Nor was there any alleviation in the fact that the tribunal was papal and not Spanish, for there was nothing to choose between them, in spite of frequent appeals to the pledge of Philip II that the via ordinaria alone should be observed. There were the same confiscation and impoverishment of families. There were the same travesty of justice and denial of rightful defence to the accused. There were the same secrecy of procedure and withholding from the prisoner the names of his accuser and of the witnesses. There was the same readiness to accept the denunciations and testimony of the vilest, who could be heard in no other court, but who, in the Inquisition, could gratify malignity, secure that they would remain unknown. There was even greater freedom in the use of torture, as the habitual solvent of all doubts, whether as to fact or intention. There were the same prolonged and heartbreaking delays during which the accused was secluded from all communication with the outside world. A careless speech overheard and distorted by an enemy—or perhaps invented by him—sufficed to cast a man into the secret prison, where he might lie for four or five years, while his trial proceeded leisurely and his family might starve. It would probably end in his torture, to make him confess if he denied the utterance, or to ascertain his intention if he admitted and sought to explain it. If he succumbed in the torture he was subjected to a humiliating penance, to wearing the habitello and to infamy—probably also to confiscation. If his endurance in the torture-chamber enabled him to “purge the evidence,” as the legists phrased it, he was discharged with a verdict of not proven, with nothing to make amends for his sufferings and wasted years. Such was the fate which hung over every citizen and it was felt acutely.[185] How little was required to arouse inquisitorial vigilance was shown in 1683, when Agostino Mazza, a priest employed in teaching philosophy, was thrown in prison by the Commissioner of the Inquisition and humiliated by having to abjure in public two abstract propositions which to the ordinary mind have the least possible bearing on the faith—“The definition of man is not that he is a reasoning animal” and “Brutes have a kind of imperfect reason.”[186] The human intellect evidently had small chance of development under such conditions.
It is easy therefore to understand the growing uneasiness of the people when they saw the commissioner, Monsignor Piazza, appointed in 1659, gradually erect a formal inquisitorial tribunal, with a fiscal and other customary officials and a corps of armed familiars, recruited, as we are told, from the lowest class of the population. His activity was such that he constructed eight prisons in as many convents, where even women were confined, without respect to rank or condition, under the guardianship of the frati. He celebrated atti di fede in public, where abjurations were administered, followed by scourgings through the streets, and he levied on the resources of the Regular Orders to defray the expenses of his court. Indignation gathered and, on April 2, 1661, the Piazze ordered their representative body, the Capitolo di San Lorenzo, to consider the innovations of the commissioner. The aspect of the people grew threatening and Count Peñaranda, the viceroy, ordered Monsignor Piazza to leave the kingdom, which he did on April 10th, under escort of a troop of horse to assure his safety. This did not appease the deputies who, on May 18th, presented a memorial to the viceroy, in which they further drew attention to the subject of confiscation and asked that the prohibitory bull of Julius III, in 1554, should be enforced. Consultations and negotiations were long continued during which discussion became so hot that Peñaranda threw some of the deputies in prison, but, on October 24th, he announced that Philip IV had decided that the grant of Philip II must be maintained and the via ordinaria alone must be followed. Nothing was said as to the abandonment of confiscation and efforts to procure it were protracted, but without success.[187]
If the Neapolitans flattered themselves that they had obtained release from the odious institution, they were mistaken. Rome continued to send commissioners and they continued to disregard the privileges of the kingdom. Another outbreak occurred in 1691 when, under orders from the Roman Congregation, its commissioner—Giovanni Giberti, Bishop of Cava—seized several persons without obtaining the exequatur of the viceroy. The Collaterale, or Council, notified him that there was no Inquisition in Naples and that the prisoners must be transferred to the archiepiscopal prison, under pain of legal proceedings against him. He treated with contempt the notary who bore this message and threatened him with the savage penalties provided for impeding the Inquisition, in response to which the Collaterale hustled him out of the kingdom, barely allowing him time to perform quarantine at Gaeta. Innocent XII felt this keenly, for he was a Neapolitan and had been Archbishop of Naples, and a warm correspondence ensued with the Spanish court. It was claimed by the curia that the pope was omnipotent in matters of faith; that he could abrogate local laws and enact new ones at his pleasure, while the papal nuncio at Madrid warned the king that Naples would be given over to atheism without the Inquisition and the whole vast monarchy of Spain might be destroyed. The city of Naples was equally vigorous in asserting its rights and complained of the numerous officials of the commissioner, exempted from secular jurisdiction and committing scandals with impunity. The pope threatened an interdict and the Piazze threatened to rise; the latter danger was to Carlos II the most imminent and, in 1692, he prohibited all further residence in Naples of papal delegates or commissioners. To render secure the fruits of this victory, the Piazze took the decided step of appointing a permanent deputation whose duty it was to guard the city from further dangers of the same nature.[188]
If again the good people of Naples imagined that they had at last shaken off the dreaded Holy Office they underrated the persistence of Rome. Trials for heresy continued in the archiepiscopal court, conducted in inquisitorial fashion and not by the via ordinaria. This caused renewed dissatisfaction and, in hopes of reaching some terms of accommodation, envoys were sent to Rome in 1693 to ask that the procedure should be open, the names of the witnesses and the testimony being communicated to the accused; that no one should be imprisoned without competent proof against him; that the city should be allowed to supply an advocate for the poor and that two lay assistants should be appointed to see that these provisions were enforced. Prolonged discussions followed, the cardinals entrusted with the matter seeking to gain readmission for the commissioner and arguing that the bishops were mostly unfit to exercise the jurisdiction.[189] There was little prospect of reaching an agreement when Naples was startled with a wholly novel aggression. February 1, 1695, there was published in Rome by the Inquisition an Edict of Denunciation which, under its orders, was similarly published in at least one of the Neapolitan dioceses. Such edicts were issued annually in Spain, but in Naples they were unknown and the present one was evidently intended for that kingdom, for it included the episcopal ordinaries as well as inquisitors, as the parties to whom every one was required, under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ, removable only by the Inquisition, and other penalties, to denounce whatever cases might come in any way to his cognizance, of a list of offences ranging from apostasy to bigamy, blasphemy and sorcery. The Deputati took the matter up in a long memorial addressed to the Collaterale, pointing out the invasion of the prerogative in publishing the edict without the necessary exequatur and the evils to be expected from converting the population into spies and creating a universal feeling of insecurity. There was also the fact that the edict assumed the jurisdiction of the Inquisition over Naples, that it made the bishops its agents, authorized as its deputies to employ the inquisitorial process, and that it comprised not only offences which the Neapolitans contended to belong to the secular courts but a general clause, vaguely embracing whatever else might be claimed as subject to the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.[190]
This shrewd device of the Roman Inquisition was successful. The bishops to a considerable extent exercised the powers delegated to them and the Deputati found constant occupation in endeavoring to protect those whom they imprisoned and tried by inquisitorial methods. Then came the troublous times of the War of Succession which followed the death of Carlos II in 1700. After a fruitless struggle Philip V was obliged to abandon Naples in 1707 to his rival, Charles of Austria, and during the interval the Inquisition succeeded in re-introducing a commissioner, who made free use of his powers. The new monarch sought to secure the loyalty of his subjects and from Barcelona sent orders to his viceroy, Cardinal Grimani to support the Deputati in their efforts to uphold the privileges of the kingdom. In spite of this the Deputati were obliged to appeal to him, in a petition of July 31, 1709, representing that, after the publication of his despatch to Grimani, the ecclesiastics proceeded to the greatest imaginable oppressions and violence, so that their condition was worse than ever, wherefore they prayed for relief at his hands, so that trials should be conducted in the via ordinaria. To this Charles replied, September 15th, to Grimani, commanding that matters of faith should be confined strictly to the bishops, to be handled by the via ordinaria; any departure from this was to be severely punished and the authorities were to use the whole royal power, through whatever means were necessary, for the enforcement of his orders.[191]
This won as little obedience as the previous royal utterance and the Deputati were kept busy in attending to the cases of those who suffered from the persistent employment of inquisitorial methods—efforts which were sometimes successful but more frequently in vain. It was probably some special outrage that induced the Deputati, in 1711, to employ Nicolò Capasso to draw up a report on inquisitorial methods. The work is a storehouse of inquisitorial principles as set forth by accredited inquisitorial authorities—papal decretals and manuals of practice such as those of Eymerich, Peña, Simancas, Albertino, Rojas, the Sacro Arsenale etc., admirably calculated to excite abhorrence by laying bare the complete denial of justice in every step of procedure, the pitiless cruelty of the system and the manner in which the lives, the fortunes and the honor of every citizen were at the mercy of the malignant and of the temper of the tribunal. Yet so far from being an advocate of toleration, Capasso commences by arguing against it at much length. Religion, he says, is the foundation of social order and the principle of toleration infers toleration of irreligion. Protestants are intolerant between themselves and the Catholic system cannot endure toleration. That which is taught by the philosophers is chimerical, and a community to be stable must be united in faith, but the enforcement of this unity is a matter for the secular power. Punishment must be corporal and the Church has authority over the spirit alone, not over the body. An allusion to the gravissime agitazioni of the people would indicate that his labors were called forth by some action which had aroused especial resentment.[192]
It was all in vain. By the death of his brother Joseph I, Charles VI succeeded to the empire in 1711. Wars and other interests diverted his attention from Naples and, though he consistently resisted the pressure from Rome to give the Inquisition recognition, the bishops continued to exercise inquisitorial jurisdiction in inquisitorial fashion. The Deputati did what they could, but the success of their efforts depended upon the uncertain temper of the successive imperial viceroys, who, though they might sometimes manifest a spasmodic readiness to enforce the royal decrees, did not countervail the persistent ecclesiastical determination to wield the power afforded by inquisitorial methods.[193]
A change was at hand when, in 1734, Carlo VII (better known as Carlos III of Spain) drove the Austrians out of Naples and assumed the throne. The kingdom, after two centuries of viceroyalties, at last had a resident monarch of its own, anxious to win the affection of his new subjects and inclined, as his subsequent career showed, to curb exorbitant ecclesiastical pretensions. His royal oath included a pledge to observe the privileges of the land, including those concerning the Inquisition granted by his predecessor. Apparently for some years there was hesitation in testing the quality of the new régime, but in 1738 and 1739, as though by concerted action under orders from Rome, Cardinal Spinelli, the Archbishop of Naples, and various bishops throughout the kingdom, undertook prosecutions in the prohibited fashion. Complaints reached the Deputati, who appealed to the king. He reproached them for negligence, ordered the proceedings stopped and the processes to be sent to Naples, and gave to Spinelli a warning that such irregularities would not be permitted. Undeterred by this, the episcopal Inquisition continued at work and in 1743 three bishops, of Nusco, Ortono and Cassano, were called to account; the papers of trials held by them were examined and pronounced irregular; in one case the Bishop of Nusco had cruelly tortured a parish priest named Gaetano de Arco, after holding him in prison for eight months.[194]
It seems incredible that under such circumstances ecclesiastical persistence should defiantly call public attention to its disregard of the laws, yet on September 26, 1746, the octave of San Gennaro—a time when the popular afflux to the churches was greatest—an atto di fede, conducted according to inquisitorial practice, was celebrated in the archiepiscopal church, where a Sicilian priest named Antonio Nava abjured certain errors and was condemned to perpetual irremissible prison. Popular indignation was aroused, the cry arose that Spinelli was endeavoring to introduce the Inquisition and he was insulted in his carriage by crowds as he drove through the streets. The Deputati represented to the king that they had been appealed to by three prisoners whose trials were not conducted by the via ordinaria, showing that the ecclesiastics were seeking to impose the abhorred Inquisition on the kingdom. Spinelli protested that the trials were open and according to the via ordinaria and that he was ready to obey whatever commands he might receive from the king. Carlos sent all the papers to his council, known as the Camera di Santa Chiara, with orders to investigate and report.
The Camera made a thorough examination and reported, December 19th, that Nava had lain in prison since April, 1741; another prisoner, a layman named Trascogna, had been incarcerated for three years and his trial was yet unfinished; the third, a deacon named Angelo Petriello, was accused of celebrating mass on July 24th last and was about to put in his defence. The archbishop argued that, unlike his predecessors, he did not conceal the witnesses’ names and therefore the process was the ordinary one, but investigation showed that in other respects inquisitorial practice was followed and inquisitorial authorities were cited; during the trial the prisoner was kept incomunicado in his cell and debarred from all communication with the outside world. In the papers the expression “Tribunale della Santa Fede” was constantly used; in the marble lintel of the door leading to the rooms occupied by it the words “Sanctum Officium” were cut and the part of the prison used by it was called “del Sant’ Officio.” It had a full corps of special officials and in a passage-way there had been for five or six years a tablet bearing their names and positions, with the inscription “Inquisitori del Tribunale del S. Uffizio.” It also had a seal different from that of the court of the Ordinary, bearing for device two hands, one of St. Peter with the key, the other of St. Paul with a naked sword and the legend “Sanctum Officium Archiep. Neap.” The Camera thence concluded that it was the old Inquisition under various devices and only awaiting an opportunity to establish itself openly, as was shown by the occurrences in 1691, 1711 and 1739 and, as it was impossible to place reliance on the promises of ecclesiastics, so often made and broken, it advised that all the officials of the pretended Tribunal of Faith should be banished as disturbers of the public peace; the three processes should be sealed and filed away in the public archives, the accused should be restored to their original position and be tried again by the via ordinaria. Everything connected with the Tribunal should be abolished—officials, prison, seal and inscription—and notice be given that any one in future assuming such offices would incur the royal indignation. All spiritual courts should be notified that, in actions of the faith against either clerics or laymen, before arrest the informations must be laid before the king for his assent and before sentence the whole process, so as to make sure that there were no irregularities. The accused while in prison must have full liberty of writing and talking to whom he pleased and be furnished with an advocate chosen by the Deputati or the Camera. To protect the laity against prosecutions for simple sorcery or blasphemy or other matters not subject to spiritual jurisdiction, the nature of the alleged crime must be clearly expressed when applying for licence to arrest.[195]