The number of victims, calculated as it was for the time of Manrique, affords, for the seven years of Cardinal Tabera's ministry, seven thousand seven hundred and twenty individuals condemned and punished; eight hundred and forty were burnt in person, four hundred and twenty in effigy; the rest, in number five thousand, four hundred, and sixty, were subjected to different penances. I firmly believe that the number was much more considerable; but faithful to my system of impartiality, I have stated the most moderate calculation.
CHAPTER XVII.
OF THE INQUISITIONS OF NAPLES, SICILY, AND MALTA, AND OF THE EVENTS OF THE TIME OF CARDINAL LOAISA, SEVENTH INQUISITOR-GENERAL.
Naples.
Charles V. appointed, to succeed Cardinal Pardo de Tabera, Cardinal Don Garcia de Loaisa, Archbishop of Seville, who was the seventh inquisitor-general. This prelate had arrived at a great age, since he had signed different ordinances of the Supreme Council in 1517. He had been the confessor of Charles V., prior-general of the order of St. Dominic, Bishop of Osma and Siguenza, and apostolical commissary of the Holy Crusade. The Court of Rome expedited his bulls of confirmation on the 18th of February, 1546, and he died on the 22nd of April, in the same year.
In 1546, Charles V. resolved to establish the Inquisition at Naples, although his grandfather had failed in the attempt in 1504 and 1510. He commissioned his viceroy, Don Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Villa Franca del Bierzo, to select inquisitors and officers from among the inhabitants, to send to the government a list of the persons chosen, and all the necessary documents, that the inquisitor-general might be able to delegate the necessary powers to the new inquisitors: when these measures had been taken, the tribunal was to be established with all the forms of the inquisitorial jurisdiction.
Frederic Munter, professor of theology in the literary academy at Copenhagen, has supposed that the intrigues of Don Pedro de Toledo were the causes of the introduction of the Inquisition; but he was not able to consult the original documents, which are now in my hands, and this impossibility was the cause of his errors in his history of the Sicilian Inquisition.
The efforts of Charles V., to establish the Inquisition at Naples, arose from the progress which Lutheranism made in Germany, and his fear that it would penetrate into other countries. His inclinations were fostered by Cardinal Loaisa, and the councillors of the Inquisition: the only part that Don Pedro took in this affair, was, that he was the first person to whom the emperor confided his intentions, and the only one who had sufficient wisdom to advise his master to relinquish his designs, when he found the evil they would cause. The orders of the emperor were executed without meeting any opposition; but scarcely was it known that some persons had been arrested by the new Inquisition, than the people rebelled, crying, "Long live the Emperor! Perish the Inquisition!" The Neapolitans flew to arms, they compelled the Spanish troops to retire to the fortresses, and Charles V. was obliged to abandon his enterprise.
It is worthy of remark, that Paul III. openly protected the Neapolitan rebels; being displeased that the Inquisition of Naples should depend on that of Spain, he complained that his predecessors, Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., and Julius II., had done much evil in not making the inquisitors entirely dependant on the Popes, and in allowing an intermediate authority, which rendered that of the holy see of no effect.
Paul III., without communicating these motives to the Neapolitans, told them that they were right in resisting the will of their master, since the Spanish Inquisition was extremely severe, and did not follow the example of that of Rome, which had been established three years, and of which no complaints had been made.
In 1563, Philip II. attempted to introduce his favourite tribunal at Naples, but the inhabitants had recourse to their usual method, and the despot was obliged to yield.