What I Remember, Volume 2

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

It was the practice in those days to carry the bodies of the dead on open biers, with uncovered faces, to their burial. It had doubtless been customary in old times so to carry all the dead; but the custom was retained at the time of which I am writing only in the case of distinguished persons, and very generally of the priesthood. I remember, for instance, a poor little humpbacked Grand Duchess being so carried through the street magnificently bedecked as if she were going to a ball, and with painted cheeks. She had been a beneficent little body, and the people, as far as they knew anything about her, revered her, and looked on her last presentation to them with sympathetic feelings. But it was a sorry sight to see the poor little body, looking much like a bedizened monkey, so paraded.

Well, my mother and I were, aimlessly but much admiringly, wandering about the vast spaces of the cathedral when we became aware of a funzione of some sort—a service as we should say—being conducted in a far part of the building. There was no great crowd, but a score or two of spectators, mainly belonging to the gamin category, were standing around the officiating priests and curiously looking on. We went towards the spot, and found that the burial service was being performed over the body of a young priest. The body lay on its back on the open bier, clad in full canonicals and with the long tasselled cap of the secular clergy on his head. We stood and gazed with the others, when suddenly I saw the dead man's head slightly move! A shiver, I confess, ran through me. A moment's reflection, however, reminded me of the recognised deceitfulness of the eyes in such matters, and I did not doubt that I had been mistaken. But the next minute I again saw the dead priest slightly shake his head, and this time I was sure that I was not mistaken. I clutched my mother's arm and pointed, and again saw the awful phenomenon, which sent a cold wave through both of us from head to foot. But nobody save ourselves seemed to have seen anything unusual. The service was proceeding in its wonted order. Doubting whether it might possibly be one of those horrible cases of suspended animation and mistaken death, I was thinking whether it were not my duty to call attention to the startling thing we had seen, and had with outstretched neck and peering eyes advanced a step for further observation, and with the half-formed purpose of declaring aloud that the man was not dead, when I spied crouched beneath the bier a little monkey, some nine or ten years old, who had taken in his hand the tassel of the cap, which hung down between the wooden bars which formed the bier, and was amusing himself with slowly swaying it forwards and backwards, and had thus communicated the motion to the dead man's head! It was almost impossible to believe that the little urchin had been able to reach the position he occupied without having been observed by any of the clerical attendants, of whom several were present, and still more difficult to suppose that no one of them had seen what we saw, standing immediately in front of the corpse while one of them performed the rite of lustration with holy water, the vessel containing which was held by another. But no one interfered, and none but those who know the Florentines as well as I know them can feel how curiously and intensely characteristic of them was the fact that no one did so. The awful reverence for death which would have impelled an Englishman of almost any social position to feel indignation and instantly put a stop to what he would consider a profanation, was absolutely unknown to all those engaged in that perfunctory rite. A certain amount of trouble and disturbance would have been caused by dislodging the culprit, and each man there felt only this; that it didn't matter a straw, and that there was no reason for him to take the trouble of noticing it. As far as I could observe, the amusement the little wretch derived from his performance was entirely unsocial, and confined to his own breast; for I could not see that any of the gamin fraternity noticed it, or cared about it, any more than their seniors.

I remember another somewhat analogous adventure of mine, equally illustrative of the Florentine habits of those days. I saw a man suddenly stagger and fall in the street. It was in the afternoon, and there were many persons in the street, some of them nearer to the fallen man than I was, but nobody, attempted to help him. I stepped forward to do so, and was about to take hold of him and try to raise him, when one of the by-standers eagerly caught me by the arm, saying, "He is dying, he is dying!" "Let us try to raise him," said I, still pressing forward. "You mustn't, you mustn't! It is not permitted," he added, as he perceived that he was speaking to a foreigner, and then went on to explain to me that what must be done was to call the Misericordia, for which purpose one must run and ring a certain bell attached to the chapel of that brotherhood in the Piazza del Duomo.

Among the many things that have been written of the Florentine Misericordia, I do not think that I have met with the statement that it used to be universally believed in Florence that the law gave the black brethren the privilege and the monopoly of picking up any dying or dead person in the streets, and that it was forbidden to any one else to do so. Whether any such law really existed I much doubt, but the custom of acting in accordance with it, and the belief that such practice was imperative, undoubtedly did. And I have no doubt that many a life has been sacrificed to it. The half hour or twenty minutes which necessarily elapsed before the Misericordia could be called and answer the call, must often have been supremely important, and in many cases ought to have been employed in the judicious use of the lancet.

The sight of the black robed and black cowled brethren, as they went about the streets on their errands of mercy, was common enough in Florence. But the holiday visitor had very little opportunity of hearing anything of the internal management and rules of that peculiar mediaeval society or of the nature of the work it did.

The Florentine Misericordia was founded in the days when pestilence was ravaging the city so fiercely that the dead lay uncared for in the streets, because there was no man sufficiently courageous to bury or to touch them. The members of the association, which was formed for the performance of this charitable and arduous duty, chose for themselves a costume, the object of which was the absolute concealment of the individual performing it. A loose black linen gown drapes the figure from the neck to the heels, and a black cowl, with two holes cut for the eyes, covers and effectually conceals the head and face. For more than five hundred years, up to the present day, the dress remains the same, and no human being, either of those to whom their services are rendered, or of the thousands who see them going about in the performance of their self-imposed duty, can know whether the mysterious weird-looking figure he sees be prince or peasant. He knows that he may be either, for the members of the brotherhood are drawn from all classes of society.

It used to be whispered, and I have good reasons for believing the whisper to have been true, that the late Grand Duke was a member, and took his turn of duty with his brethren. Some indiscreet personal attendant blabbed the secret, for assuredly the Duke himself was never untrue to the oath which binds the members to secrecy.

The whole society is divided into a number of companies, one of which is by turns on duty. There is a large, most melancholy and ominously sounding bell in the chapel of the brotherhood (not that already mentioned by which anybody can call the attention of the brother in permanent attendance, but a much larger one), which is heard all over the city. This summons the immediate attendance of every member of the company on duty, and the mysterious black figures may any day be seen hurrying to the rendezvous. There they learn the nature of the call, and the place at which their presence is required.

I remember the case of an English girl who was fearfully burned at a villa at some little distance from the city. The injuries were so severe that, while it was extremely desirable that she should be removed to a hospital, there was much doubt as to the possibility of moving her. In this difficulty the Misericordia were summoned. They came, five or six of them, bringing with them their too well-known black covered litter, and transported the patient to the hospital, lifting her from her bed and placing her in the litter with an exquisitely delicate and skilled gentleness of handling which spared her suffering to the utmost, and excited the surprise and admiration of the English medical man who witnessed the operation. Every part of the work, every movement, was executed in absolute silence and with combined obedience to signalled orders from the leader of the company.

Another case which was brought under my notice was that of a woman suffering from dropsy, which made the necessary removal of her a very arduous and difficult operation. It would probably have been deemed impossible save by the assistance of the Misericordia, who managed so featly and deftly that those who saw it marvelled at the skill and accurately co-operating force, which nothing but long practice could have made possible.