Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/286

 270 "^^^• investigation, which was duly held, though we do no know the result It was possibly the feeling thus aroused which led, m 1346, to the murder in the Milanese of a Franciscan inquisitor conspicu- ous for his persecuting zeal. The perpetual troubles during the century between the Holy See and the Visconti cannot but have <.reatly interfered with the efficiency of persecution. In the col- tected statutes of the Dukes of MQan from 1343 to 1495 there is no allusion of any kind to the Inquisition, or to the punishment of heretics. There is, however, on record a decree of 1388 placmg the civil officials at the service of the Inquisition, but it enforces the conditions of the Clementines, which require episcopal consent to the use of torture and harsh prison, and to the final sentence. It moreover threatens inquisitors with punishment for using their office to extort money or gratify malice ; and it further signifi- cantly commands them not to abuse the privilege of armed fa- miliars, or to unnecessarily multiply their officials. How the political passions of the time hindered the functions of the Holy Office is seen in the case of Fra Ubertino di Carleone a bustlmg Franciscan, subsequently Bishop of Lipari, who, about 1860, ^^as accused of heresy by the Inquisitor of Piacenza. He at once pro- claimed that his GhibeUinism was the motive of the prosecution and aroused the factions of the city to a tumult, under cover of Avhich be escaped.* • ^ ^ ^ +^ Inquisitors, indeed, continued to be regularly appointed, and to perform such of their functions as they could, but the dechne in their usefulness is shown by one of the earliest acts of Martin V in 1417 before leaving Constance, in commissioning the Observan- tine Franciscan, Giovanni da Capistrano as a «P^^'^l ^^^^^J'^^; against the heretics of Mantua. From ^h- t^e - fact wh^ any eiiective effort against heresy was called for, the regular machinery of the Inquisition was no longer relied upon. It eems to have been regarded as effete for all the purposes for -^ich t had been instituted, and special appointments were "'^^'r^-^^* "^^^^ devoted to the work, such as Capistrano and his friend Giacomo . Bremond in RlpoU II. 139. - Raynald. ann. 1344, No. 9. 70. - Antiqua Du- nella Repubblica di Vene.ia, Venezia, 1875, p. 167.-G.uscppe Cosentino, Arclu vio Storico Siciliano. 1885, p. 92.