The _Old Yellow Book_ is a soiled and bloody page from the criminal
annals of Rome two centuries ago, saved apparently by mere chance for
the one great artist of modern literature who could best use it, and
who has raised this record of a forgotten crime to a permanent place
in that ideal world of man's creation where Caponsacchi and Pompilia
have joined the company of Paolo and Francesca, of the Red Cross
Knight, of Imogen, of Marguerite and Faust, and of Don Quixote.
One June day of 1860, Robert Browning passed from the Casa Guidi home
to enjoy the busy life of Florence. There, "pushed by the hand ever
above my shoulder," he entered the Piazza of San Lorenzo:
crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time.
He had brought home from such wanderings many a rare old tapestry, or
picture, or carving from the long artistic past of the city. This day
his eye caught the soiled, vellum-covered volume, crowded between its
insignificant neighbours. "One glance at the lettered back," declares
the poet, "and Stall! a lira made it mine." All the way home and all
day long, he pored over these pages, until by nightfall he had so
mastered the facts of the case that the whole tragedy lay plain before
his mind's eye.
The book led him, and leads us, back to the morning of January 3,
1698, when all Rome was astir with the sensation of a brutal
assassination. The aged Comparini, cut to pieces in their own home in
the very heart of Rome on the evening before by a band of assassins,
were now exposed to the view of an excited mob of the curious and
idle. Pompilia, desperately wounded, lay a-dying. A police captain and
posse were in pursuit of the criminals, one of whom was a nobleman who
had held office in the household of one of the great cardinals. Toward
night the criminals were brought back to the city, and were followed
through the streets to the prison doors by a great throng.
Just seven weeks later and again Rome was throbbing with excitement.
Unwonted crowds were pressing into the Piazza del Popolo, where
gallows and scaffold had been prepared. At last, up the Corso filed
the Brotherhood of Death with their black gowns and great cross, and
behind them, in separate carts, the five criminals. In the midst of a
sea of upturned faces Guido and his fellows met their end, and the
curtain fell.
The _Old Yellow Book_ is the record of the court procedure of those
seven intervening weeks, and shows us the whole legal battle fought to
save Guido, while Rome looked on with the fascinated interest which
has always attended the great murder trials. It includes the lawyers'
arguments for and against the accused, together with a part of the
evidence brought into court, and some additional miscellaneous data on
the case. All this had evidently been assembled by the Florentine
lawyer, Cencini, to whom certain letters included are addressed. He
seems to have been interested in the case as a precedent on an
important and much disputed point of law, "whether and when a husband
may kill an adulterous wife." Cencini may also have had some
professional relation with the Franceschini family at Arezzo. At any
rate, he set the material in order, provided title-page and index, and
a transcript of the record in a criminal case against Pompilia in the
Tuscan courts (pp. 5-7), and bound it securely in the vellum cover
which conveyed it to the poet's hands more than a century and a half
later.
Whatever meaning this volume may have as a legal precedent, it had for
Browning, and has for the lay reader, a deep human interest as the
incomplete record of a sordid series of intrigues for certain
properties, ending at last in a fearful crime.
Guido Franceschini, scion of a noble but impoverished Tuscan family,
had sought his fortunes in Rome, and had attained a secretaryship in
the household of Cardinal Lauria. His brother, the Abate Paolo, a
shrewd and effective man, rose much higher, at last attaining
important office among the Knights of St. John. Guido, less astute and
less ingratiating, reached middle life with but scant success, and at
last was left unprovided. With the assistance of Abate Paolo, he
planned to recoup his fortunes by a bourgeois marriage. Though past
forty years of age and of unattractive appearance, he won, by his noble
name and subtle intrigue and falsification, the thirteen-year-old
daughter of the Comparini, of the well-to-do middle class of Rome.
After the marriage in December 1693, Pompilia and her parents
accompanied Guido back to Arezzo, where, in the ruinous Franceschini
_palazzo_, the Comparini had ample opportunity to repent their folly.
Bitter contentions soon arose, and at last the Comparini fled from the
brutalities of their son-in-law, and returned to Rome. There they
published broadcast the sordid poverty and the ignoble brutality of
their persecutors, probably printing and circulating the affidavit of
the servant (pp. 49-53). Guido seems to have retorted by circulating
the forged letter from Pompilia (pp. 56, 57). But they struck a more
deadly blow at the pride of the Franceschini when they revealed that
Pompilia was not their own child, but was of ignominious parentage.
And in the spring of 1694 they brought suit before Judge Tomati for
the recovery of the dowry monies paid to Franceschini--a bitter
humiliation to the greedy poverty of the Franceschini. It must have
been a scandalous suit, bringing dishonour to both parties as their
domestic difficulties were exposed to the throngs of the curious. In
this trial were adduced the letters of the governor (pp. 89, 90) and
of the Bishop of Arezzo (p. 99). The Comparini lost their suit, but
appealed to the Rota, and their case was pending for several years,
during which time they may have baited the Franceschini with spiteful
scandals.
In the meantime, the child-wife, Pompilia, was left in desperate
plight--despised and hated by her husband's family. Her situation grew
intolerable. Guido had evidently determined to rid himself of her
without relaxing his grip on her property. His brutalities were
systematic and cunning. At last she was driven to flee for her life,
and on April 29, 1697, made her escape under the protection of
Caponsacchi, a gallant young priest. It was a desperate step, gravely
reprehensible in the eyes of the world. The fugitives pressed toward
Rome, but Guido overtook them at Castelnuovo, fifteen miles short of
their destination, and had them arrested.
At Rome, criminal charges of flight and adultery were brought against
them. This Process of Flight, as it is repeatedly called in the
_Yellow Book_, continued all through the summer. It was for their
defence in this case that Pompilia and Caponsacchi made their
affidavits (pp. 90 and 95), giving their motives for the flight. At
the same time Guido urged the evidence of the love-letters (pp.
99-106), which he claimed to have found at the time of the arrest of
the fugitives. In September, judgment was rendered against
Caponsacchi--relegation for three years to Civita Vecchia--a
punishment commensurate with indiscretion rather than with crime.
Pompilia was unsentenced, but was retained for a month in safekeeping
in the nunnery delle Scalette, and was then permitted to return to the
home of her foster-parents, the Comparini, though still technically a
prisoner in this home (p. 159). Here on December 18 a boy was born.
On Christmas Eve, Guido reached Rome with four young rustics, whom he
had hired to assist him in the assassination. For a week he lurked in
the villa of his brother, Abate Paolo, who had left Rome. Then, on the
evening of January 2, he won entrance to the home of the Comparini by
using the name of Caponsacchi. The parents were instantly stabbed to
death, and Pompilia was cut to pieces with twenty-two wounds. Leaving
her for dead, Guido and his cut-throats fled, as the outcries of the
victims had given the alarm. That night they travelled afoot nearly
twenty miles, but were pursued by the police, and were arrested with
the bloody arms still in their possession.
Such was the crime, and the _Old Yellow Book_ is the record of the
legal battle over the assassins, which was fought through the criminal
courts of Rome, presided over by Vice-governor Venturini. The
prosecution and defence alike were conducted by officers of the court,
two lawyers on each side, the Procurator and Advocate of the Poor for
the defendants, and the Procurator and Advocate of the Fisc against
them. As the fact of the crime was definitely ascertained, the legal
battle turned entirely on the justification or condemnation of the
motive of the crime. The defence maintained that the assassination had
been for honour's sake, and the unwritten law, to which appeal is made
in generation after generation, was urged at every point. That Guido
had suffered unspeakable ignominy cannot be denied; that his wife had
been untrue to him even in the perilous flight with Caponsacchi is
unproved, as the courts had evidently held in the Process of Flight.
The prosecution, on the other hand, reiterated in every argument their
reading of Guido's motive--greed. Greed had led him to marry Pompilia.
Greed had occasioned his disgraceful wranglings with the Comparini.
Defeated greed had made him torture his wife into scandalous flight,
and calculating greed had led him to commit the murder at a time and
in a manner to save the whole property to himself. Still further, said
the prosecution, not only was his motive bad, but the crime was
committed in a way which involved him in half a dozen accessory
crimes, each of them capital. Such is the drift of the argument, which
is fortified at every point by citation of precedent from the legal
procedure of all ages. Altogether it is a highly skilled legal battle
according to the technical limitations of the game, while the simple
appeals to equity and to common human feeling hardly enter at all.
The trial proceeded in two stages. The earlier one, during the latter
half of January, was opened by Arcangeli (pamphlet 1), supported by
Advocate Spreti (pamphlet 2). The prosecution is opened by Procurator
Gambi (pamphlet 5), supported by Advocate Bottini (pamphlet 6).
Arcangeli and Bottini make further argument in pamphlets 3 and 14. Two
pamphlets of evidence were assembled and printed--for the defence,
pamphlet 7; and for the prosecution, pamphlet 4. The latter part of
this stage of the case is much occupied with arguing whether Guido and
his companions may be tortured to get a fuller statement from them. In
spite of the efforts of Guido's attorneys, the torture was evidently
decreed, and fuller evidence was forced from the defendants, though
one of them bore the torture till he fainted twice. The trial then
enters on its second stage, in which, after some preliminary
skirmishing about the legality of the torture and the status of the
evidence given under this torture, the lawyers settle to their most
masterly work. Arcangeli and Spreti develop an elaborate and skilled
defence (pamphlets 8 and 9), and are answered by Bottini's masterpiece
for the prosecution (pamphlet 13). Spreti closes the defence in
pamphlet 16. Pamphlet 11 presents some additional matters of evidence.
All these arguments and summaries of evidence were printed by the
official papal press (see the imprint _Typis Rev. Cam. Apost._),
probably overnight, between the sessions of the court, as typewritten
briefs would be prepared to-day. Few copies were printed, and these
were solely for the judges and attorneys in the case. There would be
no popular circulation of them in Rome at large. The particular copies
included in the _Old Yellow Book_ were probably gathered by one of
these attorneys, and sent to Signor Cencini in Florence (letter iii.
p. 238).
We need but look to our own age to rest assured that outside of the
court room all Rome was athrill with interest in this murder case, and
was speculating on the fate of the accused. The attorneys for the
defence, in the midst of the trial, made a sudden appeal to this
public interest and sought the support of public sentiment by means of
an anonymous pamphlet (pamphlet 10) written in Italian and printed
without an imprint or signature, but evidently addressed to the bar of
public opinion. It seems to have been written by Guido's lawyers, or
their lackeys, for it repeats the various points already made in the
arguments. Whether it was distributed free or was sold for a small
price, it must have been seized and devoured by all Rome as are the
journalistic reports of notorious criminal trials to-day. We can
imagine the alarm of the prosecution when they perceived this flank
movement against them. With all possible haste they prepared their
reply, also in Italian and without signature or imprint, and probably
within a day or two had issued this response (pamphlet 15), which
meets the other pamphlet at every point, and bitterly arraigns the
greed of Guido. These two pamphlets evidently suggested to Browning
his "Half-Rome" and "Other Half-Rome."
There must have been other popular exploitations of this crime. Two
manuscript Italian narratives of it have been discovered. The first of
these (pp. 259-266) was found in London and sent to Browning, who used
it extensively in writing his poem. The second (pp. 269-281) was
discovered a few years ago in Rome. Other accounts may yet come to
light.
The trial of Guido and his companions was carried forward to a prompt
judgment, and on February 18 they were pronounced guilty and were
condemned to death. A technical staying of sentence for four days was
granted by reason of Guido's _clerical privilege_, but execution
followed on February 22. The _Old Yellow Book_ includes three original
letters (pp. 237-8) written from Rome immediately after the execution
to Signor Cencini at Florence.
Yet the case was not quite at an end. A number of civil suits were
promptly instituted by various claimants for the property of the
Comparini. The Franceschini still pushed their claim in spite of the
infamy they had suffered for that property. Pompilia's executor,
Tighetti, claimed all in trust for the child, Gaetano. Then the refuge
of the Convertites, under their legal right to the property of all
women of evil life who died in Rome, accused the memory of Pompilia
and claimed her property. The case seemed to be entering on one of
those interminable struggles in court. The Procurator Lamparelli
(pamphlet 17) goes back to analyse again the motives in the whole case
and to justify Pompilia's innocence. The remainder of this trial is
lost to us save for the final _Definitive Sentence_ of the courts
(pamphlet 18), issued in September 1698, which clears the memory of
Pompilia entirely and for ever in the eyes of the law.
This was the record which fell into Browning's hands. The poet tells
of his immediate interest in the tragedy, partly due to that common
human interest in great crimes, partly to the casuistic presentation
of motive throughout the _Book_, partly to his championing the rights
of Pompilia, dishonoured and slain not merely by a brutally selfish
husband, but by a corrupt social condition around her.
After some delay, Browning saw his way to embody in art the story
which had interested him so deeply. The plan came to him, according to
W. M. Rossetti, one day while he was walking at Biarritz, and from
1862 till the publication in 1868-9, he was working continuously on
_The Ring and the Book_. He had mastered every detail of the _Yellow
Book_ by continuous re-readings, and in his art he was scrupulously,
but never laboriously, accurate to the facts before him. In the poem
he names thirty-three persons exactly as he found them in his
original. Place names are adopted with the same accuracy. The specific
dates recorded in the _Book_ are followed at all points, save in the
significant change of the date of Caponsacchi's rescue of Pompilia
from April 29 to 23, St. George's Day. The incidents of the tragedy,
even when compromising to Pompilia, whose cause he championed, are
used without repression or falsification. And perhaps most remarkable
of all, the poet had mastered all the technical paraphernalia and
phraseology of the lawyers, and uses these with minute care, not
entirely devoid of misunderstanding and error. In the _Book_ he found
all the points of law, all the precedents and authorities, and almost
all of the Latin phrases and sentences found in the monologues of the
lawyers of the poem. A remarkable instance of this is seen in his word
for word adaptation of the long peroration of Arcangeli (pamphlet 8)
in the close of the monologue of the Arcangeli of the poem. And the
actual letter of Arcangeli (p. 237) is reproduced verbatim in the
poem, book xii. ll. 239-88. Altogether the poet affords one of the
most remarkable illustrations of literal and detailed accuracy in the
use of the raw material of art.
Yet here, as in all cases of true art, the greatness of the final
product lies not so much in the material that fell to the artist as in
the personal resource and power within himself which was able to use
the material. Browning found suggestion for a suffering saint in Fra
Celestino's report of Pompilia's death-bed (pp. 57, 58), but the
Pompilia of the poem embodies the poet's deepest insight into
womanhood with all its spiritual relationships, in the love of man,
the passion of maternity, and devotion to God. Browning ascertained in
the _Book_ that Caponsacchi was a resolute man, who had involved
himself in many perils for the sake of Pompilia, but from his own
personal resource of manly devotion, of chivalrous daring, of
passionate indignation at wrong, of spiritual tenderness and
reverence, he created a Caponsacchi. In the _Book_ he found every turn
of the cunning, of the greed, of the brutality of Guido and his
family, but from his own deep realisation of the power of evil in the
world, and of the black depravity of the lowest forms of humanity, he
created his Franceschini. Thus at every point, founding himself on the
fact of the _Book_, he is able to set forth this tragedy to the world
as it grew in his own imagination while searching his own heart and
the hearts of others through many years. And the chance-found _Old
Yellow Book_ at last occasioned the most profound utterance Robert
Browning was to give to the world in all that concerns the human heart
and its motives as they play the drama of the world before the eye of
the Almighty.