Pius V and the Rise of the Roman Inquisition
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chapter 3 Between the Prince and the Pope: Pius v and the Rise of the Roman Inquisition When cardinal- inquisitor Michele Ghislieri became Pope Pius v in January 1566 senior Jesuits predicted that, as pope, he would prioritise the work of the Roman Inquisition. Just days after the conclave closed, Superior General Francesco Bor- ja wrote that ‘matters of Reform and the Inquisition [would] come first’ under a Ghislieri pope.1 Others in Rome agreed. In a letter of March 1566, the Venetian ambassador to the Holy See claimed that ‘matters of religion would be the most favoured’ by Pius, ‘and particularly of the Inquisition’.2 Another Italian writer told the Archbishop of Santa Severina, Giulio Antonio Santoro, that Pius v’s pontifi- cate would herald a return to the inquisitorial severity of his mentor, Pope Paul iv (1555– 9). ‘To Rome, to Rome, what awaits you?’ he asked, ‘come happily, God has revived Paul iv there’.3 Pius v soon corroborated these predictions. As pope, he established the Roman Inquisition as a stable institution, building permanent headquarters for the congregation at a cost of more than 50,000 scudi.4 In 1568, he publicly executed Paul iv’s enemy Pietro Carnesecchi, the Florentine nobleman who had escaped condemnation for heresy at Paul’s death in 1559.5 In 1570, Pius established the Congregation of the Index, re- imposing Paul iv’s rigorous cen- sorship of heretical books and reversing the more moderate guidelines set by 1 arsi, Epistolae Generalium Italiae 66, f.122r. 2 Paolo Tiepolo in Fabio Mutinelli, Storia arcana e aneddotica d’Italia, raccontata dai veneti ambasciatori (Venice: Pietro Naratovich, 1855– 6), vol. 1, p.38. 3 Marcantonio Fiorenzo to Giulio Antonio Santoro, 9 January 1566, published in G. Cugnoni (ed.), Autobiografia di monsignor G. Antonio Santori, cardinale di Santa Severina in Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 12 (1889), p. 339. 4 David Coffin, Pirro Ligorio: The Renaissance Artist, Architect, and Antiquarian (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press), p.77 and Ludwig von Pastor, Frederick Ignatius Antrobus and Ralph Francis Kerr (eds), The History of the Popes from the close of the Middle Ages drawn from the secret archives of the Vatican and other original sources; from the Ger- man of late Ludwig Pastor (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1874–1928), 40 vols, vol.17, p.288. 5 On the case of Pietro Carnesecchi see, Firpo and Marcatto (eds), I processi inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | DOI:10.1163/9789004413832_005 94 chapter 3 his own predecessor Pius iv.6 He also re- appointed Scipione Rebiba, Francisco Pacheco and Gian Francesco Gambara, cardinal- inquisitors who had been loy- al servants of Paul iv and who had been sacked by the more lenient Pius iv.7 Some feared that Pius v’s inquisition would be even harsher than that of his mentor. A witness at the trial of Count Niccolò Orsini claimed that ‘at the time of Pope Paul [iv] … [Orsini] never went to mass’.8 It seemed that the count was not so afraid of Carafa. Under Pius v, however, it was said that Orsini was terrified about the potential consequences of his past transgressions.9 If Pius v was to take a similar or even harsher approach to that of Paul iv it was very bad news for the Society’s privilege to absolve heresy. Paul iv had tried to negate the Jesuits’ privilege, issuing a brief that required all confessors, including Jesuits, to refuse absolutions until penitent-heretics had visited the Holy Office, though the Jesuits do not appear to have been held to this.10 Doc- uments produced to defend the privilege in the 1580s suggest that Pius v fol- lowed the example of his mentor. The papers list concessions of the privilege from Julius iii’s pontificate onwards. Some fall silent after the concession of Pius v’s predecessor, Pius iv, before moving on to the concessions of his suc- cessor, Gregory xiii, suggesting that Pius failed to re- concede the power.11 An- other list notes that Pius v did concede the privilege, before stating that Greg- ory xiii granted the same but ‘also in Italy’.12 This wording implies that Pius v only confirmed the privilege for northern Europe and that Gregory extended it to Italy to restore the power to the same level as the Jesuits had previously 6 Romeo, L’Inquisizione nell’Italia moderna, p.19. On the Index and its congregation see Fragnito, Church, censorship and culture in early modern Italy; Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo and Vittorio Frajese, Nascita dell’Indice. La censura ecclesiastica dal Rinascimento alla Controriforma (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2006). 7 The decision is recorded at acdf, Sant’Uffico Decreta, 1565– 7, f.35r. See also, Bonora, ‘L’In- quisizione e papato tra Pio IV e Pio V’ in Guasco and Torre (eds), Pio V nella società e nella politica del suo tempo, pp.54– 55 and Santarelli, ‘Dinamiche interne della Congregazione di Sant’Uffizio’, p.12. 8 acdf, Stanza Storica R- 2- m, f.226v. Fosi, Papal Justice. p.96. 9 Fosi, Papal Justice. p.96. 10 On Paul’s brief in the context of papal edicts on confession and the inquisition see Brambilla, Alle origini del Sant’Uffizio, pp.406– 409. On the brief’s effects see Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza, pp.231– 3. Romeo argues that there is no evidence that the Jesuits were held to this rule in his Ricerche su confessione, p.44. A letter by Laínez in January 1559 confirms this: arsi, Epistolae Generalium Italiae 61, 381v. 11 See, for example, a record from the last years of the sixteenth century: ‘Absolvendi ab haeresi et lectione librorum prohibitorum … Idem Pius 4 X. Martii 1561 … Absolvendi ab haeresi. Gregor[io] ult[im]o Martii 1573’.arsi, Institutum 185 – I, f.313v. 12 ‘Absolvendi ab haeresi andc Pius Quintus die 12 Maii 1568. Absolvendi ab haeresi etiam in Italia. Greg[ori]o Ult[im]o Martii 1573’. acdf, Stanza Storica I- 5- B, ff.45r- v..