Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/298

 282 ITALY. interest for us, not only as illustrating the activity of the Inquisi- tion of the period, but also from the curious paraUelism which it affords with that of Savonarola. He was one of the prophets, like St. Birgitta of Sweden, St. Catharine of Siena, and the Friends of God in the Ehinelands, who were called forth by the untold mis- eries then afflicting mankind. A tertiary of St. Francis, he had practised for three years the greatest austerities as an anchorite, when God summoned him forth to preach repentance to the war- rino- factions whose savage quarrels filled every city in the land with wretchedness. Like the other contemporary prophets, he spared neither clerk nor layman ; and his bitter animadversions at Perugia on the evil life of Gerald, Abbot of Marmoutiers, papal vicar for the States of the Church, may perhaps account for his subsequent rough handling by the Inquisition. Gifted with mi- raculous power, as well as with the spirit of prophecy, he wan- dered from town to town, proclaiming the wrath of God, and fore- telling misfortunes which, in the existing state of society, were almost sure to come to pass. To convince the incredulous at Siena, on a midsummer day he predicted a frost for the morrow. When it duly came he was accused of sorcery, seized by the In- quisition, and tortured nearly to death, but he was discharged when a miracle established his innocence and healed the wounds of the torture-chamber. After an intermediate pilgrimage to far- off Compostella, his preaching at Florence excited so much antago- nism that again he was arrested by the Inquisition, cast into a dun- o-eon and kept three days without food or drink, to be finally discharged as insane. After his death at Foligno, unsuccessful attempts were made to procure his canonization, and he long re- mained an object of local veneration and worship.* During the fifteenth century the Inquisition in central Italy subsided into the same unimportance that we have mtnessed else- where. The effect of the Great Schism in reducing the respect felt for the papacy was especiaUy felt in Italy, and the papal of- ficials lost nearly all power of enforcing obedience, although the Inquisition at Pisa, when it was strengthened by the presence of the council held there in 1409, took its revenge on a man named Andreani, whom it burned for the crime of habitually and public-
 * Wadding, ann. 1377, No. 4-23.