Although the authors of the Roman Congregation’s instructions and other prescriptive texts may have hoped to establish clarity and consistency in inquisitorial procedures, the officials on the receiving end, working in the messy reality of specific cases, found it quite difficult to live up to the new standards. In 1646 in the town of Rovigo, not far from Venice, the inquisitor was facing a case of witchcraft and was worried about procedure. He wrote to his Venetian counterpart for advice, remarking that witchcraft cases are “most difficult, especially since it is necessary in this instance to prove [the] corpus delicti” and to follow the “many warnings given in writing by the Holy Congregation, and also in the Arsenale,” that is, in the influential inquisitorial handbook Sacro arsenale, overo Prattica dell’Officio della s. inquisitione by Eliseo Masini. The inquisitor in Rovigo was confident that he knew how to start the trial: he should first question the denouncer about the victim’s symptoms, as the Arsenale recommends, in order to verify that the child was indeed sickened by maleficio. But the next step was less clear. “Your Most Reverend Paternity,” he wrote, “would do me a great favor to tell me what other questions will be necessary to put to him. Also, advise me whether I need now to have the child visited by a physician in order to see whether the illness is natural or comes from maleficio.” He also wondered whether he should examine other members of the household regarding the course of the illness.