Italian Prisons / St. Angelo; the Piombi; the Vicaria; Prisons of the Roman Inquisition

by Arthur Griffiths

Spurred on by his eagerness to provide himself with a weapon so formidable and so unexpectedly put within his reach, Casanova applied himself with unflagging diligence to his task. His difficulties were enormous; he worked in semi-darkness; he could only hold the whetstone in his left hand; he had no oil to assist the trituration; he could only use his own saliva, which left his throat as dry and rough as sandpaper. “I can hardly describe,” he tells us, “the fatigue that possessed me and the acute pain I suffered in completing my laborious undertaking. It was worse torture than any contrived by the most cruel tyrants who have oppressed mankind. My right arm became so stiff that I could barely move it; the palm of my left hand, which held the stone, was one large sore from the blisters that formed and burst as I continued to work on unflinchingly. But I was rewarded after a week of incessant toil by producing an octangular stylet, each side one and one-half inches in length, and the whole tapering into a fine sharp point.” The weapon once manufactured, it was of paramount importance to conceal it, but after long consideration it was lodged safely, and as it proved, successfully, in his armchair underneath the seat.

All was now ready for the momentous operation, but it must be approached with extreme caution. It was possible, certain indeed, that by long and patient labour a practicable hole might be made in the floor, but how to guard against the discovery of the work while in progress? It would probably occupy a couple of months at least, and how were the soldiers who waited upon the prisoners to be prevented from sweeping the floor during this long period of time? Casanova at once invented a fictitious throat complaint and pretended that dust greatly irritated and aggravated the ill. Laurent, the warder, insisting upon cleanliness, suggested that the floor should still be swept but not until after it had been watered. Again Casanova objected, dreading some other disorder and justifying his complaint by spitting blood copiously which he had surreptitiously obtained from a pricked finger. The doctor was called in and took the prisoner’s part, and the result was a peremptory order that the floor should not be touched again. Casanova had now a fair field, but it was winter time and daylight hours were too few to allow of lengthened labour; indeed, the cell was dark for nineteen hours out of the twenty-four.

Again his marvellous ingenuity stood him in good stead. He set himself to contrive a lamp and made it out of the most unpromising materials. He appropriated a saucer in which they served him fried eggs, and he made a wick out of his cotton shirt. To strike a light, flint and steel were required; the first Laurent brought him in the shape of a stone to be steeped in vinegar and applied as a sovereign remedy for a raging toothache; the second he found in the steel buckle of his small clothes. For sulphur he had recourse to the friendly doctor who gave him some in a prescription, and last of all he found the tinder in the wadding which his tailor always sewed in under the arm-pits of his coat. Fresh and exasperating delay was caused by the arrival of another unwelcome companion, another Jew, a most irritating and disagreeable person, who made Casanova desperate, not only by checking the work which it would have been unsafe to prosecute before him, but by constantly interfering with his fellow prisoner’s comfort in everything he did. Extremely fat and lazy, he spent three parts of the day in bed and was consequently unable to sleep at night. Once he ventured to rouse Casanova to talk to him and pass the time. Casanova was furiously angry. “Hateful villain,” he cried, “Sleep is the sole boon a prisoner can enjoy because it brings him forgetfulness. If ever you wake me again, I swear I will strangle you.” It was well that the work at the floor had not been commenced before the Jew came in, for he would assuredly have betrayed Casanova, and as it was he absolutely refused to agree to the arrangement of not sweeping the floor. Fortunately, and to Casanova’s immense relief, a fortnight after Easter this unaccommodating person was removed to the Quatri prison, where he spent a couple of years.

Casanova was at last free to commence work in earnest. The bed removed and the lamp lighted, the prisoner lay flat on the floor, crowbar in hand, and furnished with a napkin alongside in which to collect the fragments as they were chipped out. All these he flung next day behind the heap of rubbish in the outer gallery. Inch by inch Casanova cut through the massive planks and at the end of three weeks he had pierced a triple flooring. But now a serious obstacle interposed in the form of a layer of the little pieces of marble known in Venice as terrazzo marmorino—the ordinary pavement of rich men’s houses—and the sharpened bolt would not make any impression on this material. This difficulty he overcame, however, by attacking the cement which joined the fragments together. Four days sufficed to tear up the pavement and reach another plank below, probably the last of its series. Meanwhile, time passed; a midsummer sun again poured down its scorching rays upon the leads during the day, and by night the would-be prison breaker, half-choked with the accumulated heat, lay at work, his cherished lamp by his side, slowly gnawing through his cage with the busy crowbar. One day he had a terrible fright. In the middle of the afternoon he heard the grating of the bolt in the passage outside—an unusual sound at that hour of the day. He was taken by surprise, for he was at work under his bed with his lamp alight. Hastily throwing his crowbar into the hole in the floor, he blew out the lamp, crawled out and threw himself just as he was, naked, upon his bed only a second or two before Laurent appeared, ushering in a stranger who recoiled on the threshold, overcome by the heat of the room and the loathsome smell of the half-extinguished lamp. “Into what devilish place have you brought me?” he cried to his escort, “and who is this loathsome creature?” Laurent tried to reassure him, and took him out again, begging Casanova to put on some clothes. The newcomer, who promptly recognised him, proved to be a fresh cell-companion, a Venetian of rank, Count Fenarolo, who had offended against the strict etiquette that governed all dealings with foreign ambassadors and found himself committed to the Piombi. He was a gentleman and was pleased to find himself with Casanova, whom he knew personally and to whom he brought all the latest news from outside, particularly the gossip current as to the causes of Casanova’s imprisonment. One story was that he had invented a new religion; another that he had induced a young patrician to turn atheist; a third that he had created a disturbance in the theatre by hissing the plays of a writer who had many powerful friends.

The count was very much in the way, but he behaved with great friendliness and generosity. He freely shared with his companion the rich and liberal fare sent in to him, and when he discovered the hole in the floor, promised to keep the secret inviolable; more, to assist the fugitive in making his escape by lowering him through the hole when completed and afterward pulling up the rope.

Eight days later the count was set at liberty, and by that time the last plank was perforated so that Casanova, on applying his eye to the first small hole made, saw plainly that his conjecture had been right and that he was looking down into the hall of the Council of Ten. But he found the passage was blocked by an intervening beam of the ceiling below, and he was obliged to enlarge the aperture to get beyond it. Everything at last was ready, it only remained to fix the day and hour of departure. He settled for the 27th of August, the eve of the Feast of St. Augustin, when there would be no council meeting and no one about. Carefully closing the aperture lest its existence might be betrayed, Casanova patiently awaited the supreme moment, but, unhappily, on the 25th he was overwhelmed by a crushing blow.

Laurent came to him at midday and bade him prepare for good news. “You are to come with me,” he said. “Let me dress properly,” cried Casanova, overjoyed, taking for granted that he was to be set free. “There is no need for that,” replied the gaoler, “you are not going far, only to another chamber better and brighter than this, with two windows from which you can see half Venice, and in which you can stand upright.”

The poor prisoner, astounded, sank fainting into a chair. “Give me vinegar to smell,” he whispered almost inarticulately, “and beg the secretary to leave me where I am.” At which Laurent laughed in scorn. “Have you gone mad? What! You refuse to move out of hell into paradise? Come, come,—orders must be obeyed. Get up, and I will help you with your books and belongings.”

So the fruit of months of labour must be lost irretrievably and, worse than all, the hole in the floor must be discovered. Yet in the midst of all this misery and disappointment, one crumb of consolation remained—the crowbar, concealed in the armchair, went with him into his new quarters. There was a terrible uproar when the hole was laid bare, and much seeking and poking among mattresses and cushions, but the precious weapon escaped notice. Nevertheless, nothing could be done with it. The new cell which was deliciously cool and fresh, had clean walls which would show the slightest scratch on the surface. Escape seemed farther off than ever.

One day Casanova asked the gaoler to buy him the works of Maffei; but as that worthy profited by any surplus of the daily allowance that might be in hand at the end of the month, Laurent was terribly averse to extraordinary expenses, and suggested that other people in the prison had books and that they might advantageously lend them to each other. A system of regular exchange now began, and a correspondence was started by means of the hollow backs of the vellum-bound books, which lay flat when the books were closed, but formed a kind of pocket when opened. Letters passed back and forth between the tenants of neighbouring cells. Casanova found that overhead were two occupants, one Father Balbi, a monk of noble Venetian family, and the other an aged man, Count Aschino of Udine. Casanova’s pen was the long nail of his little finger trimmed to a point and dipped into mulberry juice; the fly leaves of the books themselves supplied the paper. The subject discussed was eternally the same,—that of their escape; but the mind of the reverend Father Balbi was more critical than inventive, and Casanova felt that they could not work again for awhile. Nevertheless, he informed the monk of the existence of his precious crowbar, and offered to convey it to him if he would consent to use it in making an opening through the ceiling of his own cell into the garret above and then cutting his way through the floor to reach Casanova, who would answer for the rest of the operation. Certainly he had formed no high opinion of the discretion and skill of his new ally, but realised that he must work with such tools as he had at hand. Balbi’s first step was to provide himself with a large number of pictures of saints to cover up and conceal the damaged ceiling and floor. The next difficulty was to pass the working tool safely from one cell to the other. The fur-lined dressing gown was first thought of as a vehicle, but was abandoned. At last, after severe cogitation, an astute plan was devised. Casanova begged the gaoler to buy him a new folio edition of the Vulgate, just published, and the volume was procured in the hopes that the crowbar might be concealed in the back of the binding. But it was two inches too long and the ends protruded!