The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-03-21 00:00:00

XASANIELLO AND VIE OUTBREAK OF HIS REBELLION

In May, 1647,a rebellion broke out in Palermo, amongst
the lower class of people, which the Viceroy, Don Pedro
Fajardo Marquis de Los Veles, was not in atondition to
resist. * * * The news of the disturbances in Sicily
reached Naples, when everything there was ripe for an
insurrection, which had for a long time been fermenting
and agitating men's minds. On all sides the threatening
indications increased. * * *
On the Market-place at Naples, the scene of so many
tragedies and so many disturbances, stood a miserable
cottage, with nothing to distinguish it from the others,
but the name and arms of Charles V., which were placed
on the front wall. Here a poor fisherman lived, Tommaso
Aniello, generally called by the abbreviated name of Masa-
-then°. His father, Francesco or Cicco, came from the
coast of Amalfi, and had married, in 1620, Antonia Oar-
gano, a Neapolitan woman. In the Vico Ilotto by the
great market, which is only inhabited by the poorest peo-
ple, and where the pestilence began in the year 1656, the
son was born who was destined to act so remarkable a part.
Tommaso Aniello was baptised in the parish church of
Santa Catherina in Foro, on the 20th June, 1620. On the
25th of April, 1641, he married Berardino, Pisa, a maiden
from the neighbourhood of that town. Their poverty was
so great that often Masaniello could not even follow up
his trade of a fisherman, but earned a scanty livelihood by
selling paper for the fish to be carried in. He was of the
middle height, well made and active; his brilliant dark
eyes and his sunburnt face contrasted singularly with his
long,
curly, fair hair, banging down his back. Thus his
cheerful, lively conversation agreed but little with his
grave countenance. His dress was that of a fisherman,
but as he is generally considered a remarkable person,
whatever may be thought of the part he performed, so he
understood, in spite of the meanness of his attire, by his
arrangement and choice of colours, to give it a peculiarity
that stamped it in the memory of his contemporaries.
The life of this remarkable man—a nine days' history—
dearly shows that he possessed wonderful presence of
mind, and a spirit that knew not fear.
It happened once, in the midst of the discontent which
was everywhere excited by the exorbitant increase of
taxation, that Masaniello's wife was detained by the
keepers of the gate whilst she was endeavouring to creep
into the town with a bundle of flour, done up in cloths to
look like a child in swaddling clothes. She was impri-
soned, and her husband, who loved her much, only suc-
ceeded in obtaining her liberation after eight days.
Almost the whole of his miserable goods went to pay the
fine which had been imposed upon her. Thus hatred was
smothering in the mind of Masaniello, and the flame was
still red when he, it is not known how, quarrelled with
the Duke of 3laddaloni's people, and was ill-used by them
in an unusual manner. Then the idea seemed to have
occurred to him to avenge himself by the hand of the
people. Many have related that instigators were not
wanting : Giulio Genuino is named, formerly the favourite
of the Duke of Ossuna, who, after he had encountered the
strangest fate, and after wearing the chain of a galley
slave at Oran, on the coast of Barbary, had returned an
aged man, in the habit of an ecclesiastic, to his native
country, meditating upon new intrigues, as the old ones
had failed ; also a captain of banditti and a lay brother of
the Carmine, who gave Masaniello money, were amongst
the conspirators. Perhaps all this was only an attempt
to explain the extraordinary fact. Thus much only is
known with certainty—that Masaniello sought to collect
a troop of boys and young people, who, amongst the nu-
merous vagrant population, thronged the market and its
neighbourhood from the adjacent districts, as whose leader
he intended to appear, as had often been done before, at
the feast of the Madonna of Cannel, which takes place in
the middle of July. At that festival it was the custom to
build a castle of wood and canvass in the middle of the
market-place, close to which was the church and convent
of the Carmelites, and this castle was besieged and de-
fended by troops of the people. The great mass of the
assailants was formed out of a band of lads of the lowest
class, about four hundred in number, who painted the
greatest part of their bodies and their faces black and
red ; their tattered clothes gave them an Oriental appear-
ance ; they were armed with sticks, and called the com-
pany of the Alarbes, perhaps an Arabian name. They
were drilled by Ilasaniello, and considered him their chief.
Thus the morning of July 7th, 1647, approached. It
was Sunday, and a number of fruitsellers, with carts and
donkeys, and full baskets, came into the
usual to t eat market.
wn very early
from Pozzuoli, and went ashiiir
Scarcely had they reached it, when the rspute began.
The question was not so much whether the tax was to be
paid, as who was to pay it.
A serious tumult is here described as ensuing,
but as it bears no particular relation to the after
course of events, beyond the fact that it served as
the starting point of the rebellion, and differs little
in its details from other popular outbreaks, we for-
bear from giving it in extenso, although it is
written with much spirit. The scenes of outrage,
pillage, and murder which followed the riot in the
market-place, crowded on each other in a ceaseless
stream of unmitigated horrors. Respect for age,
sex, or station was at once uprooted and destroyed,
violence reigned triumphant, nobles and their de-
pendants were swept before the sanguinary torrent,
and everything gave place to the insensate fury of
a lawless mob. Meantime, Illasaniello, strong in
the attachment of his ready followers, elated with
success, and relying
on the resources of his natu-
rally ardent temperament, added to his general
dexterity in the management of circumstances,
found himself in a condition to dictate_ terms to
those by whom he was formerly treated with con-
tumely, and regarded with contempt. Under the
excitement produced by so sudden an elevation,
his reason reeled, and speedily gave way. Intrigir
and treachery were e 'sted against him, and. in
the midst of his sudden and unexpected splendour
he was as suddenly engulphed in ruin ; his suc-
cesses being disfigured by the wild extravagances
of insanity, and his end accelerated by the barbarous
cruelty of hired assassins : a sad picture of the
vanity of human ambition, a miserable instance of
the mockery of popular dictation.
MASANIELLO'S ABUSE OP POWER.

The power of the Ltherman. of Amalfi waa at iti height;