Note 745 — Chapter I

Peignot, Essai sur la Liberté d’Écrire, Paris, 1832, 8vo, pp. 55, 61. Baillet, Jugemens des Savans, Amsterdam, 1725, 12mo, Tom. II. Partie I. p. 43. Father Paul Sarpi’s remarkable account of the origin of the Inquisition, and of the Index Expurgatorius of Venice, which was the first ever printed, Opere, Helmstadt, 1763, 4to, Tom. IV. pp. 1-67. Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. I. pp. 459-464, 470. Vogt, Catalogus Librorum Rariorum, Hamburgi, 1753, 8vo, pp. 367-369. So much for Europe. Abroad it was worse. From 1550, a certificate was obliged to accompany every book, setting forth, that it was not a prohibited book, without which certificate, no book was permitted to be sold or read in the colonies. (Llorente, Tom. I. p. 467.) But thus far the Inquisition, in relation to the Index Expurgatorius, consulted the civil authorities, or was specially authorized by them to act. In 1640 this ceremony was no longer observed, and the Index was printed by the Inquisition alone, without any commission from the civil government. From the time when the danger of the heresy of Luther became considerable, no books arriving from Germany and France were permitted to be circulated in Spain, except by special license. Bisbe y Vidal, Tratado de Comedias, Barcelona, 1618, 12mo, f. 55.