Roman Inquisition

gigatos | February 19, 2022

Summary

Roman Inquisition – a modern term for the reformed papal inquisition, operating after 1542 mainly in the Italian states, under the authority and control of the central body of the Roman Curia, the Sacred Congregation of Rome and the Universal Inquisition, also known as the Holy Office.

In a narrower sense, the term is used to refer to the Sacred Roman Congregation and the Universal Inquisition itself, in which case it should be capitalized as a shortened form of the official proper name of that body.

Local tribunals of the Roman Inquisition existed until 1860, while the Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition still exists today under the name Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Although historians agree that the Roman Inquisition was a distinct institution from the medieval Papal Inquisition, it is impossible to draw a precise timeline between the two forms of inquisition. The process of transforming the decentralized system of medieval tribunals into the centralized and bureaucratized Roman Inquisition took many decades and was not uniform at the local level everywhere. Unlike the Spanish Inquisition, which radically broke with its medieval predecessor (by, among other things, replacing personnel and creating new tribunals from scratch), the Roman Inquisition was formed in an evolutionary manner, and any cut-off dates can only be conventional.

Writing the history of the Roman Inquisition is extremely difficult for historians because of the scant documentation that has survived to the present day. When Enlightenment and then revolutionary governments dismantled the Inquisition tribunals at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, they very often destroyed their archives as well. The Central Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (ACDF) has only been open for scientific research since 1998.

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The papal inquisition in Italy in the early 16th century

The papal inquisition, an ecclesiastical institution established in the thirteenth century to combat heresy, retained little of its former power in the early sixteenth century. Although the network of inquisitorial tribunals covered nearly all of Europe, their practical importance was limited. From the mid-13th century, the popes ceded their power to appoint inquisitors in individual countries to the generals and provincials of Dominican and Franciscan orders, with the result that the office gradually came to be regarded as no more than an element of the monastic cursus honorum. Many inquisitors also exercised various administrative functions within their order or devoted themselves to academic work at universities, and they treated the office of inquisitor merely as an honorary distinction.

In Italy, according to the available data, papal inquisitors were appointed regularly in the northern regions of that country by the authorities of the Dominican (Lombardy) and Franciscan orders (provinces of Tuscany, the March of Trier and Romania), and their number even increased in the first half of the sixteenth century. The only significant field of activity of these inquisitors was witchcraft trials.What is less clear is the situation in the Franciscan districts of central Italy (the known directories of Franciscan inquisitors in these provinces, compiled in the early eighteenth century, list almost no inquisitors from this period, and there was a transfer of these districts to the Dominicans between 1547 and 1569.

When suspicions about Christians of Jewish origin (the so-called “marranos”) secretly professing Judaism became a serious problem in the Iberian Peninsula, the tribunals of the papal inquisition proved to be completely incapable of dealing with the task of verifying these charges. With the approval of the Holy See, the local rulers then established new state-church inquisition tribunals (the Spanish Inquisition in 1480, the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536), which, although they operated under the same name, organizationally had practically nothing in common with the papal inquisition. The kings of Spain at the beginning of the 16th century were subject to Sicily, Sardinia and the kingdom of Naples, and after 1535 the duchy of Milan also came under their authority. In 1487 a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition was established in Sicily, where it was very active against the Marranos in the first half of the 16th century. From 1492 there was also a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition in Sardinia. Attempts to introduce the Spanish Inquisition were also made in the kingdom of Naples, first by King Ferdinand I (1510) and then by Charles V (1547). Although these attempts were unsuccessful due to the resistance of the local elite, their side effect was the disappearance of the weakly rooted Dominican Inquisition structures in this kingdom.

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Reformation in Italy

The Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther in 1517, split much of northern Europe from the Catholic Church in a relatively short time. The views of Luther and his associate Philip Melanchthon, and somewhat later John Calvin, also permeated Italy, where they enjoyed some interest in intellectual circles, including the clergy. The Reformation proponents there never produced a unified doctrine or church; rather, they were a loosely affiliated group, drawing simultaneously on the views of various reformers, including Erasmus of Rotterdam, who never broke with the Catholic Church. The main inspiration for the Italian Protestants was the Spanish theologian Juan de Valdés (d. 1541), author of Alfabeto cristiano (published in print in Venice in 1545), whose doctrine combined elements of Lutheranism, Calvinism, Erasmianism, and Spanish mysticism, but at the same time did not call for a break with the papacy. Supporters of Valdes” teachings included the general of the Capuchin order Bernardino Ochino, who fled to Switzerland in 1542, Pietro Carnesecchi, the aristocrats Giulia Gonzaga and Vittoria Colonna, and even some bishops such as Vittore Soranzo of Bergamo. Cardinals Reginaldo Pole and Giovanni Girolamo Morone were also suspected of provaldesian sympathies. In the 1640s dissident religious groups existed in Cagliari, Palermo, Naples, Capua, Caserta, Viterbo, Siena, Faenza, Lucca, Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Mantua, Brescia, Cremona, Bergamo, Casale, Padua, Vicenza, Venice, and Udine. The great protector of the pro-reform intellectual circles was the Duchess Renata de Valois of Ferrara.

In Piedmont, Calabria and Puglia lived communities of Waldenses, considered by the Church as heretics, but in fact tolerated by local authorities (both secular and ecclesiastical), as long as they did not show their views and paid tithes. In the early 1630s the Piedmontese Waldenses established contacts with Swiss Reformation activists, including William Farel. At the Chanforan synod in 1532, the Italian and French Waldenses decided to join the Reformation movement. This fact, however, passed unnoticed by the church authorities at the time.

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Creation of the Roman Inquisition (1541

The reaction of church authorities to the penetration of new ideas into Italy was initially not very vigorous. It was not until 1528 that the earliest papal document ordering inquisitors to pay attention to the problem dates from 1528. In the 1530s and early 1540s there were sporadic trials of those suspected of pro-Lutheran sympathies in Venice, Modena, and a few other centers, but it is difficult to speak of any systematic persecution and permanent control of the orthodoxy of Italians, especially since the activities of local tribunals lacked coordination. Nor did the appointment on January 4, 1532 of an inquisitor general for all of Italy in the person of the Lateran canon Callisto Fornari da Piacenza change this. Moreover, there was a strong current in the Church that was conciliatory towards the Reformation and focused on dialogue rather than repression. It included Cardinals Giovanni Girolamo Morone, Reginald Pole, the Master of the Holy Palace (later Cardinal) Tommaso Badia, and many bishops. This current, however, weakened significantly in the early 1540s. In April 1541, talks with the Protestants at the Regensburg Conference ended in total failure, and a year later the general of the Capuchin order, Bernardino Ochino, fled to Switzerland and openly converted to Protestantism. The repressive course then gained the upper hand in the Roman Curia. Because of the weakness of the local tribunals, Pope Paul III decided to create a central body to direct and coordinate anti-heretical activities. This decision was implemented in four stages:

A little earlier, on April 21, 1541, Paul III created a tribunal of inquisition in the papal city of Avignon, subordinate to the papal vice-legate, who was then Jacopo Sadoleto, bishop of Carpentras.

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Initial period (1542-1555)

The early years of the Roman Inquisition are poorly documented. It is known that it initiated investigations into the views of a number of high-ranking Catholic clergy who were suspected of favouring the Reformation. Cardinal Inquisitors of interest included Archbishop of Otranto Pietro Antonio di Capua, Bishop of Chioggia Giacomo Nacchianti, Bishop of Capodistria Pier Paolo Vergerio, Patriarch of Aquileia Giovanni Grimani, and Bishop of Bergamo Vittore Soranzo. Not all of them were brought before the Inquisition and convicted. Pier Paolo Vergerio left Italy and was finally condemned in absentia in 1550. Bishop Nacchianti, on the other hand, managed to exonerate himself in 1549. Bishop Soranzo of Bergamo was imprisoned in 1551 and forced to renounce his views, but even then he was not allowed to take up the diocese again.

Investigations conducted against bishops and leaders of dissident groups often required action outside Rome and even outside the boundaries of the Church State. Accordingly, the Congregation delegated its commissioners to carry out specific investigations or interrogations, e.g., Annibale Grisonio became commissioner in Istria in 1548 in connection with an investigation against Pier Paolo Vergerio, bishop of Capodistria, and the Dominican Como inquisitor Michele Ghislieri was commissioner in Bergamo and Ferrara from 1550 to 1551 in connection with an investigation against Vittore Soranzo, bishop of Bergamo, among others. In December 1551, Julius III appointed three commissioners of the Roman Inquisition for Tuscany, who were Benedictine Isidoro da Montauto, the vicar of the Archbishop of Florence Nicolò Duranti, and the Florentine prebishop Alessandro Strozzi. In the Ecclesiastical State itself, which under the decrees of Innocent IV of 1254 was subject to Franciscan inquisitors, from 1547 onwards the Congregation gradually eliminated Franciscans from the functions of inquisitors, replacing them with Dominicans (e.g., in 1551 it established a tribunal of inquisition in Perugia, headed by Dominicans).

The Congregation gradually took over the right of inquisitorial appointments from the religious authorities, for example, from 1550 it appointed inquisitors in the districts of Bologna and Cremona.

The Congregation sought to pressure individual Italian states to accept and support the actions of its representatives and to deliver into its hands major suspects of heresy. The best documented contacts in these matters are with the Republic of Venice. The authorities of the Republic agreed to take strong measures against the spread of Protestantism, but they defended their autonomy in this field. Starting in 1546 several new inquisitorial tribunals were established in the Republic (Belluno in 1546, Rovigo in 1547 at the latest, Verona in 1550, Vicenza in 1552). In April 1547 the tribunal in Venice itself was reorganized; henceforth it was to consist of an inquisitor, the papal nuncio (or his representative), the Venetian patriarch (or his vicar) and three lay officials, the so-called tre Savii sopra eresia. Also in Bergamo and Brescia (from 1548) and in other local tribunals within the Republic, lay officials had to sit in the tribunals of the Inquisition.

The Duchy of Ferrara and Modena, ruled by the D”Este dynasty, was also subjected to strong pressure from Rome. Duke Ercole II d”Este”s wife, Renata de Valois, was a supporter of the Reformation, and the ducal court was a safe haven for Italian and foreign Protestants (Calvin himself visited Ferrara in 1536). Because the local inquisitor Girolamo Papini was closely associated with the court, the Congregation sent its own commissioners to Ferrara. Under their pressure, Duke Ercole agreed to the execution of one of Italy”s leading Protestants, Fanino Fanini (in 1550). In 1554 Duchess Renata formally made an orthodox profession of faith and renounced the Protestant heresy, and three years later the mild inquisitor Papini died and Rome replaced him with the more energetic Camillo Campeggio.

The Republic of Lucca, one of the main centers of the Italian Reformation, refused to establish a tribunal of the Roman Inquisition. Instead, in 1545 it created the Office for Religions (Officio sopra la Religione), a state-run, secular tribunal to combat heresy. This office retained its independence from the Congregation, which, however, did not preclude mutual consultation. The direct establishment of an inquisitorial tribunal also failed in the Spanish-dependent kingdom of Naples. However, Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa, one of the inquisitors general, was at the same time archbishop of Naples and, exercising his prerogatives, in 1553 appointed his archdiocesan vicar Scipione Rebiba commissioner of the Roman Inquisition in Naples.

Anti-heretical actions were also recorded during this period in other cities, including Como, Cremona (where a separate tribunal was established in 1548. The conversion of the Anabaptist Pietro Manelfi before the inquisitor of Bologna, Leandro Alberti, in 1551 led to the disclosure of many links between Italian Anabaptists and Lutherans of international scope. The inquisitor forwarded this information to Rome, and from there it was passed on to the Venetian authorities, who took repressive action, but with moderate success.

The Congregation of the Roman Inquisition soon gained a strong position within the Roman Curia. During the Conclave of 1549-1550, Cardinal Carafa used the information gathered in his investigations to undermine the orthodoxy of one of the main candidates, the Englishman Reginald Pole. During the pontificate of then-elected Pope Julius III (1550-1555), there were frequent disputes between the pope and Carafa and other cardinal inquisitors. Julius III advocated a lenient approach to heretics and intervened in favor of the accused in at least a few cases. On April 29, 1550, he promulgated a very important regulation allowing repentant heretics to obtain absolution from the inquisitors privately (in foro interno), without having to publicly (in foro esterno) renounce heresy (abiuration) and the humiliation that this entailed. Cardinal Carafa, who was the dominant personality in the Congregation, not being able to count on the full support of the pope, did not hesitate to undertake inquisitorial actions without his knowledge and consent.

In April 1555, Cardinal Inquisitor Marcello Cervini became Pope Marcello II, but his pontificate lasted only a few weeks.

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The pontificate of Paul IV (1555-1559)

In 1555, Gian Pietro Carafa himself assumed the papal throne as Pope Paul IV. The stature of the Roman Inquisition throughout the Church then increased, especially since Paul IV continued to personally attend the meetings of the Congregation and direct its work. On December 14, 1558, Cardinal Michele Ghislieri was appointed by Paul IV as “Grand Inquisitor of all Christendom” and the first formal head of the Congregation, another step toward giving the institution a more organized form. This pope issued several decrees ordering that perpetrators of certain transgressions (e.g., Unitarianism, profanation of the Eucharist, celebrating Mass without priestly ordination) be punished by death even if they showed remorse and were not repeat offenders. He also extended the powers of inquisitors to transgressions not previously under their jurisdiction (e.g., simony). Furthermore, this pope prohibited confessors from absolving penitents of doctrinal errors; such persons, in order to obtain absolution, had to report to the inquisitor and confess their transgressions.

Investigations during the pontificate of Paul IV extended even to cardinals. Cardinal Giovanni Girolamo Morone was imprisoned on his orders. The pope also ordered an investigation against Cardinal Reginald Pole, at a time when he was legate in England and supporting the recatholicization of that country. Pole”s untimely death, however, saved him from arrest. Several bishops were also accused of heresy, including Andrea Centanni of Limassol, Vittore Soranzo of Bergamo, and Giovanni Tommaso Sanfelice of Cava de” Tirreni. On February 15, 1559, Paul IV issued the bull Cum ex apostolatus officio, in which he declared that the election of a heretic to the See of Peter was void by law.

Paul IV tightened his policy on Jews and marranos, i.e., Jews suspected of false conversion to Christianity. In 1555, a ghetto was established in Rome, and in the spring of 1556, commissioners of the Roman Inquisition sentenced 24 marranos to the stake in Ancona.

In 1559 Paul IV published the first official Index of Prohibited Books, although local tribunals, as well as some universities, had already published lists of prohibited books. In the Venetian Republic, however, four new tribunals were established (Udine in 1556, Feltre and Capodistria in 1558, Portogruaro in 1559).

Because Paul IV”s reign was very unpopular, there were riots in Rome after his death in 1559, during which a mob ransacked the building of the Roman Inquisition and destroyed or looted much of its documentation.

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The Pontificate of Pius IV (1559-1565)

The death of Paul IV and the accession to the papal throne of Pius IV (1559-1565) led to a reduction of the Congregation”s influence in the Roman Curia. The new pope, although himself one of the cardinal inquisitors, dismissed the charges against Cardinal Morone, and revoked some of Paul IV”s decrees extending the powers of the Inquisition to certain acts not directly related to heresy. Despite this, its activities suffered little harm.

On June 18, 1564, Pope Pius IV ordered local tribunals to send regular reports of their activities to Grand Inquisitor Ghislieri, an important step in the centralization of the Roman Inquisition. On August 2, 1564, Pius IV finally made the Congregation a permanent organ of the Roman Curia.

Under Pius IV, disputes with the Republic of Venice over the operation of the Inquisition in that country were resolved. Under the agreement of 1560, the inquisitor of Venice was always to be a Dominican, and a new tribunal was created for the diocese of Ceneda (1561). From then on, the Congregation”s cooperation with the Republic in combating heresy proceeded without major disruptions.

In 1561, Spanish authorities in the kingdom of Naples organized an armed expedition against Waldensian concentrations in Calabria. The troops were accompanied by Dominicans Giulio Pavesi and Valerio Malvicino as commissioners of the Roman Inquisition. As the Waldenses put up armed resistance, the expedition turned into a bloody slaughter; the villages of Guardia and San Sisto were razed to the ground, more than 2,000 Waldenses were murdered, and more than 1,300 were imprisoned. Rome, on hearing of the massacre, decided to change its policy towards the Calabrian heretics and decided to send Jesuit missionaries to the region.

In 1561, Pius IV established a tribunal of the Inquisition in Malta.

Pius IV brought the Council of Trent to its conclusion. After their completion, he promulgated a new and updated Index of Prohibited Works (1564). During his pontificate, the Congregation also continued trials against hierarchs suspected of favoring Protestantism. The most notable of these hierarchs was the French Cardinal Odet de Coligny de Châtillon, who had openly converted to Calvinism. He was condemned on March 31, 1563 and stripped of his ecclesiastical offices and dignities, but the Congregation failed to have him arrested and extradited by France.

In 1563, Pius IV and his nephew, the Archbishop of Milan Charles Borromeo, supported local opposition to the introduction of the Spanish Inquisition in the Duchy of Milan. As a result, King Philip II Habsburg of Spain had to abandon these plans.

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The Pontificate of Pius V (1566-1572)

In January 1566, the previous Grand Inquisitor Michele Ghislieri became the new pope as Pius V. His pontificate saw the apogee of the persecution of Reformation sympathizers in Italy. The Congregation of the Holy Office effectively forced local authorities to hand over leaders of dissident groups into its hands; for example, in 1566 Duke Cosimo I Medici of Tuscany agreed to extradite Pietro Carnesecchi, one of the leading supporters of Juan Valdes” doctrine, to Rome. He was executed in Rome on October 1, 1567. In all, during the reign of Pius V, more than thirty executions by sentence of the Roman Inquisition took place in Rome, and, following the example of the Spanish Inquisition, they took place in public, after grandiose penitential ceremonies called auto da fe.

Large-scale repressive actions against Reformation sympathizers also took place during his pontificate in Faenza, Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Mantua, Venice, and above all in Avignon, where by 1574 more than 800 death sentences had been pronounced (though many of them in absentia).

Pius V also issued a series of decrees concerning the territorial and organizational structure of the Inquisition. He created a new tribunal of inquisition at Faenza (1567) and finally confirmed that the inquisitors in the provinces of Romagna and the Anconian March were to be exclusively Dominicans and not Franciscans. Furthermore, in 1569 Pius V decided to take away from the Franciscans several inquisitorial districts entrusted to them in the thirteenth century and give them to the Dominicans (Verona, Vicenza) on the grounds that the Franciscans had neglected to exercise the office of inquisitor. He also issued ordinances granting inquisitors certain benefices or obliging bishops to pay them fixed salaries, which gave many tribunals relative financial independence.

By the time Pius V died in 1572, the Inquisition in Italy was already a very different institution than it had been thirty years earlier, much more centralized and bureaucratic.

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The Pontificate of Gregory XIII (1572-1585)

Gregory XIII did not attach as much importance as Pius V to the activities of the Inquisition, but he did not introduce any significant changes in this area, leaving the Congregation free to act. The Inquisition in his time limited the public auto da fe penitential ceremonies frequent under Pius V, also because of their propagandistic use by polemicists from the Protestant camp. In addition, the repressions of the late 1960s eliminated the main groups of Reformation supporters in Italy, thus reducing the need for such activities. Consequently, the pontificate of Gregory XIII initiated a gradual turn of the inquisitors” interest toward matters other than Protestant heresies, such as magic, superstition, certain sexual transgressions (bigamy, solicitation), or unorthodox opinions expressed by ordinary Catholics. In 1582, a dozen people accused of witchcraft were burned in Avignon, one of the last such episodes in the history of the Roman Inquisition. A particularly large number of cases under Gregory XIII involved suspected crypto-Judaism. 1576 also saw the end of the 17-year trial of Bartolomé Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo.In 1578, Gregory XIII established a tribunal of inquisition at Zadar in Dalmatia (which belonged to Venice).

The heads of the Roman Inquisition under Gregory XIII were successively Cardinals Scipione Rebiba (until 1577) and Giacomo Savelli (1577-1587). During his reign there was a further increase in the control of the Congregation over local tribunals. In 1580, local inquisitors were required to submit annual reports to it listing convictions, and two years later to compile statements of income and expenses. In order to provide the tribunals with a regular income, Gregory XIII, moreover, issued additional ordinances granting them salaries and benefices. In 1578, the Spanish canonist Francisco Peña, active in Rome, published in print and with commentaries a manual for inquisitors by Nicolas Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorum.

On September 16, 1572, Gregory XIII created the Congregation of the Index to censor publications and publish the Index of Prohibited Books in cooperation with the Congregation of the Roman Inquisition.

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The Pontificate of Sixtus V (1585-1590)

Gregory XIII”s successor, Sixtus V, while still Felice Peretti, OFMConv, was Inquisitor of Venice (1557-1560). His pontificate was in many ways a watershed for the Roman Inquisition. On January 22, 1588, he issued the bull Immensa aeterni, reforming the Roman Curia and the administration of the Church State. The Holy Office, henceforth officially called the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, became a permanent part of the papal government. Under Sixtus V, the Congregation took over from the religious authorities the right to appoint inquisitors in the last districts that still retained autonomy in this regard (Milan in 1587, Parma in 1588). This was a kind of sealing of the process of centralization of the Roman Inquisition and the subordination of local tribunals to the Congregation. The Congregation also strengthened ties with the few inquisitorial tribunals still functioning north of the Alps at the time (e.g. Besançon in 1588). In 1585, a permanent inquisitorial tribunal was also organized in Naples with a representative of the Congregation, titled as Minister Delegate of the Inquisition in Naples.

In 1586, due to the serious illness of the Grand Inquisitor Giacomo Savelli, the Pope created the office of Cardinal Secretary of the Roman Inquisition, to whom all correspondence was henceforth to be addressed. This office was assumed by Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santori. Santori, as cardinal secretary, made a significant mark on the institution, especially since after Savelli”s death in 1587, further appointments to the office of grand inquisitor were dropped, making the secretary the de facto head of the Congregation. At four successive conclaves between 1590 and 1592 Santori was a serious candidate for the papal throne. He succeeded in pushing through and consolidating among the inquisitors a rational approach to the problem of witchcraft and witches (including especially alleged Sabbath flights). As a result, since the end of the sixteenth century the Roman Inquisition not only did not burn witches at the stake, but in fact repeatedly intervened in proceedings brought by secular courts, saving the lives of the defendants (e.g. at Triora in Liguria in 1588). By contrast, however, Sixtus V”s bull Coeli et terrae of January 1586 extended the powers of the inquisitors to virtually all forms of magical practices, such as astrology, divination, and summoning demons. Thus, while the Roman Inquisition did not participate in hunting down alleged participants in Sabbaths, it consistently prosecuted persons indulging in various types of magical practices.

During the pontificate of Sixtus V, the last documented executions of Italian Reformation supporters took place in Venice and Bologna. Although executions of Protestants also occurred in Italy in later years, they involved foreigners.

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Stabilization period (c. 1590-XVIII century)

The pontificate of Sixtus V closes the period of formation and development of the Roman Inquisition as an institution and at the same time begins the period of stabilization of its activities. Already at the end of the sixteenth century its representatives spoke of the established “style of the Inquisition” (stylus officii Inquisitionis) that had been developed. Inquisitorial tribunals in Italy continued their activities almost undisturbed until at least the middle of the eighteenth century, without encountering opposition that would question the very sense of their existence and activity.

After 1588 several new tribunals were established. In 1598, after the incorporation of Ferrara into the ecclesiastical state, the jurisdiction of the local tribunal excluded the districts that had remained under the authority of the Dukes of Este and created for them tribunals in Modena and Reggio Emilia. In 1614 Paul V established a tribunal in Crema, which was a Venetian exclave surrounded by lands belonging to the Duchy of Milan. Three new tribunals were also established in the Church State during the 17th century: Fermo and Gubbio in 1631 and Spoleto in 1685.

The Roman Inquisition remained one of the most influential institutions in the Church during this period. Of the 24 popes elected between 1590 and 1800, as many as thirteen were cardinal inquisitors at the time of their election:

Although Popes Clement X (Emilio Altieri, 1670-1676) and Innocent XII (Antonio Pignatelli, 1691-1700) were not cardinal inquisitors, the former, before his cardinal promotion, was for many years (1661-1669) consultor of the Congregation of the Holy Office and the latter held the office of inquisitor in Malta from 1646 to 1649.

Furthermore, Popes Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini, 1623-1644) and Pius VI (Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 1775-1799) were members only of the Congregation of the Index (Urban VIII was even its prefect).

The Congregation of the Holy Office and the Congregation of the Index also included many prominent and widely respected cardinals, such as the later canonized Robert Bellarmin (1542-1621), the historian and writer Guido Bentivoglio (1577-1644), and the esteemed expert on the history and resolutions of the Council of Trent, Francesco Maria Sforza Pallavicini (1607-1667).

After the breakup of organized Protestant groups, the Inquisition was mainly concerned with guarding the orthodoxy and morality of ordinary Catholics, which also translated into a decrease in the number of formal trials, as well as the severity of the punishments handed down. The number of death sentences, which was still relatively high during the pontificate of Clement VIII (1592-1605), steadily decreased, and around the middle of the 17th century the Roman Inquisition basically stopped using this punishment. The few exceptions that still occurred until 1761 concerned almost exclusively two particular categories of offenses: profanation of consecrated hosts and the celebration of Mass without priestly ordination. In 1677, Pope Innocent XI reaffirmed the now somewhat forgotten ordinances of Paul IV of 1559 that punished such acts with death. The only known heretic executed by the Roman Inquisition after the death of Pope Urban VIII (1644) was Vincenzo Pellicciari, executed in Modena in 1727. His death sentence for his unorthodox views on the Virgin Mary was decided personally by Pope Benedict XIII against the opinion of the inquisitorial cardinals. The marked decrease in the number of executions compared to the sixteenth century, however, does not necessarily imply a decreased activity of the tribunals. While the tribunals in Venice and Udine did indeed see a significant decline in the number of cases handled after about 1650, the tribunals in Siena, Modena, and Malta maintained a very high level of activity until the very end of their existence.

Revised editions of the Index of Prohibited Books were published in 1596, 1664, 1681, 1711, 1758, and 1786, and enforcement was no small part of the inquisitors” task. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also saw the emergence of new ideas and movements that the Church considered threatening to its doctrine. During this time, one of the major doctrinal problems within the Church was mystical and devotional movements suspected of deviating from orthodoxy, such as florism and Jansenism. The condemnation of Aprilism by Innocent XI in 1687 led to a lawsuit against Cardinal Pier Matteo Petrucci, a supporter of these ideas. As a result, this cardinal had to renounce his views. Jansenism, on the other hand, gained the most support in France and the Netherlands, so beyond the reach of the tribunals of the Roman Inquisition. In 1738 Pope Clement XII condemned freemasonry and its members found themselves in the interest of inquisition tribunals. The trial of the Tuscan poet and secretary of the Masonic lodge in Florence, Tommaso Crudelli, who was arrested by the Florentine tribunal in 1739 and spent almost two years in prison, reverberated loudly. In the long run, however, the Inquisition was unable to prevent the activities of Masonic lodges in Italy.

One of the most famous and controversial episodes in the history of the Roman Inquisition is the condemnation of Nicolaus Copernicus” work On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1616 and the sentencing in 1633 of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) to house arrest as a proponent of the heliocentric theory. Heliocentric literature was then placed on the Index of Prohibited Works. The general ban on reading and publishing such literature was lifted by Benedict XIV in 1757, but some individual publications (including the work of Copernicus) were still on the 1819 Index. It was not until 1822 that the Index Congregation acknowledged that the heliocentric theory had been scientifically proven and that publications stating this fact could appear without hindrance. The next edition of the Index in 1835 no longer contained such literature. In 1992, Pope John Paul II officially rehabilitated Galileo Galilei.

Although the point of the Inquisition was not really questioned in Italy until the mid-eighteenth century, this did not preclude disputes at the local level, generally of a jurisdictional nature. Almost from the beginning, the authorities of the northern Italian states tried to gain influence over the activities of the tribunals and to limit the direct interference of Rome. In the Republic of Venice, from 1547, representatives of the secular authorities sat on the tribunals. In Genoa, the interference of the authorities intensified from the 1570s and led to a significant reduction in the independence of the inquisitorial tribunal, including by imposing on the inquisitor the assistance of lay “protectors.”

The conflicts in the Duchy of Savoy were particularly acute under Victor Amadeus II (reign. 1675-1730). This ruler, beginning in 1698, vetoed inquisitorial appointments made by the Congregation, gradually leading to permanent vacancies in the positions of inquisitors of most of the Savoyard tribunals (Saluzzo and Asti in 1698, Turin in 1708, Alessandria in 1709, Vercelli in 1712, Casale Monferrato in 1713, Mondovì in 1717). This did not mean the abolition of these tribunals, but it lowered their rank, since they were headed only by vicars and not full-fledged inquisitors. Moreover, Victor Amadeus II in matters of faith favored the episcopal and secular courts over the Inquisition, whose jurisdiction, moreover, covered only part of the national territory, since the diocese of Nice, the territorial abbey of Pinerolo and the archdiocese of Tarentaise and its suffragans (Geneva-Annecy, Maurienne and Aosta) were not subject to its jurisdiction. As a result, at the beginning of the eighteenth century in Savoy there is a noticeable increase in the activity of secular courts in areas hitherto dominated by the Inquisition, such as witchcraft trials. This situation persisted until the end of the Inquisition”s existence in that country.

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Abolition of local inquisitorial tribunals (1746-1809

The 18th century was the period of the Enlightenment, the development of ideas of religious tolerance and a new view of the relationship between state and church. These ideas were condemned by the Church and many Enlightenment authors were placed on the Index, but the Inquisition was unable to prevent the spread of these views among the Italian elite, including at the courts of the rulers. The influence of Enlightenment ideas initially manifested itself in increasing state interference in religious matters and in limiting the powers of ecclesiastical institutions, including the Inquisition, but eventually led to the process of abolishing inquisitorial tribunals, regarded by Enlightenment philosophers as a harmful anachronism. Examples of limiting the powers of the inquisition include the takeover by state officials of control over publication censorship in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1743 or the revocation of tax privileges of members of secular confraternities supporting the inquisition, known as crocesignati.

The first Italian state to abolish the Inquisition was the kingdom of Naples. As early as 1692, the last minister delegate of the Inquisition, Bishop Giovanni Battista Giberti (d. 1720), was exiled due to a conflict with local authorities. The Inquisition tribunal in this city continued to operate for over half a century, although it was headed by lower-ranking archdiocesan officials subordinate to the vicar general. Influenced by growing criticism of the inquisitorial procedure, King Charles VII of Bourbon issued a decree on December 29, 1746, dissolving the Neapolitan inquisitorial tribunal and ordering that all trials in matters of faith be conducted henceforth by ordinary diocesan courts according to standard criminal procedure (the so-called via ordinaria).

Another Italian state that attempted to abolish the Inquisition was the duchy of Parma and Piacenza. Duke Ferdinand I of Parma of the Bourbon dynasty initially favored Enlightenment ideas, and his prime minister was the Frenchman Guillaume Du Tillot, who carried out many reforms in the country. On February 9, 1768, the government of the duchy exiled the inquisitor of Piacenza, Francesco Vincenzo Ciacchi, for refusing to comply with earlier ordinances abolishing the tax privileges of crocesignati. A year later, on February 27, 1769, the inquisitor of Parma, Pietro Martire Cassio, died and on the same day the government issued a decree formally abolishing the inquisition in the principality. However, already in 1771, as a result of court intrigues, Tillot was exiled, and the power was taken over by a conservative faction, associated with Princess Maria Amalia Habsburg. On 29 July 1780 a concordat was signed between Prince Ferdinand I and the Holy See and as a result on 2 August 1780 the tribunals in Parma and Piacenza were re-established. The permanent abolition of the Inquisition took place only after the death of Ferdinand I and the occupation of the duchy by French troops. On June 3, 1805, the Dominican convents in Parma and Piacenza, which were the seats of the Inquisition, were abolished.

The next state to abolish the Inquisition was the Austrian-ruled Duchy of Milan, but the process, planned since at least 1771, took nearly a decade. After the deaths of the inquisitors of Pavia (February 23, 1774) and Cremona (January 26, 1775), the Austrian authorities refused to appoint their successors. On March 9, 1775, Empress Maria Theresa promulgated a decree abolishing the inquisitorial tribunals, with the proviso that the still living inquisitors of Milan and Como would retain their salaries and titles for life. The last inquisitor of Milan, Giovanni Francesco Cremona, died on March 10, 1779, while the tribunal of Como existed until May 9, 1782. In the neighboring principality of Mantua, also ruled by Austria but formally separate, the tribunal of the Inquisition was abolished in April 1782 by Emperor Joseph II, successor to Maria Theresa.

Milan and Mantua were followed by Tuscany, where Peter Leopold Habsburg, son of Maria Theresa, was Grand Duke from 1765. The independence and powers of the local inquisitorial tribunals had been systematically reduced since the 1740s, and they were finally dissolved by a ducal decree of July 5, 1782.

The abolition of the inquisition in the principality of Modena followed a similar course to that in the principalities of Milan and Piacenza and Parma. When the inquisitor of Reggio Emilia, Carlo Giacinto Belleardi, died in June 1780, Duke Ercole III d”Este refused to appoint a successor and by a decree of 24 June 1780 abolished the tribunal in Reggio Emilia, and subordinated its district to the tribunal in the capital Modena. Five years later, on September 6, 1785, the inquisitor of Modena, Giuseppe Maria Orlandi, died, and on the same day the duke issued a decree abolishing the inquisition in the duchy.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the Roman Inquisition was still active in the Church State (including Avignon), the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, the mainland part of the Kingdom of Sardinia (i.e., Piedmont), and in Malta and Cologne. The abolition of the inquisitorial tribunals in these countries was not the result of a sovereign decision of their rulers, but of an invasion by revolutionary (and later Napoleonic) France, and was accomplished amidst the turmoil of war. Taking this fact into account, in the current state of research it is not always possible to precisely determine the dates of dissolution of particular tribunals, and it is possible that in some cases no formal act on this matter was ever issued.

In 1790 French troops occupied the papal exclave at Avignon and immediately exiled the inquisitor there, Jean-Baptiste Mabila. Four years later the French occupied Cologne, and their troops garrisoned the Dominican monastery there, which had been the seat of inquisitor Hyacinth Franck (d. after 1796). Thus the last non-Italian tribunal was abolished.

In Genoa, the tribunal of inquisition was probably abolished by the authorities of the Ligurian Republic created by General Napoleon Bonaparte, but no act formally dissolving it has survived. Based on surviving financial records, the probable time of its liquidation can be determined as February 1798.

Malta was occupied by the French fleet in June 1798, but the local inquisitor Giulio Carpegna had already left the island on May 26. The French authorities on July 13, 1798 issued a decree dissolving all the ecclesiastical courts existing in Malta, including the tribunal of the Inquisition.

The inquisitorial tribunals in Piedmont (Saluzzo, Asti, Turin, Novara, Casale, Mondovì, Alessandria, Vercelli, and Tortona), some of which were headed only by vicars, were abolished on 28 January 1799 by a puppet provisional government formed by French troops after occupying the region a few weeks earlier. Shortly thereafter, however, in May 1799, the French were driven out of Piedmont by the Austrians and Russians, who restored King Charles Emmanuel IV to power. On July 28, 1799, the monarchical government issued a decree to reinstate the Inquisition. The restoration of the monarchy was short-lived, however. Less than a year later the French occupied Piedmont again and the Council of Piedmont (Consulta del Piemonte) created by them by decree of July 23, 1800 definitively abolished the local tribunals.

It is much more difficult to establish the chronology of the liquidation of the tribunals in the Republic of Venice, since the state ceased to exist as a result of the French invasion in 1797, and revolutionary municipal republics were set up in many of the cities previously subordinate to it (e.g. Crema, Bergamo). By the peace treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), most of the territory of the Republic was annexed to Austria, but several western districts became part of the Cisalpine Republic, established a few months earlier. It is known that during 1797 the tribunals of Venice (probably in May), Brescia (29 May), Rovigo (9 June), Vicenza (2 July), Verona (4 July), Padua (17 July), Bergamo (probably in July) and Crema (12 August) were abolished, although in the case of Venice and Bergamo no specific daily dates can be established. In contrast, the tribunals operating in the lands that had been occupied by Austria in 1797 (Belluno, Udine, Capodistria, Zadar, Treviso, and Conegliano) continued for a few more years, but in 1805 these lands also came under French rule and became part of the then established Kingdom of Italy. The last inquisitor of Belluno, Damiano Miari, died in 1805. On July 28, 1806, the Franciscan conventions of Belluno, Treviso, Udine, Capodistria and Conegliano, which were the seats of the tribunals of the Inquisition, were dissolved. The Dominican convent at Zadar in Dalmatia was liquidated by the French a little later, on January 8, 1807.

Equally difficult as in the case of the Venetian tribunals is to establish the chronology of the liquidation of the tribunals in the Church State. In these lands, revolts against papal rule broke out beginning in 1796, and the French formed new republican governments immediately after their occupation. In Bologna the local tribunal was abolished as early as 24 June 1796 by the French command, and in Ferrara on 22 October 1796 by the local revolutionary government (Amministrazione Centrale del Ferrarese). The tribunal in Faenza was abolished along with the local Dominican convent in July 1797. On May 8, 1798, also in Rimini, the suppression of almost all religious congregations was announced, including the Dominican convent which was the seat of the Inquisition. The inquisitorial courts of Perugia and Spoleto were dissolved by decree of the Napoleonic puppet “Extraordinary Council for the Roman State” of July 2, 1809.

The latest possible date for the dissolution of the remaining tribunals in the Ecclesiastical State that fell within the borders of the kingdom of Italy is April 25, 1810. By a decree of that date, Napoleon dissolved all religious congregations in the kingdom, which meant the dissolution of the Dominican convents at Ancona, Fermo, and Gubbio, which were the seats of the Inquisition.

The French invasion was not without impact on the functioning of the Congregation of the Holy Office itself. During the brief existence of the Roman Republic in 1798, many of its documents from its last years were destroyed by the revolutionaries. The annexation of the Ecclesiastical State by France in 1809 led to the de facto abolition of the Congregation for several years. The Congregation, as a Roman tribunal of the Inquisition, was placed under the abolition decree of July 2, 1809. Pope Pius VII and the cardinals became prisoners of the French. The secretary of the Congregation, Leonardo Antonelli (appointed in November 1800), died at Senigalli on January 23, 1811. Napoleon”s decision to deport the Congregation”s archives to Paris was disastrous, as most of these resources were later destroyed or dispersed.

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Period 1814-1908

The defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814 and the Congress of Vienna held the following year led to the restoration of the Church State with all its institutions, not excluding the Inquisition. As early as May 20, 1814, Pope Pius VII appointed a new Secretary of the Congregation in the person of Cardinal Giulio della Somaglia, and over the next ten years the local tribunals of Bologna, Faenza, Ancona, Fermo, Spoleto, Gubbio and Perugia were restored. The tribunal for the district of Rimini was also restored, but its seat was moved to Pesaro. However, no other Italian state decided to restore the Roman Inquisition. In 1816, the prelate Marino Marini was sent to Paris to recover the archives of the Holy See, including the Inquisition. Because of the enormous cost of transportation, he decided to select the documentation necessary for the functioning of the various offices and congregations and to destroy the rest deemed irrelevant. Unfortunately, most of the Inquisition”s trial documentation fell into the latter category.

Pope Pius VII reformed inquisitorial procedure in 1816, including abolishing the rule of not revealing to suspects the names of witnesses and prohibiting torture.

The office of inquisitor, now held exclusively by Dominicans, continued to enjoy great prestige in the order. In 1838 the inquisitor of Bologna, Angelo Domenico Ancarani, was elected general of the Dominican order. Three successors of Pius VII, namely Leo XII (Annibale della Genga, 1823-1829), Pius VIII (Francesco Castiglioni, 1829-1830) and Gregory XVI (Mauro Cappellari OCam, 1831-1846) had previously been cardinal inquisitors, as had Pius VII himself.

Little can be said about the activities of the renewed inquisitorial tribunals in the Church State after 1814, as this has not been the subject of serious historical research so far. It is known that the Inquisition was part of a repressive machine that fought the Carbonari movement and the so-called “sect of liberals,” that is, people opposed to the secular power of the Pope, but the scale of this repression and its exact course are not known. It is also known that the Inquisition was one of the main institutions enforcing regulations limiting the rights of Jews in the Church State. The most famous episode from this period is the case of taking away from Jewish parents in Bologna in 1858 their few-year-old son Edgardo Mortara, who was baptized by his nanny. In such a case, church law dictated that the baptized child had to be raised among Christians. The order to take Edgardo Mortara away from his parents was issued by Pier Gaetano Feletti, the inquisitor of Bologna. The case received wide coverage in the international press and negatively affected the image of the Holy See. Still, inquisitors continued to deal with acts that traditionally fell within their remit, such as blasphemy, superstition, unorthodox opinions, solicitation or polygamy.The 19th century also saw the publication of five successive editions of the Index of Prohibited Books: in 1819, 1835, 1877, 1881 and 1900.

The end of local tribunals in the Church State was brought only by the unification of Italy by the Kingdom of Sardinia in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Sardinian authorities, occupying successive provinces subject to the papacy from 1859 onwards, abolished the tribunals of the Inquisition. The tribunals in the province of Romania (Bologna, Faenza) were abolished by decree of November 14, 1859, while those in Umbria and Marche were abolished by decrees of September 20 and 27, 1860, respectively. These provinces became part of the united Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The ecclesiastical state, now restricted to Rome and Lazio, survived only until 1870. The annexation of Rome did not lead to the dissolution of the Congregation of the Holy Office, which was an organ of the Roman Curia, but it did prevent it from exercising its police and judicial functions definitively.

The Holy See did not recognize the annexation of the ecclesiastical state by Italy and did not immediately accept the abolition of the Inquisition tribunals between 1859 and 1860. Titular inquisitors of local tribunals appear in the documents of the Roman Congregation and the Universal Inquisition until 1880, and the Congregation itself retained the word Inquisition in its official name until 1908.

At the time of the creation of the Congregation in 1541

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The decline of the Dominican Inquisition in northern Europe

In France, the burden of fighting the Reformation was borne from the very beginning by the parliament of Paris, without looking particularly at the ecclesiastical judiciary. In 1557 the last inquisitor general of the kingdom of France, Mathieu d”Ory, whose jurisdiction covered the northern part of the country, died. After his death, the idea of reforming the inquisition in France along Spanish lines was floated, and Pope Paul IV even appointed three cardinals for this purpose, but this plan met with strong resistance from the Parisian parliament and collapsed very quickly. In Lorraine, on the other hand, the last inquisitor, Jean Beguinet, died in 1558. In Poland, the papal inquisition ceased at about the same time (1552).

Slightly longer (until 1608) the Dominican Inquisition functioned, albeit only nominally, in the Netherlands. As early as the 1620s, Emperor Charles V of Habsburg also gave authority to combat heresy to the secular courts, and he also created the mixed secular-church Dutch Inquisition, which, along with the secular courts, completely marginalized the Dominican tribunals. Although the Netherlands was the center of some of the most intense persecution of Protestants during the sixteenth century, this repression was in no way controlled or coordinated by the Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Also, the appointments of Dominican inquisitors were made only by the religious authorities of the Dominican province of Lower Germania, not by the Congregation. The last two Dominican inquisitors, Dominique Anseau (inquisitor of Cambrai) and Jakoob van Gheely (inquisitor of Mechelen), died in 1608.

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The decline of the Franciscan Inquisition in Dalmatia

According to the rules established at the end of the 13th century, inquisitors from the Franciscan order were active in the area of Istria and Dalmatia. A few years after its establishment, the Congregation of the Holy Office began to send its commissioners to the region, such as Annibale Grisonio. However, the authorities of the Franciscan Province of Dalmatia exercised their prerogatives almost until the end of the 16th century. In Istria, the activities of the Franciscan Inquisition were integrated into the structure of the Roman Inquisition, through the establishment of a permanent tribunal in Capodistria (1559), which was subordinate to the Congregation. In Dalmatia, on the other hand, an inquisitorial tribunal was established in Zadar in 1578, but it was directed not by Franciscans but by Dominicans, who monopolized the inquisitorial activity there within a dozen or so years. The last Franciscan inquisitor of Dalmatia, Giovanni Doroseo, was banished from Sibenik in 1590.

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The Roman Inquisition in Languedoc

After 1557, the only inquisitorial tribunals that existed in the kingdom of France were the Languedoc tribunals of Carcassonne and Toulouse, which dated back to the very beginnings of the papal inquisition. It is difficult to determine precisely from when these tribunals can be considered part of the reorganized structures of the Roman Inquisition, but they were certainly already considered as such during the pontificate of Paul V (1605-1621). These tribunals had no special capacity for independent action. Already from the fifteenth century, their dependence on the Toulouse parliament gradually increased. The scandals of 1531-1539, when it emerged that two successive inquisitors of Toulouse sympathized with Protestants, undermined their already not the highest authority. The judicial reforms of 1539 transferred heresy cases to parliamentary courts, which completely marginalized the Inquisition. From the 1560s a gradual process of decriminalization of heresy proceeded in France, culminating in the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which guaranteed French Protestants freedom of religion and worship. However, the offices of inquisitors in Toulouse and Carcassonne survived until the end of the 17th century. The last inquisitor of Carcassonne, Thomas Vidal, died in 1703, and the last inquisitor of Toulouse, Antonin Massoulié, died in 1706.

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The Roman Inquisition at Besançon

The history of the Inquisition in Besançon and Burgundy dates back to the 13th century. However, as early as 1534, the parliament of Franche-Comté took over jurisdiction over heresy cases from the ecclesiastical courts. Five years later, the parliament stipulated that any action against specific individuals should be taken by the inquisitor under the supervision of lay officials and the archbishop or his representative. Although the prior of the Dominican convent of Besançon continued, with reference to Innocent IV”s bull of 1247, to regard themselves ex officio as papal inquisitors, in practice they were subordinated to the archbishop of Besançon, and their powers were limited to cases of heretical magic, while they were excluded entirely from trials against Protestants.

In 1568 Pope Pius V issued two bulls creating the permanent inquisitorial tribunal of Besançon, subordinate to the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome. In the first, he appointed the Dominican Jean Montot as inquisitor general and Simon Digny as his assistant. In the second, he granted the new tribunal a portion of the archdiocese”s revenues. The financial privileges of the tribunal were extended by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. It is also known that from 1603 the Congregation was responsible for the staffing of the inquisitorial office.

The tribunal of the Roman Inquisition at Besançon was abolished in 1674 when the city was occupied by the French, but the last inquisitor, Louis Buhon (d. 1713), was allowed to retain until his death the benefices assigned to the inquisitorial office (especially the priory of Rosey).

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The Roman Inquisition in Cologne

The office of inquisitor for the metropolises of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier had existed since 1435, but by the turn of the 16th

After 1606, the inquisitorial tribunal in Cologne existed continuously at least until the annexation of Cologne by revolutionary France in 1794. Sebastian Knippenberg, inquisitor from 1693 to 1733, was famous for having some of his works included in Rome”s Index of Prohibited Books in 1719, yet he retained the office of inquisitor until his death. The last inquisitor of the Colonies, Hyazinth Franck, was appointed in 1780 and was still alive in December 1796.

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Territorial structure

The Roman Inquisition was a much less uniform structure than the Spanish or Portuguese Inquisitions. Moreover, it operated in different countries, which meant that local political conditions played a greater role than on the Iberian Peninsula. The situation was further complicated by the jurisdictional pluralism in matters of faith in its territories. Unlike the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition never sought a full monopoly on conducting trials in matters of faith (in causa fidei). Such trials could still be (and were) conducted by episcopal courts, which, although not hierarchically subordinate to the Congregation of the Holy Office, often corresponded with the Congregation in matters of heresy and generally also recognized its authority as a superior court. Occasionally, bishops came into conflict with local inquisition tribunals on jurisdictional or financial grounds. Many of the inquisition”s lower officials (especially district vicars) were recruited from the diocesan clergy and performed other daily tasks. On top of all this, there was interference from the secular authorities, which in some countries (Venice, Piedmont, Genoa) imposed the assistance of their officials. The apostolic nuncios in Venice, Florence, Turin and Naples played a major role in communication between the Congregation and the local inquisitors, as well as in their relations with the state authorities. Moreover, the Congregation, as an organ of the Roman Curia, had a number of tasks of a general ecclesiastical nature and often tried to influence the actions of ecclesiastical authorities in countries where there were no inquisition tribunals at all, e.g. it intervened in witchcraft trials in Switzerland, France, Germany and Poland. The situation was further complicated by the Holy Office”s relations with other congregations and offices of the Roman Curia, such as the Congregation for the Index, the Apostolic Penitentiary and the Congregation for Rites. The cardinal inquisitors themselves were, as a rule, members of several or more congregations at the same time, which created additional difficulties in the event of disputes of competence or conflicts of interest. All this created a very complex jurisdictional mosaic that makes it sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish the actions of the Roman Inquisition itself from those of other jurisdictions.

Generally, the structures of the Roman Inquisition consisted of:

Moreover, one can also add the functionaries delegated by the Congregation to specific places on an ad hoc basis, most often titled apostolic commissioners (or similar). This institution was frequently used by the Congregation during the first several decades of its existence; later it lost its significance.

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Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (Holy Office)

The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (Holy Office) was one of more than a dozen congregations comprising the Roman Curia. At first it had a temporary character, but finally on August 2, 1564 Pope Pius IV made it permanent. It consisted initially (since 1542) of six cardinals, but this number was variable and subject to great fluctuations. From 1564 the number stabilized at about ten cardinals for almost a century, but in the second half of the 17th century it increased again to an average of about 15, and at some points (e.g., 1670 and 1708) it reached as many as 20 cardinals.

The Congregation was formally headed by the Pope himself, but in fact its most important official was the Cardinal Secretary of the Congregation, responsible for correspondence. He was primus inter pares among the cardinal inquisitors and cannot be compared in power and importance with the Grand Inquisitor of Spain. In addition to the cardinal inquisitors (titled as inquisitors general), the Congregation around 1700 included:

The sessions of the Congregation, which were customarily held twice a week at the Dominican convent of S. Maria sopra Minerva, were also frequently attended by the Master of the Holy Palace, the Governor of Rome (as responsible for the prisoners held in the Castle of St. Angelo), and the General or Vicar of the Dominican Order.

The Congregation was the highest inquisitorial tribunal. It supervised the activities of local tribunals by, among other things, giving them instructions and guidelines, sending them lists of forbidden books, preparing and distributing forms of “edicts of mercy” and interrogatories, checking the correctness of their procedures, and often reviewing sentences; its approval was required for torture and the death penalty. It appointed inquisitors and approved their appointments of vicars and inferior officials. The Congregation required local inquisitors to send regular reports on their activities and maintained a central archive and a database of heretical movements. When necessary, it intervened in inquisitorial disputes with other jurisdictions or requested the extradition to Rome of particularly important heretics. Ecclesiastically, she was responsible for evaluating emerging new religious and philosophical ideas and, when necessary, warned the faithful if she considered them contrary to the Catholic faith. She also collaborated with the Congregation of the Index in evaluating suspect books.

The Congregation also supervised the episcopal courts of Lazio and Campania in heresy cases, since in these provinces of the Ecclesiastical State no tribunals of inquisition had been established and the fight against heresy was left to the episcopal courts.

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Local Inquisition Tribunals

The local tribunals of the Roman Inquisition did not initially differ in their structure from those of the Middle Ages, although there was a certain standardization in the composition of the tribunal. The head of the tribunal was always one inquisitor from the Dominican or Franciscan order, according to the territorial division between the two orders, which was finally established in the second half of the 16th century. He could have one or more vicars (deputies), usually fellow monks, who could independently receive denunciations, interrogate witnesses and suspects, and even impose penances by summary procedure. In the case of larger inquisitorial districts, especially those involving more than one diocese, vicars were assigned to individual subdistricts (generally overlapping the diocesan area, but sometimes smaller), which did not preclude the presence of vicars also at the tribunal”s headquarters. The tribunal also included at least twelve consultors – four each of theologians, canonists and jurists. In addition, the tribunal was composed of minor officials (prosecutor, notary, censors, etc.) and lay assistants. The latter were called crocesignati and were members of lay confraternities created as early as the Middle Ages to support (also materially) the inquisitors in their work of fighting heresy. Membership in such confraternities was associated with numerous privileges, including tax privileges.

A novelty introduced at the end of the sixteenth century was the increased presence of the inquisitorial tribunals in the field through the creation of district vicari (vicariati foranei), headed by district vicars (vicari foranei). While the “ordinary” vicars were the deputies of the inquisitor in the seat of the tribunal or in the territory of larger units (e.g. neighboring dioceses) and were usually his religious brothers, the regional vicars were his “eyes and ears” at the parish level. They were usually religious, but not necessarily Dominican or Franciscan, and not infrequently came from the secular clergy. The district vicar always had a notary and a courier to liaise with the inquisitor. Their powers were similar to those of ordinary vicars. This innovation was associated with the almost complete abandonment of the practice, characteristic of the medieval Inquisition (and still used in Spain), of inquisitors visiting their subordinate districts.

The process of the formation of a network of district vicariates is well illustrated by the example of the tribunal of Faenza. At the end of the sixteenth century, the inquisitor of Faenza had seven vicariates who resided in the seats of the seven dioceses under his authority (in addition to Faenza itself), i.e. Forlì, Cesena, Ravenna, Imola, Cervia, Bertinoro and Sarsina. In 1600, the first four district vicariates were created at Brisighella, Castelbolognese, Solarolo and Fognano. A year later eleven more were created: Tossignano, Riolo, Lugo, Russi, Bagnacavollo, Cotignola, Sant”Agata, Fusignano, Porto Cesenatico, Marradi and Modigliana. Finally, in 1607 another five were added (Mordano, Bagnara, Casola, Meldola and Pozzolo). Thus, the tribunal of Faenza was governed by a network of seven vicariates and twenty district vicariates.

The authorities of the Venetian Republic were reluctant to create district vicariates and preferred the old institution of vicars. As a result, in 1766 twelve of the fourteen tribunals in the Republic (excluding Zadar and Venice itself) had a total of as many as 94 “ordinary” vicars, and only 50 district vicars. By comparison, the Modena tribunal in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had only one vicar general, but as many as 43 district vicars.

In addition, a representative of the local bishop had to sit in the Inquisition tribunal during the trial – usually the vicar general of the diocese. The Venetian tribunal also included the nuncio of the Holy See in Venice. Some states enforced the assistance of their officials in inquisition trials, e.g. the Republic of Venice since 1547, the Republic of Genoa since 1677, Savoy since 1728, Tuscany since 1754.

Most tribunals were relatively self-sufficient financially thanks to papal decrees from the second half of the sixteenth century, especially those of Pius V and Sixtus V. These popes granted many tribunals the right to salaries from the revenues of the dioceses in which they operated, and they also assigned certain benefices to the offices of inquisitors.

Of the 52 permanent local tribunals, 40 were headed by Dominicans and 10 by Conventual Franciscans, while the Maltese tribunal was headed by an inquisitor drawn from the secular clergy, usually with the rank of cleric or prelate, sometimes even bishop, and the Neapolitan inquisitor, from 1591 onwards, was always the bishop of some southern Italian diocese. The division between religious orders, however, was initially fluid. In the diocese of Ceneda, the first three inquisitors between 1561 and 1584 were a Franciscan and two Dominicans, and it was only in 1584 that the local tribunal was permanently headed by Franciscans from the Convent of Conegliano. In Venice, the Franciscans were in charge of the Inquisition until 1560, and in Vicenza and Verona until 1569, after which the tribunals passed into the hands of the Dominicans. The tribunal at Rovigo, also generally staffed by Franciscans, was temporarily placed in Dominican hands between 1569 and 1590. In Ancona, the first two inquisitors were Franciscans, but from 1566 the function was held exclusively by Dominicans.

There was an official hierarchy of tribunals directed by the Dominican order. They were divided into three classes:

Among the Conventual Franciscans, there was no such official hierarchy of tribunals, although an analysis of the careers of inquisitors from this order indicates that the tribunals in Florence and Padua were considered the most prestigious.

The inquisitor of Malta had a special position among the local inquisitors. From 1574, he was also ex officio apostolic delegate, i.e. the diplomatic representative of the Holy See in Malta, and unlike other inquisitors, he always came from the secular clergy and not from the Dominican or Franciscan orders. Usually clerics or prelates of high birth were appointed to the post, and many of them were later promoted to the highest positions in the Church. Of the 62 Maltese inquisitors in office between 1574 and 1798, two became popes (Alexander VII and Innocent XII), twenty-five became cardinals, and eighteen became bishops. Sometimes promotion occurred while already in office in Malta, e.g. Fabio Chigi (later Pope Alexander VII), inquisitor from 1634 to 1639, became bishop of Nardo as early as 1635. The Inquisitor was, next to the Bishop of Malta and the Grand Master of the Order of St. John, the most important person on the island. He had a deputy with the title of commissioner who represented him on the neighboring, smaller island of Gozo. Many inhabitants of both islands belonged to the tribunal”s circle of followers (familiari), mainly because of the privileges this entailed. The Inquisitor”s residence was in a magnificent palace near the church of St. Lawrence in the port of Birgu.

As a result of the resistance of the local population, both elites and commoners, in the kingdom of Naples the papacy failed to establish a network of tribunals of the Roman Inquisition, just as the Spaniards had failed a little earlier to introduce the Spanish Inquisition here. At the same time, around the middle of the sixteenth century, the Dominican order stopped appointing its inquisitors. However, this did not mean the absence of a Roman Inquisition presence in the country, let alone an absence of anti-heretical repression. Inquisitorial activity in the kingdom of Naples was carried out by episcopal courts, and the Congregation”s oversight of their activities in this regard was much less formalized. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Congregation sent its representatives to the kingdom of Naples, usually with the title of apostolic commissioner. As a rule, this title was bestowed on the vicar general of the Neapolitan archdiocese, who was president of the archbishop”s court, but sometimes, according to the old custom, Dominicans were also appointed to this role. In the 1660s and 1670s the Neapolitan vicars worked closely with the Congregation, consulting with it on trials against supporters of Valdes” teachings and Judaizers. Some suspects from Neapolitan territory were even handed over to the Inquisition in Rome. The kingdom recorded several significant anti-heretical actions against Valdesians, Waldenses, and Judaizers between 1552 and 1582.

After nearly 30 years of attempts by the Roman Inquisition to influence anti-heretical activity in southern Italy through Neapolitan archdiocesan vicars or ad hoc commissioners, it finally came to formalize its presence in the kingdom of Naples. In 1585, the office of Minister Delegate of the Roman Inquisition (ministro delegato della Inquisizione), or permanent representative of the Congregation in Naples, was created. Officially, he was not titled as an inquisitor, but in practice this was his function and in less official publications he was referred to as such. Formally, the tribunal under his direction was not fully autonomous, but was part of the archiepiscopal court of the Archdiocese of Naples and was therefore subject, at least in theory, to the vicar general of the archdiocese, which, however, did not preclude him from initiating trials himself. The inquisitorial activity of the delegated minister was limited to the Archdiocese of Naples, but in addition to this, his role also consisted in ensuring better communication between the diocesan courts of southern Italy and the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome, informing the Congregation of the religious situation in the area and thus facilitating the coordination of the Congregation”s anti-heretical activities. Each minister delegate was at the same time a bishop or archbishop of any of the southern Italian dioceses, except that the first of these, Carlo Baldino, received his episcopal appointment only while holding that office. This model operated for over a century and provided the Congregation with no less control over anti-heretical activity in the kingdom of Naples than the formal tribunals of inquisition in northern Italy.

Outside of Naples itself, the conduct of proceedings in matters of faith in the kingdom of Naples (including the dioceses of Aquino and Benevento, which were papal exclaves in the kingdom of Naples) was the exclusive responsibility of diocesan courts (the so-called episcopal inquisition). There were about 130 dioceses in total in this kingdom, generally of microscopic size and with very limited material resources. The episcopal courts there conducted inquisitorial activity very irregularly and to a limited extent. There were, however, several notable anti-heretical actions by diocesan courts, including those in Capua (1552, 1563, and at the turn of the 16th

In the 16th and 17th centuries, several other tribunals existed for a short time (a few decades at most):

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Episcopal courts and independent vicariates of inquisition in the Church State

Many dioceses in the Church State were not placed under the jurisdiction of local inquisitorial tribunals. There was no tribunal (other than the Congregation of the Holy Office itself) in Lazio and Campania, so that in the dioceses there (Ostia e Velletri, Porto e S. Rufina, Palestrina, Frascati, Sabina, Albano, Alatri, Anagni, Acquapendente, Bagnoregio, Civita Castellana e Orte, Ferentino, Montefiascone e Corneto, Nepi e Sutri, Terracina, Tivoli, Veroli, Viterbo e Toscanella) the conduct of proceedings in causa fidei was left to the episcopal courts. The same situation prevailed also in the Umbrian dioceses of Rieti and Orvieto, in the diocese of Ascoli Piceno in the Marche. Only the port of Civitavecchia (in the diocese of Viterbo e Toscanella) and the territorial abbeys of Farfa and Subiaco had inquisitorial vicars who reported directly to the Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. On the other hand, the dioceses of Aquino and Benevento, which were papal exclaves in the Kingdom of Naples, also had episcopal courts, but under the supervision of the minister delegate of the Inquisition in Naples.

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Procedure

The procedure used by the Roman Inquisition did not differ in its fundamental framework from that used by the medieval Inquisition. The principles of ex officio action, secrecy of proceedings, withholding the names of witnesses from the suspect, and the use of arrest and torture on the suspect were still in force. Nevertheless, there were also a number of differences from both the medieval model and that used by the Iberian inquisitions.

Like the medieval inquisitors, the Roman Inquisition began its investigations by promulgating what was known as an edict of clemency, which guaranteed that those who voluntarily confessed to heresy within a certain period of time (three months was standard) would be dealt with leniently and discreetly. These were generally announced at the beginning of Lent. In addition to the standard edicts of grace, more solemn so-called general edicts were also promulgated, usually in connection with the arrival of a newly appointed inquisitor. These edicts, regardless of their formula, contained a list of transgressions (more or less precisely described) that the faithful were obliged to denounce to the inquisitor, with edicts sometimes promulgated to obtain information only about strictly defined transgressions.

One of the most significant innovations in comparison with the medieval or Iberian inquisitions was the widespread use of the so-called summary procedure (procedure sommaria). This was the result of Pope Julius III”s breve of 1550, which granted inquisitors the right to grant private absolution to repentant heretics who voluntarily confess their errors. Paul IV”s reservation of absolution from doctrinal errors to the exclusive competence of the Inquisition guaranteed a steady stream of self-denunciations from penitents whose confessors had refused absolution. The abbreviated procedure was not, however, reserved only for self-denouncers. It was also available to persons denounced by others who, when sued by the inquisitor, confessed at the first hearing and showed remorse. The summary procedure consisted of inflicting private penance on the suspect (fasting, extra prayers, etc.) without trial, detention or torture, examination of witnesses and public judgment and abjuration. The practice of plea bargains, whereby the accused agreed to terms of leniency, was also widely used.

If the suspect failed to take advantage of the summary procedure, a formal trial (processo formali) began, in which the main evidence was meticulously recorded testimony from the defendant and witnesses. For the duration of the trial, the accused was sometimes placed in custody, although due to physical limitations, defendants were often allowed to answer on their own recognizance, as most tribunals had very small or even no prisons, but had to use secular or episcopal prisons or cells in monastic convents. According to medieval practice, incriminating testimony was made available to the accused, but in a form that prevented the identification of witnesses. Under these conditions, it was very difficult to conduct an effective defense. The accused could try to discredit the prosecution by making a list of his “mortal enemies” – such testimony was automatically considered invalid, which could even lead to the case being dropped if all the prosecution witnesses were on such a list. The accused could also request the examination of his own witnesses who would testify in his favour (although he had to expect to be charged for this), but as a rule could not request confrontation with the prosecution”s witnesses, although there were occasional exceptions to this.

At the stage of the formal trial, the accused could use the assistance of counsel, and to a much greater extent than in the case of the Spanish Inquisition or the medieval Papal Inquisition. Unlike in Spain, where defenders were usually officials of the tribunal, in trials before the Roman Inquisition the accused could appoint a lawyer himself, although he had to be accepted by the inquisitor. The rules of legal aid, however, were very restrictive. The defender was not bound by defensive secrecy; on the contrary, he was obliged to inform the inquisitor of the incriminating circumstances of the accused, which the latter revealed to him and concealed from the inquisition. Nor could the defender persist in defending the accused if he considered that the latter was guilty of heresy and persisted in it, since canon law forbade the provision of legal assistance to heretics. Moreover, the defender, like the accused, was not disclosed the identity of witnesses. In this situation, the practical role of the defense counsel most often consisted of pointing out mitigating circumstances (e.g., drunkenness, mental illness, illiteracy, etc.), helping the accused prepare an appropriate act of contrition, and possibly negotiating the terms of a lenient sentence. In many cases, however, defense attorneys also made attempts to discredit the prosecution”s evidence, which sometimes succeeded and consequently led to the exoneration of the accused. The surviving records show, however, that it was not uncommon for defendants to abandon the services of counsel and rely on the mercy of the tribunal, which was often a very effective tactic.

The inquisitors themselves realized that the rules of the inquisitorial process did not give the accused and his defense counsel much opportunity to conduct an effective defense. For this reason, the instructions of the Congregation and the manuals for inquisitors emphasized that evidence beyond reasonable doubt was necessary for a conviction.

At the formal trial stage, the accused could be subjected to torture. Their use was permissible in order to obtain confessions, clarify intentions and obtain the names of accomplices. They could be used only if the evidence collected was clearly against the accused and he nevertheless denied the charges and at the same time could not discredit the prosecution evidence or if the evidence indicated that his confession was incomplete. Torture was not allowed during the first interrogation and had to be preceded by two prior stages: an oral threat to send the accused to torture, then the presentation of the instruments of torture. Often defendants, faced with such threats, gave the testimony that was expected of them and there was no need to inflict physical torment on them. However, if the defendant continued to insist on his innocence or gave incomplete (in the opinion of the inquisitors) testimony, he was subjected to torture. The Roman Inquisition basically used only one type of torture, the so-called strappado (or corda). References to other methods (such as burning feet) are very rare and often occur in the context of reprimands given to inquisitors for this reason by the Congregation of the Holy Office. Testimony obtained under torture afterwards had to be, on pain of invalidity, confirmed by the accused without coercion. If the accused recanted his confession (or testified nothing on torture), the inquisitors had the choice of repeating the torture, releasing the accused, or continuing the interrogations in a more subtle manner. The manuals and instructions of the Congregation strongly warned against the abuse of torture and often expressed open skepticism as to its effectiveness in finding the truth. At the same time, it was emphasized that torture must not lead to any serious bodily harm, and that a doctor must always be present during its application, who had the right to forbid the use of torture due to the state of health of the accused.

In the light of the surviving documentation, it seems that the Roman Inquisition used torture very rarely, but the scarcity of trial materials does not allow us to formulate overly categorical conclusions in this regard. The largely preserved correspondence between the Congregation of the Holy Office and local tribunals shows, however, that the Congregation attached great importance to the observance of rules in this matter, and itself recommended far-reaching restraint and moderation, and as a rule required that decisions to use torture be preceded by consultation with it. The Congregation was also interested in the conditions in which detainees were held.

When the Inquisition resumed in the Church State after the Napoleonic Wars, Pope Pius VII reformed its procedures in 1816. He banned torture and abolished the anonymity of witnesses, requiring judges to confront them with the accused. In addition, the use of criminal punishment was limited to “false prophets and apostles of false doctrine,” forbidding it to be inflicted on “ordinary” heretics, and in all situations the trial was to be conducted “so as to avoid the death penalty.”

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Sentences and penalties

The trial ended with the pronouncement of the sentence and, in the case of a finding of guilt, also with the imposition of punishment. Since the thirteenth century the punishment for heresy provided for in secular and ecclesiastical legislation was the death penalty if the heretic persisted in heresy (impenitento, unrepentant) or fell into it again (relapso, recidivist). However, in accordance with a practice developed to some extent as early as the Middle Ages, not every deviation from the Catholic faith was punishable by death, but multiple degrees of guilt were introduced. For a defendant to be sentenced to death, his religious views had to be “formally heretical” (heresia de formali), i.e., the accused had to consciously reject any of the dogmas promulgated by the Church. In other cases, when the doctrinal views of the accused did not touch directly on the dogmas of faith, they could be qualified as “erroneous” (erronea), “close to heresy” (haeresis proxima) or “indirectly heretical” (haeresim sapiens). Views could also be condemned as not being heretical, but “scorching to the ears of believers” (piarium atrium offensiva), “scandalous” (scandalosa) or “contrary to the theological consensus”. In cases of doubt, the classification of the views in question attributed to the accused depended on the opinions of the tribunal”s theological advisors, but was also often the subject of negotiations (defense settlement) between the tribunal and the defense counsel. If the tribunal came to the conclusion that the religious views of the accused deserved condemnation but were not in any way heretical, the accused, in order to be reconciled with the Church, was obliged only to “revoke” these views and not to “renounce” them. In more serious cases, however, the trial ended with the defendant being declared “guilty of heresy” (in the case of formal (in the case of formal heresy) or “suspected of heresy”. He then had to make a solemn renunciation (abjuration) and reconciliation with the Church, which, depending on the degree of guilt, could take the following forms:

Persons who, after abiuration de formali or de vehementi, fell back into heresy were treated as relapsos (recidivists) and sentenced to death, even if they renounced heresy again.

Abjuration did not, of course, apply to those transgressions that were unrelated to the religious views of the accused, but were subject to the jurisdiction of the inquisition by specific ordinances, even though they could entail very severe penalties (e.g., solicitations).

The Roman Inquisition used a very wide range of punishments. In the most trivial cases, it was even possible to dispense with punishment and to confine oneself to instructions and warnings. In other cases, punishments ranged from typical penitential measures (recitation of prayers, fasting, pilgrimages, etc.), to fines, flogging or banishment, to imprisonment or the galleys, and in extreme cases, the death penalty. Flogging was often used as an additional punishment, next to prison or exile. In the early period, “liberty” punishments were sometimes combined with the obligation to wear a sign of penance on one”s clothing (the so-called abitello), but since this often led to the convicts being discriminated against in society, the inquisitors willingly granted dispensations from this obligation, and later this practice was abandoned. Prison sentences were generally imposed indefinitely; indeed, the phrase “perpetual imprisonment” (carcere perpetuo), but in practice it rarely lasted longer than three years. Moreover, it often did not involve the convict”s actual imprisonment, but took the form of house arrest, a stay in a monastery, or even just a ban on leaving the city. The harshest punishment (besides the death penalty) was considered to be exile to the galleys, since many convicts did not live to see the end of their sentence. In addition, the Inquisition was not always able to enforce the command of the galleys to release the convict at the end of this punishment.

In the most extreme cases, the Inquisition turned the accused over to the “secular arm” (braccio secolare (braccio secolare) in order to inflict upon him an “appropriate punishment,” as the death penalty was euphemistically termed. As mentioned above, the death penalty was reserved only for those guilty of formal heresy who either persisted in it (impenitento) or fell into recidivism (relapso). Under the decrees of Paul IV, the death penalty could be imposed even despite the repentance of the accused at the first offense for denying the dogma of the Trinity, denying the divinity of Jesus, and denying the virginity of Mary (decree of June 22, 1556). In addition, this pope recommended sentencing to death on the first offense for celebrating Mass without ordination (decree of May 20, 1557) and profaning the Eucharist. Although after the death of Paul IV these decrees were largely forgotten and in the seventeenth century such acts were generally sentenced to the galleys, they were renewed and confirmed by Pope Innocent XI in March 1677, and there is evidence that they were still enforced in the eighteenth century.

Although the Inquisition is most often associated with death by burning at the stake, in reality the methods by which secular authorities executed its convicts varied. Burning alive was reserved only for unrepentant heretics. In other cases, the condemned man was first hanged, beheaded, or strangled, and only his corpse was burned. Such executions were sometimes carried out in a prison cell, with only the burning of the corpse taking place in public. In the case of those celebrating mass without ordination, sometimes the burning of the corpse was not used, but only beheading or hanging was done. In Venice, drowning was the preferred method of capital punishment – the condemned was thrown into the sea with a heavy stone tied around his neck.

Sometimes death sentences were imposed on fugitives. Sometimes this led to an “execution in effigie,” the burning of a portrait or effigy of the condemned, but the Roman Inquisition did not attach as much importance to these symbolic executions as did the Iberian Inquisitions. It also happened that a person who died during the trial was considered a stubborn heretic or recidivist. In such a case, his corpse was formally “handed over to the secular arm” for burning.

A death sentence, even if pronounced in absentia, usually entailed confiscation of the convict”s property. In the ecclesiastical state the confiscation was made entirely to the Inquisition, while in other states part of the property was taken by the secular authorities or bishops. In Mantua, the convict”s property was divided 50-50 between the Inquisition and the secular authorities. In the principality of Milan 1

From 1725 onwards, all sentences obliging the subjudice to at least abiuration de levi required the prior approval of the Congregation of the Holy Office.

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Inquisitor”s Manuals

Unlike the inquisitions in Spain and Portugal, the Roman Inquisition never made a uniform codification of its rules of procedure. This resulted in the great popularity of the so-called manuals for inquisitors, i.e., elaborations of inquisitorial procedure and rules for dealing with heretics. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, a great many works of this type were published in Italy, some of which were printed and others circulated only in manuscript form. In addition, manuals written by medieval inquisitors were also used. The Spanish canonist Francisco Peña (ca. 1540-1612), who settled permanently in Rome in the 1570s, had great merit in this field. He published in print and provided commentaries on two manuals written by medieval inquisitors: Directorium Inquisitorum by the Aragonese inquisitor Nicolas Eymeric of c. 1376 (first Roman edition in 1578) and Lucerna Inquisitorum Haereticae Pravitatis by Bernardo Rategno of Como of c. 1511 (first Roman edition in 1584). Eymerica”s manual became the most popular manual of the Roman Inquisition in the late 16th century and early 17th century. In the seventeenth century it began to be superseded by manuals written by Roman inquisitors (or their officials), already taking into account the organizational and procedural changes that occurred after the establishment of the Roman Inquisition and, moreover, often written no longer in Latin, but in Italian. The most popular such manual was that by the Inquisitor Eliseo Masini (Sacro Arsenale), which was published in print as many as ten times between 1621 and 1730. The Latin textbook by Cesare Carena (1597-1659), Tractatus de Officio Sanctissimae Inquisitionis, was published just under nine times. Some manuals, however, circulated only in manuscripts.

Some instructions drawn up by the Congregation of the Holy Office were also published in print. One example is the Instructio pro formandis processibus in causis strigum (Instruction on the Procedure in Witchcraft Cases), drafted as early as about 1600 and published in print in 1657 in Rome. This instruction had a great influence on the way church courts handled witchcraft cases not only in Italy, but also in Switzerland, France, Germany, and even in Poland, where it was published in print in Gdansk (1682) and in Braniewo (1705).

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Areas of interest

The Roman Inquisition was originally tasked mainly with fighting Protestantism in Italy. By the 1680s, however, there were virtually no organized groups sympathetic to the Reformation in Italy. In this situation, the main role of the Inquisition became guarding the orthodoxy of ordinary believers and combating various kinds of transgressions:

The scope of the inquisitors” authority also included so-called reductions, i.e. conversions of Muslims, Protestants, or Orthodox to Catholicism. These were not trials in the strict sense of the word, but were also recorded in inquisitorial records in the same way as trials. The option to convert to Catholicism before the inquisitor was exercised not only by those raised in a different faith, but also by Catholics who, as a result of a long stay in Ottoman Turkey (including as slaves or prisoners of war) or Protestant countries, had embraced Islam or Protestantism but wished to live as Catholics again without fear of persecution. Jesuits and Capuchins often mediated in negotiating the terms of reduction with the inquisitors.

One of the most studied aspects of the activities of the Roman Inquisition by historians is its attitude towards the so-called witch hunts. The Dominican inquisitors in Lombardy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were responsible for a very large number of witch trials and executions and made a significant contribution to promoting the idea of the reality of the crime of witchcraft (including Sabbath flying). The Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, on the other hand, was skeptical almost from the beginning, although its attitude lacked consistency in the early years. In 1559 Pope Paul IV, despite the doubts of the inquisitorial cardinals, approved four death sentences issued by the tribunal of Bologna against alleged witches accused of taking part in Sabbaths, but surviving documentation shows that the pope”s position was determined by the fact that these individuals confessed to profaning consecrated hosts, while the question of the alleged Sabbaths was treated as entirely secondary. Ten years later, the Congregation of the Holy Office was instrumental in stopping the witch-hunts in Lecco unleashed by Cardinal Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan. Questioning the evidence of guilt, the Congregation annulled six death sentences handed down by the archbishop. On the other hand, however, that same year five women were burned in Siena by the Inquisition without any objection from Rome. Cases of persons accused of witchcraft being sent to the stake by ecclesiastical courts (both episcopal and Inquisition) occurred in Italian states until the end of the 16th century, e.g. between 1581 and 1582 in Avignon (19 persons burned by the Inquisitor), in Val Mesolcina in 1583 (7 persons burned by the Archbishop of Milan, Charles Boromeo) and again in 1589 (about 40 burned by the local parish priest, Giovan Pietro Stoppani), in Velletri in 1587 (two women burned by a diocesan vicar), in Perugia in 1590 (a woman burned by an inquisitor), and in Mantua between 1595 and 1600 (three people burned by the Inquisition), but increasingly the Holy Office intervened in such cases in favor of the accused. In 1588, the Inquisition challenged the death sentences passed against the alleged witches of Triora by the senate of Genoa; unfortunately, the surviving documentation does not answer the question of what the final outcome of the case was. During Giulio Antonio Santori”s tenure as Cardinal Secretary (1587-1602), a skeptical current finally prevailed in the Roman Inquisition. The Instructio pro formandis processibus in causis strigum, drafted around 1600, although it did not question the reality of witchcraft per se, set standards for the handling of such cases that made a conviction virtually impossible. In particular, it was forbidden to convict on the basis of the slander of co-defendants accused of witchcraft. Moreover, the Roman Inquisition did not treat witchcraft as a specific crime for which the death penalty was due. Persons accused of witchcraft, even if found guilty, could be reconciled with the Church as in the case of ordinary accusations of heresy. This instruction had a decisive effect on the practice of Italian ecclesiastical courts in witchcraft cases and ensured that after 1600 they did not participate in witch hunts. Moreover, with this instruction the Congregation also positively influenced the conduct of ecclesiastical courts in the countries north of the Alps. However, the Inquisition was not always able to prevent secular courts from condemning alleged witches to death. In Piedmont, where local tribunals were severely curtailed in the early 18th century, the secular courts executed several alleged witches between 1707 and 1723.

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Status of archives

The exact number of trials conducted by the Roman Inquisition and the sentences handed down by it, including death sentences, is not and unfortunately will never be known. This is because the archives of the vast majority of the tribunals were destroyed at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Enlightenment and revolutionary governments that abolished the Inquisition tribunals in the late 18th century generally burned or otherwise destroyed their records. It is known, for example, that the archives of the tribunal of Mantua were destroyed in October 1782, and that the archives of the tribunal of Milan – containing trial records going back continuously to 1470 – were burned to the ground on June 3, 1788, in the gardens of the convent of S. Maria delle Grazie by order of Emperor Joseph II. The archives of the tribunals of Padua and Verona were burned by order of the republican authorities in 1797. Sometimes inquisitorial archives were accidentally destroyed much earlier, e.g., the archives of the tribunal of Piacenza, housed in the library of the convent of S. Giovanni in Canale, burned during the fire of that library in 1650. The only local tribunals whose original archives have survived and been identified are:

Although the archives of the Genoa tribunal have disappeared, a certain amount of inquisitorial documentation has found its way to the Archivio Storico dell”Arcidiocesi di Genova, where, however, these resources do not form a separate whole. The Archivio di Stato of Parma holds a small number of documents left over from the archives of the Inquisition tribunals of Parma and Piacenza, but these are almost without exception documents of an economic nature. The Archivio di Stato in Ancona also holds a handful of local tribunal documents of a similar nature. It is also known that the Archivio Storico Arcivescovile di Fermo holds a small collection of inquisitorial records of the tribunal of Fermo, but this has not yet been made available to historians, so its actual contents are unknown.

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, in many districts, especially in the Republic of Venice, the main role in combating torts against the faith was played by the episcopal courts, with only the auxiliary participation of inquisitors. As a result, some of the procedural documentation of the Inquisition was placed in diocesan archives and avoided destruction at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Thus, documentation of some of the inquisition trials in the dioceses of Belluno (in the Archivio Vescovile di Belluno), Bergamo (in the Archivio Vescovile di Bergamo), Crema (in the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Crema) was preserved, Feltre (in Archivio Vescovile di Feltre), and Treviso (in Archivio storico diocesano di Treviso), but these resources should not be equated with the archives of the Inquisition tribunals. Documents from trials conducted by episcopal tribunals in collaboration with the Inquisition are also found in the diocesan archives at Acqui Terme (Curia vescovile di Acqui), Novara (Curia vescovile di Novara), Tortona (Archivio Vescovile di Tortona), and Turin (Archivio storico diocesano).

In addition, the archives of the vicariate of the Inquisition of Imola (in the Archivio Diocesano of Imola), subordinate to the tribunal of Faenza, and of the vicariate of Lodi (in the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Lodi), subordinate to the tribunal of Milan, were identified. Significant resources remaining from the vicariates of the Inquisition at Forlì (in the Biblioteca Comunale “Aurelio Saffi”), Savona (in the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Savona-Noli) and Macerata (in the Archivio Diocesano di Macerata), subordinate to the tribunals of Faenza, Genoa and Ancona respectively, were also identified.

The condition of these archives varies greatly, e.g., the archives of the tribunals of Udine, Siena and Modena are complete or nearly complete, while the archives of the tribunals of Bologna and Florence, for example, are severely lacking. It should be noted, however, that archival searches are still underway and some diocesan archives in Italy are still not accessible to historians. It is therefore possible that the above list of surviving archives will grow.

Prior to 1998, some historians had hoped that the shortcomings resulting from the destruction of local archives would be compensated for by the holdings of the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (ACDF), the former Holy Office to which local tribunals reported their activities, although the history surrounding the removal of this archive to Paris in 1810 and its return to Rome a few years later had long been well known. Unfortunately, when the ACDF was opened in 1998, fears were confirmed that it did not contain significant holdings of trial documentation similar to those found in the central archives of the Spanish Inquisition, although the almost complete archive of the Sienese tribunal was unexpectedly discovered there.

The above conditions make it impossible for historians to give precise figures on the number of trials for the vast majority of tribunals, and thus also for the Roman Inquisition as a whole. It is only possible to determine a certain order of magnitude involved, based on individual data obtained for the few tribunals whose archives have survived and their extrapolation. The situation is somewhat better in the case of death sentences alone, since executions of Inquisition sub-judges were often recorded in external sources as well. For example, in the case of Rome, Milan, and Parma, the number of executions is reconstructed primarily from the archives of the confraternities assisting the condemned during execution. Additional information is provided by chronicles, diplomatic reports, Protestant martyrologies, documents from municipal archives, private letters, etc. These sources compensate to some extent for the shortcomings resulting from the destruction of the trial documentation, but they never guarantee the completeness of the balance sheet drawn up on their basis.

Also read, history – Kalmar Union

Number of processes

Regarding the number of cases dealt with by the Roman Inquisition, data have so far been published for the tribunals of Venice, Udine, Siena, Modena, Bologna, Naples, Malta and Feltre, as well as for the vicariate of Imola. It was also possible to reconstruct partial data for several other tribunals (Mantua, Genoa, Ancona, Faenza), but these concern very short periods and it is not certain whether they are complete. Not in all cases the results obtained are based directly on the analysis of existing process file resources. In the case of some districts (e.g. Venice, Imola, Naples, partly Modena) the published figures are based on archival inventories containing lists of cases dealt with by the Inquisition. These inventories, however, as sources, have their limitations because:

The data for the Venetian tribunal are based on the archival inventory No. 303, compiled in the 19th century and containing a catalog of suspects from 1541 to 1794, which shows that it investigated 3597 suspects during that period, except that the inventory contains almost no cases from 1593-1609 and 1611-1615. Andrea Del Col, in addition to noting this gap, pointed out that a direct reading of the trial files proves that the inventory does not list all the suspects. For the period 1541-1560, the inventory lists 418 suspects; the actual number is 968. On the other hand, however, the Venetian archive also contains files of inquisitorial proceedings conducted in other cities of the Venetian Republic; in the period mentioned, of the 968 suspects, only 458 were actually tried by the Venetian tribunal. Of the remaining 510, as many as 301 were tried by Commissioner Annibale Grisonio in Istria between 1548-1549 and 1558-1559; these figures include all types of proceedings, including denunciations that did not lead to formal charges. In total, Del Col estimated the number of cases handled by the Venetian tribunal at about 4400.

The Sienese tribunal, according to the trial records in the ACDF, heard the cases of 6893 defendants between 1580 and 1782, 614 of them during the last two decades of the 16th century, 2310 during the 17th century, and as many as 3969 during the 18th century. The trial records in the ACDF, however, do not cover the period before 1580. Documentation from this earlier period is fragmentarily preserved in two local archives in Siena. Taking this earlier documentation into account, Andrea Del Col estimated that between 1551 and 1782 the Siena Inquisition tried about 7100 people.

The archives of the tribunal of Parma have not survived (except for a handful of documents of an economic nature), but an archival inventory from 1769 has survived which indicates that it contained 165 volumes of trial records dating from 1500 to 1768.On this basis, it is estimated that this tribunal may have considered about 1

The Maltese tribunals between 1744 and 1798 received as many as 3620 denunciations (including self-denunciations) of a total of 3049 persons, of whom only 148 were arrested pending trial. In contrast, in the early period, between 1546 and 1581, the Maltese ecclesiastical courts (both the Bishop”s Court and the Inquisition) received a total of 497 denunciations. Between 1577 and 1670, the local tribunal received 3928 denunciations, but conducted only 2104 trials.

The Feltre Tribunal heard a total of 62 cases in the few years of its existence (1558-1562), of which only 20 were formal trials and only 9 resulted in convictions. The remaining 42 cases were merely registered denunciations that did not lead to the prosecution of anyone. The Vicariate of the Inquisition in Imola, on the other hand, according to the archival inventory, handled 742 cases between 1551 and 1700.

The archives of the tribunal of Bologna contain incomplete trial records from 1543-1583, which include data on 156 trials for heresy (19 of which were conducted in absentia) and 8 trials for witchcraft. The extant records of the Genoese tribunal, on the other hand, indicate that between 1540 and 1583 it conducted 366 trials, many of which did not result in convictions due to lack of evidence. In addition, 28 public abjurations were held in Genoa between 1609 and 1627. The Florentine archives contain records of only 133 trials, mostly from 1578-1620. In addition, there are five volumes containing abiurations of suspects from 1636-1770.

A total of eight auto da fe ceremonies were held in Mantua between 1568 and 1570, during which 41 persons were convicted. In Ancona, a total of 88 defendants were tried in trials against Judaizers in 1556. In Faenza, on the other hand, a total of about 150 people were arrested between 1567 and 1569, of whom 78 were convicted. In Rome alone, during the pontificate of Pius V, 15 auto da fe ceremonies are documented, during which about 180 people were convicted.

Documentation found in the diocesan archives of Crema and Treviso indicates that in Crema there were 53 proceedings between 1582 and 1613 (including 44 formal trials and 9 denunciations) and 63 between 1622 and 1630 (including only 25 formal trials), while in Treviso 102 proceedings are documented between 1530 and 1585.

In his annual report of activities in 1796, the inquisitor of Verona, Ercole Pio Pavoni, reported 101 denunciations, including 57 self-denunciations. The self-denunciations ended in “appeals” and penitential measures, while the remaining 44 cases were suspended and no consequences were drawn against the denounced. The inquisitor of Conegliano, Francesco Antonio Mimiola, on the other hand, recorded only one self-incrimination and three denunciations in his report for 1795. The last inquisitor of Crema, Pietro Placido Novelli, during his trial by the authorities of the Cisalpine Republic, claimed that during his ten and a half years in office (1786-1797) he did not conduct a single trial, but only granted absolution to those who came to him voluntarily.

Also read, history – Peninsular War

Number of executions

As mentioned above, the source base for reconstructing the number of executions is broader than for estimating the number of trials, since executions were also recorded by external sources. Data on executions ordered by the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome itself are reconstructed primarily on the basis of documentation from the archives of the confraternity of San Giovanni Decollato, which assisted those condemned to death at executions by offering them a last spiritual service. Because these records do not always make it clear whether a particular execution was ordered by the Roman Inquisition, the numbers given by different historians vary slightly: Del Col gives a figure of at least 128 executions, while Decker gives a figure of 133 executions. Based on the archives of the confraternity of S. Giovanni Decollato alone, Domenico Orano provided a named list of 126 persons executed by the Inquisition in Rome between 1553 and 1761. This large number of executions in Rome was due to the fact that in the sixteenth century the Congregation often requested extraditions of leading Italian heretics and took their trials from the hands of local tribunals to conduct directly.

Data for local tribunals can be reconstructed in only a few cases, but they show that many formally imposed death sentences were never carried out because they were pronounced in absentia, the condemned escaped, or the sentence was annulled by secular authorities or cardinal inquisitors.

The Venice Tribunal issued twenty-six death sentences between 1541 and 1794, of which twenty-three were executed (including twenty-two in Venice and one in Brescia). The first execution took place in 1553, the last in 1724. It is also known that one person convicted by the tribunal of the Inquisition in Padua of celebrating mass without ordination was executed in Venice in 1736. The tribunal of Padua sentenced at least two other persons to death for a similar offense; they were executed in Padua in 1611 and 1631.

In Bologna, fragmentary surviving trial records indicate that between 1543 and 1583 the tribunal there issued 30 death sentences, of which 19 were executed and the rest were pronounced in absentia. From other sources, however, it is possible to identify fourteen more executions that took place in that city between 1587 and 1744, as well as two in effigie executions (in 1591 and 1594), which would give a total of at least 33 actual executions and at least 13 in absentia verdicts.

In Ancona, 24 people were executed during the campaign against the marranos in 1556 alone. In Mantua, four people were executed at eight auto da fe ceremonies between 1568 and 1570 and eight others were condemned in absentia. In 1581, one person was condemned to death in absentia. Between 1595 and 1600, three alleged witches were burned.

There were probably only two executions in Modena between 1541 and 1785: Marco Magnavacca was executed in 1567 and Vincenzo Pellicciari in 1727. Four further death sentences were pronounced in absentia between 1570 and 1571. In Ferrara, by contrast, two executions are known to have taken place between 1550 and 1551 and another four between 1568 and 1570. In addition, at least two executions in effigie took place there (in 1570 and 1572).

The Inquisition in Malta is believed to have handed down five death sentences during its lifetime, two of which were carried out as the remaining convicts were tried in absentia. Both executions took place in 1639.

At least six executions are documented in Naples. In 1564, two heretics (Gianfrancesco Alois and Giovanni Bernardino Gargano) were burned in the city, and between 1633 and 1642, four men were executed there for celebrating the sacraments without proper ordination.

In Milan, according to the archives of the confraternity of San Giovanni Decollato (which had an analogous role to that of Rome), four men were executed for heresy between 1568 and 1630, but only one of them was convicted by the local inquisition (in 1575), while the other three were sentenced by Archbishop Charles Boromeo. Two further executions took place in 1641. The archives of the Parma Confraternity show that at least two executions by the Inquisition took place in Parma (both in 1640 for sacrilege), but it is possible that there were more, since in many cases the records are very laconic and do not specify which court passed the death sentence and for what crime. At least three people were executed in Piacenza (in 1550, 1564 and 1610).

Given the lack of reliable data for the vast majority of tribunals, historians assessing the scale of executions ordered by the Roman Inquisition rely on the few data that can be established and extrapolate them. Andrea Del Col relied on total data for the tribunals of Venice and Udine and partial data for Bologna and Ancona, and he considered the Venetian tribunal to be the most representative, with 23 executions. Taking into account the number of local tribunals and the number of executions carried out in Rome, he concluded that the Roman Inquisition in Italian countries (excluding Avignon) carried out between 1,100 and 1,400 actual executions, most likely around 1,250. Francisco Bethencourt also estimated this number at around 1,250, but did not specify whether he meant actual executions or the total number of death sentences (including those not carried out).

However, the above balance applies only to tribunals in Italy and must be supplemented by data for at least two tribunals in French-speaking areas. In papal Avignon, between 1545 and 1557, 18 supporters of the Reformation (Huguenots) were burned, and between 1581 and 1582, 19 alleged witches were executed. Between 1566 and 1574, during the religious wars in France, the local tribunal handed down as many as 818 death sentences against supporters of the Reformation. The surviving sources, however, do not allow us to determine the proportion between executed and in absentia verdicts. In the archdiocese of Besançon, the inquisitor Pierre Symard burned 22 alleged witches between 1657 and 1659, but these executions were carried out against the wishes of the Congregation of the Holy Office, which removed him from office for this reason.

In existence for less than a decade, the tribunal of the Roman Inquisition in Barcelona tried 18 people, three of whom were sentenced to death, but only one sentence was actually carried out (two others were burned in effigie).

The Roman Inquisition, in a modified form, exists to this day. On June 29, 1908, Pope Pius X reorganized the Roman Curia, finally discontinuing the now anachronistic name “Congregation for the Roman and Universal Inquisition” in favor of “Congregation of the Holy Office,” which had been used interchangeably until then. Nine years later, on March 22, 1917, Pope Benedict XV abolished the separate Congregation of the Index and merged it with the Holy Office. This Congregation thus took over the duties of evaluating literature and publishing the Index of Prohibited Books. In addition, it guarded orthodoxy within the Catholic clergy and institutions, e.g., it played a major role in the anti-modernist campaign, but after 1870 it no longer had the power to arrest anyone or to sentence anyone to punishments other than those falling within the traditional catalog of penitential or possibly disciplinary measures for clergy. It published new editions of the Index of Prohibited Books three times: in 1929, 1938, and for the last time in 1948. Unlike in previous centuries, these editions were published in Italian rather than Latin.

On December 7, 1965, the Congregation was reformed again by Pope Paul VI, renaming it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which still exists today and watches over the purity of Catholic doctrine, but has no means of discipline other than intra-Church punishment. From 1981 to 2005 its prefect was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005.

The Index of Prohibited Books was abolished by Paul VI in 1966.

During the celebration of the Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul II apologized for the sins of Churchmen of past centuries, including the activities of the Inquisition. Two years earlier, in January 1998, this pope decided to open the ACDF to historians.

Sources

1. Inkwizycja rzymska
2. Roman Inquisition