Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/217

 THE GHIBELLINES OF LOMBARDY. 201 in faith. Politically, however, the portentous sentence was inop- erative. Galeazzo maintained the field, and in February, 1324, inflicted a crushing defeat on the papal troops, the cardinal-legate barely escaping by flight, and his general, Paymondo di Cardona being carried a prisoner to Milan. Fresh comminations were nec- essarv to stimulate the faithful, and March 23 John issued a bull condemning Matteo and his five sons, reciting their evil deeds for the most part in the words of the inquisitorial sentence, though the looseness of the whole incrimination is seen in the omission of the most serious charge of all — that of demon-worship — and the defence of Maifreda is replaced by a statement that Matteo had interfered to save Galeazzo, who was now stated to have been a Guglielmite. The bull concludes by offering Holy Land indul- gences to all who would assail the Visconti. This was followed, April 12, by another, reciting that the sons of Matteo had been by competent judges duly convicted and sentenced for heresy, but in spite of this, Berthold of ISTyffen, calling himself Imperial Yicar of Lombardy, and other representatives of Louis of Bava- ria, had assisted the said heretics in resisting the faithful Catholics who had taken up arms against them. They are therefore allowed two months in which to lay down their pretended offices and sub- mit, as they have rendered themselves excommunicate and subject to all the penalties, spiritual and temporal, of fautorship.* It is scarce worth while to pursue further the dreary details of these forgotten quarrels, except to indicate that the case of the Vis- conti was in no sense exceptional, and that the same weapons were employed by John against all who crossed his ambitious schemes. The Inquisitor Accursio of Florence had proceeded in the same way against Castruccio of Lucca, as a fautor of heretics ; the in- quisitors of the March of Ancona had condemned Guido Malapieri, Bishop of Arezzo, and other Ghibellines for supporting Louis of Bavaria. Fra Lamberto del Cordiglio, Inquisitor of Romagnuola, was ordered to use his utmost exertions to punish those within his district. Louis of Bavaria, in his appeal of 1324, states that the same prosecutions were brought, and sentences for heresy pro- nounced, against Cane della Scala, Passerino, the Marquises of Montferrat, Saluces, Ceva, and others, the Genoese, the Lucchese,
 * Raynald. ann. 1324, No. 7-12.— Martene Thesaur. II. 754-6.