Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/114

 in the way of the real amusement of the occasion.

At the part of the theatre furthest from the stage, in the place where in Continental theatres the royal box is situated, stands the altar, with the great green crucifix of the Inquisition erected on it, and a great display of flowers and wax candles. And on each side of this, are boxes for the musicians.

All these constructions are most superbly adorned with all sorts of upholstery—crimson velvet, blue velvet, cloth of gold, brocade, gold lace, and embroidery—in carefully graduated degrees of magnificence, from the plainer seats of the clerks and ushers, to the culmination of gorgeous splendour in the throne of the three Inquisitors. In the midst of all this glow of gold and colour, the box of the prisoners, and the high stage to which they are conducted one by one, are draped with black.

One portion of the edifice thus arranged has not yet been mentioned; but it must by no means be forgotten. Behind each of the various compartments or boxes—that for the Inquisitors, that for the senate, those for the religious corporations, those for the ladies—behind each of them, except indeed the dock of the prisoners, there were large and commodious apartments, in which elegant, and—as Canon Mongitore again and again specially assures us—abundant repasts were served. Thus, after all, the hours occupied in reading the sentences of the minor criminals were not altogether lost; for that was the time of which the gay assemblage of pleasure-seekers availed themselves, for enjoying the good things prepared for them.

Canon Mongitore is very particular in recording who paid for all the feasting. The different banquets, it seems, were provided by different persons. Of course, the Inquisition fed its own members. It also provided, in the most elegant and gallant manner, for one large party of ladies, invited by the wife of the noble selected for the high honour of carrying the great standard of the Inquisition on this occasion. The noble senate provided their own banquet. The viceroy feasted another large party of ladies. The monastic bodies were entertained: some at the cost of their own convents: some at that of the Inquisition.

The first procession on the evening of the 5th of April, came off very successfully: the rather as a great number of the first nobles of the country—all the jeunesse dorée of Palermo—had besought the Inquisition to allow them the signal honour of enrolling themselves among the "familiars" of the Holy Office for the great occasion. Canon Mongitore carefully records all their names. Colletta says that he will abstain from repeating them, because those who bore those names in his day would blush too painfully at the infamy of their progenitors.

This first procession, however, was much less interesting than that which was to take place on the morrow; for the culprits did not appear in it. The terrible green crucifix was carried through the city, and stood all night on the altar in the theatre. And all Palermo was on the tip-toe of suspense and expectation of the morrow.

From the earliest dawn the whole city was afoot, and crowded into the streets and squares through which the procession was to pass. At nine in the morning it began to issue from the palace of the Inquisition; the getting of it into order and the passage of it through the streets was a very long affair, for many thousands of persons took part in it. But the people waited with unwearying patience for the coming of the most interesting part of the show—the criminals. At last they made their appearance: first the penitents, dressed in black, with yellow mitres on their heads, walking one by one; last the two impenitent heretics who were to furnish forth the treat of the day. These last were dressed in garments saturated with pitch, and painted all over with flames. Their mitres were similarly saturated with pitch. On either side of each of them walked a learned theologian, who ceased not, as they walked, to ply them with the most learned arguments and the most pressing exhortations to confess their errors even at that eleventh hour.

Not that it is to be supposed that if either of the unhappy wretches had been frightened into a recantation, Palermo would have been on that occasion deprived of its expected treat; but it would have made all the difference as regarded the prospects of the prisoners after the Inquisition had done its worst upon them. The strenuous efforts made for the saving of their souls were considered quite a feature in the entertainment; and so actively and urgently did the priests on either hand of the prisoners exert themselves that they were completely knocked up before the procession had accomplished half its course, and their places were immediately supplied by two fresh divines, who continued their efforts. But, as Canon Mongitore says despairingly, "all this battering accomplished nothing!"

It was between eleven and twelve, when the different bodies who had taken part in the procession, found themselves arranged in their proper places in the theatre. Then the reverend Maestro Pietro Antonio Majorana ascended a pulpit prepared for the purpose, and pronounced a discourse in praise of the Inquisition, especially enlarging on its clemency and mercy, and on the iniquities and enormities of the prisoners condemned to the fire. Canon Mongitore reports this discourse at length.

Then began the reading of the sentences of the twenty-six minor criminals, and everybody made off in the direction of the viands. It was deemed necessary, it would seem, that one Inquisitor should remain in his place during this part of the business. So the Inquisitors took it by turns: two only at a time retiring, for, Canon Mongitore says, "the necessary support of the body."

It was between two and three, when the sentences of the penitent culprits were got through, and the feasted guests hastened back