No one would sell him timber. Yet he had a sentence to carry out, and he had every intention of paying. The good people of Foligno did not necessarily dispute that Nicola Gentilucci ought to die; they merely refused to let the gallows be fashioned from their boards. It is with this vendor’s scruple that the fictionalised memoirs of Mastro Titta, published in 1891, open the executioner’s maiden assignment.
The scene belongs to the book, not to an official record. Its irony is formidable: a town accepts the verdict, yet every man finds cause to keep his hands well away from its execution. It falls to the young headsman himself to procure what justice requires. The chronicle thus portrays him breaking down the door of a storehouse by night to take what timber he needs. A theft inaugurates the labours destined to chastise a thief and a murderer. Public order at times has beginnings it prefers not to blazon upon its signboards.
As for Nicola Gentilucci, he lacked nothing in order to die. In the executioner’s ledger, his sentence rested upon a handful of crimes: the murder of a priest and of a coachman, followed by the robbery of two religious men. The date is the 22nd of March 1796, the place Foligno. The 1891 volume weaves about this single line a ceremonial of which the condemned man becomes the centrepiece, while his former existence retreats almost entirely behind the decree of the court.
The work assigns jealousy as the source of the initial murder. Gentilucci is said to have taken to flight thereafter, assailing the men of the cloth along the way. It recounts neither the inquest nor the trial hearings: the moment the narrative fastens upon him, society has finished putting questions to him. It now presents him with the answers he must hear, the prayers he must repeat, and the postures he must assume. For this man, the final night begins the moment his body becomes the object of a painstaking preparation.
He is shaved. He is provided with a clean shirt and a fresh pair of breeches. Then, his wrists bound, he is conducted into the great communal hall. The care bestowed upon his raiment promises him no new dawn; it serves merely to render him decent for the day he shall not see to its close. At the end of the hall, a crucifix has been set between hooded confrères. Other penitents stand in two facing ranks. The chamber is arrayed to receive a condemned man, as a church is prepared for a rite wherein every participant knows his station.
The officer charged with the formality tenders the paper notifying him of his imminent demise. Gentilucci lets it slip from his fingers. He reels; hands reach out to steady him. The administrative sentence had required but a few moments to read, yet it had drained the prisoner of whatever strength remained to keep him upright. The confessor and the comforters lead him into an adjoining chamber. He is laid upon a mattress directly on the stones.
Meanwhile, the headsman is at work. Four hours suffice, by his account, to erect the gallows and set the ladders. Having overcome the tradesmen’s refusal, he now disposes the positions of those who are to assist him. One man sleeps, or strives to sleep, within a hall; the other tests the timbers that must bear his weight. These preparations advance along separate paths, yet both are bound for the very same hour.
Before daybreak, Gentilucci is aroused. He attends Mass, makes his confession, and receives the consolations of religion. He is then served meat and drink. The narrative portrays him regaining some measure of strength. He will have need of it to walk, to mount the rungs, and to respond to the litanies: the solicitous care that surrounds him no longer seeks to preserve his life, but rather to enable him to sustain its end with proper decency.
Mastro Titta then appears. He removes his hat and offers the condemned man a coin intended for the celebration of a Mass for the repose of his soul. Then he covers his head once more and binds his arms. The sequence of actions leaves no interval for hesitation: courtesy, the offering, the cord. In these pages, the executioner possesses a professional conscience so absolute that it seems to supplant all others. He conducts himself with punctilious civility toward the man he is about to dispatch, and this civility does not slacken his work by a single instant.
The procession forms. The confraternities lead the way, succeeding one another in their chants. The Blue Penitents follow the Confraternity of Death; the White follow after, in the place of honour. Their voices alternate so that the chant may never falter. When one group falls silent, another resumes: the prisoner is spared even the desolation of silence between two prayers. The countenances concealed beneath the cowls lend this escort an impersonal majesty, while he alone must appear with his face bare. Magistrates and constables summoned from neighbouring districts partake in the solemnity. Gentilucci advances amidst the comforters; behind him, the executioner holds the cords. This is no longer the flight of a malefactor seeking a passage through the crowd. All men part to let him reach that ground from which no passage shall ever bring him back.
Before the scaffold, he is halted beside a small altar. A final prayer precedes the ascent. The executioner conducts him in such a manner as to screen the apparatus from his gaze as long as possible. There is, even in the rigour of the ceremonial, a desire to defer still further the sight of that which is already irrevocable. The assistants take their stations upon the ladders; the sacred words murmur on without pause. Gentilucci answers them unto the very end.
The hanging satisfies the first portion of the judgment. The body is then quartered and exposed. The novelist attributes to the young executioner a chilling satisfaction in his own dexterity; he likewise portrays the crowd admiring the fortitude of the condemned. Thus might the selfsame assembly find cause for approval both in the courage of the man slain and in the skill of his slayer. The ritual had apportioned the roles with sufficient artistry for every witness to discern therein some manner of virtue.
Gentilucci remains the first name upon the ledger. For him, that date closed every avenue of life; for Mastro Titta, it inaugurated a long career. The 1891 volume turns this contrast into a striking study of the craft: the condemned man has but a single final morning, whereas the headsman may look upon his own as a successful apprenticeship. In Foligno, the timbers served their purpose after all. Those who had refused to sell them did not prevent the gallows from rising; they merely succeeded in ensuring they never signed the receipt.