severest enemies acknowledge him to have possessed great vivacity and a quickness of parts peculiarly adapted to the purposes of ridicule, yet his warmest advocates have never attributed to him a single virtue. His generosity was profuseness, his wit malevolence, the gratification of his passions his sole aim through life.”[1] When we consider the alliance of Buckingham with the infamous Shaftesbury, we need hardly wonder that whilst in Paris he frequented the haunts of this terrible society, and was present at, nay, even participated in the Satanic mass and other of their horrible mysteries. At the house of La Voisin necromancy was continually practised, poisons were brewed, the liturgy of hell was celebrated, and it was undoubtedly the hub of every crime and every infamy. Other instances, and not a few, might be quoted from French history to show how intimately politics were connected with witchcraft. Here Madame de Montespan, aiming at the French throne, an ambition which involved the death of the Queen, Maria Theresa of Austria, at once resorts to black magic, and attempts to effect her purpose by the aid of those who were infamous as past adepts in this horrid craft.
Even in the Papal States themselves such abominations were not unknown, and in 1633 Rome was alarmed and confounded by an attempt upon the life of Urban VIII. It seems that some charlatan had announced to Giacinto Centini, nephew of the Cardinal d’Ascoli, that his uncle would succeed the reigning Pontiff in the Chair of S. Peter. The rash and foolish young man promptly attempted to hasten the event, and did not hesitate to resort to certain professors of occult arts to inquire when the next conclave would take place. He was so incredibly foolish that, far from attempting any subterfuge or disguise, he seems to have resorted to the houses of astrologers and other persons, who were already suspected of necromancy in the most open way, and further to have boasted among his intimates of the high honours which he expected his family would shortly enjoy. He first applied to one Fra Pietro, a Sicilian, who belonged to the Order of Augustinian Eremites. This occultist told him that the Cardinal d’Ascoli would be elected at the next conclave, but that the present Pope had many years to live. Upon seeing the young man’s bitter disappointment the cunning mage whispered that it was in his power to bring about the event much sooner than it would happen in the ordinary course of affairs. Needless to say, the proposition was taken up with alacrity, but it was necessary to employ the services of two other diviners, and they accordingly selected for the task Fra Cherubino of Ancona, a Franciscan, and Fra Domenico of the Eremite monastery of S. Agostino at Fermo. The friars then diligently set to work to carry out their murderous projects. A number of ceremonies and incantations were performed which entailed considerable expense, and for which it was needful to procure exotic herbs and drugs and rare instruments of goetry that could not readily be had without attracting considerable curiosity. It appeared, however, as if all their charms and spells, their demoniac eucharists and litanies, were quite ineffective, since Urban at sixty-five years of age remained perfectly hale and hearty and was indeed extraordinarily active in his pontificate. Young Centini became manifestly impatient and spurred the wizards on to greater efforts. It really seems as if, vexed beyond measure and goaded to exasperation by his importunities, they flung all caution to the winds, whilst he himself proclaimed so magnificently what he would do for his friends in a few weeks or months after he had assumed the authority of Papal nephew, that it was hardly a matter of surprise when the Holy Office suddenly descended upon the four accomplices and brought them to the bar. Amongst the many charges which were put forward was one of causing “a statue of wax to be made of Urban VIII, in order that its dissolution might ensure that of the Pope.” This in itself would have been sufficiently damning, but there were many other criminal accounts all tending to the same end, all proven up to the hilt. The result was that Centini, Fra Pietro, and Fra Cherubino were executed in the Campo di Fiore, on Sunday, 22 April, 1634, whilst Fra Domenico, who was less desperately involved, was relegated for life to the galleys.
These few instances I have dwelt upon
- ↑ “Biographia Dramatica,” Vol. I, p. 729.
