Giovanni Battista Bugatti (1779–1869) was the official
executioner
An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who executes a sentence of capital punishment on a legally condemned person.
Scope and job
The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorising or order ...
for the
Papal States
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
from 1796 to 1864. He was the longest-serving executioner in the States and was nicknamed Mastro Titta, a Roman corruption of ''maestro di giustizia'', or ''master of justice''.
[Allen, John L., Jr.]
He executed justice – papal execution Giovanni Battista Bugatti's life and work
(''National Catholic Reporter'', 14 September 2001). At the age of 85, he was retired by
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
with a monthly pension of 30
scudi
The ''scudo'' (pl. ''scudi'') was the name for a number of coins used in various states in the Italian peninsula until the 19th century. The name, like that of the French écu and the Spanish and Portuguese escudo, was derived from the Latin ''scu ...
.
Biography
Bugatti's career in charge of executions lasted 68 years and began when he was 17 years old, on 22 March 1796; and lasted until 1864. Up until 1810, the method of execution was beheading by axe, hanging or
mallet
A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. The term is descriptive of the overall size and proport ...
. The French introduced the use of the
guillotine
A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at th ...
, which was continued after the Papal States regained their sovereignty (the first Papal guillotining occurred in 1816) until the last executions. Over the 68 years he worked as official executioner, Bugatti carried out a total of 514 executions, an average of 7 per year (in his notebook, Bugatti noted 516 names of executed but two prisoners are subtracted, one because he was shot and the other because he was hanged and quartered by the adjutant).
Bugatti is described as being short and portly, and always well dressed. He frequented the church
Santa Maria in Traspontina
The Church of Santa Maria del Carmelo in Traspontina (Saint Mary of Carmel Across the Bridge) is a Roman Catholic titular church in Rome, run by the Carmelites. The bridge referred to is the Ponte Sant'Angelo. The church is on the Via della Conci ...
. He was married but had no children. When not carrying out his official duties, Bugatti and his wife sold painted umbrellas and other souvenirs to tourists. He referred to his executions as ''justices'' and the condemned as ''patients''.
He could not leave the
Trastevere
Trastevere () is the 13th ''rione'' of Rome: it is identified by the initials R. XIII and it is located within Municipio I. Its name comes from Latin ''trans Tiberim'', literally 'beyond the Tiber'.
Its coat of arms depicts a golden head of a lio ...
neighborhood unless on official business. Officially this was for his own protection, in case relatives of those he had executed decided to take revenge against him. Unofficially it was probably due to superstition regarding his part-time job. On his crossing the bridge, the residents of Rome were alerted that an execution was about to take place and people would gather to witness the popular event.
One of his executions, carried out on 8 March 1845, was described by
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
in his work ''
Pictures from Italy
''Pictures from Italy'' is a travelogue by Charles Dickens, written in 1846. The book reveals the concerns of its author as he presents, according to Kate Flint, the country "like a chaotic magic-lantern show, fascinated both by the spectacle it ...
'' (1846).
His
blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...
-stained clothes, axes and guillotines are on display at the Museum of Criminology at Via del Gonfalone in Rome. The guillotine is of a very peculiar build, with straight blade and V-shaped neck-piece.
The Church and the Death Penalty
The application of the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
within the Papal States (and beyond on the recommendation of