Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/635

 Lea: 1 he Inqidsilion of Spain 625 Dante from the charge of being a precursor of the Reformation. For the historian the most notable feature of the work is Lanciani's thor- ough-paced admiration of Paul III., despite the excessive devotion of that pontiff to the interests of Pier Luigi, and the tortuous politics of his career. " It was not easy ", says Ranke, " for a man to be sure of the terms on which he stood with Pope Paul." But with Lanciani his sagacity and the splendor of his ambitions for Rome outweigh every- thing else. A few slips in dates which we have observed may be due to over- sight on the part of the proof-reader, but inconsistency in giving the modern equivalent for sums of money can hardly be due to that cause. In general there is good reason to speak well of the book. Lanciani not only reduces to form and order a great farrago of archaeological in- formation, but he has succeeded in marshalling facts which illustrate important aspects of Roman life. For example, he places in high relief the cosmopolitan tone of society, and marks with perfect clearness the stages by which Rome passed from its medieval to its modern condi- tion. His character-sketches are somewhat external in approach, but do not lack passages which reveal critical insight. A History of the Inquisition of Spain. By Hexry Charles Le., LL.D. In four volumes. Volume III. (New York: The ]Iacmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Company. 1907. Pp.xi,575-) In January, promptly to the month, appeared Mr. Lea's third vol- ume. Its first two chapters, on " Torture " and " The Trial ", complete his study of the practice of the Inquisition ; five others, beginning with " The Sentence " and ending with " The Auto de Fe ", cover what he has to tell us of its punishments ; and the closing four, on " Jews ", " Moriscos ", " Protestantism ", and " Censorship ", open that survey of its spheres of action which is to fill also most of his final volume, due in June. Though, " from the middle of the thirteenth century, the habitual employment of torture by the Holy Office had been the most efficient factor in spreading its use throughout Christendom ", and though the Spanish Inquisition continued to employ it, Mr. Lea (and it will be remembered that he is the most eminent student of the history of torture) assures us (p. 2) that "the popular impression that the in- quisitorial torture-chamber was the scene of exceptional refinement in cruelty, of specially ingenious modes of inflicting agony, and of peculiar persistence in extorting confessions, is an error due to sensational writers who have exploited credulity." " As a rule," he says, the Spanish Inquisition " was less cruel than the secular courts in its appli- cation, and confined itself more strictly to a few well-known methods " ; and " the comparison between the Spanish and the Roman Inquisition is also eminently in favor of the former." Let it not be inferred.