"One day a young man, who had been gaming and lost, threw some dirt at an
image of the Virgin in one of the numerous shrines in the city, blaming
her for his bad luck. He was observed by a boy, who reported it to the
authorities, and was soon arrested. Having confessed that he did it in a
rage at having lost, he was hanged the same night from one of the windows
of the Bargello." {164}
* * * * *
Thereby adding another ghost or _folletto_ to those who already haunt the
place. It should be noted that according to Italian witch-lore a ghost
is never simply the spirit of the departed as he _was_, but a spirit
transformed. A witch becomes a _fata_, good or bad, and all men
something more than they were.
Among other small legends or tales in which the Bargello is referred to,
I find the following, of which I must first mention that _debito_ in
Italian means not only debt but duty, and that _fare un debito_ is not
only to get into debt, but to do what is just, upright, and honourable.
"It happened once, long ago, that a certain good fellow was being
escorted, truly not by a guard of honour, but by several
bum-bailiffs, to the Bargello, and met a friend who asked him why he
was in custody. To which he replied, 'Other men are arrested and
punished for crime or villainy, but I am treated thus for having
acted honourably, _per aver fatto il debito mio_.'
"And it happened to this same man that after he had been entertained
for a time at the public expense in that _gran albergo_, or great
hotel, the Bargello, that the Council of Eight, or the public
magistracy, gave him a hearing, and told him that he must promptly
pay the debt which he owed, which was one of fifty _scudi_ or crowns.
To which he replied that he could not. Then the chief of the Eight
said, 'We will find out a way to make you pay it, be sure of that.'
To which he answered, '_De gratia_, _Signore_, while you are about
it, then, make it a hundred, for I have great need just now of
another fifty crowns.'"
Prisoners in the Bargello, as elsewhere, were subject to the most
appalling injustice and cruelty. Thus we are told of Cosimo di Medici,
when he was doing all in his power to assassinate or poison Piero
Strozzi, that he was always very circumspect as regarded the venom, "and
did not use it till he had studied the effects and doses on condemned
prisoners in the Bargello." But "condemned prisoners" here means
doubtless those who were simply condemned to be made the subjects of such
experiments, as may be supposed, when we learn that Cosimo obtained the
recipe of making up a poison from Messer Apollino, secretary of Piero
Luigi, by _torturing_ him. It was thus they did in good old pious times.
Poisoning, as a most familiar and frequent thing, even in England, did
not pass out of practice, even in politics, until that great beginning of
a moral era, the Reformation.
"_Haec fabula docet_," wrote the good and wise Flaxius on the revise,
"that as a _Zoccolone_ friar is the best priest for a peasant, so even a
_buon diavolo_, or jolly devil, or a boon blackguard who knows his men,
is, perhaps, generally the best guide for certain kinds of rough sinners,
often setting them aright in life where a holy saint would be _inter
sacrem et saxum_, or in despair. As for poisoning, I fear _that_ cup,
far from passing away, is, under another form, passed round far more
frequently now than it ever was. For Francois Villon declared that lying
gossip, tittle-tattle, and second-hand slander were worse than poison
(which simply kills the body), and this with infinite refinement prevails
far more in modern society (being aided by newspapers) than it ever did
of yore anywhere. _This_ is the poison of the present day, which has
more _veneficae_ to spread it than the Locustan or Borgian venoms ever
found. Now for a merrier tale!"
"If all that's written, talked or sunge
Must be of the follies of menne,
'Twere better that no one moved his tongue,
Or that none could use a penne.
"Jog on, jog on the footpath-waye,
And cheerily jump the stile;
A merry heart goes all the daye,
A sad one tires in a mile!"
LEGENDS OF SAN LORENZO
THE CANON AND THE DEBTOR, AND THE CATS IN THE CLOISTER
"Pazienza, paziendum!
Disse il diavolo a Sant Antonium."
"A scratching he heard and a horrible groan,
As of hundreds of cats with mollrowing and moan:
'Oh!' said he to himself, 'sure the devil is come.'"
--_Mr. Jones and the Cats_.
The celebrated Church of San Lorenzo is a grand museum of art, even among
the many of its kind in Florence. It was originally a Roman Christian
basilica, built by the matron Giuliana, which edifice was consecrated
A.D. 373 by Saint Ambrose, and called the Basilica Ambrosiana. It was
partially rebuilt by Brunelleschi in 1435, and completed with sad
alteration, and finished by Antonio Manetti. As is well known, or has
been made known by many great poets, it contains the grandest statuary by
Michael Angelo in its monuments of Lorenzo de' Medici and his uncle
Giuliano.
This church served as a sanctuary in the olden time, and of this there is
a tale told in the old collections of facetiae, which, though trifling,
is worth recalling as connected with it.