Before going on to say a word about the prisons in the sixteenth century it is as well to call attention to the fact that the Inquisitors of State twice found themselves in direct relations with the English government; once, in 1587, when they called the attention of England to a conspiracy which was brewing in Spain; and again, a few years later, in connection with the tragedy of Antonio Foscarini in which they played such a deplorable part. Is it not possible that there may be some documents in the English Record Office bearing upon those circumstances, and likely to throw more light upon the tribunal of the Inquisitors?
In connection with the prisons, I take the following details, among many similar ones, from documents found by Signor Fulin in the archives of the Inquisitors of State. He says, in connection with them, that they are by no means exaggerated. One of the most characteristic is a case dated towards the end of the fifteenth century, and it will serve as an example, since it is known that no great changes were made in the management of the prisons until much later.
‘There has been found in the prisons a youth named Menegidio Scutellario, whom the Council of Ten had sentenced to twenty-five blows of the stick, which he received, and to a year’s imprisonment. He was transferred from the new prisons to the one called Muzina, where he contracted an extremely painful inflammatory disease which has produced running sores. He has several on his head, and his face is much
RIO S. ATANASIO
swollen. Moreover, this boy is shut up in the prison with twenty-five men of all ages, which is very dangerous for him from a moral point of view. A widow, who says she is his mother, comes every day to the Palace begging and imploring that her son may not be left in this abominable prison, lest he die there, or at least learn all manner of wickedness in the company of so many criminals. We consequently order that in view of the justice of these complaints the boy be kept in the corridor of the prisons till the end of his year.’
As in the Tower of London, so also in the gloomy dens of the Pozzi, former prisoners have left short records of themselves. For instance:
Mutinelli, Annali Urb.
‘1576, 22 March. I am Mandricardo Matiazzo de Marostega’; ‘Galeazze Avogadro and his friends 1584’; and lower down the following misspelt Latin words, ‘Odie mihi, chras tibi (sic)’—‘My turn to-day, to-morrow yours.’
Occasionally some daring convict succeeded in escaping from those deep and secure prisons. In his journal, under the fifth of August 1497, Marin Sanudo writes:—