Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/235

 RAINERIO SACCONE. 219 Heretics, in fact, were more numerous than ever in Lombardy, for the active work carried on in Languedoc by Bernard de Caux and his colleagues had caused a wholesale emigration. Until the death of Frederic, Lombardy was regarded as a secure haven ; colonies estabhshed themselves there, and even after the Lombard Inquisition was thoroughly organized the persecuted wretches con- tmued for half a century to seek refuge there, nor do we often hear of their being detected.* AU of Eainerio's resolution and energy were required for the work before him. In the March of Treviso, Ezzehn da Eomano, whose influence extended far to the west, continued openly to protect heresy, and even in Lombardy the hopes excited by Frederic's death threatened to prove falla- cious. In 1253, when Conrad lY. passed through Treviso to re- cover possession of his Sicilian kingdom, he appointed as his Lom- bard vicar -general Uberto Pallavicino, who soon became as ob- noxious to the Church as Ezzehn himself; and, though Conrad died m 1254, and Innocent lY. seized J^faples as a forfeited fief of the Church, Pallavicino's power continued to increase, and he soon estabhshed relations with Manfred, Frederic's illegitimate son, who wrested Naples from the papacy and became the chief of the'ohi- belhne faction. Even more threatening was the revulsion of feel- ing m Milan itself, when its ardent Guelfism was changed to in- difference by Innocent's indiscreet assertion of certain ecclesias- tical immunities which touched the pride of the citizens. The heads of the hydra might well seem indestructible. One of Eainerio's first enterprises, in 1253, was summoning Eo-i- dio. Count of Cortenuova, before his tribunal, as a fautor and de- fender of heresy. The castle of Cortenuova, near Bergamo had been razed as a nest of heretics, and its reconstruction prohibited but the count had seized the castle of Mongano, which was claimed by the Bishop of Cremona, and had converted it into a den of heretics,'who enjoyed immunity under his protection. He dis- dained to obey the citation and was duly excommunicated He paid no attention to this, and on March 23, 1254, Innocent lY or dered the authorities of Milan, under pain of ecclesiastical cen- sures, to take the castle by force and dehver its inmates to the in- quisitors for trial. The count, however, was in close alliance with
 * Molinier, Thesis de Fratre Guillelmo Pelisso. Anicii, 1880, pp. lix.-lx.