Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/225

 HERESY IN FLORENCE. 209 he is said to have caused a sedition which nearly ruined the city.^ Two years later we meet Mm fighting heresy in Florence. Ihat city, It will be remembered, was the subject of the earliest inquisitorial experiments, Frk Giovanni di Salerno, Prior of Santa Maria NoveUa, having been commissioned to prosecute heretics m 1228, and being succeeded after his death, in 1230 by Fr4 Aldobrandini Cavalcante, and about 1241 by Frd Kuggieri Cal- cagni. The first two of these accompUshed little, being, in fact rather preachers than inquisitors. The heretics were protected by the Crhibelline faction and the partisans of Frederic II and heresy, far from decreasing, spread rapidly in spite of occasional burmngs. When the Oatharan Bishop Paternon fled, his posi- tion was successively held by three others, Torsello, Brunnetto and Giacopo da Monteflascone. Many of the most powerful fami- lies were heretics or open defenders of heresy-the Baroni Pulci Cipriani, OavaJcanti, Saraceni, and MaJpresa. The Baroni built a stronghold at San Gaggio, beyond the walls, which served as a refuge for the Perfected, and there were plenty of houses in the town where they could hold their conventicles in safety The Cipriam had two palaces, one at Mugnone and the other in Flor ence, where troops of Cathari assembled under the leadership of a heresiarch named Marchisiano, and there were great schools at Poggibonsi, Plan di Cascia, and Ponte a Sieve.f The whole of central Italy, in fact, was ahnost as deeply infected with heresy as Lombardy, and Mttle had as yet been done to purify It. That as late as 1235 no comprehensive attempt had been made to establish the Inquisition is shown by a papal brief addressed in that year to the Dominicans of Viterbo, empowering them, in all the dioceses of Tuscany, Viterbo, Orta, Babieoreggio, Castro. So- ano Amerino, and Narni, to absolve heretics not publicly defamed tor heresy, who should spontaneously accuse themselves': provided the bishops assented and sufficient baU were given ; and the bish ops were ordered to co-operate. Heretics not thus voluntarily confessing were to b^dealtjmth_a^coMing-to^ papal statutes 24lTmnT{T'^^^TT^^^^^^^^^^ Storiadi Milano, I. i ^-T^P"" I- 65.-Annal. Mediolanens. c. xiv. (Muratori, S. R. I. XVI 65r, -Sarpi, Discorso (Ed. Helmstad. 1763, IV. 21). ^vi. ooij. t Lami, AntichiU Toscaue, pp. 497 500 II.— 14 ' ■