This book situates itself at the crossroads of three historiographical currents that have developed over the past twenty years. The first is represented by the work of such scholars as Edward Muir, who have stressed the importance of the role of ritual, both religious and secular, in early modern society. The second is constituted by the large number of studies, monographs, and editions of sources in the field of the Italian Reformation. The third is exemplified by the rich tradition of inquisitorial research, focusing on the law books and manuals, pioneered by John Tedeschi and culminating in the monograph by Andrea Errera and the recent, encyclopedic work, the Dizionario Storico dell’Inquisizione, in four volumes. Wickersham draws on these contributions and supplements them with a broad assortment of archival documents, some of them heretofore neglected, to trace an original history of the Italian Inquisition.
The point of departure for Wickersham is the assumption that ceremonies and ritual practices are intrinsic to religion itself. According to the author, the entire history of the Reformation could be visualized from this point of view, both on the Catholic and Protestant side. Theology, in fact, “was not just a question of establishing correct doctrinal belief, but also one of establishing correct religious practices that would inform, instruct, and edify” (3). The ground on which Wickersham moves her research is that of inquisitorial practice. One of the most serious problems faced by inquisitors in the prosecution of heresy and religious dissent was the possibility of encountering adulterated testimony. The possibility that defendants lied, faked evidence, and made false confessions was the most serious obstacle to the success of the inquisitors’ task. This is why they “considered evidence relating to ritual practice to be crucial.” In fact, “a person’s engagement with ritual practice — whether continuing to attend Catholic services, avoiding them, arguing with others about them, or engaging in heterodox ritual practices — could serve to indicate the degree of danger the individual posed to the wider Catholic community” (7). The broad focus on ritual practices, such as the refusal to fast during Lent, allowed inquisitors to identify possible heretics. Inquisitors utilized such acts and protests as evidence to prosecute suspected Protestant sympathizers (14). The Holy Office trials studied by the author have been selected for the legal principles they exemplify. Her emphasis is always on the ways in which the attitudes of defendants toward Catholic ritual, or engagement in heterodox alternatives, contributed to their prosecutions (20). On the other side, inquisitors attempted to draw them back into the fold and used the penances and punishments they imposed to reinforce the Catholic community. Convicted heretics were made to perform the very acts they had avoided and opposed, and that, in many cases, had signaled their heterodox inclinations in the first place.
Another interesting aspect of the volume is the effort to show how inquisitorial manuals adapted past experiences and procedures, revised and updated them to fit the varied religious landscape of mid-sixteenth-century Italy to provide inquisitors with a legal system that encouraged giving prosecutorial considerations precedence over ritual practice (14). The author analyzes in depth four of the most important law books: the Directorium Inquisitorum, written in 1376 by Nicholas Eymeric, first printed in 1500 and then revised, expanded, and annotated by the Spanish Dominican Francisco Peña in an edition that appeared in Rome in 1578; the five-volume work by a secular jurist Prospero Farinacci; Cesare Carena’s Tractatus de Officio Sanctissimae Inquisitionis (1st ed. 1636); and the Sacro Arsenale, by the inquisitor of Genoa, Eliseo Masini (1st ed. 1621). These manuals were closely linked to the activity of the inquisitors, not only because the authors had themselves served the Holy Office, but also because they shared the inquisitorial viewpoint of defining “the relationship between doctrine and ritual practice,” utilizing “that very relationship to find evidence with which to prosecute philo-Protestants” (6), emphasizing “the value of ritual practice as a barometer of religious belief” (8). In other words, by utilizing ritual as a tool of investigation, prosecution, and rehabilitation, the Roman Inquisition maintained, defended, and perhaps even strengthened the unity and community of Catholicism in north-central Italy, the area where it had jurisdiction (23).
I have noted a number of faulty transcriptions of the original inquisitorial documents, flaws that could influence our reading and understanding of the texts being discussed (see, for example, the notes at 353, 355–56, 367–68, 378–79). In spite of these lapses, the work as a whole makes an original contribution to our knowledge of the Roman Inquisition, offering a fresh perspective by which to examine this otherwise increasingly familiar subject.
