Giovanni Battista Bottini,
Advocate of the Fisc and of the Apostolic Chamber.
To the Account of the Fact, and Grounds in the Franceschini Case.
[Pamphlet 15.]
The splendid statue of Nebuchadnezzar fell because it was not firm on its feet. So fall to ground those imagined and forced suppositions concerning the origin of the present execrable murder, which the Anonymous Writer in his printed pages [[Pamphlet 10] has tried to insinuate into the dull heads of the crowd. This murder was committed here in Rome upon three wretched and innocent persons, by Guido Franceschini, assisted by four men who were armed with prohibited arms, who were brought together for that purpose by the influence of money, and who were kept insidiously for many days at his expense. [These pages claim that] the crime arose from justly conceived anger: [first] because eight months earlier Guido had discovered Francesca Pompilia, his wife, sinning against him in his own house at Arezzo, and [then] because she had fled in company with Canon Caponsacchi of the same city back to Rome to place herself again under the protection of Pietro and Violante Comparini, who had raised her as their daughter; and [thirdly] that the suspicion had also grown upon Guido that in her precipitate journey she might have broken with the Canon her marriage obligations, since certain love-letters were found upon her, from which he unreasonably deduced her adultery, and he supposed that the said Caponsacchi was condemned as an adulterer to a three years' banishment at Civita Vecchia. And these pages try, under the pretence of injured honour, to render Guido's crime less grave and to excite compassion, no less in foolish persons than in the hearts of our most religious judges, for the purpose of disposing them toward a milder penalty and one out of keeping, according to the laws, with the quality, form, and circumstances of this crime. And this in substance is all that is claimed by the author of the pamphlet entitled Notizie di fatto, e di ragione nella Causa Franceschini. But they are indeed very much at fault in their account of that tragic history, which had a different beginning and an occasion independent of the imagined ground of honour. In that pamphlet it was presupposed all too bitterly, that Guido's honour had been injured by his wife; whereas she always preserved her sense of shame and had well observed the laws of conjugal honour, as is plainly shown in this present article.
That this sad catastrophe, this slaughter of an entire family, did not proceed (as the Anonymous Author claims in his pages) from the pretended sense of injured honour, but from damnable greed, one can very clearly see by considering the fact that for this very object the unfortunate marriage with Francesca Pompilia was entered into by Franceschini. For it was taken for granted that after the death of her supposed parents she would surely fall heir to a considerable property. All the more ought we believe that the crime was committed because of hatred arising from the three lawsuits then pending; that is, two in the civil courts and a third in the criminal courts. One of these was as to the legitimacy of the parentage of Francesca Pompilia, the wife, and the nullification of the dowry-agreement, and was brought by Pietro in the Tribunal of the Sacred Rota. The second suit was for divorce, and was brought by the said Francesca Pompilia before the Vice-Governor. The third is a criminal suit, as to the pretended adultery, which is still pending in the Tribunal of his Excellency the Governor; this latter was brought under the very impulse of greed, to gain the entire dowry. Since this fact was conclusively evident in the case introduced by the said Franceschini, he was deceived in this hope of gain by the failure of the proofs, which the defence caused to vanish utterly, as they could do by means of the wife. Hence he broke into an excess so tragic and so deplorable as to reveal clearly the tricks and frauds practised for the purpose of bringing about that marriage. Here then are the plain proofs that this is the truth.
Guido Franceschini was staying at Rome in idleness, out of the service of a certain Cardinal, without a soldo, by which service he had provided for himself up to that time. His usual loafing-place was in the shop of certain women-hairdressers, where he often announced his intention of setting up his house with some good dowry. He also boasted of the grandeur of his country, his birth, and his property. By his promises he induced this woman to find him a chance for such a marriage, and she informed him of the opportunity in the said Francesca Pompilia. The latter was then esteemed to be the true and legitimate daughter of Pietro and Violante Comparini. He set about this enterprise with the aid of his brother, Abate Paolo, using the astute prudence with which the malign serpent advanced his designs in Paradise to subvert Adam into disobeying God's precept and into eating the forbidden fruit; for [Satan] considered the matter in this way: "If I wish to assault the man directly, who is so strong and so resolute, he will turn and give me a sure repulse. It is therefore better that I first tempt the woman, who is of a fickle nature and soft-hearted." And he made his first attack upon Eve; because when he had gained his point that he might have her, by her means it would be easier for him to win over Adam. "For he first attacked the mind of the weaker sex," are the ingenious words of St. Hilary.
And so for this purpose did the said Guido devise the marriage with the knowledge of his brother, Abate Paolo, and likewise to this point he succeeded in it. For he avoided talking with Signor Pietro about the marriage, by whom it would probably have been refused, and wished first to tempt Violante, his wife. Because by gaining her he would the more easily overpersuade her husband to give his consent. Nor was it difficult for him to astound the woman, because he knew how to impress her very well with the thought of the grandeur of his country, of the first-rate nobility of his birth, and of the great income from his patrimony, amounting to 1700 scudi. And he gave her an itemised account of it written with his own hand. She was enchanted thereby and, without getting any further information about the matter, she was able to persuade her husband and to extract from him his consent to it. This proves what we read written in Proverbs: "A wife takes captive the soul of her husband." He speaks this of Mordecai who availed himself of Esther, when he wished to placate the anger of Ahasuerus against his people; of Joab, who used the services of the woman of Tekoah when he wished to soften the anger of David against his son; and of the Philistines of Timnath, when they wished to gain from Samson the secret of the riddle proposed to them at the marriage feast.
The credulous but deceived woman so cajoled her husband that she at last induced him to sign the marriage agreement providing for a dowry of 26 bonds and, at the death of the said Comparini, for all their possession, amounting, as the Anonymous Writer acknowledges, to the sum of 12,000 scudi. And, for the purpose of making the said Franceschini guardians of the said property even during the life of the Comparini, they had to give up even the income of it. This property consisted of numbers of profitable and well-situated houses, and of bonds. The Franceschini also assumed the obligation to take the said Comparini to the city of Arezzo, and there to feed, clothe, and provide them such service as they would need. This promise was made not without the hope that on account of the insults and sufferings which they would have to bear their death would be hastened. And thus Guido would become the absolute master of their property.