Editing Index Librorum Prohibitorum (section)

===Early indexes (1529–1571)===
[[File:Index 1557.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Title page of the first Papal Index, {{lang|la|Index Auctorum et Librorum}}, published in 1557 and then withdrawn]]

The first list of the kind was not published in [[Rome]], but in Catholic [[Habsburg Netherlands|Netherlands]] (1529); [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] (1543) and [[Paris]] (1551) under the terms of the [[Edict of Châteaubriant]] followed this example. By the mid-century, in the tense atmosphere of wars of religion in Germany and France, both Protestant and Catholic authorities reasoned that only control of the press, including a catalogue of prohibited works, coordinated by ecclesiastic and governmental authorities, could prevent the spread of heresy.<ref name="Schmitt 1991:45">Schmitt 1991:45.</ref>

Paul F. Grendler (1975) discusses the religious and political climate in Venice from 1540 to 1605. There were many attempts to censor the Venetian press, which at that time was one of the largest concentrations of printers. Both church and government held to a belief in censorship, but the publishers continually pushed back on the efforts to ban books and shut down printing. More than once the index of banned books in Venice was suppressed or suspended because various people took a stand against it.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grendler |first=Paul F. |title=The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press |journal=The Journal of Modern History |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=48–65 |date=1975 |jstor=1878921 |s2cid=151934209 |doi=10.1086/241292}}</ref>

The first Roman ''Index'' was printed in 1557 under the direction of [[Pope Paul IV]] (1555–1559), but then withdrawn for unclear reasons.<ref name="Brown 70" /> In 1559, a new index was finally published, banning the entire works of some 550 authors in addition to the individual proscribed titles:<ref name="Brown 70">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924092741192/page/n79/mode/2up|title=Studies in the History of Venice (Vol. 2)|first=Horatio F.|last=Brown|year=1907|publisher=New York, E.P. Dutton and company}}</ref>{{NoteTag|They included everything by [[Pietro Aretino]], [[Machiavelli]], [[Erasmus]] and [[Rabelais]].<ref name="Schmitt 1991:45"/>}} "The Pauline Index felt that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writing."<ref name="Schmitt 1991:45" /> The work of the censors was considered too severe and met with much opposition even in Catholic intellectual circles; after the [[Council of Trent]] had authorised a revised list prepared under [[Pope Pius IV]], the so-called ''Tridentine Index'' was promulgated in 1564; it remained the basis of all later lists until [[Pope Leo XIII]], in 1897, published his {{lang|la|Index Leonianus}}.

The [[blacklisting]] of some Protestant scholars even when writing on subjects a modern reader would consider outside the realm of [[dogma]] meant that, unless they obtained a [[Dispensation (Catholic Church)|dispensation]], obedient Catholic thinkers were denied access to works including: botanist [[Conrad Gesner]]'s {{lang|la|[[Historiae animalium (Gesner)|Historiae animalium]]}}; the botanical works of [[Otto Brunfels]]; those of the medical scholar [[Janus Cornarius]]; to [[Christoph Hegendorff]] or [[Johann Oldendorp]] on the theory of law; Protestant geographers and cosmographers like [[Jacob Ziegler]] or [[Sebastian Münster]]; as well as anything by Protestant theologians like [[Martin Luther]], [[John Calvin]] or [[Philipp Melanchthon]].{{NoteTag|These authors are instanced by Schmitt 1991.}} Among the inclusions was the [[Libri Carolini]], a theological work from the 9th-century court of [[Charlemagne]], which was published in 1549 by Bishop [[Jean du Tillet (bishop)|Jean du Tillet]] and which had already been on two other lists of prohibited books before being inserted into the Tridentine Index.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=7rjenNXferEC&pg=PA90 Paul Oskar Kristeller (editor), ''Itinerarium Italicum''] (Brill 1975 {{ISBN|978-90-0404259-9}}), p.&nbsp;90.</ref>