Rome in 1860

by Edward Dicey

Of course, both the prisoners resorted to their invariable right of appeal, but their case did not come on before the lower court of the Supreme Clerical Tribunal at Rome for upwards of a year, namely, on the 17th of May, 1859. At this trial, no new facts whatever appear to have been adduced. I gather indistinctly, that Volpi’s defence was that he had not left his father’s house at all on the morning of the murder, but that his attempt to prove an “alibi” was unsuccessful. The chief object indeed of the very lengthy sentence of the court, recapitulating the evidence already stated, is to establish the comparative innocence of Starna, who, for some cause or other,

seems to have been favourably regarded. We are told, that “the confession of Starna is confirmed by a thousand proofs;” that “it is clearly shown” that Starna “in this confession did not deny his own responsibility; a fact which gives his statement the character of an incriminative and not of an exonerative confession; and that though he might possibly have wished, in his statement of the facts, to modify and extenuate his own share in the crime, yet there was no reason to suspect that he wished gratuitously to aggravate the guilt of his comrade;” and that also taking into consideration the villainous character of Volpi, it cannot be doubted, that he was the principal in the crime. The court at Viterbo had decided that the crime of the prisoners was murder, coupled with robbery and treachery. The Court of Appeal decides, on what seem sufficient grounds, that there is no proof of treachery, and therefore, the crime not being of so heinous a character, reduces the period of Starna’s punishment from twenty to fifteen years, while it simply confirms the sentence of death on Volpi.

Again, as a matter of course, there is an appeal from this sentence to the upper court of the Supreme Tribunal, which appeal comes off

after four months’ delay, on the 9th of September, 1859. The only ground of appeal brought forward is one which, according to our notions of law, should have been brought forward from the first, namely, that the guilt of Volpi is not adequately proved by the unsupported statement of his accomplice Starna, and “that the evidence which corroborates this statement, only constitutes an à priori probability of his guilt.” The court, however, dismisses this plea at once, on the ground that it is not competent to take cognizance of an argument based on the abstract merits of the case, and therefore confirms the verdict.

On the 25th of November the sentence is submitted to, and approved by, the Pope. On the 3rd of January, 1860, orders are issued from Rome for the execution to take place. On the 17th the authorities of Viterbo notify to the prisoner that his last appeal has been dismissed, and “call on the military to lend their support to the execution of the sentence,” and on the following day, two years and eight months after his arrest, Volpi is executed for the murder of Ugolini on the Piazza della Rocca at Viterbo. On that day, too, appears the first report of his crime and trial.

CHAPTER V.—continued. THE “AVANZI” MURDER.

In July, 1859, there were in the Bagnio of Civita Vecchia two galley slaves, Antonio Simonetti and Domenico Avanzi. Simonetti was a man of thirty, whose life, short as it was, seemed to have been one long career of crime. He had enlisted at an early age in the Pontifical dragoons, and served for seven years; on leaving the army, he became a porter, and within a few months was guilty of a highway robbery, and sentenced to the galleys for life, then to five years’ hard labour for theft, and again to seven years at the galleys for an attempt to escape, though how the last punishment could be super-added to the first, is a fact I cannot hope to explain. Of Avanzi nothing is mentioned, except that he was an elderly

man condemned to a lengthened term of imprisonment for heavy crimes. Prisoners, it seems, condemned for long periods, are not sent out of doors to labour at the public works, but are employed within the prison. Both Simonetti and Avanzi were set to work in the canvas factory, and according to a system adopted in many foreign gaols, they received a certain amount of pay for their labour. An agreement had been made between the pair, that one should twist and the other spin the hemp; and the price paid for their joint work was to be divided between them in certain proportions. About a fortnight before the murder this sort of partnership was dissolved at the proposal of Simonetti, and some days after Avanzi made a claim on his late partner for the price of two pounds of hemp not accounted for. There seems to have been no particular dispute about this, but on the morning of the murder, Simonetti was summoned before the overseer of the factory, on the ground of his refusal to pay the sum claimed by Avanzi of fifteen baiocchi, or seven pence halfpenny. Simonetti did not deny that Avanzi had some claim upon him, but disputed the amount. At last, the overseer proposed, as an amicable compromise,

that Simonetti should pay down seven baiocchi as a settlement in full, sooner than have a formal investigation. Both parties adopted the suggestion readily, and returned to their work apparently satisfied. An hour and a half after, while Avanzi was sitting at his frame, with his face to the wall, Simonetti entered the room with an axe he had picked up in the carpenter’s store, and walking deliberately up to Avanzi, struck him with the axe across the neck, as he was stooping down. Almost immediate death ensued, and on the arrival of the guard, Simonetti was arrested at once, and placed in irons. Probably, as a matter of policy, so daring a crime required summary punishment; at any rate, Papal justice seems to have been executed with unexampled promptitude. With what the report justly calls “laudable celerity,” the case was got ready for trial in a week, and on the 30th of July, the civil and criminal court of Civita Vecchia met to try the prisoner. There could be no conceivable question about the case. The murder had been committed during broad daylight, in a crowded room, and indeed, the prisoner confessed his guilt, and only pleaded gross provocation as an excuse. There was no

proof, however, that Avanzi had used irritating language; and even if he had, too long a time had elapsed between the supposed offence and the revenge taken, for the excuse of provocation to hold good. Indeed, as the sentence of the court argues, in somewhat pompous language, “Woe to civil intercourse and human society, if, contrary to every principle of reason and justice, an attempt to enforce one’s just and legal rights by honest means, were once admitted as an extenuating circumstance in the darkest crimes, or as a sufficient cause for exciting pardonable provocation in the hearts of criminals.” The tribunal too considers, that the crime of the prisoner was aggravated by the fact, that his mind remained unimpressed “by the horrors of his residence, or the dreadful aspect and sad fellowship of his thousand unfortunate companions in guilt, or by the flagrant penalties imposed upon him, for so many crimes.” On all these grounds, whether abstract or matter-of-fact, the court declares the prisoner guilty of the wilful murder of Avanzi, and sentences him to death.