The new cardinal-inquisitors were not slow to use their powers. They were especially anxious to silence the printing press and laid a heavy hand upon writers and their publishers. Books were suppressed or destroyed, but numbers were circulated throughout Italy in spite of all prohibitions and prosecutions. Severe penalties were inflicted in Tuscany on the possessors as well as the printers of heretical books. Twenty-two such persons were marched in procession in Florence, wearing an ignominious garb of penance, and then publicly exposed in the cathedral. At Modena an insurrection was provoked by the doings of the inquisitors in regard to a writer, who was arbitrarily thrown into prison while his books and papers were seized and forwarded to Rome. The printing and issuing of a new work was hampered by many restrictions; its appearance must be sanctioned after its perusal by some high ecclesiastic; in Rome, by the pope’s vicar or master of the sacred palace; in other cities, by the bishop of the diocese or some one “having understanding.” The penalties of disobedience were forfeiture of the books when published, which were burned publicly, with fines to be added to the sums collected for the building of St. Peter’s. Commerce did not prosper in Italian cities where the Inquisition exercised sway. Foreign merchants, often of strange faith, who came to Florence, were eyed with suspicion. They were spied upon and kept under close surveillance; people declined to remain in the city and do business under such restrictions. Streets were deserted, shops remained empty and trading vessels no longer sailed up the Arno. A terrific disturbance occurred in Naples when the Inquisition was brought there in 1547. The Neapolitans both hated and dreaded it. The Spanish Viceroy appealed to force and marched three thousand troops into the city, so that a desperate conflict ensued. The soldiers fought hard with the exasperated populace, and before the church bells rang out for vespers the streets ran with blood and were choked with corpses. In Sicily, Philip II established it more easily by bribing the chief men and heaping favours upon them.