Those commissioners were to take no oath of fidelity, or engagement of any kind, to the Inquisition; but were bound by oath to conceal nothing from the senate which should pass in the Holy Office.
That heresy should be the only crime cognisable by the Inquisition; and, in case of the conviction and condemnation of any criminal, his goods and money should not belong to the court, but to his natural heirs.
That Jews and Greeks should be indulged in the exercise of their religion, without being disturbed by this court.
The commissioners were to prevent the registration of any statute made at Rome; or any where out of the Venetian State.
The Inquisitors were not permitted to condemn books as heretical, without the concurrence of the Senate; nor were they allowed to judge any to be so, but those already condemned by the edict of Clement VIII.
Such were the restrictions under which the Inquisition was established at Venice; and nothing can more clearly prove their efficacy, than a comparison of their numbers, who have suffered for heresy here, with those who have been condemned to death by that court in every other place where it was established.
An instance is recorded of a man, named Narino, being condemned to a public punishment, for having composed a book in defence of the opinions of John Huss. For this (the greatest of all crimes in the sight of Inquisitors) his sentence was, that he should be exposed publicly on a scaffold, dressed in a gown, with flames and devils painted on it. The moderation of the civil magistrate appears in this sentence. Without his interposition, the flames which surrounded the prisoner would, in all probability, not have been painted. This, which is mentioned in the History of Venice as an instance of severity, happened at a time, when, in Spain and Portugal, many wretches were burnt, by order of the Inquisition, for smaller offences.
In 1354, during the interregnum after the death of Andrew Dandolo, it was proposed, by the Correctors of Abuses, that, for the future, the three chiefs of the Criminal Council of Forty should be members of the College; and this passed into a law.