Inquisition

Blasphemy on the Ships of the Maltese Corsairs (According to Documents of the Inquisition at the End of the Seventeenth Century)

In the eighteenth century Malta was a hub of maritime activity and many powers wanted to gain influence over the island state. Its fortiications, dockyards and facilities were strategically placed in the center of the Mediterranean. The island was home to the knights of St. John, upheld on the island by a cosmopolitan array of merchants, mercenaries, inquisitors and corsairs. The latter two categories are the focus of this study. The inquisitors in Malta represented the Holy See. They were the personal representatives of His Holiness on Malta.

How to Accept the Unacceptable: Blasphemy and Atheism in the Judicial Practice of the Roman Inquisition in the Seventeenth Century

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.