1
What! Never heard of Pietro Bailliardo! Surely you must, if you
ever heard anything at all. Why, everybody knows about Pietro
Bailliardo! Why, he was here and there and everywhere in Rome; and
turned everybody's head, and they have his books now, that they took
away from him, locked up in the Holy Office. [154]
Pietro Bailliardo was a scholar boy, and went to school like other
boys. One day he found at a bookstall a book of divination; [155]
with this he was able to do whatever he would, and wherever he was,
there the Devil was in command.
He fell in love with a girl, and she would have nothing to do with
him; and one day afterwards they found her on Mont Cavallo with a
great fire burning round her, and everyone who passed had to stir
the fire whether he would or not.
Whatever he wanted he ordered to come and it came to him, and nobody
could resist him.
As to putting him in prison it was no manner of use. One day when
they had put him in prison he took a piece of charcoal and drew a
boat on the white prison wall, then he jumped into it, and said to
all the other prisoners, 'Get in too,' and they got in, and he rowed
away, and next morning they were all loose about Rome. But there was
an old man asleep in a corner of the prison, and the guards came to
him and said, 'Where are all the prisoners gone?' And he told them
about Pietro Bailliardo drawing the boat on the prison wall with the
charcoal and their all getting away in it. 'And why didn't you go
too?' asked the guards. 'Because I was asleep so comfortably I did
not want to move,' said he. ('But then, how did he see it all unless
Pietro Bailliardo had him put under a spell on purpose that he might
tell the authorities how he had defied them?' added the narrator.)
Another time again they shut him up in prison, and the next morning
when they came to look for him they found nothing but an ass's head in
his place, which he had left there just to show his contempt for them.
One day a zealous friar met him and warned him to repent. 'What have
I to repent of?' said he. 'I can hear mass better than you, for I can
hear mass in three places at once.' Then he went away and made the
Devil take him to Constantinople and Paris to hear mass at each while
all at one and the same time he was hearing one at Rome too! Then
he came and told the friar what a grand thing he had done. But the
friar told him it was worse than not hearing mass at all to attempt
to use diabolical arts in that way.
After that one day he was going up past the church of SS. John and Paul
[156] when the Devil met him.
'Now,' said the Devil, 'you have had your swing long enough; I have
come to fetch you!'
When Pietro Bailliardo, who had set all the world at defiance all
his life, saw the Devil and heard him say he had come to fetch him,
he was seized with such terror that he began to repent, and ran inside
the church. The Devil durst not follow him thither, but waited outside
thinking he would soon be turned out.
But Pietro Bailliardo took up a great stone and went and kneeled down
before the crucifix and smote his bare breast with the big stone,
saying the while, 'Behold! merciful Lord, I beat my breast with this
stone till Thou bow Thy head in token that Thou forgive me.'
And he went on beating his breast till the blood ran down, and at last
our Lord had compassion on him and bowed His head from the cross to
him, and he died there. So the Devil did not get him.
2
'You have told me so many stories, why have you never told me anything
about Pietro Bailliardo--don't you know about him?'
'Of course I know about him. Who in Rome doesn't know about him? but
I can't remember it all. I know he had the book of divination, and
could make the Devil do whatever he chose by its means. And then
one day, I don't remember by what circumstance, he was led to do
penance; but he would do it in his own way, not in the right way,
and he made a vow to the Madonna that he would pay a visit to some
shrine in Rome and to S. Giacomo di Galizia, [157] and to the Santa
Casa di Loreto all in the same night. As devils can fly through the
air at a wonderful pace he called upon a devil by his divining book
and told him what he wanted; then he got on the back of the devil and
rode away through the air and actually visited all three in one night.
'But that sort of penance was no penance at all. After that he did
penance in right earnest at some church, I forget which.'
'Was it SS. John and Paul?' I asked.
'Yes, to be sure; SS. John and Paul. And you knew it all the time,
and yet have been asking me!'
3
'Do you want to know about Pietro Bailliardo too?' said the old man
who had given me No. 2 of San Giovanni Bocca d'oro. 'Oh, yes; I did
know a deal about him. This is what I can remember.
'Pietro Bailliardo had a bond [158] with the Devil, by which he was
as rich as he could be, and had whatever he wanted; but the day came
when the compact came to an end, and Pietro Bailliardo quailed as that
day approached, for he knew that after that time the Devil could take
him and he could not resist.
'Before noon on that day, therefore, he set out to go to St. Paul's.'
'To SS. John and Paul?' asked I, full of the former versions.
'No, no! to the great St. Paul's outside the walls, where the monks
of St. Benedict are; and he waited there all day, for before the
time was out the Devil couldn't take him. At last evening came on,
and the chierico [159] wanted to shut the church up; so he told Pietro
Bailliardo he must go, and showed him to the door. But when he came
to the door, he found the Devil there waiting for him dressed like
a paino. [160] When he saw that, no power of the chierico could make
him go; so the chierico was obliged to call the Father Abbot.
'To the Father Abbot Pietro Bailliardo told his whole story, and the
Father Abbot said, "If that is so, come with me to the Inquisition,
and tell your story there and receive absolution." Then he sent for a
carriage, and said to the driver, "Be of good heart, for I have many
relics of saints with me, and whatever strange thing you may see or
hear by the way, have no fear, it shall not harm you."
'The Devil saw all this, and was in a great fury, for he has no power
to alter future events, and so he couldn't help Pietro Bailliardo
going into the church for sanctuary before the time was up. He got a
number of devils together, therefore, and made unearthly and terrible
noises all the way. But the driver had confidence in the word of the
Abbot, and drove on without heeding. Only when they got to the bridge
of St. Angelo the noise was so tremendous he got quite bewildered;
moreover the bridge heaved and rocked as though it were going to
break in twain.
'"Fear nothing, fear nothing! Nothing will harm you," said the Father
Abbot; and the driver, having confidence in his words, drove on without
heeding, and they arrived safely at the Palace of the Inquisition.
'The Father Abbot now delivered Pietro Bailliardo over to the
Penitentiary, to whom, moreover, he made confession of his terrible
crimes, and begged to remain to perform his penance and obtain
reconciliation with God.
'But as Pietro Bailliardo had been used to follow his own strange
ways all his life, he must needs now perform his penance too in his
own strange way. Therefore he made a vow that he would perform such a
penance as man never performed before; and this penance was to visit,
all in one night, the SS. Crocifisso in the Chapel of the Holy Office,
S. Giacomo di Galizia, and the sanctuary of Cirollo. All in one night!'
'Stop! S. Giacomo di Galizia I know; we call it S. James of
Compostella; but the sanctuary of Cirollo! I never heard of that;
where is it?'
'Oh, Cirollo is all the same as if you said Loreto; the Madonna di
Loreto; it is all one.'
I appealed to one sitting there who, I knew, had been brought up
at Loreto.
'Yes, yes,' she said. 'That is all right; Cirollo is just a walk from
Loreto. Noi altri when living at Loreto often go there, but those who
come from far, most often don't; so we have a saying, "Who goes to
Loreto and not to Cirollo, he sees the mother, but not the son." [161]
'It is a saying, and nothing more.'
'Basta!' interposed the old man, who, like other old people, was
apt to forget the thread of his story if interrupted. 'Basta! it
doesn't matter: they were anyhow three places very far apart. [162]
So Pietro Bailliardo, who couldn't get out of his habit of commanding
the devils, called up a number of them, and said, "Which of all
you fiends can go the fastest?" and the devils, accustomed to obey
him, answered the one before the other, some one way some another,
each anxious to content him: "I, like lightning," said one; "I,
like the wind," said another; but "I--I can go as fast as thought,"
[163] said another. "Ho! Here! You fiend. You, who can travel as
fast as thought. You come here, and take me to-night to St. James of
Compostella, and to the sanctuary of Cirollo, and bring me back here
to the Chapel of the Holy Office before morning breaks."
'He spoke imperiously, and sprang on to the devil's back, and all
was done so quickly the devil had no time for thought or hesitation.
'Away flew the devil, and Pietro Bailliardo on his back, all the
way to St. James of Compostella, and, whr-r-r-r all the way to the
sanctuary of Cirollo, fast, fast as thought. Then suddenly the devil
stopped midway. An idea had struck him. "What had a devil to do with
going about visiting shrines in this way; no harm had been done to
the sacred place; not a stone had been injured; [164] why then had
they gone to S. Giacomo; why were they going to Cirollo?"
'"Tell me, Ser Bailliardo," said he, "on whose account am I sweating
like this? is it for your private account, or for my master's; because
I only obey you so long as you command in his name, and how can it
serve him to be doing pilgrim's work?"
'"Go on, ugly monster! don't prate," [165] answered Pietro Bailliardo,
and gave him at the same time a kick in each flank; and such was his
empire over him that the devil durst say no more, and completed the
strange pilgrimage even as he had commanded. [166]
'Thus even in his penitence Pietro Bailliardo had the devils subject
to him. But after that he did penance in right good earnest, only he
chose a strange way of his own again.
'He knelt before the Crucifix in the Chapel of the Inquisition,
and he took a great stone and beat his breast with it and said,
"Lord, behold my repentance; I smite my breast thus till Thou forgive
me." And when the blood flowed down the Lord had compassion on him
and bowed His head upon the cross and said, "I have forgiven thee!"
'After that he died in peace.'