NORCIA, ROME, THE PANTHEON, THE MURDERS: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CRIMINAL CASE REVISITED

Abstract

The present essay, the third in the series “The Norcia Historical Papers”, is devoted to an old, ominous saying that still lives in the local tradition of the city of Rome: «The 'norcino' ends up at the Pantheon» (in the original Roman dialect: «Er norcino finisce a la Rotonna»). Where does this strange proverb come from? What's the meaning of its almost indecipherable words? Actually we know from our previous monographic article belonging to the same series, “The 'Norcini' in Rome: six centuries of masterly presence” (2026), that since the late fifteenth century the 'Norcini' from Norcia had started to settle in Rome bringing with them their masterly skills in the art of butchery, soon turning into main players, together with the 'pizzicaroli', in the urban market of pork meat. And we also know that Piazza della Rotonda, in central Rome, is the charming square in which a magnificent monumental temple, the Pantheon, raises its illustrious giant columns and rounded dome. From those scant clues we will start a journey which will lead us in search of a blood-curdling narrative contained in a manuscript that once belonged to a most famous French writer, Henry Beyle, also known as Stendhal, who lived in Rome in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, not far from the Pantheon itself. The narrative contained in manuscript 'Italien 170', now preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, will bring us straight into a forgotten seventeenth-century criminal case: a story of horrible murders, committed during the year 1638 in Rome, just in front of the Pantheon; human flesh being mixed with pork meat, to make tasty, most-appreciated sausages; two butchers involved, whose appellative sounds familiar to our ears, two 'Norcini', a denomination which indicated that they originated from Norcia, the small town set in central Apennines. We will see the heinous crimes perpetrated by the two murderers; we will be searching for the people who had just vanished from downtown Rome; we will follow the investigations, the findings, the examinations and the excruciating torture sessions, until the unbelievable truth will begin to emerge before the amazed, horrified eyes of the authorities of the Papal States: a form of anthropophagy had been covertly introduced in the capital city of Christianity; cannibalism had nearly reached the dining table of the unaware Popes. And the punishment will be appalling: the two 'Norcini' will end up their earthly lives on a scaffold at Piazza della Rotonda, being publicly executed through the loathsome combination of three gory practices: hammering, slaughtering and dismembering, an abominable, spectacular show held publicly before men, women and children, a ghastly warning to all those who might possibly consider to commit a crime of the same kind. The present monographic paper retraces the whole story of the 'Norcini' at the Pantheon in full detail, with a thorough immersion in the fascinating ambiance of seventeenth-century Rome: a world made of palaces, ambassadors, cardinals, popes and high-rank administrative officials, but also of their cooks and errand boys, and then shopkeepers, waiters, coachmen, craftsmen, all living together in the same squares and streets and food markets of central Rome, in a colourful, animated setting. We will deal with manuscript 'Italien 170', the main source for this hair-raising story, the narrative that originated the saying concerning the 'Norcini' and their doom at the Piazza della Rotonda; but we will also confront with an additional source for the very same criminal case, a further manuscript retrieved by American historian Bradford Bouley at the Vatican Apostolic Library: this is Urb. Lat. 1647 which, for the first time ever, will be closely compared to 'Italien 170' looking for similarities and discrepancies, with a view to assess the degree of reliability and trustability of both accounts. The outcome of this fascinating journey into a ghastly criminal case occurred in Rome during the second quarter of the seventeenth century is that the story of the 'Norcini' and their luscious sausages prepared by mixing pork meat and human flesh is most probably true and based on real events that occurred, at the time, in the capital city of the Papal States. Further research will be needed to retrieve specific references to the common original source of both accounts, possibly to be retraced amid the large amounts of papers produced by the Tribunal of the Governor of Rome and the 'Arciconfraternita di San Giovanni Decollato', which was in charge for the management of those sentenced to death in the course of their final night and ultimate day on earth. This paper is a historical essay, but it is also an exciting, vertiginous plunge into a world that exists no more: a picturesque, magnificent world when the Pope was also a king.