n, this peril proved to be unreal.
The Reformation had not taken root so deep and wide in Italy that it
could not be eradicated. When, therefore, the Spanish viceroys sought
to establish their national Inquisition in Naples and Milan, the
rebellious people received protection and support from the Papacy; and
the Holy Office, as remodeled in Rome, became a far less awful engine of
oppression than that of Seville.

[Footnote 96: Naples and Milan passionately and successfully opposed its
introduction by the Spanish viceroys. But it ruled in Sicily and
Sardinia.]

[Footnote 97: McCrie, p. 186.]

[Footnote 98: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. i. p. 79.]

It was sufficiently severe, however. 'At Rome,' writes a resident in
1568, 'some are daily burned, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and
places of confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new
ones.'[99] This general statement may be checked by extracts from the
despatches of Venetian ambassadors in Rome, which, though they are not
continuous, and cannot be supposed to give an exhaustive list of the
victims of the Inquisition, enable us to judge with some degree of
accuracy what the frequency of executions may have been.[100]

[Footnote 99: McCrie, p. 272.]

[Footnote 100: Mutinelli's _Storia Arcana_, etc. vol. i., is the source
from which I have drawn the details given above.]

On September 27, 1567, a session of the Holy Office was held at S. Maria
sopra Minerva. Seventeen heretics were condemned. Fifteen of these were
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, the galleys for life, fines, or
temporary imprisonment, according to the nature of their offenses. Two
were reserved for capital punishment--namely, Carnesecchi and a friar
from Cividale di Belluno. They were beheaded and burned upon the bridge
of S. Angelo on October 4. On May 28, 1569, there was an Act of the
Inquisition at the Minerva, twenty Cardinals attending. Four impenitent
heretics were condemned to the stake. Ten penitents were sentenced to
various punishments of less severity. On August 2, 1578, occurred a
singular scandal touching some Spaniards and Portuguese of evil manners,
all of whom were burned with the exception of those who contrived to
escape in time. On August 5, 1581, an English Protestant was burned for
grossly insulting the Host. On February 20, 1582, after an Act of the
Inquisition in due form, seventeen heretics were sentenced, three to
death, and the rest to imprisonment, etc