Plague and pestilence in literature and art

by Sir Raymond Henry Payne Crawfurd

PLATE XXV TORTURE AND EXECUTION OF THE ANOINTERS

(Face Page 179)

At the end of the Processo originale degl’ Untori is a folded plate representing in all its details the execution of Piazza and Mora. It is a rough reproduction of an older undated engraving, which Fletcher has reproduced from a copy in the collection of medical prints and engravings in the library of the Surgeon-General’s Office at Washington. The engraver of this was Orazio Colombo, and it was published in Rome by the authority of the Nuncio of the Roman College.

On the top of the engraving is its title, which may be translated, ‘The sentence pronounced on those, who had poisoned many persons in Milan in the year 1630.’ Fletcher appends this further description: ‘This is followed by the names of the Magnificos, who sat in judgement, and the particulars of the punishment decreed. Each scene in the picture has its letter, which is referred to in an explanatory legend below. The entire disregard of the unities of time and place, which characterized such productions, is well displayed in this curious engraving. On the right is the shop of the barber Mora, and in front of it the “Column of Infamy” is already erected. A large platform car, drawn by two oxen, exhibits the victims, executioners, and priests. A brazier of live charcoal contains the pincers with which the flesh was to be torn. The barber’s right hand is on the block, and a chopper held over the wrist is about to be struck down by a mallet held aloft by the executioner. Further on is seen a large platform, on which the two victims are having their limbs broken by an iron bar, preparatory to their exposure on the wheel for six hours. The wheels are also displayed, one of them already on a pole, with the men bound upon them. Still further on are the fires consuming the bodies, and, last scene of all, on the extreme left is a fussy little stream, foaming under bridges, which is supposed to be a river, and into it a man is throwing the ashes of the two malefactors.’

One dark night in 1788 Nature for very shame let loose a storm that wrecked the Column: her minion Man then tardily demolished the monument of his own infamy. The balcony of Catarina Rosa’s house was also taken down, so that no structure stands to call to mind the hideous tragedy. The corner-house of the Vedra de’ Cittadini, on the left hand as one comes from the Corso di Porta Ticinese, occupies the site of poor Mora’s house. A dwelling has rested on the accursed site since 1803.

It is surprising to find that not only does not Ripamonti deny the guilt of the victims, but now and again he seems to hint at its reality. It has to be borne in mind that in his position as official historiographer of Milan it was hardly permissible for him to express sentiments opposed to popular conviction and the decisions of the courts of justice. As late as 1832, during an epidemic of cholera in St. Petersburg, the most circumstantial statements of miscreants putting poison in the food and drink of the people were in every mouth.

Manzoni’s Colonna Infame is a simple unadorned narrative of the trial and execution of the two Anointers, quite different in literary form from his Promessi Sposi. It is written with a definite purpose in view. Verri had introduced the story into his Observations on Torture, merely as an illustration of the way in which the confession of a crime, both physically and morally impossible, may be extracted by torture. Manzoni retells the tale, in the interest of humanity at large, to show that no matter how deep may have been the belief in the efficacy of ointments, and despite the existence of a legislature that countenanced and approved torture, it was competent to the judges to convict them, only by recourse to artifices and expedients, of the injustice of which they were perfectly well aware.

Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi is a happy blend of antiquarian research and imaginative description, and the incidents of the plague are dexterously woven into the fabric of his story. Manzoni wrote at a time when literature, freed from the trammels of convention, was being slowly brought into harmony with the outlook of modern thought. Though an aristocrat by birth, his upbringing had taught him to regard life with the eyes of the peasant, and not with those of his overlord. In his genius for romance and in his reverence for the past Manzoni has much in common with Scott, but with this difference, that Scott sees the social fabric from above, Manzoni from below. To Scott life was a pageant in which knights of chivalry and courtly dames shared all the leading parts: Manzoni’s stage is filled with men struggling to be rid of the yoke of feudal oppression. The plague of Milan, falling alike on rich and poor, afforded him the text from which to preach the essential equality of all men. His whole narrative is so moulded as to throw into striking contrast the vices of the rich with the virtues of the poor. The plague scenes, too, give him scope for his remarkable insight into the psychology of crowds, and for his skill in marshalling men in masses, a gift in which he rivals Tintoretto. It is the genius of Manzoni that he persuades without preaching.

The total mortality of this pestilence in Milan has been estimated roughly at 150,000 persons. The Sanità, or Board of Health, profiting by the lessons of the previous plague, seem to have acted with sense and energy, though hampered by the ignorant obstinacy of the Senate, the Council of Decurions, and the Magistrates, who were afraid of driving away trade, if the presence of plague were admitted. One strange remedial measure was the organization of an immense procession through the streets in honour of San Carlo. During the procession all the sequestered houses were fastened up with nails to prevent the infected inmates from joining in it. Deaths were so numerous at the height of the plague that the burial-pits were filled, and bodies lay putrefying in the houses and streets. The Sanità sought the help of two priests, who undertook to dispose of all the corpses in four days. With the assistance of peasants, whom they summoned from the country in the name of religion, three immense pits were dug. The Sanità employed monatti to bring out the dead and cart them to the pits, and the priests accomplished their task within the appointed time. Besides the monatti they appointed apparitores, or summoners, who went in advance of the monatti ringing a bell to warn the people to bring out their dead. Commissari supervised both apparitores and monatti. Piazza was one of these overseers.