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

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.