NARRATIVE

Crucifixion of Matthew Lovat,

EXECUTED BY HIS OWN HANDS,

ORIGINALLY COMMUNICATED TO THE PUBLIC BY

CESAR RUGGIERI, M. D.

Professor of Clynical Surgery at Venice, in a Letter to a Medical Friend.

NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH.

VOL. III.

Pam.

No. VI.

2 A

NARRATIVE, &c.

I KEEP my promise, my dear friend, and hereby transmit to you an account of the crucifixion, which Matthew Lovat executed upon his own person, on the morning of the 19th July, 1805. He was forty-six years of age when he committed this act of pious suicide. His father's name was Mark; and he himself was surnamed Casale, from the place of his birth, which was a hamlet belonging to the parish of Soldo, in the territory of Belluno.

Before entering upon the details of this strange act of insanity, I must mention some circumstances connected with the earlier part of his life, which will present to you a clear view of his condition and character, both physical and moral. Born of poor parents, employed in the coarsest and most laborious works of husbandry, and fixed to a place which removed him from almost all society, you may judge what was the nature of his education and habits. In these circumstances, it happened that his imagination was so forcibly smitten with the view of the easy and comfortable lives of the rector and his curate, who were the only persons in the whole parish exempted from the labors of the field, and who engrossed all the power and conse

quence, which the little world in which Matthew lived had presented to his eyes, that he was carried, by the principle of imitation, as some philosophers would express it, to make an effort to prepare himself for the priesthood. With this design, he placed himself under the tuition of the curate, who taught him to read and to write a little; but the poverty of his family rendering it quite impossible for him to follow his plan, he was obliged to renounce study for ever, and to betake himself to the trade of a shoemaker.

Disappointment in the choice of a profession, which would fix a man's destiny for life, has often revolted the soundest understandings, and not unfrequently produced the most fatal consequences; think then what a shock must have been inflicted upon the brain of poor Lovat, by this opposition to his wishes and defeat of his hopes. Hinc prima mali labes. Having become shoemaker of necessity, he never succeeded either as a neat or a powerful workman:-the ordinary fate of those who are employed contrary to their inclinations. The sedentary life, and the silence to which apprentices are condemned in the shops of their masters, formed in him the habit of meditation, and rendered him gloomy and taciturn. As his As his age increased; he became subject in the spring to giddiness in his head, and eruptions of a leprous appearance showed themselves on his face and hands. Shall I be allowed to entertain the suspicion that these evils were occasioned by leprosy. You know, my dear and learned friend, that these are the symptoms of that cruel malady, the existence of which, in several of our provinces, is but too well confirmed by the ravages which it has made in them, sensim sine sensu; and I observed, in fact, upon the person of whom I am now writing, while he was under my care, that his hands and feet were spotted with scales, which came off by friction in white mealy particles.

Until the month of July, 1802, Matthew Lovat did nothing extraordinary. His life was regular and uniform; his habits were simple, and conformable to his rank in society; nothing, in short, distinguished him but an extreme degree of devotion. He spoke on no other subject than the affairs of the church. Its festivals and fasts, with sermons, saints, &c., constituted the topics of his conversation. It was at this date, however, that, having shut himself up in his chamber, and making use of one of the tools belonging to his trade, he performed upon himself the most complete general amputation, and threw the parts of which he had deprived his person from his window into the street. It has never been precisely ascertained, what were the motives which induced him to this unnatural act. Some have supposed that he was impelled to it by the chagrin, with which he was seized upon finding his love rejected by a girl of whom he had become enamoured; but is it not more reasonable to think, considering the known character of the man, that his timid conscience, taking the alarm at some little stirrings of the flesh against the spirit, had carried him to the resolution of freeing himself at once and for ever of so formidable an enemy? However this may be, Lovat, in meditating the execution of this barbarous operation, had also thought of the means of cure. He had mashed and prepared certain herbs, which the inhabitants of his village deemed efficacious in stemming the flow of blood from wounds, and provided himself with rags of old linen, to make the application of his balsam; and what is surprising, these feeble means were attended with such success, that the cure was completed in a very short time, the patient neither experiencing any involuntary loss of urine, or any difficulty in voiding it.

It was not possible that a deed of this nature could remain concealed. The whole village resounded with the fame of

Matthew's exploit, and every body expressed astonishment at his speedy cure without the aid of a professional person. But he himself had not anticipated the species of celebrity which the knowledge of his expert operation was to procure for him; and not being able to withstand the bitter jokes which all the inhabitants of the village, and particularly the young people, heaped upon him, he kept himself shut up in his house, from which he did not venture to stir for some time, not even to go to mass. At length, on the 13th of November in the same year, he came to the resolution of going to Venice, to dwell with a younger brother, named Angelo, who was employed by the house of Palatini, gold-refiners, in Biri, in the street called Le Cordoni. He, having no accommodation for him, conducted Matthew to the house of a widow, the relict of Andrew Osgualda, who supplied him with a bed. She also lived in Biri, in the street called Le Vido, No. 5775. He lodged with this woman until the 21st of September in the following year, working assiduously at his trade, in the employment of a person near the Hospital, and without exhibiting any signs of madness. But on the above-mentioned day, having made an attempt to crucify himself, in the middle of the street called the Cross of Biri, upon a frame which he had constructed of the timber of his bed, the widow Osgualda dismissed him, lest he should perform any similar act of insanity in her apartments. On this occasion he was prevented from accomplishing his purpose by several people who came upon him just as he was driving the nail into his left foot. Being interrogated repeatedly as to the motive which had induced him to attempt self-crucifixion, he maintained an obstinate silence; or once only said to his bro ther, that that day was the festival of St. Matthew, and that he could give no farther explanation. Some days after this affair, he set out for his own country, where he remained a