Rome in 1860

by Edward Dicey

On the morrow this sentence is conveyed to Simonetti, who appeals. With considerable expedition the Supreme Tribunal meet to hear

the case on the 23rd of September. The prisoner alleged before this court that his indignation had been excited by improper proposals made to him by the murdered man, and it was on this account their partnership had been dissolved. Besides certain inherent improbabilities in this story, the court decides that it was incredible that, if true, Simonetti should not have made the statement at his previous trial. The appeal was therefore dismissed, and the sentence of death confirmed. This decision was notified to the prisoner on the 18th of November, who again appeals to the higher Court, which meets to try the appeal on the 29th of the same month. This court at once decided that there was no ground for supposing the crime was not committed with “malice prepense,” or for modifying the verdict. It is not stated when the sentence was submitted to the Pope, but on the 20th of January, 1860, the rejection of his final appeal is communicated to the prisoner, and on the 21st the execution takes place, and the report is published.

Now, if I had wished solely to decry the Papal system of justice, I should not have given the report of the last trial, which seems to me far the most favourable specimen of the set I have

come across. I am inclined to believe, from the meagre narratives before me, that all the criminals whose cases I have narrated were guilty of the crimes alleged against them, and fully deserved the fate they met with. My object, however, has been to point out certain features which must, I think, force themselves on any one who has read these cases carefully. The disregard for human life, the abject poverty, the wide-spread demoralization in the rural districts indicated by these stories, are startling facts in a country which has been for centuries ruled by the vicegerents of Christ on earth. At the same time, the great protraction of the trials and the utter uncertainty about the date of their occurrence, the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence, the want of any cross-examination, the manner in which strict law is disregarded from a clerical view of justice, and the identity between the court and the prosecution, the abuse of the unlimited power of appeal, and the extent to which this appeal from a lay to a clerical court places justice virtually in the hands of the priesthood; and finally, the secret and private character of the whole investigation, coupled with the utter absence of any check on injustice through publicity, are all matters patent

even to a casual observer. If such, I ask, is Papal justice, when it has no reason for concealment and has right upon its side, what would it be in a case where injustice was sought to be perpetrated and concealed?

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

Some months after I had written the question which closes the last chapter, I was fortunate enough to obtain a partial answer to it. During the present year the Cavaliere Gennarelli, a Roman barrister, and a member of the Roman parliament in 1848, has published a series of official documents issued by the Papal authorities during the last ten years; the most damning indictment, by the way, that was ever recorded against a Government. Amongst those documents there appears the official sentence which, as usual, was published after the execution of a certain Romulo Salvatori in 1851. The trial possesses a peculiar momentary interest from the fact that Garibaldi is one of the persons implicated in the charge, and that the gallant general, if captured on Roman territory, would be liable to the judgment passed on him in default. It is, however,

rather with a view to show how the Papal system of justice works, when political bias comes into play, that I propose to narrate this story as a sequel to the others. The words between inverted commas are, as before, verbal translations from the sentence. From that sentence I have endeavoured to extract first the modicum of facts which seem to have been admitted without dispute.

During the death-struggle of the Roman Republic, when the Neapolitan troops had entered the Papal territory on their fruitless crusade, the country round Velletri was occupied by Garibaldi’s soldiery. Near Velletri there is a little town called Giulianello, of which a certain Don Dominico Santurri was the head priest. Justly or unjustly, this priest, and two inhabitants of the town, named De Angelis and Latini, were accused of plotting against the Republic; arrested by order of one of Garibaldi’s officers; imprisoned for a couple of days, and, after a military examination (though of what nature is a matter of dispute) found guilty of treason against the state. The priest was sentenced to death and shot at once; the other two prisoners were dismissed with a reproof. Subsequently

orders were issued for their re-arrest. One of them, Latini, had made his escape meanwhile; the other, De Angelis, being less fortunate, was arrested again and executed.