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Aconclo (AcoNzlo), Giacomo, Latin JACOaus ACONTIU5 (b. Sept. 7, 1492, Ossana, Italy
—d. 566, England), advocate of religious toleration during the Reformation whose revolt took a more extreme form than Lutheranism. He served as secretary to Cristoforo Madruzzo, a liberal cardinal. When the more conservative Paul IV became pope, he repudiated Roman Catholic doctrine, left Italy, and eventually found refuge in England. He arrived soon after the accession of Queen Elizabeth I (1558). Although he had studied law and theology, he was an engineer by profession and for some time was employed by the government to drain marshes in Plumstead.
On his arrival in London, Aconcio joined the Dutch Reformed Church; before reaching England, however, he had published a treatise on methods of scientific investigation, and his critical spirit made it difficult for him to remain within any of the recognized religious societies of his time.
He was subsequently excluded from the sacraments, partly because he was considered to hold Anabaptist (Baptism of adult believers) and Arian (anti-Trimtarian) opinions and partly because he defended the radical pastor, Adrian Haemstede, who had previously been excommunicated.
In his Satanae stratagernatum (1562) Aconcio identified the dogmatic creeds that divide the church as the “strategems of Satan.” In the hope of finding a common denominator for the various creeds, he sought to reduce dogmatic elements to a minimum. A study of the man and his doctrine is found in Charles O’Malley’s Jacopo Aconcio, uornini e dottrine (1955).
