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Nella lingua di ciascuno: Church Communication between Latin and Vernacular during the Counter-Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2017

Silvia Manzi
Silvia Manzi*
Affiliation:
University of Teramo
*
*Campus di Coste Sant'Agostino, via Renato Balzarini n.1, Località Colleparco (Teramo) 64100, Italy. E-mail: manzi.silvia@gmail.com.
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Abstract

This article investigates the reasons for the choice of vernacular language instead of Latin in the communications of bishops with clergy and laity at the end of the sixteenth century and into the first decades of the seventeenth. The spread of Lutheran doctrine, which encouraged the use of the vernacular in the Scriptures and in the mass, was confronted by a reaction: the Catholic Church denied all access to the mysteries of faith to anyone ignorant of Latin through the three Indices of prohibited books issued in the second half of the sixteenth century (1559, 1564, 1596). However, concurrently with the issuing of these prohibitions, the bishops of Italy used the Italian language to translate some papal bulls and decrees of the Council of Trent. On which issues and under what circumstances did they feel it was necessary to be understood by the non-Latinate and therefore find it necessary to supply Italian translations of official documents, such as papal constitutions and Tridentine decrees? Was the local translation of such documents faithful to the original? And if not, why not?

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 53: TRANSLATING CHRISTIANITY , June 2017 , pp. 196 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2017 

In recent decades Italian has become the common language of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, with the exception of some fundamental religious texts and official documents which are still written in Latin.Footnote 1 Although interest in the language of Cicero has not entirely vanished, as indicated by the weekly column in the newspaper of the Italian episcopal conference, Avvenire, in modern times the balance in the centuries-old relationship between Italian and Latin in Church communication has been tilted in favour of the former.

The official language of the Church and a symbol of its universality, sacredness and fixity,Footnote 2 Latin has become less and less understood as a consequence of the emergence and establishment of vernacular languages in the modern age. This applies not only to the ‘simple’ people attending services: clergy and nuns no longer use it with confidence either.Footnote 3 However, this process began in the early modern period, although the Catholic Church resisted it. In particular, whilst the dissemination of Lutheran doctrines encouraged the use of vernacular for the Scriptures and in the mass, the Church reacted by blocking access to the mysteries of faith for those ignorant of Latin and prohibiting the use of vernacular translations of Scripture through the three Roman Indices of prohibited books issued in 1559, 1564 and 1596. As demonstrated by Gigliola Fragnito, the ban also hit the wealth of devotional literature that had answered the need of Italians for vernacular texts since the late Middle Ages: homiletic collections, psalms, digests and summaries from the Old and New Testaments, biblical tragedies and sacred representations, writings that circulated under the title of Natività, Vite, Passioni di Cristo or Lamenti della Madonna.Footnote 4 In the 1570s sacred and profane literature were also included in this prohibition.Footnote 5 This struggle against the vernacular sought to reserve the interpretation of doctrine to clerics and to prevent what were viewed as arbitrary readings. The vernacular was used only within the narrow confines of catechesis and preaching. As shown by Rusconi, the prohibition of lay people from reading holy writ in the vernacular became the premise for a systematic indoctrination of the truths of the faith, instilled in an elementary way.Footnote 6

The purpose of the research presented here is to show that the Italian language was also used by bishops to translate papal bulls and Tridentine decrees. To them the Council of Trent entrusted the mission of eradicating moral and sexual transgressions, such as concubinage, common among clergy and laity.Footnote 7 This article analyses documents in order to prove that – and how – the vernacular was used by bishops as a medium for specific ends.Footnote 8 These included the defence of their own jurisdictions against the advance of the Inquisition, which in the second half of the sixteenth century, once the danger of contagion from heresy in Italy had been overcome, was applied to every field of knowledge and morality.Footnote 9 They also included the curbing of interference from civil authorities in ‘mixed court’ issues,Footnote 10 and the safeguarding of the reputation of the clergy and the prevention of civil unrest.

Secretam denunciationem and the Autonomy of the Periphery

The constitution Cum primum apostolatus, issued on 1 April 1566 by Pius V,Footnote 11 denounced disrespectful attitudes in places of worship and the non-observance of feasts, as well as punishing simoniacs, blasphemers, sodomites and those who kept concubines.Footnote 12 Moreover, it sent sodomites to the secular arm for capital punishment. In order to ensure punishment of vices, it provided for the option of ‘private denunciation’.Footnote 13 In addition to guaranteeing secrecy to informants, the bull also promised them a third of the fines imposed on offenders, thus providing an incentive for the misuse of secret denunciation for personal gain.Footnote 14 ‘The malignity of a . . . foe’, according to Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, could indeed lead somebody to accuse ‘even falsely’.Footnote 15 The Cum primum provoked protests in various cities of Italy. For instance, in Benevento, the morning after its publication, the bull was torn up and burned.Footnote 16 It was named ‘bolla de la Inquisitione’ by the people, who protested against it, associating such secret denunciations with the methods typical of the Spanish Suprema.Footnote 17

Dissemination of the document took place in specific places and at defined times. In Montepulciano, Bishop Spinello Benci affixed it in Italian to the doors of the cathedral and had it read during mass on 14 July 1566.Footnote 18 Posting the document on the doors of churches, places with a deep symbolic value, ensured greater visibility, but did not always ensure the effectiveness of the provisions. Bishop Gian Ambrogio Fieschi lamented in 1570 that although the bull was ‘published in this town and diocese of Savona, already translated so as to be understood by everybody’, it was nonetheless ‘disregarded by the people’.Footnote 19 Moreover, the document was not always translated verbatim by bishops. In some cases, for instance, the secretam denunciationem clause was missing.Footnote 20 Translation into the vernacular became a tool by means of which bishops mediated between the repressive requirements of the Roman Church and the local need for community harmony: a tool to restrain the activities of the Inquisition.

Protection of the Clergy and Autonomy from the Secular Authorities

Cum primum was not the only document written by Pope Pius V and dealing with sexual misdemeanours to be translated into Italian. During the synods of Vercelli (1585) and Fano (1594)Footnote 21 local bishops translated Pius V's provisions Declaratio Concilii Tridentini, sess. XXIV cap. II et IV Footnote 22 and Declaratio Concilii Tridentini, sess. XXIV cap. III, better known as Ad Romanum spectat pontificem.Footnote 23 However, it was the decrees on marriage promulgated at the Council of Trent (Session 24, 11 November 1563, Doctrina de sacramento matrimoni)Footnote 24 that were most commonly disseminated in the vernacular.

There are several testimonies which prove that the decision to translate these decrees was the free choice of the bishops. In Chiusi, Salvatore Pacino explained in an edict in 1564 that, in order to guarantee ‘legitimate wedlock’, he had decided to publish the Tametsi, specifically the first of the ten chapters on the reform of marriage, ‘in vulgar language’.Footnote 25 The same decision was made by the bishop of Camerino, Girolamo de'Buoi, in 1584.Footnote 26 The Tametsi was also accurately translated a few years later in many dioceses, including Venezia (1564),Footnote 27 Pisa (1565),Footnote 28 Benevento (1567),Footnote 29 Rossano (1579),Footnote 30 Venosa (1581),Footnote 31 Rimini (1593)Footnote 32 and Osimo (1594).Footnote 33 In other instances in northern and central Italy, matrimonial decrees were modified before they were translated. Two underlying aims can be identified in the changes that the bishops introduced: to safeguard the honour of the clergy and to present themselves as holding sole responsibility for disciplining misconduct in areas of life that were also of interest to the secular authorities. For instance, Tametsi provided for the punishment of priests if appropriate. The relevant passage runs: ‘Similarly [it is] command[ed] that the Ordinary punishes severely as he sees fit a parish priest and any other minister who, with few witnesses, intercedes in such a contract [wedlock], also any witnesses doing so without a minister or other clergyman, along with the contractors themselves.’Footnote 34 However, in the memorandum of bulls in Italian addressed to Alessandria's clergy (1610), punishment was instead reserved for the couple and their witnesses, whilst priests were not mentioned: ‘At the pleasure of his most reverend bishop, severe punishment shall be reserved for witnesses present at a wedding ceremony which seeks to contract a marriage contrary to the above procedure, as well as for those who have sought to enter into such a bond.’Footnote 35

Although the Council of Trent entrusted the episcopate with the task of curbing ecclesiastical abuses, within a few years of its conclusion the need to protect the clergy's good name was being prioritized over restraining offences committed by its members. In their role as local executors of decisions taken centrally, bishops increasingly approached such offences with a degree of circumspection and confidentiality, as recommended by the popes, whose main interest lay in preserving the clergy's privilege to be tried before ecclesiastical courts only.Footnote 36

Similarly, some translations of chapter 8 reveal changes regarding the role of the secular authorities in relation to concubinage. The original reads:

As for those women, wed or unwed, who live openly with adulterers or in concubinage: if, upon having been thrice admonished, they do not then obey, they shall be punished severely by the Ordinaries in office at that place, even without request from another, according to their guilt, and be banished from the town or from the diocese, if this be thought fitting by the Ordinaries, who may, if need be, call upon the secular authorities for assistance.Footnote 37

However, the edict on marriage discipline issued by the bishop of Lucca, Alessandro Guidiccioni, in which all the decrees on marriage reform are translated, omits any reference to the secular arm in the relevant section:

Similarly [it is] command[ed] that measures be taken against women, whether wed or unwed, who live openly with adulterers or in concubinage. In addition to other chastisements, and having been admonished three times by the Ordinary, they shall be banished from those localities and dioceses as deemed fitting.Footnote 38

The original document references secular authorities in three different sections: chapter 7, on vagabonds who remarry, chapter 8, and chapter 9, prohibiting secular authorities from forcing people into arranged marriages. In the edict of Bishop de'Buoi of Camerino, proclaimed on 12 December 1584, which offers a summa of the council's dispositions on marriage, the secular authorities simply disappear: chapters 8 and 9 are not translated at all, and in chapter 7 there is no mention of them. The original reads:

Many there are, who wander from place to place without fixed abode. Being bad by nature, having deserted their first wife, they take another, or even many in different places, while the former still lives. The Holy Synod intends to remedy this evil and paternally admonishes all those whose duty it is not to admit this type of vagabond too easily into a bond of marriage. And it calls also upon the secular authorities to repress them with severity.Footnote 39

The version proclaimed by Bishop de'Buoi runs:

That neither a wedding nor even the publication of the banns for a marriage to be celebrated between foreigners from another diocese, or between vagabonds, must take place without our permission in writing. The curate shall first diligently collect information and provide it to us prior to officiating such wedding.Footnote 40

At the Council of Trent the Church had staked its claim to exclusive power over marriages, in direct – and sometimes bitter – opposition to the civil powers. By focusing the attention of the faithful solely on ecclesiastical precepts, the Church authorities presented themselves as having sole responsibility for punishing offenders in this area, thereby removing from most people's minds any idea that the secular authorities might exercise jurisdiction.

Confirmation of this approach is also provided by the translations of papal bulls. Following the dispositions of the Council of Trent and of his predecessor Pius V, Pope Gregory XIV in Sicut Antiquus, dated 1 March 1590 and published in Latin in Rome by Blado in 1591, prohibited the granting of dispensations in the first and second degrees of consanguinity or affinity. The order to translate this prohibition into the vernacular came directly from the pope:

To ensure that our proposal be enacted, we order and command all ordinaries appointed to each province and realm throughout Christendom to publish these letters and their summaries forthwith and to expound them in sermons in the common tongue, and to affix them to the doors of their own churches, and in each cathedral and parish church of their towns and dioceses.Footnote 41

A handwritten edition of the text was issued by Alessandro de Medici, archbishop of Florence.Footnote 42 The summary from Pienza was also in manuscript,Footnote 43 while that from Mantua was printed by the Osanna press.Footnote 44 All three summaries omit any reference to civil law. Thus, whilst the original mentions that sacri canones, sed leges etiam civiles (‘sacred canons, but also civil laws’) may cause a request for a dispensation to be rejected, in the vernacular version from Pienza the pope is presented as mentioning only ‘punishments and censures prescribed by our sacred canons and councils against incestuous contractors’. In the Pienza and Mantua versions, the reference to the past concession of dispensations principum intercessione (‘by intercession of sovereign power’) is also omitted. Similarly, the vernacular translation of the bull of Sixtus V, Ad Compescendam. printed in Rome by Antonio Blado in 1586,Footnote 45 which concerned the illegality of adultery and divorce and was directed to the lay inhabitants of the city of Rome, contains no reference to the fact that Roman judges had the right of appeal to the secular arm for punishment when appropriate.Footnote 46 The pivotal role of the Church in such cases was once again confirmed.

Constraining the Power of the Inquisition

A further example is offered by the bull Effraenatam issued by Sixtus V, promulgated on 29 October and published on 16 November 1588. This expressed a policy aimed at the control of sexuality and the promotion of the ‘traditional family’.Footnote 47 Here the translation into Italian offers evidence of the episcopate's attempts to control the power of the Inquisition, as well as the desire to prevent scandal and social unrest. Unlike Ad Compescendam, Effraenatam applied to the whole Church. It reserved to the pope the right to excommunicate ueros homicidas (‘true assassins’) responsible for abortion.Footnote 48 This represented a significant change in policy: from the 1570s and 1580s bishops had sought to gain control of abortion by categorizing it amongst reserved cases.Footnote 49 Vincenzo Lavenia has argued that, if we consider papal reserve in cases of abortion together with the other measures on mixed issues taken by the pope in order to increase the jurisdiction of the Holy Office,Footnote 50 ‘the suspicion emerges that the intervention was in part intended to include the matter of abortion among those pertaining to the Inquisition’.Footnote 51 Moreover, the Latin text includes the possibility of secret denunciation, formulated in a way that frightened people because of its implicit reference to inquisitorial procedures.Footnote 52 This seems to have been an aspect that some bishops tried to mitigate through their translations.

Against the comment of Christopoulos that ‘to the best of my knowledge, Contra procurantes abortum has never been translated into Italian’,Footnote 53 there are at least two documented vernacular translations of the Effrenatam. One was published in Ancona as a broadsheet by the printer Francesco Salvioni in 1590,Footnote 54 while another manuscript translation is preserved in Pienza among the papers of Bishop Francesco Piccolomini.Footnote 55 While the Pienza version does not differ significantly from the Latin original, the Ancona translation omits the secret denunciation,Footnote 56 a measure which would have reinforced inquisitorial power and had the potential to bring to light situations that could cause scandal and social disruption. Here too, the vernacular translation offers the opportunity to explore the contradictions ‘between theological pronouncements and the socio-political realities of ecclesiastical administration’, but it also shows the ‘inconsistent responses among Counter-Reformation ecclesiastical authorities’.Footnote 57

Identity between ‘Centre’ and ‘Periphery’Footnote 58

Regardless of the bull Effraenatam (indeed in direct contravention of it), many documents from bishops who desired to absolve cases of abortion can be found amongst the papers of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars examined by Vincenzo Lavenia.Footnote 59 In the Sedes Apostolica (1591), Sixtus V's successor Gregory XIV revoked his predecessor's decision and returned the reserve for the sin of abortion to bishops.Footnote 60 It was not chance that the document was issued after consultation with the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars.Footnote 61 Furthermore, it was no coincidence that it was speedily translated at the bishops’ behest. Thus in Bologna, in the same year as the enactment of Sedes Apostolica, at the time of Cardinal Archbishop Gabriele Paleotti, a translation was already circulating both as a manuscriptFootnote 62 and in print.Footnote 63 Multiple copies of both editions exist, reflecting the importance that was attached to the document's dissemination.Footnote 64 That the Bologna translation does not show any significant differences from the Latin text does not come as a surprise, given the restitution of episcopal prerogatives which resulted from the Gregorian bull. The only difference was the omission of one section in which it was argued that the severity of Sixtus's original measure plurimorum sacrilegiorum gravissimorumque peccatorum et scelerum occasionem dedisse (‘causes many sacrileges, and serious sins and evils to happen’). This omission is probably explained by an unwillingness to criticize a pope in a text written in the vernacular.

Conclusion

The circulation of Roman directives to the localities was not only a matter of language: softened or sharpened through apparently conscious omissions; the translations altered some aspects of the Latin texts. These changes are present in both printed and manuscript versions, whose inherently ‘volatile’ nature suited them to this project.Footnote 65 Thus the omission of the secretam denunciationem from translations of the bull Cum primum, particularly in territories such as Modena where the Inquisition had established its own court, witnesses to attempts by the episcopate to slow the Inquisition's advance. Similarly, in the translation of the bull Effraenatam made for the Marches area (Ancona), secret denunciation would have helped highlight the existence of abortion, which could potentially underlie social tensions. Its absence in the translation testifies to a desire among ecclesiastical authorities to avoid fanning the flames of scandal. In translating the Council's decrees on marriage, the role of the secular authorities was omitted, indicating the clergy's desire to protect their powers over offences that could cross into civil jurisdiction. Finally, the choice made to omit from the translations of the Council decrees on marriage any mention of punishments for neglectful clergymen reveals a desire to safeguard the standing of the clergy. Analysis of the correspondence between the ordinaries and Rome, kept in diocesan archives, reveals no will at the centre to examine translations undertaken locally. Such translations thus became ‘laboratories of compromise’ between rules and their reception at a local level, reflecting the desire for independence of the post-Tridentine bishops.

References

1 Rossi, Leonardo, ‘La Chiesa parla italiano’, in Caracciolo, Lucio, ed., Lingua è potere, Quaderni speciali di Limes 3 (Rome, 2010), 81–8Google Scholar.

2 Waquet, Franҁois, Le Latin ou l'empire d'un signe. XVIe–XXe siècle (Paris, 1998)Google Scholar; ET Latin or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (London, 2002).

3 In the language of censors, the ‘simple people’ or ‘idiots’ were those who had not undertaken classical studies, and thus were ignorant of Latin: Roggero, Marina, L'alfabeto conquistato. Apprendere e insegnare in Italia tra Sette e Ottocento (Bologna, 1999)Google Scholar.

4 Fragnito, Gigliola, La Bibbia al rogo. La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (Bologna, 1997)Google Scholar. On the demand for translations of the Bible in Italy before Luther, see Barbieri, Edoardo, Le Bibbie italiane del Quattrocento e del Cinquecento. Storia e bibliografia ragionata delle edizioni in lingua italiana dal 1471 al 1600, 2 vols (Milan, 1992)Google Scholar.

5 Fragnito, Gigliola, Proibito Capire. La Chiesa e il volgare nella prima età moderna (Bologna, 2005)Google Scholar.

6 On these themes, see Rusconi, Roberto, ‘Predicatori e predicazione (secoli IX–XVIII)’, in Vivanti, Corrado, ed., Annali della Storia d'Italia, IV. Intellettuali e potere (Turin, 1981), 951–1035Google Scholar, at 1003; Coletti, Vittorio, Parole dal pulpito. Chiesa e movimenti religiosi tra latino e volgare (Casale Monferrato, 1993)Google Scholar. On the rendering of the Bible text in a controlled and fragmented way, in vernacular exegetic-doctrinal and pedagogical-devotional literature between 1500 and 1600, see Zardin, Danilo, ‘Bibbia e apparati biblici nei conventi italiani del Cinque-Seicento. Primi appunti’, in Borraccini, Rosa Maria and Rusconi, Roberto, eds, Libri, biblioteche e cultura degli ordini regolari nell'Italia moderna attraverso la documentazione della Congregazione dell'Indice (Vatican City, 2006), 63–103.Google Scholar On the preachers’ efforts to achieve a balance between the prohibitions and the need to satisfy the desire to the Bible, see Michelson, Emily, The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy (Cambridge, MA, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the correspondence between the declaimed sermons and rewritten sermons, see Dall'Aglio, Stefano, ‘Faithful to the Spoken Word: Sermons from Orality to Writing in Early Modern Italy’, The Italianist 34 (2014), 463–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 Archival research on these questions has focused primarily on Rome, where relevant documents, in particular the series of Bandi e Bolle pontificie del XVI secolo, are held in the Biblioteca Nazionale; the Periodici Estinti in the Casanatense Library; and the Bandi in the Archivio di Stato. In addition, and in order to trace a profile of the dynamics of communication between the centre and periphery, local diocesan archives offer precious sources: the series ‘Edicta episcoporum, Decreti, Corrispondenze’ with the Roman Congregations and criminal sources (such as Tribunali Ecclesiastici) retain copies of papal bulls in Italian and of edicts derived from them prepared by local bishops. The Archivio di Stato holds regulations issued by civil authorities (e.g. Gridari), including vernacular provisions issued by the ecclesiastical authorities on issues relating to both internal (the confessional) and external (the episcopal or inquisitorial court) fora.

9 On these themes, see Prosperi, Adriano, Tribunali della coscienza. Inquisitori, confessori, missionari (Turin, 1996)Google Scholar; Romeo, Giovanni, Ricerche su confessione dei peccati e Inquisizione nell'Italia del Cinquecento (Naples, 1997)Google Scholar; Brambilla, Elena, Alle origini del Sant'Uffizio. Penitenza, confessione e giustizia spirituale dal Medioevo al XVI secolo (Bologna, 2000)Google Scholar; Romeo, Giovanni, L'Inquisizione nell'Italia moderna (Rome and Bari, 2002)Google Scholar, 35–40; Rusconi, Roberto, L'ordine dei peccati. La confessione tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna, 2002)Google Scholar.

10 ‘Mixed court issues’ (Latin: mixti fori) pertain particularly to matrimonial and sexual behaviour (bigamy, rape, incest, sodomy) on which ecclesiastical and secular authorities claim exclusive jurisdiction. On these themes, see Menchi, Silvana Seidel and Quaglioni, Diego, eds, Trasgessioni. Seduzione, concubinato, adulterio, bigamia (XIV–XVII secolo) (Bologna, 2004)Google Scholar.

11 ‘Ordinationes circa obseruantiam diuini cultus in ecclesiis, et uenerationem festiuitatum; necnon et contra simoniacos, blasphematores, sodomitas et concubinarios’: L. Tomassetti et Collegi adlecti Romae virorum s. theologiae et ss. canonum peritorum, Bullarium Romanum [hereafter: BR], 24 vols (Turin, 1857–72), 7: 434–8.

12 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, Bandi e bolle pontificie del XVI secolo, 68.13.E.1.76: ‘Bolla della santita di N.S. Papa Pio Qvinto, nella quale si prohibisce la Simonia, la Biastema, la Sodomia, il Concubinato, il passeggiar per le Chiese: & che i poueri, & gli altri mendicanti non vi siano admessi mentre si celebrano i diuini officij, & del modo che si dee tenere nello entrare, & stare, & conuersare in Chiesa, & anchora di leuar via le Casse, & i depositi de morti, & di non lauorare il di delle feste, insieme con altre cose appertenenti al culto diuino’.

13 ‘Et ut praemissorum delictorum simoniae, blasphemiae ac stupri nefandi notitia facilius habeatur, volumus quod in singulis casibus, non solum per accusationem, sed etiam ad simplicem et secretam denunciationem procedatur per quoscumque iudices, alias tamen de iure competentes, tam ratione delicti quam personarum, ita quod inter eos locus sit praeventioni’: ‘Ordinationes circa obseruantiam diuini cultus in ecclesiis, et uenerationem festiuitatum; necnon et contra simoniacos, blasphematores, sodomitas et concubinarios’: BR, 7: 434–8, at 437.

14 Maria Anna Noto, ‘Rebellio o defensio licita? La rivolta di Benevento contro la Bolla “dei Vizi” del 1566’, Nuova Rivista Storica 93 (2009), 861–90, at 862.

15 Parma, Archivio di Stato, Carteggio Farnesiano Interno, busta 103, fasc. 16–30 aprile 1580.

16 Noto, Maria Anna, Viva la Chiesa, mora il Tiranno. Il sovrano, la legge, la comunità e i ribelli (Benevento 1566) (Naples, 2010)Google Scholar, 139.

17 ‘The city of Benevento shall not be governed . . . with the . . . Inquisition, as happens in Sicily’: Rome, Archivio di Stato, Tribunale Criminale del Governatore, Beneventana tumultus et conspirationis contra Bullam Sanctissimae Inquisitionis et aliorum excessum, fol. 1269v; see also Noto, ‘Viva la Chiesa’, 200. On the Spanish Inquisition, see Pérez, Joseph, Breve historia de la Inquisicion española (Barcelona, 2003)Google Scholar; Montesano, Franco Cardini-Marina, La lunga storia dell'Inquisizione. Luci e ombre della ‘leggenda nera’ (Rome, 2005)Google Scholar; Kamen, Henry, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, 4th edn (New Haven, CT, and London, 2014)Google Scholar.

18 Montepulciano, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Atti di Curia, busta 424.

19 Savona-Noli, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Vescovi, fasc. ‘Gio. Ambrogio Fieschi’.

20 It is not included in the following examples: Modena, Archivio di Stato, Documenti di Stati e Città, busta 106, ser. XVIII, ‘Sommario della Bolla del B. Pio V contro i Bestemmiatori’; Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, ANT Misc. I.C 56 (10), ‘Sommario di vna Bolla di Pio V. di fel. mem. in cui si prohibisce trà molti altri vitij la biastema’, in Sommario di alcune bolle de’ sommi pontefici, et decreti de’ sacri Canoni, & del Concilio di Trento. Fatti volgari per publicarsi da’ parochiani ogn'anno nelle loro Chiese. Di commissione del molto illustre & reuerendissimo monsignore Giulio Cesare Salicini vescouo di Rimini (Rimini, 1593); Piacenza, Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile, Sala D E V 020, ‘Sommario della parte della Bolla di Pio V intorno al conuersare diuotamente in Chiesa, Sommario della detta Bolla di Pio V contra li poueri, che cercano elemosina in Chiesa, nel hora delli Duini Officij, Sommario della parte della sudetta Bolla circa l'osseruanza delli giorni Festiui. Sommario della parte della predetta Bolla contro i Bestemmiatori’, in Constitutiones, et decreta condita in synodo dioecesana Placentina, sub ill.mo, et reuerendiss. D. Claudio Rangono, Dei, & Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae gratia episcopo Placentino, & comite primo habita. Sedente S.D.N. Clemente 8. pontifice opt. Maximo (Piacenza, 1600); Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, Misc. B. 701.15, ‘Sommario di vna parte della Bolla di Pio Quinto contra i Bestemmiatori’, in Constitutiones, et decreta condita in synodo dioecesana ciuitatis Burgi Sancti Donnini prima. Quam habuit Ioannes Linatus Dei, & sanctae apostolicae sedis gratia episcopus Burgi Sancti Donnini de anno 1608. die 14. Octobris (Parma, 1608); Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, vol. misc. 288 1–2, ‘Sommario delle Bolle di Leone X. e di Pio Quinto contro li Bestemmiatori’, in Constitutiones, et decreta synodalia promulgata in cathedrali ecclesia Fanensi à perillustri, & reuerendissimo D.D. Thoma Lapio eiusdem ecclesiae episcopo Pisauri (Pisa, 1613).

21 Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, N.12.1\1, in Decreta edita, et promvlgata in synodis dioecesanis Vercellensibvs III. Quas Reverendissimvs D.D. I. Franciscvs Bonhomivs, Dei, et Sedis Apostolicae gratia episcopvs S. Ecclesiae Vercellensis habuit. Additis praeterea ad extremuum edictis, constitutionibus, et decretis, uulgari sermone espressi, quae certis anni diebus, in ecclesia populo enuncianda, promulgandauè sint. Concessu Superiorum (Milan, 1575). The bishop was Giovanni Francesco Bonòmini: DBI, online at: <http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-francesco-bonomini>, accessed 4 August 2015. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, 13.15.C.3.M., in Decreta Synodalia ecclesiae Fanensis in Synodo Dioecesana habita Fani, die XVJ. Mensis Augusti. M.D.XCIII. edita, & promulgata (Rome, 1594). The bishop was Giulio Ottinelli: DBI, online at: <http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tag/giulio-ottonelli/>, accessed 11 June 2015.

22 ‘Declaratio Concilii Tridentini sess. XIV, cap. II et IV, circa impedimenta cognationis spiritualis et affinitatis ex fornicatione, quoad matrimonia post confirmationem concilii contracta et de cetero contrahenda, Sequitur alia declaratio circa impedimenta cognationis spiritualis, Sequitur alia declaratio circa impedimentum affinitatis et fornicationis’ (20 August, 28 November 1566), in BR, 7: 476–8.

23 ‘Declaratio Concilii Tridentini, sess. XIV capite tertio, super impedimento publicae honestatis, circa sponsalia uel matrimonialia’ (1 July 1568), in BR, 7: 678–9.

24 Alberigo, Giuseppe et al., Conciliorum Oecomenicorum Decreta, 3rd edn (Bologna, 2013), 753–9Google Scholar [hereafter: COD].

25 Chiusi, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Registri dei matrimoni, busta 1.

26 Camerino, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Diversa spiritualia, busta 1550–1606.

27 Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, MISC 2689. 007, ‘Decreto della reformatione del matrimonio contenuto nel primo capitolo della Ventesima quarta sessione’, in Parte sostantiale delli decreti del Concilio di Trento, che furono publicati nella sinodo diocesana di Venetia il dì 17. di Settembre 1564 (Venice, 1564).

28 Pisa, Archivio Arcivescovile, Bolle, decreti, istruzioni, busta 2. The archbishop was Angelo Niccolini.

29 Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, V.F. 162 AOO35, ‘Decreto del concilio tridentino della riforma di matrimonii fatto in uolgare’, in Constitvtiones editae in dioecesana synodo beneventana anno domini M.D.LXVII Ab Illvstrissimo Reuerendissimo D. Iacobo Sabello S.R.E. Sancte Mariae in Cosmedin. Presbytero Cardinali Archiepiscopo Beneuentano (Rome, 1567).

30 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, 68.13.C.6.1, ‘Decretvm de matrimonii Reformatione – Decreto medesimo fatto volgare’, in Constitvtiones editae in synodo dioecesana Rossanensi Quam Reuerendissimus P.D. ancilots Archiepiscopus habuit Anno Domini, MDLXXIIII. Cal Iunij. Addita sunt quaedam Decreta Tridentini Concilij & Constitutiones summorum Pontificum quarum cognitio necessaria erat (Rome, 1579).

31 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, 68.13.D.29, ‘Decreto del sacro Concilio di Trento, da publicarsi dalli Curati in lingua volgare almeno nel principio del'Aduento, & Quaresima per la reformatione de matrimoni, & altri tempi secondo il bisogno, per leuare molti abusi intorno ad essi’, in Constitvtiones synodales ecclesiae venvsinae editae, et promvlgatae in Synodo Dioecesana habita Venusij die XVIj. Septemb. Quae fuit Dominica tertia. Anno MDLXXXIX (Rome, 1591).

32 Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale, ANT Misc. I.C 56 (10), in Decreto del Sacro Concilio di Trento fatto adi 11. Di Nouembre 1563 & da publicarsi ogn'anno da'Parochiani dentro & fuora della Città, nella Festa della Circoncisione del Signore, che è il primo dell'anno, & del mese di Genaro. Tradotto di latino in volgare per ordine di Monsignor Reuerendissimo Vescouo dal detto Concilio, nella Sess. 24. Cap. I. de refor. Matrimonio, Sommario di alcune bolle de’ sommi pontefici, et decreti de’ sacri Canoni, & del Concilio di Trento. Fatti volgari per publicarsi da’ parochiani ogn'anno nelle loro Chiese. Di commissione del molto illustre & reuerendissimo monsignore Giulio Cesare Salicini vescouo di Rimini (Rimini, 1593).

33 San Sepolcro, Biblioteca Comunale, FA.G.4.272, ‘Decreto del S. Concilio di Trento sulla riforma del matrimonio, nella sessione XIIII. Il capitolo primo tradotto volgare per commodità dei Parochi’, in Constitutiones et decreta aedita in synodo diaecesana Auximana. Anno post Christum natum 1593 (Perugia, 1594).

34 COD, 756.

35 Turin, Biblioteca Reale, C.23.38, Libro delle bolle apostoliche. Editti, decreti, lettere pastorali, & altri ordini. Che si deuono publicare da ciascuno paroco, frà l'anno (Alessandria, 1610).

36 Mancino and Romeo, Clero criminale.

37 COD, 759.

38 Lucca, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Atti del Clero, Sinodi, Decreti, editti episcopali Bolle per decime et altre materie, fols 40r–42r, ‘A qualcunque persona’, 9 September 1565.

39 COD, 758.

40 Camerino, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Edicta diversa, busta 1551–1559.

41 Siena, Biblioteca Diocesana, vol. misc., A 044/03, ‘Bulla s.mi D.N. Gregorii papae XIIII de dispensationibus Matrimonialibus, in secundo, vel in primo & secundo consanguinitatis seu affinitatis gradibus’, 1 March 1590.

42 Florence, Archivio della Curia Arcivescovile, Filze di cancelleria, busta 1589–1592, fols 274r–276r, ‘La Bolla sopra il non concedere dispense in alcuni gradi principalmente prohibiti; et innovatione delle pene contro delli Incestuosi et abominevoli congiungimenti della Santità di N.S. Gregorio XIIII’, 30 May 1591.

43 Pienza, Archivio Diocesano, Costituzioni più necessarie alle Cure ecclesiastiche di vari Pontefici, Giubilei, Indulgenze, editti e decreti dal 1564 al 1699, busta 273\I, ‘Sommario della bolla di N.Sig.re Gregorio XIIII proibente concedersi dispense nel primo e secondo grado tanto di consanguinei, quanto d'affinità’, 1 March 1590.

44 Mantua, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Gonzaga – Miscellaneo di religione e disciplina ecclesiastica, busta 3357, pezzo 25, ‘Sommario della bolla di N.S. Papa Gregorio XIII sopra il non conceder le dispense nelli primo; e secondo gradi di consanguinità, & affinità, & il douer castigare gli incestuosi’, 1 March 1591.

45 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, Bandi e Bolle pontificie del XVI secolo, 68.13.E.2.21, ‘Sommario della bolla di nostro signore Sisto Papa Qvinto Circa gl'Adulterii publici, stupri, lenocinii & separatione de Mariti, & Moglie in Roma’ (Rome, 1586).

46 ‘Et nihilominus mandamus vniuersis & singulis dictae Vrbis Iudicibus ordinarijs . . . contra criminosos, ac delinquentes praedictos vtriusque sexus inquirant & procedant, ac in eos iuxta praemissa culpabiles repertos, praedictis poenis, vtsupra dispositum est, animaduertant: contumaces, rebelles, & inobedientes, eisq; auxilium . . . vel fauorem, quomodolibet praestantes, per opportuna iuris & facti remedia appellatione postposita compescendo, inuocato etiam ac adhibito, si opus fuerit, auxilio brachij secularis’ (‘However, we depend on the justice system of Rome for the investigation of criminals and felons of both sexes, and the conviction of culprits according to the letter of the law; we also depend on it for suitable remedies [no right of appeal], and if need be, the control of law-breakers, dissenters, rebels and their allies, by the ordinary police authorities of the secular arm’; my translation): Siena, Biblioteca Diocesana, vol. misc., FCMSS a 044/03, ‘De temeraria Tori separatione, ac publicis adulteriis, stupris, et lenociniis in quibusdam casibus severius (in Alma Urbe) punienda’.

47 BR, 9: 39–42.

48 Prosperi, Adriano, Dare l'anima. Storia di un infanticidio (Torino, 2005), 246.Google Scholar

49 Christopoulos, John, ‘Abortion and the Confessional in Counter-Reformation Italy’, RQ 65 (2012), 443–84Google Scholar, at 459. This is shown by de Boer, Wietse, The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan (Leiden, 2001), 217Google Scholar: ‘bishops or the Pope could “reserve” the absolution of select cases to themselves or to a deputy, requiring such cases to be referred to them for resolution’. On confidential episcopal cases, which vary from one diocese to another and of which typical examples are abortion, adultery and concubinage, see Brambilla, Elena, ‘Casi riservati’, in Prosperi, Adriano, Lavenia, Vincenzo and Tedeschi, John, eds, Dizionario storico dell'Inquisizione, 4 vols (Pisa, 2010)Google Scholar, 1: 290–1.

50 In this case witchcraft: Romeo, Giovanni, Inquisitori, esorcisti e streghe nell'Italia della Controriforma (Florence, 1990), 95–6Google Scholar.

51 Lavenia, Vincenzo, ‘“D'animal fante”. Teologia, medicina legale e identità umana. Secoli XVI–XVII’, in Prosperi, Adriano, ed., Salvezza delle anime e disciplina dei corpi. Un seminario sulla storia del battesimo (Pisa, 2006), 483–526Google Scholar, at 496 (my translation).

52 ‘Vt in his delictis quae vt plurimo in occulto perpetrantvr, contra quosqumque non solum per accusationem & declarationem, verum etiam per inquisitionem ac simplicem denunciationem procedant’: BR, 9: 41.

53 Christopoulos, ‘Abortion’, 469.

54 Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, vol. misc., C.065C.098.029, ‘Sommario di tre Bolle de Sommi Pontefici, cioè di Pio V sopra i censi, di Sisto V sopra gl’ aborti, et l'altra de gli patti reprobati nelle Compagnie, che saluano il Capitale, e ìn nome di guadagno, pongono certa risposta’.

55 Pienza, Archivio Diocesano, Editti e lettere circolari di mons. Alessandro Piccolomini dal dì 4 agosto 1564 al dì 22 maggio 1575 e di mons. Francesco Maria Piccolomini dal dì 16 ago. 1575 al dì 13 dicembre 1588, busta 26\I, fols 270r–271r, ‘Sommario della Bolla di N.S. Sixto Quinto intorno al procurare di fare sconciare, o, sperdere le Donne grauide, o, operare che non concepischino’.

56 ‘Non solum per accusationem et declarationem, verum etiam per inquisitionem ac simplicem denunciationem procedant’: BR, 9: 41.

57 Christopoulos, ‘Abortion’, 446.

58 Ditchfield, Simon, ‘Tridentine Catholicism’, in Bamji, Alexandra, Janssen, Geert and Laven, Mary, eds, The Ashgate Research Companion to the Counter-Reformation (Aldershot, 2013), 15–31.Google Scholar

59 Lavenia, ‘D'animal fante’, 497.

60 BR, 9: 430–1.

61 ‘Habita super hoc eum venerabilibus fratribus nostris S.R.E. cardinalibus, super negociis et consultationibus episcoporum deputatis, matura deliberatione’: ibid. 431.

62 Rome, Archivio di Stato, Collezione di Bandi, busta 8, pezzo 31, in Sommario della Constitutione di N. S. Papa Gregorio XIIII Moderatiua della Bolla della felice mem. di Papa Sisto V. to Contro quelli che in qual si uoglia modo danno opera al misfatto dell'Aborto (Bologna, 1591).

63 Bologna, Biblioteca Comunale dell'Archiginnasio, vol. misc, 16.Q.V.39, pezzo 09, in Sommario della constitvtione di N.S. Papa Gregorio XIIII. Moderatiua della Bolla della felice mem. di Papa Sisto V. Contro quegli, che in qual si uoglia modo danno opera al misfatto dello aborto (Bologna, 1591).

64 Modena, Archivio di Stato, Documenti di Stati e Città, busta 106, ser. XVIII, fasc. 2, in Sommario della constitutione di N.S. Papa Gregorio XIIII Moderatiua della Bolla della fe.mem. di Papa Sisto U contra quelli, che in qualsiuoglia modo danno opera al misfatto dell'aborto (Bologna, 1591).

65 On the relationships between print and manuscript in early modern Italy, see Barbierato, Federico, Nella stanza dei circoli: Clavicula Salomonis e libri di magia a Venezia nei secoli XVII e XVIII (Florence, 2002)Google Scholar; de Vivo, Filippo, Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (Oxford, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.