Editing Inquisition (section)

=== Inquisitions in Medieval Italy ===
{{distinguish|Roman Inquisition}}
Only fragmentary data is available for the period before the [[Roman Inquisition]] of 1542. In 1276, some 170 [[Catharism|Cathars]] were captured in [[Sirmione]], who were then imprisoned in [[Verona]], and there, after a two-year trial, on 13 February from 1278, more than a hundred of them were burned.<ref>Kras, Paweł. ''Ad abolendam diversarum haeresium pravitatem. System inkwizycyjny w średniowiecznej Europie''. KUL 2006, p. 411. Del Col, Andrea. ''Inquisizione in Italia'', p. 3.</ref> In [[Orvieto]], at the end of 1268/1269, 85 heretics were sentenced, none of whom were executed, but in 18 cases the sentence concerned people who had already died.<ref>Lansing, Carol. ''Power and Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy'', 2001, p. 138.</ref> In [[Tuscany]], the inquisitor Ruggiero burned at least 11 people in about a year (1244/1245).<ref>Prudlo, Donald. ''The martyred inquisitor''. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008. p. 42.</ref> Excluding the executions of the heretics at Sirmione in 1278, 36 Inquisition executions are documented in the March of Treviso between 1260 and 1308.<ref>Del Col, p. 96–98. Already in 1233 in Verona, 60 Cathars were burnt on the order of the Dominican Giovanni da Vicenza, but formally he issued this sentence as the podesta of this city, and not the inquisitor, which he became only in 1247. Cf. {{harvp|Lea|1887b|pp=204, 206}}.</ref> Ten people were executed in [[Bologna]] between 1291 and 1310.<ref name="PK">Paweł Kras: ''Ad abolendam diversarum haeresium pravitatem. System inkwizycyjny w średniowiecznej Europie'', KUL 2006, p. 413.</ref> In [[Piedmont]], 22 heretics (mainly [[Waldensians]]) were burned in the years 1312–1395 out of 213 convicted.<ref name="PK" /> 22 Waldensians were burned in [[Cuneo]] around 1440 and another five in the [[Marquisate of Saluzzo]] in 1510.<ref>Lea, vol. II, pp. 264, 267.</ref>

There are also fragmentary records of a good number of executions of people suspected of witchcraft in northern Italy in the 15th and early 16th centuries.<ref>Tavuzzi, Michael M. ''Renaissance inquisitors: Dominican inquisitors and inquisitorial districts in Northern Italy, 1474–1527''. Leiden & Boston: Brill (2007). p. 197, 253–258; Del Col, p. 196–211.</ref> Wolfgang Behringer estimates that there could have been as many as two thousand executions.<ref>Behringer, W. ''Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History''. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press Ltd (2004). p. 130</ref> This large number of witches executed was probably because some inquisitors took the view that the crime of witchcraft was exceptional, which meant that the usual rules for heresy trials did not apply to its perpetrators. Many alleged witches were executed even though they were first tried and pleaded guilty, which under normal rules would have meant only canonical sanctions, not death sentences.<ref>Lea, vol. III, p. 515; cf. Tavuzzi, p. 150–151, 184–185.</ref> The episcopal inquisition was also active in suppressing alleged witches: in 1518, judges delegated by the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Brescia|Bishop of Brescia]], Paolo Zane, sent some 70 witches from [[Val Camonica]] to the stake.<ref>Tavuzzi, p. 188–192; Del Col, p. 199–200, 204–209.</ref>