ABSTRACT
The concept of unbelief found a significant formulation in the words of an anonymous denouncer in 1654, who reassured the Inquisitors of State by affirming that he was fully conscious of the fact that if one had not told the truth, an atheist or a devil'. To tell the truth, the tools were not really new, but the fact that they were expressed publicly by increasingly large numbers of individuals, they became widespread perhaps beyond all expectations. Moments in time and the available intellectual tools and vocabulary were characterized by a gradual nature, so even the most animated denial of the existence of God or the soul did not always entail a denial of the afterlife in general. However, the fragments of discourses tended to accumulate and take shape around certain themes which were perceived with greater urgency or which simply already had an available vocabulary and a more elaborate or richer repertoire of feelings, thoughts and expressions.
