God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World

by Cullen Murphy

] “is a lofty hall with gloomy frescoes”: Hare, Walks in Rome, vol. 2, p. 276.

  [>] “gloomy and forbidding pile of massive masonry”: Nevin, Vignettes of Travel, pp. 362–366.

  [>] something of a historical accident: The vicissitudes of the Vatican archives in the early nineteenth century are described in Chadwick, Catholicism and History, pp. 14–30. See also John Tedeschi, “A ‘Queer Story’: The Case of the Inquisitorial Manuscripts,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1986), pp. 67–74, and H. R. Trevor-Roper, “The Papal Papers,” New York Review of Books, May 31, 1979. For an overview of Vatican records more generally, see Blouin, ed., Vatican Archives: An Inventory and Guide to Historical Documents of the Holy See, pp. xv–xxxiv.

  [>] The documents that tell the story: An overview of the sources and their locations can be found in John Tedeschi, “The Organization and Procedures of the Roman Inquisition,” in Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy, pp. 127–157; and John Tedeschi, “The Status of the Defendant before the Roman Inquisition,” in Guggisberg, Moeller, and Menchi, eds., Kertzerverfolgung im 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert, pp. 125–146.

  108. [>] Gone were the days when a Renaissance pontiff: Duffy, Saints and Sinners, p. 185.

  [>] To reduce the cost of transportation: Blouin, Vatican Archives, p. xxi.

  109. [>] the designer sunglasses, the red Prada shoes: Colm Tóibín, “Among the Flutterers,” London Review of Books, vol. 32, no. 16 (August 2010).

  [>] he is indeed an intellectual: The point is made forcefully in Allen, Cardinal Ratzinger. See also Garry Wills, “A Tale of Two Cardinals,” New York Review of Books, April 26, 2001.

  110. [>] he led the way up the spiral staircase: The account here reflects conversations with Peter Godman at the Archivio, before the premises were refurbished, in 2000 and 2001; other quotations from Godman, unless specified, are from these or later conversations in 2004 and 2010, and e-mail correspondence.

  112. [>] “we labor in equivocation”: Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 24.

  113. [>] Petrarch . . . one of the great book collectors: Elton, The Great Book-Collectors, pp. 41–53; Robinson, Petrarch, p. 26.

  [>] began distributing his library: Elton, The Great Book-Collectors, p. 57; Saygin, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, p. 83.

  [>] “the Ripoli Press charged three florins”: Quoted in Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, pp. 15–16.

  [>] It is estimated that scribes copied out: Eltjo Buringh and Jan Luiten Van Zanden, “Charting the ‘Rise of the West’: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective From the Sixth Through Eighteenth Centuries,” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 69, no. 2 (2009), pp. 409–445.

  [>] Thanks to the revolution in typography: Goldstone, Out of the Flames, pp. 22–29.

  114. [>] central to civic space: Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, p. 14.

  [>] “a scholar, deep in meditation in his study”: Yates, The Art of Memory, p. 131.

  [>] “It is a mystery to me”: Quoted in Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, p. 168.

  [>] “competing for space”: Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, pp. 168–171.

  115. [>] “able to send their messages from beyond the grave”: Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, pp. 174–175.

  [>] as a young seminarian in the 1960s: Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, p. 319.

  [>] the experience of China: James Fallows, “‘The Connection Has Been Reset,’” Atlantic Monthly, March 2008.

  115. [>] An uneasy compromise was eventually reached: David Barboza and Miguel Helft, “A Compromise Allows Both China and Google to Claim a Victory,” New York Times, July 10, 2010.

  116. [>] activists seek to remove books they deem offensive: Office of Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association.

  [>] A school board on Long Island: Jennifer Barrios, “Board Bans 2 Books from Reading List,” Newsday, December 5, 2007.

  [>] A school in Alabama: “Profanity, Sex Trigger Book-banning Efforts,” Birmingham News, September 29, 2008.

  [>] two male penguins who adopt an egg: “Schools Chief Bans Book on Penguins,” Boston Globe, December 20, 2006.

  [>] A Kentucky statute still in force: Frank E. Lockwood, “‘Infidel’ Texts Banned in Schools; Educators Say They Follow State Law,” Lexington Herald-Leader, August 5, 2006.

  [>] Fahrenheit 451 has been challenged: Kristin Tillotson, “If You Read, the Terrorists Will Win,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, December 2, 2005; “Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Banned,” New Internationalist, December 1, 2006.

  [>] “The lust to suppress”: Hentoff, Free Speech For Me—But Not For Thee, p. 1.

  117. [>] “brought their books together and began burning them”: Acts of the Apostles, 19:19–20.

  [>] the philosopher Peter Abelard: Abelard, Historia Calamitatum, p. 44.

  [>] In his several Bonfires of the Vanities: Duffy, Saints and Sinners, p. 197; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 5, pp. 205–207.

  [>] by a determined cardinal: Black, The Italian Inquisition, p. 169.

  [>] what was believed to be the last existing copy: Goldstone, Out of the Flames, pp. 3–4.

  [>] fell to the Master of the Sacred Palace: Godman, The Saint as Censor, pp. 8–9.

  118. [>] he examined all books before publication: Black, The Italian Inquisition, p. 159.

  [>] potential incursion of censorship on the Internet: John Walker, “The Digital Imprimatur,” Knowledge, Technology, and Policy, vol. 16, no. 3 (Fall 2003), pp. 24–77.

  [>] “not in full conformity with the Catholic faith”: “Vatican Orders Bishop to Remove Imprimatur,” National Catholic Reporter, February 27, 1998.

  [>] Johnson had not sought an imprimatur: John L. Allen, Jr., “U.S. Bishops Blast Book by Feminist Theologian,” National Catholic Reporter, March 30, 2011; “Johnson: Bishops’ Condemnation Came Without Discussion,” National Catholic Reporter, March 31, 2011.

  [>] In 1542, with the formal establishment . . . both congregations: Black, The Italian Inquisition, pp. 160–161, 179.

  119. [>] “As soon as there were books or writing of any kind”: Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www .newadvent.org/cathen/03519d.htm.

  [>] “tempting cups of poison”: John Thavis, “Index of Forbidden Books: A Tome Gathering Dust for 25 Years,” Catholic News Service, June 14, 1991.

  [>] the Catholic Daughters of America: Hamburger, Separation of Church and State, p. 412.

  [>] summarizing and cataloguing the contents: Thomas Henegan, “Secrets Behind the Forbidden Books,” America, February 7, 2005. See also http://www.buchzensur.de, the Web site of Hubert Wolf’s project on the Roman Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index in the Modern Age.

  120. [>] The Inquisition’s response took many forms: Useful overviews of the Church’s regime of censorship can be found in Baldini and Spruitt, Catholic Church and Modern Science, vol. 1, pp. 103–128; Bethencourt, The Inquisition, pp. 221–236; Godman, The Saint as Censor, pp. 3–48; Black, The Italian Inquisition, pp. 158–207.

  [>] symptomatic of Church attitudes: Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy, p. 276.

  [>] one sixteenth-century censor wrote privately: Peter Godman, “Inside the Archives of the Inquisition,” Times Literary Supplement, January 16, 1998.

  [>] what George Orwell . . . would call “memory holes”: Orwell, 1984, p. 38.

  121. [>] a typewritten memo from the British embassy: Timothy Garton Ash, “Orwell’s List,” New York Review of Books, September 25, 2003.

  [>] in Milwaukee, the local bishop: “Roman Catholics: End of the Imprimatur,” Time, December 29, 1967.

  [>] “The maintenance of a structure”: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 230.

  122. [>] A marginal notation in his hand: Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 208.

  [>] If a book was on the list: Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy, p. 275.

  [>] every reference to coitus: Black, The Italian Inquisition, p. 170.

  [>] Over the years, th
ey would proscribe: Thomas Henegen, “Secrets Behind the Forbidden Books,” America, February 7, 2005.

  [>] clumsily blotted out: some examples are reproduced in Bethencourt, The Inquisition, pp. 224–225.

  [>] An inquisitor in Padua: Black, The Italian Inquisition, p. 169.

  [>] books published in German or English: Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 47.

  [>] Uncle Tom’s Cabin came under scrutiny: Thomas Henegen, “Secrets Behind the Forbidden Books,” America, February 7, 2005.

  [>] the works of Hegel and Kant: Peter Godman, “Inside the Archives of the Inquisition,” Times Literary Supplement, January 16, 1998.

  [>] escaped completely: Thomas Henegen, “Secrets Behind the Forbidden Books,” America, February 7, 2005.

  123. Bellarmine came close to having one of his own works . . . condemned: Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 227.

  [>] But, Tedeschi writes, there was more: Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy, pp. 273–319.

  124. [>] would seek the services of a friendly bishop: “Roman Catholics: End of the Imprimatur,” Time, December 29, 1967.

  [>] no new editions of his work were published there: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 236.

  [>] In Spain, whose Inquisition mounted its own censorship effort: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 233.

  125. [>] the Inquisition’s eventual campaign against the vernacular: Black, The Italian Inquisition, pp. 175–177.

  [>] interviewed during the filming of his 1966 epic: Lillian Ross, “The Bible in Dinocitta,” The New Yorker, September 25, 1965.

  [>] were virtually annihilated: Fenlon, Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy, pp. 74–75.

  [>] Inventories of books confiscated in Spain: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 233.

  [>] “major imponderables”: Black, The Italian Inquisition, p. 207.

  126. [>] Writing about the limits on intellectual freedom in China: James Fallows, “‘The Connection Has Been Reset,’” Atlantic Monthly, March 2008.

  127. [>] “that most terrible, because most insidious, of ghosts”: Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 230.

  [>] The remains of Galileo Galilei: Rachel Donadio, “A Museum Display of Galileo, the Heretic, Has a Saintly Feel,” New York Times, July 23, 2010.

  [>] An analysis of Galileo’s tooth: “How We Found the Lost Relics of Galileo,” Museo Galileo, June 8, 2010.

  128. [>] “sad misunderstanding”: John Thavis, “Pope Says Church Erred in Condemning Galileo,” Catholic News Service, November 2, 1992.

  [>] against the backdrop of what had happened to Giordano Bruno: The particulars of the Bruno case are discussed concisely in Black, The Italian Inquisition, pp. 182–186, and Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, pp. 45–48, and at greater length in Rowland, Giordano Bruno, pp. 244–277.

  [>] renowned . . . for his capacious recall: Rowland, Giordano Bruno, pp. 62–63.

  [>] a book by Erasmus hidden in a privy: Rowland, Giordano Bruno, p. 75.

  [>] an infinity of stars and planets: Rowland, Giordano Bruno, pp. 109–112, 215–221.

  129. [>] “constellation of the ignorant”: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 24, p. 206.

  [>] but summaries survive: Rowland, Giordano Bruno, p. 248.

  [>] His interactions with the formidable Robert Bellarmine: Godman, The Saint as Censor, pp. 176–178.

  [>] was haunted ever afterward: Rowland, Giordano Bruno, pp. 12–13; Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, p. 48; Black, The Italian Inquisition, p. 185.

  [>] “with great caution”: Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, p. 266.

  [>] agreed on one thing . . . on good terms with popes: Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, pp. 166–170.

  130. [>] It was a pragmatic accommodation: Godman, Saint as Censor, pp. 214–220.

  [>] “Concern for truth had evolved”: Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, p. 177.

  131. [>] There was a charitable organization in Rome: John Tedeschi, “A New Perspective on the Roman Inquisition,” in Bujanda, Le Controle des Idées à la Renaissance, pp. 26–27.

  [>] Throughout the peninsula, the total number executed: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 444.

  [>] Trials . . . followed the usual pattern in certain ways: John Tedeschi, “The Status of the Defendant before the Roman Inquisition,” in Guggisberg, Moeller, and Menchi, eds., Kertzerverfolgung im 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert, pp. 125–146.

  132. [>] he would most likely be taken aback: John Tedeschi, “Carlo Ginzburg e le fonti,” a paper delivered on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of The Cheese and the Worms, in Colonnello and Del Col, Uno Storico, un Mugnaio, un Libro, pp. 23–28.

  [>] at the beginning of his academic career: Many of the personal details in this account were provided by Ginzburg in correspondence with the author, February 2001.

  133. [>] “How could I have let such an obvious fact escape me?”: Carlo Ginzburg, “Witches and Shamans,” New Left Review, July/August 1993, p. 79.

  [>] “the persecuted, not the persecutors”: Quoted in Tony Molho, “Carlo Ginzburg: Reflections on the Intellectual Cosmos of a 20th-century Historian,” History of European Ideas, vol. 30, no. 1 (2004), pp. 121–148.

  [>] He was so excited by the discovery: Carlo Ginzburg, “Witches and Shamans,” New Left Review, July/August 1993, pp. 80–81.

  [>] He was granted access, grudgingly: Personal communication with Carlo Ginzburg. See also Carlo Ginzburg, “Witches and Shamans,” New Left Review, July/August 1993, pp. 75–85.

  134. [>] “The benandanti spoke, often without being urged to”: Ginzburg, Carlo, “Witches and Shamans,” New Left Review, July/August 1993, p. 82.

  [>] “mental rubbish of peasant credulity”: Trevor-Roper, The European Witch-Craze, p. 116.

  135. [>] published throughout Europe: Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, p. 79.

  [>] typical chapter heading: Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, pp. 198–199.

  [>] Much of this advice: Mackay, The Hammer of Witches, p. 11.

  [>] “strange amalgam”: Anthony Grafton, “Say Anything,” The New Republic, November 5, 2007.

  [>] the book’s taxonomy of beliefs and practices: A concise overview of the Malleus and its impact can be found in Mackay, The Hammer of Witches, pp. 1–39.

  [>] would eventually cross the ocean: Demos, The Enemy Within, p. 69.

  136. [>] “The study of actual interrogations”: Mackay, The Hammer of Witches, p. 31.

  [>] the genre known as microhistory: See Carlo Ginzburg, “Microhistory: Two or Three Things That I Know About It,” Critical Inquiry, vol. 20, no. 1 (August 1993), pp. 10–35.

  [>] supported a vast book-making industry: Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, p. 12.

  137. [>] “artful mind,” “these were the angels”: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, pp. 12, 5–6.

  [>] “remnants of the thinking of others”: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, p. 61.

  [>] “There was once a great lord”: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, p. 49.

  138. [>] Although he was condemned to prison: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, pp. 93–95.

  [>] or even architectural: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 443.

  [>] returned to Montereale and resumed his work: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, p. 93.

  [>] “losing many earnings”: Del Col, Domenico Scandella, p. 129.

  [>] “Can’t you understand”: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, p. 103.

  [>] “He will argue with anyone”: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, p. 2.

  [>] “things that would astonish”: Del Col, Domenico Scandella, p. 20.

  139. [>] “Your reverence must not fail to proceed”: Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, p. 128.

  [>] and pronounced it acceptable: Weinberg and Bealer, The World of Caffeine, p. 40.

  [>] In Montereale today . . . fountain outside: John Tedeschi, “Carlo Ginzburg e le fonti,” in Colonne
llo and Del Col, Uno Storico, un Mugnaio, un Libro, pp. 23–28.

  140. [>] “provided the prime example”: Bethencourt, The Inquisition, p. 448.

  [>] John Locke put it like this: Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, pp. 33, 53.

  [>] “The Inquisition was extinguished”: Conversation with Francisco Bethencourt, June 2010.

  141. [>] abolished during the Napoleonic Era . . . to those few acres: Peters, Inquisition, pp. 119–120; Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, pp. 261–262.

  [>] the home of a Jewish couple . . . to baptize him: Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, pp. 37, 40–41.

  142. [>] “There must be some mistake”: Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, p. 5.

  [>] The boy was taken to Rome . . . conducted the first Sabbath service: Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, pp. 86–87, 89–90, 124, 295, 298.

  [>] “sat outside the Chief Rabbi’s office”: Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, p. 304.

  5. The Ends of the Earth

  143. [>] “Where is the stairway to heaven?”: Richard E. Greenleaf, “The Inquisition in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review, vol. 60, no. 1 (1985), pp. 29–60.

  [>] “This is the man who would like to see me”: Aczel, The Jesuit and the Skull, p. 211.

  144. [>] The things below . . . have not disappeared: Tobias and Woodhouse, Santa Fe: A Modern History, pp. 231–235; La Farge, Turn Left at the Sleeping Dog, pp. 377–380; Lovato, Sante Fe Hispanic Culture, pp. 4, 23–29, 98–119; “City Changes, Family Remains,” Santa Fe New Mexican, December 5, 2010.

  [>] mass grave for Indians: Santo Invisibles, “Santa Feans Call for Truth in Public Celebration of Religious Conquest,” Arizona Indymedia, September 5, 2010.

  145. [>] ordering the execution: Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, eds., To the Royal Crown Restored, pp. 532–533.

  [>] After a brief investigation, archaeologists determined: Tom Sharpe, “Talks With Tribes Delay Civic Center,” Santa Fe New Mexican, September 25, 2005; Laura Banish, “Committee Will Reconsider Burial Permit,” Albuquerque Journal, October 11, 2005; Associated Press, “Sweeney Center Dig Experts: Remains May Not Be Tesuque’s,” October 21, 2005; Laura Banish, “Caught Off Guard,” Albuquerque Journal, November 6, 2005; Tom Sharpe, “City, Tribe, Reach Deal on Civic Center,” Santa Fe New Mexican, December 16, 2005; David Alire Garcia, “Digging in the Dirt,” Santa Fe Reporter, May 16, 2007.