Paolina's Innocence by Larry Wolff

Author:Larry Wolff [Wolff, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Italy
ISBN: 9780804782104
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2012-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

The Scandal of Franceschini

On November 11, 1785, two months after his interrogation on September 10, Franceschini was once again brought forth from prison, this time to hear read to him, to his face, the indictment that had finally been formulated against him by the Venetian state. In fact, all the witnesses had been summoned and deposed in September, so the month of October that Franceschini spent in prison while waiting for his case to proceed reflected either the law’s routine delay or, perhaps, the problematic nature of his particular crime. “When I examine myself, I find no reason for which I would deserve to be subject to the censure of this most excellent magistrature,” declared Franceschini on September 10. “That girl left my house just as she was when she came.”1 Thus, he challenged the tribunal to formulate precisely what it was that he had done to incur the intervention of Venetian justice, and, after passing two months behind bars, he finally received the reply to his challenge.

Casanova in the 1750s found that money could ameliorate the conditions of his imprisonment in the piombi, and his friends obtained for him food and wine, clothes, and books. Franceschini in the 1780s was certainly wealthy enough to purchase similar favors, as he waited for the Bestemmia to present its case. Now at last, with the reading of the indictment—called the opposizionale in Venetian justice—he would know exactly what evidence had been gathered against him and what charges he faced.2 It was not unusual for the accused to remain ignorant of the particular charges up until this moment in the judicial proceedings. Yet, in this case, the indictment as finally read to Franceschini expressed a powerful sense of moral outrage, without being particularly precise about infringements of the law.

It is not on account of calumny coming from evil vendetta, as you affected to suppose, that you find yourself subject to the authoritative censures of this most grave magistrature, but on account of your own depraved customs, not satisfied to vent yourself by impudently frequenting the public brothels but causing more scandal and making it more public [maggiormente palese] when you came to live in Calle della Cortesia in Sant’Angelo, where trampling without reserve upon the most definite duties of virtue and religion, you made yourself a mirror of turpitude [specchio di turpitudine] by showing your sensual dissoluteness in common sight, by prostituting without shame your own house, receiving by day and entertaining also for whole nights libertine women, causing the greatest scandal [sommo scandalo] and universal commotion. Not limiting your dissoluteness to this, but pushing it still further, you went so far as to procure innocent girls of tender age [più oltre spingendo ti dasti perfino a procurarti tenere innocenti fanciulle], treacherously disguising your guilty intentions with alluring promises, in order to obtain the girls, seeking then with chimerical pretexts to obscure the circumstances of your turpitudinous purpose, and to achieve it, you attempted by seductive means to deceive the feeble mentality of

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