From the murder case that inspired Robert Browning's "The Ring and the Book."
Newly discovered 17th-century doucment.
[Robert Browning] / [Ephemera] / [Rome]. Io [D. Giuliano Monbecchi] Sagrestano di S. Prassede di Roma hò ricevuto dal … [Rome]: [s.n.], [letterpress printed 1690s; manuscript portion signed by D. Giuliano Monbecchi and dated 23 February 1697 (i.e., 1698)]. Single sheet [19.7 x 13.3 cm] [1] f. letterpress form on laid paper filled out in ink by hand. Minor wrinkling, pin holes in left margin, manuscript portion neatly written and legible.
Ephemeral item from 17th-century Rome relating to one of the most notorious crimes of its era, the 1698 murder of Pompilia Comparini and her parents by her husband—the Arezzo nobleman Guido Franceschini—and 4 of his henchmen: Alessandro Baldeschi, Francesco Pasquini, Biagio Agostinello & Domenico Gambassini. The murder had faded from memory by 1860 when the poet Robert Browning (1812-89) famously rediscovered the story in a unique volume of legal pamphlets from the case for sale in the bookstalls of Florence. He refashioned the tale into one of the most ambitious literary works of the 19th century, The Ring and the Book (1868-9), his masterpiece.
A blank-verse ‘novel’ in 21,000 lines, The Ring and the Book retells the events of the Franceschini/Comparini affair—litigation, adultery, murder, prosecution, and execution—in 10 dramatic monologues, each told from the viewpoint of a different character.
The item offered here may been seen as a postscript to the story: It is a letterpress form printed for the Roman church of Santa Prassede to record payments made for masses for the dead to be recited in the church’s Cappella della Santissima Colonna. The masses here were ordered by a certain Cesare Pattume from the sacristan Giuliano Monbecchi and were to be recited for the souls of 5 men executed the day before, namely Guido Franceschini and his accomplices: “per l’anime de’ Cinque Giustiziati Guido Franceschini; Alessandro Baldeschi; Franc.o Pasquini; Biagio Agostinello; Dom.co Cambastini.”
This letterpress form from Sta. Prassede is unrecorded elsewhere (OCLC, KVK, OPAC/ICCU). Examples of similar forms from other churches are sometimes encountered today, but rarely do these ephemeral items mention individuals of any historical or literary note.
Browning, of course, famously owed his knowledge of the Franceschini case to a chance finding of another ephemeral item. In June of 1860, while perusing the bookstalls in the Piazza San Lorenzo in Florence, he happened upon a volume (priced at 1 lira) that he would come to call the “Old Yellow Book,” a unique set of legal pamphlets related to the case, mainly the pleas of the defense and prosecution lawyers, printed in Latin with some Italian intermixed. The volume became an obsession for Browning and drove him, after much planning, to write The Ring and the Book, the first book of which recounts his finding of the bound pamphlets:
Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I’ the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers, —pure crude fact
Secreted from man’s life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since? (I.33-7)
In 1862, before he began composing the poem, Browning was made aware of a second contemporary source, a popular manuscript narrative of the Franceschini case in Italian. That text would come to be known as the “Secondary Source.” Browning incorporated some of its details into The Ring and the Book. The “Old Yellow Book” (now at Balliol College, Oxford; facsimile by Hodell) and the “Secondary Source” (Browning’s copy is lost) were the only sources of the Franceschini case known to Browning or to anyone else before the publication of his poem. The immense popularity of The Ring and the Book, however, soon mobilized an army of Browning scholars to search for new historical material from the Franceschini affair.
Since Browning’s death, several manuscript redactions of the “Secondary Source” have been uncovered in Italian libraries, as have duplicates of some of the printed material in the “Old Yellow Book” (see Corrigan). A composite volume in Cortona was found to contain a short, unique Italian account written by someone who attended to Franceschini’s spiritual needs in the hours before his execution (see below), but no ephemeral item like the Santa Prassede order-form for masses offered here has been found before now.
The Franceschini affair in summary:
Here I quote a summary of the Franceschini case by Jeffcoate: “The demonstrable facts are these. Guido and Pompilia were married in Rome in September 1693 when he was thirty-five and she thirteen. The couple moved to the Franceschini family home in Arezzo 150 miles from Rome; but the marriage foundered, and the young wife felt increasingly vulnerable. When she became pregnant early in 1697, she attempted to re-join her parents in Rome accompanied by a young man of Arezzo, Guiseppe Caponsacchi; but they were intercepted by her husband, arrested, and tried for adultery. When her pregnancy became evident, and especially after the birth of a son in Rome in December 1697, Guido, who had been increasingly stressed by the cumulative effects of blows to his perceived honor, finally lost his balance, traveled to Rome and, with four accomplices, murdered his estranged wife and her parents on the evening of 2 January 1698. His defense was that of ‘honour’ whereby under the law of the times (and not unknown today) a husband may kill an adulterous wife; thus the outcome of the murder trial hinged around the innocence or guilt of Pompilia” (p. 65). Franceschini and his henchmen were soon convicted and then quickly executed on 22 February in Piazza del Popolo—he by beheading, they by hanging—in an event witnessed by more than 40,000 Romans (Corrigan, Curious Annals, p. 101). Today, the interaction between literary fiction and historical fact animates the discussion of Browning’s The Ring and the Book at least as much as does his poetic art.
Prayers for Franceschini and his accomplices:
The masses ordered to be said for the executed men at Santa Prassede are foreshadowed by a description of the execution found in the “Secondary Source,” which Browning followed closely:
“He begged forgiveness on the part of God,
“And fair construction of his act from men,
“Whose suffrage he entreated for his soul,
“Suggesting that we should forthwith repeat
“A Pater and Ave, with the hymn
“Salve Regina Coeli, for his sake. (Book XII, lines 174-79)
The equivalent/source passage in the “Secondary Source” reads in translation: “The first to be executed was Agostinelli, the second Gambasini, the third Pasquini, the fourth Baldeschi, and finally Franceschini. When the last-named mounted the platform, he begged forgiveness for his sins, implored the crowd to pray the repose of his soul, and asked them in addition that they should say an ‘Our Father, a ‘Hail Mary, and a ‘Hail Holy Queen’ for him” (Hawlin & Burnett, “Secondary Source,” vol. 7, p. 319).
(The Italian of the “Secondary Source” reads: “I primo che fù giustiziato fù l’Agostinelli, il 2o. il Gambasini, il 3o. il Pasquini, il 4o. il Baldeschi, e l’ultimo il Franceschini; il quale, salito sul palco, domandò perdono delle sue colpe, e pregò a suffragargli l’anima, soggiungendo che dicessero un Pater, Ave, e Salve Regina per lui” [Hawlin & Burnett, “Secondary Source,” vol. 7, p. 318].)
Unknown to Browning was “the account of Guido’s death which is given in the Cortona Codex … probably written by a member of the Confraternity della Misercordia,” who was tasked with attending to the condemned men in their last moments (Corrigan, Curious Annals, p. xxxix). This source is likely to be highly accurate. It notes that Franceschini gave some of the money he had on his person to a fellow prisoner and “he asked that with the rest of the money masses should be celebrated for his own soul, and for those of his wife and her father and mother” (Corrigan, Curious Annals, p. 98). Furthermore, having received the eucharist, the 5 condemned men were asked by the executive officer of the confraternity, “how they wished him to use the 25 scudi of alms which were given to them by the comforters themselves; to whom they all replied unanimously at the same time that they wanted the money used for masses for the benefit of their souls” (Corrigan, Curious Annals, p. 100). Two hours after sunset on the day of the execution (22 February 1698), the men were buried at the church of S. Giovanni Decollato.
Notes on the Santa Prassede leaf:
This order-form for masses at Santa Prassede was filled out by the sacristan Giuliano Monbecchi (or Monsecchi?). I have been unable to trace this individual. The masses were ordered by a certain Cesare Pattume. Cesare Pattume (an uncommon name) is noted in various sources as a brass worker (ottonaro) active, for instance, between 1684 and 1689 at S. Pietro in Vincoli, which is a short walk from S. Prassede (G. Bartolozzi Casti, pp. 199-201).
The form was printed in letterpress to accept the standard sum of 6 giulii for the celebration of 5 masses. For 5 men, this sum was multiplied by 5 and altered in manuscript by Monbecchi to read 3 scudi for “the standard” (le solite) masses (the Roman giulio equaled 10 baiocchi; the scudo equaled 100 baiocchi; the ordinary cost of 6 giulii multiplied by 5 men thus equaled 300 biocchi, or 3 scudi).
It was not arbitrary that 5 “standard” masses would be celebrated in the Cappella della Santissima Colonna at S. Prassede: Contemporary texts note that Pope Paschal I (d. 824) granted to the Cappella della Santissima Colonna the indulgence that a soul would be freed from purgatory by the saying of 5 masses there (e.g., “concede alla Cappella della Colonna, nella quale fú flagellato Christo Signor nostro, che é in Roma nella Chiesa di santa Prassede, che chi dicesse cinque messe nell’Altare della detta Cappella cavasse un’ Anima dal Purgatorio,” in Probatica Piscina del Purgatorio, Vienna, M. Rittia, 1638). The name of Domenico Gambassini, which is spelled consistently in the legal document and popular narratives written after the executions, is here written “Cambastini,” which would be an understandable dictation mistake when Pattume was saying the names aloud to Monbecchi. A bit stranger is the date written on the sheet. The execution was on 22 February 1698. The S. Prassede sheet was printed in letterpress “169-” with a space for the sacristan to add the day, month, and final numeral of the year. Monbecchi here wrote “23 February” (plausible) but filled in the year as “1697” (not correct). I am not aware that anyone in Rome was at this time using an ‘Old Style’ dating system, but if so, the new year 1698 would not begin until March, and so 1697 would be plausible. It is also possible that Monbecchi simply forgot what year it was, a common mistake for document-daters at the beginning of the new year.
Transcription of the S. Prassede document:
Io [D. Giuliano Monbecchi] Sagrestano
di S. Prassede di Roma hò ricevuto dal
[Sig. Cesare Pattume Scudi Tre] giulii sei per far
celebrare cinque [le solite] Messe all Cappella della
Santissima Colonna di Nostro Signore per
l’anima[e] di[e] [Cinque Giustiziati Guido Franceschini; Alessandro Baldes
chi; Franc.o Pasquini; Biagio Agostinello; Dom.co
Cambastini]
Et in fede questo dì [23 Febb.o] 169[7]
Translation:
I, D. Giuliano Monbecchi, Sacristan of Santa Prassede in Rome, received from Cesare Pattume six giulii three scudi to celebrate five the usual masses in the Chapel of the Most Holy Column of Our Lord for the souls of the 5 executed men, Guido Franceschini, Alessandro Baldeschi, Francesco Pasquini, Biagio Agostinello, Domenico Cambastini. Affirmed 23 February 1697.
Sources:
S. Hawlin and T. A. J. Burnett, The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, vols. 7-9 (The Ring and the Book); C. W. Hodell, Old Yellow Book: Source of Browning’s The Ring and the Book (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1908); M. Meredith and S. Berbeglia, “The Truth Behind the Franceschini Murder Case,” S. Hawlin and T. A. J. Burnett, The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, vol. 9, pp. 387-408; J. Simeon, ed., “Morte dell’ Uxorcida Guido Fanceschini Decapitato,” Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, vol. 12 (1868-9), pp. 1-25; W. O. Raymond, ed., and E. H. Yarrill, trans., Deplorable and Impious Homicide Committed by Guido Franceschini against Pietro Comparini, Violante Comparini and Pompilia their Accredited Daughter, (Baylor Bulletin, Series 11, Dec. 1939); B. Corrigan, “New Documents on Browning’s Roman Murder Case,” Studies in Philology, vol. 49, no. 3 (1952), pp. 520-533; B. Corrigan, Curious Annals: New Documents Relating to Browning’s Roman Murder Story, University of Toronto Press, 1956; S. Jeffcoate, “Stranger than Truth: Retrieving the Fictions of The Ring and the Book,” Studies in Browning and His Circle, vol. 27 (2006), pp. 63-74; M. Meredith, “Flight from Arezzo: Fact and Fiction in The Ring and the Book,” Studies in Browning and His Circle, vol. 25 (2003), pp. 101-116; G. Bartolozzi Casti, “Le catene di S. Pietro in Vincoli e la prefettura urbana. Riscontri storici e topografici, sviluppo della leggenda,” Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, vol. 120 (1997), pp. 199-201.