The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

AUTODAFES IN ROMK. 311
Although during 1567 the autodafe was held three times iu
Rome, and the same number of times in the following year,
during the second half of the pontificate of Pius V. we only
have records of two such solemn spectacles.^ After the above
as such. Benrath (Joe. cit. 605) is right in saying : " this re-
tractation was not in any case made officially," but the register of
the confraternity does not claim that there was any retractation
before the tribunal, and only speaks of a simple declaration made
before his death, as occurs in many other instances :
such
a
belated repentance would at the utmost only entail that the death
by fire was changed to strangulation, with the subsequent burning
of the body, but not a pardon :
" it is proper to bear in mind that
repentance after sentence was of use for the salv^ation of the soul,
but made no difference for the saving of the body " (Fontana,
159).
It is quite impossible to see how the last letters of Paleario
to his family, which were entrusted to the said confraternity for
transmission, prove the report to be a falsehood (as Bonnet,
loc. cit. claims). For that matter Paleario lived quite cut off
from his strictly Catholic family, and it would appear that this
separation was not merely local. (Dini in Arch. stor. Ital., Ser.
5, XX., 1897, 16). Thanks to De Thou the view got about that
Paleario died the true death of burning which was. reserved for
heretics. Cf. Laderchi, 1569, n. 71 seqq.
^ As neither the Avvisi di Roma nor the reports of the embassy
to Vienna mention any solemn autodafes for the years 1570 and
1 571, and no information is to be found in the lists of the con-
fraternity of S. Giovanni Decollato, it may be concluded that
there were none. For 1570 Orano (p. 36-40) besides Palearic
mentions as being executed for religion a certain Porroni of Rome,
who was in the prisons of the Inquisition, but, it is expressly
stated, not as a heretic (" non come luterano "), and also the poet
Xiccolo Franco, who according to a false entry in the book of the
confraternity was executed for heresy, and according to three
other witnesses (Bertolotti, Martiri, 51) for Ubel [cf. Scritti in
onore di A. d'Ancona, 1901, 543 seq.; Cantu, Eretici, II., 435).
and lastly a Frenchman, whom Orano himself does not dare
definitely to call a^heretic. For 1571 Orano (p. 40) has nothing in
particular to report and Bertolotti (p. 57-60) has no executions to
report. The *Avviso of July 8th, 1570, says that Altinio Paltoni
was burned on that date ; he had been a lector at Pavia. Urb. 1041,
p. 307, Vatican Library.