repulsive and unflattering results. The Woolcott mirror lens that produced tiny, postage stamp size daguerreotypes made portraiture with the daguerreotype process possible and these were the first photographic portraits to be produced. In 1841, the Petzval Portrait Lens was introduced. Professor Andreas von Ettingshausen brought the need for a faster lens for daguerreotype cameras to his colleague, Professor Petzval's attention, who went ahead in cooperation with the Voigtländer firm to design a lens that would reduce the time needed to expose daguerreotype plates for portraiture. Petzval was not aware of the scale of his invention at the start of his work on the lens, and later regretted not having secured his rights by obtaining letters patent on his invention. It was the first lens to be designed using mathematical computation, and a team of mathematicians whose specialty was in fact calculating the trajectories of ballistics was put at Petzval's disposal by the Archduke Ludwig. It was scientifically designed and optimized for its purpose. With a working aperture of about f/3.6, an exposure only about one-fifteenth as long as that required when using a Chevalier lens was sufficient. Although it produced an acceptably sharp image in the central area of the plate, where the sitter's face was likely to be, the image quality dropped off toward the edges, so for this and other reasons it was unsuitable for landscape photography and not a general replacement for Chevalier-type lenses. Petzval intended his lens to be convertible with two alternative rear components: one for portraiture and the other for landscape and architecture.

The other major innovation was a chemical one. In Daguerre's original process, the plate was sensitized by exposure to iodine fumes alone. A breakthrough came with the discovery that when exposure to bromine or chlorine fumes was correctly combined with this, the sensitivity of the plate could be greatly increased, which in turn greatly reduced the required exposure time to between fifteen and thirty seconds in favorable lighting conditions, according to Eder. Several experimenters discovered the propensity of using chlorine and bromine in addition to iodine: Wolcott, whose "Wolcott's mixture" was marketed by his partner, John Johnson that they called "quickstuff"; two unrelated individuals with the surname Goddard – Philadelphia physician and chemist Paul Beck Goddard, and John Frederick Goddard who lectured at the Adelaide Gallery before assisting Beard with setting up the first daguerreotype portraiture studio on the roof of the Regent Street Polytechnic; (John Frederick Goddard was the first to publish information that bromine increased the sensitivity of daguerreotype plates in the Literary Gazette of 12 December 1840)  and in Vienna: Krachowila and the Natterer brothers.

Unusual daguerreotype cameras
A number of innovative camera designs appeared:

By December 1839, Carl August von Steinheil invented a small, portable metal camera, which was nineteen times smaller than the camera sold by Giroux. The resulting daguerreotypes were viewed in a special brass viewer. At least ten of these cameras were created.

One early attempt to address the lack of a good "fast" lens for portraiture, and the subject of the first US patent for photographic apparatus, was Alexander S. Wolcott's camera, which used a concave mirror instead of a lens and operated on the principle of the reflecting telescope. The mirror was fitted at one end of the camera and focusing was done by adjusting the position of the plate in a holder that slid along a rail. Designed solely for portraiture, this arrangement produced a far brighter image than a Chevalier lens, or even the later Petzval lens, but image quality was only marginal and the design was only practical for use with small plates.

Friedrich Voigtländer's small, all-metal Daguerrotype camera (1841) was small enough to be carried. It was fitted with a f/3.5 Petzval portrait lens at the front and a focusing lens at the back, and took round plates. Only 600 of these cameras were produced.

The directions for the use of the Voigtländer camera read as follows:

"Directions for the use of the new daguerreotype apparatus for the making of portraits, executed according to the calculations of Professor Petzval by Voigtländer and Son, Vienna, printed by J.P.Sollinger, August 1, 1841."

The person to be photographed must be seated in the open air. For an exposure by overcast, dark skies in winter 3 ½ minutes is sufficient; on a sunny day in the shade 1½ to 2 minutes are enough, and in direct sunlight it requires no more than 40–45 seconds. The last, however, is seldom employed on account of the deep shadows direct sunlight creates.

The stated exposure times are evidently for plates sensitized with iodine only; improved sensitization methods were just being introduced in 1841–42.

In 1845 Friedrich von Martens invented the first panoramic camera for curved daguerreotype plates with a lens that turned to cover an angle of 150 degrees. It was called "Megaskop-Kamera" of "Panorama-Kamera".

Netto constructed, in 1841, a studio in which the front part of the camera with the lens was built into the wall between the studio and the adjoining darkroom, the rear part of the camera being inside the darkroom.

Portraiture
In one early attempt at portraiture, a Swedish amateur daguerreotypist caused his sitter nearly to lose an eye because of practically staring into the sun during the five-minute exposure.

Even with fast lenses and much more sensitive plates, under portrait studio lighting conditions an exposure of several seconds was necessary on the brightest of days, and on hazy or cloudy days the sitter had to remain still for considerably longer. The head rest was already in use for portrait painting.

Establishments producing daguerreotype portraits generally had a daylight studio built on the roof, much like a greenhouse. Whereas later in the history of photography artificial electric lighting was done in a dark room, building up the light with hard spotlights and softer floodlights, the daylight studio was equipped with screens and blinds to control the light, to reduce it and make it unidirectional, or diffuse it to soften harsh direct lighting. Blue filtration was sometimes used to make it easier for the sitter to tolerate the strong light, as a daguerreotype plate was almost exclusively sensitive to light at the blue end of the spectrum and filtering out everything else did not significantly increase the exposure time.

Usually, it was arranged so that sitters leaned their elbows on a support such as a posing table, the height of which could be adjusted, or else head rests were used that did not show in the picture, and this led to most daguerreotype portraits having stiff, lifeless poses. Some exceptions exist, with lively expressions full of character, as photographers saw the potential of the new medium, and would have used the tableau vivant technique. These are represented in museum collections and are the most sought after by private collectors today. In the case of young children, their mothers were sometimes hidden in the frame, to calm them and keep them still so as to prevent blurring.

The image in a daguerreotype is often described as being formed by the amalgam, or alloy, of mercury and silver because mercury vapor from a pool of heated mercury is used to develop the plate; but using the Becquerel process (using a red filter and extra exposure) daguerreotypes can be produced without mercury, and chemical analysis shows that there is no mercury in the final image with the Becquerel process. This brings into question the theory that the image is formed of amalgam with mercury development.

Although the daguerreotype process could only produce a single image at a time, copies could be created by re-daguerreotyping the original. As with any original photograph that is copied, the contrast increases. With a daguerreotype, any writing will appear back to front. Recopying a daguerreotype will make the writing appear normal and rings worn on the fingers will appear on the correct hand. Another device to make a daguerreotype the right way round would be to use a mirror when taking the photograph.

The daguerreotypes of the 1852 Omaha Indian (Native American) delegation in the Smithsonian include a daguerreotype copied in the camera, recognizable by the contrast being high and a black line down the side of the plate.

Proliferation
André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri and Jules Itier of France, and Johann Baptist Isenring of Switzerland, became prominent daguerreotypists. In Britain, however, Richard Beard bought the British daguerreotype patent from Miles Berry in 1841 and closely controlled his investment, selling licenses throughout the country and prosecuting infringers. Among others, Antoine Claudet and Thomas Richard Williams produced daguerreotypes in the UK.

Daguerreotype photography spread rapidly across the United States after the discovery first appeared in US newspapers in February 1839. In the early 1840s, the invention was introduced in a period of months to practitioners in the United States by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph code.

It is possible that Morse may have been the first American to view a daguerreotype first-hand. Morse's experience with art and technology in the early 1800s attracted him to the daguerreotype; in the summers of 1820 and 1821 he conducted proto-photographic experiments with Benjamin Silliman. In his piece The Gallery of the Louvre Morse used a Camera obscura to precisely capture the gallery which he then used to create the final painting.

Morse met the inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, in Paris in January 1839 when Daguerre's invention was announced [2]. While the daguerreotype fascinated Morse, he was concerned about how the new invention would compete with his telegraph. However, Morse's viewing of the daguerreotype alleviated his fears when he saw how revolutionary its technology was. Morse wrote a letter to his brother Sidney describing Daguerre's invention, which Sidney then published in the New-York Observer on April 20, 1839. While this was not the first report of the daguerreotype to appear in America, it was the first in-person report to appear in the United States.

Morse's account of the brand-new invention interested the American public, and through further publishings the technique of the daguerreotype was integrated into the United States. Magazines and newspapers included essays applauding the daguerreotype for advancing democratic American values because it could create an image without painting, which was less efficient and more expensive. The introduction of the daguerreotype to America also promoted progress of ideals and technology. For example, an article published in the Boston Daily Advertiser on February 23, 1839 described the daguerreotype as having similar properties of the camera obscura, but introduced its remarkable capability of "fixing the image permanently on the paper, or making a permanent drawing, by the agency of light alone," which combined old and new concepts for readers to understand.

By 1853, an estimated three million daguerreotypes per year were being produced in the United States alone. One of these original Morse Daguerreotype cameras is currently on display at the National Museum of American History, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. A flourishing market in portraiture sprang up, predominantly the work of itinerant practitioners who traveled from town to town. For the first time in history, people could obtain an exact likeness of themselves or their loved ones for a modest cost, making portrait photographs extremely popular with those of modest means. Celebrities and everyday people sought portraits and workers would save an entire day's income to have a daguerreotype taken of them, including occupational portraits.

Notable U.S. daguerreotypists of the mid-19th century included James Presley Ball, Samuel Bemis, Abraham Bogardus, Mathew Brady, Thomas Martin Easterly, François Fleischbein, Jeremiah Gurney, John Plumbe, Jr., Albert Southworth, Augustus Washington, Ezra Greenleaf Weld, John Adams Whipple, and Frederick Douglass.

This method spread to other parts of the world as well:
 * The first daguerreotype in Australia was taken in 1841, but no longer survives. The oldest surviving Australian daguerreotype is a portrait of Dr. William Bland taken in 1845.
 * In Jamaica Adolphe Duperly, a Frenchman, produced a booklet of Daguerreotypes, Daguerian Excursions in Jamaica, being a collection of views ... taken on the spot with the Daguerreotype which probably appeared in 1844.
 * In 1857, Ichiki Shirō created the first known Japanese photograph, a portrait of his daimyō Shimazu Nariakira. The photograph was designated an Important Cultural Property by the government of Japan.
 * In the early 1850s, Augustus Washington left Hartford Connecticut to eventually take daguerreotypes for the political leaders of Monrovia, Liberia. He then went on to be elected as a speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives and later a member of the Liberian Senate.

Astronomical applications in the 19th century
In 1839, François Arago had in his address to the French Chamber of Deputies outlined a wealth of possible applications including astronomy, and indeed the daguerreotype was still occasionally used for astronomical photography in the 1870s.

The first known photograph of a solar eclipse was taken on July 28, 1851, by Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski, using the daguerreotype process.

Although the collodion wet plate process offered a cheaper and more convenient alternative for commercial portraiture and for other applications with shorter exposure times, when the transit of Venus was about to occur and observations were to be made from several sites on the earth's surface in order to calculate astronomical distances, daguerreotypy proved a more accurate method of making visual recordings through telescopes because it was a dry process with greater dimensional stability, whereas collodion glass plates were exposed wet and the image would become slightly distorted when the emulsion dried.

Late and modern use
Although the daguerreotype process is sometimes said to have died out completely in the early 1860s, documentary evidence indicates that some very slight use of it persisted more or less continuously throughout the following 150 years of its supposed extinction. A few first-generation daguerreotypists refused to entirely abandon their old medium when they started making the new, cheaper, easier to view but comparatively drab ambrotypes and tintypes. Historically minded photographers of subsequent generations, often fascinated by daguerreotypes, sometimes experimented with making their own or even revived the process commercially as a "retro" portraiture option for their clients. These eccentric late uses were extremely unusual and surviving examples reliably dated to between the 1860s and the 1960s are now exceedingly rare.

The daguerreotype experienced a minor renaissance in the late 20th century and the process is currently practiced by a handful of enthusiastic devotees; there are thought to be fewer than 100 worldwide (see list of artists on cdags.org in links below). In recent years, artists like Jerry Spagnoli, Adam Fuss, Patrick Bailly-Maître-Grand, Alyssa C. Salomon, and Chuck Close have reintroduced the medium to the broader art world. The use of electronic flash in modern daguerreotype has solved many of the problems connected with the slow speed of the process when using daylight.

International group exhibitions of contemporary daguerreotypists' works have been held, notably the 2009 exhibition in Bry Sur Marne, France, with 182 daguerreotypes by forty-four artists, and the 2013 ImageObject exhibition in New York City, showcasing seventy-five works by thirty-three artists. The Astolat Dollhouse Castle also displays daguerreotypes. The appeal of the medium lies in the "magic mirror" effect of light striking the polished silver plate and revealing a silvery image which can seem ghostly and ethereal even while being perfectly sharp, and in the dedication and handcrafting required to make a daguerreotype.

title: Daguerreotype