Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/287

 DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 271 (lella Marca. Just as the inquisitorial jurisdiction had superseded the episcopal, so now both were overslaughed as insufficient. Thus, in 1457, when a new heresy sprang up in Brescia and Bergamo concerning Christ, the Virgin, and the Church Militant, infecting both clergy and laity, and including suspicion of sorcery, Cahxtus III. ordered his nuncio in those parts, Master Bernardo del Bosco, to seize the heretics and try them, with even more than the privi- leges of an inquisitor, for he was empowered to proceed to final judgment and execution without appeal, leaving it to his discre- tion whether he should call for advice upon the inquisitors and episcopal ordinaries. Two years later, in the case of Zanino da Solcia, to which I shall recur hereafter, the sentence was rendered by the Lombard inquisitor, Fra Jacopo da Brescia, but the exam- ination took place in the presence of Master Bernardo del Bosco, who moreover received the abjuration of Zanino, and the sentence was sent to Pius II. and was modified by him. The diminution of popular respect for the Inquisition was still further manifested in 1459, by the doubts publicly expressed of the validity of the bulls of Innocent lY. and Alexander lY. authorizing inquisitors to preach crusades against heretics and to prosecute for heresy all persons and communities impeding them, so that Cahxtus III. was obliged to reissue the authorization.* A curious case occurring about this time illustrates the grow- ing indifference felt in Lombardy for the Inquisition. In Milan, about 1440, a learned mathematician, named Amadeo de' Landi, was accused of heresy before the inquisitors. During the progress of his trial he was, to the great damage of his reputation, de- nounced as a heretic by sundry friars in their sermons, and among others by Bernardino of Siena, the saintly head of the Observan- tines. The Inquisition pronounced him a good Catholic and dis- charged him, but those who had slandered him offered no repara- tion. The acquittal by the Inquisition apparently did not outweigh the denunciations of Bernardino, and Amadeo appealed to Euge- nius lY., w-ho referred the matter to Giuseppe di Brippo, with power to enforce his decision with censures. Giuseppe summoned the detractors to appear on a certain day, and on their failing to No. 90: ann. 1459, No. 31. '
 * Ripoll II. 351 ; III. 368.— Wadding, aun. 1452, No. 14.— Raynald. ann. 1457