The Red Goblin of the Bargello
“Lord Foulis in his castle sat,
And beside him old Red-cap sly;
‘Now tell me, thou sprite, who art mickle of might,
The death which I shall die?’”
—Scott’s Border Minstrelsy.
The Bargello has been truly described as one of the most interesting historical monuments of Florence, and it is a very picturesque type of a towered mediæval palace. It was partly burned down in 1322, and rebuilt in its present form by Neri di Fioravanti, after which it served as a prison. Restored, or modernised, it is now a museum. As I conjectured, there was some strange legend connected with it, and this was given to me as follows:
Il Folletto Rosso.
“The Red Goblin is a spirit who haunts the Bargello, or was there of old in the prisons, nelle carceri, and he always foretold to every prisoner what his sentence would be before it was pronounced.
“He always appeared in the cell of the condemned, and first lighting a candle, showed himself all clad in red, and said to the prisoner:
“‘Piangi, piangi, ma piangi forte,
E prepararti che e giunta
L’ora della tua morte.’
“‘Weep, oh weep full many a tear;
Make ready; thy hour for death is near.’
“Then if the prisoner replied boldly:
“‘Anima chi siei!
Ti pregò di volermi aiutare
A liberarmi dalla morte!’
“‘Spirit, whoe’er thou be,
I beg thee now for aid;
From death pray set me free!’
Then the goblin would burst into a laugh and say:
“‘Non piangere, ridi, ridi!
Ma ride sempre, e spera
Che io ti aiutera!’
“But if the prisoner had replied badly, or cursed, or said ‘Vai al diavolo!’ or ‘Che il diavolo ti porti!’—then there were heard dreadful sounds, such as frightened all the prisoners and assistants, and the goblin vanished crying:
“‘Woe, woe, and woe to thee!
For thou soon shalt punished be;
Away be led, to lose your head,
There is no hope for thee!’
“And after that the man might well despair. Yet the Red Goblin was a jolly sprite when not crossed, and made great sport for the prisoners, who all knew him. He went into every cell, and would tell wild tales, and relate to every one all that he, the prisoner, had done since he was a boy, and how he came to be locked up, and what would be the end of it, and told all this with such peals of laughter that the most unhappy were fain to laugh with him.
“Then the assistants and the director hearing such sounds, thought it was the prisoners rioting, but could not detect them. 161a And the spirit relieved many innocent men from punishment, and especially visited those condemned to wear the iron collar or gogna, which was fastened to a post, but at the Bargello it was on the Campanile outside, in sight of all the people. 161b
“Now there was a young man in the prison who was good at heart, and deeply repented that he had done wrong, and now feared that he indeed was in the power of Satan, and destined to be in prison for all this life and in inferno all the next.
“And when he was thus sunk in misery one night, he heard him, and was in great alarm, but it said, ‘Fear not, for I am the protecting spirit of the prisoners in the Bargello, and have come to free thee; put thy trust in me and I will save thee!’
“Then he told the youth how he was to act, and bade him say certain things when examined, and follow closely all the goblin would whisper to him; but whether it was his fault or his failure, he missed every point and went wrong in his replies, the end being that he was condemned to prison for life. Truly it went to his heart to think that while he lived he should always see the sun looking like a chess-board, 162 and bitterly reflected on the proverb:
“‘Ne a torto nè a ragione,
Non ti lasciar metter prigione.’
“‘Whether you’re right or wrong, my man,
Keep out of prison as long as you can.’
“But it went most bitterly to his heart to think that he had by his own stupidity and want of study lost the chance of freedom. And for some time the Red Goblin never came near him. But at last the prisoner heard him call, and then the spirit said, ‘Now thou see’st to what a pass thy neglect of my advice has brought thee. Truly il diavolo non ti tenterebbe—the devil takes no pains to tempt such a fool as thou, for he knows that he will get him without the trouble of asking. And yet I will give thee one more chance, and this time be thou wide awake and remember that a buona volontà, non manca facoltá—where there’s a will there’s a way.’
“Now there was a great lord and mighty man of the state who had been in the Bargello, and greatly comforted by the Red Goblin, who now went unto this Signore, speaking so well of the young man that the latter ere long had a new trial. And this time, I warrant you, he studied his case like a lawyer; for asino punto, convien che trottè—when an ass is goaded he must needs trot—and the end thereof was that he trotted out of prison, and thence into the world, and having learned repentance as well as the art of watching his wits and turning them to account, prospered mightily, and to his dying day never forgot to pray for the Red Goblin of the Bargello.”
There have been other spirits which haunted prisons; there was one in the Bastile, and the White Ladies of Berlin and Parma are of their kind. This of the Bargello is certainly the household sprite with the red cap, in a short shirt, who was very well known to the Etruscans and Romans, and afterwards to the Germans, the Lutin of the French castles, the Robin Goodfellow of England, and the Domovoy of the Russians. His characteristics are reckless good nature mingled with mischief and revenge; but he is always, when not thwarted, at heart a bon garçon. Of the Bargello I have also the following anecdotes or correlative incidents:
Giorgio.
“Truly I will not swear that this is a story of the Bargello, for I am very particular as to truth, Signore, but I will swear that ’tis of a prison in Florence, and that when it happened the Bargello was the only prison there. And it runs thus: Giorgio, whoever he was, had killed a man, and as the law ran in his case, in those strange days, he could not be executed till he had confessed or owned the deed. And he would not confess.
“Now there was a lawyer, un notaio, ò chi che si fosse (or whoever he was), who declared that he would bring to pass with a trick what justice had not been able to do with torture. So going to the prison, he called for wine, and when they had drunk deep he cried heartily:
“‘Orsú, Giorgio, stiamo un poco allegri, cantiam qualche cosa’—‘Come now, Giorgio, let’s be merry and sing something!’
“‘Come ti piace’—’As you please,’ quoth Master Giorgio. ‘You sing one line.’
“So the notary began, touching a lute:
“‘Giorgi hà morto l’huomo.’
“‘Giorgio once killed a man.’
“To which Giorgio, who was sharp as a razor, added:
“‘Così non canta Giorgio.’
“‘But it was not thus that Giorgio sang.’
“So it passed into a proverb, meaning as much as Così non dico io—I don’t say that; or Così non l’intendo io—I don’t see it in that light. And so the notary found that you cannot see Verona from the top of every hill.
“And there is another story of a prisoner, who had long curling hair in the old Florentine style. Hair, Signore, like charity, may cover much sin. Now this man, after he had been a while in the Bargello, got his sentence, which was to have his ears cropped off. But when the boia or hangman came to do the job, he found that the man had had his ears cut off smooth long before. Whence came the proverb:
“‘Quel che havea mozzi gli orecchi,
E’ci sara de gli arreticati.’
“‘He whose ears had been cut away,
Fooled another, or so they say.’
Which is a proverb to this day, when a man finds that somebody has been before him.
“And it may have been that Donatello, the great sculptor, was in the Bargello when he said, ‘E’rise a me ed io riso à lui’—‘He laughs at me, and I do laugh at him.’ Donatello was in quistione, or in trouble with the law, and in prison, for having killed one of his pupils. The Marquis di Ferrara asked him if he was guilty. But Donatello had already received from the Marquis a license to slay any one in self-defence, and so he made that answer.”
A Legend of the Bargello.
“One day a young man, who had been gaming and lost, threw some dirt at an image of the Virgin in one of the numerous shrines in the city, blaming her for his bad luck. He was observed by a boy, who reported it to the authorities, and was soon arrested. Having confessed that he did it in a rage at having lost, he was hanged the same night from one of the windows of the Bargello.” 164
Thereby adding another ghost or folletto to those who already haunt the place. It should be noted that according to Italian witch-lore a ghost is never simply the spirit of the departed as he was, but a spirit transformed. A witch becomes a fata, good or bad, and all men something more than they were.
Among other small legends or tales in which the Bargello is referred to, I find the following, of which I must first mention that debito in Italian means not only debt but duty, and that fare un debito is not only to get into debt, but to do what is just, upright, and honourable.
“It happened once, long ago, that a certain good fellow was being escorted, truly not by a guard of honour, but by several bum-bailiffs, to the Bargello, and met a friend who asked him why he was in custody. To which he replied, ‘Other men are arrested and punished for crime or villainy, but I am treated thus for having acted honourably, per aver fatto il debito mio.’
“And it happened to this same man that after he had been entertained for a time at the public expense in that gran albergo, or great hotel, the Bargello, that the Council of Eight, or the public magistracy, gave him a hearing, and told him that he must promptly pay the debt which he owed, which was one of fifty scudi or crowns. To which he replied that he could not. Then the chief of the Eight said, ‘We will find out a way to make you pay it, be sure of that.’ To which he answered, ‘De gratia, Signore, while you are about it, then, make it a hundred, for I have great need just now of another fifty crowns.’”
Prisoners in the Bargello, as elsewhere, were subject to the most appalling injustice and cruelty. Thus we are told of Cosimo di Medici, when he was doing all in his power to assassinate or poison Piero Strozzi, that he was always very circumspect as regarded the venom, “and did not use it till he had studied the effects and doses on condemned prisoners in the Bargello.” But “condemned prisoners” here means doubtless those who were simply condemned to be made the subjects of such experiments, as may be supposed, when we learn that Cosimo obtained the recipe of making up a poison from Messer Apollino, secretary of Piero Luigi, by torturing him. It was thus they did in good old pious times. Poisoning, as a most familiar and frequent thing, even in England, did not pass out of practice, even in politics, until that great beginning of a moral era, the Reformation.
“Hæc fabula docet,” wrote the good and wise Flaxius on the revise, “that as a Zoccolone friar is the best priest for a peasant, so even a buon diavolo, or jolly devil, or a boon blackguard who knows his men, is, perhaps, generally the best guide for certain kinds of rough sinners, often setting them aright in life where a holy saint would be inter sacrem et saxum, or in despair. As for poisoning, I fear that cup, far from passing away, is, under another form, passed round far more frequently now than it ever was. For François Villon declared that lying gossip, tittle-tattle, and second-hand slander were worse than poison (which simply kills the body), and this with infinite refinement prevails far more in modern society (being aided by newspapers) than it ever did of yore anywhere. This is the poison of the present day, which has more veneficæ to spread it than the Locustan or Borgian venoms ever found. Now for a merrier tale!”
“If all that’s written, talked or sunge
Must be of the follies of menne,
’Twere better that no one moved his tongue,
Or that none could use a penne.
“Jog on, jog on the footpath-waye,
And cheerily jump the stile;
A merry heart goes all the daye,
A sad one tires in a mile!”
Legends of San Lorenzo the Canon and the Debtor, and the Cats in the Cloister
“Pazienza, paziendum!
Disse il diavolo a Sant Antonium.”
“A scratching he heard and a horrible groan,
As of hundreds of cats with mollrowing and moan:
‘Oh!’ said he to himself, ’sure the devil is come.’”
—Mr. Jones and the Cats.
The celebrated Church of San Lorenzo is a grand museum of art, even among the many of its kind in Florence. It was originally a Roman Christian basilica, built by the matron Giuliana, which edifice was consecrated a.d. 373 by Saint Ambrose, and called the Basilica Ambrosiana. It was partially rebuilt by Brunelleschi in 1435, and completed with sad alteration, and finished by Antonio Manetti. As is well known, or has been made known by many great poets, it contains the grandest statuary by Michael Angelo in its monuments of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his uncle Giuliano.
This church served as a sanctuary in the olden time, and of this there is a tale told in the old collections of facetiæ, which, though trifling, is worth recalling as connected with it.
Il Debitore.
“Messer Paolo dell’ Ottonaio, a Canon of San Lorenzo in Florence, a cheerful and facetious man, found a certain citizen one of his friends, who had taken refuge as a debtor in the church; and the latter stood in sorrowful and pensive attitude, having in no wise the appearance of one who had found a treasure, or who was going to be married, or to dine with the Duke, or anything of the kind.
“‘Man, what aileth thee?’ cried the Canon. ‘Has thy wife beaten thee, or the cat broken thy best crockery, or thy favourite housemaid run away?’
“‘What I have,’ replied the poor man, ‘is ten times worse than all that put together.’ And so, havendo caro di sfogarsi, being glad to relieve himself, he told Messer Paolo all his sorrows, wailing that his creditors, having taken all his property, threatened his person, swearing that they would put him in the Stinche, which was so horrible a prison that it was infamous even then all the world over as an inferno where every one confined at once became infermo, or a hell which made men ill, and that, being in despair, he would have taken his own life had he not come across a charming book on patience which had consoled him.
“Messer Paolo asked him whether the creditors had been paid in full.
“‘Alas, no!’ replied the debtor; ‘not one half; nor will they ever get the rest, for I have naught.’
“‘In that case,’ answered the Canon, ‘it seems to me that it is your creditors and not you who should read that charming book, since it is evident that, as they are to have nothing till the Greek Kalends, or on Saint Never’s day, that they must have patience whether they will or no.’
“Well, as the saying is, Pazienza vince scienza (Patience beats knowledge), and Chi ha pazienza vede le sue vendette (Wait long enough and you’ll get your revenges), the Canon got for the poor man money enough to make a composition with his creditors, and he, having expectations which they knew not of, compounded with them for five per cent., on conditions written, that he should pay all up ‘as he earned more money.’
“And so he was set free, and it befell on a day that some relation died and left him a fortune, whereupon his creditors summoned him to pay his old debts, which he refused to do. Then they cited him before the Council as a fraudulent debtor, but he replied by showing his quittance or agreement, and declared that he was only obliged to pay out of his earnings, and that he had inherited his money and not earned it. Whereupon there was great dispute, and one of the creditors who had shown himself most unfeeling and inhuman protested that to get money in any way whatever was to guadagnare (a gain by labour), since it was labour even to put it in one’s pocket. Now, this man had a handsome wife, who, it was generally known, greatly enriched her husband by dishonouring him, at which he willingly winked.
“Whereupon the debtor asked the magistrate if an ox carried off a bundle of hay on his horns, which had by chance been stuck into it, he could be said to have earned it by honest labour? At which there was such a roar of laughter, and so many cries of ‘No! no! no!’ that the court went no further, and acquitted the culprit.”
There is an odd bit of folklore attached to this church. As may be supposed, and as I have frequently verified, “the idle repetition of vain words,” as the heathen do, or prayers in a language which people do not understand, generally lead to most ridiculous perversions of the unknown tongue. A popular specimen of this is the Salve Regina delle Ciane Fiorentine di San Lorenzo, or the “Salve Regina of the Florentine women of the lower class, as given in San Lorenzo.” Ciana is given by Barretti as a specially Florentine word.
La Salve Regina.
“Sarvia della Regina, dreco la Misericordia, vita d’un cieco, spezia nostra, sarvia tua, te chiamao esule, fili e vacche!
“Ate sospirao, i’ gemeo fetente in barca e lacrima la valle.
“L’ la eggo educata nostra, illons in tus.
“Misericordia se’ cieli e in ossi e coperte, e lesine benedette, frutti, ventri, tubi, novi, posti cocche, esilio e tende!
“O crema, o pia, o dorce virgola Maria!—Ammenne!”
This is perfectly in the spirit of the Middle Ages, of which so much is still found in the cheapest popular Italian literature. I have elsewhere mentioned that it was long before the Reformation, when the Church was at the height of her power, that blasphemies, travesties of religious services, and scathing sarcasms of monkish life reached their extreme, and were never equalled afterwards, even by Protestant satirists. The Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum of Hütten and Reuchlin was an avowed caricature by an enemy. The revelations of monkish life by Boccaccio, Cintio, Arlotto, and a hundred other good Catholics, were a thousand times more damaging than the Epistolæ, because they were the unconscious betrayals of friends.
Since writing the foregoing, I have obtained the following, entitled, The Pater Noster of the Country People in the Old Market, or,
Il Pater Noster dei Beceri di Mercato.
“Pate nostro quisin celi sanctifice tuore nome tumme; avvenia regno tumme; fia te volunta stua, in celo en terra.
“Pane nostro cotediano da nobis sodie, e dimitti nobis debita nostra, sicutte ette nos dimittimus debitori nostri, sette ananossie in due casse, intenzione sedie nosse e mulo.—Amenne!”
There is, however, this great difference in the two prayers here given, that the Salve Regina is intended for a jest, while the paternoster is given as actually taken down from a ciana, and is rather a specimen of dialect than a jeu d’esprit. The following Ave Maria is also serious, and simply a curiosity of language:—
L’Ave Maria.
“Avemmaria grazia piena, dominò teco beneditta e frustris, e mulieri busse e benedetti fruttus ventris tui eiusse!
“Santa Maria Materdei, ora pro nobisse, pecatoribusse, tinche, tinona, mortis nostrisse.—Ammenne!”
These specimens of Italianised Latin are not so grotesque as some which were written out for me in all seriousness by a poor woman. A specimen of the latter is given in my work on “Etruscan-Roman Traditions.”
Last of all, there came to me a small tale of little value, save that it professes to account for the reason why so many cats have ever flourished and been nourished in the cloister of San Lorenzo, these felines being, indeed, in a small way among the lions of Florence. It is as follows:—
I Gatti di San Lorenzo.
“In the cloisters of San Lorenzo there are many cats, and every evening people may be seen who go there to feed them, among whom are many old men and women. But these cats were long ago themselves human, that is to say, they were once all wizards and witches, who bear their present form for punishment of an evil deed.
“There was once a very wealthy and powerful family in Florence, at the head of which was a gentleman and lady who had an only daughter, in whom was all their love and hope. Among their servants in a higher position was an old woman, who was very vindictive and easily offended, so that she could brood over deadly revenge for years for the least affront, and she fancied she had a great many, because when she had neglected her duty at times she had been scolded by her mistress or master.
“Now this old woman knew that death or disaster to the daughter would drive the parents mad; and so having recourse to witchcraft, she put into the drink of the young lady a decoction, the result of which was that she began to waste away, growing weaker and paler, without feeling any pain.
“Then her parents, in great fear, consulted the best physicians, who did no good, for indeed it was a case beyond their skill. And at last, beginning to believe that there was something unearthly in it all, they sent for an old woman who cured by occult art. [171] And when she came she looked steadily at the girl, then frowned and shook her head, and asked for a ribbon or cord, no matter what, so that it were one which the young lady had worn about her waist. With this she measured accurately the height of the patient from head to foot, and then the width from hand to hand, it being desirous that the arms be of equal length; but there was the disproportion of the thickness of a piece of money. Then the witch said:
“‘This is none of my affair as regards the cure. Your daughter is bewitched, and I can indeed make the witch appear, but to beat her and compel her to remove the spell depends on you alone.’
“Now they, suspecting the old servant, sent for her, but she had disappeared and could not be found. Then the doctress took a caldron, and put into it hot water and the undergarments of the girl and certain herbs, and boiled them all together, singing an incantation, and, taking a knife, sharpened it on the table, whetting it on the chemise of the young lady.
“Then the old servant woman appeared at the door, against her will, forced by the power of the spell, in an agony of rage and bitterness; but she was at once seized and beaten, whereupon she consented to unbewitch the girl, who speedily recovered.
“Now Florence was at that time fearfully afflicted with evil witches, who defied all authority, and spread disease and death far and wide; but this affair of the bewitched lady being made known, both priests and laymen rose up in wrath, and the sorceress fled for sanctuary to the cloisters of San Lorenzo.
“Then to save their lives the Strege made a compromise with the priests, and it was agreed that they should no longer live as witches, or do any harm, but all live and die as cats in the cloister, where they should be regularly fed, and exist in peace. Which agreement has been duly carried out to this day, and among these cats are many who were once witches in human form hundreds of years ago.”
This narrative is not so much a story as an account of the manner in which bewitchment is undone by another witch. The reader will find the incantations in the chapter entitled “The Spell of the Boiling Clothes,” in my work on “Etruscan-Roman Remains.” One of the most serious riots which has occurred in Milan for many years took place March 3, 1891, when the populace tortured terribly and tried to kill a witch, who had, it was believed, been detected by this spell.
“Hæc fabula docet,” adds the wise Flaxius, “this story suggests a reason why a certain kind of ladies of ecclesiastical proclivities are always called tabbies. And that there is something in it I can well believe, knowing one who, when she calls her rector or bishop ‘De-ar man!’ does so in a manner which marvellously suggests the purring of a cat. And the manner in which the tabby pounces on the small birds, mice, and gold-fish of others—i.e., their peccadilloes, and small pets or pleasures, which in good faith do her no harm—seems like literally copying the feline—upon line....
“Oh! ye who visit the cloister, and see the cats, think well on this legend, and especially on the deep identity of witches with tabbies!
“And for a moral, note that, with all their sins, what the witches and cats aimed at above all things was food, with which they have remained content, according to the exquisite lyric by the divine Shelley, p. 661, Dowden’s edition:—
“‘This poor little cat
Only wanted a rat,
To stuff out its own little maw,
And it were as good
Some people had such food
To make them hold their jaw.’”