Dom - sorry, I misled you. The last of the four programmes is on tonight, on UKTV History. That's Freeview 12, Sky 582, NTL607/100, and Telewest 203. Tonight's final episode - "How artist Goya put himself at risk by depicting the Inquisition.'
It's been very enlightening (no, wait, the Enlightenment didn't happen until Chapter 15!) - last night's programme dealt with Rome's increasing fury with Venice, which was a hotbed of intellectual activity, mostly in the forbidden area of questioning Catholicism through smuggling Lutheran books to be printed off on that era's version of the Internet: the printing press. Until the press was made, Holy Rome was the keeper of all books. Only the books it deemed fit for the consumption of the elite literate were available. The Bible was published only in Latin, so that only its priests could read it to the illiterate masses, who signally failed to understand the nuances which the priests could interpret to their - or their masters' - orders. To paraphrase Monty Python, the Church's greatest strength was its power. Power and control. The Church's greatest strengths were power and control. Power and control and an inordinately corrupting greed for things material - these corruptions being what the austere Lutheran doctrine sought to correct.
Anyway, Rome rather admired the Spanish's regular barbecueing of dissidents, and decided that enough was enough with those bolshie Venetians, who constantly abjured, reneged on their forced abjurations, and went back again and again to their wilfully anti-Catholic ways. Spurred by a ghastly creature called Carafa, the Pope's Ambassador to Iberia, who recommended a pious programme of denunciations for Venice, the Pope proposed more and more investigations, although executions weren't initially carried out - just fines, a bit of imprisonment, and some forced abjurations. But the Pope upped Carafa to Bishop, who then cut loose with a Spanish-style inquisition of his very own. ("Thank you, your Holiness! Just what I've always wanted - the power of torturing and killing our countrymen! Yipppeee!")
Bish. Carafa had a liberal-minded Franciscan, Friar Baldo Libertino, flung into some dank, underground cell for 14 years, where he was kept in foul solitary confinement. Libertino's teachings were that who needed intercession (through priests) with God? People could pray direct. He read from a Bible printed in the common language - not in controlling, arcane Latin. Probably considering himself fortunate not to have been burned alive, he was relatively safe - until Carafa was elevated - mostly thanks to his unceasing scourging of the intellectuals in universities, libraries, and book shop owners/smugglers - to Pope. Now, as Pope, he could afford to run completely amok with his power. However, in true Machiavellian fashion, knowing that the populace was beginning to agree with more liberal views on the promotion of religion, he didn't want to risk a mob storming his very grand Palace, which he'd had built for himself, as any self-respecting Bishop would do. He had the Friar rowed out by night in a gondola. Libertino was chained to a rock. A second gondola appeared, and the two gondoliers placed a board between them, onto which they shoved the weak, old Friar. Then they rowed apart, without looking back.
Meanwhile, an incredibly brave 24 y.o. student of Padua University, Pomponio Algerio, sentenced to prison for similarly liberal beliefs, refuses to abjure. In prison, his Lutheran beliefs grow stronger, and are recorded in letters sent to his fellow students at the time. Pope Paul IV (ex-Bishop Carafa) slyly sends Pomponio to the secular authority - the Church itself is never seen to execute those it condemns (cute, eh?). In 1555 he's sent to a year's solitary confinement, where he's visited by a priest from St John the Beheaded to tell him that if he abjures, he'll very humanely be strangled before being burned. Pomponio probably invites him to do something interesting with himself, and the priest leaves.
Accordingly, a year later, Pomponio readies himself for the flames. But - no! In an effort to spice up the now rather boring ritual of setting fire to pyres, the good old Roman Inquisition (never one short of interesting ideas) has devised a new, improved punishment for young Pomponio. He is to be BOILED ALIVE in an attractive mix of tar, oil, and turpentine. According to the record, meticulously kept by his tormentors, in the Piazza Novona, Pomponio is 'steadfast in the face of death' - 'everyone was in awe'. It took fifteen minutes for the boiling to take him, during which time he remained serene and begged for mercy from no-one.
When the Pope died, mobs freed dozens of Inquisition prisoners, destroyed records, and threw the likeness he'd had cast of himself into the Tiber. Probably because of continuing unruliness, Venice was excommunicated in 1606! However, it's interesting to note that in spite of all their best efforts, the extreme 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum' - the endless list of books prohibited by Rome under their effort at thought control - was not abolished until.... roll of drums...
1996!
Oh, how the mighty cling to power...
It's been very enlightening (no, wait, the Enlightenment didn't happen until Chapter 15!) - last night's programme dealt with Rome's increasing fury with Venice, which was a hotbed of intellectual activity, mostly in the forbidden area of questioning Catholicism through smuggling Lutheran books to be printed off on that era's version of the Internet: the printing press. Until the press was made, Holy Rome was the keeper of all books. Only the books it deemed fit for the consumption of the elite literate were available. The Bible was published only in Latin, so that only its priests could read it to the illiterate masses, who signally failed to understand the nuances which the priests could interpret to their - or their masters' - orders. To paraphrase Monty Python, the Church's greatest strength was its power. Power and control. The Church's greatest strengths were power and control. Power and control and an inordinately corrupting greed for things material - these corruptions being what the austere Lutheran doctrine sought to correct.
Anyway, Rome rather admired the Spanish's regular barbecueing of dissidents, and decided that enough was enough with those bolshie Venetians, who constantly abjured, reneged on their forced abjurations, and went back again and again to their wilfully anti-Catholic ways. Spurred by a ghastly creature called Carafa, the Pope's Ambassador to Iberia, who recommended a pious programme of denunciations for Venice, the Pope proposed more and more investigations, although executions weren't initially carried out - just fines, a bit of imprisonment, and some forced abjurations. But the Pope upped Carafa to Bishop, who then cut loose with a Spanish-style inquisition of his very own. ("Thank you, your Holiness! Just what I've always wanted - the power of torturing and killing our countrymen! Yipppeee!")
Bish. Carafa had a liberal-minded Franciscan, Friar Baldo Libertino, flung into some dank, underground cell for 14 years, where he was kept in foul solitary confinement. Libertino's teachings were that who needed intercession (through priests) with God? People could pray direct. He read from a Bible printed in the common language - not in controlling, arcane Latin. Probably considering himself fortunate not to have been burned alive, he was relatively safe - until Carafa was elevated - mostly thanks to his unceasing scourging of the intellectuals in universities, libraries, and book shop owners/smugglers - to Pope. Now, as Pope, he could afford to run completely amok with his power. However, in true Machiavellian fashion, knowing that the populace was beginning to agree with more liberal views on the promotion of religion, he didn't want to risk a mob storming his very grand Palace, which he'd had built for himself, as any self-respecting Bishop would do. He had the Friar rowed out by night in a gondola. Libertino was chained to a rock. A second gondola appeared, and the two gondoliers placed a board between them, onto which they shoved the weak, old Friar. Then they rowed apart, without looking back.
Meanwhile, an incredibly brave 24 y.o. student of Padua University, Pomponio Algerio, sentenced to prison for similarly liberal beliefs, refuses to abjure. In prison, his Lutheran beliefs grow stronger, and are recorded in letters sent to his fellow students at the time. Pope Paul IV (ex-Bishop Carafa) slyly sends Pomponio to the secular authority - the Church itself is never seen to execute those it condemns (cute, eh?). In 1555 he's sent to a year's solitary confinement, where he's visited by a priest from St John the Beheaded to tell him that if he abjures, he'll very humanely be strangled before being burned. Pomponio probably invites him to do something interesting with himself, and the priest leaves.
Accordingly, a year later, Pomponio readies himself for the flames. But - no! In an effort to spice up the now rather boring ritual of setting fire to pyres, the good old Roman Inquisition (never one short of interesting ideas) has devised a new, improved punishment for young Pomponio. He is to be BOILED ALIVE in an attractive mix of tar, oil, and turpentine. According to the record, meticulously kept by his tormentors, in the Piazza Novona, Pomponio is 'steadfast in the face of death' - 'everyone was in awe'. It took fifteen minutes for the boiling to take him, during which time he remained serene and begged for mercy from no-one.
When the Pope died, mobs freed dozens of Inquisition prisoners, destroyed records, and threw the likeness he'd had cast of himself into the Tiber. Probably because of continuing unruliness, Venice was excommunicated in 1606! However, it's interesting to note that in spite of all their best efforts, the extreme 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum' - the endless list of books prohibited by Rome under their effort at thought control - was not abolished until.... roll of drums...
1996!
Oh, how the mighty cling to power...
