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

by Henry Charles Lea

In northern Europe, where scholastic theology was engaged in mortal combat with Humanism, rigor like this is to be looked for, but the case was different in Italy. There letters had long before got the better of faith. The infection of culture and philosophy, of elegant paganism, pervaded all the more elevated ranks of society. A succession of cultured popes, who were temporal princes rather than vicars of Christ, and who prided themselves on the patronage of scholars, could turn aside from the affairs of state to stimulate the burning of miserable witches, but not to condemn the errors of the philosophers who adorned their courts. If Rome was to remain the mistress of the world under the New Learning, she could not afford to be relentless in repressing the aspirations and speculations of scholars and philosophers.[617] The battle had been fought and lost over Lorenzo Valla. It is true that his destructive criticism of the Donation of Constantine was written at Naples about 1440, when Alfonso I. was in conflict with Eugenius IV. Yet, as he not only swept away the foundations of the temporal power, but argued that the papacy should be deprived of it, the impunity which he enjoyed is a remarkable proof of the freedom of speech permitted at the period. His troubles arose from a different cause, and even these he would probably have escaped but for the quarrelsome humor of the man, and his unsparing ridicule of the horrible jargon of the schools and even of the earlier Humanists. He made enemies enough to conspire for his ruin at the court of Naples, where Alfonso had studied Latin under his teaching, and he soon gave occasion for their attack. Becoming involved in a contest with an ignorant priest who asserted that the Symbol was the production of the Apostles, the discussion spread to the authenticity of the communications between Christ and King Abgar of Edessa. Valla posted a list of the propositions assailed, and hired a hall in which to defend them against all comers, when his enemies procured from the king a prohibition of disputation. Valla then posted on the hall-door a triumphant distich:

“Rex pacis miserans sternendas Marte phalanges,
Victoris cupidum continuit gladium.”

Then the Inquisition interposed, but Alfonso exercised the royal Neapolitan prerogative of putting a stop to the prosecution, Valla being only forced to make a general declaration that he believed as Holy Mother Church believed—the sincerity of which appeared when, attacked on a point of dialectics, he defended himself by saying: “In this, too, I believe as Mother Church believes, though Mother Church knows nothing about it.” When, in 1443, Alfonso and Eugenius were reconciled, Valla sought to go to Rome, but was unable to do so; but when the monkish Eugenius was succeeded by the humanist Nicholas V., the way was opened. Nicholas not only welcomed him, but gave him a position among the papal secretaries and rewarded his translation of Thucydides with a gift of five hundred ducats. Calixtus III. provided him with a prebend in the pope’s own church of St. John Lateran, and here he was honorably buried. So little reverence, indeed, existed at the time for the most sacred subjects that Æneas Sylvius relates with admiration, as an illustration of Alfonso’s keenness, that when he had been wearied with a sermon by Frà Antonio, a Sicilian Dominican, on some questions concerning the Eucharist, he put to the preacher the following puzzle: A man enclosed a consecrated host in a vase of gold; a month later, on opening it, he found only a worm; the worm could not have been formed from the pure gold, nor from the accidents which were there, without the subject; it was therefore produced from the body of Christ; but from the substance of God nothing but God can proceed, therefore the worm was God. In such a spiritual atmosphere it was in vain that Lorenzo’s enemy Poggio, whom he had mercilessly ridiculed and abused, urged that his errors as to the nature of God and the vow of chastity should be reproved by fire rather than by argument. His commentary on the New Testament, in which he corrected the errors of the Vulgate by the aid of the Greek text, although subsequently put in the index by Paul IV. in 1559, was not condemned at the time. Nicholas V. saw it, Bessarion contributed to it, Nicholas of Cusa begged a copy of it, and Erasmus, in 1505, published it with enthusiastic encomiums, under the patronage of Christopher Fischer, papal prothonotary. We have seen from Bacon how hopelessly corrupt the text of the Vulgate had become; Valla’s attempt to purify it was warmly contested, but in his controversy over it with Poggio he won the victory, and the right to do so was thenceforth conceded.[618]

After this, scholarship, however heretical, had little to fear in Italy; and the toleration thus extended to the most daring speculations offers abundant food for thought, when we remember that at this very time the Franciscans and Dominicans were turbulently endeavoring to burn each other over the infinitesimal question as to whether the blood of Christ shed in the Passion remained on earth or not. It is true that in 1459 the Lombard inquisitor, Jacopo da Brescia, condemned to degradation and perpetual imprisonment Doctor Zanino da Solcia, Canon of Bergamo, who entertained some crazy theories that the end of the world was approaching, and that God had created another world populated by human beings, so that Adam was not the first man, together with some Averrhoistic tenets that it was the power of the stars, and not love for humanity that led Christ to the cross, and that Christ, Moses, and Mahomet governed mankind at their pleasure; but Pius II., in confirming the sentence, moderated it with the evident purpose in due time of remedying the over-zeal of the inquisitor. He also interfered when the Inquisition had condemned a high official of Udine for virtually denying immortality by asserting that the blood is the soul: the sentence was set aside, and the offender was offered the easy opportunity of escaping punishment as a heretic by publicly declaring this to be an error. Pius, however, showed his orthodoxy by reproving the laxity of Eugenius IV. in the case of Braccio da Montone, the condottiere lord of Perugia, an avowed infidel, whose body, on his death in 1424 at the siege of Aquila, was brought to Rome and thrust into unconsecrated ground until Eugenius had it translated and honorably buried in the cathedral of Perugia. A more typical case is that of Gismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini. He was a man of high culture, and an ardent adept of the new philosophy, who manifested his zeal by bringing from the Peloponnesus and burying with a laudatory inscription, in the cathedral of Rimini, Gemistus Plethon, the half-pagan founder of a new philosophical religion. All this might have escaped animadversion had not his ambition led him to extend his dominions at the expense of papal territory. In the quarrel which ensued his heterodoxy served as a convenient object of attack, and in 1461 Pius II. condemned him as a heretic who denied the immortality of the soul, and in default of his body burned his effigy before a Roman crowd. So little effect had this that the Venetians maintained their alliance with Gismondo, and the Bishop of Treviso incurred imminent risk of losing his see by reason of publishing the sentence. More efficacious was a crusade, in 1463, under the Cardinal of Theane and Federigo d’ Urbino, when Gismondo was stripped of nearly all his possessions and was forced to sue for peace. His heresy then was so little regarded that he was allowed to abjure by deputy, and was reconciled under the trifling penance of Friday fasting on bread and water.[619]

In fact, as Gregory of Heimburg bitterly declares, it was safer to discuss the power of God than that of the popes. This was very clearly demonstrated in the persecution of the “Academy” by Paul II. Pius II. had formed in the curia a college of sixty “abbreviators” for the expedition of papal briefs, which became for the most part a refuge for needy men of letters. Platina, the papal biographer, who was one of them, tells us that it was customary among both philosophers and theologians to dispute about the soul, the existence of God, the separated essences, and other matters, and he seeks to palliate the evil repute thence arising by saying that people confounded search for the truth with heretical doubt. The people probably had ample cause for scandal in such debates among papal officials, which was not diminished when Pomponio Leto founded in honor of Plato an academy of the leading Humanists, who bestowed on their leader the title of Pontifex Maximus, offered sacrifices on the anniversary of the foundation of Rome, and discarded their baptismal names in favor of classical ones. Pomponio himself would study nothing later than the golden age of Roman literature, thus dismissing with contempt the Scriptures and the Fathers, and he daily knelt before an altar dedicated to Romulus. All this might have passed unrepressed had these classical zealots borne with philosophy the withdrawal of papal patronage. One of the early acts of Paul II., in his effort to reform abuses, was the suppression of the College of Abbreviators in consequence of ugly rumors as to the venality and extortion of its members. The men of letters, many of whom had purchased their positions, were indignant at this deprivation of their means of livelihood. Platina was hardy enough to ask the pope to have their rights decided by the Auditors of the Rota, and was refused with abundant emphasis. He then had the incredible audacity to write to Paul threatening him with an appeal to the princes of Christendom to call a council on the subject. After Constance and Basle, the word council was not one to be safely uttered within earshot of a pope; Platina was promptly arrested on a charge of high-treason and thrown into jail, where he lay in chains, without fire, during four winter months, until released on the intercession of Cardinal Gonzaga. All this was not likely to create harmony between Paul and the Humanists; we can readily imagine that epigrams and satires on the pope were freely circulated and that the breach grew wider, but the men of letters, if allowed to remain hungry, were not molested until, early in 1468, Paul was informed that the members of the Academy were conspiring against him. That a crazy admiration of antiquity should culminate in an effort to restore the liberty of Rome was not improbable, and the situation in Italy was such as to render an effort of the kind abundantly capable of causing trouble. Paul was thoroughly alarmed, and at once imprisoned the suspected conspirators. The unlucky Platina, who was one of them, has given us an account of the relentless tortures to which, for two days, about twenty of them were subjected, while Pomponio, who chanced to be in Venice, was dragged to Rome like another Jugurtha. No criminating evidence of treason was discovered, but they were kept in durance for a year, and, in order to find some justification for the affair, which had excited much comment, they were accused of heresy, of disputing about the immortality of the soul, and of venerating Plato. It proves how leniently such aberrations were regarded that they were finally acquitted of all heresy and discharged; and that although Paul abolished the Academy, prohibiting even the mention of its name, his successor, Sixtus IV., as a patron of letters, permitted its re-establishment and appointed Platina librarian of the Vatican library which he founded.[620]

The tolerance thus extended to the paganism of the enthusiastic votaries of the New Learning produced a curious development of religious sentiment among them as insidiously dangerous to the faith, except in its lack of popular attractiveness, as the dogmas so ruthlessly exterminated by Peter Martyr and François Borel. Marsilio Ficino, the Platonist, evidently regarded himself, and was regarded, as a champion of Christianity and a most deserving son of the Church, and yet he kept a lamp lighted in honor of Plato, whom he repeatedly declared to be a Greek-speaking Moses. He brought all religions upon the same level. The worship of the pagan gods of antiquity was a worship of the true God, and not, as the Church held, an adoration of demons. He found Paradise in the Elysian Fields, and Purgatory in Hades. Zoroaster, Orpheus, Hermes Trismegistus, Socrates, Plato, and Virgil were prophets on whose evidence he relies to prove the divinity of Christ. The Crito confirms the Evangel and contains the foundation of religion. Even the Neo-Platonists, Plotinus and Proclus, and Iamblichus, are shown to have been supporters of the faith which they so earnestly combated while alive. For teachings far less dangerous than this hundreds of men had been forced to the alternative of recantation or the stake, but Marsilio was honored as a light of his age. It is true that he avoided the errors of Averrhoism, but as these were likewise tolerated his impunity is not to be ascribed to this. While admitting the importance of astrology, he held that the stars have no power of themselves; they can merely indicate, and their indication of the future by their regular revolutions shows that affairs are not abandoned to chance, but are ruled by Providence. So, while human character is affected by the position of the stars at the hour of birth, it is much more the result of heredity and training. Perhaps the most curious illustration which Marsilio gives us of the confusion and upturning of religious ideas in the Renaissance is a letter addressed to Eberhard, Count of Wirtemberg, in which he seriously proves that the sun is not to be worshipped as God. In one respect he was more orthodox than most of his brethren of the New Learning, for he believed in the immortality of the soul, and maintained it in a laborious treatise, but he could not convince his favorite pupil, Michele Mercato, and made with him a compact that the one dying first should return, if there was a future life, and inform the other. One morning Mercato was awakened by the trampling of a horse and a voice calling to him: on rushing to the window the horseman shouted, “Mercato, it is true!”. Marsilio had that moment died.[621]

An exception to this prevalent tolerance is commonly said to be found in the case of Matteo Palmiere of Pisa, reported to have been burned in 1483 for maintaining in his poem, the Città di Vita, that the souls of men are the angels who stood neutral in the revolt of Satan. In reality, however, although the Inquisition disapproved his book, the author was not persecuted; he was honorably buried in Florence, and his portrait by Sandro Botticelli was placed over the altar of San Pietro Maggiore.[622]

That it was not, however, always safe to presume on this favor shown to humanism is evident by the case of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the wonder of his age, who in 1487, when but twenty-four years old, published a series of nine hundred propositions which he offered to defend in Rome against all comers, paying the expenses of scholars who might travel for the purpose from distant lands. The list was virtually de omni scibili, comprising everything recognized as knowable in theology, philosophy, and science, even including the mysteries of the East. It was doubtless the pretentiousness of the young scholar which provoked enmity leading to animadversion on his orthodoxy, and it was not difficult in so vast an array of conclusions to find some thirteen which savored of heresy. To us it might appear a truism to say that belief is independent of volition; we might hesitate to affirm positively whether Christ descended into hell personally or only effectively; we might even agree with him that mortal sin, limited and finite, is not to be visited with chastisement unlimited and infinite; and we might hesitate to embark with him in investigating too narrowly the mysteries of transubstantiation; but these speculative assumptions of the self-sufficient thinker were condemned as heretical by the theologians appointed for their examination by Innocent VIII., who quietly remarked: “This youth wishes to end badly, and be burned some of these days, and then be infamous forever like many another.” Pico was urged to resist and raise a schism, but nothing was further from his thoughts. His few remaining years were passed in the assiduous study of Scripture; he designed, after completing certain works in hand, to wander barefoot over Europe preaching Christ; then, changing his purpose, he intended to enter the Dominican Order, but his projects were cut short, at the age of thirty-two, by the fever which carried him off, gratified in his last hours with a vision of the Virgin. Such a man was an easy victim; the voluminous apology which he wrote to explain his errors availed him nothing, and he was compelled to make a full submission, which earned from Alexander VI., in 1493, not long before Pico’s death, a bull declaring his orthodoxy and forbidding the Inquisition to trouble him.[623]

In curious contrast to this exceptional rigor was the toleration manifested towards the Averrhoists. It is true that Leo X., in the Council of Lateran, December 21, 1513, procured the confirmation of a bull in which he deplored the spread of the doctrine of the mortality of the soul and of there being but one soul common to mankind. He also condemned the opinions which maintained the eternity of the earth and that the soul has not the form of the body, and in prohibiting their teaching in the schools he especially alluded to the ingenious device adopted by professors of arguing against them so equivocally as to lead to the conviction of their truth. In 1518, moreover, when commissioning Master Leonardo Crivelli as Inquisitor-general of Lombardy, he calls his appointee’s special attention to those who seek to know more than it is well to know, and who think ill of the Holy See; these he is to repress with the free use of torture, incarceration, and other penalties, and to pay over their confiscated property to the papal camera, no matter of what condition or dignity they might be. Yet debates on points of Averrhoistic philosophy were the favorite amusement of the semi-pagan philosophers who gathered in Leo’s court, and who deemed that all that was necessary to preserve them from the Inquisition was to present arguments on both sides, pronounce the questions insoluble to human reason, and conclude with a hypocritical submission to the Church. Such was the device of Pomponazio (1473-1525), under whom Averrhoism became more popular than ever, although he ridiculed Averrhoes and called himself an Alexandrian, from Alexander of Aphrodisias, the Aristotelian commentator, from whom Averrhoes had derived much. Pomponazio invented the dilemma, “If the three religions are false, all men are deceived: if only one is true, the majority of men are deceived.” He argued, “If there is a will superior to mine, why should I be responsible for my acts and deeds? Now a will, a superior order exists, therefore all that happens must be in accordance with a preordained cause: whether I do right or wrong there is neither merit nor sin.” In his treatise De Incantationibus he argued away all miracles. The bones of a dog would effect cures as readily as the relics of a saint if the patient’s imagination entertained the same belief in them. Like Peter of Abano, moreover, he held that everything is according to the order of nature; revolutions of empires and religions follow the course of the stars; thaumaturgists are but skilful physicists who foresee the occult influences at work and profit by the suspension of ordinary laws to found new religions; when the influences cease, miracles cease, religions decay, and incredulity would triumph if renewed conjunctions of the planets did not cause fresh prodigies and new thaumaturgists. All this was far worse than anything for which Cecco d’Ascoli suffered, but Pomponazio escaped his fate by cautiously excepting the Christian faith.[624]

In fact, the only work which gave him serious trouble was his treatise De Immortalitate Animœ, written after the Lateran denunciation, in 1516, which Prierias informs us ought rather to have been entitled “De Mortalitate.” In this it is true that he rejects the Averrhoist theory of a universal intelligence as unworthy of refutation through its monstrous and unintelligible fatuity; but, after stating the various arguments for and against immortality, with an evident bearing towards the latter, he sums up by declaring the problem to be “neutral,” like that of the eternity of the earth; there are no natural reasons proving the soul either to be immortal or mortal, but God and Scripture assert immortality, and therefore reasons proving mortality must be false. He evidently seeks to indicate that immortality is a matter of faith, and not of reason; and he even goes so far as to attribute much of the popular belief in departed spirits and in visions to the frauds of corrupt priests, examples of which he says were not uncommon at the time. The thin veil thus cast over its infidelity did not save the book in Venice, where the patriarch had it publicly burned, and wrote to Cardinal Bembo to have it condemned in Rome. Bembo read it with gusto, pronounced it conformable with the faith, and gave it to the Master of the Sacred Palace, who reached the same opinion. The latter’s successor in office, however, Prierias, was less indulgent. In his treatise on witches (1521) he declares that the example of the Venetians ought to be everywhere followed, while his elaborate argumentation to prove the immortality of the soul, and that the souls of brutes are not the same as those of men, shows how widespread were irreligious opinions, and how freely the questions were debated at the time. This is further illustrated in the confession of Eugenio Tarralba before the Spanish Inquisition in 1528, when he testified that as a youth he had studied in Rome, where his three masters, Mariana, Avanselo, and Maguera, all taught him that the soul was mortal, and he was unable to answer their arguments.[625]