Chapter IV: Italy (5)

In the Two Sicilies the Inquisition dragged on a moribund existence. Letters of King Robert in 1334 and 1335 and of Joanna I. in 1342 and 1343 show that inquisitors continued to be appointed and to receive the royal exequatur, but they were limited to making fifty arrests each, and record of these was required to be entered in the royal courts; they had no jails, and the royal officials received their prisoners and tortured them when called upon. The Jews appear to be the main object of inquisitorial activity, and this can only have been halting, for in 1344 Clement VI. orders his legate at Naples, Aymerico, Cardinal of S. Martino, to punish condignly all apostate Jews, as though there were no Inquisition at work there. Yet in 1362 there were three inquisitors in Naples, Francesco da Messina, Angelo Cicerello da Monopoli, and Ludovico da Napoli, who took part in the trial of the rebellious Luigi di Durazzo. Still, when efforts were to be made against the Fraticelli, Urban V., in 1368, deemed it necessary to send a special inquisitor, Frà Simone del Pozzo, to Naples. Although his jurisdiction extended over the island of Sicily, Gregory XI., in 1372, when informed that the relics of the Fraticelli were venerated there as those of saints, ordered the prelates to put a stop to it, as though he had no inquisitor to call upon. Yet Frà Simone was there in that year, and had a theological disputation with Frà Niccolò di Girgenti, a learned Franciscan who had been provincial of his Order. The question turned upon some scholastic subtleties respecting the three persons of the Trinity, and as each disputant claimed the victory, Simone proceeded to settle the matter by secretly prosecuting his antagonist for heresy. Niccolò got wind of this and at once appealed to Rome, before the Archbishop of Palermo, demanding his _apostoli_--an appeal which Simone pronounced frivolous. The revelations made by Niccolò as to his antagonists present a most dismal picture of the internal condition of the Church at the time, although Frà Simone's learning and ascetic life won him the popular reputation of a saint, and he obtained the bishopric of Catania, becoming an important political personage. In 1373 Frederic III. issued letters to all the royal officials ordering them to lend all aid to him and to his familiars, and the Inquisition seems to have been firmly established, with prisons of its own. In 1375 we find Gregory applying to the king for the confiscations, and procuring from the revenues of Palermo an appropriation of twelve ounces of gold, to be applied to the extermination of heresy. In this recrudescence of persecution the Jews appear to have been the principal victims. They appealed to Frederic, who in the same year, 1375, issued letters severely blaming the inquisitors and ordering that in future their prisoners should be confined only in the royal jails; that civil judges should assist in their decisions, and that an appeal should lie to the High Court. This was imposing serious limitations on inquisitorial jurisdiction, but no reclamation against it appears to have been made. In Naples, letters of Charles III., issued in 1382 to Frà Domenico di Astragola and Frà Leonardo di Napoli, show that inquisitors continued to be appointed. In 1389 Boniface IX. seems to unite Naples with Sicily by appointing Frà Antonio Traverso di Aversa as inquisitor on both sides of the Faro; but in 1391 another brief of the same pope alludes to the Inquisition of Sicily having become vacant by the death of Frà Francesco da Messina, and as there is customarily but one inquisitor there he fills the vacancy by the appointment of Frà Simone da Amatore. Frà Simone had a somewhat stormy career. Already, in 1392, he was replaced by Frà Giuliano di Mileto, afterwards Bishop of Cefalù, but seems to have regained his position, for in 1393 he was obliged by King Martin to refund moneys extorted from some Jews whom he had prosecuted for holding illicit relations with Christian women, and was told not to interfere with matters beyond his jurisdiction. Engaging in treasonable intrigues, he was driven from the island, and in 1397 we find him acting as papal legate and provincial in Germany. In 1400 he obtained his pardon from King Martin, and was allowed to reside in Syracuse, but was strictly forbidden from exercising the office of inquisitor. Meanwhile, in 1395, we hear of Guglielmo di Girgenti as inquisitor, and in 1397, of Matteo di Catania, a sentence by whom in that year, fining a Jew and his wife in forty ounces, was confirmed by the king, showing that the Inquisition continued to be subordinated to the civil power. Frà Matteo was inquisitor on both sides of the Faro, for a royal letter of 1399 describes him as such, and orders obedience rendered to his vicar, while another of 1403 shows that he still retained the position. A royal decree of 1402 specially provides for Jews an appeal to the king from all inquisitorial sentences, thus continuing what had long been the practice. In 1415 royal letters confirming the appointment of Frà Antonio de Pontecorona, others of 1427 in favor of Frà Benedetto da Perino, and of 1446, in favor of Frà Andrea de la Pascena, show that the organization was maintained, but all sentences were required to be transmitted to the viceroy, who submitted them to a royal judge before they were valid. Thus, in 1451, King Alfonso confirmed a fine of ten thousand florins, levied upon the Jews as a punishment for their usuries and other offences.[319]

On the mainland we have seen proof of the decay of the Inquisition in the undisturbed growth of the Waldensian communities, and the complete breaking-down of its machinery is fairly illustrated in 1427, when Joanna II. undertook to enforce certain measures against the Jews of her kingdom. Had there been an effective and organized Inquisition she would have required no better instrument for her purpose; and it could only have been the absence of this that led her to call in the indefatigable persecutor, Frà Giovanni da Capistrano, to whom she issued a commission to coerce the Jews to abandon usury and to wear the sign Tau, as provided by law. He was empowered to decree such punishments as he might deem fit, which were to be mercilessly inflicted by all judges and other officials, and he was moreover to constrain, under pain of confiscation, the Jews to surrender to him for cancellation all letters and privileges granted to them by former monarchs. Yet there was still a simulacrum of the Inquisition maintained, for in the following year, 1428, we find Martin V. confirming the appointment of Frà Niccolò di Camisio as Inquisitor of Benevento, Bari, and the Capitanata.[320]

Whatever vitality the Inquisition retained was still more reduced when, in 1442, the House of Aragon obtained the throne of Naples. Giannone tells us that the Aragonese princes rarely admitted inquisitors, and, when they did so, required minute reports as to their every official act, never permitting any conviction without the participation of the secular magistrates, followed by royal confirmation, as we have seen to have been the case in Sicily. When, in 1449, Nicholas V. appointed Frà Matteo da Reggio as inquisitor to exterminate the apostate Jews who were said to be numerous throughout the kingdom, the terms employed would seem to indicate that for some time the Inquisition had been practically extinct, although but two years before he had given a commission to Frà Giovanni da Napoli, and although subsequent inquisitors were occasionally appointed.[321]

In Sicily, however, in 1451, the Inquisition obtained fresh vitality by means of an ingenious device. Frà Enrico Lugardi, Inquisitor of Palermo, produced a most impudent forgery in the shape of a long and elaborate privilege purporting to have been issued by the Emperor Frederic II. in 1224, ordering all his Sicilian subjects to give aid and comfort to the "inquisitors of heretical pravity," and stating that, as it was unfitting that all confiscations should inure to the royal fisc without rewarding the inquisitors for their toils and perils, the confiscations henceforth should be divided equally between the fisc, the Inquisition, and the Holy See; moreover, all Jews and infidels were required once a year to supply inquisitors and their attendants, when in prosecution of their duty, with all necessaries for man and beast. Though the fraudulent character of this document was conspicuous on its face, to say nothing of a blunder in the regnal year of its date, the age was not a critical one; Frà Enrico seems to have had no trouble in inducing King Alonso to confirm it, and it was subsequently confirmed again in 1477 by Ferdinand and Isabella. The privileges which it conferred were substantial, and gave fresh importance to the Inquisition, although its judgments were still subjected to revision by the civil power. When, in 1474, famine led Sixtus IV. to request of the Viceroy Ximenes the shipment of a large supply of corn from Sicily to Rome, he wrote to the inquisitor, Frà Salvo di Cassetta, ordering him to strain every nerve to secure the granting of the favor. The inquisitor at that time was evidently a personage of influence, for Frà Salvo in fact was also confessor of the viceroy. The central tribunal of the Inquisition sat in Palermo, and there were three commissioners or deputies in charge of the three "valleys" of the island.[322]

Ferdinand the Catholic, in founding the New Spanish Inquisition, obtained for his grand inquisitor the power of nominating deputies in all the dependencies of Castile and Aragon. About 1487 Fray Antonio de la Peña was sent to Sicily in that capacity, who speedily organized the Holy Office on its new basis throughout the island; and in 1492 an edict of banishment was issued against the Jews, who, as of old, were the chief objects of persecution. On the mainland there was more trouble. When, in 1503, Ferdinand acquired the kingdom of Naples, the Great Captain, Gonsalvo of Cordova, finding the people excited with the fear that the Spanish Inquisition might be introduced, made a solemn compact that no inquisitors should be sent thither. The old rules were kept in force; no one was allowed to be arrested without a special royal warrant, and no inquisitor could exercise any functions without the confirmation of his commission by the royal representative. Notwithstanding this, in 1504, Diego Deza, the Spanish inquisitor-general, sent to Naples an inquisitor and a receiver of confiscated property, with royal letters ordering them to have free exercise of their authority, but Gonsalvo, who knew by how slender a tenure the new dynasty held the allegiance of the people, seems not to have admitted them. Under the excuse that the Jews and New Christians expelled from Spain found refuge in Naples, the attempt was again made in 1510, and Andres Palacio was sent there as inquisitor, but the populace rose in arms and made demonstrations so threatening that even Ferdinand's fanaticism was forced to give way. The movements of the French in the north of Italy were disquieting, the loyalty of the Neapolitans was not to be relied upon, and the inquisitor was withdrawn with a promise that no further effort would be made to force upon the people the dreaded tribunal. Even Julius II. recognized the necessity of this and assented to the understanding. The Calabrian and Apulian Waldenses thus had a respite until the progress of the Reformation in Italy aroused the Church to renewed efforts and to a complete reorganization of its machinery of persecution.[323]