Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/191

 FAILURE OF INQUISITION. 175 Cardinals of Albano and Porto as special commissioners for its suppression. The cardinals proved as inefficient as their prede- cessors. In 1423 the General Council of Siena was greatly scan- dalized at finding that at Peniscola there was a heretic pope with his college of cardinals, apparently flourishing without an attempt at concealment, and the Gallican nation made several ineffectual efforts to induce the council to take active measures against the secular authorities under whose favor these scandals were allowed to exist. How utterly the machinery of persecution had broken down is illustrated by the case of three Fraticelli who had at this period been detected in Florence — Bartolommeo di Matteo, Gio- vanni di Marino of Lucca, and Bartolommeo di Pietro of Pisa. Evidently distrusting the Florentine Inquisition, which was Fran- ciscan, Martin V. specially intrusted the matter to his legates then presiding over the Council of Siena. On the sudden dissolution of the council the legates returned to Eome, except the Dominican General, Leonardo of Florence, who went to Florence. To him, therefore, Martin wrote, April 24, 1424, empowering him to ter- minate the case himself, and expressly forbidding the Inquisitor of Florence from taking any part in it. In September of the same year Martin instructed Piero, Abbot of Kosacio, his rector of the Mark of Ancona, to extirpate the Fraticelli existing there, and the difficulty of the undertaking was recognized in the unwonted clemency which authorized Piero to reconcile even those who had been guilty of repeated relapses.* Some new motive force was evidently required. There were laws in abundance for the extermination of heresy, and an elabo- rate organization for their enforcement, but a paralysis seemed to have fallen upon it, and all the efforts of the Holy See to make it do its duty was in vain. The problem was solved when, in 1426, Martin boldly overslaughed the Inquisition and appointed two Gbservantines as inquisitors, without limitation of districts and with power to appoint deputies, thus rendering them supreme over the whole of Italy. These were the men whom we have so often met before where heresy was to be combated — San Giovanni cla gusio de Init. Basil. Concil. (Mon. Cone. Gen. Stec. XV. T. I. pp. 30-1, 40, 55).— Ripoll II. 645.
 * Raynald. ann. 1418, No. 11 ; ami. 1421, No. 4 ; ann. 1424, No. 7.— Jo. de Ra-