A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II

by Henry Charles Lea

A curious case occurring about this time illustrates the growing indifference felt in Lombardy for the Inquisition. In Milan, about 1440, a learned mathematician, named Amadeo de’’ Landi, was accused of heresy before the inquisitors. During the progress of his trial he was, to the great damage of his reputation, denounced as a heretic by sundry friars in their sermons, and among others by Bernardino of Siena, the saintly head of the Observantines. The Inquisition pronounced him a good Catholic and discharged him, but those who had slandered him offered no reparation. The acquittal by the Inquisition apparently did not outweigh the denunciations of Bernardino, and Amadeo appealed to Eugenius IV., who referred the matter to Giuseppe di Brippo, with power to enforce his decision with censures. Giuseppe summoned the detractors to appear on a certain day, and on their failing to present themselves condemned Bernardino to make public retraction under pain of excommunication. Bernardino paid no heed to this, and on his death in 1444, when immediate efforts were made for his canonization, Amadeo raised great scandal by proclaiming that he had died in mortal sin as an excommunicate. This gratified the jealousy of the conventual branch of the Franciscans and many of the secular clergy, who spread the scandal far and wide. By this time, however, the Observantines were too influential for such an assault upon their revered vicar-general to be successful; and in 1447 they obtained from Nicholas V. a bull in which he annulled all the proceedings of Giuseppe, ordered every record of them to be destroyed, imposed silence on the unlucky Amadeo, declared Bernadino to have acted righteously throughout, and forbade all clerks, friars, and others from indulging in further detraction concerning him. I may add that the opposition of the Conventuals was powerful enough to postpone until 1450 the canonization of San Bernardino, and a humorous incident in the struggle may be worth mention. When the blessed Tommaso of Florence died at Rieti in 1447, and immediately began to coruscate in miracles, Capistrano hurried thither and forbade him to display further his thaumaturgic powers until Bernardino should be canonized—and Tommaso meekly obeyed.[304]

Yet, shorn as the Inquisition had become of real effectiveness for its avowed functions, the office continued to be sought, doubtless because it conferred a certain measure of importance, and possibly because it afforded opportunity of illicit gains. Inquisitors were regularly appointed, and the custom grew up in Lombardy that in each city where a tribunal existed vacancies were filled on the nomination of the prior of the local Dominican convent with the assent of discreet brethren, whereupon the General Master of the Order issued the commission. In 1500 this was modified by giving the Vicar-general of Lombardy power to reject or ratify the nomination. The subordinate position to which the inquisitorial office had fallen is illustrated in the last decade of the fifteenth century by Frà Antonio da Brescia, who was inquisitor of his native place, and who was claimed as an ornament of the Dominican Order, but his eulogist has nothing to say as to his persecuting heretics, while praising his pulpit labors in many of the Italian cities.[305]

In Venice, as we have seen, the Inquisition never succeeded in shaking off the trammels of state supervision and interference. In what spirit the State regarded its relations with the Holy Office was exhibited in 1356, when Frà Michele da Pisa, the Inquisitor of Treviso, imprisoned some Jewish converts who had apostatized. This was strictly within his functions, but the secular officials interposed, forbade his proceeding to try his prisoners, seized his familiars, and tortured them on the charge of pilfering the property of the accused. These high-handed measures provoked the liveliest indignation on the part of Innocent VI., but the republic stood firm, and nothing seems to have been gained. In the correspondence which ensued, moreover, there are allusions to former troubles which show that this was by no means the first time that Frà Michele’s labors had been impeded by the secular power. Sometimes, indeed, the Signoria completely ignored the Inquisition. In 1365 a case in which a prisoner had blasphemed the Virgin was brought before the Great Council, which ordered him to be tried by the vicar of the Bishop of Castello, and on conviction to be banished, thus prescribing the punishment, and recognizing only the episcopal jurisdiction.[306]

In 1373 Venice was honored with the appointment of a special inquisitor, Frà Ludovico da San-Martino, while Frà Niccolò Mucio of Venice was made Inquisitor of Treviso. This led to some debate about their partition of the great Patriarchate of Aquileia, which extended from the province of Spalatro to that of Milan. The Patriarchate of Grado (which was not transferred to Venice till 1451) was adjudged to Ludovico, together with the see of Jesol. This latter place, though close to Venice, was then, we are told, in ruins, with a roofless cathedral serving as a place of refuge for heretics, who there felt safe from persecution. This partition did not improve the position of the inquisitor, whose importance was reduced to a minimum. He seems, in fact, to be regarded only as a functionary of the state police. In 1412 the Great Council orders him, April 17, to put an end to the performance of divine service by a Greek priest named Michael, whose celebrations attract great crowds, and also to banish him, taking care to so manage the affair that the interposition of the council may not be suspected; and a month later, May 26, the order of banishment is revoked, but the prohibition of celebration is maintained. In all his proper functions the inquisitor was overslaughed and disregarded. In 1422 the Council of Ten appointed a commission to examine some Franciscans charged with sacrificing to demons and other abominable practices, and a month later they sent to Martin V., requesting powers to terminate the matter, in view of the immunities enjoyed by the Mendicants. When, in the following year, 1423, the Senate withdrew the pecuniary provision with which the State had always defrayed the expenses of the Inquisition, they marked their sense of its inutility and their indifference to its power. This may possibly have led to the reunion of the districts of Venice and Treviso, for, in 1433 and 1434, we find single inquisitors appointed to both. In the latter year the lack of power of the incumbent, Frà Luca Cioni, is shown by the fact that when he desired to proceed against Ruggieri da Bertona, accused of heresy, he was forced to get Eugenius IV. to order the Bishop of Castello (Venice) to assist him. A further recognition of the inefficiency of the Inquisition is seen in the sending of Frà Giovanni da Capistrano to Venice in 1437, when the Jesuats were accused of heresy, and he acquitted them, and again, about 1450, when heretical notions spread there concerning the origin and nature of the soul, which he suppressed.[307]

Allusion has been made in a former chapter to the limitation imposed in 1450 by the Council of Ten on the number of armed familiars whom the inquisitor might retain, reducing them to four, and in 1451 increasing them to twelve, with instructions to the police to see that they were really engaged in the duties of the Holy Office. In so large and populous a district this sufficiently shows how purely nominal were the functions of the Inquisition, and how close was the supervision exercised by the State. Yet inquisitors continued to be appointed, but when they attempted to exercise any independent jurisdiction we have seen, in the case of the sorcerers of 1521, that even the most energetic interference of Leo X. could not induce the Signoria to waive its right of final decision.[308]

In Mantua, which formed part of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, we hear, in 1494, of an inquisitor who, for lack of heresies to suppress, assailed the monts de piété, or public pawning establishments, and all who favored them. These institutions were founded about this period as a charitable work for the purpose of rescuing the poor from the exactions of the usurers and the Jews. Frà Bernardino da Feltre, a celebrated Observantine Franciscan, made this a special object of his mission-work in the Italian cities, and on his coming to Mantua he completely silenced his adversaries. The decline of visible heresy at this period, in fact, is illustrated in the very diffuse account which Luke Wadding gives, year after year, of Bernardino’s triumphant progress throughout Italy to call the people to repentance, when cities eagerly disputed with each other the blessing of his presence. In all this there is no allusion to any attacks by him on heresy; had there been any to assail, his burning zeal would not have suffered it to enjoy impunity.[309]

In Tuscany the growing insubordination felt towards the Inquisition was manifested at Siena, in 1340, by the enactment of laws checking some of its abuses. Frà Simone Filippo, the inquisitor, complained to Benedict XII., who at once pronounced them null and void, and ordered them erased from the statute-book. The relations between the Holy Office and the people at this period, however, are more significantly displayed in a series of events occurring at Florence, of which the details chance to have been preserved. In Tuscany the triumph of orthodoxy had been complete. A sermon of Frà Giordano da Rivalto, in 1304, asserts that heresy was virtually exterminated: scarce any heretics remained, and they were in strict hiding. This is confirmed by Villani, who tells us that, by the middle of the century, there were no heretics in Florence. This is doubtless too absolute an assertion, but the existence of a few scattered Waldenses and Fraticelli offered scant excuse for such an establishment as the inquisitor was accustomed to maintain. In 1337 the papal nuncio, Bertrand, Archbishop of Embrun, took the incumbent of the office severely to task for the abuse of appointing an excessive number of assistants, and ordered him in future to restrict himself to four counsellors and assessors, two notaries, two jailers, and twelve ministers or familiars. This was by no means a small or inexpensive body of officials; the Inquisition’s share of confiscations from the few poverty-stricken heretics who could occasionally be picked up evidently was insufficient to maintain such a corps, and means, either fair or foul, must be found to render the income of the office adequate to the wants of those who depended upon it for their fortunes. How this was done, on the one hand by cheating the papal camera, and on the other by extorting money on false charges of heresy and by selling to bravoes licenses to carry arms, has already been pointed out. The former device was one which, when detected, was difficult to condone, and its discovery caused, in the commencement of 1344, a sudden vacancy in the Florentine Inquisition. The republic was in the habit of suggesting names to the Franciscan General for appointment, and sometimes its requests were respected. In the present case it asked, February 26, that the Tuscan inquisitor, Frà Giovanni da Casale, be permitted to exercise his functions within the city, but the suggestion was unheeded, and in March the post was given to Frà Piero di Aquila.[310]

Frà Piero was a distinguished member of the Franciscan Order. But two months earlier he had been appointed chaplain to Queen Joanna of Naples, and his Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard were highly esteemed, receiving, in 1480, the honor of an edition printed at Speier. A man so gifted was warmly welcomed, and the republic thanked the Franciscan General for the selection. I have already detailed how he fell into the same courses as his predecessor in cheating the papal camera, how he was prosecuted for this, and for what the republic officially denounced as “estorsioni nefande” committed on the people, and how, within two years after his appointment, he was a fugitive, not daring to stand trial. There is another phase of his activity, however, which is worth recounting in some detail, as it illustrates perfectly how useful an instrument was the Inquisition in carrying out the wishes of the Roman curia in matters wholly disconnected with the purity of the faith.[311]

The Cardinal of Santa Sabina, while visiting various courts in the capacity of papal legate, had had occasion to collect large sums. In charity to him we may assume, what doubtless was the truth, that the money belonged to the pope, although it stood in the cardinal’s name on the books of his bankers, the great Florentine company of the Acciajuoli. In receiving it the members of the company had bound themselves jointly and severally for its repayment, agreeing to subject themselves to the judgment of the Court of Auditors of the Apostolic Chamber. In 1343 there was due the cardinal some twelve thousand florins, which the Acciajuoli were unable to pay. A commercial and financial crisis had paralyzed the commerce and industries of the city. Its bankers had advanced vast sums to Edward III. of England and to Robert the Good of Naples, and clamored in vain for repayment. The Lombard war had exhausted the public treasury and the whole community was bankrupt. Not only the Acciajuoli, but the Bardi, the Peruzzi, and other great banking-houses closed their doors, and ruin stared the Florentines in the face. There was at least one creditor, however, who was resolved to have his money.[312]

On October 9, 1343, Clement VI. wrote to the republic, stating the claim of the cardinal and ordering the Signoria to compel the Acciajuoli to pay it. Under the circumstances this was clearly impossible, but judgment against the debtors had been rendered by the auditors of the papal camera. This was enough to bring the affair within the sphere of spiritual jurisdiction, and authority was sent to the inquisitor to execute the sentence, calling in the aid of the secular arm, and, if necessary, laying an interdict on the city. The matter dragged on until, November 23, 1345, Frà Piero appeared before the Gonfaloniero and the Priors of the Arts, and summoned them to imprison the debtors until payment, under pain of excommunication and interdict; whereupon the magistrates responded that, out of reverence for the pope and respect for the inquisitor and to oblige the cardinal, they would lend the aid of the secular arm. Still the money was not forthcoming, and although such assets of the Acciajuoli as could be seized were delivered to Frà Piero, and security was given for the balance, he held the whole community responsible for the debt of a few of the citizens. The discussion became angry, and when the inquisitor, in violation of a law of the republic, committed the indiscretion of arresting Salvestro Baroncelli, a member of the bankrupt company, as he was leaving the palace of the Priors of the Arts, his three familiars who had committed the offence were, in compliance with a savage statute, punished with banishment and the loss of the right hand.