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 The first Italian translation of the Book of Common Prayer was made in 1608 by William Bedell (the chaplain to James I’s ambassador in Venice) with the help of Fulgenzio Micanzio and Paolo Sarpi. This translation was part of an English propaganda plan to instigate a schism in the Church of Venice, at a time of conflict between the court of Rome and the Venetian Republic. This essay reconstructs the relationships between Sarpi and Micanzio and the English embassy in Venice. As far as we know, Bedell’s translation remained a manuscript with no known copies extant. At the British Library is preserved an Italian manuscript version dated 1661, whose authorship a certain Alessandro Amidei ascribed to himself. It is not impossible that this is a copy of the translation made in Venice a few decades before.