Another law, aimed at the maintenance of good order in the city, by peremptorily forbidding the carrying of offensive weapons, ran as follows:
“No person shall be permitted to carry any arms, whether offensive or defensive, without permission under pain of the following punishment: the loss of the arms, three lashes and a fine of twenty-five scudi, if the offence has been by day—the fine to be double if at night. And under the name of arms are included all bludgeons and small sacks and night sticks and large stones. His Eminence also prohibits any one from taking into, or keeping in a house, or elsewhere, and from selling, making or repairing of pistols, under pain of death, confiscation of goods and other penalties, as laid down in the bulls of Pius IV and Pius V; and if, in making search, the officers of justice shall find any prohibited arms, of whatsoever kind, laid on the ground at less than six paces from any person, the said arms shall be presumed to belong to that person, and such presumption shall suffice to subject that person to the torture.”
The discipline of the nunneries was necessarily strict. Yet it was at times defied and crimes were committed that throw a baleful light upon the general condition of these retreats, generally deemed decorous and holy. In 1633, a nun of noble family, an inmate of the convent of St. Domenico, on Monte Magnanapoli, was foully murdered by a lay sister of the same house; and two other nuns, who ran to her assistance on hearing her cries, were badly wounded by the assassin. The lay sister, by order of the pope, was strangled in the convent and confessed before her death that she had done the deed at the instigation of another nun, a member of the Aldobrandini family, and a niece of Pope Clement VIII. This lady was quietly put out of the way.
Again, a young nobleman of Ferrara fell in love with a nun of the convent of Santa Croce. He corresponded with her for some time, and finally planned with a servant to introduce him into the nunnery concealed in a box. But through some mistake the servant did not realise that any one was as yet inside, and delayed the delivery of the box. When at length it reached the nun, who alone had the key, and she opened it, the man was found to be all but suffocated. The unhappy girl in her terror and perplexity revealed the whole affair to the lady abbess, who reported it to the vicar, who in his turn told the pope. Whereupon the poor nun, a beautiful girl of eighteen years, was arraigned for her offence and sentenced to be walled up alive in the basement of the nunnery.
A later law imposed severe penalties punishing the violation of nunneries. It reads:
“And because all sacred places—but, above all, nunneries—deserve every respect, His Eminence orders and desires that if any one in any way whatsoever seeks to enter a nunnery without official permission, whether by night or day, he shall incur the penalty of death; even if he have not committed any special fault. And all who have in any way aided or abetted him shall incur the like penalty.”
And another law was very severe upon the crime of blasphemy, as follows:
“Although it should be so repugnant to the nature of man to offend God Almighty by blaspheming either the Person of His own Divine Majesty, or that of His Saints, as to make it utterly unnecessary to provide human laws against the sin, yet, as His Eminence desires to correct the natural depravity of the human heart, it is hereby ordained that—if any one shall blaspheme, curse or in any way lightly name the most Holy Name of God, or of his only begotten Son, our Redeemer, or of the Most Holy Mother, always a virgin, or of any saint whatsoever, etc., etc.—he shall, for the first offence, incur a penalty of three lashes, given in public; for the second, a public flogging; and for the third, the galleys for five years. And the evidence of one reliable witness shall suffice in addition to that of the accuser, at the pleasure of the judge.”
Another mandate of high moral tendency states: “Whoever shall violently assault and kiss, or try to kiss, a virtuous woman, in public—even though he should not actually succeed in kissing her, but should only proceed so far as an embrace—shall be condemned to the galleys for life; shall have his possessions confiscated; and shall even be liable to the penalty of death at the option of His Eminence.”
The honesty of the purveyors of food was closely watched by the bishop-governor in a law which reads: