BROWNING'S ITALY (30 page)

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the Cenci narrative with notes, in the series of the Philobiblon Society. It was a better copy of the * Relation' than that used by Shelley, differing at least in a few particulars."

The poem teils the story that Browning found in this manuscript.

The title of the poem as the poet explains, means "a bündle of rags" — a"trifle"; the termination "Aja," is generally an accumu-lative yet depreciative one. The meaning of the proverb with which he heads the poem "Ogni

creature will be pressing into the Company of his betters," which he says "I used to depre-ciate the notion that I intended anything of the kind."

It may be questioned whether the poetizing of this piece of information is worth while except for the light it throws upon the possible iniquities of the clergy at that time.

More to the point, however unpleasant it may be to contemplate, is the truth about Beatrice, whose story is now said to have been fabricated by Prospero Farinaccio, the lawyer engaged in her defense. He established a theory of enor-mous cruelty and imspeakable outrages com-mitted upon her person by her father, in order to mitigate the guüt of parricide. He also tried to make out that her brother, Bernado, was

half-witted, but there is other evidence to prove that he was a young man of ordinary intelligence, while nothing remains to prove the Beatrice legend. Perhaps the worst blow to our senti-ments is the f act that the Guido Reni portrait of Beatrice in prison in one of the Roman paJ-aces is most certainly not Beatrice, for Guido did not come to Rome until 1608, nine years after her death.

There can be no doubt, however, that old Cenci was anything but a delightful father to have around. Fines for brutal conduct toward servants seem to have been a constant feature of his daily life. At one time he was prosecuted for an attempt to murder a cousin, at another he was outlawed from the states of the church, and at another time we find him spending six months in prison for crimes of one kind and another. Everybody in those days seems to have been implicated in vice — cardinals, prel-ates, princes, professional men, and people of the lowest rank. K they were poor, they might be sent to the stake; if rieh they could buy themselves off. Cenci, for example, paid 100,000 crowns to free himself from one of the crimes of which he was aecused. After this he deeided to settle down a second time. He married a second wife, Lucrezia, and proeeeded to look after his family.

His eider sons seem to have been true sons of their father. The eldest, Giacomo, married against his fathei's will and proceeded to sup-iL htaseif by raistag m <4 th^ugh fo^ obligations. His father brought several law-suits against him, in one of which he was accused of having plotted against his father's life. The second son, Cristoforo, was assassinated, during the course of a love affair with the wife of a Trasteverine fisherman, by a Corsican, Paolo Bruno. The third son, R*L>, was distinguished for street adventures. He had a devoted friend, Monsignore Querro, a cousin, and important in court circles, who helped him carry off all the plate and portable property from his father's palace. He was finally killed by Amilcare Orsini in a night brawl. " The young men met, Cenci attended by three armed servants, Orsini by two. A single pass of rapiers, in which Rocco was pierced through the right eye ended the affair," as this midnight tragedy has tersely been related.

The older sons were so bad that Cenci treated all the younger ones with strictness, not to say cruelty, as is sometimes said. Finally, the fam-ily rebelled, and they dehberately decided to remove the old count. His wife, Lucrezia, his eldest son, Giacomo, his daughter, Beatrice, and a younger son, Bernaxdo, were all implicated in

the crime, which was carried out in a particu-larly horrible manner. On the night of September 9, at the Rocca di Petrella in the Abruzzi, two hired cutthroats, Olimpio Calvetti and Marzio Catalani, "entered the old man's bed-room, drove a nail into his head and flnng the corpse out from the gallery." It was some time before suspicion feil upon his own family, but finally the govemment of Naples, where, and at Rome, the sons had taken out letters for the administration of their father's property, — was informed that proceedings ought to be taken against the Cenci and their cutthroats. Against Olimpio and Marzio a ban was immediately published. Giacomo and his friend Querro, with the assistance of three desperados, feil upon Olimpio and killed him, but Marzio was arrested and his evidence caused the arrest of the Cenci. It seems that they were tortured and none of them denied the accusation, so that the only course left to their advocates was to plead exten-uating circumstances, and thus arose the Beatrice "legend."

Although the episode upon which Browning's great masterpiece, "The Ring and the Book" is founded did not occur until the end of the seventeenth Century, a State of society still ex-isted at that time in which wife-murder under certain circumstances was condoned. What such

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circumstances might be and how a despicable nature might misinterpret f acte and manuf acture others in order to give himself an excuse under the law for murdering his wife, is the story told in "The Ring and the Book "

In the poem itself, Browning describes how he found the old Square yellow book, containing the records of this crime and the trial. In those days before newspapers, the "Relations" of things of this nature were frequently printed in books and pamphlete. The information in the old Square yellow book was supplemented by an old pamphlet which Browning found in London. The account of the finding of the book is well worth quoting for the vivid picture it gives of a street scene in Florence to-day, as well as the description of the methods by which justice was enforced in the seventeenth Century.

"That memorable day, (June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square), I leaned a little and overlooked my prize By the low railing round the fountain-source Close to the statue, where a step descends; While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place For marketmen glad to pitch basket down, Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet, And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read Presently, though my path grew perilous Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait

Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes

And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine:

Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves,

Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape,

Rows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear, —

And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun:

None of them took my eye from off my prize.

Still read I on, from written title-page

To written index, on, through street and street,

At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge;

TiU, by the time I stood at home again

In Casa Guidi by Feiice Church,

Under the doorway where the black begins

With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold,

I had mastered the Contents, knew the whole truth

Gathered together, bound up in this book,

Print three-fifths, written Supplement the rest,

*Romana Homicidiorum 9 — nay,

Better translate —' A Roman murder-case:

Position of the entire criminal cause

Of Guido Franceschini nobleman,

With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay,

Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death

By heading or hanging as befitted ranks,

At Rome on February Twenty Two,

Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight:

Wherein it is disputed if, and when,

Husbands may kiU adulterous wives, yet 'scape

The customary forfeit/

Word for word, So ran the title-page: murder or eise Legitimate punishment of the other crime, Accounted murder by mistake, — just that And no more, in a Latin cramp enough

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When the law had her eloquence to launch, But interfilleted with Italian streaks When testimony stooped to mother-tongue, — That, was this old Square yellow book about.

Now, as the ingot, ere the ring was forged,

Lay gold, (beseech you, hold that figure fast!)

So, in this book lay absolutely truth,

Fanciless fact, the documents indeed,

Primary lawyer-pleadings for, against,

The aforesaid Five; real summed-up circumstance

Adduced in proof of these on either side,

Put forth and printed, as the practice was,

At Rome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type,

And so submitted to the eye o' the Court

Presided over by Bus Reverence

Rome's Governor and Criminal Judge, — the trial

Itself, to all intents, being then as now

Here in the book and nowise out of it;

Seeing, there properly was no judgment-bar,

No bringing of accuser and accused,

And whoso judged both parties, face to face

Before some court, as we conceive of courts.

There was a Hall of Justice; that came last:

For Justice had a Chamber by the hall

Where she took evidence first, summed up the same,

Then sent accuser and accused alike,

In person of the advocate of each,

To weigh its worth, thereby arrange, array

The battle. Twas the so-styled Fisc began,

Pleaded (and since he only spoke in print

The printed voice of him lives now as then)

The public Prosecutor — 'Murder's proved;

With five . . . what we call qualities of bad,

Worse, worst, and yet worse still, and still worse yet;

Crest over crest crowning the cockatrice,

That beggar hell's regalia to enrich

Count Guido Franceschini: punish him!'

Thus was the paper put before the court

In the next stage, (no noisy work at all,)

To study at ease. In due time like reply

Came from the so-styled Patron of the Poor,

Official mouthpiece of the five accused

Too poor to fee a better, — Guido's luck

Or eise his fellows', — which, I hardly know, —

An outbreak as of wonder at the world,

A fury-fit of outraged innocence,

A passion of betrayed simplicity:

'Punish Count Guido? For what crime, what hint

O' the color of a crime, infonn us first!

Reward him rather! Recognize, we say,

In the deed done, a righteous judgment dealt!

All conscience and all courage, — there's our Count

Charactered in a word; and, what's more stränge,

He had companionship in privilege,

Found four courageous conscientious friends:

Absolve, applaud all five, as props of law,

Sustainers of society! — perchance

A trifle over-hasty with the hand

To hold her tottering ark, had tumbled eise;

But that's a splendid fault whereat we wink,

Wishing your cold correctness sparkled so!'

Thus paper second followed paper first,

Thus did the two join issue — nay, the four,

Each pleader having an adjunct. 'True, he killed

— So to speak — in a certain sort — his wife,

But laudably, since thus it happed!' quoth one:

Whereat, more witness and the case postponed.

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'Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed,

And proved himself thereby portentousest

Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime,

As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint,

Martyr and miracle!' quoted the other to match:

Again, more witness, and the case postponed.

* A miracle, ay — of lust and impudence;

Hear my new reasons:' interposed the first:

'— Coupled with more of mine!' pursued his peer.

'Beside, the precedents, the authorities!'

From both at once a cry with an echo, that!

That was a firebrand at each fox's tail

Unleashed in a cornfield: soon spread flare enough,

As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves

From earth's four corners, all authority

And precedent for putting wives to death,

Or letting wives live, sinful, as they seem.

How legislated, now, in this respect,

Solon and his Athenians ? Quote the code

Of Romulus and Rome! Justinian speak!

Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb!

The Roman voice was potent, plentiful;

Cornelia de Sicariis hurried to help

Pompeia de Parrichdiis; Julia de

Something-or-other jostled Lex this-and-that;

King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul;

That nice decision of Dolabella, eh ?

That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh!

Down to that choice example JSlian gives

(An instance I find much insisted on)

Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were,

Yet understood and punished on the spot

His master's naughty spouse and faithless friend;

A true tale which has edified each child,

Much more shall flourish favored by our court! Pages of proof this way, and that way proof, And always — once again the case postponed.

Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month,

— Only on paper, pleadings all in print,

Nor ever was, except i* the brains of men,

More noise by word of mouth than you hear now —

TiU the court cut all short with ' Judged, your cause.

Receive our sentence! Praise God! We pronounce

Count Guido devilish and damnable:

His wife Pompilia in thought, word and deed,

Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that:

As for the Four who helped the One, all Five —

Why, let employer and hirelings share alike,

In guilt and guilt's reward, the death their due!'

So was the trial at end, do you suppose ?

'Guilty you find him, death you doom him to?

Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest,

Priest and to spare!' — this was a shot reserved:

I learn this from epistles which begin