This book is about the activity of the Roman Inquisition in Naples, Venice, and Florence during 1590–1640, with emphasis on the pontificates of Paul V and Urban VIII. The author selects cases from the Inquisition's relationship with three cities to illustrate how the pontiffs gained control of the institution and used it for their own ends.
Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the Inquisition in Naples, as revealed in the trials of de Marcos, Figueroa, and Campanella. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the Inquisition's handling of the Interdict in Venice, and the processi of Bruno, Cremonini, and De Dominis. Chapters 5 and 6 examine the Inquisition in Florence as seen primarily in the trials of Rodrigo and Mariano Alidosi (over 50 pages). While the focus is on these test cases, there are prosopographical accounts of various inquisitors and nuncios interspersed in the narratives.
There is no discernible thesis in the book, except to demonstrate that the popes employed the Inquisition to impose their wills on these cities. The archvillain in the piece is Urban VIII, whose government was “absolutely monarchical” (2, 63). The popes cared only for their personal power and wealth, their relatives, and the papal states. But Mayer's reduction of papal participation in the Inquisition to power politics seems forced, and results in oversimplifications of very complex entanglements with the three towns. The author begins his discussion of Naples by attributing the involvement of Paul V and Urban VIII as attempts to “escape Spanish tutelage” (11). He seems to believe that papal policies in Naples were intended primarily to diminish the Spanish presence in Italy, while increasing French influence in Italy and Europe. But the policies of these popes were in fact much more nuanced before and during the Thirty Years War. It is simplistic to view the popes as exploiting the Inquisition to further the interests of France and undermine the encroachment of Habsburg Spain (and Austria) in Italy. Mayer's determination to impute self-serving motives to the two popes distorts the multiple-faceted role the Inquisition played in Italian cities. Modern historians give more credence to Paul's genuine Tridentine concerns than does Mayer, particularly in the affair of the Venetian Interdict. Paul's actions during the Interdict are in fact plausible in terms of his Trent-inspired reforms and traditional papal policy in Venice.
Having worked with the Campanella sources myself, I can say that Mayer's insistence on seeing these proceedings as simply political ploys is a bit of a stretch. The author describes each of the trials–intriguing as they are in their own right—in Naples in copious detail, and then draws conclusions which seem somewhat unrelated to the evidence presented. The judicial actions are narrated with little pattern or wider chronology. They seem juxtaposed to each other without logical connections. Many paragraphs lack topic sentences or transition words or phrases. The reader is deluged with particulars, with few clues as to where the argument is headed. The general conclusion that the popes manipulated the Inquisition in the three cities to undermine their opponents goes beyond the evidence. It is telling that modern historians of Paul V and Urban VIII give little attention to the Inquisition, which does not appear high on their priorities. Indeed in most of the very cases Mayer discusses, the papal involvement was sporadic, inconsistent, and often ineffective. Urban's first concern was always the Thirty Years War and the foreign missions. The flyleaf tells us that this book shows that “Pope Urban VIII's aggressive drive to establish and exercise direct control through the agency of the Inquisition played out differently among the Italian states.” It does not. These assumptions about Urban's motives seem a priori and not conclusions that follow from the cases presented. There is no attempt to evaluate the theological foundations of the Inquisition's actions and the heresies (usually unmentioned, as if they were merely a cover in a game of political chess) investigated. Did contemporaries view these actions simply as political subterfuges?
This book contains many trees (facts) but no forest (context). The details are not integrated into the larger setting of events in Italy and Europe. Moreover, there is no historiographical framework. Some modern studies are mentioned, but not engaged. We are not told how the author's approach contributes to the state of the question(s). The fundamental works of Black, Del Col, Prosperi, and Kraus are cited, but not assessed. How does Mayer's study match up with the analyses of Ciasca, Tedeschi, L. and M. Firpo, Romeo, Grendler, Pirri, Wittstadt, Wright, and Oakley? And then, what is the methodological basis for selecting these particular three cities? Indeed, they seem odd choices, given the Inquisition's on-again off-again involvement and oft-times ambiguous outcomes. Perhaps Bologna, Reggio, and Modena would seem more promising examples.
By the way, there is virtually no mention of Galileo, the subject of a proposed third volume in Mayer's trilogy. The first volume was mainly vignettes of personnel, while the second, this book, is a series of case studies. Perhaps the third volume (on Galileo) will put all these personages and places in a big forest.
