Studies of the Roman Inquisition have flourished in the past forty years, but there is still much work to be done using comparative approaches. Even the integration of useful information on similar cases, procedures, or administrative culture from Spain or Portugal is rarely practiced. This volume does not break with this tradition, but I must highlight a remarkable exception: the chapter by Kimberly Lynn on communication between Roman and Spanish Inquisitions. It analyzes three codices of the Roman Inquisition compiled in the 1620s to reflect on its jurisdiction upon precise cases of appeals, interventions, and negotiations between both Inquisitions. It reveals much more interaction, Roman interference, and Spanish acceptance of such interventions than scholars have assumed hitherto. It also calls attention to Spanish influence in Roman organizational culture through the personal presence of Spanish cardinals in Rome, even at the Congregation of the Holy Office, and the theoretical literature produced by Spanish Inquisitors—I would argue that the reverse influence can also be proven.
The chapter by Irene Fosi clarifies the assertion of the Roman Inquisition before the other ecclesiastic and secular jurisdictions in the papal states. It addresses issues of rule and hierarchy, not only from a practical but also a ceremonial point of view. The problems raised by the patentati, who used the privileges of the Inquisition for their own social leverage, are well set out as contributing to the decline of the prestige of the Inquisition in the eighteenth century. The role of correspondence is well analyzed by Jonathan Steitz in the case of the tribunals of the Inquisition in Venice. He shows how this role was multiple: local Inquisitors asked guidance and support from the main tribunal in Venice, concerning specific trials, conflicts with bishops, and even personal and family matters, while the Venetian tribunal would intervene in major cases. The most interesting section concerns the horizontal relation of local tribunals with tribunals external to the Republic of Venice, necessary to track runaway culprits or accused who had been living elsewhere. This horizontal communication has not been sufficiently studied; I believe it was much more important than hitherto estimated, cutting across tribunals from Roman, Spanish, and Portuguese Inquisitions.
Vincenzo Lavenia authors a strong chapter on the tribunal of Ancona, in which he underlines the position of its Inquisitors in relation to the papal territories and the authorities of the region, and the special situation of foreign communities of Marranos, Jews, Greeks, Turks, and Protestants in the port. Conversion and recantation from varied people are discussed, but also curious cases of atheism, providing a good sense of the activity of a peripheral tribunal in a port of international maritime trade. Although the last two sections of the volume on offenses and offenders in the peripheries address local trials without much relevance to the discussion, Giorgio Caravale's study of the trial against the bishop of Policastro, Nicola Missanelli, accused of diffusing a manual of confessors inspired by Waldesian ideas, is well placed within the complex arrangement between the Roman Inquisition and the general vicar of Naples, as well as the faction fight between Ghislieri and the Carafa family. Giorgos Plakatos's chapter on discourses of the Venetian Inquisition on Jewish apostasy stresses the constant communication between Venice and Rome on the matter, but it could have been pushed further from a comparative viewpoint, since this is an area in which Spanish and especially Portuguese Inquisitions concentrated their activity. The case of Righetto, mentioned here, could also have been pursued further, since the Portuguese trial was very well transcribed and published by Ioly Zorattini. Katherine Aron-Beller addresses the jurisdiction of the Inquisition against professed Jews, either New Christian apostates or Jews accused of possessing forbidden books; disrespect for Christian rituals; desecration of Christian images; preventing other Jews from converting to Christianity; blasphemy; and sorcery. A good overview of the known trials in Italy and a study of the cases in Modena is provided, most interestingly related to Jews living in small towns.
Among the other chapters, Gretchen Starr-LeBeau's study of gendered investigations stands out and contributes to our understanding of Inquisitors’ location of bodies and speeches. Perhaps the editors might have reflected on the theoretical framework of this research, particularly the notions of inner and outer peripheries, which sometimes do not seem to express the real position of precise cities or the status of tribunals, while the notion of semi-peripheries might have been useful. In any case, the volume certainly contributes to a necessary debate on this important theme.
