dealt with according to the canons, and of these there were found seventy, whom Frà Filippo duly condemned, and had the satisfaction of seeing burned. To insure the future purity of the faith, in 1278 a Franciscan convent was built at Sermione with the proceeds of a fine of four thousand lire levied upon Verona as one of the conditions of removing the interdict incurred by its upholding the cause of the unfortunate Conradin; and in 1289 Ezzelin’s castle of Illasio was given to some of the nobles who had been conspicuous in the reduction of Sermione, as a reward for their service, and to stimulate them in the future to continue their support of the Inquisition.[263] Thus heresy, deprived of all protection, was gradually stamped out, and the Inquisition established its power in every corner of the land. How that power was abused to oppress the faithful with ingeniously devised schemes of extortion we have already seen. In fact, in the territories which had once been Ghibelline, it was impossible for any man, no matter how rigid his orthodoxy, to be safe from prosecution if he chanced to provoke the ill-will of the officials, or possessed wealth to excite their cupidity. So successful had the Church been in confounding political opposition with heresy that the mere fact of having adhered of necessity to Ezzelin during the period of his unquestioned domination long continued sufficient to justify prosecution for heresy, entailing the desirable result of confiscation. When Ezzelin’s generation passed away, the memory of the dead was assailed and the descendants were disinherited. In all this there was no pretence of errors of faith, but the men to whom the Church intrusted the awful powers of the Inquisition seemed implacably determined to erase from the land every trace of those who had once dared to resist its authority. At last, in 1304, the authorities of Vicenza appealed to Benedict XI. no longer to allow the few survivors of Ezzelin’s party and their descendants to be thus cruelly wronged, and the pope graciously granted their petition. By this time the empire was but a shadow; Ghibellinism represented no living force that the papacy could reasonably dread, and its persecution had long been merely the gratification of greed or malice.[264]