Uomini di zelo, prudenza e sufficiente dottrina. The vicars of the Roman inquisition in the state of the Church (17th, 18th centuries)

The Roman Inquisition, like the Iberian one, began to articulate its presence in the territory starting in the second half of the 16th century. A fundamental role in this construction was played by the inquisitorial vicars, distinct from the diocesan ones and linked to the central Congregation and to the individual district inquisitors..The vicars of the Roman Inquisition had the fundamental task of overseeing the trials and controlling the territory entrusted to them. An inquisitorial figure that has not yet been studied, the vicar, was able to focus on institutional links, faculties and personal profiles, within a magmatic society that was transversal to the system itself. This article aims to present a first approach to this study, focusing its attention on the inquisitorial reality of the State of the Church, a political-institutional body in which the pope, who presided over the Roman Inquisition, was both sovereign and pontiff.