Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/290

 274 ITALY. a functionary of the state police. In 1412 the Great Council orders him, April 17, to put an end to the performance of divme service by a Greek priest named Michael, whose celebrations at- tract o-reat crowds, and also to banish him, taking care to so man- age the affair that the interposition of the council may not be sus- pected ; and a month later. May 26, the order of banishment is revoked, but the prohibition of celebration is mamtamed. in aU his proper functions the inquisitor was overslaughed and disre- garded In 1422 the Council of Ten appointed a commission to examine some Franciscans charged with sacrificing to demons and other abominable practices, and a month later they sent to Martin V requesting powers to terminate the matter, in view of the im- munities enjoyed by the Mendicants. When, in the following year, 1423 the Senate withdrew the pecuniary provision with which the State had always defrayed the expenses of the Inquisition, they marked their sense of its inutility and their indifference to its power This may possibly have led to the reunion of the districts of Venice and Treviso, for, in 1438 and 1434, we find single inquisi- tors appointed to both. In the latter year the lack of power ot the incumbent. Fra Luca Cioni, is shown by the fact that when he desired to proceed against Kuggieri da Bertona, accused of heresy, he was forced to get Eugenius IV. to order the Bishop of Castello (Venice) to assist him. A further recognition of the inefficiency of the Inquisition is seen in the sending of Fra Giovanni da Capis- trano to Venice in 1437, when the Jesuats were accused of heresy, and he acquitted them, and again, about 1450, when heretical no- tions spread there concerning the origm and nature of the soul, which he suppressed.* Allusion has been made in a former chapter to the hmitation imposed in 1450 by the Council of Ten on the number of armed familiars whom the inquisitor might retain, reducing them to four, and in 1451 increasing them to twelve, with instructions to the police to see that they were really engaged in the duties of the Holy Office. In so large and populous a district this suffi- ann 1434, No. 4, 6; ann. 1437, No. 24-8; ann. 1456, No. 108.-Archlv. di Venez. Misti, Cons. X. No. 9. pp. 84, 85.-Cecc1ietti, La Repubblica di Venezia, etc. I. 18.
 * Wadding, ann. 1373, No, 15-16; ann. 1376, No. 4-5; ann. 1483, No. 15;