Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/304

 288 ITALY to supply inquisitors and their attendants, when in prosecution of their duty, with all necessaries for man and beast. Though the fraudulent character of this document was conspicuous on its face, to say nothing of a blunder in the regnal year of its date, the age was not a critical one ; Fra Enrico seems to have had no trouble in inducing King Alonso to confirm it, and it was subsequently confirmed again in 1477 by Ferdinand and Isabella. The privi- leges which it conferred were substantial, and gave fresh impor- tance to the Inquisition, although its judgments were still sub- jected to revision by the civil power. When, in 1474, famine led Sixtus lY. to request of the Viceroy Ximenes the shipment of a large supply of corn from Sicily to Eome, he wrote to the inquisi- tor, Fra Salvo di Cassetta, ordering him to strain every nerve to secure the granting of the favor. The inquisitor at that time was evidently a personage of influence, for Fra Salvo in fact was also confessor of the viceroy. The central tribunal of the Inquisition sat in Palermo, and there were three commissioners or deputies in charge of the three " vaUeys " of the island.* Ferdinand the Cathohc, in founding the New Spanish Inquisi- tion, obtained for his grand inquisitor the power of nominating deputies in all the dependencies of Castile and Aragon. About 1487 Fray Antonio de la Pena was sent to Sicily in that capacity, who speedily organized the Holy Office on its new basis through- out the island ; and in 1492 an edict of banishment was issued against the Jews, who, as of old, were the chief objects of perse- cution. On the mainland there was more trouble. When, in 1503, Ferdinand acquired the kingdom of Naples, the Great Captain, Gonsalvo of Cordova, finding the people excited with the fear that the Spanish Inquisition might be introduced, made a solemn compact that no inquisitors should be sent thither. The old rules were kept in force ; no one was allowed to be arrested without a special royal warrant, and no inquisitor could exercise any func- tions without the confirmation of his commission by the royal pp. 16-18. ^, Giuseppe Cosentino says (Archivio Storico Siciliano, 1885, p. 73) that the confirmation in 1451 by King Alonso of the diploma of Frederic II. is not to be found in the archives of Palermo, but that the royal letters of 1415 allude to a privilege granted by Frederic. See also La Mantia, pp. 8-10, 13, 15.
 * Paramo, pp. 197-99.— Ri poll III. 510.— La Mantia, L'Inquisizione in Sicilia,