The Man of Genius

by Cesare Lombroso

From henceforward, there appears in David Lazzaretti, the fixed idea of being the King of kings and Prince of all princes. To the head of the municipal body of Arcidosso, who would not obey him, he said, “I am the King of kings, the Monarch of all monarchs, I bear on my shoulders all the princes of the world. All the carbineers and soldiers there are, are mine, and dependent on me, and there are no ropes that can bind me.” To Minucci, who was trying to escape unnoticed, he said, “You do not know that I am the Prince of princes, the King of all the earth, and if you try to run away, I will have you stoned alive.”

The witness G. B. Rossi was present at the sermon on the 17th, and heard David say that he was the King of kings, Christ the Judge; that the Pope was no longer to reside at Rome, but that he (Lazzaretti), on certain conditions, would provide him with another residence, and that the king of Italy, too, would be his subject.

The witness Mariotti also deposed that he had heard David say in his sermon, “that he had no fear of force, and that, even with a million of soldiers, it was impossible for a subject to arrest his monarch.”

Lastly—not to lengthen the series of proofs—the witness Giuseppe Tonini heard him assert, in the sermon, that he was “the King of kings, and commanded the whole world;” while the witness Valentino Mazzetti says that Lazzaretti was determined to hold the procession of Aug. 18th at any cost, and said, “Do you think they are going to arrest us? No, no, it is not possible for subjects to arrest their monarch.”

The emblematic device he adopted is worth noting: the double C, to which he attached so much importance, representing the first and second Christ, i.e., Christ, the son of St. Joseph of Nazareth, and Christ, the son of the late Joseph Lazzaretti of Arcidosso. In truth, it is not in any way comprehensible what relation Christ could hold to Constantine, the latter to David, and all these to Lazzaretti. But the relation exists precisely in those strange contradictions and absurdities, which—amid the persistence of the Prince idea—constantly come to the surface in monomaniacs, so that some have wished to class their disease as dementia. In fact, although they keep up the character, so to speak, far better than general paralytics, and try to give a plausible appearance to their delirium, yet, oftentimes, when overpowered with the necessity of finding a vent for their persistent ambitious idea, they pay no attention to the contradictions they fall into. A Pavia embroideress, believing herself a descendant of the Bonaparte family, modelled her dress, language, and aspect with great success on those of the members of the reigning families. Yet, while she asserted herself to be the daughter of Marie Louise, she at the same time claimed Victor Emmanuel as her father; as, on other occasions, she tried to persuade us that she had found the poison of vipers in the eggs she was eating.

Thus, though at first calling on the Pope to liberate Italy, Lazzaretti, when excommunicated, or merely treated with contempt by the Pope, wrote against Papal idolatry. Though he wished to die a member of the Catholic Apostolic Church, he inveighed against auricular confession, which is the very pivot of Catholicism; and, while he called himself the son of David, he also wished to be thought the son of Constantine.

Passanante.—Passanante, the would-be regicide of Naples, has no morbid hereditary antecedents.[429] At the age of 29, his height was 1·63 m., and his weight 51½ kilogrammes, i.e., 14 kilogrammes less than the Neapolitan average. His head may be described as almost sub-microcephalic—cephalic index 82, probable capacity 1513. His features show the characteristics of the Mongol and the cretin—small and deeply-set eyes abnormally far apart, zygomatic bones highly developed, beard scanty. The pupils show a low degree of mobility; and the genitals are atrophied—a fact connected with that of almost complete anaphrodisia. On the other hand, the liver and spleen are hypertrophied, which partly explains the increase of the temperature (varying from 38° to 37·8° at the arm-pits) the weakness of the pulse (88), and the very slight degree of strength, which, moreover, is less on the right side (60 kil.) than on the left (78 kil.). This last fact—which perhaps arises from an old burn on the hand—is most important, because rendering the complete carrying out of the crime improbable, especially taking into account the clumsy weapon with which he was armed, and the unfavourable position which was the only one he could take. The sensibility was perverted—the tactile presenting 5 mm. on the back of the hand (where the normal sensitiveness is from 16 to 20), and 7 on the forehead, where it is usually from 20 to 22 (that on the palm of the hand was not registered). On the contrary, the sensitiveness of the skin to puncture was much weakened. In prison he had attacks of delirium accompanied by hallucinations.

All these characteristics are clear indications of disease, both in the abdominal viscera, and in the nervous centres. This result is even more evident from the psychological study of the case. A merely superficial examination might have induced the belief that his affections and moral sentiments were normal. He showed, indeed, a horror of crime, lived a most frugal and abstemious life; and, while sometimes over-religious, sometimes exaggeratedly patriotic, always appeared to prefer the advantage of others to his own. He thus presented to those unversed in the study of mental pathology, the appearance, as it were, of a martyr to an idea which had been maturing for years, the mouthpiece and tool of a powerful sect, who might call for execration politically, but as an individual commanded respect.

This view, however, is at once seen to be fallacious, (even leaving aside the delirium, which might have been the effect of imprisonment), if we remember that, as has already been said, frugality and unselfishness are special characteristics of the mattoid, and, not seldom, also of the insane, some of whom seem to have more affection for their country, and for humanity in general, than for their families and themselves, and if we notice the indifference or even pleasure with which, in his writings, he refers to the murders committed by his countrymen, when, “to the sound of axes, they make foreigners give them money,” above all, the enjoyment with which he records the cruel practical joke played on a poor man who was very fond of his cherry tree, by digging up the latter, bringing it back stripped of its fruit, and leaving it at his front door. This morbid apathy is especially revealed in the want of emotion shown after the crime, in the face of the anger of the populace which was let loose against him. Yet even the greatest fanatics among political assassins, such as Orsini, Sand, and Nobiling, have been overwhelmed by emotion after the deed, and have often attempted suicide.

The true motive of the act is quite sufficient to prove this: being dismissed from his situation on account of his political vagaries, arrested as a vagabond, and, in addition, ill-used by the police, he thought—with a vanity as boundless as his impotence to gratify it, or even to live—of imitating the heroes he had heard talked of in the clubs (and against whom he had himself declaimed), so as to find a way of ending his life by the hand of another.