ABSTRACT
The external history of the Index of Prohibited Books, that is, its list of authors and rules, is generally known, but the internal history is not. How effective in practice were the Index and its enforcing agent, the Roman Inquisition? When, and to what extent, were the decrees and prohibitions enforced? Why, or why not, were they enforced? By and large, answers to these questions are lacking for sixteenth-century Italy. In any attempt to answer these questions, a study of Venice is essential, because it was the largest Italian center for printing, producing perhaps half or more of all Cinquecento Italian books. Equally important, the Inquisition records in Venice are accessible to scholars and are reasonably complete.
