Originally Posted by OccamsRazor

I was thinking about the Inquisition at the time of first Bruno then Galileo and wondering how much its approach varied from country to country and with time- how "notorious" was the Inquisition in Italy? Particularly, this is about a century after the worst excesses of the Spanish Inquisition under Thomas de Torquemada (who is thought to have had ~2000 "heretics" burnt at the stake- a modern revised figure) so how much had it changed? Did Torquemada's ideas must have had a powerful legacy on the organisation outside of Spain or was it beginning to change?

Well, as Bruno's treatment shows in 1600 I'd say he was treated with great brutality- nailing his tongue to his jaw before being burnt alive is a horrific and directed infliction of suffering. A small mercy was granted the man as a bag of gunpowder was attached to his neck in the hope that as the flames rose it would detonate and spare him the full suffering of his fate.

Four decades later and Galileo was spared such physical tortures- his public recantation seems sufficent to spare his life- if Galileo had been one of Torquemada's victims this action would have ensured he was burnt alive with dry, quick burning wood (as opposed to slow burning freshly cut wood)- he might even have have been granted the mercy of the garotte had he kissed the cross before his exceution.

It is difficult to view these events with impartiallity today as the violence that was used in the name of the law is so extreme by contempoary standards, at least to the society I belong today.

Perhaps it was inevitable that such a collision of views would occur- hundreds of years of dogma and power are not borne away by the sudden appearance of what is today rational thinking.