Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/295

 PIERO DI AQUILA. 279 renewal in case the obligation for six thousand six hundred florins was not met at maturity.* Meanwhile another scene of the comedy was developing itself. In its contest with Fra Piero the republic had not stood solely on the defensive. Piero, papal nuncio at Lucca, who had in charge the prosecutions against the inquisitors for embezzling the sums due to the camera, had appointed as his deputy in Florence, Mc- colo, Abbot of Santa Maria, who proceeded against Fra Piero on that charge, to which the Signoria added the accusation, sustained by abundant testimony, of extorting from citizens large sums of money by fraudulent prosecutions for heresy. By March 16, 1346, the Signoria was asking the appointment of Fra Michele di Lapo as his successor. Fra Piero was a fugitive, and refused to return and stand his trial when legally cited and tendered a safe-conduct. After due delay, in 1347, the Abate Mccolo, being armed mth papal authority, declared him in default and contumacious, and then proceeded to excommunicate him. The excommunication was published in all the churches of Florence, and Fra Piero was thus cut off from the faithful and abandoned to Satan. He could afford to regard all this with calm philosophy. His success in col- lecting the cardinal's money entitled him to reward, and the booty of seven thousand florins which he had personally carried off from Florence as the results of his two years' inquisitorial career, could doubtless be used to advantage. While ]N"iccol6 was vainly citing him, he was promoted, February 12, 1347, to the episcopate o1 Sant-Angeli de' Lombardi, and his excommunication was answered, June 29, 1348, by his translation to the presumably preferable see of Trivento. All that the Florentines could do was to petition re- peatedly that in future inquisitors should be selected from amono* their own citizens, who would be less hkely than strangers to be guilty of extortions and scandals. Their request was respected at Classe V. No. 129, fol. 62 sqq.— Archiv. Diplomatico xxxvii., xxxyiii./xl., xli.,' XLiL— Villani, xii. 58. The amount involved was not small. The revenue of Florence at this period was only three hundred thousand florins (Sismondi, Rep. Ital. ch. 36), and Flor- ence was one of the richest states in Europe. Villani (xi. 92) boasts that France alone enjoyed a larger revenue; that of Naples was less, and the three were the wealthiest in Christendom.
 * Archiv. delle Riformag. Atti Pubblici, Lib. xvi. de' Capitolari, fol. 22 ;