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tell the truth, the goaded wretch can hardly gasp in his agony,-"Oh, I have said it. I can say no more." At length he is let down and conducted a second time to his cell. After a short interval, the following decree is issued by the governor :-" It is promised to any one who within thirty days shall bring clear evidence against any person or persons who may have aided or assisted the said Gugliemo Piazza, the following premium," &c.; "and if the said person be an accomplice, it is further promised to him free pardon and exemption from punishment." At the same time it was intimated to the accused that he was to be subjected every day to the torture, unless he confessed the whole truth; but that if he would confess, and state to the Senate who were his accomplices, he should be exempt from further torture and punishment of any kind. Who can justly analyze the mind of that tortured wretch, in whose memory the fearful agonies he had undergone were so fresh and powerful? Who can judge how the conflict between the terror of suffering the same over again, and the hope of security held out to him, may have raged within his breast? It appears that the barber, Giangiancomo Mora, was in the habit of selling a certain ointment as a cure for the plague-one of the thousand specifics so readily believed in during the time of any epidemic disease. A few days before his arrest Piazza had asked the barber for some of this ointment, and he had promised to prepare it for him; and meeting him on the very morning of the day of his arrest, had told him that it was ready if he would come and take it. The judges wished to have a story about ointment in connection with the Via Vetra; what more natural than that this recent circumstance should furnish material to the miserable prisoner driven to desperation by his merciless persecutors ?

On the 26th of June Piazza was again conducted before the examiners, and he was requested to repeat what he had already confessed in the prison; viz.," Who it was that had supplied him with, and was the fabricator of, the pestilential ointment that had been found on the doors and walls of the houses of this city?" The desperate man, forced into falsehood, seems to have proceeded cautiously," The ointment was given to me by a barber." He is asked, "What is the name of this barber?" and replies, "I believe his name is Giangiancomo-his surname I don't know." The president then asks him, "Did the said barber give you much or little of the ointment ?" and Piazza rejoins, "He gave me a certain quantity-about as much as would fill that inkstand." If he had received the jar of ointment the barber had prepared for him as a remedy against the plague, it is probable he would have described that; but not having this on his mind, he uses for illustration the first object that comes under his eye. When asked if the barber was a friend of his, he says, "A friend? Oh, yes! That is-yes, a great friend." They now ask, "For what object did the said barber give you this ointment?" and this is what the miserable man replies:-"I was passing by, and he called mo and said, 'I can give you-I won't say what;' and I said, 'What is it?' He said, Some ointment;' and I said, 'Yes, yes; I will come and take

it;' and two or three days afterwards he gave it to me." "But what did the barber say to you when he consigned to you the jar of ointment?" He said, replied the prisoner, "Take this jar and smear the ointment on the walls near here; and then come to me and I will give you a handful of money." Being asked further, "If the said barber indicated the preciso places and walls where he was to smear the ointment?" Piazza replies, "He told me to smear it on the walls of the Via Vetra de Cittadini, commencing from his house; where, in fact, I did commence." It was then asked, "And for what object was this ointment to be smeared on the walls?" to which he replied, "He did not tell me, but I imagined that the ointment must have been poisonous, and might do injury, because, on the following morning, he gave me some water to drink, telling me it would preserve me from the poison." In all of these replies the examiners seem to have seen nothing improbable. They have only one more question to ask. "Why did you not say all this at first?" and the inventive genius of Piazza is equal to the occasion, for he says, "I think I must attribute the cause to the water he gave me to drink, because your excellency sees what great torments I have suffered without having been able to speak the truth."

This time, however, the judges so easy to content were not contented, and so they proceed to ask, "But why were you not able to speak the truth before?" and Piazza continues, “I have said because I could not; even if I had been a hundred years on the cords I could not have spoken, because when I was asked everything went clean out of my head." With this lucid termination the examination was closed and the wretched prisoner was reconducted to his cell. The police now went to the house of Giangiancomo Mora, the barber, and he was arrested with all his family. Here was another culprit who had not thought of running away, although his accomplice had been four days in the hands of the authorities. The house was diligently searched and various things considered suspicious were found. Of these it is only necessary to note one, as it is frequently alluded to in the course of the process. In a kind of copper for washing was found a thick sediment of a whitish colour, which was found to stick to the walls when applied. The authorities do not seem to have been afraid of experimenting with a substance considered so deadly, but let that pass. The unlucky barber seems to have fancied that the cause of his arrest was having sold a medical ointment without a licence, and when interrogated on the subject of the thick viscous sediment found in the copper, asserts that it was ranno or lye used in the preparation of his specific. In his first examination Mora denies having ever had any intercourse with Piazza, beyond having at his request prepared some ointment for him, but he is told that this is a great improbability—and it is now intimated to the commissioner that his story with respect to his limited intercourse with the barber is also very improbable, and that unless he states the entire truth the promise of impunity will not extend to him. Piazza in great alarm supplements his story as follows: "I will tell your

excellency everything. Two days before giving me the ointment the barber was at the Porta Ticinese' in company with several others, and seeing me pass, called me and said Commissioner, I have some ointment to give you,' and I said to him 'Will you give it to me now?' and he replied 'No, not now; but afterwards when he gave it to me he told me it was to smear on the walls to give people the plague." Only the day before he had said that the barber had told him nothing, but that he imagined it must be poisonous because of the water given him to drink to preserve him from the effects of the poison. When asked if he is ready to repeat all these things, confronted with the barber he replies-"Yes, certainly." He is accordingly again subjected to the torture in order to make him a credible witness, for by the law no malefactor under promise of impunity could give evidence against another unless "purged of his infamy," that is, unless he can repeat his accusation under the torture, it being considered that if his story was a mere invention in order to obtain pardon--the same torture that might have driven him to invent it would force him to retract his invention. This application of the torture was doubtless slight and formal, for we read that Piazza sustained it tranquilly. It was asked him three or four times why he had not confessed all this at first, and in every case he replies: "It must have been in consequence of that water he gave me to drink." It was evident therefore that the judges had some doubt as to the truth of the story, and that they wished for something more satisfactory; no doubt Piazza himself saw that there was a want of connection in what he said, for he now adds: "If your excellency will give me a little time to think over it, I will tell you more--in particular what I remember about the barber and some others as well." Accordingly the next day he names three or four other persons as friends and accomplices of the barber. way the hardened man seeks to make up, by a number of victims, the utter want of reasonable evidence. These three or four persons named by Piazza, each with equal foundation name several others, all of whom were ultimately condemned to atrocious and refined tortures, and death; we will not however speak of these, but return to the process against Piazza himself and the barber Mora, who were all along regarded as the principals in this extraordinary investigation, if it can be honoured with such a name. We now come to the second examination of Mora. After various questions concerning his specific-the viscous substance found in the copper, et cetera -he is asked, How it is that he professes so little knowledge of Gugliemo Piazza, when with so much freedom, meeting him in the street, he recommends him the use of his ointment, and even tells him to come to his house to take it,the barber replies: "I did it for my own interest in order to sell the ointment." When asked if he is acquainted with those other persons named by Piazza, he says that he knows them by name, but has never had any dealings with them. At last they demand if he knows or has heard that any one had offered money to the said commissioner to smear with a deadly ointment the walls of the houses in the Via Vetra de Cittadini, and he replies, "No; I know nothing about it." And now

comes the question,-"Did you give him a jar of this deadly ointment, telling him to smear it on the walls of the said street, and promising him a handful of money." And Mora exclaims with eagerness,--" Signor, no! never, never! I do such a thing!" It was replied to him: "What would you say if the said Gugliemo Piazza sustains this fact to your face?" "I would say," rejoins Mora, "that he is a lying scoundrel; that he cannot say this because I have never never spoken to him on such a subject, so help me God!" Piazza is now confronted with the barber, and repeats his accusations in full; the miserable barber cries,- Oh, merciful God; did ever any one hear such infamy as this?" he denies that Piazza was ever a friend of his, and that he was ever inside his house; but Piazza rejoins:—“The barber has said that I never was in his house; let your excellency examine Baldassar Litta, who lives in the house of Antiano in the street San Bernardino, and Stephano Buzzo, near S. Ambrogio, both of whom know very well that I have been often in the house of the barbor." These two persons, afterwards examined, declare they know nothing whatever about it. At the next examination Mora confesses that Piazza has been in his shop as a customer, "but never in his house." This is considered as contrary to his former evidence, and also contrary to the statement of other witnesses, and so it is intimated to the prisoner, with menaces of torture, that he had better say the whole truth on this matter; and he replies:-"I have already told you the truth, and the commissioner may say what he likes, for he is a lying scoundrel." In virtue of many improbabilities, discerned by the acuteness of the judges, Mora is subjected to the most severe tortures. First, with cries and heartrending supplications, he asserts that he is innocent of any evil; but at length in his agony demands,-"What is it you wish me to say?" and eventually he crics: “Yes, yes, I gave him a jar full of ointment, and told him to smear the walls with it. Oh, for the love of God, let me down! release me from this torture, and I will tell all the truth!" He is let down, and in his subsequent examination is asked, "Who are those companions that Piazza has spoken of as your friends and accomplices?" Mora replies: "I don't know their names," but when threatened with the torture he names various people at random-all of whom are of course arrested. Some days pass, and during this interval of repose the miserable barber, evidently struck by a remorse stronger than the fear of new torments, denies all his previous accusations, says he never had anything to do with any poisonous ointment, and that what he said was caused by the torture; before being taken again to be put on the cords he entreats to be allowed to repeat an Ave Maria, and he is permitted to pray for some time before a crucifix. Arising from his knees, he says calmly: "Before God in heaven and my own conscience, all I have told you under the torture is false." However, under new torments to which he is subjected, he again confesses that all is truc, and seems, like Piazza, to become hardened; he says it was his interest to keep up the plague in order to sell more of his ointment; he further particularizes the ingredients of the supposed pestilential substance,

and confesses that the viscous sediment found in the copper was one of them the principal ingredient however, he says, was "the foam collected from the mouths of those who had died from the plague." However, the motive he gives for his infamous conduct is not considered sufficiently strong, and as the whole current of his invented story differs largely from that given by Piazza, the latter is informed that the promise of impunity is null and void, it having been clearly proved that some of his evidence is false. The ingenuity and depravity of this wretched man now reaches its climax. He evidently thinks if he can only succeed in drawing into the net some prodigiously large fish, the efforts of this monster to escape might make a hole big enough for him to slip through. Accordingly he begins throwing out hints about some great people who are mixed up in a very large conspiracy, and ultimately he declares that the chief person in the whole business-and from whom Mora received large sums of money to distribute to the others—was no less a personage than the son of the great Signor Castellano of Milan, a captain of a cavalry regiment, and one of the most rising men in the city. Here was a poser for the authorities. However, the barber Mora, after some time, is tortured into a confession that a very great person was at the head of all, but (naturally enough) he does not know who the great person is, until the judges themselves, in the course of a private examination, let out the name, and then the barber, as boldly as Piazza, asserts that they were both paid by Capitano Padilla, son of the castellano of Milan. After some time and much hesitation, Padilla is arrested, and his trial extends over two years, when he is acquitted; but long before this both Piazza and Mora suffer the penalty due to their atrocious crimes. Their sentence was as follows:-That they should be taken on a cart to the place of execution, and their bodies burnt with hot irons; in front of the shop of the barber their right hands were to be cut off, their backs broken, and their bodies twisted on the wheel; they were then to be suspended in the air for six hours, when their bodies were to be burned to ashes, and thrown into the river. It was further decreed that the house of Giangiancomo Mora, barber, was to be pulled down, and on the space occupied by it was to be erected a column to be called "Infame," and in perpetuity it was forbidden to any man to build on that spot. There is no exact account of the actual number of victims who suffered the same cruel penalties in consequence of the testimony of the commissioner and the barber Mora, but Verri computes them as at least sixty. It is almost a pity that the "Colonna Infame" should have been pulled down in 1778; it should have been allowed to remain still as a monument of infamy-as a monument to the fallibility of human laws, and of the inhuman cruelty and wilful imbecility of the judges who so administered justice.

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