The Man of Genius

by Cesare Lombroso

Now when a man who reasons so profoundly fails to see the absurdity and impossibility of becoming, with a few followers in a remote country-side, the monarch and reformer of the whole world, he can only be insane. And so he was judged by the more sagacious among his contemporaries. Thus Father Giacinto, the confidant of Richelieu, wrote: “No one believes so easily any story that is told him, and examines things that he believes to be de facto with less judgment.” And again: “I shall always hold him for a man wilder than a fly, and less sensible in worldly affairs than a child.” Peirescio called him “bon homme.”

Following human intellect, Campanella reached Pantheism, the soul of things, the transformation of animate and inanimate beings, veneration of the sun, that “beneficent star, living temple, statue and venerable face of the true God.” Stricken by adversity, not assisted by his god, he returned to Catholicism, to the angels and miracles, to the future life which promises enjoyments which cannot be had on earth, and the restoration of the beloved lost.

Like all madmen, incapable of moderation he became furiously intolerant; hence his ferocious suggestions for oppressing the Protestants, and the title which he took of emissary of Christ or of the Most High. He imagined that his works would serve to confute the Protestants, wrote and disputed against Lutherans and Calvinists, wished to found colleges of priests for the diffusion of Catholicism, gave advice to those who would none of it for overthrowing heresy and propagating the true faith. In short, he ended as he had begun, in a delirious dream of religious ambition, which only varied in subject, going from one pole to the opposite.

But, I repeat, this phenomenon of contradiction, and of the passage from opposite excesses of feeling, is one of the most marked characters of monomania, and especially of religious monomania. I remember nuns of whom I had charge at the asylum at Pesaro, who on first becoming insane were violent and blasphemous, and later on in the course of their madness, apostles of Christianity; and thus it is easy to see that the miserly may, under the influence of insanity, develop extraordinary prodigality. We have seen Lazzaretti, a drunkard and a blasphemer, become austere and pious under the influence of insanity; and then from being a fanatical Papist becoming and dying an Anti-Papist, when he found himself repulsed by the Vatican. Recently De Nino, in his book Il Messia degli Abruzzi, has described a certain priest, become a Messiah, who, while insane, attempted reforms, at all events in rites, and who, during the last months of his life, like Campanella, starved himself in penitence for his revolutionary sins, and in spite of fasts and penances believed that he was damned.

San Juan de Dios.—Juan Ciudad was born on March 8, 1495, in the town of Montemor-o-Novo, in Portugal.[418] He seems to have been tormented by the spirit of adventure from his childhood, as he left his father’s house at the age of eight. A priest took him as far as Oropesa, where he entered the service of a Frenchman in the capacity of shepherd. After some years he became tired of this work, and, being tall and strong, enlisted as a soldier.

The life he led in the army cannot be described; the officers set the example, and plundered as greedily as the privates. One of the former entrusted his share of the booty to Juan, who either lost or stole it. He was condemned to death, and was just going to be hanged, when a superior officer, passing by, granted him his life, but dismissed him from the army. He then returned to Oropesa, and resumed his former position. Towards 1528, he enlisted a second time, and marched under the orders of the Count of Oropesa. When the war was over, he returned to Montemor-o-Novo, to see his parents; but he lost his memory, and forgot his father’s name. He then left the place, and went to Ayamonte in Andalusia, where he became a shepherd. It was there that he believed himself to have been called, and, later on, to have had a dream in which he dedicated himself to God and to the poor.

Those were the days when the Barbary pirates flourished, making descents on ill-defended countries, and kidnapping their inhabitants, whom they sold at Fez, Algiers, and Tunis. Two religious orders had made it their special task to collect alms for the ransom of the Catholics who were being sold in the slave-market.

It seems that Juan Ciudad had the intention of consecrating himself to this sacred duty. He embarked for Ceuta, where he entered the service of an exiled and ruined Portuguese family, whom, it is said, he supported by his labour as an artizan. After a time, he grew weary of this life; he left his master and sailed for Gibraltar, where he established a small trade in relics and other sacred objects.

The sale of these having brought him some money, he left Gibraltar and settled at Granada, where he opened a shop. He was then aged 43, and was just about to undergo that mental convulsion which determined his vocation.

On the 20th of January, 1539, after hearing a sermon by Juan d’Avila, he was seized with a fit of frantic devotion. He confessed his sins in a loud voice, rolled in the dust, pulled out the hair of his head, tore his clothes, and rushed through the streets of Granada, imploring the mercy of God, and followed by boys shouting after him as a madman. He entered his library, destroyed all the secular books in his possession, gave away the sacred ones, distributed his furniture and clothes to any one who was willing to have them, and remained in his shirt, beating his breast and calling on every one to pray for him. The crowd followed him noisily as far as the cathedral, where, half-naked, he again began his vociferations and bursts of despair. The preacher, Juan d’Avila, having been informed of the conversion occasioned by his words, listened to the poor man’s confession, consoled him, and gave him advice, which does not appear to have had much effect, since, on leaving him, Ciudad rolled himself on a dung-heap, proclaiming his sins in a loud voice. The crowd amused themselves by hissing him, throwing stones and mud, and otherwise maltreating him. Some, however, took pity on him, and conducted him to the place set apart for the insane in the Royal Hospital. He was subjected to the treatment then in vogue, that is, he was bound and scourged, in order to deliver him from the evil spirit supposed to possess him.