The Conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi, or, Genoa in the sixteenth century.

by Emanuele Celesia

He lived long with Stefano Pinelli and was on terms of intimacy with Azzolino Sauli. G. B. Grimaldi, Domenico Grillo, Cipriano Pallavicini and other young men of high birth and studious tastes. His reputation in all branches of learning induced the senate to give him the coveted office of public annalist from the year 1528. He entered on it with pleasure and completed his task in a brief period; and though he laments that the eagerness of the senate to see the work did not give him time to clothe his narration with such a diction as becomes history, yet in beauty of style and skill in arrangement few Italian[51] histories can be compared with it. We must regret that the work only comes down to the year 1550, in which he met his unfortunate death. In that year he was torn from his studies and his friends and condemned to the flames; and though many gentlemen laboured with the greatest earnestness to save him, on the 19th of July he was beheaded in prison (this his friends secured as a favour) and his body was committed to the flames. We find the record in the books of the condemned kept by the Compagnia della Misericordia.

Casoni erred, therefore, in stating that he was executed in 1582, as also Tuano who fixes it in 1560, in which he is followed by Konning and Bayle. Nor less inaccurate are Pagano Paganini, Cesare Caporale, Chevalier Marini, Scipione Ammirato and Crescimbeni who tell us that he died by fire, since his body was only burned after death.

We know that the Biblioteca Civica of Genoa contains some rhymes of an ascetic character which are usually attributed to Bonfadio, at the end of which a marginal note says that he died in prison July 20th, 1561. This raised doubts about the year of his death and some have argued that he was not beheaded at all but died a natural death. A little experience in reading ancient manuscripts will enable any one to see at a glance that this note belongs to a period much later than the sixteenth century. Nor can that record by an unknown amanuensis be compared for authenticity with the catalogue of the condemned kept by the Compagnia della Misericordia. We pass over the rhymes. Except a few sprightly lines, they show the devoted ardour of a monk rather than the philosophic penetration and chaste diction of Jacopo.

The cause of his severe punishment was from the beginning involved in obscurity, and the lapse of centuries has seemed to increase rather than dissipate the darkness. He has been accused of dishonourable and illicit love and of having disclosed state secrets. Others tell us that powerful rivals in love caused his ruin, and still others that he had incurred the enmity of powerful families who instigated his arrest and condemnation. His biographers give us no light; rather they increase the confusion. But the opinion has prevailed that he was executed for illicit amours. The writers who maintained this opinion were of no great weight, and it is time to show the inconclusiveness of their judgment.

The statutes of Genoa attached the penalty of death to the crimes of Attic venery, heresy and witchcraft, for one of which Bonfadio must have been punished. No one accuses him of the last two. Tuano, who is quoted among those who charge him with lustful crimes, says nothing clearly but only that “Bonfadio was punished for an offence which it is prudent to conceal” (ob rem tacendam). But, besides that many things are better concealed, it is important to remember that Tuano, who did not even know the year in which Bonfadio was executed is a suspected authority in Italian affairs. Paolo Manuzio leaves us in equal uncertainty; in his golden Latin song he says that Bonfadio perished for a crime over which the sword of justice could not slumber, but he does not define the singular offence which he also says would not tarnish the glory of his name. The only one of his contemporaries who openly accuses him is the base Marini, whose verses, worshipped both by princes and the populace, invested falsehood with the appearance of truth. Cardano took up the tale and no one has yet destroyed the basis of the calumny. The judicious and impartial critic knows how little value is to be attached to any statement by Cardano; nor can a verse of the author of the Adonis be accepted as a guide for the opinions of posterity, especially since Garuffi has so severely criticized him for traducing the memory of so great a writer as Bonfadio.

One must know little of the low morals of an age which put a price upon sin and absolved offences before they were committed, to doubt that the vice with which Bonfadio is charged prevailed to a fearful extent.

Genoa, though she had the forms of a Republic, was no better than the rest of Italy. Let us admit then, for a moment, that Bonfadio fell into the common sin. It was neither so new nor scandalous to the senate as to have led to his death by fire. Such a charge was in the sixteenth century little less than ridiculous. We have gone over many volumes of the criminal Ruota of the time, and, though we have studied diligently, we find not a single case of severe punishment for that crime. Whether no cases are found because proofs of such beastly crimes are difficult to find, or because the vice was universal, is hard to decide. We find that a Francesco Spinola called the Caboga, who was brutally addicted to the vice was, not burned, but sent to the frontiers a few years after the death of Bonfadio. Though in 1479, a master workman in coral, who had violated a girl in Albaro was quartered with red hot irons, the severe sentence was not for the rape, but because he had afterwards killed his victim. It is not probable then that the government was severe against so common a crime, or would have condemned to the flames for it a man of such talent and position as Bonfadio. Had this been his only offence, his numerous friends in the senate would have encountered little difficulty in saving his life. Andrea Doria so lauded in Bonfadio’s immortal pages, who controlled all the affairs of the Republic, whose will was mightier than law, would have saved him from death. We must therefore believe that the blow which felled him came from a higher hand than Genoese law, from a hand with which it was idle to contend. This conclusion will help us to find elsewhere the true cause of his condemnation.

The most credible authorities of the time tell us that he was innocent of these vices, and they add that he suffered for secret reasons of state. Some even among these writers seem to have been borne down by current opinion and doubt if he were not guilty, but they add that it was only the pretext for his punishment. Such is the opinion of Giammatteo Toscano who wrote indignant verses against the Genoese for the murder of Jacopo. Caporali declared Bonfadio innocent. Ottavio Cossi and Ghilini tell us that having offended in his writings some very exalted persons, he was accused of infamous ardours. It is probably true that he incurred the enmity of illustrious families whose names were blackened in his history; Zilioli confirms this theory when he says that Bonfadio’s history was mortal to its author. Boccalini states the case with much greater clearness, blaming the pen of Bonfadio for having impeached the honour of great houses, adding that an historian should imitate vine-dressers and gardeners: that is to say, should speak only in the full maturity of events, when the great who had done evil are dead and their children incapable of vengeance. He enforces his theory by the example of Tacitus who preferred violating the laws of history to running risk of personal danger. In expressing these cowardly sentiments (an historian ought to tell the truth and to throw down his pen when that becomes impossible) Boccalini did not express his true opinions, and he was afterwards run through by the Spanish ambassador in Venice for writing freely against Spain.