ent which was set up in self-defence by certain
Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure
of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible
ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo
assaulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express
condition that all life and property should be spared; and how Lord
Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms that Ruffo himself had agreed to,
and overruling the Cardinal's protests, treated the unhappy prisoners. The
Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band of martyrs, for he suffered
death under circumstances of exceptional brutality on the morning of
August 20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of the Carmine,
together with two Neapolitans of noble rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro
Serra, and with the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by birth but
the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All went nobly to their doom amidst the
execrations of the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of _lazzaroni_, yelling at
and insulting the "Jacobins," and kept back with no little difficulty by
the royal troops from mutilating the corpses of women, bishops and
princes. Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his case the public
executioner--"Masto Donato" as he was nick-named by the populace--gave vent
to many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of his victim.
Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy depending from his neck, the
Bishop was led up to the fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of

"Viva la forca e Masto Donato;
Sant' Antonio sia priato!"

On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman made fast the rope to the
cross-tree, and then an assistant (_tirapiede_) from below adroitly pushed
the unseeing prisoner into space, catching on to his legs meanwhile,
whilst "Masto Donato" himself adroitly leaped from the gallows-top upon
the prelate's shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting aloud how
much he was enjoying his ride upon a real bishop, and with the other
ruffian clinging to his heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and
forwards amidst yells of execration and gratified hate on that hot August
morning in front of the Church of the Carmine little more than one hundred
years ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted by the mob
throughout the long sweltering day, and then, stripped of all its
clothing, was finally flung with other corpses of noble m