The Man of Genius

by Cesare Lombroso

In January, 1870, he founded the “Society of the Holy League,” a mutual assistance society which he called the symbol of charity. In March of the same year, after having assembled his followers at a Last Supper, he set out, accompanied by Raffaello and Giuseppe Vichi, for the island of Monte Cristo, where he remained for some months, writing epistles, prophecies, and sermons. He then returned to Montelabro, where he wrote down the visions or prophetic inspirations which he had, and where he was arrested for sedition (April 27th). After his liberation,[426] he founded a society to which he gave the name of “Christian Families.” This was considered, very erroneously, as a proof of continued fraud; and he was arrested, but discharged, through the efforts of the advocate Salvi, after seven months’ imprisonment.

In 1873, Lazzaretti, in obedience to other divine commands, started on a journey, passing through Rome, Naples, and Turin, whence he proceeded to the Chartreuse at Grenoble. Here he wrote the Rules and Discipline of the Order of Penitent Hermits, invented a system of cipher, with a numerical alphabet, and dictated the “Book of the Heavenly Flowers,” in which it is written that “The great man shall descend from the mountains, followed by a little band of mountain burghers.” To which are added the visions, dreams, and divine commands which he believed himself to have received in that place.

On his return to Montelabro he found an immense crowd, attracted both by devotion and curiosity, encamped on the summit of the mountain, to whom he addressed a sermon on the text, “God sees us, judges us, condemns us.” For this he was denounced to the authorities as tending to overthrow the government and promote civil war.

In the night of Nov. 19, 1874, he was arrested a second time, and brought before the court at Rieti. This time the authorities were desirous of obtaining the opinion of non-specialist experts, who, with inexplicable want of perception, pronounced him to be of sound mind and a cunning knave.[427] Thus, in spite of his strange publications and his tattoo marks, he was condemned to fifteen months’ imprisonment, and one year of police supervision, for fraud and vagabondage.

The sentence, however, was referred to the Court of Appeal at Perugia; and on the 2nd of August, 1875, he was allowed to return to Montelabro, where he reconstituted his society, and placed the priest Imperiuzzi at the head of it. His health had suffered in prison, and for this reason—perhaps, also, to avoid new arrests, and to enjoy the glory of easy martyrdom among the Legitimist fanatics—he went to France in October. Being mysteriously carried, as he expresses it, by the Divine power, into the environs of a town in Burgundy, he produced a book, which with good reason he calls “mysterious,” entitled “My Wrestling with God,” or “The Book of the Seven Seals, with the description and nature of the Seven Eternal Cities”—a mixture of Genesis and Revelation, with sentences and rhapsodies entirely of an insane character. He also wrote a manifesto addressed to all the princes of Christendom, in which he calls himself the great Monarch, and invites them to make alliance with him, for, “at an unexpected time the end of the world shall be manifested to the Latin nation in a way quite opposed to human pride.” In the same document he declares himself Leader, Master, Judge, and Prince over all the potentates of earth. These writings were copied for him by the priest Imperiuzzi, who corrected the most conspicuous mistakes; and many of them attained not only the undeserved honour of appearing in print, but also that of being translated into French, by the aid of M. Léon du Vachat, and various Italian and foreign reactionaries, who had taken Lazzaretti seriously.

However, a short time after, he was so far carried away by delirium as to begin inveighing against the corruptions of the priesthood and the practice of auricular confession, for which he wished to substitute a public one. Thereupon the Holy See declared his doctrines false and his writings subversive, and the same man who had formerly written a work[428] in favour of the Pope, now wrote, and despatched on May 14, 1878, an exhortation addressed to his brethren of the Order of Hermits, against Papal idolatry, and the beast of the seven heads. After all this, with the usual contradictoriness of the insane, he went to Rome to lay aside his symbolic seal and his rod, and retracted before the Holy Office; yet, afterwards, returning to Montelabro, he continued to deliver addresses against the Catholic Church, which, he said, had become a shopkeeping church, and against the priests, true atheists in practice, who, not believing themselves, profit by the belief of others. Preaching the Holy Reformation, and declaring himself the Man of Mystery, the New Christ, Leader and Avenger, he exhorted believers to separate themselves from the world, and prove their separation by abstaining from food and from sexual intercourse, even in the case of married persons, who, however, if they indulged, were required to pray for at least two hours, naked, outside their bed, before the act. He issued paper money for considerable sums, in proportion to the means at the disposal of the community, i.e., up to 104,000 francs; but it should be noted that this was absolutely useless, being kept shut up in a closed vase. This idea savours unmistakably of insanity.

After announcing a great miracle, he caused to be prepared, with a part of the money collected, banners and garments for the members, embroidered with the animals which had appeared to him in his hallucinations—all of strange and grotesque shapes. He had a richer one made for himself, and, for the rank and file, a square piece of stuff to wear on the breast, which showed a cross, with two C’s reversed, ↄ † C, the usual emblem of the association.

In August, 1878, he assembled a larger number than ever, and, having prescribed prayers and fasts for three days and three nights, delivered addresses, some of which were public, others private and reserved for believers (who were divided into the various classes of Priest-Hermits, Penitentiary Hermits, Penitent Hermits, and simple associations of the Holy League and Christian Brotherhood) and caused the so-called Confession of Amendment to be made on the 14th, 15th, and 16th August. On the 17th, the great banner with the inscription, “The Republic is the Kingdom of God,” was raised on the tower. Then, having assembled all the members at the foot of a cross, erected for the purpose, the Prophet administered the solemn oath of fidelity and obedience. At this point, one of David’s brothers tried to persuade him to renounce his perilous enterprise, but in vain; for, on the contrary, he replied to those who pointed out the possibility of a conflict, “He would, on the following day, show them a miracle to prove that he was sent from God in the form of Christ, a judge and leader, and therefore invulnerable, and that every power on earth must yield to his will; a sign from his rod of command was enough to annihilate all the forces of those who dared oppose him.” A member having remarked on the opposition of the government, he added that “he would ward off the balls with his hands, and render harmless the weapons directed against himself and his faithful followers; and the Government Carbineers themselves would act as a guard of honour to them.” More and more intoxicated with his delirium, he wrote in all seriousness to the Delegate of Public Safety—to whom he had already shown the preparations, and, later on, given a half-promise to countermand the procession—“That he was no longer able to do so, having received superior orders to the contrary from God Himself.” He threatened unbelievers with the Divine wrath, if, through want of faith, they rebelled against his will.

With such intentions, on the morning of August 18th, he set out from Montelabro at the head of an immense crowd, going down towards Arcidosso. He was dressed in a royal cloak of purple embroidered with gold ornaments, and crowned with a kind of tiara surmounted by a crest adorned with plumes; and he held in his hand the staff which he called his rod of command. His principal associates were dressed, less richly than himself, in strangely-fashioned robes of various colours, according to their position in the hierarchy of the Holy League. The ordinary members were dressed in their every-day clothes, without other mark of distinction than the emblematic breastplate previously described. Seven of the graduates of the Brotherhood carried as many banners with the motto, “The Republic is the Kingdom of God.” They sang the Davidian hymn, each stanza of which ended with the refrain, “Eternal is the Republic,” &c. It is needless to relate what took place in those last hours. The man who had shortly before called himself the King of kings, and believed himself invulnerable, fell, struck by a shot fired by the orders, perhaps by the hand, of a delegate who had many a time been his guest. It appears that he exclaimed as he fell, under the influence of a last delusion, “The victory is ours!”

It is certain that the procession he had arranged was not only unarmed, but appeared to be in every way calculated to turn out perfectly harmless. Nocito has well remarked that an examination of the strange emblematic properties of the League proved beyond all doubt that the Government had mistaken a monomaniac for a rebel.