ABSTRACT
In 1590 a Franciscan friar was charged before the Inquisition in Venice with “superstitious healing.” His crime? As a cure for fevers he would dispense his own brevi: on each of 12 slips of paper he would write the name of one of the 12 apostles. The sick person was to open one of these folded papers each day, and then burn it if the fever persisted. If, however, the fever abated, the sick person should vow to fast on the vigil of the apostle whose name had appeared that day. The friar’s good intentions were dismissed as irrelevant by the court; it saw the technique as an irreverent attempt to coerce the actions of the apostles through bribery and threats. His punishment? He was sentenced merely to recite psalms and fast on feast days and perform private penances. This minor incident tells us several things about the relationship between belief and authority in the Renaissance period. In general terms it was not an unabated war of oppression against “wrong” belief; the different forces involved were far from presenting a united front, and the actions they took were far from consistent. More specifically, it was not so much a campaign against certain categories of people as one directed against suspect beliefs and practices. As a result, punishment was not, at least not in the first instance, directed so much at the individual as at the offence, eradicating it through a process of reform and re-education.
