In another case the inditing and publication of the libel was not essential to constitute the crime. One Camillo Zaccagni, a well known literary man of his time, was beheaded near the bridge of St. Angelo, because, after vainly imploring the release of his nephew imprisoned at the instance of Monsignor Pallavicino, he was heard to say, in a barber’s shop, that “the inhuman prelate had used language that would not be employed even in Turkey” and that he, Camillo, would be revenged on him when the papal chair became vacant. The laws against libel were very severe and found a prominent place in the criminal code. One published by the secretary of state ran as follows:--“And whereas it is manifest to every one how grave are the evils which arise from public or injurious libels, His Eminence, anxious to prevent them, orders that no person shall dare to compose, write, affix, or cause to be affixed, distribute or give away any libels or pasquinades of any sort--even though they may expound or set forth the truth;--or copy, or preserve any such, under pain of death, confiscation of goods and perpetual infamy, according to the rank of the offender, or at least of the galleys, at the pleasure of His Eminence.” Such was the temper of the time which persisted long after the terrible period of the Inquisition in Rome, whose cruelties long exercised a powerful influence upon criminal procedure. CHAPTER VII THE ROMAN INQUISITION Popes having consolidated their spiritual dominion in Christendom aim at complete temporal power--Inquisition originated by Pope Innocent III--His character--Inquisition grows into engine of the most cruel intolerance--Annals of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries full of conflicts between Inquisition and civil authorities in various states of Europe--Spanish bishop imprisoned in St. Angelo for life on charge of heretical belief in Mahometan tenets--Advent of Protestant Reformation and the new Inquisition, “The Supreme and Universal,” established at Rome in 1542--In pontificate of Paul IV prisons of the Inquisition full to overflowing--Dr. Wylson, an English Catholic, narrowly escapes--A Franciscan friar barbarously punished for heretical opinions--Carnesecchi put to death--Giordano Bruno, one of the most celebrated philosophers of his day, burned alive--Arrest and trial of Galileo, the eminent astronomer--His release--The remarkable story of the Archbishop of Memphis--His imprisonment--Later discoveries of the tortures perpetrated--The bath of slaked lime.