therefore Salvatori was resolved to murder De Angelis. The only ground of ill-will that can be suggested, as far as Latini is concerned, is that he was a partizan of the priesthood. The act of accusation against Santurri and his fellow-victims, forwarded by the authorities of Giulianello, though essential to the due comprehension of the story, is not forthcoming; and no explanation even is offered of the motives which induced the four “Anziani” to sign a charge which, by the Papal hypothesis, they knew to be utterly unfounded. The bare idea, that Santurri or the others were really guilty of any intrigues against the Republic, is treated as absurd; the fact that any trial or investigation ever took place is slurred over; and yet, with a marvellous inconsistency, Salvatori is accused of being in reality the guilty author of these executions, because some witness—name not given—reports that he heard a report from a servant of Garibaldi, that Santurri was only executed, in opposition to Garibaldi’s own wish, in consequence of Salvatori’s representations.
What was the nature of Salvatori’s defence cannot be gathered from the sentence. From another source, however, I learn that it was
such as one might naturally expect. During 1849, the mayors of the small country towns were entrusted with political authority by the Government. In the exercise of his duty, as mayor, Salvatori discovered that Santurri and the others were in correspondence with the Neapolitans, who were then invading the country, and reported the charge to the officer in command. The result of a military perquisition was to establish convincing proof of the charge of treason. Santurri was tried by a court martial, and sentenced at once to execution; as were also his colleagues, on further evidence of guilt being discovered. Salvatori, therefore, pleaded, that his sole offence, if offence there was, consisted in having discharged his duty as an official of the Republican Government, and that this offence was condoned by the Papal amnesty. This defence, as being somewhat difficult to answer, is purposely ignored; and a printed notice, published on the day of Santurri’s execution, and giving an account of his trial and conviction, is rejected as evidence, because it is not official!
Considering the tone of the sentence it will not be matter of surprise, that the court sums
up with the conclusion, that “Not the slightest doubt can be entertained that the wilful calumnies and solicitations of the prisoner Salvatori were the sole and the too efficacious causes of the result he had deliberately purposed to himself” (namely, the murder of Santurri); and therefore unanimously condemns him to public execution at Anagni. Vincenzo Fenili and Grassi, who had co-operated in the arrest of Santurri, are sentenced to 20 years’ labour on the hulks. There not being sufficient evidence to convict Fanella, Federici, and Teresa Fenili, they are to be—not acquitted, but kept in prison for six months more, while Gabrielli, whose only offence was, that he told Salvatori where the priest Santurri was to be found, though without any evil motive, is to be released provisionally, having been, by the way, imprisoned already for 18 months, while Garibaldi and De Pasqualis are to be proceeded against in default.
Salvatori was executed on the 10th of September, 1851; Fenili and Grassi are probably, being both men in the prime of life, still alive and labouring in the Bagnio of Civita Vecchia, where, at their leisure, they can appreciate the mercies of a Papal amnesty. It seems to me
that I should have called this chapter the Salvatori rather than the Santurri murder, and then the question asked at the end of the last would have required no answer.
CHAPTER VI. THE PAPAL PRESS.
At Rome there is no public life. There are no public events to narrate, no party politics to comment on. Events indeed will occur, and politics will exist even in this best regulated of countries; but as all narration of the one, and all manifestation of the other, are equally interdicted for press purposes, neither events nor politics have any existence. To one, who knows the wear and tear of the London press, to whom the very name of a newspaper recalls late hours and interminable reports, despatches and telegrams, proof-sheets, parliamentary debates and police intelligence, leading articles and correspondents’ letters; a very series of Sisyphean labours, without rest or end; to such an one the position of the Roman journalist seems a haven of rest, the most delightful of all sinecures. There are many mysteries indeed about the Papal Press.
Who writes or composes the papers is a mystery; who reads or purchases them is perhaps a greater mystery; but the bare fact of their existence is the greatest mystery of all. Even the genius of Mr Dickens was never able to explain satisfactorily to the readers of Nicholas Nickleby, why Squeers, who never taught anything at Dotheboys Hall, and never intended anything to be taught there, should have thought it necessary to engage an usher to teach nothing; and exactly in the same way, it is an insoluble problem why the Pontifical Government, which never tells anything and never intends anything to be told, should publish papers, in order to tell nothing. The greatest minds, however, are not exempt from error; and it must be to some hidden flaw in the otherwise perfect Papal system, that the existence of newspapers in the sacred city is to be ascribed. The marvel of his own being must be to the Roman journalist a subject of constant contemplation.