The Trial of Giordano Bruno by Germano Maifreda;

Author:Germano Maifreda; [Maifreda;, Germano]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367459130
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2022-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Spies, Spies, and More Spies

The history of the 16th century Roman Inquisition is strewn with heretics that became informants. Such is the case, for example, of Giovan Battista Scotti.25 Bolognese by birth, at the beginning of the 1540s he belonged to a heterodox circle of “spiritual” women and men in Napoli who were followers of Spanish theologian and reformer Juan de Valdés, who later gathered around Cardinal Reginald Pole in Viterbo. Scotti associated with Pietro Carnesecchi and Vittore Soranzo in particular – both of whom were tried by the Inquisition, the second sentenced to death in 1567 – engaging in a lively exchange of heterodox letters and books. Scotti abjured after being condemned for the first time by the Inquisition of Bologna in 1543, but continued to openly profess pro-reform doctrines. Due to new suspicions that had moved the Holy Office, he retreated to the Abruzzi and the Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Napoli, Ascanio Colonna. In 1547 he then appeared spontaneously in front of Cardinal Marcello Cervini, the future Pope Marcellus II. He confessed his errors, abjured a second time, and saw his life spared.

Giovan Battista Scotti became, we do not know when, an unscrupulous spy for the Holy Office, which paid him handsomely. Evidence remains of two payments made to him by the Inquisition in November 1551 and March 1552. There are records of his relations with the Roman Curia again in the 1560s, and around 1569–1570 the inquisitors wrote up a profile that described him with these words:

The Holy Office has received great service from him because, in addition to his discovering the schools in Rome, Regno, Bologna, Venice, Cremona, Modena, Pisa and almost all of Italy, the Holy Office was accustomed, when it wanted to put together a case against a suspect, to sending him to get information about him. He [Scotti], in addition to the delivery of the writings he had on them [the suspects], he briefly put in writing what he knew and what the best way was to discover more: then [the Holy Office] would examine them.26

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