1735: Machiavelli on the Index. The Trial Against the Marchese Bernardo del Grillo for Possession of Forbidden Books

This paper examines and provides a transcript of documents held at the ACDF of the Holy Office concerning a trial brought against two individuals by the Grand Inquisitor of Gubbio in 1735. One of the accused was Marquis Bernardo del Grillo, for charges of holding in his extensive private library a number of forbidden books (still a criminal offence, at the time) and signally the Opera Omnia of Niccolò Machiavelli. The other was the agent and librarian of the Marquis, Don Pietro Angelo Belli. Taken together, the denunciation (made by a priest, Francesco Carlo Graziosi da Fabriano), the perquisition report, the referral to the Holy Office, and the condemnation report by the Maestro del Sacro Palazzo Giovanni Benedetto Zuanelli bear interesting witness to how the Inquisition’s judgement of Machiavelli and his works was still fraught with contradiction even in the eighteenth century. The same Zuanelli who in 1628 had issued a general edict against any use of forbidden books later produced an extensive and carefully balanced report which well shows how attitudes towards The Prince, in particular, were changing. Eventually, as the papers under discussion show, the Marchese del Grillo was cautioned ‘libere’ (free of sanction). The documents relating to this case seem to confirm the assessment made by Florentine writer Jacopo Gaddi (c. 1600–after 1658): ‘Machiavellus Nicolaus, ambiguae fidei scriptor incertos reddit lectores, laudent magis, an damnent ipsius opera’.