“Being, therefore, willing to remove from the minds of your eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion legally conceived against me, I do, with a sincere heart and faith impressed, abjure, curse, and detest the abovesaid errors and heresies, and, in general, every other error and sect contrary to the aforesaid holy church; and I swear, that for the future I will never more say or assert, either by word or writing, anything to give occasion for the like suspicion; but that if I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will inform against him to this Holy Office, or to the inquisitor or ordinary of the place in which I shall be. Moreover, I swear and promise that I will fulfil and wholly observe all the penances which are, or shall be, enjoined me by this Holy Office. But if, what God forbid, it shall happen that I should act contrary, by any words of mine, to my promises, protestations, and oaths, I do subject myself to all the penalties and punishments which have been ordained and published against such offenders by the sacred canons and other constitutions general and particular. So help me God and His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own proper hands.
“I, the abovesaid Galileus Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and obliged myself as above; and in testimony of these things have subscribed, with my own proper hand, this present writing of my abjuration, and have repeated it word for word at Rome, in the convent of Minerva.
“I, Galileus Galilei, have abjured as above, with my own proper hand.” July 22nd, 1633.
Galileo, indignant against his oppressors for compelling him to swear to an error, as he rose from his knees, said, “It still moves!” His tortures left him afflicted, but he lived seven years, and died in January, A.D. 1642.
2. Dr. Balthasar Orobio de Castro.—Limborch gives the following account “of the method of torturing, and the degree of tortures now used in the Spanish Inquisition,” as he received it from Dr. Orobio de Castro, a Jew, about A.D. 1680. This eminent man was born at Seville, and became professor of metaphysics at Salamanca and at Seville, where he was accused to the Inquisition, as of the Jewish religion. This accusation was made by his servant, a Moor, who had before been convicted, and whipped by his order, for thieving; and afterwards, he was again accused before that tribunal by a certain enemy for another fact, which would have proved him to be a Jew. But Orobio obstinately denied his Jewish opinions, and he was, therefore, immured in the gaol of the Inquisition.
“I will here give the account of his torture,” says Limborch, “as I had it from his own mouth. After three whole years which he had been in gaol, and several examinations, and the discovery of his crimes to him of which he was accused, in order to his confession, and his constant denial of them, he was at length carried out of his gaol, and through several turnings brought to the place of torture, towards the evening. This was a large under-ground room, arched roof, and the walls covered with black hangings. The candlesticks were fastened to the wall, and the whole room enlightened with candles placed in them. At one end of it there was an enclosed place like a closet, where the inquisitor and notary sat at a table, so that the place seemed to him as the very mansion of death, every thing appearing so terrible and awful. Here the inquisitor again admonished him to confess the truth, before his torments began. When he answered he had told the truth, the inquisitor gravely protested, that since he was so obstinate as to suffer the torture, the Holy Office would be innocent, if he should shed his blood, or even expire in his torments. When he had said this, they put a linen garment over his body, and drew it so very close on each side, as almost squeezed him to death. When he was almost dying, they slackened the sides of the garment, and after he began to breathe again, the sudden alteration put him to the most grievous anguish and pain. When he had overcome this torture, the same admonition was repeated, that he would confess the truth in order to prevent further torment. And as he persisted in his denial, they tied his thumbs so very tight with small cords, as made the extremities of them to swell, and caused the blood to spurt out from under his nails. After this, he was placed with his back against a wall, and fixed upon a bench. Into the wall were fastened little iron pulleys, through which there were ropes drawn, and tied round his body, in several places, and especially his arms and legs. The executioners, drawing these ropes with great violence, fastened his body with them to the wall, so that his hands and feet, and especially his fingers and toes, being bound so straitly with them, put him to the most exquisite pain, and seemed to him just as though he had been dissolving in flames. In the midst of these torments the torturer, on a sudden, drew the bench from under him, so that the miserable wretch hung by the cords without anything to support him, and by the weight of his body drew the knots yet much closer. After this, a new kind of torture succeeded. There was one instrument like a small ladder, made of two upright pieces of wood, and five cross ones sharpened before. This the torturer placed over against him, and by a certain proper motion struck it with great violence against both his shins, so that he received upon each of them at once five violent strokes, which put him to such intolerable anguish that he fainted away. After he came to himself, they inflicted upon him the last torture. The torturer tied ropes about the wrists of Orobio, and then put the ropes about his own back, which was covered with leather to prevent his hurting himself. Then falling backwards, and putting his feet up against the wall, he drew them with all his might, till they cut through Orobio’s flesh, even to the very bones; and this torture was repeated thrice, the ropes being tied about the distance of two fingers’ breadth from the former wound, and drawn with the same violence. But it happened, that as the ropes were drawing the second time, they slid into the first wound, which caused so great an effusion of blood that he seemed to be dying. Upon this the physician and surgeon, who are always ready, were sent for out of a neighbouring apartment, to ask their advice, if the torture could be continued without danger of death, lest the ecclesiastical judges should be guilty of an irregularity if the criminal should die in his torments. They, who were far from being enemies to Orobio, answered, that he had strength enough to endure the rest of the torture; and hereby preserved him from having the tortures that he had already endured, repeated on him; because his sentence was, that he should suffer them all at one time, one after another, so that, if at any time they are forced to leave off through fear of death, all the tortures that have already been suffered must be successively inflicted, to satisfy the sentence of the inquisitors. Upon this decision of the physician, the torture was repeated the third time, and then ended. After this he was bound up in his own clothes, and carried back to his prison; and he was scarcely healed of his wounds in seventy days. And inasmuch as he made no confession under his torture, he was condemned, not as one convicted, but suspected of Judaism, to wear, for two whole years, the infamous habit called San-benito, and after that term to perpetual banishment from the kingdom of Seville. On regaining his liberty he settled at Amsterdam, professed himself a Jew, and was circumcised, taking the name of Isaac, and died A.D. 1687.”
3. Count D’Olavides.—Don Paul, Count d’Olavides, was an extraordinary person. He undertook the fertilising Sierra Morena, or the Black Mountain, on which he planted colonies of Germans. These being Protestants, he was apprehended as a heretic, A.D. 1776. Limborch says, “The victim which marks this period was the celebrated Olavides, whose arrest suspended the progress of colonisation in the Sierra Morena. This incident was derived from the same causes which contributed to the removal of his protector (d’Aranda). With a similar spirit of free-thinking, which he imbibed from the fashionable philosophers of the day, he was equally offended by the obstacles which he experienced in his beneficial designs, from the prejudices and institutions of Spain. As most of the colonists were Protestants, he resisted all endeavours for their conversion, and opposed the attempt to enforce their attendance on the rites of the Catholic worship. Having established a law to permit no monks in the vicinity of the settlement, he obtained an order for the removal of a convent, and built his own house on the site. He frequently indulged himself in expressions of ridicule against the idleness and licentiousness of the monks, and spoke with too great freedom of the depopulation and other mischiefs occasioned by the celibacy of the clergy.
“Olavides’ imprudence awakened the jealousy of the Spanish church. His conduct was closely scrutinised; his works and actions were noted and exaggerated; and a formal accusation was preferred against him for heresy, before that tribunal which is considered as the bulwark of religion. The removal of his protector gave full scope to the machinations of his enemies. He was summoned to Madrid, under the pretence of rendering an account of the establishment under his care. Apprised of his danger, he made some ineffectual attempts to obtain the royal protection, and to soothe the guardians of the faith; but after a residence of a twelvemonth in the capital, he was suddenly arrested, and conveyed to the prisons of the Inquisition; his papers were seized, and his effects sequestrated.” After two years of impenetrable seclusion, his process was closed, and his sentence was publicly announced. We give an account of this ceremony in the words of an eye-witness:—
“The autos da fé are still celebrated at the tribunal of the Inquisition, with more or less publicity, according to the impressions intended to be made. A great number of persons, of all ranks, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, were invited, I should rather say summoned, to attend at the Holy Office, at eight o’clock in the morning, on the 24th of the last month. They were all totally ignorant of the reason of their being called on. After waiting some time, in an apartment destined for their reception, they were admitted to the tribunal—a long, darkish room, with the windows near the ceiling, and furnished with a crucifix, under a black canopy; a table, with two chairs for the inquisitors; a stool for the prisoner; two chairs for his guards; and benches for the spectators. The familiars of the Inquisition, Abrantes, Mora, and others, grandees of Spain, attended as servants, without hats or swords.
“Olavides soon appeared, attended by his brothers in black, his looks quite cast down, his hands closed together, and holding a green taper. His dress was an olive-coloured coat, white canvas breeches, and thread stockings, and his hair was combed back into a bag. He was seated on the stool prepared for him. The secretaries then read, during three hours, the accustomed accusations and proceedings against him. They consisted of above one hundred articles, such as his possession of free books, loose pictures, letters of recommendation from Voltaire, his having neglected some external duties of devotion, uttering hasty expressions, his inattention to images, together with every particular of his life, birth, and education, were all noted. It concluded with declaring him guilty of heresy. At that moment he fainted away, but was brought to the recovery of his senses, that he might hear the sentence pronounced against him. It was no less than this:—Deprivation of all his offices, incapacity of holding any hereafter, or of receiving any royal favour, confiscation of his property, banishment to thirty leagues from Madrid, from all places of royal residence, from Seville, the new colony, and Lima, the place of his birth; prohibition from riding on horseback, or wearing gold, silver, or silk; and eight years’ confinement and monastic discipline in a convent. From respect to St. Jago, his wearing the cross of that order was not mentioned, and he was excused from putting on the San-benito.