The Inquisition

The Congregation of the Inquisition, from 1588 the Congregation of the Holy Office, was created in 1542 by Pope Paul III to defend the Church against the spread of Protestant doctrines, and significantly affected Italian cultural life in the second half of the sixteenth century. With its highly centralized structure, the Congregation became more powerful when Gian Pietro Carafa and Michele Ghislieri, who had guided its institution, became Popes, respectively Paul IV (1555-59) and Pius V (1566-72). During these years, which were dominated by a faction of intransigent cardinals, the measures to drive out and punish heresy multiplied, affecting the Ferrara Court, where Renée of France had invited a number of men of letters with Calvinist beliefs, the Duchess herself developing reformist leanings. Renée was forced to abjure, and later, after the death of Ercole II, obliged to leave Italy and return to France. This episode remained impressed upon the memory of the Este Court, explaining first the concern and later the harshness of Duke Alfonso II when the restless and uncontrollable Tasso decided in 1577 to denounce himself to the Inquisition in order to confess beliefs that were not in alignment with his faith. With Ferrara in search of an heir, who needed papal approval to establish a new line of succession, any suspicion of heterodoxy had to be avoided, quite apart from Tasso’s religious views.