Chapter Chapter 31 · Chapter XXXI

.

The pestilence, as the Tribunal of Health had feared, did enter the

Milanese with the German troops. It is also known that it was not

limited to that territory, but that it spread over and desolated a great

part of Italy. Our story requires us, at present, to relate the

principal circumstances of this great calamity, as far as it affected

the Milanese, and principally the city of Milan itself, for the

chroniclers of the period confine their relations chiefly to this place.

At the same time we cannot avoid giving a general though brief sketch of

an event in the history of our country more talked of than understood.

Many partial narratives written at the time are still extant; but these

convey but an imperfect view of the subject, historically speaking. It

is true they serve to illustrate and confirm one another, and furnish

materials for a history; but the history is still wanting. Strange to

say, no writer has hitherto attempted to reduce them to order, and

exhibit all the various events, public and private acts, causes and

conjectures, relative to this calamity, in a concatenated series.

Ripamonti’s narrative, though far more ample than any other, is still

very defective. We shall, therefore, attempt, in the following pages, to

present the reader with a succinct, but accurate and continuous,

statement of this fatal scourge.

In all the line of country which had been over-run by the army, dead

bodies had been found in the houses, as well as on the roads. Soon

after, throughout the whole country, entire families were attacked with

violent disorders, accompanied with unusual symptoms, which the aged

only remembered to have seen at the time of the plague, which,

fifty-three years before, had desolated a great part of Italy, and

principally the Milanese, where it was and still is known by the name of

the Plague of San Carlo. It derives this appellation from the noble,

beneficent, and disinterested conduct of that great man, who at length

became its victim.

Ludovico Settala, a physician distinguished so long ago as during the

former plague, announced to the Tribunal of Health, by the 20th of

October, that the contagion had indisputably appeared at Lecco; but no

measures were taken upon this report. Further notices of a like import

induced them to despatch a commissioner, with a physician of Como, who,

most unaccountably, upon the report of an old barber of Bellano,

announced that the prevailing disease arose merely from the autumnal

exhalation from the marshes, aggravated by the sufferings caused by the

passage of the German troops.

Meanwhile, further intelligence of the new disease, and of the number of

deaths, arriving from all parts, two commissioners were sent to examine

the places where it had appeared, and, if necessary, to use precautions

to prevent its increase. The scourge had already spread to such an

extent, as to leave no doubt of its character. The commissioners passed

through the territories of Lecco, the borders of the lake of Como, the

districts of Monte-Brianza, and Gera-d’Adda, and found the villages

every where in a state of barricade, or deserted, and the inhabitants

flying, or encamped in the middle of the fields, or dispersed abroad

throughout the country; “like so many wild creatures,” says Doctor

Tadino, one of the envoys, “they were carrying about them some imaginary

safeguard against the dreaded disease, such as sprigs of mint, rue, or

rosemary, and even vinegar.” Informing themselves of the number of

deaths, the commissioners became alarmed, and visiting the sick and the

dead, recognised the terrible and infallible evidences of the _plague_!

Upon this information, orders were given to close the gates of Milan.

The Tribunal of Health, on the 14th of November, directed the

commissioners to wait on the governor, in order to represent to him the

situation of affairs. He replied, that he was very sorry for it; but

that the cares of war were much more pressing: this was the second time

he had made the same answer under similar circumstances. Two or three

days after, he published a decree, prescribing public rejoicings on the

birth of Prince Charles, the first son of Philip IV., without troubling

himself with the danger which would result from so great a concourse of

people at such a time; just as if things were going on in their ordinary

course, and no dreadful evil was hanging over them.

This man was the celebrated Ambrose Spinola, who died a few months

after, and during this very war which he had so much at heart,—not in

the field, but in his bed, and through grief and vexation at the

treatment he experienced from those whose interests he had served.

History has loudly extolled his merits; she has been silent upon his

base inhumanity in risking the dissemination of that worst of mortal

calamities, plague, over a country committed to his trust.

But that which diminishes our astonishment at his indifference is the

indifference of the people themselves, of that part of the population

which the contagion had not yet reached, but who had so many motives to

dread it. The scarcity of the preceding year, the exactions of the army,

and the anxiety of mind which had been endured, appeared to them more

than sufficient to explain the mortality of the surrounding country.

They heard with a smile of incredulity and contempt any who hazarded a

word on the danger, or who even mentioned the plague. The same

incredulity, the same blindness, the same obstinacy, prevailed in the

senate, the council of ten, and in all the judicial bodies. Cardinal

Frederick alone enjoined his curates to impress upon the people the

importance of declaring every case, and of sequestrating all infected or

suspected goods. The Tribunal of Health, prompted by the two physicians,

who fully apprehended the danger, did take some tardy measures; but in

vain. A proclamation to prevent the entrance of strangers into the city

was not published until the 29th of November. This was too late; the

plague was already in Milan.

It must be difficult, however interesting, to discover the first cause

of a calamity which swept off so many thousands of the inhabitants of

the city; but both Tadino and Ripamonti agree that it was brought

thither by an Italian soldier in the service of Spain, who had either

bought or stolen a quantity of clothes from the German soldiers. He was

on a visit to his parents in Milan, when he fell sick, and, being

carried to the hospital, died on the fourth day.

The Tribunal of Health condemned the house he had lived in; his clothes

and the bed he had occupied in the hospital were consigned to the

flames. Two servants and a good friar, who had attended him, fell sick a

few days after; but the suspicions from the first entertained of the

nature of the malady, and the precautions used, prevented its extension

for the present.

But in the house from which the soldier had been taken there were

several attacked by the disease; upon which all the inhabitants of it

were conducted to the lazaretto, by order of the Tribunal of Health.

The contagion made but little progress during the rest of this year and

the beginning of the following. From time to time there were a few

persons attacked, but the rarity of the occurrence diminished the

suspicion of the plague, and confirmed the multitude in their disbelief

of its existence. Added to this, most of the physicians joined with the

people in laughing at the unhappy presages and threatening opinions of

the smaller number of their brethren: the cases that did occur they

pretended to explain upon other grounds; and the account of these cases

was seldom presented to the Tribunal of Health. Fear of the lazaretto

kept all on the alert; the sick were concealed, and false certificates

were obtained from some subaltern officers of health, who were deputed

to inspect the dead bodies. Those physicians, who, convinced of the

reality of the contagion, proposed precautions against it, were the

objects of general animadversion. But the principal objects of

execration were Tadino and the senator Settala, who were stigmatised as

enemies of their country, men whose best exertions had been directed

towards mitigating the severity of the coming mischief. Even the

illustrious Settala, the aged father of the senator, whose talents were

equalled by his benevolence, was obliged to take refuge in a friend’s

house from the popular fury, because he had constantly urged the

necessity of precautionary measures.

Towards the end of the month of March, at first in the suburb of the

eastern gate, then in the rest of the city, deaths, attended by singular

symptoms, such as spasms, delirium, livid spots and buboes, began to be

more frequent. Sudden deaths, too, were frequent, without any previous

illness. The physicians still perversely held out; but the magistracy

were aroused. The Tribunal of Health called on them to enforce their

directions; to raise the requisite funds for the growing expenses of the

lazaretto, as well as the helpless poor. The malady advanced rapidly. In

the lazaretto all was confusion, bad arrangement, and anarchy. In their

difficulty on this point the Tribunal had recourse to the capuchins, and

conjured the father provincial to give them a man capable of governing

this region of desolation. He offered them Father Felice Casati, who

enjoyed a high reputation for charity, activity, and kindness of

disposition, added to great strength of mind, and as a companion to him,

Father Michele Pozzobonelli, who, although young, was of a grave and

thoughtful character. They were joyfully accepted, and on the 30th of

March they entered on their duties. As the crowd in the lazaretto

increased, other capuchins joined them, willingly performing every

office both of spiritual and of temporal kindness, even the most menial;

the Father Felice, indefatigable in his labours, watched with unceasing

and parental care over the multitude. He caught the plague, was cured,

and resumed his duties even with greater alacrity. Most of his brethren

joyfully sacrificed their lives in this cause of afflicted humanity.

Not being able longer to deny the terrible effects of the malady, which

had now reached the family of the physician Settala, and was spreading

its ravages in many noble families, those medical men who had been

incredulous were still unwilling to acknowledge its true cause, which

would have been a tacit condemnation of themselves; they therefore

imagined one entirely conformable to the prejudices of the time. It was

at that period a prevailing opinion in all Europe, that enchanters

existed, diabolical operators, who at this time conspired to spread the

plague, by the aid of venomous poisons and witchcraft. Similar things

had been affirmed and believed in other epidemics; particularly at

Milan, in that of the preceding century. Moreover, towards the end of

the preceding year, a despatch had arrived from King Philip IV. giving

information that four Frenchmen, suspected of spreading poisons and

pestilential substances, had escaped from Madrid, and ordering that

watch should be kept to ascertain if by chance they had arrived at

Milan.

The governor communicated the despatch to the senate, and the Tribunal

of Health. It then excited no attention; but when the plague broke out,

and was acknowledged by all, this intelligence was remembered, and it

served to confirm the vague suspicion of criminal agency: two incidents

converted this vague suspicion into conviction of a positive and real

conspiracy. Some persons who imagined they saw, on the evening of the

17th of May, individuals rubbing a partition of the cathedral, carried

the partition out of the church in the night, together with a great

quantity of benches. The president of the senate, with four persons of

his tribunal, visited the partition, the benches, and the basins of holy

water, and found nothing which confirmed the ridiculous suspicion of

poison. However, to satisfy the disturbed imaginations of the populace,

it was decided that the partition should be washed and purified. But the

incident became a text for conjecture to the people; it was affirmed,

that the poisoners had rubbed all the benches and walls of the

cathedral, and even the bell-ropes.

The next morning a new and more strange and significant spectacle struck

the wondering eyes of the citizens. In all parts of the city the doors

of the houses and the walls were plastered with long streaks of whitish

yellow dirt, which appeared to have been rubbed on with a sponge.

Whether it was a wicked pleasantry to excite more general and thrilling

alarm, or that it had been done from the guilty design of increasing the

public disorder; whatever was the motive, the fact is so well attested,

that it cannot be attributed to imagination. The city, already alarmed,

was thrown into the utmost confusion; the owners of houses purified all

infected places; strangers were stopped in the streets on suspicion, and

conducted to prison, where they underwent long interrogatories which

naturally ended in proving none of these absurd and imaginary practices

against them. The Tribunal of Health published a decree, offering a

reward to whomsoever should discover the author or authors of this

attempt; but they did this, as they wrote to the governor, only to

satisfy the people and calm their fears,—a weak and dangerous

expedient, and calculated to confirm the popular belief.

In the mean time many attributed this story of the poisoned ointment to

the revenge of Gonsalvo Fernandez de Cordova; others to Cardinal

Richelieu, in order the more easily to get possession of Milan; others

again affixed the crime to various Milanese gentlemen.

There were still many who were not persuaded that it was the plague,

because if it were, every one infected would die of it; whereas a few

recovered. To dissipate every doubt, the Tribunal of Health made use of

an expedient conformable to the necessity of the occasion; they made an

address to the eyes, such as the spirit of the times suggested. On one

of the days of the feast of Pentecost, the inhabitants of the city were

accustomed to go to the burying ground of San Gregorio, beyond the

eastern gate, in order to pray for the dead in the last plague. Turning

the season of devotion into one of amusement, every one was attired in

his best; on that day a whole family, among others, had died of the

plague. At the hour in which the concourse was most numerous, the dead

bodies of this family were, by order of the Tribunal of Health, drawn

naked on a carriage towards this same burying ground; so that the crowd

might behold for themselves the manifest traces, the hideous impress of

the disease. A cry of alarm and horror arose wherever the car passed;

their incredulity was at least shaken, but it is probable that the great

concourse tended to spread the infection.

Still it was not absolutely the _plague_; the use of the word was

prohibited, it was a pestilential fever, the adjective was preferred to

the substantive,—then, not the true plague,—that is to say, the

plague, but only in a certain sense,—and further, combined with poison

and witchcraft. Such is the absurd trifling with which men seek to blind

themselves, wilfully abstaining from a sound exercise of judgment to

arrive at the truth.

Meanwhile, as it became from day to day more difficult to raise funds to

meet the painful exigencies of circumstances, the council of ten

resolved to have recourse to government. They represented, by two

deputies, the state of misery and distress of the city, the enormity of

the expense, the revenues anticipated, and the taxes withheld in

consequence of the general poverty which had been produced by so many

causes, and especially by the pillaging of the soldiery. That according

to various laws, and a special decree of Charles V., the expense of the

plague ought by right to devolve upon government. Finally, they

proceeded to make four demands: that the taxes should be suspended; that

the chamber should advance funds; that the governor should make known to

the king the calamitous state of the city and province; and that the

duchy, already exhausted, should be excused from providing quarters for

the soldiery. Spinola replied with new regrets and exhortations;

declaring himself grieved not to be able to visit Milan in person, in

order to employ himself for the preservation of the city, but hoping

that the zeal of the magistrates would supply his place: in short, he

made evasive answers to all their requests. Afterwards, when the plague

was at its height, he transferred, by letters patent, his authority to

the high chancellor Ferrer, being, as he said, obliged to devote himself

entirely to the cares of the war.

The council of ten then requested the cardinal to order a solemn

procession, for the purpose of carrying through the streets the body of

San Carlos. The good prelate refused; this confidence in a doubtful

means disturbed him, and he feared that, if the effect should not be

obtained, confidence would be converted into infidelity, and rebellion

against God. He also feared that if there really were poisoners, this

procession would be a favourable occasion for their machinations; and if

there were not, so great a collection would have a tendency to spread

the contagion.

The doors of public edifices and private houses had been again anointed

as at first. The news flew from mouth to mouth; the people, influenced

by present suffering, and by the imminence of the supposed danger,

readily embraced the belief. The idea of subtle instantaneous poison

seemed sufficient to explain the violence, and the almost

incomprehensible circumstances, of the disease. Add to this the idea of

enchantment, and any effect was possible, every objection was rendered

feeble, every difficulty was explained. If the effects did not

immediately succeed the first attempt, the cause was easy to assign: it

had been done by those to whom the art was new; and now that it was

brought to perfection, the perpetrators were more confirmed in their

infernal resolution. If any one had dared to suggest its having been

done in jest, or denied the existence of a dark plot, he would have

passed for an obstinate fool, if he did not incur the suspicion of being

himself engaged in it. With such persuasions on their minds, all were on

the alert to discover the guilty; the most indifferent action excited

suspicion, suspicion was changed to certainty, and certainty to rage.

As illustrations of this, Ripamonti cites two examples which fell under

his own observation, and such were of daily occurrence.

In the church of St. Antonio, on a day of some great solemnity, an old

man, after having prayed for some time on his knees, rose to seat

himself, and before doing so, wiped the dust from the bench with his

handkerchief. “The old man is poisoning the bench,” cried some women,

who beheld the action. The crowd in the church threw themselves upon

him, tore his white hair, and after beating him, drew him out half dead,

to carry him to prison and to torture. “I saw the unfortunate man,” says

Ripamonti; “I never knew the end of his painful story, but at the time I

thought he had but a few moments to live.”

The other event occurred the next day; it was as remarkable, but not as

fatal. Three young Frenchmen having come to visit Italy, and study its

antiquities, had approached the cathedral, and were contemplating it

very attentively. Some persons, who were passing by, stopped; a circle

was formed around them; they were not lost sight of for a moment, having

been recognised as strangers, and especially Frenchmen. As if to assure

themselves that the wall was marble, the young artists extended their

hands to touch it. This was enough. In a moment they were surrounded,

and, with imprecations and blows, dragged to prison. Happily, however,

they were proved to be innocent, and released.

These things were not confined to the city; the frenzy was propagated

equally with the contagion. The traveller encountered off the high road,

the stranger whose habits or appearance were in any respect singular,

were judged to be poisoners. At the first intelligence of a new comer,

at the cry even of a child, the alarm bell was rung; and the unfortunate

persons were assailed with showers of stones, or seized and conducted to

prison. And thus the prison itself was, during a certain period, a place

of safety.

Meanwhile, the council of ten, not silenced by the refusal of the wise

prelate, again urged their request for the procession, which the people

seconded by their clamours. The cardinal again resisted, but finding

resistance useless, he finally yielded; he did more, he consented that

the case which enclosed the relics of San Carlos should be exposed for

eight days on the high altar of the cathedral.

The Tribunal of Health and the other authorities did not oppose this

proceeding; they only ordained some precautions, which, without

obviating the danger, indicated too plainly their apprehensions. They

issued severe orders to prevent people from abroad entering the city;

and, to insure their execution, commanded the gates to be closed. They

also nailed up the condemned houses; “the number of which,” says a

contemporary writer, “amounted to about five hundred.”

Three days were employed in preparation; on the 11th of June the

procession left the cathedral at daybreak: a long file of people,

composed for the most part of women, their faces covered with silk

masks, and many of them with bare feet, and clothed in sackcloth,

appeared first. The tradesmen came next, preceded by their banners; the

societies, in habits of various forms and colours; then the

brotherhoods, then the secular clergy, each with the insignia of his

rank, and holding a lighted taper in his hand. In the midst, among the

brilliant light of the torches, and the resounding echo of the

canticles, the case advanced, covered with a rich canopy, and carried

alternately by four canons, sumptuously attired. Through the crystal

were seen the mortal remains of the saint, clothed in his pontifical

robes, and his head covered with a mitre. In his mutilated features

might still be distinguished some traces of his former countenance, such

as his portraits represent him, and such as some of the spectators

remembered to have beheld and honoured. Behind the remains of the holy

prelate, and resembling him in merit, birth, and dignity, as well as in

person, came the Archbishop Frederick. The rest of the clergy followed

him, and with them the magistrates in their robes, then the nobility,

some magnificently clothed, as if to do honour to the pomp of the

celebration, and others as penitents, in sackcloth and bare-footed, each

bearing a torch in his hand. A vast collection of people terminated the

procession.

The streets were ornamented as on festival days: the rich sent out their

most precious furniture; and thus the fronts of the poorest houses were

decorated by their more wealthy neighbours, or at the expense of the

public. Here, in the place of hangings, and there, over the hangings

themselves, were suspended branches of trees; on all sides hung

pictures, inscriptions, devices; on the balconies were displayed vases,

rich antiquities, and valuable curiosities; with burning flambeaux at

various stations. From many of the windows the sequestrated sick looked

out upon the procession, and mingled their prayers with those of the

people as they passed. The procession returned to the cathedral about

the middle of the day.

But the next day, whilst presumptuous and fanatical assurance had taken

possession of every mind, the number of deaths augmented in all parts of

the city in a progression so frightful, and in a manner so sudden, that

none could avoid confessing the cause to have been the procession

itself. However, (astonishing and deplorable power of prejudice!) this

effect was not attributed to the assemblage of so many people, and to

the increase of fortuitous contact, but to the facility afforded to the

poisoners to execute their infernal purposes. But as this opinion could

not account for so vast a mortality, and as no traces of strange

substances had been discovered on the road of the procession, recourse

was had to another invention, admitted by general opinion in

Europe—magical and poisoned powders! It was asserted that these

powders, scattered profusely in the road, attached themselves to the

skirts of the gowns, and to the feet of those who had been on that day

barefooted: thus the human mind delights itself with contending against

phantoms of its own creating.

The violence of the contagion increased daily; in short, there was

hardly a house that was not infected; the number of souls in the

lazaretto amounted to 12,000, and sometimes to 16,000. The daily

mortality, which had hitherto exceeded 500, soon increased to 1200 and

1500.

We may imagine the agony of the council of ten, on whom rested the

weighty burden of providing for the public necessities, and of repairing

what was reparable in such a disaster: they had to replace every day,

and every day to add to the number of individuals charged with public

services of all kinds. Of these individuals there were three remarkable

classes; the first was that of the _monatti_: this appellation, of

doubtful origin, was applied to those men who were devoted to the most

painful and dangerous employment in times of contagion; the taking of

the dead bodies from the houses, from the streets, and from the

lazaretto, carrying them to their graves, and burying them; also,

bringing the sick to the lazaretto, and burning and purifying suspected

or infected objects; the second class was that of the _apparitori_,

whose special function was to precede the funeral cars, ringing a bell

to warn passengers to retire; and the third was that of the

commissaries, who presided over both the other classes, under the

immediate orders of the Tribunal of Health.

It was necessary to keep the lazaretto furnished with medicine,

surgeons, food, and all the requisites of an infirmary; and it was also

necessary to find and prepare new habitations for new cases. Cabins of

wood and straw were hastily constructed in the interior enclosure of the

lazaretto; then a second lazaretto, a little beyond, was erected,

capable of containing 4000 persons. Two others were ordered, but means,

men, and courage failed, and they were never completed: despair and

weakness had attained such a point, that the most urgent and painful

wants were unprovided for; each day, for example, children, whose

mothers had perished of the plague, died from neglect. The Tribunal of

Health proposed to found an hospital for these innocent creatures, but

could obtain no assistance for the purpose; all supplies were for the

army, “because,” said the governor, “it is a time of war, and we must

treat the soldiers well.”

Meanwhile the immense ditch which had been dug near the lazaretto was

filled with dead bodies; a number still remained without sepulture, as

hands were wanting for the work. Without extraordinary aid this calamity

must have remained unremedied. The president of the senate addressed

himself in tears to the two intrepid friars who governed the lazaretto,

and the Father Michele pledged himself to relieve in four days the city

of the unburied dead, and to dig, in the course of a week, another ditch

sufficient not only for present wants, but even for those which might be

anticipated in future. Followed by another friar, and public officers

chosen by the president, he went into the country to procure peasants,

and partly by the authority of the tribunal, partly by that of his

habit, he gathered 200, whom he employed to dig the earth. He then

despatched _monatti_ from the lazaretto to collect the dead. At the

appointed time his promise was fulfilled.

At one time the lazaretto was left without physicians, and it was only

after much trouble and time, and great offers of money and honours, that

others could be prevailed on to supply their place. Provisions were

often so scarce, as to create apprehensions of starvation, but more than

once these necessities were unexpectedly supplied by the charity of

individuals. In the midst of the general stupor, or the indifference to

the miseries of others, occasioned by personal apprehension, some were

found whose hands and hearts had ever been open to the wretched, and

others with whom the virtue of benevolence had commenced with the loss

of all their terrestrial happiness. So also, amidst the destruction of

the flight of so many men charged with watching over and providing for

the public safety, others were seen, who, well in body and firm in mind,

ever remained faithful at their post, and some even, who, by an

admirable self-devotion, sustained with heroic constancy cares to which

their duty did not call them.

The most entire self-devotion was especially conspicuous among the

clergy; at the lazarettos, in the city, their assistance was always at

hand; they were found, wherever there was suffering, always in

attendance on the sick and the dying; very often languishing and dying

themselves: with spiritual, they bestowed, as far as they could,

temporal succour. More than sixty clergymen in the city alone died from

the contagion, which was nearly eight out of nine.

Frederick, as might be expected, was an example to all; after having

seen all his household perish around him, he was solicited by his

family, by the first magistrates, and by the neighbouring princes, to

fly the peril, but he rejected their advice and their solicitations with

the same firmness which induced him to write to the clergy of his

diocese:—“Be disposed to abandon life rather than these sufferers, who

are your children, and your family; go with the same joy into the midst

of the pestilence, as to a certain reward, since you may, by these

means, win many souls to Christ.” He neglected no precaution compatible

with his duty: he even gave instructions to his clergy on this point;

but he betrayed no anxiety, nor did he even appear to perceive danger,

where it was necessary to incur it, in order to do good. He was always

with the ecclesiastics, to praise and direct the zealous, and to excite

the lukewarm; he visited the lazarettos to console the sick, and

encourage those who assisted them; he travelled over the city, carrying

aid to the miserable who were sequestered in their houses, stopping at

their doors and under their windows, to listen to their complaints, and

to give them words of consolation and encouragement. Having thus thrown

himself into the midst of the contagion, it was truly wonderful that he

never was attacked by it.

In seasons of public calamity, when confusion takes the place of order,

we often behold a display of the sublimest virtue, but more frequently,

alas! an increase of vice and crime. Instances of the latter were not

wanting during the present unhappy period. The profligate, spared by the

plague, found in the common confusion, and in the slackening of the

restraints of law, new occasions for mischief, and new assurances of

impunity. And further, power itself had passed into the hands of the

boldest among them. There were scarcely found for the functions of

_monatti_ and _apparitori_ any, but those over whom the attraction of

rapine and licence had more sway than dread of the contagion. Strict

rules had been prescribed to them, and severe penalties threatened for

infringing them, which had some power for awhile; but the number of

deaths, and the increasing desolation, and the universal alarm, soon

relieved them from all superintendence, and they constituted themselves

(the _monatti_ in particular) the arbiters of every thing. They entered

houses as masters and enemies; and, not to mention their robberies, and

the cruel treatment which those unhappy persons experienced whom the

plague condemned to their authority, they applied their infected and

criminal hands to those in health, threatening to carry them to the

lazaretto, unless they purchased their exemption with money. At other

times they refused to carry off the dead bodies already in a state of

putrefaction, without a high price being paid them; it is even said,

that they designedly let fall from their carts infected clothing, in

order to propagate the infection from which their wealth was derived.

Many ruffians, too, assuming the garb of these wretches, carried on

extensive robberies in the houses of the sick, dying, and helpless.

In the same proportion as vice increased, folly increased; the foolish

idea was again revived of _poisonings_; the dread of this fantastic

danger beset and tormented the minds of men more than the real and

present danger. “While,” says Ripamonti, “the heaps of dead bodies lying

before the eyes of the living made the city a vast tomb, there was

something more afflicting and hideous still—reciprocal distrust and

extravagant suspicion; and this not only between friends, neighbours,

and guests; but husbands, wives, and children, became objects of terror

to one another, and, horrible to tell! even the domestic board and the

nuptial bed were dreaded as snares, as places were poison might be

concealed.”

Besides ambition and cupidity, the motives commonly attributed to the

poisoners, it was imagined that this action included an indefinable,

diabolical voluptuousness of enjoyment, an attractiveness stronger than

the will. The ravings of the sick, who accused themselves of that which

they had dreaded in others, were considered as so many involuntary

revelations, which rendered belief irresistible.

Among the stories recorded of this delirium, there is one which deserves

to be related, on account of the extensive credence it obtained.

It was said that on a certain day, a citizen had seen an equipage with

six horses stop in the square of the cathedral. Within it was a person

of a noble and majestic figure, dark complexion, eyes inflamed, and lips

compressed and threatening. The spectator being invited to enter the

carriage, complied. After a short circuit, it made a halt before the

gate of a magnificent palace. Entering it he beheld mingled scenes of

delight and horror, frightful deserts and smiling gardens, dark caverns

and magnificent saloons. Phantoms were seated in council. They showed

him large boxes of money, telling him he might take as many of them as

he chose, provided he would accept at the same time a little vase of

poison, and consent to employ it against the citizens. He refused, and

in a moment found himself at the place from which he had been taken.

This story, generally believed by the people, spread all over Italy. An

engraving of it was made in Germany. The Archbishop of Mayence wrote to

Cardinal Frederick, asking him what credence might be attached to the

prodigies related of Milan. He received for answer, that they were all

idle dreams.

The dreams of the learned, if they were not of the same nature as those

of the vulgar, did not exceed them in value; the greater part beheld the

forerunner and the cause of these calamities, in a comet which appeared

in 1628, and in the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Another comet

that appeared in June in the same year announced the poisonous

anointings. All writings were ransacked that contained any passages

respecting poisons; amongst the ancients, Livy was cited, Tacitus,

Dionysius, even Homer and Ovid were searched. Among the moderns,

Cesalpino, Cardan, Grevino, Salio, Pareo Schenchio, Zachia, and lastly

the fatal Delrio, whose _Disquisitions on Magic_ became the text book on

such subjects, the future rule, and, in fact, the powerful impulse to

horrible and frequent legal murders.

The physicians yielded to the popular belief, and attributed to poison

and diabolical conjurations the ordinary symptoms of the malady. Even

Tadino himself, one of the most celebrated physicians of his day, who

had witnessed the entrance of the disorder, anticipated its ravages,

studied its symptoms, and admitted it to be _the plague_, even he, such

is the strange perversity of human reason, drew from all these facts an

argument in proof of the dissemination of some subtle poison, by means

of ointments. Nor was the enlightened Cardinal Frederick himself

altogether uninfected by the general mania. In a small tract of his on

the subject in the Ambrosian Library, he says, “Of the mode of

compounding and dispensing these ointments, various statements have been

made, some of which we hold for true, while others appear imaginary.”

On the other hand, Muratori tells us, that he had met with well-informed

persons in Milan, whose ancestors were decidedly convinced of the

absurdity of this widely spread and extraordinary error, but whose

safety rendered it imperative on them to keep their sentiments on the

subject to themselves.

The magistrates employed the little vigilance and resolution which

remained to them in searching out the poisoners, and unhappily thought

they had detected them. A recital of these and similar cases would form

a remarkable feature in the history of jurisprudence. But it is high

time we should resume the thread of our story.