DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67375#0092
62
NAPLES AND ITS ENVIRONS.
the employ of the nobility. Toledo punished with death
those who broke into houses in the daytime by means of
ladders, and those found with arms upon their persons
from late evening until morning. In these matters he was
no respecter of persons; and one of the first to be executed
for entering by ladder was a young nobleman, Col’ Antonio
Brancaccio, who was simply bent on a love adventure.
The anger and disgust of the nobles, who found that the
viceroy showed them no favors, were equalled only by
the satisfaction of the people, when, for the first time, the
crime of a nobleman was estimated as equally reprehen-
sible with that of a peasant. In eighteen years 18,000
persons were hanged in Naples alone; and yet, when the
establishment of the Inquisition was attempted, Toledo
gave it as his opinion that even against that institution
itself false witnesses would be numerous. Alicarnasseo,
in his Life of Don Pedro de Toledo, says: “ On one occa-
sion, when the viceroy was in Siena, the Academy of the
Intronati made a feast for him, and he hesitated not to
say publicly, 41 had rather be a member of your academy
and be guided by such worthy women, than go to Naples
to annihilate a pack of robbers in order to keep the favor
of my sovereign.’ ”
The lawlessness of the time exposed the towns on the
Neapolitan coasts to great suffering. Turks, and other
barbarian pirates, roamed the Mediterranean and Adriatic
seas at will, while earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
added their horrors to the devastations of man. These
convulsions of nature destroyed Pozzuoli in 1538, after the
whole coast had been desolated by pirates. The towns on
the Bay of Gaeta were demolished. Ischia and Procida
were destroyed by fire; while on the coasts of Calabria and
Apulia, not only had the cities been plundered and deso-
lated, but great numbers of the people had been carried
into slavery.
NAPLES AND ITS ENVIRONS.
the employ of the nobility. Toledo punished with death
those who broke into houses in the daytime by means of
ladders, and those found with arms upon their persons
from late evening until morning. In these matters he was
no respecter of persons; and one of the first to be executed
for entering by ladder was a young nobleman, Col’ Antonio
Brancaccio, who was simply bent on a love adventure.
The anger and disgust of the nobles, who found that the
viceroy showed them no favors, were equalled only by
the satisfaction of the people, when, for the first time, the
crime of a nobleman was estimated as equally reprehen-
sible with that of a peasant. In eighteen years 18,000
persons were hanged in Naples alone; and yet, when the
establishment of the Inquisition was attempted, Toledo
gave it as his opinion that even against that institution
itself false witnesses would be numerous. Alicarnasseo,
in his Life of Don Pedro de Toledo, says: “ On one occa-
sion, when the viceroy was in Siena, the Academy of the
Intronati made a feast for him, and he hesitated not to
say publicly, 41 had rather be a member of your academy
and be guided by such worthy women, than go to Naples
to annihilate a pack of robbers in order to keep the favor
of my sovereign.’ ”
The lawlessness of the time exposed the towns on the
Neapolitan coasts to great suffering. Turks, and other
barbarian pirates, roamed the Mediterranean and Adriatic
seas at will, while earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
added their horrors to the devastations of man. These
convulsions of nature destroyed Pozzuoli in 1538, after the
whole coast had been desolated by pirates. The towns on
the Bay of Gaeta were demolished. Ischia and Procida
were destroyed by fire; while on the coasts of Calabria and
Apulia, not only had the cities been plundered and deso-
lated, but great numbers of the people had been carried
into slavery.