|
Chapter XXXIIChapter XXXII
Chapter XXXII
The difficulty of providing for the mournful exigencies of the times
becoming daily greater, it was resolved, on the 4th of May, in the Council of
the Decurioni, to have recourse for aid and favour to the governor; and
accordingly, on the 22nd, two members of that body were despatched to the
camp, who represented to him the sufferings and poverty of the city: the
enormous expenditure, the treasury exhausted and involved in debt, its future
revenue in pledge, and the current taxes unpaid, by reason of the general
impoverishment, produced by so many causes, and especially by the havoc of the
military; they submitted to his consideration that, according to laws and
customs, which had never been repealed, and by a special decree of Charles V.,
the expenses of the pestilence ought to be defrayed from the king`s exchequer:
that, in the plague of 1576, the governor, the Marquis of Ayamonte, had not
indeed remitted all the taxes of the Chamber, but had relieved the city with
forty thousand scudi from that same Chamber; and, finally, they demanded four
things: - that, as once before already, the taxes should not be exacted; that
the Chamber should grant some supplies of money; that the governor should
acquaint the king with the misery of the city and the territory; and that the
duchy should be exempted from again quartering the military, as it had been
already wasted and destroyed by the former troops. Spinola gave in reply
condolences and fresh exhortations: he said he was sorry he did not happen to
be in the city, that he might use all his endeavours for its relief; but he
hoped that all would be compensated for by the zeal of these gentlemen: that
this was the time to expend without parsimony, and to do all they could by
every means: and as to the express demands, he would provide for them in the
best way the times and existing necessities would allow. Nor was there any
further result: there were, indeed, more journeys to and fro, new requisitions
and replies; but I do not find that they came to any more determinate
conclusions. Some time later, when the plague was at its greatest height, the
governor thought fit to transfer his authority, by letters patent, to the High
Chancellor Ferrer, he having, as he said, to attend to the war.
Together with this resolution, the Decurioni had also taken another, to
request the Cardinal Archbishop to appoint a solemn procession, bearing
through the city the body of San Carlo. The good prelate refused, for many
reasons. This confidence in an arbitrary measure displeased him; and he feared
that if the effect should not correspond to it, which he had also reason to
fear, confidence would be converted into offense.^1 He feared further, that,
if indeed there were poisoners about, the procession would afford too
convenient opportunities for crime; if there were not, such a concourse of
itself should not fail to disseminate the contagion more widely: a danger far
more real.^2 For the suppressed suspicions of poisonous ointments had,
meanwhile, revived more generally and more violently than ever.
[Footnote 1: Memoirs of successive Remarkable Events in Milan about the time
of the Plague, in the year 1630, &c., compiled by D. Pio la Croce, Milan,
1730. It is evidently taken from an unpublished writing of an author who lived
at the time of the pestilence; if indeed it be not a simple edition, rather
than a new compilation.]
[Footnote 2: `Si unguenta scelerata et unctores in urbe essent . . . Si non
essent . . . Certiusque adeo malum.` - Ripamonti, p. 185.]
People had again seen, or this time they fancied they had seen anointed
walls, entrances to public buildings, doors of private houses, and knockers.
The news of these discoveries flew from mouth to mouth; and, as it happens
even more than usually in great prepossessions, the report produced the same
effect that the sight of it would have done. The minds of the populace, ever
more and more embittered by the actual presence of suffering, and irritated by
the pertinacity of the danger, embraced this belief the more willingly; for
anger burns to execute its revenge, and, as a very worthy man acutely observes
on this same subject,^3 would rather attribute evils to human wickedness, upon
which it might vent its tormenting energies, than acknowledge them from a
source which leaves no other remedy than resignation. A subtle, instantaneous,
exceedingly penetrating poison, were words more than enough to explain the
virulence, and all other most mysterious and unusual accompaniments of the
contagion. It was said that this venom was composed of toads, of serpents, of
saliva and matter from infected persons, of worse still, of everything, in
short, that wild and perverse fancy could invent which was foul and atrocious.
To these was added witchcraft, by which any effect became possible, every
objection lost its force, every difficulty was resolved. If the anticipated
effects had not immediately followed upon the first anointing, the reason was
now clear - it had been the imperfect attempt of novices in the art of
sorcery; now it was more matured, and the wills of the perpetrators were more
bent upon their infernal project. Now, had any one still maintained that it
had been a mere trick, had any one still denied the existence of a conspiracy,
he would have passed for a deluded or obstinate person; if, indeed, he would
not have fallen under the suspicion of being interested in diverting public
scrutiny from the truth, of being an accomplice, a poisoner. The term very
soon became common, solemn, tremendous. With such a persuasion, that poisoners
there were, some must almost infallibly be discovered: all eyes were on the
look - out; every act might excite jealousy; and jealousy easily became
certainty, and certainty fury.
[Footnote 3: P. Verri. Observations on Torture: Italian Writers on Modern
Politicalomy, vol. xvii. p. 205.]
Ripamonti relates two instances, informing us that he had selected them,
not as the most outrageous among the many which daily occurred, but because,
unhappily, he could speak of both as an eyewitness.^4
[Footnote 4: Page 96.]
In the church of Sant` Antonio, on the day of I know not what solemnity,
an old man, more than eighty years of age, was observed, after kneeling in
prayer, to sit down, first, however, dusting the bench with his cloak. "That
old man is anointing the benches!` exclaimed with one voice some women, who
witnessed the act. The people who happened to be in church, (in church!) fell
upon the old man; they tore his gray locks, heaped upon him blows and kicks,
and dragged him out half dead, to convey him to prison, to the judges, to
torture. `I beheld him dragged along in this way,` says Ripamonti, `nor could
I learn anything further about his end; but, indeed, I think he could not have
survived many moments.`
The other instance, which occurred the following day, was equally
strange, but not equally fatal. Three French youths, in company, one a
scholar, one a painter, and the third a mechanic, who had come to see Italy,
to study its antiquities, and to try and make money, had approached I know not
exactly what part of the exterior of the cathedral, and stood attentively
surveying it. One, two, or more passers - by, stopped, and formed a little
group, to contemplate and keep their eye on these visitors, whom their
costume, their headdress, and their wallets, proclaimed to be strangers, and,
what was worse, Frenchmen. As if to assure themselves that it was marble, they
stretched out their hands to touch it. This was enough. They were surrounded,
seized, tormented, and urged by blows to prison. Fortunately, the hall of
justice was not far from the cathedral, and by still greater good fortune,
they were found innocent, and set at liberty.
Nor did such things happen only in the city; the frenzy had spread like
the contagion. The traveller who was met by peasants out of the highway, or on
the public road was seen loitering and amusing himself, or stretched upon the
ground to rest; the stranger in whom they fancied they saw something singular
and suspicious in countenance or dress - these were poisoners; at the first
report of whomsoever it might be - at the cry of a child - the alarm was
given, and the people flocked together; the unhappy victims were pelted with
stones, or, if taken, were violently dragged to prison. And the prison, up to
a certain period, became a haven of safety.^5
[Footnote 5: Ripamonti, pp. 91, 92.]
But the Decurioni, not discouraged by the refusal of the judicious
prelate, continued to repeat their entreaties, which were noisily seconded by
the popular vote. The Bishop persevered for some time, and endeavoured to
dissuade them: so much and no more could the discretion of one man do against
the judgment of the times, and the pertinacity of the many. In this state of
opinion, with the idea of danger, confused as it was at that period, disputed,
and very far from possessing the evidence which we have for it, it will not be
difficult to comprehend how his good reasons might, even in his own mind, be
overcome by the bad ones of others. Whether, besides, in his subsequent
concession, a feebleness of will had or had not any share, is a mystery of the
human heart. Certainly if, in any case, it be possible to attribute error
wholly to the intellect, and to relieve the conscience of responsibility, it
is when one treats of those rare persons, (and, assuredly, the Cardinal was of
the number), throughout whose whole life is seen a resolute obedience to
conscience, without regard to temporal interests of any kind. On the
repetition of the entreaties, then, he yielded, gave his consent to the
procession, and further, to the desire, the general eagerness, that the urn
which contained the relics of San Carlo should afterwards remain exposed for
eight days to the public concourse, on the high altar of the cathedral.
I do not find that the Board of Health, or the other authorities, made
any opposition or remonstrance of any kind. The above - named Board merely
ordered some precautions, which, without obviating the danger, indicated their
apprehension of it. They gave more strict regulations about the admission of
persons into the city, and to insure the execution of them, kept all the gates
shut: as also, in order to exclude from the concourse, as far as possible, the
infected and suspected, they caused the doors of the condemned houses to be
nailed up; which, so far as the bare assertion of a writer - and a writer of
those times - is to be valued in such matters, amounted to about five
hundred.^6
[Footnote 6: Alleviation of the State of Milan, &c., by C. G. Cavatio della
Somaglia. Milan, 1653, p. 248.]
Three days were spent in preparations; and on the 11th of June, which was
the day fixed, the procession started by early dawn from the cathedral. A long
file of people led the way, chiefly women, their faces covered with ample
silken veils, and many of them barefoot, and clothed in sackcloth. Then
followed bands of artificers, preceded by their several banners, the different
fraternities, in habits of various shades and colours; then came the
brotherhoods of monks, then the secular clergy, each with the insignia of his
rank, and bearing a lighted wax taper. In the centre, amidst the brilliancy of
still more numerous torches, and the louder tones of the chanting, came the
coffin, under a rich canopy, supported alternately by four canons, most
pompously attired. Through the crystal sides appeared the venerated corpse,
the limbs enveloped in splendid pontifical robes, and the skull covered with a
mitre; and under the mutilated and decomposed features, some traces might
still be distinguished of his former countenance, such as it was represented
in pictures, and as some remembered seeing and honouring it during his life.
Behind the mortal remains of the deceased pastor, (says Ripamonti,^7 from
which we chiefly have taken this description), and near him in person, as well
as in merit, blood, and dignity, came the Archbishop Federigo. Then followed
the rest of the clergy, and close behind them the magistrates, in their best
robes of office; after them the nobility, some sumptuously apparelled, as for
a solemn celebration of worship, others in token of humiliation, clothed in
mourning, or walking barefoot, covered with sackcloth, and the hoods drawn
over their faces, all bearing large torches. A mingled crowd of people brought
up the rear.
[Footnote 7: Pages 62-66.]
The whole street was decked out as at a festival; the rich had brought
out their most showy decorations; the fronts of the poorer houses were
ornamented by their wealthier neighbours, or at the public expense; here and
there, instead of ornaments, or over the ornaments themselves, were leafy
branches of trees; everywhere were suspended pictures, mottoes, and
emblematical devices; on the window - ledges were displayed vases, curiosities
of antiquity, and valuable ornaments; and in every direction were torches. At
many of these windows the sick, who were put under sequestration, beheld the
pomp, and mingled their prayers with those of the passengers. The other
streets were silent and deserted, save where some few listened at the windows
to the floating murmur in the distance; while others, and among these even
nuns might be seen, mounted on the roofs, perchance they might be able to
distinguish afar off the coffin, the retinue - in short, something.
The procession passed through all quarters of the city; at each of the
crossways, or small squares, which terminate the principal streets in the
suburbs, and which then preserved the ancient name of carrobii, now reduced to
only one, they made a halt, depositing the coffin near the cross which had
been erected in every one by San Carlo, during the preceding pestilence, some
of which are still standing; so that they returned not to the cathedral till
considerably past midday.
But lo! the day following, just while the presumptuous confidence, nay,
in many, the fanatical assurance prevailed, that the procession must have cut
short the progress of the plague, the mortality increased in every class, in
every part of the city, to such a degree, and with so sudden a leap, that
there was scarcely any one who did not behold in the very procession itself,
the cause and occasion of this fearful increase. But, oh wonderful and
melancholy force of popular prejudices! the greater number did not attribute
this effect to so great and so prolonged a crowding together of persons, nor
to the infinite multiplication of fortuitous contact, but rather to the
facilities afforded to the poisoners of executing their iniquitous designs on
a large scale. It was said that, mixing in the crowd, they had infected with
their ointment everybody they had encountered. But as this appeared neither a
sufficient nor appropriate means for producing so vast a mortality, which
extended itself to every rank; as, apparently, it had not been possible, even
for an eye the most watchful, and the most quick - sighted from suspicion, to
detect any unctuous matter, or spots of any kind, during the march, recourse
was had for the explanation of the fact to that other fabrication, already
ancient, and received at that time into the common scientific learning of
Europe, of magical and venomous powders; it was said that these powders,
scattered along the streets and chiefly at the places of halting, had clung to
the trains of the dresses, and still more to the feet of those who had that
day, in great numbers, gone about barefoot. `That very day, therefore, of the
procession,` says a contemporary writer,^8 `saw piety contending with
iniquity, perfidy with sincerity, and loss with acquisition.` It was, on the
contrary, poor human sense contending with the phantoms it had itself created.
[Footnote 8: Agostino Lampugnano: Of the Pestilence that happened in Milan, in
the year 1630. Milan, 1634, p. 44.]
From that day, the contagion continued to rage with increasing violence;
in a little while, there was scarcely a house left untouched; and the
population of the Lazzaretto, according to Somaglia, above quoted, amounted to
from two to twelve thousand. In the course of time, according to almost all
reports, it reached sixteen thousand. On the fourth of July, as I find in
another letter from the conservators of health to the Governor, the daily
mortality exceeded five hundred. Still later, when the plague was at its
height, it reached, and for some time remained at, twelve or fifteen hundred,
according to the most common computation; and if we may credit Tadino,^9 it
sometimes even exceeded three thousand five hundred.
[Footnote 9: Pages 115-117.]
It may be imagined what must now have been the difficulties of the
Decurioni, upon whom was laid the burden of providing for the public
necessities, and repairing what was still reparable in such a calamity. They
were obliged every day to replace, every day to augment, public officers of
numerous kinds: Monatti, by which denomination (even then at Milan of ancient
date, and uncertain origin,) were designated those who were devoted to the
most painful and dangerous services of a pestilence, viz. taking corpses from
the houses, out of the streets, and from the Lazzaretto, transporting them on
carts to the graves, and burying them; carrying or conducting the sick to the
Lazzaretto, overlooking them there, and burning and cleansing infected or
suspected goods: Apparitori,^10 whose special office it was to precede the
carts, warning passengers, by the sound of a little bell, to retire: and
Commissarii, who superintended both the other classes, under the immediate
orders of the Board of Health. The Council had also to keep the Lazzaretto
furnished with physicians, surgeons, medicines, food, and all the other
necessaries of an infirmary; and to provide and prepare new quarters for the
newly arising needs. For this purpose, they had cabins of wood and straw
hastily constructed, in the unoccupied space within the Lazzaretto; and
another Lazzaretto was erected, also of thatched cabins, with an enclosure of
boards, capable of containing four thousand persons. These not being
sufficient, two others were decreed; they even began to build them, but, from
the deficiency of means of every kind, they remained uncompleted. Means, men,
and courage failed, in proportion as the necessity for them increased. And not
only did the execution fall so far short of the projects and decrees - not
only were many too clearly acknowledged necessities deficiently provided for,
even in words, but they arrived at such a pitch of impotency and desperation,
that many of the most deplorable and urgent cases were left without succour of
any kind. A great number of infants, for example, died of absolute neglect,
their mothers having been carried off by the pestilence. The Board of Health
proposed that a place of refuge should be founded for these, and for
destitute, lying - in women, that something might be done for them, but they
could obtain nothing. `The Decurioni of the Citie,` says Tadino, `were no less
to be pityed, who found themselves harassed and oppressed by the Soldierie
without any Bounds or Regarde whatsoever, as well as those in the unfortunate
Duchy, seeing that they could get no Help or Prouision from the Gouernor,
because it happened to be a Tyme of War, and they must needs treat the
Soldierie well.`^11 So important was the taking of Casale! so glorious
appeared the fame of victory, independent of the cause, of the object for
which they contended!
[Footnote 10: A bailiff of the meanest kind.]
[Footnote 11: Page 117.]
So, also, an ample but solitary grave which had been dug near the
Lazzaretto being completely filled with corpses; and fresh bodies, which
became day by day more numerous, remaining therefore in every direction
unburied, the magistrates, after having in vain sought for hands to execute
the melancholy task, were compelled to acknowledge that they knew not what
course to pursue. Nor was it easy to conjecture what would be the end, had not
extraordinary relief been afforded. The President of the Board of Health
solicited it almost in despair, and with tears in his eyes, from those two
excellent friars who presided at the Lazzaretto; and Father Michele pledged
himself to clear the city of dead bodies in the course of four days. At the
expiration of eight days he had not only provided for the immediate necessity,
but for that also which the most ominous foresight could have anticipated for
the future. With a friar for his companion, and with officers granted him for
this purpose by the President, he set off out of the city in search of
peasants; and partly by the authority of the Board of Health, partly by the
influence of his habit and his words, he succeeded in collecting two hundred,
whom he distributed in three separate places, to dig the ample graves. He then
despatched monatti from the Lazzaretto to collect the dead, and on the day
appointed his promise was fulfilled.
On one occasion, the Lazzaretto was left destitute of physicians; and it
was only by offers of large salaries and honours, with much labour, and
considerable delay, that they could procure them; and even then their number
was far from sufficient for the need. It was often so reduced in provisions as
to raise fears that the inmates would actually have to die of starvation; and
more than once, while they were trying every method of raising money or
supplies, with scarcely a hope of procuring them, - not to say of procuring
them in time, - abundant assistance would most opportunely be afforded by the
unexpected gift of some charitable private individual; for, in the midst of
the common stupefaction and indifference to others, arising from continual
apprehensions for themselves, there were yet hearts ever awake to the call of
charity, and others in whom charity first sprang up on the failure of all
earthly pleasures; as, in the destruction and flight of many whose duty it was
to superintend and provide, there were others, ever healthy in body and
unshaken in courage, who were always at their posts; while some there even
were who, urged by compassion, assumed, and perseveringly sustained, cares to
which their office did not call them.
The most general and most willing fidelity to the trying duties of the
times, was conspicuously evinced by the clergy. In the Lazzarettoes, and
throughout the city, their assistance never failed; where suffering was, there
were they; they were always to be seen mingled with and interspersed among the
faint and dying - faint and dying sometimes themselves. Together with
spiritual succours, they were lavish, as far as they could be, of temporal
ones, and freely rendered whatever services happened to be required. More than
sixty parish - priests, in the city alone, died of the contagion; about eight
out of every nine.
Federigo, as was to be expected from him, gave to all encouragement and
example. Having seen almost the whole of his archiepiscopal household perish
around him, solicited by relatives, by the first magistrates, and by the
neighbouring princes, to withdraw from danger to some solitary country - seat,
he rejected this counsel and entreaties in the spirit with which he wrote to
his clergy: `Be ready to abandon this mortal life, rather than the family, the
children, committed to us; go forward into the plague, as to life, as to a
reward, when there is one soul to be won to Christ.`^12 He neglected no
precautions which did not impede him in his duty; on which point he also gave
instructions and regulations to his clergy; and, at the same time, he minded
not, nor appeared to observe, danger, where it was necessary to encounter it,
in order to do good. Without speaking of the ecclesiastics, whom he was
constantly with, to commend and regulate their zeal, to arouse such as were
lukewarm in the work, and to send them to the posts where others had perished,
it was his wish that there should always be free access for any one who had
need of him. He visited the Lazzarettoes, to administer consolation to the
sick, and encouragement to the attendants; he traversed the city, carrying
relief to the poor creatures sequestrated in their houses, stopping at the
doors and under the windows to listen to their lamentations, and to offer in
exchange words of comfort and encouragement. In short, he threw himself into,
and lived in the midst of the pestilence, and was himself astonished, at the
end, that he had come out uninjured.
[Footnote 12: Ripamonti, p. 164.]
Thus, in public calamities and in long - continued disturbances of
settled habits, of whatever kind, there may always be beheld an augmentation,
a sublimation of virtue; but, alas! there is never wanting, at the same time,
an augmentation, far more general in most cases, of crime. This occasion was
remarkable for it. The villains, whom the pestilence spared and did not
terrify, found in the common confusion, and in the relaxation of all public
authority, a new opportunity of activity, together with new assurances of
impunity; nay, the administration of public authority itself came, in a great
measure, to be lodged in the hands of the worst among them. Generally
speaking, none devoted themselves to the offices of monatti and apparitori but
men over whom the attractions of rapine and license had more influence than
the terror of contagion, or any natural object of horror.
The strictest orders were laid upon these people; the severest penalties
threatened to them; stations were assigned them; and commissaries, as we have
said, placed over them: over both, again, magistrates and nobles were
appointed in every district, with authority to enforce good government
summarily on every opportunity. Such a state of things went on and took effect
up to a certain period; but, with the increase of deaths and desolation, and
the terror of the survivors, these officers came to be, as it were, exempted
from all supervision; they constituted themselves, the monatti especially,
arbiters of everything. They entered the houses like masters, like enemies;
and, not to mention their plunder, and how they treated the unhappy creatures
reduced by the plague to pass through such hands, they laid them - these
infected and guilty hands - on the healthy - children, parents, husbands,
wives, threatening to drag them to the Lazzaretto, unless they redeemed
themselves, or were redeemed, with money. At other times they set a price upon
their services, refusing to carry away bodies already corrupted, for less than
so many scudi. It was believed (and between the credulity of one party and the
wickedness of the other, belief and disbelief are equally uncertain), it was
believed, and Tadino asserts it,^13 that both monatti and apparitori purposely
let fall from their carts infected clothes, in order to propagate and keep up
the pestilence, which had become to them a means of living, a kingdom, a
festival. Other wretches, feigning to be monatti, and carrying little bells
tied to their feet, as these officers were required to do, to distinguish
themselves and to give warning of their approach, introduced themselves into
houses, and there exercised all kinds of tyranny. Some of these, open and void
of inhabitants, or inhabited only by a feeble or dying creature, were entered
by thieves in search of booty, with impunity; others were surprised and
invaded by bailiffs, who there committed robberies and excesses of every
description.
[Footnote 13: Page 102.]
Together with the wickedness, the folly of the people increased: every
prevailing error received more or less additional force from the stupefaction
and agitation of their minds, and was more widely and more precipitately
applied: while every one served to strengthen and aggravate that special mania
about poisonings, which, in its effects and ebullitions, was often, as we have
seen, itself another crime. The image of this supposed danger beset and
tortured the minds of the people far more than the real and existing danger.
`And while,` says Ripamonti, `corpses, scattered here and there, or lying
in heaps, ever before the eyes and surrounding the steps of the living, made
the whole city like one immense sepulchre, a still more appalling symptom, a
more intense deformity, was their mutual animosity, their licentiousness, and
their extravagant suspicions. . . . Not only did they mistrust a friend, a
guest; but those names which are the bonds of human affection, husband and
wife, father and son, brother and brother, were words of terror, and, dreadful
and infamous to tell! the domestic board, the nuptial bed, were dreaded as
lurking - places, as receptacles of poison.`^14
[Footnote 14: Page 81.]
The imaginary vastness and strangeness of the plot distracted people`s
understandings, and subverted every reason for reciprocal confidence. Besides
ambition and cupidity, which were at first supposed to be the motives of the
poisoners, they fancied, they even believed at length, that there was
something of diabolical, voluptuous delight in this anointing - an attraction
predominating over the will. The ravings of the sick, who accused themselves
of what they had apprehended from others, were considered as revelations, and
rendered anything, so to say, credible of any one. And it would have far
greater weight even than words, if it happened that delirious patients kept
practising those manoeuvres which it was imagined must be employed by the
poisoners: a thing at once very probable, and tending to give better grounds
for the popular persuasion and the assertions of numerous writers. In the same
way, during the long and mournful period of judicial investigation on the
subject of witchcraft, the confessions and those not always extorted of the
accused, served not a little to promote and uphold the prevailing opinion on
this matter; for when an opinion obtains a prolonged and extensive sway, it is
expressed in every manner, tries every outlet, and runs through every degree
of persuasion; and it is difficult for all, or very many, to believe for a
length of time that something extraordinary is being done, without some one
coming forward who believes that he has done it.
Among the stories which this mania about poisoning gave rise to, one
deserves to be mentioned for the credit it acquired, and the extended
dissemination it met with. It was related, not, however, by everybody in the
same way (for that would be too remarkable a privilege for stories), but
nearly so, that such a person, on such a day, had seen a carriage and six
standing in the Square of the Cathedral, containing some great personage with
a large suite, of lordly aspect, but dark and sunburnt, with fiery eyes, hair
standing on end, and a threatening expression about the mouth. The spectator,
invited to enter the equipage, complied; and after taking a turn or two,
stopped and dismounted at the gate of a palace, where, entering with the rest,
he beheld horrors and delights, deserts and gardens, caverns and halls; and in
these were phantoms seated in council. Lastly, huge chests of money were shown
to him, and he was told that he might take as much as he liked, if, at the
same time, he would accept a little vessel of unctuous matter, and go about,
anointing with it, through the city. Having refused to agree to the terms, he
instantly found himself in the place whence he had been taken.
This story, generally believed there by the people, and, according to
Ripamonti, not sufficiently ridiculed by many learned men,^15 travelled
through the whole of Italy, and even further: an engraving of it was made in
Germany; and the electoral Archbishop of Mayence wrote to Cardinal Federigo,
to ask what he must believe of the wonderful prodigies related at Milan, and
received for answer that they were mere dreams.
[Footnote 15: Page 77.]
Of equal value, if not exactly of the same nature, were the dreams of the
learned; and equally disastrous were they in their effects. Most of them saw
the announcement at once and cause of their troubles, in a comet which
appeared in the year 1628, and in a conjunction of Saturn with Jupiter; `the
aforesaide Conjunction,` writes Tadino, `inclining so clearlie over this Yeare
1630, that every Bodie could understand it. Mortales parat morbos, miranda
videntur.`^16 This prediction, fabricated I know not when nor by whom, was
upon the tongue, as Ripamonti informs us,^17 of everybody who was able to
utter it. Another comet, which unexpectedly appeared in the June of the very
year of the pestilence, was looked upon as a fresh warning, as an evident
proof, indeed, of the anointing. They ransacked books, and found only in too
great abundance examples of pestilence produced, as they said, by human
efforts; they quoted Livy, Tacitus, Dionysius, Homer, and Ovid, and the
numberless other ancients who have related or alluded to similar events; and
of modern writers they had a still greater abundance. They cited a hundred
other authors, who have treated theoretically, or incidentally spoken, of
poisons, sorceries, unctions, and powders; Cesalpino was quoted, Cardano,
Grevino, Salio, Pareo, Schenchio, Zachia, and finally that fatal Delrio, who,
if the renown of authors were in proportion to the good or evil produced by
their works, would assuredly be one of the most eminent; that Delrio, whose
Disquisitions on Magic (a digest of all that men, up to his time, had wildly
devised on this subject), received as the most authoritative and irrefragable
text - book, was, for more than a century, the rule and powerful impulse of
legal, horrible, and uninterrupted murders.
[Footnote 16: Page 56.]
[Footnote 17: Page 273.]
From the inventions of the illiterate vulgar, educated people borrowed
what they could accommodate to their ideas; from the inventions of the
educated the vulgar borrowed what they could understand, and as they best
could; and of all, an undigested, barbarous jumble was formed of public
irrationality.
But that which still further excites our surprise is to see the
physicians, those physicians, I say, who from the beginning had believed in
the plague, and especially Tadino, who had predicted it, beheld it enter, and
kept his eye, so to say, on its progress; who had affirmed and published that
it was the plague, and was propagated by contact, and that if no opposition
were made to it, it would become a general infection, - to see him, I say,
draw a certain argument from these very consequences, for poisonous and
magical unctions: to behold him, who in Carlo Colonna, the second that died in
Milan, had marked delirium as an accompaniment of the malady, afterwards
adduce in proof of unctions and a diabolical plot an incident such as this: -
two witnesses deposed to having heard one of their friends, under the
influence of the contagion, relate how some persons came one night into his
room, to proffer him health and riches, if he would anoint the houses in the
vicinity, and how, on his repeated refusal, they had taken their departure,
and left in their stead a wolf under the bed, and three great cats upon it,
`which remained there till break of day.`^18 Had such a method of drawing
conclusions been confined to one individual, it might have been attributed to
his own extreme simplicity and want of common sense, and it would not have
been worth our while to mention it; but, as it was received by many, it is a
specimen of the human mind; and may serve to show how a well - regulated and
reasonable train of ideas may be disordered by another train of ideas thrown
directly across it. In other respects this Tadino was one of the most renowned
men of his time at Milan.
[Footnote 18: Pp. 123, 124.]
Two illustrious and highly deserving writers have asserted that Cardinal
Federigo entertained some doubt about these poisonings.^19 We would gladly
give still more complete commendation to the memory of this excellent and
benevolent man, and represent the good prelate in this, as in many other
things, distinguished from the multitude of his contemporaries; but we are
constrained, instead, to remark in him another example of the powerful
influence of public opinion, even on the most exalted minds. It is evidence, -
from the way, at least, in which Ripamonti relates his thoughts on the
subject, - that from the beginning he had some doubts about it; and throughout
he always considered that credulity, ignorance, fear, and a wish to excuse
their long negligence in guarding against the contagion, had a considerable
share in this opinion: that there was a good deal of exaggeration in it; but
at the same time something of truth. There is a small work on this pestilence,
written by his own hand, preserved in the Ambrosian Library; and the following
is one among many instances where such a sentiment is expressed: - `On the
method of compounding and spreading such poisonous ointments many and various
things are reported, some of which we consider as true, while others appear to
us entirely imaginary.`^20
[Footnote 19: Muratori, on the Treatment of the Pestilence, Modena, 1714, p.
117. P. Verri, in the treatise before quoted, p. 261.]
[Footnote 20: `Unguenta vero haec aiebant componi conficique multifariam,
fraudisque vias esse complures: quarum sane fraudum et artium, aliis quidem
assentimur, alias vero fictas fuisse commentitiasque arbitramur.` - De Peste
quae, Mediolani, anno 1630, magnam stragem edidit. cap. v.]
Some there were who, to the very last, and ever afterwards, thought that
it was all imagination; and we learn this, not from themselves, for no one had
ever sufficient hardihood to expose to the public an opinion so opposed to
that of the public; but from those writers who deride it, or rebuke it, or
confute it, as the prejudice of a few, an error which no one had ever dared to
make the subject of open dispute, but which nevertheless existed; and we
learnt it, too, from one who had derived it from tradition. `I have met with
sensible and well - informed people in Milan,` says the good Muratori in the
above - quoted passage, `who had received trustworthy accounts from their
ancestors, and who were by no means persuaded of the truth of the facts
concerning these poisonous ointments.` It seems there was a secret outlet for
truth, some remaining domestic confidence; good sense still existed; but it
was kept concealed, for fear of the popular sense.
The magistrates, reduced in number daily, and disheartened and perplexed
in everything, turned all their little vigilance, so to say, all the little
resolution of which they were any longer capable, in search of these
poisoners. And too easily did they think they had found them.
The judicial sentences which followed in consequence were not, certainly,
the first of such a nature; nor, indeed, can they be considered as uncommon in
the history of jurisprudence. For, to say nothing of antiquity, and to mention
only some instances in times more nearly approaching those of which we are
treating, in Palermo, in 1526; in Geneva, in 1530, afterwards in 1545, and
again in 1574; in Casale Monferrato, in 1536; in Padua, in 1555; in Turin, in
1599; and again in Turin, this same year 1630; here one, there many unhappy
creatures were tried, and condemned to punishments the most atrocious, as
guilty of having propagated the plague by means of powders, ointments,
witchcraft, or all these together. But the affair of the so - called
annointings at Milan, as it was, perhaps, the longest remembered and the most
widely talked of, so, perhaps, it is the most worthy of observation; or, to
speak more exactly, there is further room to make observations upon it, from
the remaining existence of more circumstantial and more extensive documents.
And although a writer we have, not long ago, commended,^21 has employed
himself on them, yet, his object having been, not so much to give the history,
properly speaking, as to extract thence political suggestions, for a still
more worthy and important purpose, it seemed to us that the history of the
plague might form the subject of a new work. But it is not a matter to be
passed over in a few words; and to treat it with the copiousness it deserves
would carry us too far beyond our limits. Besides, after we should have paused
upon all these incidents, the reader would certainly no longer care to know
those that remain in our narrative. Reserving, therefore, for another
publication the account of the former, we will, at length, return to our
characters, not to leave them again till we reach the end.
[Footnote 21: P. Verri, work before mentioned.]
|
