by Hubert Wolf
To Sallua’s mind, the letters Patrizi gave him provided “a clear argument and firm evidence” for the validity of Katharina’s denunciation. Anyone with an ounce of sense should have seen that Maria Luisa’s visions and visitations, as reported by Padre Leziroli, had the “character of fictions,” and that they were “supposte rivelazioni,” pretended revelations.61 Sallua’s words contained a tacit criticism of Patrizi himself, who must surely have seen through the whole conjuring trick. This was the only time the Dominican articulated—in a cautious and very indirect way—his incomprehension over Patrizi’s extremely problematic attitude as protector of the convent. As an experienced investigating judge, Sallua used these texts to set in motion a full Inquisition trial.
As the cardinal vicar of the Roman Church and protector of Sant’Ambrogio, it was Costantino Patrizi’s duty to keep a watchful eye on what went on in the convent. (illustration credit 2.1)
AN INQUISITION TRIAL, AFTER ALL
Patrizi’s withdrawal put an end to the low-key solution the pope had initially sought for the case of Sant’Ambrogio. Pius IX must have realized that an Inquisition trial was now unavoidable. However, after Sallua had told him about the current state of affairs on November 11, 1859, the pope simply said that pro nunc, “for now,” he would call a secret meeting in which the cardinals, but not the Inquisition consultors, would be informed of the affair and the “clever and energetic steps” the pope had already taken.62
Sallua prepared a detailed report for the cardinals’ secret meeting, which took place on November 16, 1859. It left no room for doubt that the case of Sant’Ambrogio fell under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, as the crimes involved were primarily religious.63 He saw three valid charges arising from his investigations so far.
First, there was the nuns’ continued veneration of Maria Agnese Firrao, whom the Inquisition had convicted of being a false saint. There was also evidence that she had continued to lead the community by means of letters from exile, which was also forbidden. And Leziroli had written a saint’s life of Firrao, which he used regularly in his sermons.
Second was Sister Maria Luisa’s pretense of holiness—an offense that Sallua regarded as clearly proven. The Dominican was also in no doubt that she had used her visions to gain offices in the convent, shown a marked lack of fellow feeling for the other nuns, and had unstintingly supported the false cult through Leziroli.
Third, Sallua told the cardinals of Maria Luisa’s “improper practices,” and made a connection between these and the first false saint, Agnese Firrao. She, too, had been accused of grave sexual transgressions—and continued heresy went hand in hand with continued sodomy. It was no coincidence that Sallua’s report mentioned the “false dogma in re venerea” (in matters of sex) and the “disgraceful acts sub specie boni” (under the pretense of doing good). This was his way of bringing the third allegation under the Inquisition’s remit as well. It was a matter of false “practical” dogma, and the Holy Office was responsible for Catholic dogma and its protection.
Sallua’s arguments convinced the cardinals to a man, and they decided to open an Inquisition trial against the nuns of Sant’Ambrogio and their confessors, the Jesuits Giuseppe Leziroli and Giuseppe Peters. The convent was to be permanently dissolved, and the nuns divided among various other suitable institutions.64 As the pope wasn’t present for this decision, the assessor, Monaco La Valletta, sought an audience to obtain his agreement.65
But Pius IX substantially moderated the cardinals’ decision. Ad mentem,66 in the spirit of the pope’s original decision, there was to be no more talk of the immediate suppression of the convent and a trial against the Jesuit confessors. First, there would be an Apostolic Visitation to Sant’Ambrogio which—and this will come as no surprise—fell under the jurisdiction of Cardinal Vicar Patrizi and his vicegerent, Antonio Ligi-Bussi.67 The latter was tasked with conducting a thorough inspection of the convent, and for this purpose was allowed to enter the clausura. In particular, he was instructed to search for writings from the pen of the late mother founder. The pope told the cardinal vicar to contact Petrus Beckx, the Jesuit general, and “very carefully” broach the subject of dismissing Padres Leziroli and Peters. He should then assign other, non-Jesuit spiritual guides to the nuns of Sant’Ambrogio.68
The vicegerent began his search of the convent the following day and, although he found nothing, he did learn that the lawyer Luigi Franceschetti, the convent’s legal representative, knew where Firrao’s writings were hidden. At their meeting on December 6, the cardinals of the Inquisition decided to invite the lawyer in for questioning. The pope himself gave the order to seize Maria Luisa at once, and have her placed in another convent without any public fuss.69
On December 8, Sallua had a private audience with the pope, prostrating himself at the feet of His Holiness, as he reported, in a gesture of humility typical for an inquisitor. He gave a detailed report of the results from the preliminary investigations, setting out a total of eight charges.70
First: the nuns had continued to honor the condemned Agnese Firrao as a saint.
Second: the twenty-seven-year-old Maria Luisa had also pretended to be a saint.
Third: the novices had committed improper acts with the novice mistress, exchanging intimacies and kisses. The night before professing their vows, lesbian initiation rites had taken place. The women had also indulged in physical lovemaking, up to and including intercourse (usque ad consumationem). All this had happened under the pretense of heavenly “sanctification.”
Fourth: there had been attempts to poison and murder Princess Hohenzollern.
Fifth: the nuns had hidden cult objects belonging to “saint” Firrao in the convent.
Sixth: Maria Luisa forced the novices to give confession to her.
Seventh: the novices had disregarded important rules and had, for example, eaten meat on fast days and not taken part regularly in the Liturgy of the Hours. Then there was also the forbidden relationship between Maria Luisa and the Americano.
Eighth: the two confessors, Leziroli and Peters, had tolerated, if not actively supported, these offenses.
Only now did Pius IX really seem convinced that the charges were justified, and he finally authorized the Dominican to open an Inquisition trial.71 The trial was to cover not only the crimes against the Faith, but all the other felonies relating to the attempted murder, which actually fell within the jurisdiction of other criminal courts in Rome.
In doing this, the pope himself was drawing an overt connection between the two levels of the Sant’Ambrogio affair: the “natural” level of the felonies, and the “supernatural” level of supersensible phenomena. These two planes and their mutual dependence were to become a leitmotif that ran through the whole trial. The judges were confronted with the same conundrum over and over: did incorrect actions lead to incorrect belief? Or was incorrect belief responsible for incorrect actions?
The trial began in December 1859, and ended in February 1862, with the pronouncement of the final judgment. A mighty task lay before the tribunal. Around sixty witnesses had to be questioned—thirty-seven of them the nuns of Sant’Ambrogio72—and numerous documents seized, including the saint’s life of Maria Agnese from the pen of Padre Leziroli.73 The witness examinations alone took more than a year.
THE INQUISITION TRIBUNAL: PROCESSES AND PROTAGONISTS
The elements of the modern criminal trial that we take for granted—the public proceedings, the direct confrontation of defendants and witnesses, heated exchanges between defense counsels, prosecutors, and judges, cross-examinations, and the detailed reporting of cases in the media—didn’t apply to a trial before the Inquisition, even as late as the nineteenth century. But this didn’t mean an Inquisition trial was ruled by pure capriciousness, as various legends and clichés would have us believe.74 From a historical point of view, there was no such thing as the Inquisition. There are three types of Inquisition to be distinguished in the history of the Church.75 First, there was the Med
ieval Inquisition, which was largely used to prosecute the Cathars. Second, the Spanish Inquisition, which went down in history for its rigid proceedings against suspected crypto-Muslims and crypto-Jews in Reconquista Spain, and which mainly served to preserve the unity of Spain’s newly established kingdom. Third, there was the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, founded in 1542 to combat the “Protestant heresy.”76 But the Roman Inquisition was soon given a much more extensive remit, to include control of all Catholics’ religious and social behavior.77 It became an increasingly bureaucratic authority, producing endless reams of paper, like any other modern administrative or juridical apparatus.
But “Inquisition” can also mean a new kind of legal process that, when the pope introduced it in the thirteenth century, was one of the greatest leaps forward in legal history. Among its innovations was the office of state prosecutor. Investigations were now initiated by this office, and not—as had previously been the case—purely on the grounds of an accusation.78 But the Inquisition’s positive impact is largely unknown. When this inquisitio was later linked with the use of torture, the progressive “Inquisition trial” gained the negative image it still has today. However, by the second half of the nineteenth century, defendants weren’t being shown instruments of torture or subjected to horrific interrogations using them. The trial was purely a written process—which at that time was also a customary feature of trials in certain areas of the secular justice system.
It is impossible to reconstruct the case of Sant’Ambrogio without detailed knowledge of an inquisitorial trial’s processes and protagonists. The Inquisition’s tribunal had no official rules of procedure.79 Even the internal document from the nineteenth century, “norms for a procedure in cases for the Holy Office,” which is now held in the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (as the Holy Office was renamed in 1966), gives hardly any specific instructions for the organization of a trial, the course it should take, and the parties involved.80 We can therefore assume that the Roman Inquisition had evolved a procedure for criminal trials based largely on customary law and precedent. With nothing set out in writing, the inquisitors would have had a great deal of freedom in how they conducted a trial.81
For criminal trials, the Roman Inquisition was divided into two sections. The deciding authority, the court to which the ultimate judgment fell, was identical with the congregation of cardinals assigned to the Holy Office. And then there was the investigating authority, which preceded and was subordinate to the cardinals.
The real head or prefect of the Inquisition was no lesser person than the pope, the most senior legislator and judge of the Universal Church. Unlike the other congregations (the groups of cardinals who oversaw various administrative areas of the Catholic Church), the Sanctum Officium had no cardinal prefect; its leader was merely called the cardinal secretary.82 A dozen or more other cardinals formed the actual court. They met every Wednesday (the so-called Feria quarta) without the pope, and on Thursdays (Feria quinta) with the pope at their head.83 Their decisions and judgments are recorded in the Decreta files, which, because of the sheer number of issues covered, mostly contain only summary records of the outcome in each case.84 Preparations for these decisions were made by the consultors, who always met on a Monday (Feria secunda). Their meetings included up to three dozen experts, theologians, jurists, and canon lawyers.85 They wrote reports and votums (petitions) on each batch of issues passed on to them by the cardinals, and often formulated suggested decisions for the congregation’s meetings, which the assessor, who led these, set out before Their Eminences.86 If a decision was made during a Wednesday meeting when the pope was absent, the assessor would seek a private audience with the Pontifex maximus to obtain his agreement. The pope often modified or clarified exactly what the assessor had to record in each case, according to his own ideas on the matter.87 In general—and this is the crucial difference from a modern, secular criminal trial—the entire process was conducted through written rather than verbal proceedings, with the public fundamentally excluded.
The witnesses and the accused never encountered one another in a courtroom. There was theoretical provision for an unmediated confrontation, but it was never put into practice. Hearings were conducted with one individual at a time, transcribed by a notary, and authenticated with a signature from the person who had been questioned. These hearings were also not unusual in secular courts during the nineteenth century.88 Nor were the defendants or the witnesses ever confronted with the tribunal itself—they never had sight of the judges. But the accused had only to look at the annually produced handbook of the Papal States to find out which cardinals were current members of the Inquisition, and were therefore sitting in judgment on them.
The Roman Inquisition consisted of an investigating and a deciding authority, with the pope as its ultimate head. (illustration credit 2.2)
Their Eminences arrived at their verdict exclusively on the basis of source evidence, presented to them by the investigative section of the Inquisition. The “Inquisition’s perpetually working instructive court”89 was headed by an “official judge,”90 the Holy Office’s commissary,91 and two investigating judges, the first and second socius.92 They conducted the trial, received the denunciations, questioned the witnesses, interrogated the defendants, and summarized the results of these hearings and other information for the cardinals in documents known as Relazioni. The interrogation transcripts were witnessed by a notary or actuary.93 The fiscal was another important figure: as the Church’s lawyer, he played the same role a state prosecutor would in a secular court.94 He was responsible for seeing that the trial was properly conducted. In principle, the accused had a defense counsel at their disposal, though in practice he didn’t usually play a significant part in the proceedings. All the same, he was entitled to read the investigating judges’ summaries once the hearings were over, and then submit a written defense.95
The assessor was the main link between the lower, investigating section of the tribunal and its upper, deciding section. He had the right to take part in all hearings—in particular the interrogation of the defendants—and he was always present at the official meetings of the congregation of cardinals. The assessor was the “advisor to the commissary”; he also reported the cardinals’ decisions to the pope, and obtained his seal of approval. Last but not least, he signed off on the Ristretti, the files containing summaries of the defendants’ testimonies, upon which the congregation of cardinals based its verdict. The assessor, the commissary, and his senior deputy, the first socius (but not the second socius), were also official members of the consultors’ conference, thus providing a second link between the investigating and deciding authorities.
Two obvious changes to the composition of the Holy Office’s congregation of cardinals were made after the official opening of the Sant’Ambrogio trial in December 1859. On May 21, 1860, Pius IX made Cardinal Reisach a member of the Inquisition.96 And on October 5 of the same year, the pope named Patrizi, of all people, as the Holy Office’s cardinal secretary.97 This is the only time in the 470-year history of the Holy Office that a cardinal vicar, responsible for the Tribunal of the Vicariate Court of the City of Rome, has also been made cardinal secretary of the Holy Office. In an internal paper from the early nineteenth century, the cardinals of the Inquisition explicitly advised against a coupling of these two offices: “The election of the cardinal vicar as the secretary of the Holy Office could lead to collisions between the ordinary powers of the Vicariate and the extraordinary powers of the Holy Office.” For this reason, in the history of the Church there was “not a single example of a cardinal vicar, who is qua office a member of the Inquisition, simultaneously being appointed secretary of the Holy Office.”98
Why did Pius IX disregard this unwritten rule? The answer is not far to seek: the pope wanted to be certain that the investigation of the Sant’Ambrogio affair remained in the hands of his trusted servant, the supporting pillar of his pontificate. As Patrizi had been unable to de
al with the case within the Vicariate, which had been the pope’s initial intention, he would now deal with it as head of the Inquisition. This way, the pope could offer more protection to people close to him who were embroiled in this affair. At the same time, he was appointing one of the suspects as supreme judge, thus placing him beyond the tribunal’s reach. Similar motives may have played a role in the promotion of Cardinal Reisach to cardinal member of the Inquisition. But wasn’t the pope drawing suspicion on himself with these decisions, which he must have made in the knowledge that both men were caught up in what had happened in Sant’Ambrogio? Was he somehow personally involved?
THE SOURCES FROM THE ARCHIVE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
The Archivo Segreto Vaticano, the secret archive in the Vatican palace, is reached via the Porta Sant’Anna on the right of Saint Peter’s Square. It has been open to researchers since 1881. The material relating to all trials by the Roman Inquisition, meanwhile, remained inaccessible for significantly longer. The files are located in the most secret of all Church archives, the Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede (ACDF), the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This archive contains the collections of the Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index. It is situated not in the Vatican’s secret archive, but in the Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio, the current home of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This building is situated to the left of the colonnades of Saint Peter’s Square, right in front of the Campo Santo Teutonico. Pope John Paul II finally opened the archive in 1998, in the run-up to the Holy Year of Jubilee. It contains the document collection of the Congregation of the Index, which was exclusively concerned with book censorship, and the Roman Inquisition’s much more extensive collection. In addition to monitoring the book market, and having basic responsibility for deciding all religious questions, it also acted as the highest religious tribunal. The main collection is therefore divided in numerous and diverse subcollections, concerned with general religious questions, disputes on sacramental theology, matrimonial law, dispensations, the relationship between Jews and Catholics, and unresolved issues of every kind.99