This chapter traces the conflicting history of the relationship between the popes and the Inquisitions from the early modern period onwards, with a prologue on the late Middle Ages. Its scope embraces the Roman Holy Office alongside the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, with their offshoots in the colonies, since to suppose that these latter were institutions entirely dependent on the Iberian monarchies is over-simplistic. The Roman court and the Index are treated more extensively, especially since the Holy Office was considered the most eminent Congregation of the Curia. The text also seeks to determine the extent to which the Roman Inquisition impinged on the autonomy of the popes or the development of Catholic dogma and orthopraxy on a global scale. Lastly, it looks at the later evolution of the Holy Office up until its mutation into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the twentieth century.

Did the death of Vicente Nogueira in 1654 mark a turning point between a century of improvisation and a new age of absolutism? Scholars have often characterized the mid-seventeenth century as just such a radical change. Yet, when considering the contributions that mercenaries of knowledge made to the intellectual and political life of Late Renaissance and Baroque international relations, characterizing such a transition in stark terms becomes impossible. This final chapter uses three expressions of Nogueira’s memory to tell the story of Nogueira the plotter, who dabbled in scandals at the Roman curia in the early 1650s among Portuguese circles interested in defending oppressed religious minorities and same-sex emotional communities against the Portuguese Inquisition. Like many other mercenaries of knowledge, Nogueira took extreme care throughout his life to present himself as a pious and virtuous man despite being an inveterate nonconformist. Such positions were not incompatible. In fact, ambivalence was the key to navigating an age of improvisation and doubts which was here to stay.