It was not long after this that occasion offered to extend still more directly the authority of Rome. Early in the fourteenth century, bands of Waldenses, from the Alpine valleys, flying from persecution, had settled in the mountains of Calabria and Apulia. Their example was followed by others; they increased and multiplied in peace, under covenants from the crown and from the nobles, on whose lands they settled and made productive, until it was estimated that they numbered ten thousand souls. As a matter of self-protection they strictly prohibited marriage with the natives, they used only their own language and their faith was kept pure by biennial visits from the _barbes_ or travelling pastors of their sect, but it was under a prudent reserve, for they occasionally went to mass, they allowed their children to be baptized and they were punctual in the payment of tithes, which secured for them the benevolent indifference of the local priesthood.[145] More than two centuries of this undisturbed existence seemed to promise perpetual immunity, but the passions aroused on both sides by the Lutheran revolt were too violent to admit of toleration earned by dissimulation. The heretical movement in Naples seems to have aroused more watchful scrutiny for, in January, 1551, the Spanish Holy Office had information, through its Sicilian tribunal, about the Waldenses, whom it styled Lutherans, and it wrote to Charles V urging him to adopt measures for their eradication.[146] Nothing came of this, however, and the peaceful sectaries might possibly have remained in obscurity had they not commenced to feel dissatisfied with their ancestral teachings and sent to Geneva for more modern instructors. Religious zeal in Geneva was at a white heat and the missionaries despatched--Giovan Liugi Pascale and Giacomo Bonelli--were not men to make compromises with Satan. They made no secret of their beliefs and they paid the penalty, the one being strangled and burnt in Rome, September 15, 1560, and the other in Palermo.[147] Pascale had been arrested, about May 1, 1559, by Salvatore Spinello, lord of La Guardia, apparently to preserve his vassals from persecution for, since the coming of the ardent missionaries, they had ceased to attend mass.[148] With his companions he was carried to Cosenza and delivered to the archiepiscopal authorities. Then the viceroy, the Duke of Alcalá, intervened in a manner to show how uncertain as yet was the inquisitorial jurisdiction, for in letters of February 9, 1560, he urged the episcopal Ordinary to try the prisoners for heresy and, to prevent errors, he was to call for advice and assistance on a lay judge, Maestro Bernardino Santacroce, to whom powers and instructions were duly sent, thus constituting a mixed tribunal under royal authority.[149] Eventually however the papal Inquisition claimed and took Pascale, who was carried to Rome and executed.