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A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s Ed Muir has had a lot to do with this book. In part I began it in response to his challenge a few years ago that it was too early to write the history of the Inquisition in Italy. Under the guise of studying Galileo, I persuaded Ed to support my application for fellowships, two of which he helped secure. I am equally grateful to my other referees for this project at various times, Diana Robin, Brad Gregory and Price Zimmermann. I chose to take a grant from the American Academy in Rome that could not have provided a better situation, geographically (just up the hill from the archives of the Holy Office), intellectually, psychologically, and nowadays gastronomically. Friends who helped me through what might otherwise have been a lonely year, since my wife and daughter had to stay in the States, include Paul Arpaia and Monica Calabrito, Erik Gustafson, Dan McReynolds, Jorie Woods, Elaine Reiter, and Alan Berger, among many others. The director and president, Carmela Vircilio Franklin and Adele Chatfield-Taylor pushed me to get on with publishing my findings as well, of course, as providing the resources to make that possible. Marina Lella, the director’s secretary, was always ready to help with practicalities. The fellowship from the American Academy allowed me to spend a year in the Inquisition and Vatican archives. I am grateful to the staff of both for much assistance. The only fly in the ointment, the closure of the Vatican Library, was largely compensated by the resources in law books of other Roman libraries, especially the Casanatense, to whose staff I am exceptionally grateful. The loss of access to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana’s manuscripts was almost entirely made good by the resources of the Vatican Film Library of St. Louis University, cheerfully put at my disposal by its director Gregory Pass, deputy director Susan L’Engle, and woman-of-all-work Barbara Chanell. Consulting some of the materials specifically needed for this book was made possible by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies there and its director Thomas Madden, which gave me an NEH fellowship that allowed me to return to the US for three weeks in the middle of my Roman year. Theresa Harvey provided every possible facility to make my stay comfortable and productive. Eamon Duffy and acknowledgments 384 Magdalene College Cambridge supported three weeks of research in Lord Acton’s incomparable collection of books housed in the Cambridge University Library. Through his Lutheran Academy of Scholars, Ronald Thiemann, perhaps the only theologian with whom I can actually have a conversation, gave me two weeks at Harvard where I gutted the Houghton and Law Libraries. Not least on the score of resources, of time more than money, John Smedley, my editor and publisher at Ashgate, generously rearranged the publication schedule of The Correspondence of Reginald Pole. The good folk of the Jesuit Historical Institute in Rome (Tom McCoog, Jim Pratt, Steven, and Hélène) gave me a place to work during the lunchtime closures of the Vatican archives. Closer to home, Jeff Abernathy, former dean of Augustana College, offered constant encouragement, including putting his money where his mouth was on several occasions, among them a sabbatical leave. This book results directly from the constant badgering of my colleague Steve Warren, who regularly greeted me with remarks of the sort, “why should I keep writing if Tom Mayer isn’t?” My most senior colleague, Van Symons, has valued my scholarly work since the day I arrived on campus twenty-five years ago, even when almost no one else did. In my usual maverick fashion, I have often gone my own way in both researching and writing this book, but both would have been much more difficult without the counsel of John Tedeschi and Andy Kelly; Kelly read Chapter 5 twice. Paul Grendler read the entire draft and made many useful suggestions. Wietse de Boer generously answered hard questions about Milan, as did Anne Schutte and Jane Wickersham about Venice. Dario Del Pupo read enough of Urban VIII’s vernacular poetry to pronounce it uninteresting. Paul Gehl contributed a photocopy of a book allegedly by Desiderio Scaglia. Pierroberto Scaramella and Fiorenza Rangoni very kindly sent me copies of their books. My old friend Ralph Keen, in addition to always lending an ear to complaints (provided I reciprocated ), greatly facilitated this and my other work over...

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