The Spielberg of Irpinia

Its fame was so negative to inspire the popular proverb “Chi trase a Montefusco, e po’ se nn’esce pò ddì ca nterra ‘n’ata vota nasce!!“

HISTORY OF THE PRISON

Castle dungeons were turned into a prison of the Royal Provincial Audience of Principato Ulteriore, then into a political prison, since the time of the failed Neapolitan Revolution of 1799.

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But it became notorious because of the years of imprisonment, by the Bourbons, of the Liberals who took part in uprisings of 1848. As a matter of fact, it was declared First Class Penal Colony, or ‘maximum security prison for political prisoners only’. Among the most popular detainees of this period there were Poerio, Castromediano, Nisco, Pironti, Pica, Braico, Stagliano’ and many others from central south Italy.

This period has led to the nickname of Spielberg (castle) of Irpinia. The reputation of hard prison system, along with extreme life hardship within it, have contributed to the motto: Chi trase a Montefusco e pò se n’esce pò dì che nterra nata vota nasce. With the Unification of Italy, it became a Savoy stronghold and a prison for more detainees who, in neighboring villages, were the protagonists of a violent reaction to the Unitary State. Then the fortress worked in alternating phases until 1923, when it was finally closed, and was declared a National Monument in 1928. In 1997, a civic museum was established: The Spielberg of Southern Risorgimento.

Instruments of Torture

During the Old Regime, the tortures used in the prison were as follows

TORTURE IN PRISON

The Royal Audience of Montefusco was considered one of the most strict in the Kingdom of Naples. The bad reputation of its ancient prison, carved ‘in the steep side of the mountain’, was justified by dreadful hygienic conditions that forced even the President of the Province to leave the building during the summer months.

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In wintertime, however, damp and cold conditions of the rock afflicted the inmates. But these prisons were also infamous for their painful punishments, particularly described by Eliseo Danza, a 17th-century jurist from Montefusco, in his ‘De pugna doctorum’. Actually, a distinction have to be made between two types of “tormentum”: the one, “ad eruendam veritatem”, used in the pre-trial phase to force the accused person to confess; the second one, “ad poenam”, punishment for the most ferocious convicts and for those who broke prison rules.

The torture order had to be signed by two auditors at least, and one of them had to attend it with the doctor. A confession made during the torture was not valid if the defendant did not confirm it after 24 hours, time to recover from pain. If he recanted his confession, however, the same torture had to be repeated three more times. The accused person’s resistance was seen as a sign of his innocence, but obviously it was very difficult not to give in to punishment. Torture could not be inflicted at night and, in addition, the suspect had to be strictly fasting ‘ad vitandum vomitum’.

STANGS

was a method of torture practiced only on certain categories of convicts.

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The stangs were used mainly with women, old men and people of frail constitution: it was in fact a less painful torture than the rope. It consisted of squeezing the foot, at the level of the malleolus, between two pieces of wood that were progressively brought closer and closer together by means of a worm gear, until it caused excruciating pain in the bones and difficulty in walking.

One of the most unbearable tortures applied in the Montefusco prison was the “Bluebottle’. This form of torture, deprecated by Eliseo Danza for its cruelty, consisted in making the accused wear a shirt and inserting flies or wasps in it. The shirt had to be hermetically sealed at the neck and waist so that the insects, unable to get out, would begin to torment the alleged offender.

CHAIN

Describing this torture, practised in the Montefusco prison, was Sigismondo Castromediano, who was imprisoned here until 1859 when, by Royal Decree, the sentence of life imprisonment was commuted to perpetual exile.

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“The chain! is a strand of sixteen long links, one tied to the other; it stretches over three and a half metres and weighs over fifteen kilograms. Its hoarse screeching and perpetual squeaking deafens and sickens…. If it is ever possible to get rid of it, even then, for a long time, one feels its weight: a painful impression, as if it continues to grip one’s foot”.

This is the description of that heavy iron restraint, regarded as an aberrant punishment. The chain not only made it difficult to walk, but also kept two different prisoners bound at the same time. This was not an extraordinary punishment, but a daily humiliation that was part of regular prison treatment.

RETALIATION

The punishment of amputation was provided for by a constitution of Frederick II and a prammatica of Ferdinand I of Aragon for blasphemers, whose tongues were amputated.

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Eliseo Danza notes, however, that only in rare cases did the royal court of Montefusco resort to this solution. Milder sanctions such as the confiscation of one third of property, imprisonment for four years or public flogging were preferred.

GOAT TONGUE

This is probably the most imaginative torture applied in the Montefusco prison.

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The accused was laid out on a table, tied so that he could not escape, and then the soles of his feet were washed with very salty water, at which point a fasting goat was approached, which, greedy for salt, began to greedily lick the feet of the accused with its tongue until its bones were exposed.

The convulsions caused by too much laughter could also cause asphyxiation, the sufferer feeling short of breath but, at the same time, feeling powerless in the face of the torture inflicted on him.

PUNTALE

The torture most frequently used by Montefusco’s jailers was undoubtedly “il Puntale”.

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During the Risorgimento, when the Montefusco prison became a first-class penal bath, the punishment most frequently used by warders to punish behaviour contrary to the internal regulations was undoubtedly “puntale”. Prisoners were as a rule free to move within their own wards: when they were forced to the puntale, however, a chain bound them to a ring embedded in the ground, largely limiting their movements in a very confined space.

It was seen as a rather demeaning measure by the political prisoners, but all in all it was not a particularly harsh solution and was therefore widely used. The stingers were all concentrated in the lower lane of the prison.

HANGING

Capital punishment par excellence was imposed for many serious crimes.

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It was punished, in particular, for the crimes of brigandage, murder, theft, rape, treason, lese majesty divine or human, and counterfeiting of money. The executions were public and took place at the Passo Serra crossroads, while the corpses were buried in the nearby church of “Santa Maria di mezzo mondo”.

The hanging took place according to a very precise macabre ritual: after receiving religious comforts in the prison, the condemned man was led in a procession on foot to the place of the gallows. At the head of the procession was the trumpeter, who announced to the crowd the name of the prisoner and the crime of which he had been found guilty. In cases of the most heinous crimes, the hanging was followed by the quartering of the corpse and the hanging of individual body parts in public places. In cases of the most heinous crimes, hanging was followed by quartering the corpse and posting individual body parts in public places.

MOSCONE

One of the most unbearable tortures applied in the Montefusco prison was the “Moscone”.

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This form of torture, deprecated by Eliseo Danza for its cruelty, consisted in making the accused wear a shirt and inserting flies or wasps in it. The shirt had to be hermetically sealed at the neck and waist so that the insects, unable to get out, would begin to torment the alleged offender.

STRECH OF ROLE

This torture is quite common throughout Europe and very frequent in the Montefusco prison due to the simplicity of its execution.

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The defendant’s wrists were tied to the end of a long rope that held him suspended in the air. The rope passed through an iron ring placed under the ceiling; at the other end it was pulled by the torturers, either by hand or by means of a wheel. This had the effect of a pulley: the victim was lifted and then suddenly dropped, so that all the weight was put on the joints of the shoulders and caused them to dislocate.

The accused, completely naked, was then flogged with a leather whip: Eliseo Danza recalls that it was a sign of humanity on the part of the torturers not to exceed fifty strokes. Generally such torment resulted in irreversible crippling.

POLLETRO

This term was used in the kingdom of Naples to indicate the ancient Roman torture of the eculeo.

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“Polletro” is an archaic term for “foal” and in fact the torture instrument used was a sort of wooden stand that roughly resembled the shape of an equine horse on the back of which was a very sharp spike. The tortured person was forced to sit on it and then weights were applied to his arms and legs to achieve the same effect as an impalement. The limbs would remain in traction for hours and this could lead to perennial deformities.

The torture could be aggravated by other torments (burns, beatings, hooks to lacerate the prisoner’s flesh). In the Montefusco prison, the Polletro was used quite casually, until in 1620 the Viceroy censured its abuse by the royal court of Principato Ultra.

Two stories by Palmerino Savoia

“All to the Oars” and An Irpinian reapers’ strike punished with sentence to the oars in 1574“

CHAINS OF CONDEMNED TO THE SPANISH TRIREMES

The two episodes illustrated below by Palmerino Savoia are related by Eliseo Danza, a jurist and writer from Montefusco who lived between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in his major work entitled “De Pugna Doctorum”, printed in Montefusco in 1644 by a traveling printer.

All hands to the oars!

It all began with an urgent letter sent by the Viceroy of Naples, Count of Monte Reale, to the royal counselor and grand judge of the grand criminal court of Vicaria, Don Ferdinando Mugnoz, on March 27, 1635. The letter began dramatically: “Although in recent days various orders have been given to the Provincial Courts of the Kingdom to condemn, even by agreement, as many prisoners and defendants as possible to the service of the Royal triremes, due to the great need they have for rowers, nevertheless, so that the said royal service may be provided with the utmost speed, the vis SV is commanded to immediately go to the Province of Principato Ultra and the royal prisons of the Court of Montefusco and that of the Governor of the same city. The letter, after conferring on the Grand Judge Mugnoz the broadest powers and giving the most detailed instructions for the various cases that could arise, ended as follows: “After completing your assignment, you will form a ‘chain’ in the usual manner, of all the convicts and send them here with the utmost punctuality. The Treasury will pay you with the greatest zeal and the utmost speed.”
Mugnoz was zealous and very quick in executing the task entrusted to him. On March 30, he arrived in Montefusco like a thunderbolt, with a great entourage of scribes and legal experts of lower rank. The first thing he did was to call the Preside and the Auditors, who were the ordinary judges of the Royal Court, and present the testimonials, i.e., the letter from the Viceroy, as stated above.
The magistrates listened to the reading with bowed heads and said they were ready to cooperate. The Grand Judge then wanted to see the procedural situation of all the prisoners. The next day, he entered the courtroom, donned his robe, sat at the Justice’s Bench, and began his work. He quickly handled the cases already ready for decision, imposing the penalty of the triremes on all the defendants. With the few to whom that penalty could not be applied, Mugnoz began to “concord”.
Only a few refused to agree, but they had not reckoned with the full powers at Mugnoz’s disposal, who could also sentence them to the oars with the formula doco depositi, which was roughly equivalent to this: “Now I condemn you to the oars, and you will go and row; later, you can appeal, and other judges will decide on the matter.” Then it was the turn of the prisoners who had already been sentenced and were serving their sentence in prison. All, either by agreement or with the unfair formula of “doco depositi,” were sent to the triremes. In conclusion, the prison was empty. In fact, a few days later, the “chain” of all the prisoners left the hill of Montefusco and headed, in the sweet April sun, towards Naples. The desperate weeping of their women accompanied the unfortunate ones for a long stretch of that journey, which was without return for many. (De Pugna Doctorum, I, p. 533)

A strike of Irpinian harvesters punished with condemnation to the oars in 1574

The episode of the 50 poor Irpinian harvesters who, in 1574, dared to resort to the weapon of the strike in the Puglia countryside to obtain a higher salary, is recounted by Elisco Danza in his legal dissertation on fair wages. I would like to partly report it with S. Jesse’s words from Danza, translating from a delightful and smooth Latin. “Let’s assume,” Danza asks at a certain point, “that during the harvest or grape harvest season, there is no availability of labor and the few workers demand an excessive salary. Can the Authority intervene to moderate the workers’ demands, establish fair prices, and punish those who want more? I find that the case occurred in 1574 in Puglia, where many workers from our lands, as usual, had gone to harvest wheat. A great heat descended from the sky, truly unbearable. The harvesters, oppressed by that great heat, quickly agreed among themselves on the attitude to assume and, after putting down their sickles, withdrew to the shade of the few trees and said they would not work unless they received a higher salary. But the salary they demanded was so excessive that it perhaps exceeded the value of the wheat that everyone could harvest in a day. The massari of Puglia, considering that the great heat could ruin the crops if they were not immediately and diligently harvested, promised to give the workers what they had asked for. The reapers, rejoicing at the promise, took up their sickles again and, regardless of the heat, eagerly resumed their work. However, the overseers reported this trick of the reapers to the Viceroy Cardinal De Granuela. The viceroy, considering that the heat had been a pretext to extort the poor overseers of Puglia, moved by zeal, to repress the audacity of the reapers and to set an example, commanded that all the reapers be arrested, chained, and sentenced to the triremes (De Pugna Doctorum, vol. 1, p. 472).
After their arrest, the reapers, about fifty of them, almost all from the lands of Alta Irpinia, were locked up in the prison of Montefusco, where the current Mugnoz sentenced them to the oars. By order of the terrible Cardinal-Viceroy, the “chain” on its way to Naples was to stop in the main square of all the villages it passed through. One trumpeter, after making a great noise with his trumpet to call the people, had to loudly announce the reason why those poor devils had been sentenced.

The other sites of historical and cultural interest to visit in Montefusco!