JULIO CESARE VANINI

—us. Who? A man proven to be of the highest character by this one piece of evidence. A witness, of course, beyond all exception, one of not a few whom Vanini had as followers; this man charges that he denied God.

Cicero, book 1, Letters to Lentulus*.

Changing the scene, according to that saying of Cicero *: But if you cannot hold the port by a straight course, it is proper to achieve it by changing the sails, I see the enemies already exulting as if in a mirror. Already, the business being well managed, they raise a laugh over the wretched man, for whom no hope and no benefit remained in his very learned response, which they interpreted so poorly.

† Numbers 35:30. Deuteronomy 17:6 and chapter 19:15.

‡ Anonymous in Account of the Spanish Inquisition in the Leipzig Acts, Supplement volume 1.

For once that single witness was produced, they said he was clearly convicted by proofs. To what extent this holds weight in judgments, let fairer men judge. The Supreme Deity forbade a man to die on the evidence of one witness †. The Spanish Inquisition, whose laws are written in blood, requires seven witnesses ‡; here, one is in the place of all. France hates the name of the Inquisition, but in this case, she betrayed that she relies on the crafty machinations of the same kind of persons.

Among the French, the sentence is made known to the condemned man immediately, and while he shudders all over at the restless image of death, he is snatched away to the gallows. It is a useless help for a desperate man, which is transacted in a moment. It would be better if fixed intervals of time were granted to the condemned, so that, having subdued their anger and desire for revenge, they might come to their senses. The Spaniards and other Europeans do better, for they grant spans of time to the condemned, as much as is enough for softening the horror of death and for washing away sins through repentance and meditated confession. *