Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/193

 CAPISTRANO AND DELLA MARCA. 177 "When Eugenius IV. succeeded to the papacy he renewed Capis- trano's commission in 1432 as a general inquisitor against the Fraticelli. We have no details of his activity during this period, but he was doubtless busily employed, though he was deprived of the assistance of Giacomo, who until 1440 was, as we have seen, at work among the Cathari of Bosnia and the Hussites of Hungary. The Fraticelli of Ancona were still troublesome, for, on his return from Asia in 1441, Giacomo was sent thither as special inquis- itor for their suppression. When, in 1447, Nicholas V. ascended the papal throne, he made haste to renew Capistrano's commis- sion, and in 1449 a combined attack was made on the heretics of the Mark, possibly stimulated by the capture, in his own court, of a bishop of the Fraticelli named Matteo, disguised in a Franciscan habit. Nicholas himself went to Fabriano, while Capistrano and Giacomo scoured the country. Magnalata had been rebuilt in spite of the prohibition, and it, with Migliorotta, Poggio, and Merulo, was brought back to the faith, by what means we can well guess. Giacomo boasts that the heretics gave five hundred ducats to a bravo to slay Capistrano, and on one occasion two hun- dred and on another one hundred and fifty to procure his own death, but the assassins in each case were touched with compunc- tion and came in and made confession — doubtless a profitable revelation for sharpers to make, for no one acquainted with Italian society at that period can imagine that such sums would not have effected their object. The inquisitors, however, were specially protected by Heaven. Capistrano's legend relates that on one occasion the heretics waited for him in ambush. His companions passed in safety, and when he followed alone, absorbed in medita- tion and prayer, a sudden whirlwind, with torrents of rain, kept his assailants in their lair, and he escaped. Giacomo was similarly divinely guarded. At Matelica a heretic concealed himself in a chapel of the Virgin to assail the inquisitor as he passed, but the Virgin appeared to him with threats so terrible that he fell to the ground and lay there till the neighbors carried him to a hospital, and it was three months before he was able to seek Giacomo at Fermo and abjure.* 8-9; ann. 1441, No. 37-8; ann. 1447, No. 10; ann. 1456, No. 108; ann. 1470, ' III.— 12
 * Wadding, ann. 1426, No. 15-16 ; Regest. Mart. V. No. 162 ; ann. 1432, No.