So the powers of the Inquisition were, in Venice, restrained and restricted. There was no Spanish or Roman fervour. The Venetians insisted that, on the tribunal, three secular judges should act as a balance against three ecclesiastics. It was established in the city in 1547 but typically, in a city known for its superstition, the principal objects of its enquiries were women accused of witchcraft. The testimonials of these trials reveal an informal, and almost relaxed, mode of interrogation. The Venetian authorities had a tendency to record the most trivial details. So we can hear the people again—“and as she said these things, she was crying …” “Oh, he said, there’s one thing I’ve forgotten to say …” “As he did not know how to reply, he kept silence for the length of one miserere.”
It cannot be assumed that the Venetians were necessarily genial judges. It is simply evidence of the fact there was already in the city a well-attested culture of civic denunciation. Venetian citizens were used to being accused by one another. But harsh punishment was rare. There were few executions for heresy, in comparison with other Catholic states, and there was little use of torture. Those women who were convicted of witchcraft were commonly sentenced to a period in the pillory.
The Venetian Church was capable of independent power because its authority was firmly based upon the will of the people. The priests were elected by the property owners of each of the seventy parishes. It was a relatively democratic system that demonstrates how indissolubly religion and society were mingled, reminiscent of the procedures of the early Christians. It has been estimated that one quarter of the priests of Venice were of patrician status, but this must mean that the overwhelming majority of the approximately six hundred clergy were ordinary citizens or even perhaps from the
Their parishioners were undoubtedly the most superstitious in Italy. The transcripts of the witch trials themselves reveal the intense credulity of the people. It was a city of omens and of prophecies. In 1499 the senate consulted an oracle known as “the spirit of Ferrara,” asking such questions as “Are we to have war or peace with Milan?” and “Shall we lose Pisa?” In 1506 the doge and the council of ten were informed of the birth of a winged and hairy monster. In 1513 the council of ten deliberated on the warnings of an astrologer. There were many superstitions and superstitious practices. It was good to die on a Saturday. If it rained on the bier of the departed, the soul would be saved. It was unwise to walk between the two columns in the piazzetta; misfortune would surely follow you. A guest who crumples a napkin at dinner will never come to that table again. If the clock strikes the hour when you are asking the time, you have heard the knell of your own death. The first person whom you meet on New Year’s Day holds the clue to your fortunes; a humpback is a sign of good fortune, a lame person is an omen of bad luck. These superstitions, and many others like them, were still current in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The witchcraft of Venice was different from that of the mainland. It was the witchcraft of a tightly knit urban and mercantile society open to all the superstitions of the East as well as of the West. It was said that it was the delight of witches to unchain the gondolas, by night, and set sail to Alexandria. When the hair of children was cut, their mothers used carefully to gather it up in case it fell into the hands of the hags. You could recognise those who had been cursed by witch or demon. Their faces had the colour of green fruit, and their eyes were narrowed. Those who fell under a curse experienced a range of unpleasant symptoms: some felt as if dogs were devouring their flesh, or that a mouthful of food had stuck in the throat, or that their bodies were invaded by a freezing wind. Storms at sea were blamed upon the agency of fiends, which is why Saint Mark, and the other saints, stood guard by the side of the lagoon.
