4to (mm 200 x 170). Pagination: [8], 158 pp. Title page with woodcut engraved device. Woodcut chapter headpieces and decorated initials. Preface to the reader. Text in italic and roman. Contemporary boards. Unsophisticated copy with addition of several red pencil manuscript corrections and notes. Annotated proof copy that might be owned by Sarpi. Fra Paolo Sarpi’s History of the Inquisition in Venice was written in 1613 and used by the consultori in iure, in the wake of the infamous crisis known as the “Venetian interdict,” although it was not published until 1639. In this work, Sarpi insisted on Venetian independence from Rome, stressing the unjust matters of the inquisitorial court. The Venetian Inquisition, which oppressed "suspicious" residents from 1550 to 1670, occurred over a particularly crucial century for the history of the Serenissima city, as it had been intermittently embroiled in wartime affairs with the Turks. From the point of view of the Inquisition, Sarpi appears to have been the worse enemy of the Catholic Church than figures such as Pietro Aretino, Galileo, and Gerhard Vossius; enough to have greatly angered Pope Paul V. While Sarpi s work did not formally abandon the Catholic Church, he was thoroughly investigated more than once by the Inquisition and was excommunicated by the Congregation of Rome in 1607; thereafter at least two assassination attempts were made on his life. Sarpi s main contentions, which echoed Venetian attitudes, were that the prosecution of heresy (including bigamy and polygamy) should primarily fall within the responsibility of the state and separate from the church. Sarpi s works were for the most part published in situations that were always unclear and were mostly carried outabroad. While this work retains a false imprint, it was almost certainly published in Venice and not Geneva and deferred to an imaginary place for reasons of safety. Other titles affiliated with the Geneva "press of Pietro Alberto" are Sarpi s Historia del ConcilioTridentino (1639). According to Graesse, this work was printed during the eighteenth century and dated falsely 1639, although scholarship concludes this title was included on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in its time. Other imprints with this date have variant titles andanother title was found with a false date "M.DC.XXIIX" erroneously for 1638.