The Roman Inquisition: A Papal Bureaucracy and Its Laws in the Age of Galileo

Conclusion

206 Conclusion In this book, I have recounted the evolution of the Roman Inquisition from about 1590 to 1640 as the most direct institutional expression of papal will. Originally aimed by Paul III at the threat from northern European heretics, already in the 1550s Paul IV, its motive force from the beginning, turned it more frequently against his enemies. In those first couple of decades of the institution’s existence, both purposes coexisted, in part because the Inquisition had yet to develop its own “style,” or customary procedure, and neither of those popes had trained as a lawyer. From the time Sixtus V reorganized the Roman congregations in 1588 and gave the Inquisition precedence over all others, the Congregation and the popes steadily built up more and more law and jurisprudence at the same time as they kept the institution as flexible as possible. Its professional staff, a bureaucracy of about a dozen members, one of the larger such for a papal congregation, did not greatly hinder that flexibility, probably because those men were papal appointees, serving at pleasure. The two most important, the theologically trained commissary, the direct representative of the Congregation in the same way that its members stood in for the pope as his deputies, and the assessor, always a lawyer, jointly directed its operations. Despite its “style,” the pope might intervene at any point through either or both officers. Unlike many other papal congregations, the Inquisition had broad judicial powers. As in the pairing of commissary and assessor, theologians and lawyers , the second often in the majority among both cardinals and consultors, together reached decisions and drafted sentences. Throughout they followed the already old procedure of inquisitio. As had happened repeatedly since its invention in the thirteenth century, often through papal action, the Inquisition continued to modify, adapt, and streamline the procedure. Originally conclusion 207 intended to guarantee a defendant the best possible trial, it gradually became an instrument with which to strip the accused of safeguards, including forcing him to testify against himself and possibly undergo torture and interrogation at length before charges had been lodged. Nevertheless, the safeguards remained in place, at least in theory. In both dimensions, the practical and the theoretical, the Inquisition followed the broader evolution of Italian justice from the early fifteenth century forward. Nonetheless, compared to what happened in many secular tribunals, as commentators on the Inquisition’s procedure and jurisprudence often observed, Roman justice stood out. It played a role in the evolution of “human rights” that has been completely overlooked. The evolution of inquisitio depended directly on the degree to which any given pope tried to dominate the Inquisition. To say of any vicar of Christ that he controlled the Inquisition more than another may sound redundant, but there are marked differences in how closely the popes followed the rules and the style. A pope like Paul V, long-time Inquisitor and the Inquisition’s secretary for six years, might occasionally indulge his propensity for snap decisions, as in the censoring of Galileo’s Sunspot Letters in 1616, but more often at least tried to follow its style. Popes who were never Inquisitors, Clement VIII and Urban VIII, in particular, showed its procedures much less respect. In all cases, the popes did not demand much previous experience as a qualification for an Inquisitor. Only a handful of the cardinals had training in the Inquisition, and unsurprisingly, the popes made heavy use of them, perhaps especially Roberto Bellarmino and one of his protégés, Desiderio Scaglia , both theologians. Similarly, an equally small group of Inquisitors had practiced in the Rota, only three important ones, but here we find a distinct chronological dynamic in the popes’ handling of such men. Whereas two former auditors served for long periods as secretaries before Urban VIII’s election , Pompeo Arrigoni and Gian Garzia Millini (including for six years under Urban), the only auditor Urban appointed, Fabrizio Verospi, never became secretary, Urban preferring instead to lean heavily on his unqualified brother Antonio Barberini and scarcely better prepared nephew Francesco. Papal patronage shows the same pattern. While all popes no doubt appointed men they considered loyalists, before Urban’s election in 1623 it is much harder to find the tight links between both cardinals and members of the professional staff and their papal patrons that appear relatively soon thereafter . In rapid succession after the death of Secretary Millini in 1629, Urban replaced him with Antonio Barberini, Sr., the assessor with two strict Barberini...