The inquisition in the Spanish dependencies: Sicily—Naples—Sardinia—Milan—the Canaries—Mexico—Peru—New GranadaLea, Henry Charles
History
The inquisition in the Spanish dependencies: Sicily—Naples—Sardinia—Milan—the Canaries—Mexico—Peru—New Granada
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition
This necessarily applied to the citations and orders of arrest with
which the Roman Inquisition was endeavoring to extend its jurisdiction
over Naples. In April, 1564, Hieronimo de Monte, Apostolic Commissioner
in Benevento (a papal enclave in Neapolitan territory), in the case of
the Marquis of Vico, was taking testimony to the effect that no one
would dare to serve a summons from Rome on him without the vice-regal
exequatur, as he would thus expose himself to punishment, including
perhaps the galleys.[171] Rome endeavored to evade this limitation on
its jurisdiction and was met with consistent firmness. In 1568 Alcalá
was informed that, under orders from the Inquisition, the bishop had
arrested a citizen named Martino Bagnato and was holding him for
transmission to Rome. The bishop was at once notified that he must
surrender the prisoner to the captain of the city, to be held subject to
prosecution in the _via ordinaria_ by his competent judge, and the
captain was ordered, in case of refusal, to take him by force. This did
not avail Bagnato much, for the Roman Inquisition then wrote to the
viceroy, asking to have the prisoner forwarded, which presumably was
done.[172]
There was in this merely an assertion of sovereignty and no desire to
shield the heretic, for when the Inquisition accepted the inevitable and
made application to the viceroy, it was granted almost as a matter of
course. The formality was simple. The application was referred to the
chief chaplain, who made a show of consulting with the judges of the
Audiencia and reported that it was in due form, when the exequatur was
granted. Occasionally, however, some question might be raised when the
process called attention to some abusive extension of inquisitorial
jurisdiction. Thus in 1610 a certain Fabio Orzolino asked for the
exequatur on a citation which he had obtained directed to the Abate
Angelo and Carlo della Rocca of Traetto (Gaeta). On this the chief
chaplain reported that the parties owed to Orzolino 88 ducats, for
non-payment of which they had been publicly excommunicated. Under this
excommunication they had lain for a year, which, according to the canon
law, rendered them suspect of heresy and thus, by a strained
construction, subjected them to inquisitorial action. It is not easy to
understand the decision of the chaplain that the exequatur should be
granted as to the abate and not as to the layman.[173] A more wholesome
case was one in 1574, shown in the application of Giovanni Tomase,
Modesto Abate and Sebastiano Luca for an exequatur to the order of the
Roman Inquisition to sell the property of Nicola Pegna and Giovanni
Mateo of Tagio, to reimburse the applicants for expenses amounting to
338 crowns arising from false accusations of heresy brought against them
by Pegna and Mateo, who had been condemned for false-witness to
scourging in Rome, with the addition of the galleys for Mateo.[174]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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