Italian Chronicles
Page 15
“‘Well, what is it? What are you doing?’
“The count replied:
“‘The rope was giving me trouble; I’ll get another one, so as not to make you suffer.’
“With those words, he left; shortly, he returned with another rope, and he arranged the kerchief over her eyes again; he put the rope around her neck, and, putting the hazel stick into the knot, he turned it so as to strangle her. The duchess’s tone of voice, during the entire episode, never varied from that of ordinary conversation.”
Brother Antoine de Salazar, another Capuchin, ended his testimony with these words:
“I wanted to leave the room out of concern for my conscience, so as not to see her die; but the duchess said to me:
“‘Do not go away, for the love of God.’”
(And here the monk recounted the circumstances of her death exactly as we have reported it.) He added:
“She died like a true Christian, often repeating: ‘I believe; I believe.’”
The two monks, who had evidently obtained the necessary authorization from their superior, repeated in their testimony that the duchess always protested that she was entirely innocent in her conversations with them as well as in her confessions, and particularly in the confession that preceded the Mass when she received Holy Communion. If she were guilty, this act of pride would hurl her into hell.
In a confrontation between Brother Antoine de Pavie, Capuchin, and D. Léonard del Cardine, the monk said:
“My companion told the count that it would be best to wait until the duchess gave birth; he added, she is six months pregnant, and we must not lose the soul of the poor little creature she is carrying within her; we must baptize the child.
“To this Count d’Aliffe replied:
“‘You know that I must return to Rome, and I do not want to appear there with some kind of mask on my face’ (meaning with this offense unavenged).”
As soon as the duchess was dead, the two monks pleaded for her to be opened up immediately so that they could baptize the child; but the count and D. Léonard would not listen to their pleas.
The next day, the duchess was buried in the local church with some degree of pomp (I have read the records).10 This event, the news of which spread quickly, did not make much of an impression; it had been long expected; the death had been rumored already several times, both in Gallese and in Rome; and in any case, there was nothing unusual about an assassination occurring outside Rome and during the time when the papal throne was vacant. The conclave following the death of Paul IV was a stormy one, lasting no less than four months.
On the twenty-sixth of December 1559, the poor cardinal Carlo Carafa was obliged to concur in the election of a cardinal supported by Spain, who therefore could not refuse any of the harsh demands that Philip II might make concerning Cardinal Carafa. The new pope took the name of Pius IV.
If the cardinal had not been in exile when Paul IV died, he would have been in charge of the election, or at least would have been in a position to prevent the election of an enemy.
Soon after, both the cardinal and the duke were arrested; Philip II had evidently ordered their executions. They had to respond to fourteen charges. Interrogations were carried out with anyone who could shed any light on the fourteen points. The report on the trial, very carefully composed, makes up two folio volumes, which I have read with great interest, given that one finds in them the kind of details about ways of life that are deemed unworthy of the majesty of history as usually written. I found some vivid details therein concerning an assassination attempt on Cardinal Carafa, then the all-powerful first minister, conducted by the Spanish party.
In any case, he and his brother were condemned to death for crimes that would not have been capital ones for anyone else, such as, for instance, putting a wife’s lover to death as well as the unfaithful wife herself. A few years after this, Prince Orsini married the sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; he believed her to have been unfaithful, and he had her poisoned right in Tuscany, with the consent of the grand duke her brother, and no one considered this a crime. Many princesses of the house of the Medici met their ends in this way.
When the trial of the two Carafa was over, a lengthy summary of it was made, and on several occasions this summary was examined by the congregations of cardinals. It is only too apparent that once it was agreed that the murderer of an adulterous wife was to be executed—a kind of vengeance that was never considered a crime—then the cardinal was guilty of having urged his brother to do it, just as the duke was guilty for actually having done it.
On the third of March 1561, Pope Pius IV convened a consistory that lasted eight hours, at the end of which he passed sentence on the Carafa in these terms: Prout in schedulâ (meaning, “Let it be done as stated”).
During the night of the following day, the fiscal sent an armed escort11 to the Castel Sant’Angelo to carry out the sentence of death for the two brothers, Charles, Cardinal Carafa, and Jean, Duke of Palliano. The duke was first. He was transferred from the Castel Sant’Angelo to the prisons of Tordinone, where everything had been prepared; there, the duke, the Count d’Aliffe, and D. Léonard del Cardine were all beheaded.
The duke bore this terrible moment in the manner not only befitting a chevalier of high birth but also befitting a Christian ready to endure anything for the love of God. He addressed some fine words of exhortation to his two companions to ready them for their death; then he wrote to his son.12
The armed escort returned to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where he announced the sentence of death for Cardinal Carafa, giving him only one hour to prepare himself. The cardinal showed a grandeur of soul superior to that of his brother, though he spoke fewer words; speech is an external power that we seek out, not something that comes from within us. He was heard to murmur only these words when the terrible news was told him:
“I am to die! O Pope Pius! O King Philip!”
He made his confession; he recited the seven penitential Psalms, then sat down on a chair and said to the executioner:
“Do it.”
The executioner strangled him with a silken rope, which tore; he needed to start over twice. The cardinal looked at the executioner without saying a word.
Added Note: A few years later, the holy pope Pius V had the trial reopened, and he voided the sentences; the cardinal and his brother were reinstated with all their honors, and the procurator general, who had contributed the most to their deaths, was hanged. Pius V ordered the suppression of the trial report; all the copies that existed in libraries were burned; it was forbidden to retain them under pain of excommunication; but the pope did not think to check his own library, and that is the copy from which all the ones available today stem.
F. DELA GENEVAIS13
THE ABBESS OF CASTRO
I
Melodrama has so often depicted brigands from sixteenth-century Italy, and so many writers have described them without actually knowing them, that the picture we have of them today is entirely false. It can be said, in general, that the people we call brigands were in fact the opposition to the wretched governments that, in Italy, succeeded the republics of the Middle Ages. The new tyrant was usually the richest citizen of the defunct republic, and in order to seduce the lower classes, he had beautiful churches built and beautiful paintings painted. Such were the Polentini of Ravenna, the Manfredi of Faenza, the Riario of Imola, the Cane of Verona, the Bentivoglio of Bologna, the Visconti of Milan, and, finally, the least bellicose and the most hypocritical of all of them, the Medici of Florence. Among the historians of these city-states, none dared tell the story of the numberless poisonings and assassinations that were carried out as a result of the fear that tormented these petty tyrants; for those grave historians were in their pay. Consider that each of these tyrants personally knew each of the republicans who detested them (Cosimo, for example, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, knew Strozzi), and that each of these tyrants died by assassination, and you will understand the profound hatreds,
the eternal loathings that fueled the Italians of the sixteenth century with energy and courage, and gave so much genius to their artists. You must understand that such profound passions eliminate the possibility of that ridiculous bias that has been called “honor,” ever since the era of Madame de Sevigné, a bias that consists in sacrificing one’s life in order to serve a master whose subject one was born to be, and to please ladies. In the sixteenth century, a man’s actions and his real character could not be displayed in France, nor could he win admiration except on the field of battle or through dueling; and since women love bravery and above all audacity, they became the supreme judges of the merit of a man. From this state of affairs was born the “spirit of gallantry,” which led the way to the successive annihilation of all the passions and even of love, and all for the benefit of that cruel tyrant to whom we all owe our obedience: vanity. Kings took care to nurture vanity, and with good reason; hence our empire of medals and ribbons.
In Italy, a man could distinguish himself in all the forms of merit, by swordplay as well as by making discoveries within ancient manuscripts: an excellent example is Petrarch, the idol of his era; and a sixteenth-century Italian woman could love a scholarly man just as intensely as she might love one celebrated for his military exploits. Here, we are in the realm of passions, not just in the routines of gallantry. And here is the great difference between Italy and France, and here is the reason why Italy gave birth to a Raphael, a Giorgione, a Titian, a Correggio, whereas sixteenth-century France produced so many brave captains, utterly unknown today despite the huge numbers of dead enemies they produced.
I ask the reader’s pardon for speaking such rude truths. In any case, the hideous and “necessary” acts of vengeance carried out by the petty tyrants of the Italian Middle Ages had the result of winning the people’s hearts for the brigands. The brigands were hated when they stole horses, wheat—money, in a word, everything necessary for life; but in the depths of their hearts, the people were on their side; and the village girls preferred before all other boys the one who had been forced to andar all macchia—that is, to flee to the forest to take refuge with the brigands following some imprudent act or other.
In our own time, everyone of course fears encountering brigands; but when they are caught and punished, everyone feels for them. These are the clever, cynical readers who laugh at all the writings published under their masters’ censorship system but never fail to read with eagerness any little poems that thrillingly narrate the lives of the most famous outlaws. What they find heroic in these stories is something that delights that artistic fiber that is always there in “the lower classes,” and moreover they are so sick and tired of all the praise officialdom heaps upon certain people that this particular genre speaks directly to their hearts. It is important to know that the lower classes, in Italy, suffer from certain things that the traveler would never see, even if he were to live there ten years. For example, fifteen years ago, before the wisdom of the governments led to the suppression of the brigands,1 it was not unusual to see certain exploits of theirs intended as punishments for the iniquities of the governors of small towns. These governors, absolute magistrates whose pay never rises above twenty ecus2 a month, are naturally under the command of the richest family in the region, which by this simple expedient can successfully oppress its enemies. If the brigands did not always succeed in punishing these petty despotic governors, they at least made mock of them and braved them, and that is no small thing in the eyes of this sharp-witted populace. A satirical sonnet can console them for all their misfortunes, and they never forget an offense. And here we have yet another capital distinction between the Italian and the French.
In the sixteenth century, if the governor of some town had condemned to death some poor man who was unlucky enough to have incurred the hatred of the leading family, often enough brigands would be seen attacking the prison and seeking to free the oppressed man. The powerful family, for its part, not trusting in the eight or ten soldiers that the government had stationed to guard the prison, would have levied at its own expense a troop of temporary soldiers. The latter, who were called bravi, would station themselves around the prison and take it as their charge to escort the poor condemned devil—whose death had been bought and paid for—to the gallows. If the family in power had a young man, he would be put at the head of these improvised soldiers. Such a state of civilization makes morality howl, I agree; in our time, we have the duel, along with ennui, and our judges are not for sale; and yet these sixteenth-century customs were marvelously adept at creating men who were worthy of the name.
Many historians, still lauded today by the predictable literature produced by the academies, have tried to falsify this state of things which, around 1550, formed such powerful characters. Ever since their own day, those historians’ prudent and timid lies have been recompensed by all the honors that could be dispersed by the Medici of Florence, the Este of Ferrara, the viceroys of Naples, etc. One poor historian, a man named Giannone, tried to lift up a corner of the veil; but because he dared not speak more than a little fraction of the truth, and even that couched in doubtful and obscure phrases, he ended up being extremely tedious—though all that did not prevent him from dying in prison at the age of eighty-two, on March 7, 1758.3
The first thing to do if one wants to learn about the history of Italy is thus by no means to read the approved histories and authors; the price for lying has never been so clearly understood, and lying has never been so well compensated.4
The first histories written in Italy after the great barbarism of the ninth century already make mention of brigands, speaking of them as if they existed from time immemorial. See the collection by Muratori.5 When, to the misfortune of public well-being, justice, and good government but to the good fortune of the arts, the republics of the Middle Ages were suppressed, the most energetic republicans, the ones who loved liberty even more than their fellow citizens, took refuge in the forests. Naturally, the people vexed by the Baglioni, by the Malatesti, by the Bentivoglio, by the Medici, etc., loved and respected the men who were their enemies. The cruelties perpetrated by the petty tyrants who succeeded the initial usurpers—for example, the cruelties of Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of Florence, who had republicans hunted down and assassinated as far afield as Venice and Paris—served only to recruit more to the side of these brigands. To speak only of times closer to that of our heroine, around the year 1550, in the neighborhood of Albano, Alphonse Piccolomini, Duke of Monte-Mariano, and Marco Sciarra successfully led armed bands that braved the soldiers of the pope, who were themselves very brave. The field of operations of these famous leaders, who are still admired by the people, extended from the Po and the marshlands around Ravenna to the forests covering Vesuvius. The forest of La Faggiola, famous because of their exploits, situated five leagues from Rome on the road to Naples, was the region of Sciarra, who, under the pontificate of Gregory XIII, mustered several thousand soldiers. The detailed history of this illustrious brigand would be incredible in the eyes of the current generation, in that they could never understand the motives for his actions. He was not defeated until 1592. When he saw his situation was desperate, he negotiated with the Republic of Venice and went over to its service along with his most devoted (or most culpable, whichever term you like) soldiers. Bowing to the demand of the government in Rome, Venice, which had signed a treaty with Sciarra, had him assassinated and sent his brave soldiers to defend the island of Candia against the Turks. But Venetian shrewdness knew very well that a plague was raging at Candia, and in a few days the five hundred of Sciarra’s soldiers who had come to serve Venice were reduced to sixty-seven.
This forest of La Faggiola, whose giant trees spread out over an ancient volcano, was the final theater of Marco Sciarra’s exploits. Every traveler will tell you that it is the most magnificent area in that fine Roman countryside, with a somber aspect that seems designed for tragedy. It sits like a crown of dark green atop the summits of Monte Albano.