[743] The Grand Inquisitors had always shown an instinctive desire to obtain jurisdiction over books, whether printed or manuscript. Torquemada, the fiercest, if not quite the first of them, burned at Seville, in 1490, a quantity of Hebrew Bibles and other manuscripts, on the ground that they were the work of Jews; and at Salamanca, subsequently, he destroyed, in the same way, six thousand volumes more, on the ground that they were books of magic and sorcery. But in all this he proceeded, not by virtue of his Inquisitorial office, but, as Barrientos had done forty years before, (see ante, p. 359,) by direct royal authority. Until 1521, therefore, the press remained in the hands of the Oidores, or judges of the higher courts, and other persons civil and ecclesiastical, who, from the first appearance of printing in the country, and certainly for above twenty years after that period, had granted, by special power from the sovereigns, whatever licenses were deemed necessary for the printing and circulation of books. Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. I. pp. 281, 456. Mendez, Typographía, pp. 51, 331, 375.
[744] I notice in a few works printed before 1550, that the Inquisition, without formal authority, began quietly to take cognizance and control of books that were about to be published. Thus, in a curious treatise on Exchange, “Tratado de Cambios,” by Cristóval de Villalon, printed at Valladolid in 1541, 4to, the title-page declares that it had been “visto por los Señores Inquisidores”; and in Pero Mexia’s “Silva de Varia Leccion,” (Sevilla, 1543, folio,) though the title gives the imperial license for printing, the colophon adds that of the Apostolical Inquisitor. There was no reason for either, except the anxiety of the author to be safe from an authority which rested on no law, but which was already recognized as formidable. Similar remarks may be made about the “Theórica de Virtudes” of Castilla, which was formally licensed, in 1536, by Alonso Manrique, the Inquisitor-General, though it was dedicated to the Emperor, and bears the Imperial authority to print.
[745] Peignot, Essai sur la Liberté d’Écrire, Paris, 1832, 8vo, pp. 55, 61. Baillet, Jugemens des Savans, Amsterdam, 1725, 12mo, Tom. II. Partie I. p. 43. Father Paul Sarpi’s remarkable account of the origin of the Inquisition, and of the Index Expurgatorius of Venice, which was the first ever printed, Opere, Helmstadt, 1763, 4to, Tom. IV. pp. 1-67. Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. I. pp. 459-464, 470. Vogt, Catalogus Librorum Rariorum, Hamburgi, 1753, 8vo, pp. 367-369. So much for Europe. Abroad it was worse. From 1550, a certificate was obliged to accompany every book, setting forth, that it was not a prohibited book, without which certificate, no book was permitted to be sold or read in the colonies. (Llorente, Tom. I. p. 467.) But thus far the Inquisition, in relation to the Index Expurgatorius, consulted the civil authorities, or was specially authorized by them to act. In 1640 this ceremony was no longer observed, and the Index was printed by the Inquisition alone, without any commission from the civil government. From the time when the danger of the heresy of Luther became considerable, no books arriving from Germany and France were permitted to be circulated in Spain, except by special license. Bisbe y Vidal, Tratado de Comedias, Barcelona, 1618, 12mo, f. 55.
[746] Cardinal Ximenes was really equal to the position these extraordinary offices gave him, and exercised his great authority with sagacity and zeal, and with a confidence in the resources of his own genius that seemed to double his power. It should, however, never be forgotten, that, but for him, the Inquisition, instead of being enlarged, as it was, twenty years after its establishment, would have been constrained within comparatively narrow limits, and probably soon overthrown. For, in 1512, when the embarrassments of the public treasury inclined Ferdinand to accept from the persecuted new converts a large sum of money, which he needed to carry on his war against Navarre,—a gift which they offered on the single and most righteous condition, that witnesses cited before the Inquisition should be examined publicly,—Cardinal Ximenes not only used his influence with the king to prevent him from accepting the offer, but furnished him with resources that made its acceptance unnecessary. And again, in 1517, when Charles V., young and not without generous impulses, received, on the same just condition, from the same oppressed Christians, a still larger offer of money to defray his expenses in taking possession of his kingdom, and when he had obtained assurances of the reasonableness of granting their request from the principal universities and men of learning in Spain and in Flanders, Cardinal Ximenes interposed anew his great influence, and—not without some suppression of the truth—prevented a second time the acceptance of the offer. He, too, it was, who arranged the jurisdiction of the tribunals of the Inquisition in the different provinces, settling them on deeper and more solid foundations; and, finally, it was this master spirit of his time who first carried the Inquisition beyond the limits of Spain, establishing it in Oran, which was his personal conquest, and in the Canaries, and Cuba, where he made provident arrangements, by virtue of which it was subsequently extended through all Spanish America. And yet, before he wielded the power of the Inquisition, he opposed its establishment. Llorente, Hist., Chap. X., Art. 5 and 7.
[747] Llorente, Tom. I. p. 419.
[748] Llorente, Tom. II. pp. 183, 184.
[749] Ibid., Tom. II., Chap. XX., XXI., and XXIV.
[750] Llorente, Tom. II., Chap. XIX., XXV., and other places.
[751] See note to Chap. XL. of this Part.
[752] Ginguené, Hist. Lit. d’ltalie, Paris, 1812, 8vo, Tom. IV. pp. 87-90; and more fully in Historia de Don Hernando Dávalos, Marques de Pescara, en Anvers, Juan Steelsio, 1558, 12mo;—a curious book, which seems, I think, to have been written before 1546, and was the work of Pedro Valles, an Aragonese. Latassa, Bib. Nueva de Escritores Aragoneses, Zaragossa, Tom. I. 4to, 1798, p. 289.