The Old Yellow Book: Source of Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ restoration and reparation of honour (which the one injured in his reputation could not otherwise accomplish), rather than vindication and vengeance, as we believe was satisfactorily proved in our other plea in behalf of Count Guido.

      But all further difficulty ceases with this consideration: prosecution can be brought for conventicle, if the men were assembled for an evil end and no other crime followed therefrom; but when, according to the sense of the Fisc, they have been called together for committing murders, and these are really committed, no further action can be taken as regards the prohibited conventicle, but rather for the murders themselves; for the assembling of the men tended to this same effect. [Citations.] And it is for this reason more particularly; because when the beginning and the end of an act are alike illegal, the end is given attention, and not the beginning, as Bartolo teaches us. [Citations.]

      It is to be added still further, that the assembling of men is not illegal in itself; indeed it is possible for it at some times to be both permissible and worthy of approval, as in the cases related by Farinacci. But it is illegal because of its evil consequences and the base end for which it is usually made. Hence, as the assembling of men is prohibited, not in itself, but because of something else, the end ought to be considered rather than what precedes the end.

      Nor should the rigorous penalty of death be inflicted at all upon Domenico Gambassini and Francesco Pasquini for the pretended carrying of arms of illegitimate measure; because they are foreigners and had not stayed long enough in the Ecclesiastical State so that their knowledge of this law could be taken for granted. Nor ought it to be inflicted upon the others; for even if the death penalty is threatened by the Constitutions and Banns for the bearing or retention of them; yet since the carrying of this kind of arms is not prohibited for reasons in itself, but because of the pernicious end which follows it, or can follow it; and because this bearing of arms was looking towards the said murders; and because these, although they are not entirely permissible, are not utterly without excuse, the crime of carrying such arms should be included with the end for which they were carried; because the one is implied in the other, nor may the means seem worse than the end. And although, according to the opinion of some persons, the penalty for carrying arms is not to be confused with the crime committed with them, whenever the latter is the graver, yet this seems to be so understood when a crime is committed with them which is entirely illegal and without excuse. But this is not so when the crime is deceased and extenuated, and indeed excused in part, because of the reason for which it was committed.

      In any case, the bearing of arms, according to common law, is but a slight crime. [Citations.]

      Although by special Constitutions and Banns the penalty has been increased almost to the highest possible point, yet this kind of increase does not change the nature of the crime. And just as in the eyes of the common law, torture is not inflicted for getting the truth from those indicted for the said carrying of arms, in view of the insignificance of the crime, in like manner it cannot be inflicted by the force of Constitutions and Statutes which have increased the penalty. [Citations.]

      And this is especially true in the case of the torment of the vigil, which cannot be inflicted for a crime that is not in its very nature most atrocious, but that is held as such, so far as the penalty is concerned, merely by the strength of a decree. This holds good unless indeed the nature of that crime is changed according to the method of proceeding in it. [Citation.]

      And we see in the Banns of our Illustrious Lord Governor that he expressly declared this, when he wished to proceed with the torment of the vigil in cases in which he could not proceed legally; that of a certainty he would not do so. Nor would he indeed have done this, if he could have inflicted such tortures in the case of crimes which are not capital by common law, but are to be expiated with the death penalty by the rigour of the Banns.

      Giacinto Arcangeli, Procurator of the Poor.

      [File-title of Pamphlet 4.]

      By the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Governor in Criminal Cases:

      ROMAN MURDER-CASE

       with qualifying circumstance.

      For the Fisc.

      Summary.

      At Rome, in the type of the Reverend Apostolic Chamber,

       1698.

      SUMMARY

      

      [Pamphlet 4.]

      No. 1.—The sworn testimony of a witness as to the poverty of said Count Guido Franceschini and the miseries suffered by the Signori Comparini while they stayed in his home in the city of Arezzo.

      June 24, 1694.

      Angelica, the daughter of the deceased Pietro and Johanna Battista of Castelluccio, in the Diocese of Arezzo, about 35 years of age, was examined by me on behalf of Pietro Comparini, against any one whomsoever, and put on permanent record; as to which testimony, she took oath to speak the truth, as is seen below.

      I tell you in all truth, sir, that while I was staying in Arezzo last January in the home of Signora Maddalena Baldi Albergotti, the chance was offered me to go and serve Signora Beatrice Franceschini and her sons, etc. I decided to do so, and when I had gone to the home of the Signori Franceschini I spoke with the said Signora Beatrice. She drew me aside into a little room and told me that she would take me as a servant, but that I should never have any private dealings with the two old people who were in the house; one of them was Signor Pietro Comparini and the other Signora Violante, his wife. She charged me still further that if either of the two old people chanced to call me into their chamber, I should not go without first asking her permission. On these terms I accepted the service. After I had entered thereupon, I noticed that Signora Violante stayed in her room most of the time, weeping, and though the Comparini were stiff with cold, the room was without fire. Hence I took pity on her, and without the knowledge of Signora Beatrice, I took the coals from my own brazier and carried them to her. But no sooner did I offer them to her than Signora Violante ordered me out of the room, lest Signora Beatrice might take offence that I had done this act of charity. Also, once among the many times, when Signora Beatrice found it out she made me leave the coals in the fireplace and snatched the shovel from my hands, and threatened me, saying that if she had wished it she herself would have come to bring it; because she did not want me to do any service whatsoever for the said Signori Comparini. And the Comparini could not even speak among themselves, because Signor Guido Franceschini, the Canon Girolamo his brother, and Signora Beatrice, their mother, would stand at one door or another of the apartment and listen to what the said Signori Comparini were saying to one another. This occurred every evening and morning until the said Signor Pietro left the room and the house. And when he returned at night they were unwilling for me to make a light for him on the stairway. And once when Signor Pietro came back home about half-past six in the evening, and I heard him scrape his feet, I took up the lamp to go and meet him. But Signor Guido noticing that, snatched the lamp from my hands, telling me that I had better keep still, and that I had better not approach unless I wished to be pitched out of the window. And this seemed all the worse to me, because when I first entered upon the service of the said Franceschini I had heard it said around the house that one evening, as Signor Pietro was coming back home, he had fallen, while ascending the same steps without a light, and that he had made a very ugly bruise, because of which he had had to keep his bed for many days. At the same time, while I was in the said service, it chanced one morning at breakfast that the Franceschini gave some offence to Signora Violante, because of which a mishap befell her. For no sooner had she reached her own room than she threw herself into a straw-chair and swooned away. When Signora Francesca Pompilia, wife of the said Signor Guido, found it out, she began to weep and to cry out with a loud voice, saying, "My mother is dying." Whereupon I ran to СКАЧАТЬ