Paolo Grillandi

Paolo Grillandi [Paolo Grillando, Paulus Grillandus, Ghirlandus or Grilandus.] (born c.1490) was an Italian jurist, from Abruzzo [ [http://edit16.iccu.sbn.it/scripts/iccu_ext.dll?fn=11&res=5651 Risultato della ricerca Web OPAC ICCU ] ] , active as a papal judge in witch trials, from 1517. [ [http://www.prospettivaeditrice.it/libri/primepagine/primapagliarino.htm] (in Italian).] He was an influential observer of confessions. [Hugh Trevor-Roper, "The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century" [http://olldownload.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/TrevorRoper0256/Crisis17thC/0098_Bk.pdf] p.114 states that Grillandi accepted the existence of witches, on the basis of confessions that were not extracted by torture.] His book "Tractatus de hereticis et sortilegiis" (1536), based substantially on his judicial experience, became a standard text on witchcraft and demonology. Other related works are his "De Questionibus et tortura tractatus", "De relaxatione carceratorum", and the "De Lamiis" of Gianfrancesco Ponzinibio that was later printed with the "Tractatus de hereticis et sortilegiis". James Franklin ["The Science of Conjecture" (2001), p.46.] writes

"Grillandus's" On the Question and Torture "distinguishes between doubtful or hall-full indication, full indication, reputation, rumor, four types of presumption, argument, vehement and nonvehement support, conjecture, the likely, and the notorious, before going on to detail with equal learning the five degrees of torture."

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