Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/253

 RESISTAKCE TO THE INQUISITIOJN-. 237 the papacy could reasonably dread, and its persecution had lon^ been merely the gratification of greed or malice.* The triumph of the Inquisition had not been effected wholly without resistance. In 1277 Fra Oorrado Pagano undertook a raid agamst the heretics of the Valtelline. It was, doubtless or- ganized on an extended scale, for he took with him two associates and two notaries. This would indicate that heretics were numer- ous ; the event showed that they did not lack protectors, for Oor- rado da Venosta, one of the most powerful nobles of the re-ion cut short the enterprise by slaughtering the whole party, on St' Stephens day December 26. Pagano had been a most zealous persecutor of heresy, and when his body was brought to Como it lay there for eight days before interment, with wounds freshly bleeding showing that he was a martyr of God, and justifying the title bestowed on him by his Dominican brethren of St.Vagano of Como. His relics are still preserved there and are the objects of a local cult. I^icholas III. made every effort to avenge the murder, even invoking the assistance of Eodolf of Hapsburt and his joy was extreme when, in November, 1279, the podestT and people of Bergamo succeeded in capturing Corradoand his accom- plices. He at once ordered their delivery, under safe escort, to the inquisitors, Anselmo da Alessandria, Daniele da Giussano, and Gmdone da Coconate, who were instructed to inflict a punishment sufflcient to intimidate others from imitating their wickedness, and all the potentates of Lombardy were commanded to co-opera e in their safe conveyance.f The same year that justice was thus vindicated, a popular ebul- lition m Parma shows how slender was the hold which the Inoui sition possessed on the people. Fr^ Florio had been diligent in the exercise of his functions, and we are told that he had burned innumerable heretics, when, in 1279, he chanced at Parma to have before him a woman guilty of relapse. It was a matter of course to condemn her to relaxation, and she was duly burned. In place of being piously impressed by the spectacle the Parmesans were t Paramo, p. 264.-Verri, Storia di Milano, I. 244 -RiiDoll T ^fi7 t? ann. tm «.-In Boat, XXXn. 160, is the letter !!T^Zi^T^ gamo, which Bremond (RipoU ubi sup.) says is not to be found.
 * Grandjean, Registres de Benoit XI. No. 508.