[Footnote 106:  See Sarpi’s ‘Discourse on the Inquisition,’ Opere, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 107:  I owe to Mr. H.F.  Brown details about the register of criminals condemned by the Holy Office, which substantiate my statement regarding the various types of cases in its jurisdiction.]

The truth is that the Venetians, though they were willing to risk an open rupture with Rome, remained at heart sound Churchmen devoted to the principles of the Catholic Reaction.  The Republic conceded the fact of Inquisitorial authority, while it reserved the letter of State-supervision.  Venetian decadence was marked by this hypocrisy of pride; and so long as appearances were saved, the Holy Office exercised its functions freely.  The nobles who acted as assessors had no sympathy with religious toleration, being themselves under the influence of confessors and directors.

How little the subjects of S. Mark at this epoch trusted the good faith of laws securing liberty of thought in Venice, may be gathered from what happened immediately after the publication of the Index Expurgatorius in 1596.  From an official report upon the decline of the printing trade in Venice, it appears that within the space of a few months the number of presses fell from 125 to 40.[108] Printers were afraid to undertake either old or new works, and the trade languished for lack of books to publish.  Yet an edict had been issued announcing that by the terms of the Concordat with Clement VIII., the Venetian press would only be subject to State control and not to the Roman tribunals.[109] The truth is that, in regard both to the Holy Office and to the Index, Venice was never strong enough to maintain the independence which she boasted.  By cunning use of the confessional, and by unscrupulous control of opinion, the Church succeeded in doing there much the same as in any other Italian city.  Successive Popes made, indeed, a show of respecting the liberties of the Republic.  On material points, touching revenue and State-administration, they felt it wise to concede even more than complimentary privileges; and when Paul V. encroached upon these privileges, the Venetians were ready to resist him.  Yet the quarrels between the Vatican and San Marco were, after all, but family disputes.  The Venetians at the close of the sixteenth century proved themselves no better friends to spiritual freedom than were the Grand Dukes of Tuscany.  Their political jealousies, commercial anxieties, and feints of maintaining a power that was rapidly decaying, denoted no partiality for the opponents of Rome—­unless, like Sarpi, these wore the livery of the State, and defended with the pen its secular prerogatives.  Therefore, when the Signory published Clement VIII.’s Index, when copies of that Index were sown broadcast, while only an edition of sixty was granted to the Concordat, authors and publishers felt, and felt rightly, that their day had passed.  The art of printing sank at once to less than a third of its productivity.