Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/585

 TOLERATION OF CULTURED HERESY. 509 Pius II., in confirming the sentence, moderated it with the evident purpose in due time of remedying the over-zeal of the inquisitor. He also interfered when the Inquisition had condemned a high official of Udine for virtually denying immortality by asserting that the blood is the soul : the sentence was set aside, and the of- fender was offered the easy opportunity of escaping punishment as a heretic by publicly declaring this to be an error. Pius, how- ever, showed his orthodoxy by reproving the laxity of Eugenius IV. in the case of Braccio da Montone, the condottiere lord of Perugia, an avowed infidel, whose body, on his death in 1424 at the siege of Aquila, was brought to Rome and thrust into uncon- secrated ground until Eugenius had it translated and honorably buried in the cathedral of Perugia. A more typical case is that of Gismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini. He was a man of high culture, and an ardent adept of the new philosophy, who mani- fested his zeal by bringing from the Peloponnesus and burying with a laudatory inscription, in the cathedral of Rimini, Gemistus Plethon, the half -pagan founder of a new philosophical religion. All this might have escaped animadversion had not his ambition led him to extend his dominions at the expense of papal territory. In the quarrel which ensued his heterodoxy served as a convenient object of attack, and in 1461 Pius II. condemned him as a heretic who denied the immortality of the soul, and in default of his body burned his effigy before a Roman crowd. So little effect had this that the Venetians maintained their alliance with Gismondo, and the Bishop of Treviso incurred imminent risk of losing his see by reason of publishing the sentence. More efficacious was a crusade, in 1463, under the Cardinal of Theane and Federigo d' Urbino, when Gismondo was stripped of nearly all his possessions and was forced to sue for peace. His heresy then was so little regarded that he was allowed to abjure by deputy, and was reconciled un- der the trifling penance of Friday fasting on bread and water.* In fact, as Gregory of Heimburg bitterly declares, it was safer to discuss the power of God than that of the popes. This was very clearly demonstrated in the persecution of the " Academy " Raynald. aim. 1459, No. 31 ; ann. 1461, No. 9, 10.— JEn. Sylvii Opp. inedd. pp. 453, 506-7, 524, 653.— B. Platinae Vit. Pauli III.— Creighton, Hist, of the Popes, II. 440 ; III. 39.