Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/112

 and when Newton, Swift, and Fielding were thinking and writing in England!

The narrative was written by Don Antonino Mongitore, a canon of the cathedral of Palermo, one of the most learned men of his time and country. He opens his story thus: "It is beyond doubt that one of the greatest and most invaluable benefits which the Divine Providence has conferred on the kingdom of Sicily, is the sacred tribunal of the Inquisition."

The key-note is thus struck at once; and the reader understands what is to be the tone of the learned and reverend canon's strain. Yet the reader may be somewhat surprised by some of the details of this the last "auto da fè" ever "celebrated" in Sicily.

The historian Colletta, who briefly refers to the incident in the first book of his history, tells us that Fra Romualdo, a lay brother of the Augustines, and Sister Gertrude, a Benedictine nun, fell into the hands of the Inquisition in the year 1699. The friar was accused of "Quietism," "Molinism," and heresy; the nun of "pride, vanity, rashness, and hypocrisy." "Quietism," a form of heresy that we hear much of in the religious history of those days in Spain, Italy, and France, was so called, as is readily understood, from the perfect "quiet" which its professors considered to be the great object of man's religious efforts here below, and which they profess to have attained. The line of thought and speculation which led up to this form of doctrine is curiously similar to that which conducted Eastern philosophers and fanatics to the cultivation of the "Nerbudda." But it is unquestionably true that the professors of this doctrine were led to opinions and practices that would seem to have little "connection with "quiet" of any kind, and that were doubtless exceedingly objectionable, by whatever standard of religion or morals judged. "Molinism " was so called from Michele Molinos, a Spanish casuist and speculative moralist, whose doctrines are objectionable enough, even when understood as he would himself have explained them. But his subtle speculations, when taken in hand by monks and nuns of unbounded ignorance—of naturally weak minds, rendered weaker by the life-long habit of referring all notions of right and wrong, not to the dictates of the natural conscience, and the common sense of mankind, but to the abstruse rules of a most intricate casuistry—were sure to lead to a maze of absurdities which really did merit Bridewell and bread and water.

If any reader be curious to see what sort of life and state of things the doctrines of Quietism, thus treated and practised, are likely to produce, he may refer to De Potter's Life (in French) of Scipio Ricci, the reforming Bishop of Pistoia. He will there find a revelation, sworn in evidence, of the interior life of a nunnery, in which all, or almost all the nuns had embraced the doctrines of Quietism under the teaching of the monks of a neighbouring Dominican convent. He will read of the long and arduous efforts of Ricci to put down this nest of abominations—efforts backed up by Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, but which, despite such backing, were fruitless against the persevering counter-efforts of the Jesuits supported by the authority of the Pope.

No doubt this poor daft creature, Sister Gertrude, was "a Quietist" after her fashion. And it is very probable that she may have been guilty of "vaingloriousness, pride, and rashness." But "hypocrisy" was just the one thing of which she assuredly was not guilty, inasmuch as she went to the stake because she would at all costs avow her poor crazy opinions instead of denying or retracting them.

Colletta says simply that both the nun and the friar were mad. And certainly no midsummer madness was ever madder than the trash which they declared themselves to believe, and for obstinately adhering to which they died. But the Inquisitors sent the medical officers of the Holy Office to visit them in their cells, and those enlightened gentlemen felt their pulses, and declared they were of perfectly sound mind—or at all events sound enough to afford the spectacle of an "Act of Faith" to the inhabitants of Palermo.

No word is said by Canon Mongitore, nor, more strangely, by Colletta, to account for the fact that whereas these victims were seized and imprisoned in 1699, they were not executed until the 6th of April, 1724. Their "process" had been brought to an end, and they had been condemned to the stake, long years before. Of course, the suggestion of a writer who considers the establishment of the Inquisition the greatest blessing that Providence has bestowed on Sicily, is to the effect that all this delay was due to the mercy and longsuffering of the Inquisitors, who were all those years labouring to bring about the conversion of the heretics. Those who read his description of the execution of the sentence at last, and his account of all the preparations made to enable all classes of Jie population to "enjoy"—godere—the spectacle, will feel little doubt that the Inquistors [sic] themselves, as well as all the rest of Palermo, were looking forward to the "Act of Faith" as to a treat of which they would not have been baulked on any consideration.

Why was the treat so long delayed? The most probable conjecture is, that the viceroy who preceded him under whose rule the execution took place, was a man of a different stamp, whose permission for the "celebration" could not be obtained. It is certain that a new viceroy began his reign shortly before the execution took place.

"The Sacred Tribunal of the Inquisition in Sicily," says Canon Mongitore, "has the laudable custom of showing from time to time, as occasion may offer, its profitable operation by celebrating a Public Act of Faith," which "is a sketch or rehearsal of the last judgment," celebrated "for the glory of the Holy Faith, for the consolation of the good, the confusion of unbelievers, and the immortal honour of the Holy Inquisition."