The Old Yellow Book Part 1

The Old Yellow Book.

by Anonymous.

INTRODUCTION

The _Old Yellow Book_ is a soiled and b.l.o.o.d.y page from the criminal annals of Rome two centuries ago, saved apparently by mere chance for the one great artist of modern literature who could best use it, and who has raised this record of a forgotten crime to a permanent place in that ideal world of man's creation where Caponsacchi and Pompilia have joined the company of Paolo and Francesca, of the Red Cross Knight, of Imogen, of Marguerite and Faust, and of Don Quixote.

One June day of 1860, Robert Browning pa.s.sed from the Casa Guidi home to enjoy the busy life of Florence. There, "pushed by the hand ever above my shoulder," he entered the Piazza of San Lorenzo:

crammed with booths, Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time.

He had brought home from such wanderings many a rare old tapestry, or picture, or carving from the long artistic past of the city. This day his eye caught the soiled, vellum-covered volume, crowded between its insignificant neighbours. "One glance at the lettered back," declares the poet, "and Stall! a lira made it mine." All the way home and all day long, he pored over these pages, until by nightfall he had so mastered the facts of the case that the whole tragedy lay plain before his mind's eye.

The book led him, and leads us, back to the morning of January 3, 1698, when all Rome was astir with the sensation of a brutal a.s.sa.s.sination. The aged Comparini, cut to pieces in their own home in the very heart of Rome on the evening before by a band of a.s.sa.s.sins, were now exposed to the view of an excited mob of the curious and idle. Pompilia, desperately wounded, lay a-dying. A police captain and posse were in pursuit of the criminals, one of whom was a n.o.bleman who had held office in the household of one of the great cardinals. Toward night the criminals were brought back to the city, and were followed through the streets to the prison doors by a great throng.

Just seven weeks later and again Rome was throbbing with excitement.

Unwonted crowds were pressing into the Piazza del Popolo, where gallows and scaffold had been prepared. At last, up the Corso filed the Brotherhood of Death with their black gowns and great cross, and behind them, in separate carts, the five criminals. In the midst of a sea of upturned faces Guido and his fellows met their end, and the curtain fell.

The _Old Yellow Book_ is the record of the court procedure of those seven intervening weeks, and shows us the whole legal battle fought to save Guido, while Rome looked on with the fascinated interest which has always attended the great murder trials. It includes the lawyers'

arguments for and against the accused, together with a part of the evidence brought into court, and some additional miscellaneous data on the case. All this had evidently been a.s.sembled by the Florentine lawyer, Cencini, to whom certain letters included are addressed. He seems to have been interested in the case as a precedent on an important and much disputed point of law, "whether and when a husband may kill an adulterous wife." Cencini may also have had some professional relation with the Franceschini family at Arezzo. At any rate, he set the material in order, provided t.i.tle-page and index, and a transcript of the record in a criminal case against Pompilia in the Tuscan courts (pp. 5-7), and bound it securely in the vellum cover which conveyed it to the poet's hands more than a century and a half later.

Whatever meaning this volume may have as a legal precedent, it had for Browning, and has for the lay reader, a deep human interest as the incomplete record of a sordid series of intrigues for certain properties, ending at last in a fearful crime.

Guido Franceschini, scion of a n.o.ble but impoverished Tuscan family, had sought his fortunes in Rome, and had attained a secretarys.h.i.+p in the household of Cardinal Lauria. His brother, the Abate Paolo, a shrewd and effective man, rose much higher, at last attaining important office among the Knights of St. John. Guido, less astute and less ingratiating, reached middle life with but scant success, and at last was left unprovided. With the a.s.sistance of Abate Paolo, he planned to recoup his fortunes by a bourgeois marriage. Though past forty years of age and of unattractive appearance, he won, by his n.o.ble name and subtle intrigue and falsification, the thirteen-year-old daughter of the Comparini, of the well-to-do middle cla.s.s of Rome.

After the marriage in December 1693, Pompilia and her parents accompanied Guido back to Arezzo, where, in the ruinous Franceschini _palazzo_, the Comparini had ample opportunity to repent their folly.

Bitter contentions soon arose, and at last the Comparini fled from the brutalities of their son-in-law, and returned to Rome. There they published broadcast the sordid poverty and the ign.o.ble brutality of their persecutors, probably printing and circulating the affidavit of the servant (pp. 49-53). Guido seems to have retorted by circulating the forged letter from Pompilia (pp. 56, 57). But they struck a more deadly blow at the pride of the Franceschini when they revealed that Pompilia was not their own child, but was of ignominious parentage.

And in the spring of 1694 they brought suit before Judge Tomati for the recovery of the dowry monies paid to Franceschini--a bitter humiliation to the greedy poverty of the Franceschini. It must have been a scandalous suit, bringing dishonour to both parties as their domestic difficulties were exposed to the throngs of the curious. In this trial were adduced the letters of the governor (pp. 89, 90) and of the Bishop of Arezzo (p. 99). The Comparini lost their suit, but appealed to the Rota, and their case was pending for several years, during which time they may have baited the Franceschini with spiteful scandals.

In the meantime, the child-wife, Pompilia, was left in desperate plight--despised and hated by her husband's family. Her situation grew intolerable. Guido had evidently determined to rid himself of her without relaxing his grip on her property. His brutalities were systematic and cunning. At last she was driven to flee for her life, and on April 29, 1697, made her escape under the protection of Caponsacchi, a gallant young priest. It was a desperate step, gravely reprehensible in the eyes of the world. The fugitives pressed toward Rome, but Guido overtook them at Castelnuovo, fifteen miles short of their destination, and had them arrested.

At Rome, criminal charges of flight and adultery were brought against them. This Process of Flight, as it is repeatedly called in the _Yellow Book_, continued all through the summer. It was for their defence in this case that Pompilia and Caponsacchi made their affidavits (pp. 90 and 95), giving their motives for the flight. At the same time Guido urged the evidence of the love-letters (pp.

99-106), which he claimed to have found at the time of the arrest of the fugitives. In September, judgment was rendered against Caponsacchi--relegation for three years to Civita Vecchia--a punishment commensurate with indiscretion rather than with crime.

Pompilia was unsentenced, but was retained for a month in safekeeping in the nunnery delle Scalette, and was then permitted to return to the home of her foster-parents, the Comparini, though still technically a prisoner in this home (p. 159). Here on December 18 a boy was born.

On Christmas Eve, Guido reached Rome with four young rustics, whom he had hired to a.s.sist him in the a.s.sa.s.sination. For a week he lurked in the villa of his brother, Abate Paolo, who had left Rome. Then, on the evening of January 2, he won entrance to the home of the Comparini by using the name of Caponsacchi. The parents were instantly stabbed to death, and Pompilia was cut to pieces with twenty-two wounds. Leaving her for dead, Guido and his cut-throats fled, as the outcries of the victims had given the alarm. That night they travelled afoot nearly twenty miles, but were pursued by the police, and were arrested with the b.l.o.o.d.y arms still in their possession.

Such was the crime, and the _Old Yellow Book_ is the record of the legal battle over the a.s.sa.s.sins, which was fought through the criminal courts of Rome, presided over by Vice-governor Venturini. The prosecution and defence alike were conducted by officers of the court, two lawyers on each side, the Procurator and Advocate of the Poor for the defendants, and the Procurator and Advocate of the Fisc against them. As the fact of the crime was definitely ascertained, the legal battle turned entirely on the justification or condemnation of the motive of the crime. The defence maintained that the a.s.sa.s.sination had been for honour's sake, and the unwritten law, to which appeal is made in generation after generation, was urged at every point. That Guido had suffered unspeakable ignominy cannot be denied; that his wife had been untrue to him even in the perilous flight with Caponsacchi is unproved, as the courts had evidently held in the Process of Flight.

The prosecution, on the other hand, reiterated in every argument their reading of Guido's motive--greed. Greed had led him to marry Pompilia.

Greed had occasioned his disgraceful wranglings with the Comparini.

Defeated greed had made him torture his wife into scandalous flight, and calculating greed had led him to commit the murder at a time and in a manner to save the whole property to himself. Still further, said the prosecution, not only was his motive bad, but the crime was committed in a way which involved him in half a dozen accessory crimes, each of them capital. Such is the drift of the argument, which is fortified at every point by citation of precedent from the legal procedure of all ages. Altogether it is a highly skilled legal battle according to the technical limitations of the game, while the simple appeals to equity and to common human feeling hardly enter at all.

The trial proceeded in two stages. The earlier one, during the latter half of January, was opened by Arcangeli (pamphlet 1), supported by Advocate Spreti (pamphlet 2). The prosecution is opened by Procurator Gambi (pamphlet 5), supported by Advocate Bottini (pamphlet 6).

Arcangeli and Bottini make further argument in pamphlets 3 and 14. Two pamphlets of evidence were a.s.sembled and printed--for the defence, pamphlet 7; and for the prosecution, pamphlet 4. The latter part of this stage of the case is much occupied with arguing whether Guido and his companions may be tortured to get a fuller statement from them. In spite of the efforts of Guido's attorneys, the torture was evidently decreed, and fuller evidence was forced from the defendants, though one of them bore the torture till he fainted twice. The trial then enters on its second stage, in which, after some preliminary skirmis.h.i.+ng about the legality of the torture and the status of the evidence given under this torture, the lawyers settle to their most masterly work. Arcangeli and Spreti develop an elaborate and skilled defence (pamphlets 8 and 9), and are answered by Bottini's masterpiece for the prosecution (pamphlet 13). Spreti closes the defence in pamphlet 16. Pamphlet 11 presents some additional matters of evidence.

All these arguments and summaries of evidence were printed by the official papal press (see the imprint _Typis Rev. Cam. Apost._), probably overnight, between the sessions of the court, as typewritten briefs would be prepared to-day. Few copies were printed, and these were solely for the judges and attorneys in the case. There would be no popular circulation of them in Rome at large. The particular copies included in the _Old Yellow Book_ were probably gathered by one of these attorneys, and sent to Signor Cencini in Florence (letter iii.

p. 238).

We need but look to our own age to rest a.s.sured that outside of the court room all Rome was athrill with interest in this murder case, and was speculating on the fate of the accused. The attorneys for the defence, in the midst of the trial, made a sudden appeal to this public interest and sought the support of public sentiment by means of an anonymous pamphlet (pamphlet 10) written in Italian and printed without an imprint or signature, but evidently addressed to the bar of public opinion. It seems to have been written by Guido's lawyers, or their lackeys, for it repeats the various points already made in the arguments. Whether it was distributed free or was sold for a small price, it must have been seized and devoured by all Rome as are the journalistic reports of notorious criminal trials to-day. We can imagine the alarm of the prosecution when they perceived this flank movement against them. With all possible haste they prepared their reply, also in Italian and without signature or imprint, and probably within a day or two had issued this response (pamphlet 15), which meets the other pamphlet at every point, and bitterly arraigns the greed of Guido. These two pamphlets evidently suggested to Browning his "Half-Rome" and "Other Half-Rome."

There must have been other popular exploitations of this crime. Two ma.n.u.script Italian narratives of it have been discovered. The first of these (pp. 259-266) was found in London and sent to Browning, who used it extensively in writing his poem. The second (pp. 269-281) was discovered a few years ago in Rome. Other accounts may yet come to light.

The trial of Guido and his companions was carried forward to a prompt judgment, and on February 18 they were p.r.o.nounced guilty and were condemned to death. A technical staying of sentence for four days was granted by reason of Guido's _clerical privilege_, but execution followed on February 22. The _Old Yellow Book_ includes three original letters (pp. 237-8) written from Rome immediately after the execution to Signor Cencini at Florence.

Yet the case was not quite at an end. A number of civil suits were promptly inst.i.tuted by various claimants for the property of the Comparini. The Franceschini still pushed their claim in spite of the infamy they had suffered for that property. Pompilia's executor, Tighetti, claimed all in trust for the child, Gaetano. Then the refuge of the Convert.i.tes, under their legal right to the property of all women of evil life who died in Rome, accused the memory of Pompilia and claimed her property. The case seemed to be entering on one of those interminable struggles in court. The Procurator Lamparelli (pamphlet 17) goes back to a.n.a.lyse again the motives in the whole case and to justify Pompilia's innocence. The remainder of this trial is lost to us save for the final _Definitive Sentence_ of the courts (pamphlet 18), issued in September 1698, which clears the memory of Pompilia entirely and for ever in the eyes of the law.

This was the record which fell into Browning's hands. The poet tells of his immediate interest in the tragedy, partly due to that common human interest in great crimes, partly to the casuistic presentation of motive throughout the _Book_, partly to his championing the rights of Pompilia, dishonoured and slain not merely by a brutally selfish husband, but by a corrupt social condition around her.

After some delay, Browning saw his way to embody in art the story which had interested him so deeply. The plan came to him, according to W. M. Rossetti, one day while he was walking at Biarritz, and from 1862 till the publication in 1868-9, he was working continuously on _The Ring and the Book_. He had mastered every detail of the _Yellow Book_ by continuous re-readings, and in his art he was scrupulously, but never laboriously, accurate to the facts before him. In the poem he names thirty-three persons exactly as he found them in his original. Place names are adopted with the same accuracy. The specific dates recorded in the _Book_ are followed at all points, save in the significant change of the date of Caponsacchi's rescue of Pompilia from April 29 to 23, St. George's Day. The incidents of the tragedy, even when compromising to Pompilia, whose cause he championed, are used without repression or falsification. And perhaps most remarkable of all, the poet had mastered all the technical paraphernalia and phraseology of the lawyers, and uses these with minute care, not entirely devoid of misunderstanding and error. In the _Book_ he found all the points of law, all the precedents and authorities, and almost all of the Latin phrases and sentences found in the monologues of the lawyers of the poem. A remarkable instance of this is seen in his word for word adaptation of the long peroration of Arcangeli (pamphlet 8) in the close of the monologue of the Arcangeli of the poem. And the actual letter of Arcangeli (p. 237) is reproduced verbatim in the poem, book xii. ll. 239-88. Altogether the poet affords one of the most remarkable ill.u.s.trations of literal and detailed accuracy in the use of the raw material of art.

Yet here, as in all cases of true art, the greatness of the final product lies not so much in the material that fell to the artist as in the personal resource and power within himself which was able to use the material. Browning found suggestion for a suffering saint in Fra Celestino's report of Pompilia's death-bed (pp. 57, 58), but the Pompilia of the poem embodies the poet's deepest insight into womanhood with all its spiritual relations.h.i.+ps, in the love of man, the pa.s.sion of maternity, and devotion to G.o.d. Browning ascertained in the _Book_ that Caponsacchi was a resolute man, who had involved himself in many perils for the sake of Pompilia, but from his own personal resource of manly devotion, of chivalrous daring, of pa.s.sionate indignation at wrong, of spiritual tenderness and reverence, he created a Caponsacchi. In the _Book_ he found every turn of the cunning, of the greed, of the brutality of Guido and his family, but from his own deep realisation of the power of evil in the world, and of the black depravity of the lowest forms of humanity, he created his Franceschini. Thus at every point, founding himself on the fact of the _Book_, he is able to set forth this tragedy to the world as it grew in his own imagination while searching his own heart and the hearts of others through many years. And the chance-found _Old Yellow Book_ at last occasioned the most profound utterance Robert Browning was to give to the world in all that concerns the human heart and its motives as they play the drama of the world before the eye of the Almighty.

CHARLES W. HODELL.

"Do you see this square old yellow book ... pure, crude fact.

Give it me back! The thing's restorative I' the touch and sight."

A Setting-forth of the entire Criminal Cause against GUIDO FRANCESCHINI, n.o.bleman of Arezzo, and his Bravoes, who were put to death in Rome, February 22, 1698.

The first by beheading, the other four by the gallows.

ROMAN MURDER-CASE.

In which it is disputed whether and when a Husband may kill his Adulterous Wife without incurring the ordinary penalty.

SENTENCE OF THE CRIMINAL COURT OF FLORENCE

_February 15, 1697 A.D._

Attestation by me undersigned how, in the order of the affairs of the Governors, which are set before His Serene Highness, in the Chancery of the Ill.u.s.trious Signori Auditori of the Criminal Court of Florence, there appears among other affairs of business, under decision 3549, the following of tenor as written below, that is Arezzo against

1. Gregorio, son of Francesco Guillichini, not described.

2. Francesca Pompilia Comparini, wife of Guido Franceschini, and

3. Francesco, son of Giovanni Borsi called Venerino, servant of Agosto, Host at the "Ca.n.a.le,"