ABSTRACT
This introduction is meant to present to the fundamental questions raised in the book, and to help the reader understand the reasons why these questions long seemed impractical or unimportant for historiography. This chapter also presents a summary picture of the renewal of studies on the Roman Inquisition in recent years, which with the availability of new archival sources today allows posing these same questions with even greater urgency. The Introduction also presents a preliminary historical contextualization of the most critical phase of the Bruno trial, emphasizing the importance of the broadest and most interdisciplinary approach possible to this story.
