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the north of Italy were disquieting, the loyalty of the Neapolitans was not to be relied upon, and the inquisitor was withdrawn with a promise that no further effort would be made to force upon the people the dreaded tribunal.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] CHAPTER V. THE SLAVIC CATHARI. When Innocent III. found himself confronted with the alarming progress of the Catharan heresy, his vigilant activity did not confine itself to Italy and Languedoc. The home of the belief lay to the east of the Adriatic among the Slavic races. Thence came the missionaries who never ceased to stimulate the zeal of their converts, and every motive of piety and of policy led him to combat the error at its source. Thus the field of battle stretched from the Balkans to the Pyrenees along a front of over a thousand miles, and the result might have been doubtful but for the concentration of moral and material forces resulting from the centralized theocracy founded by Hildebrand.