Como, Bernardo Da. Lucerna Inquisitorum Haereticae Pravitatis [“Lamp of the Inquisition”: laws and regulations of the Inquisition]. With annotations by Francisco Pegña and additons of Jean Gerson.

(INQUISITION).

Marc Antoni Zalteri

Venice

1596

Second edition. Printer’s device on title. Scattered marginalia.

Palau 217346 (1st ed.).

Bernardo Retegno da Como was apointed Inquisitor of Como in 1505. Henry Charles Lea refers to him as one of “the demonologists of the fifteenth century,” which is to say that he specialized in the persecution of witches. He is credited as having been instrumental in Innocent VIII treating witches as a new heretical sect in his papal bull Summis desiderantes (1484). See H.C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, Vol. IV (1907), p.207. On pp. 70-72 there are several laws relating to Jews: Jews inducing Christians to their rite may be punished by the Inquisitor; Jews who were baptized, even as infants, and thereafter revert to Judaism may be punished by the Inquisitor; if a Jew impedes another Jew who wishes to be baptized from doing so, the Inquisitor may proceed against him, etc.