X - The Excursion to Posillipo

Summary

Abstract

Masaniello’s swift decline begins. When someone complains toMasaniello that salt is selling, per weight, at not six but sevencarlini, he intervenes. He discovers that, at theexpense of the poor, the new Eletto del Popolo isfailing to assure the official prices on foodstuffs, which he has fixed.The chapter traces from the published and unpublished sources eventsboth at the palace and then up the coast at Posillipo. Masaniellobecomes less lucid; he begins to act erratically, lashing out againsthis own young followers. Why does this happen?

Keywords: trial, Posillipo, wine, poison, madness

Giraffi’s Lies

Certainly, Masaniello, despite the Duke of Arcos’s benevolent,accommodating stance, did not, as many seem to have expected, abandon hiscommand. When someone complained to him that salt was selling, per weight,at not six but seven carlini, Masaniello intervened. Withthe man in charge before him, he asked who gave this order. When the fellowreplied that it had been the Eletto del Popolo, Masaniellothreatened to have the Eletto’s head cut off. Thisis but one sign of how his relations with the Eletto andwith Genoino were no longer smooth. Nor were they as they had been with thecardinal. Giraffi casts light on this, recording actions injurious to friarsby some of the Capitan General’s followers, who hadgone in search of bandits:

He gave orders, under pain of death, that everyone must reveal where theowners of the burnt houses had stored their goods and money. As aresult, having had many tip-offs, he collected goods without number,even from the very churches and from the convents of men and women.Having learned that, that Sunday morning, four banished men had takenrefuge inside the Carminello church of the Jesuit fathers, he sent agreat crowd to surround the church and cloister. As the doors were wellshut, the besiegers pressed on with a number of pickaxes, until,piercing the wall, they entered and caught one, and swiftly cut off hishead, as they then did to the three others.