rhetorica, the manual used in Jesuit schools. Muir pointedly notes, "By systematically pursuing the parallels between rhetorical persuasion and erotic seduction, Pallavicino demonstrates how the high art of rhetoric has the same instrumental character as the lowly deceptions of the prostitute." La Retorica delle puttane (1643) proved to be a step too far, and in the autumn of 1643 Pallavicino had to flee Venice for Bergamo, where he completed the first volume of his last work, Il Divortio celeste ("The Celestial Divorce"), published in 1643, which Muir reports "came to be known, in the words of a contemporary, as 'superior to all others in impiety and blasphemies against the Roman Church.'" In this proposed trilogy, Pallavicino had portrayed Jesus Christ as seeking to divorce himself from the Roman Catholic Church (widely known then as the "bride of Christ"), for committing intolerable adulteries and for living a sinful life. God then sends Saint Paul to investigate these claims, and based on his findings, he recommends that Christ's request be granted. Although the only completed volume of the series ends at this point, according to Muir the story was continued "with an account of how Luther, Calvin, and Mark of Ephesus (the 15th-century Greek theologian who had opposed the unification of the Greek and Roman churches) offered their own churches as the new bride of Christ. After considering their suitability for matrimony, Christ was to have demurred, stating that he did not intend to wed any of the existing churches." A copy of Pallavicino's manuscript found its way to Geneva, where it was published. Il Divortio became a sensation in Italy (where Muir notes it was sold "under the counter"), and was plagiarized in Protestant countries, where German, Swedish, French, Dutch and English translations appeared. Death and legacy It was in Bergamo that the son of an Italian bookseller in Paris, Charles de Breche – who, as a paid agent of the Barberini had befriended Pallavicino a few years before – convinced him that Cardinal Richelieu greatly admired his works and wanted to commission Pallavicino to serve as the cardinal's official historian if he were to come to France. Despite the fact that Richelieu died while the two were en route to Paris, de Breche convinced Pallavicino to continue the journey, and as they were crossing one of the bridges at Orange in the neighborhood of Avignon, a papal enclave within France,