It is not possible to write the history of blasphemy, anticlericalism and religious scepticism in the Early Modern period without taking into consideration the variety of their different manifestations (not only words but also gestures), as well as the lexibility of the boundary separating blasphemy as an emotional outburst from blasphemy as a conscious act of rebellion against the Church as an institution and God as an idea. The author investigates these issues by looking at materials of the Republic of Venice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He tries to answer three overlapping questions: how the Inquisition and secular courts coordinated their activities in response to this broad field of jurisdiction; how different forms of blasphemous sayings and actions correlated with religious scepticism and the theoretical elaboration of unbelief; and how in society, where disrespectful words and gestures toward sacred persons and objects were part of everyday life, the Church tried on the one hand to eradicate blasphemy, and on the other hand to reconcile itself with blasphemy’s ingrained existence.