A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?

Chapter 4 focuses on the important, but highly controversial contribution to the religious and associational dynamic of the society of Ottavio Cappelli, who fashioned himself as a prophet able to communicate with the archangels Gabriel and Raphael. It places a particular emphasis on a crucial period between the end of 1789 and November 1791, a two-year time frame that takes in Cappelli’s apogee in Rome in early 1790, when he was feted by all within the society as a true prophet. The chapter analyses Cappelli’s contentious attempts in 1790 to reconfigure the Avignon Society as a more conventional Roman Catholic sect, which began to sow seeds of discord among Protestant initiates. It also examines the impact of his arrest by the papal authorities, in September 1790, on not only his personal fate, but also on the fortunes of the society as a whole. His fall, which was confirmed by a seven-year prison sentence in November 1791, played a key role in causing a schism in the Avignon Society that almost tore the group asunder.