* * * * *

VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI

AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER

I

During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour of the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed.  Art and learning had died out.  The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were forgotten.  It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had migrated across the Alps.  All the powers of the Papacy were directed to the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of spiritual supremacy over the intellect of Europe.  Meanwhile society in Rome returned to mediaeval barbarism.  The veneer of classical refinement and humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the natural savagery of the Roman nobles, wore away.  The Holy City became a den of bandits; the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground for senseless party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple crown was quite unable to control.  It is related how a robber chieftain, Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the Pope, alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, and offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls of Rome.  The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians.  Life, indeed, had become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of lawlessness.  There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number some notorious criminal among the outlaws.  Murder, sacrilege, the love of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit’s calling as other than honourable.

It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome.  The history of some of these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public trials and personal observation by contemporary writers.  That of the Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a popular novella, is well known.  And such a tragedy, even more rife in characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its dramatis personae, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni.