THE STORY OF THE CENCI
Francesco Cenci succeeds to the wealth amassed by his father, the
papal treasurer--A man of vicious habits and ignoble passion--Hated
by his family and his servants--Maltreats his daughters--Beatrice,
the youngest, is courted by Guido Guerra--Francesco carries his
family to a remote castle where he imprisons Beatrice in a
dungeon--A plot is formed to kill him by the children, Guerra, and
two of his servants--The deed is perpetrated--One of the servants
confesses--Guerra absconds and the four Cenci are
arrested--Horrible tortures inflicted to extort
confession--Firmness of Beatrice--All are convicted--Pope Clement
VIII is inclined to mercy--Another case of matricide forces him to
make an example--Scaffold erected upon the bridge of St.
Angelo--Terrible scenes at the execution--The Guido portrait of
Beatrice--Descriptions by Charles Dickens and Nathaniel
Hawthorne--Additions to St. Angelo--Executions of the day.
The tragic romance of the Cenci is closely connected with the history of
the castle of St. Angelo. Some of the principal performers in this
terrible drama were long lodged there; they were subjected to cruel
tortures within its gloomy walls, and expiated their crimes upon the
bridge of St. Angelo close at hand.
Francesco Cenci in the year 1562 succeeded to the very considerable
fortune amassed by his father, Monsignor Cristoforo Cenci, who had been
papal treasurer in the reign of Pius V. He was not in priest’s orders,
although a canon of St. Peter’s, and he had married one Beatrice Arias,
who had already borne him this only son. Francesco in early youth gave
signs of a vicious disposition. When only eleven years of age he had
been tried for murderous assault and had been guilty of many other
crimes. He was a tall, stalwart, overbearing person, both hated and
feared within his own house and beyond it. He constantly oppressed his
servants, who sued him in the courts. He ill-used his wife abominably,
and she died early after bearing twelve children, only seven of whom
survived.
Five popes had come to the pontificate between Pius V and Clement VIII,
in whose reign the celebrated case of the Cenci occurred. In 1593
Francesco Cenci took a second wife, by name Lucrezia Petroni, a woman of
great piety, with whom he led a tempestuous life. He was a wicked and
neglectful father whose family led a wretched existence, ever the prey
of his unbridled passions. He pursued his eldest daughter with his
ignoble attentions, but she successfully repulsed him and appealed for
protection to the pope, who rescued her from her father’s violence and
gave her in marriage to a gentleman of Gubbio, with a suitable dower
extorted from her father. The atrocious Francesco showed ever increasing
animosity toward his children, who, although full grown, he detained as
close prisoners in the Cenci palace, while he transferred his
attentions to Beatrice, his youngest daughter, now a maiden of eighteen,
possessing many attractions, and whose beautiful face is familiar to all
the world from the well known portrait by Guido still preserved in the
Barberini Palace.
Poor Beatrice suffered many barbarities at her inhuman father’s hands.
Fearing that she would appeal, like her sister, to the pope, he kept her
constantly locked up and frequently beat her. With the connivance of her
stepmother, she contrived to send a petition to the pope, but the holy
father declined to be friendly. About this time a young priest, Guido
Guerra, who had not as yet taken the vows, fell in love with Beatrice
and she returned his affection, but Francesco Cenci altogether
disapproved of the attachment and drove Guido Guerra away, furiously
threatening to kill him if he dared to reopen communications with the
family. Guerra after this tried to carry Beatrice off, but failed and
further exasperated her father, who now abruptly left Rome, removing
with his family to the castle of Petrella, a remote mountain stronghold
near Aquila, on the frontier of the Neapolitan states, where he held
Beatrice a close prisoner in a dark dungeon. But the measure of his
iniquities was nearly full, and dire retribution was at hand.
Maddened by his ill-usage, his wretched victims plotted to compass his
death. Giacomo Cenci, the eldest son, joined with Guido Guerra,
Beatrice’s lover, and with two hired assistants found among Francesco’s
vassals--all of whom loathed their inhuman master--the manner of the
murder was quickly arranged. Francesco was first drugged with opium by
his wife Lucrezia, and when sleeping soundly the assassins approached
him, but hesitated to strike while he was thus unconscious. Beatrice had
followed them into his room and upbraiding them for their cowardice,
declared that she would do the deed herself. When at last they fell to
their murderous work, they despatched Francesco by driving a nail
through his temples. The corpse was then dressed, carried out to an open
gallery and thrown down upon the branches of an elder tree growing in
the garden below. It was thought that when the body was found next day
it would be supposed that the dead man had fallen from the gallery in
the dark. This was the charitable conclusion arrived at. No suspicion
was expressed of foul play; the two women Lucrezia and Beatrice lamented
loudly and after a brief period of mourning, the family returned to
Rome.
Several months passed before justice intervened. The story of accidental
death began to be doubted. The Neapolitan authorities communicated with
the Roman, inquiries were set on foot and the theory of murder was first
broached, being justified presently by the medical evidence forthcoming
on the disinterment of the corpse. Guerra, the priest, becoming alarmed,
tried to put the servants, who had actually committed the crime, beyond
giving evidence by taking their lives. One indeed was killed, the other
escaped but surrendered himself and made full confession. The case was
now clear against the Cenci family as well as Guido Guerra, who fled
across the frontier disguised as a charcoal burner. At this point the
two brothers, Giacomo and Bernardo, were imprisoned in the Corte
Savella, the common gaol, while Beatrice and Lucrezia were detained in
the Cenci palace in Rome. The servant who had been arrested in Naples
was brought to Rome for examination, but would not implicate Beatrice,
who had been persistent in her denial, declaring that so beautiful a
girl was incapable of a crime. This servant was put to torture and died
upon the rack, after which all the accused were committed to St. Angelo
and finally removed to the Corte Savella where the criminal court of
justice then sat. The judge had such presumption of their guilt that,
failing to extort confession, he ordered the “question” to be applied.
When subjected to the “cord” the brothers’ courage failed. This was
torture by means of a rope attached to the arms and rove into a running
knot with a pulley in the ceiling. When run up, the whole weight of the
body was borne by the arms which were nearly drawn from their sockets.
Then the _squasso_ was tried, a sudden drop of the body, but not so far
as to touch the floor. The brothers stood out at first but were told
their sufferings would be increased by the addition of lead weights to
their feet. Then they gave in and admitted the crime but laid the chief
blame on Beatrice as the instigator. Lucrezia being aged and corpulent
was not tried with the cord.
Beatrice, however, would not yield to either the persuasion or threats
of the judge. She bore the torment of the “cord” with extraordinary
firmness. Torture failed to extort a single word from her. The judge saw
in this no obstinacy but a proof of innocence, which he duly reported to
the pope. Clement VIII, believing the judge to be swayed by the
prisoner’s great beauty, gave the case to another, made of sterner
stuff, one Luciani, a man of cruel character. When Beatrice persisted in
declaring her innocence, he ordered the torture of the _vigilia_ to be
continued with full severity for five hours.
The _vigilia_ is a narrow stool with a high back having a seat cut into
pointed diamonds. The sufferer sits crosswise and the legs are fastened
together on either side without support. The body is closely attached to
the back of the chair, which is also cut into angular points. The hands
are bound behind the back with a cord and running knot attached to the
ceiling. The process of the torture is to push the victim from side to
side against the points, run the body up and drop it perpetually the
whole of the time ordered. The first infliction failed of effect and it
was repeated on the third day. Beatrice was almost exhausted, but she
still declined to confess, and the next stage in the devilish business
was that of the torture of the hair, _capillorum_.
In this the hair of the head is twisted into a knot and attached to a
rope and pulley by which the body is raised until it hangs by the hair.
At the same time the fingers are imprisoned in a mesh of thin cord which
is tightened and twisted till they are out of joint. Beatrice continued
to protest her innocence and the judge could only conclude that she was
supported by witchcraft. The story is too painful to carry further, and
I forbear to describe the _taxillo_, or application of a block of heated
wood fastened to the soles of the bare feet. At last her brothers and
stepmother were brought in to make piteous entreaty to the poor victim
to yield, till she cried, “Let this martyrdom cease and I will confess
anything.” She went on to declare: “That which I ought to confess; that
I will confess; that to which I ought to assent, to that I will assent,
and that which I ought to deny, that will I deny.” She was accordingly
convicted without direct confession and she never really admitted her
crime.
The pope, Clement VIII, now ordered that all four should be dragged
through the streets, tied to the tails of horses, and then decapitated.
But many great people interceded on their behalf, praying that they
might first be heard in their defence, and the pope at last reluctantly
consented to listen to their advocates, whom he roundly abused, telling
them that he was surprised at their effrontery in daring to defend the
unnatural crime of parricide. But one of the most eminent jurists of his
time, Prospero Farinacci, whose portrait is still to be seen in the
castle of St. Angelo painted on one of the doors of the great hall,
expatiated so eloquently upon the cruel wrongs Francesco Cenci had
inflicted upon his family that Clement was moved to pity and spent a
whole night in pondering over the arguments put forward by the defence.
Next day he granted a reprieve, and it appeared more than likely that he
would extend a full pardon to all. But at this moment another murder, a
matricide in a princely family of Rome, shocked all society, and the
pope insisted that justice should take its course upon all the Cenci and
that all should suffer death except the entirely innocent son, Bernardo,
who was, however, condemned to witness the execution of the other three.
The sentence was carried out on the ridge of St. Angelo just in front of
the castle, the convicts having spent their last hours at the Corte
Savella. Only a short notice was given them; they were warned one
morning at six o’clock that they were to be executed on the same day.
Beatrice, on hearing her fate, burst into piteous lamentations, crying,
“Is it possible, O, God! that I must die so suddenly?” Her stepmother
was more resigned and strove to calm Beatrice. The priests came to
confess them and administer the last sacrament, after which they were
led forth to join the funeral procession, which had started from St.
Angelo, traversing the city to the Cenci Palace, and, after stopping for
the condemned at the Corte Savella, returning to the bridge. Giacomo was
in the first cart, as he was to be the first to expiate his crime. The
sentence imposed upon him included the additional torture of being torn
with red hot pincers as he passed along the road to the bridge, where he
was to be beaten to death. Bernardo was in the second cart and Lucrezia
with Beatrice in the third. The ladies were dressed wholly in black and
veiled to the girdle, to which was fastened a silken cord binding their
wrists, instead of manacles. On reaching the scaffold, Bernardo mounted
it and was left there alone while the ladies entered the chapel. The
poor youth, ignorant of the favour shown him, believed he was to suffer
death at once, and he fainted just opposite the block. Lucrezia came out
first and was beheaded while repeating a psalm. Beatrice followed and
bravely walked to the scaffold reciting her prayers, “with such fervour
of spirit that all who heard her shed tears of compassion.” With her
lovely fair hair she looked like a sad but beautiful angel. She would
have lingered at her prayers but the executioner seized her, and struck
ferociously at her neck, the head falling into her own blood. Bernardo
meanwhile, awakening from his deadly swoon, again fainted when he saw
these horrible sights and was thought to be dead until revived by
powerful remedies which were applied. Last of all Giacomo was brought
out, blindfolded; his legs were tied to the scaffold and the executioner
struck him a fatal blow on the temples with a loaded hammer and then cut
off his head. After the ceremony Bernardo was taken back to the castle
of St. Angelo and kept there for a year and a half, then exiled to
Tuscany, where he died.
The foregoing narrative follows the facts as stated in the archives of
the Cenci family, but some authorities question whether Beatrice was
ever imprisoned and tortured in St. Angelo. The evidence however seems
perfectly clear. The cells she and her mother occupied are still shown,
as mentioned above, and in her will Beatrice, who left the larger part
of her possessions to the Church, also bequeathed money to four soldiers
of the garrison who had probably been her guards in the castle. Doubts
are to-day expressed as to the authenticity of the famous portrait which
is attributed to the eminent painter Guido, who, according to the story,
was introduced by her lawyer Farinacci into her cell for the purpose.
The personal description of Beatrice given in the Cenci documents does
not tally with the picture. She is recorded to have been “small and of a
fair complexion with a round face, two dimples in her cheeks and golden,
curling hair, which being extremely long she used to tie up; and when
afterwards she loosened it the splendid ringlets dazzled the eyes of the
spectators. Her eyes were of a deep blue, pleasing and full of fire,
and her face was so smiling in character that even after her death she
still seemed to smile.” On the other hand in the Guido canvas the eyes
are hazel, the hair is not long or curling, the face is drawn with thin
and haggard cheeks and no dimples. It is in the highest degree
improbable that she would have worn such a head-dress or costume at the
time the portrait is said to have been taken, and even the suggested
solution that it was painted from recollection is not borne out by any
sort of proof. The portrait is on view to-day in the Barberini Palace in
Rome, having come into the possession of that noble family from another
of Colonna.
The poetic traditions that have been woven around this marvellous
painting have inspired much fine writing by famous hands. Some of the
most interesting passages may be transcribed here.
“The portrait of Beatrice,” says Charles Dickens, “is a picture almost
impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendant sweetness and
beauty of the face there is a something shining out that haunts me. I
see it now as I see this paper or my pen. The head is loosely draped in
white, the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned
suddenly toward you, and there is an expression in the eyes--although
they are very tender and gentle--as if the wildness of a momentary
terror or distraction had been struggled with and overcome that instant;
and nothing but a celestial hope and a beautiful
[Illustration: _Beatrice Cenci_
_From the painting by Guido Reni In the Barbarini Gallery, Rome_
“The very saddest picture ever painted or conceived,” says
Nathaniel Hawthorne. Accused of complicity in the murder of a
brutal father, Beatrice Cenci endured horrible torture in St.
Angelo with heroic fortitude rivalling that of strong men, and
never really confessed the crime. She was beheaded in front of the
Castle of St. Angelo.
]
sorrow and a desolate earthly helplessness remained.”
Again, Nathaniel Hawthorne has written:--“The picture of Beatrice Cenci
is the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involves an
unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which comes to the observer
by a sort of intuition. She knows that her sorrow is so strange and
immense that she ought to be solitary for ever, both for the world’s
sake and her own; and this is the reason we feel such a distance between
Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely
heart-breaking to meet her glance and to know that nothing can be done
to help or comfort her; neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing
the hopelessness of her case better than we do. She is a fallen
angel--fallen and yet sinless.”
Further additions were made to St. Angelo in the seventeenth century, in
improving its interior and strengthening its defences. Urban VIII in
1623 built the bastions, still standing, and restricted the bed of the
Tiber so as to put an end to the inundations that so often had done
great damage to this part of the city. The pope also improved the
armament of the castle and cast many pieces of cannon with the bronze he
removed from the roof of the Pantheon. He was of the Barberini family,
whose crest is a bee, and a contemporary writer, the Jesuit Donato, paid
Urban the compliment of saying that “bees not only make honey but
possess stings to be used in self-defence.” The expenditure on the new
guns amounted to 67,260 scudi; there were 110 pieces in all, described
as “_Colubrini, cannoni, falconetti, petardi ed altri stromenti_.” It
was in carrying out these works and excavating a new ditch that the
Barberini or so-called “Sleeping Faun” was unearthed from the spot where
it had lain since the sixth century.
Pope Urban VIII also improved the long corridor or passage that
connected the Vatican with the castle. Arches had been added by Pius IV
in 1559, and then Urban roofed it in. This gallery had two stories, the
lower enclosed and tunnel-like, lighted by loopholes and a perfectly
secure passageway, and the upper a covered loggia of open arches, as it
may be seen to this day. The keys of these vitally important passages
have always been retained by the pope himself in his own keeping.
From this time forth the castle of St. Angelo ceased to be a courtly
residence, but it was still valued as a strong place of arms, with
fortifications to be jealously guarded, improved and kept in good
repair. It was also applied to baser uses as a prison-house to receive
the many law-breakers and criminals constantly committed to safe custody
by the watchful guardians of good order and the merciless agents of a
severe penal code. The popes, secure in their authority, their power no
longer challenged, held the turbulent people in stern subjection and
enforced the law with a strong hand. Good order was strictly maintained
and offenders were promptly brought to punishment. Crime was
extraordinarily prevalent and called for pitiless repressive and
coercive measures.
It has been said that the determining factor in the execution of the
Cenci was the occurrence of another murder of the same description.
Paolo, a son of the Princess Santa Croce, had vainly sought to persuade
his mother to make him her heir, but she had steadfastly refused, and in
his rage and disappointment he resolved to kill her. He first wrote to a
brother, Onofrio, accusing her of disgracing the family by her debauched
life, obviously a false charge, for she was already more than sixty
years of age. Onofrio replied that the honour of the family must be
preserved at all costs. Whereupon Paolo stabbed his mother to the heart.
Rome was convulsed, and Paolo fled for his life, but Onofrio was seized,
put on his trial, convicted and executed on the bridge of St. Angelo in
1601.
A strange crime is recorded in the account of the beheading of a certain
Giacinto Centini, who was a nephew of the most excellent and reverend
Signor Cardinal d’Ascoli, and “who had caused a statue of wax to be made
of Urban VIII, in order that its dissolution might insure that of the
pope and so allow his uncle a chance of becoming pontiff at the next
conclave.” Included with this is the story of the recantation and death
of his accomplices in the Campo di Fiore. It was on Sunday, April 22,
1636, that the recantation took place in St. Peter’s in the presence of
about twenty thousand persons. A platform ten spans high had been
erected in the middle of the church, and the accused were made to mount
upon it and listen to an account of the charges against them, which were
read aloud from a neighbouring pulpit. Centini and one of his
confederates, Fra Cherubino d’Ancona, heard in silence, but another, Fra
Bernardino the Hermit protested so loudly that he was innocent and
caused such scandal among the congregation that he was gagged to prevent
further utterance. The two unhappy monks were then hurried to the
Transpontina, where they were publicly stripped of their habit in the
presence of a large crowd which attended them, hooting and shouting, and
taken back to the Corte Savella where Centini had already arrived.
The execution was to take place in the Campo di Fiore and here the block
and axes, and a stake firmly planted in the ground, and surrounded with
straw and faggots, had been duly prepared. Long before dawn the square
began to fill with people, and about eight in the morning the officers
of justice left the prison with their victims, and after making a long
tour through the city, reached the piazza. The pile was lighted
immediately, and commenced to burn with such fury that the crowd drew
back appalled from the consuming flames and the showers of sparks which
darted from it. The ex-monks were in a state of abject terror and one of
them fell to the ground in a dead faint. Centini was beheaded first,
then the two monks were hanged, and the bodies of all three were flung
into the flames. They died with satisfactory signs of penitence and
Cherubino especially, remarks the old chronicler, “made a most edifying
end and left behind a good hope of his salvation.”
No pains were spared to induce criminals about to die to seek
reconciliation with Mother Church. An account is preserved of the last
days of the “most illustrious and excellent Signor Protomedico Giovanno
Tomasini,” during the pontificate of Alexander VII in 1666. Together
with a certain Camillo Nicoli, he had committed murder, and they lay
under sentence of death in the Carceri Nuovi of Florence. Certain
members of the Compagnia della Misericordia, a religious confraternity
vowed to good works, were despatched to minister to the condemned men
and attend them to the scaffold. Nicoli showed satisfactory signs of
repentance, but Tomasini’s heart was “as hard as the nether millstone”
and he refused to prepare himself for death. He would not open his lips
except to complain of the injustice of his sentence and nothing would
move him, neither prayers, exhortations, litanies nor the telling of
beads. Tomasini swore he would please himself and go to perdition his
own way. The brethren in attendance wrestled with him, wept and kissed
his feet, but failed utterly; others replaced them and were equally
unsuccessful; the execution was postponed to allow two eloquent
Capuchin fathers assisted by two Carmelite friars to effect his
conversion. Being still obdurate he was taken to hear mass; the priest
who officiated especially addressed himself to Tomasini, but the
celebrated physician remained as hardened as ever; he refused to kneel
but sat himself astride of the bench and would not even turn his eyes to
the altar. At last, exasperated beyond measure, the priests and the
monks and brethren of the confraternity, attacked him, hustled him,
abused him and hit him with no more result than that of creating a
scandal in the Church. The executioner’s assistants then gagged him and
placed a rope round his neck, after which he heard another mass and was
exorcised as though he had the devil inside him. All at once he heaved a
deep sigh, tore the gag from his mouth and recanted his errors, to the
immense relief of the members of the confraternity gathered around him.
They took him back to the prison to confess and receive the last
sacrament, after which he was again brought out, carefully dressed, and
marched through the streets, singing a penitential psalm until he
arrived at the scaffold.
These confraternities were corporate bodies with both religious and
civil functions. Thus the Confraternita della Trinita lodged and fed
gratuitously for three days all the pilgrims who came to Rome; the
Confraternita della Morte attended to the sick in the vast Agro Romano;
the Confraternita di St. Giovanni Decollato devoted itself to prisoners
condemned to death; the Santissima Annunziata gave dowries to poor and
deserving Roman maidens; the brethren of the Stigmata of St. Francis
prostrated themselves to kiss the ground and were therefore called in
Roman slang _bacia mattoni_;[2] those of St. Girolamo della Carita
begged alms for the prisoners; the Agonizzanti affixed the placards or
_tavolozze_ on the walls which bore the names of malefactors sentenced
to death; they besought the prayers of the pious and exposed the
sacrament until the last penalty of the law was carried out.
Among the many privileges enjoyed by these confraternities till a much
later date was one hardly in accordance with our modern idea of civil
justice, “the right of liberating from the galleys, and even from
sentence of death, any malefactors other than thieves.” When
negotiations had been entered into with the governor of Rome, and the
pope’s consent had been gained to the release of the offender, a day was
fixed upon for the confraternity to march in solemn procession from its
church to the prison, where the criminal was handed over and conducted
in triumph round the city, dressed in the attire of the brotherhood and
crowned with laurel, as in a Roman triumph. This custom was definitely
abolished by Leo XII.
All these liberations, however, cost money, and in time there came to be
an official tariff, varying according to the nature of the crime. Thus
we read in a report of the Austrian legation that forty scudi sufficed
to free a man who had been condemned to the galleys for ten years. The
last criminal released by the Compagnia di S. Girolamo was a murderer
named Checco sentenced to death in 1824. The company went in solemn
procession to fetch him from the Carceri Nuove and conduct him to their
church in the Via Monserrato. Here, after assisting at mass, he was
arrayed in the habit of the confraternity, crowned with laurel and
escorted in another triumphal procession round the church.
Terrible scenes were enacted at executions in those days. The story of
the execution of Abbé Rivarola in 1668, found guilty of writing
libellous satires, throws into strong relief the mad passions into which
the Roman populace were constantly betrayed, and the terrible mental
tortures inflicted upon the unhappy victims of the law. The abbé was so
overcome by the terrors of the situation that in spite of all that could
be done to keep up his courage and all the restoratives that were
administered to him during the night preceding his execution, he had
hardly strength enough left to be taken in a cart to the fatal place
where he was to suffer. He was dragged up on the scaffold by the members
of the confraternity in attendance on him, but so limp and powerless had
he become that the executioner had the greatest difficulty in adjusting
his head upon the block. Even then he must have moved almost
unconsciously, for when the string was pulled and the axe fell, it hit
the wretched man between the neck and the shoulder. The executioner,
seeing what had happened, seized a huge knife and literally hacked off
his head, whereupon the bystanders leaped in wild rage upon the scaffold
and with shrieks that rent the air seized the clumsy executioner, and
would have torn him limb from limb had not the _sbirri_ (policemen)
hastened to his rescue. A free fight ensued which was only put an end to
by the arrival of soldiers from the castle of St. Angelo. The
executioner was flogged round the streets of Rome the following morning,
and then exiled from the papal states.
Another gruesome picture of a public execution, at a somewhat later
date, is described by an eye-witness in the following words:
“There was a sudden noise of trumpets in an adjoining street which
somewhat diverted the attention of the populace, and presently there
emerged into the Via Papala, from the Governo Vecchio, a procession
headed by the Bargello and his officers and conveying two rogues bound
upon asses to the Campo di Fiori, where they were to be exposed in the
pillory. An immense mob followed these unhappy wretches, scoffing and
sneering at them and pelting them with all manner of horrible refuse.
The first criminal looked like a _facchino_ or porter, and was very
scantily clothed. His feet were bare and he wore a pair of breeches that
barely came below his thighs; on his head he had a cardboard mitre with
devils and flames rudely painted upon it; his face was smeared all over
with honey, and from his neck hung a card on which was written in large
letters his name and these words: ‘Blasphemer of the Holy Name of God.’
A piece of wood was thrust into his mouth and tied behind at the nape of
his neck in such a manner that he was obliged to keep his lips wide open
and his tongue hanging out. This torture was called the _mordacchia_.
Behind him walked the executioner’s assistant, who administered repeated
blows with a heavy whip to the culprit’s back. The face of this latter
was livid with pain and rage, and he glanced occasionally over his
shoulders at his assailant, with an expression that plainly said: ‘Wait
until I am free, and then see what I will do to you!’”
Another description comes from the same source:
“On one side of the piazza, between the fountain of Bernini and that of
the Calderai there was a little table, on which a Jesuit missionary
mounted at intervals and, crucifix in hand, harangued the bystanders,
exhorting them to repent of their sins and amend their evil lives,--with
very little apparent result, it must be confessed. On the opposite side
of the piazza, a platform had been erected on which three criminals, who
had been condemned to punishment, were exposed to the gibes and jeers of
the public. Each one was bound to a bench and bore round his neck a huge
placard upon which was written his name and the misdemeanour for which
he suffered. Thus one had been convicted of using false weights and
measures; the second of having bought up certain kinds of provisions so
as to raise their price; the third of being a pickpocket. But this
exhibition, which was intended to serve as a warning to evil-doers, was
only an additional amusement for the populace.
“Suddenly the sound of a trumpet was heard and the crowd rushed in the
direction whence it proceeded. It was the public crier, who announced
that their time of punishment in the pillory being over, the three
criminals would further be subjected to the lash. Immediately two
inferior officials mounted the platform; laid the culprits face
downwards on the bench and bound them to it, while the executioner
administered twenty-five strokes to the backs of the two first with a
scourge made of strips of skin. The victims screamed and writhed under
the lash, but their shrieks were drowned in the applause of the crowd,
who gloated over their sufferings in a truly horrible manner. The third,
a young man, pale and emaciated-looking, was to receive fifty stripes,
the maximum number allowed by law, and which was usually given only to
thieves.”
“Again, in 1711, a man was beheaded in the Campo di Fiore and his body
burned for having passed himself off as a priest. On June 26, 1717,
Antonio Castellani, aged twenty-two, shared the same fate for having
stolen a cloak, which he sold again for about a shilling; and in 1734,
an old man of seventy-two, Marcantonio Troiani, was arrested for
cattle-stealing. This latter was a noted thief but he hoped, by
spontaneously confessing his guilt, to escape with perhaps a few years
of the galleys. Instead of this, he was condemned to death. Furious at
his sentence, he determined that he would not allow himself to be
converted. He was, therefore, morally tortured by the members of the
confraternity to begin with; and when this did not succeed, they
applied, first, liquid wax, and then plates of red-hot iron to his
person. This torture also failed, and then the executioner, after
brutally ill-using him, put a halter round his neck and made as though
he would strangle him; and the terrified old man, scarcely knowing
whether his tormentor were man or devil, consented to recommend his soul
to the tender mercies of Christ.”
In the lawless state of society prevailing, such scenes were frequent.
It was not criminals only who suffered these punishments. “The State
officials and officers of justice were also liable to suffer severe
penalties unless they exercised a due discretion in the carrying out of
their duties. There is an incident on record which shows this very
plainly. One day two of the _sbirri_ out on the Campagna Romana saw a
travelling carriage coming from the direction of Frascati. They stopped
it, according to custom, and demanded to see the passports of its
occupants. Unfortunately for the zealous officers, the travellers
chanced to be the Duke of Sermoneta and his family, and he was so
affronted at the request that he instantly complained to the governor of
Rome, Monsignor Potenziani. Proceedings were taken against the _sbirri_,
and although they had evidently not exceeded their just powers, they
were bound upon asses and flogged through the streets of the city with
these words inscribed on cards round their necks:--’_Per mancanza grave
nell’ ufficio di esploratore._’” (For grave dereliction of duty in their
office of scout.)
It required very little in those barbarous times to bring a man to the
gallows. On the first Sunday of the Carnival of 1720, the Abbé Gaetano
Volpini da Piperno, a young man of twenty-two, was executed for having
written a libel against Pope Clement XI, whom he accused of improper
intimacy with Queen Clementina Sobiescki, the wife of James III, the
English Pretender. This document was never even printed but it was
circulated in manuscript in Vienna, and unfortunately came under the
observation of the papal nuncio, Monsignor Spinola, who denounced the
author to the pope. Although the scandal was notorious, the wretched
abbé was transferred to Rome, where he pined for some time in a
loathsome dungeon, and was finally beheaded.
In another case the inditing and publication of the libel was not
essential to constitute the crime. One Camillo Zaccagni, a well known
literary man of his time, was beheaded near the bridge of St. Angelo,
because, after vainly imploring the release of his nephew imprisoned at
the instance of Monsignor Pallavicino, he was heard to say, in a
barber’s shop, that “the inhuman prelate had used language that would
not be employed even in Turkey” and that he, Camillo, would be revenged
on him when the papal chair became vacant. The laws against libel were
very severe and found a prominent place in the criminal code. One
published by the secretary of state ran as follows:--“And whereas it is
manifest to every one how grave are the evils which arise from public or
injurious libels, His Eminence, anxious to prevent them, orders that no
person shall dare to compose, write, affix, or cause to be affixed,
distribute or give away any libels or pasquinades of any sort--even
though they may expound or set forth the truth;--or copy, or preserve
any such, under pain of death, confiscation of goods and perpetual
infamy, according to the rank of the offender, or at least of the
galleys, at the pleasure of His Eminence.” Such was the temper of the
time which persisted long after the terrible period of the Inquisition
in Rome, whose cruelties long exercised a powerful influence upon
criminal procedure.