Note 185 — Chapter II · NAPLES.

These feelings are warmly but respectfully expressed in a memorial addressed to Innocent XII (1691-1700), by Giuseppe Valletta, an advocate of Naples, in support of envoys sent to negotiate with him (MS. penes me).

It is difficult for us to estimate the horror which, as the inquisitors boasted, the Holy Office cast over the population. They relate with pride that in Spain men cited to appear, even on matters not pertaining to the faith, but ignorant of the cause, were known to take to their beds and die of sheer terror. How much greater, then, they ask, must be the horror of those accused, suddenly arrested and cast into the strictest and most secret prison, not to mention what followed?—“Sola simplici vocatione alicujus inquisitoris in Hispania, ait Morillus citatus, per aliquem ejus ministrum, ad negotium forte particulare non pertinens ad Inquisitionem Fidei, absque eo quod vocati sciant ad quid vocentur, adeo perterrefieri homines soleant, ut aliquibus statim necessario decumbere et præ nimio dolore febri superveniente emori contigerit. At quid in casibus ubi datur præventio per accusationem aut denuntiationem et agitur de repentina captura et de carceratione rigidissima ac secretissima, ut taceam de aliis quæ hanc consequuntur, quanto magis perterrefiant capti et carcerati? quanto maiori horrore afficientur?”—Salelles, De Materiis Tribunalium S. Inquisitionis, Proleg. IV, n. 8 (Romæ, 1651).