LATER DAYS IN ROME
Crime very prevalent in Rome under later popes--Repressive
edicts--Gambling carried to great excess--Atrocious murders
committed by persons of high rank--Presentation of the
Chinea--Decrees published by the governor of Rome against
law-breakers--Discipline of nunneries--Guiseppe Balsamo, called
Count Cagliostro, the famous adventurer--His travels and
marriage--He professes to have discovered the “Philosopher’s
stone”--He foretells the advent of the French Revolution--His last
visit to Rome--Arrest and imprisonment--Pope Pius VI commutes the
sentence of death to perpetual imprisonment--Balsamo dies in prison
and his wife in a convent.
Under the later popes and in spite of many repressive edicts, crime
prevailed largely in Rome. Immorality of life was a prominent vice in
all classes, especially the highest. Gambling was indulged to such an
extent that entire fortunes were staked upon a turn of the cards and a
throw of dice. Indeed, several members of the aristocracy only saved
themselves from utter ruin by obtaining a kind of _lettre de cachet_
from the pope which kept their creditors at bay, or by the strictness of
the laws of primogeniture, or by deeds of trust which enabled them to
save something from the general wreck. To such a height was the passion
for gambling carried, that special edicts were issued in 1757, 1790 and
1799, forbidding all games of “Azzardo, Invito and Resto” under the
penalty of a fine of five hundred scudi, five years at the galleys and
the forfeiture of all the winnings. Nor was this severity unnecessary.
Every one from the highest to the lowest played the favourite games,
“Bassetta,” “Faraone,” “Zecchinetta,” “Caffo,” “Trentuquaranta,”
“Bancofallito,” “Macao” and “Ventuno,” and it was no uncommon thing to
see a table covered with heaps of gold and notes, much of which could
ill be spared.
The most stringent regulations, rigidly enforced, could not check crime.
When a papal conclave was sitting, much time was wasted before the new
election could be made, and it was then that anarchy and confusion
reigned and the gravest crimes were committed with impunity by all
classes. Thus the Abbé Ceracchi murdered his brother and was afterwards
hanged; the Abbé Anguilla, a high official of the papal court, committed
an atrocious murder and the prince, Sigismund Chigi, administered slow
poison to Cardinal Carandini who escaped almost by a miracle. As the
centuries passed, misdeeds multiplied and with them the infliction of
the extreme penalty of the law. Immediately before the Napoleonic era,
the scaffold was constantly in use and many culprits were hanged, drawn
and quartered. While the French were supreme, milder methods prevailed,
but when the papal authorities again came into power, a reactionary
movement set in and capital punishment was again the rule.
Pope Leo XII was a ferocious ruler who loved the sight of blood and who
approved of cruel punishments, such as the flogging of Guiseppe
Franconi, who was convicted of having assassinated Monsignor Traietto,
and was beheaded while stoutly protesting his innocence. During this
pontificate “no less than 339 persons, many of them condemned for what
we should now term trivial offences, were executed.” In these days the
carnival produced the greatest disorders. The police were utterly
powerless to restrain the excesses of the people. Their lawlessness was,
of course, stimulated by the example of the nobles who defied all
regulations, although these were often of a severe and summary kind.
The ceremony of the presentation of the _Chinea_, when the white
palfrey, richly caparisoned, carrying the tribute of the king of Naples
to the pope, proceeded in state from the Colonna Palace to the Vatican,
was always the occasion of disturbance. The streets were crowded to see
it pass and the people gave themselves up to wild roistering. They
passed the time in quarrelling, drinking, gambling, fighting, and were
in open conflict with the bargello and his myrmidons of the police. The
following morning all these disturbers of the public peace, who had been
taken red handed, were flogged by the public executioner, or exposed in
the pillory.
Some extracts from the decrees published by the governor of Rome will
show that the clerical authorities were anxious that the people should
be virtuous and well-behaved. The whole question of public demeanour was
dealt with in a section of the criminal code prescribing the penalties
for “trying to stir up sedition and disorder,” as follows:
“His Eminence ordains that any one of whatsoever station, who shall
break the peace, or cause it to be broken, or who shall endeavour to
stir up strife, by word or deed, shall be liable to _morte naturale_,
the ruin and demolition of his house, and the confiscation of all his
goods; and if he will not submit himself to the jurisdiction of the
Court, he shall be condemned, as contumacious, to all the aforesaid
penalties, and a picture shall be hung up of him in his ordinary dress
in some public place, representing him as suspended heels uppermost, and
with his name, surname, residence and the nature of his crime written
underneath.”
Another law, aimed at the maintenance of good order in the city, by
peremptorily forbidding the carrying of offensive weapons, ran as
follows:
“No person shall be permitted to carry any arms, whether offensive or
defensive, without permission under pain of the following punishment:
the loss of the arms, three lashes and a fine of twenty-five scudi, if
the offence has been by day--the fine to be double if at night. And
under the name of arms are included all bludgeons and small sacks and
night sticks and large stones. His Eminence also prohibits any one from
taking into, or keeping in a house, or elsewhere, and from selling,
making or repairing of pistols, under pain of death, confiscation of
goods and other penalties, as laid down in the bulls of Pius IV and Pius
V; and if, in making search, the officers of justice shall find any
prohibited arms, of whatsoever kind, laid on the ground at less than six
paces from any person, the said arms shall be presumed to belong to that
person, and such presumption shall suffice to subject that person to the
torture.”
The discipline of the nunneries was necessarily strict. Yet it was at
times defied and crimes were committed that throw a baleful light upon
the general condition of these retreats, generally deemed decorous and
holy. In 1633, a nun of noble family, an inmate of the convent of St.
Domenico, on Monte Magnanapoli, was foully murdered by a lay sister of
the same house; and two other nuns, who ran to her assistance on hearing
her cries, were badly wounded by the assassin. The lay sister, by order
of the pope, was strangled in the convent and confessed before her death
that she had done the deed at the instigation of another nun, a member
of the Aldobrandini family, and a niece of Pope Clement VIII. This lady
was quietly put out of the way.
Again, a young nobleman of Ferrara fell in love with a nun of the
convent of Santa Croce. He corresponded with her for some time, and
finally planned with a servant to introduce him into the nunnery
concealed in a box. But through some mistake the servant did not realise
that any one was as yet inside, and delayed the delivery of the box.
When at length it reached the nun, who alone had the key, and she opened
it, the man was found to be all but suffocated. The unhappy girl in her
terror and perplexity revealed the whole affair to the lady abbess, who
reported it to the vicar, who in his turn told the pope. Whereupon the
poor nun, a beautiful girl of eighteen years, was arraigned for her
offence and sentenced to be walled up alive in the basement of the
nunnery.
A later law imposed severe penalties punishing the violation of
nunneries. It reads:
“And because all sacred places--but, above all, nunneries--deserve every
respect, His Eminence orders and desires that if any one in any way
whatsoever seeks to enter a nunnery without official permission, whether
by night or day, he shall incur the penalty of death; even if he have
not committed any special fault. And all who have in any way aided or
abetted him shall incur the like penalty.”
And another law was very severe upon the crime of blasphemy, as follows:
“Although it should be so repugnant to the nature of man to offend God
Almighty by blaspheming either the Person of His own Divine Majesty, or
that of His Saints, as to make it utterly unnecessary to provide human
laws against the sin, yet, as His Eminence desires to correct the
natural depravity of the human heart, it is hereby ordained that--if any
one shall blaspheme, curse or in any way lightly name the most Holy Name
of God, or of his only begotten Son, our Redeemer, or of the Most Holy
Mother, always a virgin, or of any saint whatsoever, etc., etc.--he
shall, for the first offence, incur a penalty of three lashes, given in
public; for the second, a public flogging; and for the third, the
galleys for five years. And the evidence of one reliable witness shall
suffice in addition to that of the accuser, at the pleasure of the
judge.”
Another mandate of high moral tendency states: “Whoever shall violently
assault and kiss, or try to kiss, a virtuous woman, in public--even
though he should not actually succeed in kissing her, but should only
proceed so far as an embrace--shall be condemned to the galleys for
life; shall have his possessions confiscated; and shall even be liable
to the penalty of death at the option of His Eminence.”
The honesty of the purveyors of food was closely watched by the
bishop-governor in a law which reads:
“I will that any bakers or other tradesmen who do not sell well-made
bread of good weight shall incur a penalty of three lashes and a fine of
ten scudi each; one-half of the fine to be applied to pious uses and the
other half to go to the accuser, or the executioner, or in other ways,
at the pleasure of the judge.”
A most interesting account is given of the passage through Rome, at the
latter end of the eighteenth century, of that remarkable personage and
most famous adventurer Giuseppe Balsamo. It was in Rome that this famous
swindler was finally unmasked, his frauds exposed and he himself seized,
tried and condemned to death. His story drawn from authentic records is
worth telling in some detail.
This famous impostor was commonly called Count Cagliostro. Carlyle says
of him that he “was not so much a liar as a lie.” He was born at Palermo
on the 8th June, 1743, being the son of Pietro Balsamo, a merchant, and
Felice Braconieri, his wife. Young Giuseppe was sent as a lad to the
seminary of San Rocco in Palermo, and during his stay there he ran away
several times from school. When he was thirteen years old he was
consigned to the care of the father-general of the Benfratelli, who
himself took him to Cartagirone, where he entered on his novitiate and
among other things studied alchemy and a little medicine. While in the
convent he was repeatedly flogged for misconduct. Among the other sins
he committed there, it is specially recorded that when it came to his
turn to read the “Martyrology” at meal times, he would substitute the
names of famous murderers for those of saints and virgins. He was
invariably the ringleader in any disturbance and such was his impudent
boldness that he often helped to rescue prisoners from the custody of
the police. About this time he also began to study Latin and drawing,
and his skill in imitation was so great that he frequently forged
tickets for the theatre. When he quitted the convent he went to live
with an uncle from whom he stole considerable sums of money. He also
managed to ingratiate himself with one of his cousins who was in love
with a rich gentleman of Palermo, and carried letters between them; and
representing to her admirer that the young lady would be gratified by a
gift of money and jewels, he obtained possession of both which he
quietly appropriated.
The next offence of Balsamo was the forging of a will, and before the
fraud was discovered he was far away from Palermo. He was always
believed to have murdered a canon, although the authorities failed to
obtain actual proof of his guilt, but he was imprisoned several times
for robberies and assaults.
Finally he stole more than sixty ounces of gold from one Marano, a
goldsmith, whom he had deluded into the belief that he could show him
where a vast hidden treasure lay concealed. Marano, who had not only
been robbed but also nearly beaten to death by certain devils invoked by
Balsamo, determined to take revenge for all his injuries. This obliged
Balsamo to fly from Palermo, and he left the city under a strong
suspicion that he had either committed or attempted to commit sacrilege.
Then began his many wanderings. At Messina, one of his first halting
places, he met with a certain Althotas, who was a Greek, and from him he
acquired a considerable knowledge of chemistry and of Oriental
languages. He travelled with this man all over the Greek Archipelago and
as far as Egypt, where his companion made silk from hemp.
From Egypt Balsamo journeyed to Rhodes and Malta, where he stayed with
Pinto, grand-master of the Order of St. John. He then proceeded to
Naples in company with a coral cutter to whom he had been recommended by
the grand-master. He lived in Naples for a considerable time and while
there made the acquaintance of Prince Pignatelli who afterwards
accompanied him into Sicily. On the way he met a priest at Messina who
had been one of the devils who helped in the attack on Marano, and later
he returned to Naples, where he remained a short time.
And thus it happened that one fine day in the year 1773 he presented
himself in Rome, after having travelled through Italy, Greece, Egypt,
Arabia and Persia. He was only thirty years old as yet, but his was a
larger and more varied experience than most men acquire during their
entire lives. And now he was prepared to try his old tricks in a new
place and on a grander scale. He established himself in Rome at the
“Locanda del Sole” and by means of the letters of introduction he
brought with him soon became acquainted with several great personages,
including the Baron de Breteuil, ambassador of the Knights of Malta.
He had not been long in the city before he attached himself to a young
girl of the name of Serafina, otherwise Lorenza Feliciani, who lived
near the Trinità di Monti. She was born at Monte Rinaldo in the diocese
of Fermo, but her father’s crimes had driven him from his native place
and forced him to seek refuge in Rome. One of her brothers was in the
army, and at a later date was present at the siege of Ancona with
General Cubiers. Lorenza’s father was called Luca Andrea, but he changed
his name after he came to Rome. When Cagliostro asked for his daughter
in marriage he gave his consent at once, and the wedding took place on
the 26th of February. Cagliostro immediately applied himself to the task
of undermining his wife’s virtue, silencing her scruples by saying “that
adultery was no sin in a woman who was actuated simply by motives of
self-interest,” and by thus selling his honour he succeeded in raising a
small sum of money. By and by he made the acquaintance of a certain
Ottavio Nicastro, a Sicilian who called himself the Marchese Agliata and
who afterward died on the scaffold for premeditated murder. This man
falsified an official brevet of the king of Prussia in favour of his
friend, representing Balsamo as having been the colonel of one of the
Prussian regiments of which he wore the uniform.
But “rogues fall out when honest men agree,” and these two were no
exception to the rule. Nicastro suddenly denounced Balsamo to the
governor of Rome as a forger, and the latter had to seek safety in
flight. Nicastro, however, seemed immediately to repent of what he had
done, and accompanied Balsamo in his hurried departure. The precious
pair then visited Loreto, Bologna, Bergamo and Genoa, in all of which
places they carried on their usual nefarious practices, among other evil
deeds forging a bill for twenty-five scudi payable in Savoy. At Genoa
Agliata absconded with everything he could lay hands on, and Balsamo
took his wife to Nice and thence to Spain, giving out that he was going
on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostello.
He remained six months in Barcelona and there continued his usual mode
of life. His wife Lorenza was young, of medium height and fair
complexion, with a round face, beautiful eyes and a sweet and
languishing expression which proved very attractive. She was a most
valuable assistant to him in many ways and he had no scruple, as we have
said, in availing himself of her services. From Barcelona he journeyed
to Madrid, then on to Lisbon and through France to London. In 1780 he
was at Strasburg, where the credulous Germans treated him as a
supernatural being, and after visiting many other towns in Germany, he
appeared once more in Palermo and Naples, representing himself in every
city where he stopped as a famous alchemist and magician who could
invoke spirits, revive vanished youth and strength and foretell future
events. He also professed to have discovered the secret of the
philosopher’s stone and to hold the recipe of the much coveted elixir of
life, to sell strange aromatic wines which excited the jaded senses, and
finally, to be able to turn mercury into gold and to make precious
stones increase in size.
It was during the time of his residence in London that his fame became
world-wide. One of his first acts there was to enroll himself among the
Freemasons, and he very speedily attained to the highest rank in the
order. Then he abandoned his paternal name of Balsamo and blossomed out
as Alessandro, Count of Cagliostro, a nobleman of vast wealth which he
displayed travelling in the greatest pomp and state and surrounded by
many servants in splendid liveries. He also gave himself out to be
immortal and of an age not to be computed by years, for he possessed the
secret of perpetual youth.
He kept up this farce for two years in England and then ventured to
return to Palermo, where his ancient enemy, Marano, at once caused him
to be arrested, and proceedings were taken against him on account of the
will he had previously forged. It seems almost incredible, but it is a
fact that he was released from prison owing to the intervention of a
powerful aristocrat who lived in Naples and to whom he had letters of
introduction.
His fame as a professor of the occult arts spread faster than the
knowledge of his evil deeds. Wherever he went he was received with
rapturous enthusiasm. At Mittau in Germany the people were so frantic
about him that they seriously entertained the idea of deposing their
rightful sovereign and making Cagliostro their ruler. In Paris, however,
the rascal received somewhat of a check, for he was proved to be the
prime instigator in the affair of the famous diamond necklace, in which
both Cardinal Rohan and the Countess de la Motte-Valois were implicated.
He was at first imprisoned in the Bastile and afterward expelled from
the country on twenty-four hours’ notice. Yet such was the faith of the
people in this strange creature that the arbitrary decision of the
authorities almost produced an uprising in his favour, and his departure
from France was more in the nature of a triumph than a disgrace.
He went from Paris to London, and there on the 20th June, 1786, he
issued a kind of manifesto to the French people in which he used these
remarkable words:--“The time is coming when the Bastile will be
destroyed; when a prince shall reign who will abolish ‘_lettres de
cachet_,’ convoke the States-General and reform religion;” all of which
afterward came to pass. But his stay in London was short. One de
Morande, editor of the _Courrier de L’Europe_, denounced him as a
charlatan and he had to make a hasty departure for Basle. He was next
heard of in Savoy, then in Vienna--whence he was expelled by order of
Joseph II--and later in Trent, where he was welcomed by the prince
archbishop until the emperor’s orders arrived to drive him out, after
which he returned again to Rome.
Cagliostro reached Rome for the last time in May, 1789, and after
staying for a short time at the Locanda della Scalinata in the Piazza di
Spagna he took a private house in the Piazza Farnese. It was just at the
time when so-called “Egyptian Masonry” was being introduced into Rome,
and a large and powerful lodge was established at the Villa Malta, near
the Porta Pinciana, where meetings were held which were almost public
gatherings. An account of one of these meetings which was attended by
the Abbé Benedetti, a Roman litterateur, is given in his own words.
“I have just been to a meeting presided over by Cagliostro at the Villa
Malta near the Porta Pinciana. It was the Marchese M. P. who insisted
upon my going and who accompanied me thither. We went about two o’clock
in the evening (nine o’clock according to English time) and entered the
precincts of the villa after giving the countersign to the servant in
livery who answered our ring. We were then introduced into a large,
brightly lighted saloon, whose walls were painted with representations
of the square, level, plumb lines and other masonic emblems. There were
besides a number of statuettes of Egyptian, Assyrian and Chinese idols
and one of the walls had on it in large letters the mottoes:--
“‘Sum quidquid fuit, est, et erit,
Nemoque mortalium mihi adhuc
Velum detraxit.’
“The apartment was full of distinguished persons. You can imagine my
astonishment when I recognised His Eminence Cardinal Bernis, ambassador
of the most Christian King (of France), Prince Frederick Cesi (junior),
the Abbé Ennio Quirino Viconti, Signor di Breteuil, and many other great
lords and ladies, among the latter of whom I noticed the Princess
Rezzonico, the Princess Santa Croce, the Countess Soderini, and Marchese
Massini, attended by a capuchin. At the end of the room there was a kind
of altar on which were placed skulls, stuffed monkeys, living serpents,
owls whose eyes blinked in the unaccustomed light, old musty parchments,
crucibles, amulets, packets of strange powders and similar diabolical
articles. In a little while Alessandro Cagliostro made his appearance.
He is a man of middle stature, stoutly built, with a stern and yet
malicious expression of countenance and a suspicious look in his eyes;
in every respect like the portrait I have of him. His wife followed him
into the room. She also is very like her picture and is a handsome
looking woman, well proportioned and with a very vivacious face.
“Cagliostro at once seated himself upon a three-legged stool and began
to speak somewhat in this fashion: ‘It is right that I should tell you
about my life, that I should reveal my past to you, that I should tear
down the thick veil which impedes your sight. Enter then and hear.
Behold the desert annihilated, the gigantic palms projecting their
shadow upon the sand; the Nile flowing tranquilly, the sphinxes,
obelisks and huge columns rising all around. Behold the marvellous walls
of the temples in all their grandeur, the mighty pyramids which rear
themselves towards the sky, the labyrinths none can penetrate. It is the
sacred city, it is Memphis. Behold King Thothmes III, the glorious,
enter it in triumph after having vanquished the Syrians and Canaanites.
I see. But lo! I stand in other countries; and behold there is another
city, and another temple, even the holy temple where they worship
Jehovah in the palace of Osiris. The new deities have supplanted the old
ones. I hear voices--the prophet, the Son of God cries aloud. Who is it?
It is Christ. Ah! I see Him; He is at the marriage of Cana; He changes
the water into wine.’
“Here Cagliostro bounded from his seat, uttering a loud scream. ‘No,
no!’ he shouted. ‘You shall not be the only one to do this miracle;--I
also will show it, I also will unveil the mystery. Nothing is hidden
from me; I know all; I am antediluvian--immortal. Nothing is concealed
from me; nothing is impossible--_Ego sum qui sum_.’
“He then seized a pitcher full of the freshest and purest water which he
made us look at and taste. He put some of it into a large crystal cup
and taking up a phial poured a few drops out of it into the water.
Immediately the water turned the colour of gold and the liquid was
transformed into a sparkling wine--looking very much like Orvieto--but
which he said was the Falernian of the old Romans. Some of the company
tasted it and pronounced it exquisite. Cagliostro resumed his discourse,
conducting himself as though inspired. He spoke of his most famous
secrets, of his balsams, of his elixirs, and he exhibited one which he
declared would prolong life and restore youthful vigour. Some of this he
gave certain persons of advanced age who were present to drink, saying
that its effects would be visible immediately; and sure enough, the
colour presently came into the faded cheeks of those who had partaken of
it and the wrinkles seemed in some mysterious manner to vanish from
their faces. This afforded Cagliostro a good opportunity to magnify the
virtues of his specific, but it appeared to me that very much the same
effect would have been produced by a good glass of Montefiascone.
“Cagliostro next informed us that he possessed the art of increasing the
size of precious stones and that he was willing to exhibit his power
immediately. So he requested Cardinal Bernis to lend him the solitaire
diamond ring that he always wore and placed it in a crucible into which
he poured several liquids. He then began to recite some sort of charm
made up of Arabic and Egyptian words. After this he put several powders
into the crucible, among them one of a brilliant red hue, and in a few
minutes he returned Cardinal Bernis his ring with the diamond twice its
original size. The delighted cardinal slipped it on to his finger,
crying out that it was a miracle. I am more inclined to believe that the
ring was cleverly changed in the crucible and that the one given back to
the cardinal had a large rock crystal in it instead of a brilliant.
“Cagliostro’s next proceeding was to call a young girl into the room and
to make her gaze steadfastly at a crystal bottle filled with water. The
child, whom he called his ward, declared that she saw therein a street
leading from one great city to another near it, along which ran an
enormous crowd of men and women crying out, ‘Down with the king.’
Cagliostro asked her what country it was and she replied that she heard
the people shouting, ‘To Versailles!’ and that there was a nobleman in
the midst of them. Cagliostro turned towards us and remarked: ‘Well! my
ward has predicted future events. It will not be long before Louis XVI
is assaulted by his people in his palace of Versailles; a duke will head
the crowd; the monarchy will be overthrown, the Bastile destroyed and
tyranny be succeeded by liberty.’
“‘_Diamine!_’ exclaimed His Eminence Cardinal Bernis, ‘How dare you
venture to make such prophecies concerning my master?’
“‘I am sorry, but they will prove true,’ quietly replied the performer,
and the fact is undoubted that the scenes foreshadowed actually occurred
at the outbreak of the French Revolution.
“Cagliostro,” continues the account we are quoting, “produced a decided
sensation in the room. Opinions were divided about him; some thought him
a superior being gifted with a strange faculty of second sight; some
were satisfied that he was a charlatan and an impostor. I was strongly
inclined to this view,” says the Abbé Benedetti. He was supported in it
by the action of the papal authorities.
In the last days of the year, when the storm had broken in Paris,
Cagliostro was arrested, together with his wife and the capuchin monk
who had been present at the strange meeting above described. All three
were first conducted to the castle of St. Angelo and then handed over to
the Inquisition and examined by the Holy Office. Cagliostro repudiated
all the charges brought against him, but his wife, fearing the rope and
the stake, told the story of her husband’s life in its most minute
particulars and threw the entire blame upon him. He was finally
condemned to death, but Pius VI commuted the punishment into perpetual
imprisonment in the fortress of San Leo, after he had publicly abjured
his errors in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. His wife was
obliged to enter the convent of St. Appollonia in Trastevere where she
died, forgotten and in obscurity. Balsamo died in prison in 1795.