Soul freed from purgatory at Rome’s Mamertine Prison. Unrecorded.

[Mamertine Prison] / [Rome] / [Indulgence]. J. M. J. Io sottoscritto Sagrestano di S. Giuseppe de’ Falegnami della Ven. Chiesa di S. Pietro ho ricevuto da[la Sig.a Anna M.a Sannini 32 baj:]… S.l. [Rome]: s.n. [signed by Costantino Falcioni], dated in manuscript 10 January 1831. [21.2 x 14.4 cm]. [1] f. woodcut with letterpress text, completed in manuscript. Only very minor edge wear.
 
 
Unrecorded letterpress form, headed by a (likely reused) woodcut of the Crucifixion, intended to certify payments for masses celebrated in the Roman church S. Pietro in Carcere, i.e., the infamous Mamertine Prison on the Roman Forum, the final gloomy residence of Saints Peter and Paul, Jugurtha (d. 104 B.C.), Vercingetorix (d. 46 B.C.), Simon bar Goria (d. 71), and many others.
 
This example was filled out by Costantino Falcioni, sacristan of S. Giuseppe de’ Falegnami (the upper church at the site), who notes that a certain Anna Maria Sannini paid 32 bajocchi to have one mass celebrated at the privileged “altar of the Apostles Peter, Paul and the Most Holy Cross in the Sacred Prison of those Apostles,” where Pope Silvester (285-335) had decreed that a soul would be liberated from Purgatory for each mass performed. The form is dated 10 January 1831.
 
An inscription displayed prominently at the Mamertine Prison clarified available indulgences for the faithful but also became an easy target for the ridicule of (Protestant) tourists who found the practice exploitative. William Ingraham Kip, for example, in The Christmas Holydays in Rome (1846) wrote “The doctrine of Purgatory is brought before them with equal distinctness. The inscription at the Mamertine prisons, a portion of which is given above, concludes with this sentence—‘The altar of the Church of S. Pietro on Carcere is privileged every day forever with the liberation of one soul from Purgatory, for every mass which shall be celebrated at the same’ … Saying masses is indeed sometime the only support of the unbeneficed priests. They are in readiness to perform this duty for any who wish it, and thus contrive to gain a precarious living. The price of mass is from three to four pauls—that is from thirty to forty cents. This disgraceful traffic in sacred things shows that Rome has not improved, since Dante referred to it as the place, ‘Where gainful merchandise is made of Christ / Throughout the livelong day’” (pp. 315-16). 
 
Very many forms of the sort offered here must have been printed and filled out over the years, but the survival rate of such material is extremely low. This form is not located by OCLC, OPAC/ICCU or KVK, nor have I seen any other versions from S. Pietro in Carcere.