The Roman Inquisition

Drawing on the Roman Inquisition's own records, diplomatic correspondence, local documents, newsletters, and other sources, Thomas F. Mayer provides an intricately detailed account of the ways the Inquisition operated to serve the papacy's long-standing political aims in Naples, Venice, and Florence between 1590 and 1640.

Drawing on ongoing research in the archive of the former Roman Inquisition, this volume presents new perspectives for research on the relations between the Catholic Church, Jews and Judaism and places them within the context of the extant scholarship on papal policy, censorship and the Marrano milieu.

This is the first inquisitorial study that analyses the working relationship between the headquarters of the Inquisition in early modern Rome, the Sacred Congregation and its peripheral inquisitorial tribunals in Italy.

One of the great European publishing centers, Venice produced half or more of all books printed in Italy during the sixteenth-century. Drawing on the records of the Venetian Inquisition, which survive almost complete, Paul F. Grendler considers the effectiveness of censorship imposed on the Venetian press by the Index of Prohibited Books and enforced by the Inquisition. Using Venetian governmental records, papal documents in the Vatican Archive and Library, and the books themselves, Professor Grendler traces the controversies as the patriciate debated whether to enforce the Index or to support the disobedient members of the book trade. He investigates the practical consequences of the Index to printer and reader, noble and prelate. Heretics, clergymen, smugglers, nobles, and printers recognized the importance of the press and pursued their own goals for it. The Venetian leaders carefully weighed the conflicting interests, altering their stance to accommodate constantly shifting religious, political, and economic situations. The author shows how disputes over censorship and other press matters contributed to the tension between the papacy and the Republic. He draws on Venetian governmental records, papal documents in the Vatican Library, and the books themselves. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

During the Counter-Reformation, inquisition manual authors working in Italian lands adapted the Catholic Church's traditional tactics of inquisitorial procedure, which had been formulated in the medieval period, to the prosecution of philo-Protestants. Through a comparison of the texts of four such authors to contemporary inquisition processes, Jane K. Wickersham situates the Roman inquisition's prosecution of philo-Protestants within the larger framework of the complex religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. Identifying the critical role played by ritual practice in discovering and prosecuting heretical subjects, Wickersham uncovers two core reasons for its use: first, as a practical means of prosecuting a variety of philo-Protestant beliefs, and second, as an approach firmly grounded within the Catholic Church's history of prosecuting heresy. Finally, Rituals of Prosecution provides an in-depth examination of the inquisitorial processes of urban residents from humble socio-economic backgrounds, providing new insight into how the prosecution of ordinary people was conducted in the early modern era.

A look at the history of censorship, science, and magic from the Middle Ages to the post-Reformation era. Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and methods stretching from the late eleventh century to well into the sixteenth. Unlike earlier studies, Defining Nature’s Limits engages the history of both learned and popular magic. Tarrant explains how the church developed a program that sought to codify what was proper belief through confession, inquisition, and punishment and prosecuted what they considered superstition or heresy that stretched beyond the boundaries of religion. These efforts were continued by the Roman Inquisition, established in 1542. Although it was designed primarily to combat Protestantism, from the outset the new institution investigated both practitioners of “illicit” magic and inquiries into natural philosophy, delegitimizing certain practices and thus shaping the development of early modern science. Describing the dynamics of censorship that continued well into the post-Reformation era, Defining Nature's Limits is revisionist history that will interest scholars of the history science, the history of magic, and the history of the church alike.

A narrative history of the Inquisition, and an examination of the influence it exerted on contemporary society, by the author of ARE WE ROME?

Few legal events loom as large in early modern history as the trial of Galileo. Frequently cast as a heroic scientist martyred to religion or as a scapegoat of papal politics, Galileo undoubtedly stood at a watershed moment in the political maneuvering of a powerful church. But to fully understand how and why Galileo came to be condemned by the papal courts—and what role he played in his own downfall—it is necessary to examine the trial within the context of inquisitorial law. With this final installment in his magisterial trilogy on the seventeenth-century Roman Inquisition, Thomas F. Mayer has provided the first comprehensive study of the legal proceedings against Galileo. By the time of the trial, the Roman Inquisition had become an extensive corporatized body with direct authority over local courts and decades of documented jurisprudence. Drawing deeply from those legal archives as well as correspondence and other printed material, Mayer has traced the legal procedure from Galileo's first precept in 1616 to his formal trial in 1633. With an astonishing mastery of the legal underpinnings and bureaucratic workings of inquisitorial law, Mayer's work compares the course of legal events to other possible outcomes within due process, showing where the trial departed from standard procedure as well as what available recourse Galileo had to shift its direction. The Roman Inquisition: Trying Galileo presents a detailed and corrective reconstruction of the actions both in the courtroom and behind the scenes that led to one of history's most notorious verdicts.