The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

Early on the morning of July 9th, a more dreadful scene took place than on either of the earlier days. The destruction began at daybreak. All the property of the counsellor Antonio Miroballo, in the Borgo de' Vergini, was burning before his palace. Andrea Naclerio had caused the best furniture to be removed. The people traced it, destroyed it, dashed to pieces everything in the house and in the adjoining beautiful garden. At Alphonso Valenzano's everything that he possessed was ruined. In a place of concealment two small casks were found full of sequins, a box containing precious pearls, and a small packet of bills of exchange—it was all thrown into the fire. All the rich and noble persons who were concerned in the farming of tolls, as well as all members of the government, saw their houses demolished. Five palaces of the secretary-general of the kingdom, the Duke of Caivano, together with those of his sons, were burned. In one of them at Santa Chiara the valuable pictures which that noble, a lover of the fine arts, had collected, were destroyed—the carpets of silk-stuff interwoven with gold, the sumptuous silver vessels, and every sort of work of art, the worth of which was valued at more than fifty thousand ducats. The mob had already become so brutal that they stabbed the beautiful horses in their stalls and threw the lapdogs into the flames, while they trampled down the rare plants in the gardens and heaped up the trees for funeral piles. Above forty palaces and houses were consumed by the flames on this day, or were razed to the ground, while the unhappy possessors looked on from the forts and watchtowers of Castelnuovo upon the rapid conflagration, heard the threatening of the alarm-bells and drums, and the howlings of the unbridled populace, among which many thieves were pursuing their business and filling their pockets with plunder. News came out of the neighborhood that the peasants were rising on all sides, and that many beautiful castles belonging to illustrious noblemen were already in flames.

Stupefied by the uproar, by the advice of a hundred counsellors, by a two-days' insurrection, the Duke of Arcos did not nevertheless give up the attempt at a reconciliation. Certainly he risked nothing by it, for he had no other means in his power; but the hazard to the noblemen who delivered his messages was so much the greater. With great difficulty Montesarchio and Satriano escaped the rage of the populace. Six cavaliers were enclosed by barricades, and only regained their freedom by promising to obtain the transmission of their privileges. To oblige the Viceroy the Duke of Maddaloni rode once more into the market-place, carrying with him a manifesto according to which all the gabelles which had been introduced since the time of Charles V were abolished, and a general amnesty granted for the crimes already committed. Scarcely had Diomed Carafa read the paper when the tumult began again worse than before.

The bystanders screamed out that this was not what they wanted; he was deceiving them in concert with the Viceroy. In vain he sought to appease them. The tumult increased. Suddenly Masaniello sprang upon the Duke. It was said that he had once received blows instead of gold from one of his servants when he had sold fish at his palace. Perhaps it is only one of the many fables that are attached to the name of the fisherman of Amalfi. Amid wild imprecations he seized the reins of his horse, took hold of the knight by his belt and long hair, tore him from the saddle with the assistance of his followers, and caused his hands to be tightly bound together by a rope; then he delivered the prisoner to Domenico Perrone and his associate Bernardino Grasso, to be strictly guarded.

The last remnant of personal respect for the nobility which the populace had preserved on earlier occasions in the midst of all their disturbances, had now quite disappeared. The hand of Masaniello had torn asunder the tie of centuries of habit. The Viceroy was dreadfully shocked when he knew the danger into which Maddaloni had fallen for his sake. He sent the prior of the Johannites, Fra Gregorio Carafa, brother of the Prince of Roccella, and afterward grand master of Malta to try and obtain the freedom of the Duke. The sensible and placable words of the prior were as useless as his promises: the populace only answered him by screaming for the privileges of Charles V; for the privileges, in gold characters, which Giulio Genuino affirmed that he had seen. Gregorio Carafa felt himself in the same danger as Maddaloni, and returned to the castle without having accomplished anything; but the populace swore that they would allow no parliament which did not deliver up the document.