Matters were in this state when the sudden explosion of the Neapolitan revolution turned the apprehensions of the petty Italian Governments into an actual panic. Austrian troops, hastily summoned to repress the Liberal movement, passed through Modena on their march. Some of these were Hungarians, a nation sympathising with Italy. An address was prepared and secretly circulated among them, imploring them not to fight against the Neapolitans. The jealousy of the Modenese Government was roused to the highest pitch. Many arrests were made, chiefly by means of espionage and the violation of private correspondence; and on March 14th, 1821, a special tribunal was constituted for the trial of political offenders. It was the formal inauguration of a reign of terror. “Avrà luogo,” says the decree, “un processo e un giudizio statario—Statario, dal latino statim, se mal non avviso,” is the sarcastic note of the editor.
The etymology might seem borne out by the injunction that the duration of the proceedings was in no case to exceed eight days, and by the sinister regulation: “Si terrà, pronto il carnefice, si potrà secondo le circonstanze, eriggere il patibolo anche preventivamente, e si disporrà per aver pronto un religioso il quale assista coloro che fossero condannati.” The priest and the executioner, however, were not immediately called into requisition; and the Neapolitan and Piedmontese revolutions having been promptly extinguished, the tempest seemed about to pass off, when suddenly, about the beginning of 1822, numerous arrests were made of persons suspected of participation in the meetings of secret societies. It was soon reported that one of those implicated had denounced his friends, and dark stories became current of the tortures and privations by which the chief of the police, Giulio Besini, sought to wring out confession. By a decree of unheard of injustice and indecency, this natural enemy of the accused was appointed their judge, and charged to receive the depositions he had himself extorted. The issue was eagerly awaited, when, on the evening of May 14th, 1822, Besini perished by an unknown hand. Besini was taken home, surgeons sent for, and the blow declared mortal. Quick as lightning the welcome news spread through Modena, and the people heard with joy that there was a man in the town who had been bold enough to rid the land of a miscreant. With his dying breath he denounced a certain Gaetano Ponzoni, who, he said, had cause to be his enemy, “as if,” observes Panizzi, “Ponzoni were the only such person in the duchy.”
Upon the admonition of the attendant magistrate, Solmi, Besini acknowledged that he could not positively identify his assailant. Ponzoni was nevertheless arrested, and Solmi’s humane interference cost him his office. The special tribunal, hitherto dormant, was called into activity for Ponzoni’s trial.
The course of the procedure gave earnest of what was to follow. Parenti, Ponzoni’s advocate, was allowed only three days to prepare his defence, and denied an opportunity of examining the adverse witnesses, a part even of the written depositions was withheld from him, he was charitably admonished not to occupy the time of the court with trivialities, and referred to a secret Ducal decree conferring unlimited powers on the tribunal, which could not be shown to the advocate, because it contained very confidential instructions intended for the court alone. In spite of all these obstacles, Ponzoni’s innocence was irrefragably established; but his judges, afraid to acquit and ashamed to condemn, simply laid the proceedings before the Duke, who left them unnoticed, and when Panizzi wrote, Ponzoni was still in prison, where he remained, though innocent, till the year 1831. The true assassin proved to be a certain Morandi, who, when safe in London, openly avowed having committed the deed.
This prosecution was but a preliminary to the indictment of the unfortunate men who had languished in captivity since the beginning of the year. About the middle of June the commission appointed to try them commenced its session at Fort Rubiera. Its first task was to receive the confessions extorted from the prisoners during their incarceration, and to elude the numerous retractations of the accused. All these avowals proved to have been obtained under Besini’s management by fraud or force. Manzotti had been chained to a wall in such a manner as to oblige him to remain in an erect position until he subscribed to what was required of him; Nizzoli’s signature was affixed during the paroxysms of a fever fit, after he had been chained so as not to be able to sit down for forty days. Conti was entrapped by a forged confession attributed to another prisoner; Alberici was gained by allurements and flatteries; Caronzi was persuaded by the prayers and tears of his wife, whose honour was said to have been the price of a fallacious promise of her husband’s deliverance, he being sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude, a term reduced by the Duke to fifteen. Peretti, Maranesi, Farioli, and others testified to similar deceits and cruelties ineffectually employed against themselves; some, beguiled by the inducement held out to them, remained silent. The chief prosecutor, Vedriani, a man of honour and integrity, called upon the tribunal to acquaint the prisoners that such promises were illusory and unauthorised. His colleague Fieri opposed him; the question was referred to the Duke, who denied having authorised Besini to hold out any expectations of indulgence. Vedriani insisted that the culprits should be apprised of this declaration; the judges, fearful lest the unfortunate men should escape from the snare into which they had fallen, peremptorily negatived the demand. Vedriani indignantly threw up his brief, and the last hope of justice vanished with him. A more supple instrument was found, and the prosecution proceeded as the Government desired. The prisoners were debarred from choosing their own advocates, and those selected were only allowed to confer with them under restrictions. The defenders nevertheless did their duty, and although they could not, without subverting the entire judicial fabric of Modena, as then understood, have brought the judges to acknowledge the uselessness of extorted confessions (the sole evidence against most of the accused)—the illegality of the tribunal itself ab initio, or, even granting its legality, the incompetence of the tribunal to take cognisance of offences which it had not been constituted to try—they deterred the court from accepting the conclusions of the prosecutor Fieri.
This man had demanded the execution of forty-two persons, at most only guilty of belonging to a secret society, and accused of no overt offence against public tranquility. The tribunal reduced the penalty to various terms of imprisonment. The sentences, before they were pronounced, had to be submitted to the Duke for confirmation. Francis, enraged at their lenity, summoned the President of the Commission before him, the revised sentences assumed a very different complexion, and all the three judges stultified their previous decision by subscribing them “perchè tale fù la Sovrana mente e volontà.” Nine of the accused, some of whom had fortunately made their escape, were condemned to death; the remainder to the galleys or imprisonment for life, or for various periods. A Ducal decree appeared after some delay maintaining the punishment of death against those who had escaped, pronouncing a virtual sentence of imprisonment for life against those who had steadfastly maintained their innocence, and extending marked indulgence to those who had merited it by a “sincere, prompt, and spontaneous confession,” in other words, those who had been cajoled or intimidated into betraying their associates. The latter part of Panizzi’s publication is occupied with a legal demonstration of the incompetence of a tribunal constituted to try charges of high treason to deal with the mere offence of belonging to a secret society. The argument seems conclusive, but in fact the tribunal had voluntarily branded itself with a deeper mark than any that its assailant’s eloquence or ingenuity could have affixed to it.
On a perusal of the sentences, which are given “totidem verbis” in the appendix of the book, the civilized reader remarks with astonishment that, on the tribunal’s own showing, half the offences for which it awards penalties are not proved at all. First, is recited a series of facts considered to be established, by far the greater part of which relate merely to the presence of the inculpated person at the