442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



As the seventeenth, century went on, the whole ingenuity of 

 the human mind in all parts of Europe seemed devoted to 

 new developments of fetichism. A very curious monument of 

 their further evolution in Italy is seen in the Royal Gallery of 

 Paintings at Naples : upon the walls hang several pictures repre- 

 senting the measures taken to save the city from the plague during 

 the seventeenth century, but especially from the plague of 1G56. 

 One enormous canvas gives a curious example of the theological 

 doctrine of intercession between man and his Maker, spun out to 

 its logical length : in the background is the plague-stricken city ; 

 in the foreground the people are praying to the city authorities 

 to avert the plague ; the city authorities are praying to the Car- 

 thusian monks ; the monks are praying to St. Martin, St. Bruno, 

 and St. Januarius ; these three saints in their turn are praying to 

 the Virgin ; the Virgin prays to Christ, and Christ prays to the 

 Almighty. Still another picture represents the people led by the 

 priests executing with horrible tortures the Jews, heretics, and 

 witches who were supposed to cause the pestilence of 1656, while 

 in the heavens the Virgin and St. Januarius are interceding 

 with Christ to sheathe his sword and stop the plague. 



In such an atmosphere of thought it is no wonder that the 

 death statistics are appalling. We hear of districts in which not 

 more than one in ten escaped, and some were entirely depopu- 

 lated. Such appeals to fetich against pestilence have continued 

 in Naples down to our own time, the great saving power being 

 the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. In 1856 the present 

 writer saw this miracle performed in the gorgeous chapel of the 

 saint, forming part of the Cathedral of Naples. The chapel was 

 filled with devout worshipers of every class, from the officials in 

 court dress, representing the Bourbon king, down to the lowest 

 lazzaroni. The reliquary of silver-gilt, shaped like a large human 

 head, and supposed to contain the skull of the saint, was first 

 placed upon the altar ; next, two vials containing a dark sub- 

 stance said to be his blood, having been taken from the wall, were 

 also placed upon the altar near the head. As the priests said 

 masses and repeated the creeds, they turned the vials from time 



and children put to death for witchcraft in Germany generally, for spreading storms and 

 pestilence, and for the monstrous doctrine of " excepted cases," see the standard authori- 

 ties on witchcraft, especially Waehter, Beitrage zur Geschichte des Strafrechts, Soldan, 

 Horst, Hauber, and others ; also Burr, as above. In another series of Chapters on the 

 Warfare of Humanity, I intend to go more fully into the subject. For the magic spread- 

 ing of the plague at Milan, see Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi, and Colonna Infame ; and for 

 the origin of the charges with all the details of the trial, see the Processo Originale degli 

 Untori, Milan, 1839, passim, but especially the large folding plate at the end, exhibiting the 

 tortures. For the after-history of the Column of Infamy, and for the placing of Beccaria's 

 book on the Index, see Cantu, Vita di Beccaria. For the magic spreading of the plague in 

 general, see Littre, pp. 492 and following. 



