At dawn on May 5th, 1903, the 29-year-old Sicilian sailor Giacomo D'Angelo was found dying in his cell in Regina Coeli prison in Rome, Italy, after having being immobilized for over two days with a straightjacket. His death was the occasion for a strong press campaign and popular mobilization conducted by socialists, republicans, radicals and anarchists, opposing violence against prisoners.
Private
life
Giacomo D'Angelo was born on August 20th, 1874 in Castellammare del Golfo
(province of Trapani, Sicily) to Epifanio and Antonina Curatolo,
in their home in via Re Federico. He had two brothers, Salvatore
and Leonardo (nicknamed Nardo), sailors like him and like their
father Epifanio, who later was a wine merchant, and three sisters,
Rosa (nicknamed Rosina), Giuseppina (nicknamed Beppina) and Francesca,
this latter was single. Despite being a resident of Castellammare,
at the time of the events that caused his death Giacomo lived
with his parents and his sister Francesca in Rome, in Trastevere
district in via dei Vascellari, 41, on the first floor, and was
celibate. The socialist newspaper Avanti! published a portrait of
him and described him as of medium height, burly, brown-haired
with mustache. Il Messaggero added that the sailor had
a nice face. According to the register of the Regina Coeli prison,
Giacomo had black hair, an oval face, with a mole on his face
as a distinguishing mark, correct nose and mouth, round chin,
weight 68 kg; he was destitute and Catholic.
Giacomo had enlisted in the Navy, being discharged on February
10th, 1899.
The sailing
The two-masted schooner Rosalia Emilia Galante, 20.70 meters (69
ft) long with a tonnage of 50 tons, owned by Pietro Galante, usually
hauled wine from Sicily to Rome, bringing back calcium
carbide for acetylene lighting from Rome to Gallipoli. The
ship raised anchor on April 19th, 1903 with a cargo of wine from
Gallipoli, a port in the province of Lecce, having aboard the
captain Antonio Oliva, 34, also from Castellammare del Golfo,
the boatswain Giuseppe Gioia, three crewmen, including Giuseppe
Oliva, aged 17, and Giacomo D'Angelo, and a ship's boy. Between
D'Angelo and the boatswain, distant relatives, there was some
rancour, and the latter had recently been sentenced by Reggio
Calabria port commander to pay a ten liras fine for slapping Giacomo,
who had offered to pay the fine, just to make peace. D'Angelo
was on board the Rosalia from early December 1902.
The ship docked on April 27th in Rome, in the river port of
Ripa Grande, then on the 28th
she set sail again going down the Tiber to Fiumicino
where she moored on April 29th.
The capture
Giacomo disembarked, and went immediately to Rome, but, upon returning
on board, Captain Oliva, who still knew him from childhood, informed
him of his layoff, motivated by the alleged frequent drunkenness,
and announced that he had hired another sailor. It should be noted
that during the trial Oliva said that when D'Angelo was not drunk
he worked well, and in any case he drank from time to time. Following
violent discussions with Oliva, apparently with further beatings
suffered by Giacomo, the captain appealed to the port authority
and D'Angelo was taken to the carabinieri police station of Fiumicino,
and then released, lacking any charges against him.
During the day Giacomo came back to the ship and argued again
with the captain, claiming that by contract he could only be fired
upon returning to Castellammare, he was again arrested by the
carabinieri, to whom Oliva falsely denounced him as an anarchist,
he spent the night in the security cell, and the following day,
April 30th, he was transferred to Rome.
During the transfer to Rome, according to Il
Messaggero of May 9th, D'Angelo, once he understood
that he was bound for prison, said to the police brigadier Ignazio
Romenati, who was escorting him: "After they beat me,
they also send me to prison", explaining that he was
beaten by "those over there in Fiumicino".
D'Angelo had a clean record, but when he was presented at 11:30
to a police commissioner at the central police station, this had
him detained and taken to the Regina Cœli prison for a misunderstanding
about his identity and his criminal record: actually, a person
with his same name, unrelated, seven years younger, had been tried
for theft in 1897.
D'Angelo arrived in Regina Coeli at 12:20 PM on April 30th,
at the disposal of the police headquarters, and in the prison
register there is an account of a provision of May 3rd
to make him available to the Carabinieri for his repatriation
to Castellammare del Golfo, and as a reason for the arrest "measure"
is reported. During the trial for his death, the head of the guard
Giovan Battista Arrighini declared that D'Angelo was in Regina
Coeli "for public security measures".
On the same days, the official visits of Emperor Wilhelm
II of Prussia and king Edward VII
of the United Kingdom were underway in Rome, as well as the
May 1st Labor Day celebrations, and the
three events, as usually happened in these cases, generated arbitrary
arrests of opponents, seen as potential demonstrators and protesters.
The death
D'Angelo was held in prison without any charge, and reacted to
the unfair detention by going into a rage and breaking a window
pane in a communal cell, perhaps attempting to draw attention.
He was then locked up alone in cell 29, located under the infirmary.
In the night between 2nd and 3rd May, an underchief guard, «in
order to prevent the prisoner from causing harm to himself»,
had him locked up in a special cell, number 119, in the "mentally
disturbed" ward, where he had the straitjacket and short
irons applied, which blocked his feet. The undersecretary of the
Interior Ronchetti, answering a question to the Chamber, said
that "because of his rage, and because of his disjointed
speech, it was believed that he was almost delirious".
According to the reconstruction of the court of Rome, quoted by
Da Passano: "the shirt was put on him by guard Landi,
who claims to have blocked his arms with two strips of cloth tied
respectively to the side bars of the cot and to have applied to
the feet of the patient two leather knee-high shoes, also secured
to the cot bars with strings. Later guard Sopranzi, who has direct
surveillance during the day on the middle row, replaced the leather
knee-high shoes with a cloth band, and a similar band was applied
at the knees and secured like the others to the cot side bars.
During the investigation it was also mentioned the existence of
a band that would have surrounded D'Angelo's chest and whose ends
would have been tied to the upper bar of the cot. This was constantly
denied by guards Sopranzi and Orlando, by doctor Ponzi, and it
was also denied in their first deposition by the inmates Albani
and Mattei, who frequented the cell n. 29 on day 3rd,
the existence of that band was then instead affirmed by them in
the continuation of the investigation and in the public hearing".
D'Angelo was thus immobilized for more than two days, during which
he was visited twice by the prison doctor Ponzi, who, again according
to the reconstruction of the court of Rome, quoted by Da Passano:
"found the straitjacket correctly applied, wrote his approval
on the register intended for this purpose by director Kustermann
and asked guard Sopranzi for information on the state of the patient
(…), who assured him that D'Angelo had eaten. He gave no
special prescriptions, but recommended surveillance".
On the last night, that between 4th and 5th May, D'Angelo screamed for hours,
among other things he shouted to let him go back on board, and
according to inmate Mattei he also shouted "Don't kill
me, let me go" (Il Messaggero, 13 November 1903). Giacomo tried to wiggle out,
so much so that he even raised the cot fixed to the wall, but
then the screams faded away and stopped altogether. At 6:30 am
on May 5th, guard Sopranzi and inmate Albani
entered the cell for the morning cleaning, and found D'Angelo
dying, at 7:15; Dr. Persichetti was called, but despite the rescue,
the sailor died at 7:30 in the prison infirmary.
Giacomo was buried on May 6th in the Rome's cemetery of Campo Verano in the new ward at the end
of the cemetery, section 13, row 17, pair 8, but was later transferred
to the communal ossuary.
The straightjacket
In 1894 a chronicler described the straightjacket
applied permanently in French prisons to Sante
Caserio, the Milanese anarchist who killed the French president
of the Republic Marie François
Sadi Carnot, before being guillotined: "a wide leather
belt tightens his waist, and from the middle of the belt an upper
strap begins, a kind of noose, which forces the head to tilt forward.
On the two hips two very short bracelets protrude from the belt,
which force the hands against the thighs. Finally, the upper shoulder
strap is extended by a strap that reaches the instep"
(Ansaldo).
The murder
comes to the surface
For four days the news of D'Angelo's death was not disclosed,
but on May 9th «Il Messaggero»
and on May 10th «Il Giornale d’Italia»
and «Avanti!» published very harsh articles,
in which they reported the death, denouncing the responsibilities
of the jailers. In particular, the Socialist
newspaper headlined from the beginning "A new Frezzi
case? The strangled prisoner in Regina Cœli", referring
to the case of Romeo Frezzi, the socialist
carpenter from Jesi who was killed on May 2nd,
1897 in the Rome's prison of San Michele
a Ripa (see my page about him).
The socialist newspaper published some bruising cartoons by Gabriele Galantara about the murder (on
May
12th, May 13th and May 18th, signed with the anagram "Rata
Langa") and heavily attacked the Minister of the Interior
Giovanni Giolitti, both for the long-standing
question of arbitrary arrests, both for violence against prisoners,
and in particular on the use of the straitjacket. A strong criticism
concerned the attempts to bury the investigation to cover direct
responsibility in the episode.
.The family
Giacomo's father, Epifanio, aged fifty-seven, was on board at
the time of his son's death, bound for Cagliari for a load of
wine, while his mother Antonina, who on April 28th
had accompanied Giacomo to embark in Ripa Grande, on May 1st
had accidentally bumped into Captain Oliva at Ripa Grande. Asked
for news of her son, Oliva replied haughtily: "he wanted
at all costs to remain forcefully on my ship, so I had him arrested".
After days of searching in the police stations and at the police
headquarter, the woman had heard that her son was in Regina Coeli.
Antonina waited in that prison from 8:00 AM of May 5th
(half an hour after the death of her son), until 4:00 PM, to be
received by someone, until they told her that Giacomo was seriously
ill, due to a brain hemorrhage and that therefore she could not
visit him. Finally they told her that her son was dead, and hearing
the news Antonina had a nervous breakdown, such as to make it
seem that she had lost her reason (Il Messaggero, 10 and 11 May
1903).
The prosecutor Agostino Squarcetti also questioned Antonina, to
ask her for detailed information on the health of her son. During
the interrogation, Giacomo's clothes, the sheets of his bed and
the straitjacket lay on a table. At first Antonina did not identify
this latter garment, but once she understood what it was, thanks
to her son Leonardo, she expressed all her disgust and horror,
while she clung against her breast and kissed Giacomo's personal
clothes (Il
Giornale d'Italia, 11 May 1903).
Giacomo's parents took part in the trial, where they were questioned
as witnesses, brothers and sisters of the sailor were also present
in the courtroom.
Early
inquiries
Prison doctors filed a complaint about this sudden death with
no apparent justification. The king's prosecutor's office opened
an investigation, entrusted to prosecutor Agostino Squarcetti,
who carried out an inspection on the body and ordered its transport
to the mortuary of Campo Verano cemetery, where doctors Amante
and Impallomeni carried out the autopsy, verifying the death by
asphyxiation, and noting that D'Angelo had a healthy and very
robust constitution and that "the deceased had not taken
any food for several days". The corpse had a long bruise
on the front of the neck, an indication of strangulation asphyxia,
and other bruises on the arms and legs and in various parts of
the body, not a cause of death, but a sign of previous beatings.
On May 16th, attorney Squarcetti, with the
five medical experts and the clerk of the court, ordered the exhumation
of the corpse from burial to take it to the dissection room, where
they remained until the afternoon (Il Giornale d'Italia, 17 May
1903).
The prison doctor, Pietro Ponzi, in an interview with «Il
Messaggero», said he did not believe in a death of hunger,
but hypothesized a death «for cerebral congestion»
following beating on the ship (Il Messaggero, 11 May 1903). («Avanti!»
commented sarcastically: «Frezzi's aneurysm!»,
alluding to the first of the false justifications given by the
police headquarters for the murder in prison of Romeo Frezzi).
Dr. Ponzi washed his hand explaining that he had given instructions
on D'Angelo's nutrition and surveillance, but that he could not
be sure that his orders had been carried out, and in any case
he admitted frequent use of the straitjacket, which from September
to the beginning May had been used two hundred times.
Attorney Squarcetti, together with the clerk of the court Lucchesi
and the experts Amante and Impallomeni went to Regina Coeli prison,
where they asked the inmate Ettore Albani wear a straitjacket.
Albani was similar in build to D'Angelo, and reported that he
could perform lateral motions and bend his body, but in doing
so the neck edge of the waistcoat rose up the neck, tightening
it and risking strangulation. Albani declared a sensation of discomfort,
a weight on the abdomen of the upper limbs and a sensation of
heat and pressure of the body, and in particular on the neck,
tolerable for a short time, but perhaps not for a long time (Il Giornale d'Italia,
13 May 1903, 11 November 1903).
The prison doctor Dr. Ponzi was questioned several times by both
attorney Squarcetti and cavalier Cardosa, and in the report sent
to the judicial authority he declared that D'Angelo's death was
due to frication produced by the strips of the straitjacket (Il Giornale d'Italia,
11 May 1903).
The annoyed
mafioso
According to «Il Messaggero», after the first night
of detention of Giacomo D'Angelo, his cell neighbor, the former
member of parliament Raffaele
Palizzolo, one of the first parliamentarians convicted of
mafia (but later acquitted in the Supreme Court), and in particular
as instigator of the assassination of Marquis Emanuele
Notarbartolo di San Giovanni, had complained to the guard
Stanislao Davidde that he had not been able to rest due to D'Angelo's
laments. The guard would have replied with a wink: "You
are right, honorable; but the fault lies with that dumbass of
my colleague who occasionally lets himself be persuaded to give
him water. With a wet throat, of course he screams. But I am not
such a dumbass; starting from today I won't give him to drink
anymore and tonight, with a dry throat, no way for him to scream.
Don't worry, honorable, you will sleep peacefully" (Da Passano).
The member of parliament Palizzolo was cited as a witness in defense
of Davidde's defense, but he made it known that he could not go
to Rome (Il
Messaggero, 10 November 1903),
being on trial in Florence at the same time as the D'Angelo trial.
In his testimony, collected by letter rogatory on November 20th,
Palazzolo substantially confirmed the facts (Il Giornale d'Italia, 21 November
1903).
It seems that on D'Angelo's last night a guard, annoyed by the
yells of the sailor «who hadn't eaten for three days»,
further tightened the straps of his straitjacket and then fell
asleep; according to «Il Messaggero» of 15th
and 16th May, the same guard also put
a wet rag in his mouth to prevent him from screaming.
According to «Il Giornale d’Italia»,
one of the guardians put a gag on D'Angelo to prevent him from
screaming, but since Giacomo was still making sounds, the gag
was pushed into his mouth, suffocating him (Il Giornale d'Italia, 14 May
1903). The same newspaper,
the following day, so describes the gag: "This horrible
torture instrument is applied to the mouth of the prisoners, when
they appear agitated and emit continuous shouts; it is made by
a large band of grayish canvas at the ends of which two laces
are placed. In the center of the band, that is in the point that
is in contact with the mouth, there is a sort of cloth swab, which
enters the mouth itself and suffocates any cry. The band furthermore
has an opening for the nose and another perpendicular cord that
is pulled on the forehead and is tied back to the inmate's neck
with the other two laces" (Il Giornale d'Italia, 15 May
1903).
Administrative
inquiries
In addition to the investigation opened by the prosecutor, two
administrative inquiries were also opened, one ordered by the
Minister of the Interior Giovanni Giolitti and entrusted personally
to Cavalier Alessandro Cardosa, director of the prison administration
department and former director of the Carceri Nuove Prisons in
Rome, which led to arrest for disciplinary reasons of three prison
guards and three sub-chiefs of Regina Coeli. The other investigation
was ordered by the general directorate of prisons.
The accountant Attilio Mazzotti and the bookkeeper Alfredo Cardoni,
in charge of the surveillance shift in the last two days of D'Angelo's
life, were transferred respectively to Alghero and Paliano jails
(Il
Giornale d'Italia, 15 May 1903).
The director of Regina Cœli, Enrico Kustermann, in office
for four years after having been in Volterra and Civitavecchia,
was transferred to Catania, arousing protests from the Sicilian
press, which considered it outrageous that Sicily was the destination
of a transfer for punishment. The socialists also protested, recalling
the humane treatment practiced by Kustermann in the Volterra prison
to Giuseppe de Felice Giuffrida,
leader of the Sicilian Fasci riot (Avanti!, 12 May 1903), and considered his presence
indispensable for the investigations. Il Messaggero defined
Kustermann as "honest, good, but weak, who had the very
serious wrong of letting himself be dragged by the environment
and allowing, tolerating that the prison discipline, already very
rigid in itself, was made more cruel and was left to sub-chiefs
and guardians of capriciously increasing its harshness; while,
on the other hand, the discipline was relaxed in the relations
towards the sub-chiefs and the guardians who used to go for a
walk, or to sleep, in the hours in which they had to be on guard
and watch, especially on the so-called "mentally disturbed",
many of whom were not disturbed at all" (Il Messaggero,
14 May 1903).
Kustermann was temporarily replaced by cavalier Vitolo, coming
from Gaeta jail, and previously Deputy Director of Regina Coeli
jail (Il
Giornale d'Italia, 12 May 1903),
and after few days by cavalier Giuseppe Auger, previously in Lucca
and then in Oneglia (Il
Giornale d'Italia, 16 May 1903).
Avanti! published on the front page an interview by Italo
Carlo Falbo with Enrico Morselli, in
which «the distinguished psychiatrist and alienist»,
while not pronouncing himself on the specific episode and admitting
the use of the straitjacket (but only «in extreme cases»,
under the complete responsibility of the doctor and if properly
and appropriately applied), states that «one can be rightly
rigorous, without turning into real torturers».
The protest
From the beginning both Avanti! and Il Messaggero
defined the case as the new Frezzi affair and on Avanti! on
May 15th a comment
appeared on the fight of the Bulgarians for their liberation from
Turkish domination, in which the Turkish torturers were compared
to those of Regina Coeli.
A Commission against arbitrary arrests was created (Il Messaggero,
14 May 1903), and
the Rome section of the Republican Party called a large popular
demonstration, as had already happened in the Frezzi case, which
took place on May 21st, with a concentration at 3:30
PM in Campo dei Fiori "against
the unqualifiable infamies that are consumed with impunity in
the impenetrable silence of our prisons", with the intention
of not wanting to "restrict the protest to the 4 or 5
torturers who assassinated Giacomo D'Angelo but broaden it to
the barbarism of the systems".
The demonstration poster read: "Citizens, another mysterious
death has come to cast a sinister light into the gloomy and silent
darkness of our prison environment: it is a frightening symptom,
a sudden revelation of a hidden and dense series of pains and
tears.
A young, innocent existence was broken off, a man was turned
off, because the silent isolation of the cell and the torturing
thought of unjustified detention had stirred his poor brain. Moral
anguish was calmed and overcome with a straitjacket and a gag.
Let you prove that the heart of Rome has pulses of pity and sympathy
for those who suffered pains and torments during three days, like
those who killed Giacomo D'Angelo. Let you prove that human life
is sacred to you, and must be protected not only from the nocturnal
and rare aggressions of thugs, but also from the articles of regulations
more suitable for governing menageries than for disciplining multitudes
of men. Let you prove how that personal freedom is the common
heritage of all citizens, and does not suffer restrictions to
the detriment of those which are inflamed by heterodox political
ideals".
The demonstration was joined by the Chamber of Labor and dozens
of workers' leagues, the Democratic Union, radicals, socialists,
republicans and anarchists.
A biography with a portrait of Giacomo D'Angelo was on sale in
the square, itinerant florists were selling bouquets of red carnations,
and leaflets from various organizations were distributed. The
demonstration passed without flags and without music, in silence,
only with wreaths of fresh flowers of the various movements, and
their local articulations, including a three-meter high, one of
the Roman Socialist Union, studded with red flowers. The Socialists
wore a red carnation in their buttonhole. 50,000 people took part
according to «Avanti!», 15-16,000 according to «Il
Messaggero», among them Giacomo's father, Epifanio,
his brother Salvatore and several members of Parliament.
The demonstration, controlled by almost 2,700 carabinieri and
policemen, reached piazza Guglielmo
Pepe, where Libero Merlino
spoke for the anarchists, and other speakers were the republican
member of parliament Italo Pozzato,
the lawyer Ernesto Orrei for the radicals, Enrico
Ferri for the socialists and the anarchist Pietro
Calcagno "repeatedly buried in Regina Cœli arbitrarily".
The march ended at Verano cemetery «to lay flowers on
the grave of Giacomo D'Angelo».
A commemoration of D'Angelo was also held in Castellammare del
Golfo, organized by the socialists, with the lawyer Gaspare Nicotri.
Other protests «against the prison system and against
the murder of the sailor D'Angelo» were organized by
the local branches of the Socialist Party, from Galluzzo (hamlet
of Florence) to Bologna, from Rome to Tivoli, from Livorno to
Certaldo, from Florence to Genoa, from Naples to Sanremo, to Vittoria.
In dealing with the story of Giacomo D'Angelo, Avanti! of May
16th brought to light other deaths in prison,
the one that occurred in the second half of April in the Abbadia
prison in Sulmona, Abruzzo, of the inmate Giovanni Disancarlo,
also killed by the straitjacket, and the one that occurred in
Ancona in early August 1901, in Santa Palazia prison, of the porter
Ezio Pierani.
The Parliament
The parliamentary debate began a few days after the disclosure
of the news on D'Angelo's death. In the May 16th
session, the undersecretary of the interior Scipione
Ronchetti (Minister Giolitti did not appear) answered the
questions of the socialist members of parliament Filippo
Turati and Leonida Bissolati.
Turati replied by openly accusing the prison managers of kidnapping,
since D'Angelo was detained without being accused of any crime,
and of violence against the prisoners. A parliamentary inquiry
followed by the republican members of parliament Salvatore
Barzilai and Ettore Socci, presented
by MP Socci as Barzilai in the meantime had become civil defendant
for the D'Angelo family, and those of the conservative Felice
Santini, and of the socialist Alfredo
Bertesi, on the death of Giacomo D'Angelo.
The government refused to institute a parliamentary inquiry into
prisons, requested by various deputies, especially socialists,
and did not consider it urgent to abolish the use of the straitjacket
in prisons.
Turati again commented on March 18th, 1904 in the Chamber of Deputies:
"from time to time, some bloody case, the episode of a
Frezzi, or a D'Angelo, opens a breach, projects a sinister ray
into the darkness of the issue of the dead in our Country. Then
public opinion rises for a moment, some members of Parliament
ask questions, the Minister of the Interior replies that he will
arrange it, and the graves are hermetically sealed again until
some new tragedy unseals them" .
The trial
On 7th November, before the sixth section
of the Court of Rome at the Court of Assizes, at the oratorio
dei Filippini, in Piazza della Chiesa Nuova the trial began
against the doctor Pietro Ponzi, the former director Enrico Kustermann,
head guard Giovan Battista Arrighini, sub-chiefs Ettore Mazzocca
and Pietro Angelelli, and guards Marsilio Cervellini, Stanislao
Davidde, Zeffirino Sopranzi, Emanuele Morales and Leonardo Orlando,
accused of manslaughter.
The president was Giuseppe Bianchi, the judges were Bonello and
Formica, substitute judge Lawyer Ciavola, public prosecutor Francesco
Puija, clerk of the court Marcello Ferrari.
Doctor Ponzi, during his interrogation, said that he found D'Angelo
"in normal conditions, like the other inmates to whom
the straitjacket was applied", he added that he visited
him twice, on May 3rd and 4th, and that he did not detect signs
of illness (Il
Messaggero, 10 November 1903).
Former director Kustermann, Dr. Ponzi and various guards explained
that only inmates on whom the straitjacket had been imposed as
punishment were untied for meals and to use the toilet, while
those that were tied as "agitated", like D'Angelo,
were never released. D'Angelo had to wear a waistcoate with the
arms folded over the abdomen, laterally secured with straps to
the cot bars to prevent it from moving. The straitjacket applied
to the punished had buckles on the back and allowed them to stand
up (Da
Passano).
The prosecutor Puija in his indictment asked for acquittal for
not having committed the crime for Kustermann, Arrighini, Angelelli,
Morales, Marzocca and Orlando, acquittal for unproven crime for
Davidde, one year of detention and one thousand liras fine for
Dr. Ponzi and guard Sopranzi, since D'Angelo's death was due to
the application of the straitjacket, the lack of medical care
and the lack of assistance (Da Passano).
On 1st December the court issued the
sentence, acquitting the defendants «for the non-existence
of the crime ascribed to them»: according to the court,
the same legal opinion, characterized by doubts and uncertainties,
maintains that D'Angelo must have been suffering from acute delirium,
«a cerebro-psychopathy (...) determined on a background
of nervous weakness, presumably congenital, and made even more
susceptible by the action of alcohol, by the setbacks recently
suffered by D'Angelo». The immediate cause of death
must be identified in the «collapse as natural and normal
outcome of acute delirium,» «in a therefore
natural event», while the other presumed unintentional
concurrent causes (the straitjacket, fasting, hygienic conditions,
lack of assistance) could however have caused a damage and therefore
be punished as unintentional personal injury, but the examination
of the individual specific responsibilities of the accused leads
to exclude this hypothesis as well (Da Passano).
The socialist newspaper Avanti! at the time of the trial
practically stopped covering the D'Angelo affair, limiting itself
to publishing a few daily update lines, together with other judicial
chronicles, under the heading "Among the inner workings
of ... justice" (Da Passano).
The «Rivista di discipline carcerarie» ("Journal
of prison learnings"), a direct expression of Alessandro
Doria, the almighty director general of prisons and a right-hand
man of Giolitti, published the text of the acquittal, commenting
with great satisfaction what he judged a victory for the prison
staff, unjustly accused, which however never in the past had they
committed the crime of homicide (sic), not even unintentional,
since "the staff themselves also lack the ability to commit
a crime" (Da Passano).
The «Rivista penale» ("Criminal Journal")
instead commented bitterly that the D'Angelo case had ended in
nothing like the Frezzi case, with the only difference that it
had reached the trial rather than concluded it in the preliminary
investigation, and that the only culprit was the "medievality
of the rules" (Da Passano)..
Il Messaggero of December 3rd commented that for the judges
it was fate for D'Angelo to die and so it happened, therefore
it was possible to pass over all the evidence and testimonies
and the overturning of the opinions of the experts. The newspaper
reports that Giacomo's father, having heard the sentence, put
his hands to his face exclaiming "My poor son!".
The old sailor could now only "hide his excruciating pain
among the waves of the Ocean, instead of appearing before the
judges to ask for revenge for the death of his son".
Royal decree no. 484 of November 14th, 1903 abolished the straitjacket
and other means of restraint except the seat belt, which however
continued to be used, sometimes with other names.
Similarities
Giacomo D'Angelo died while he was in the custody of the police,
as had happened in 1895 to the anarchist worker Costantino Quaglieri
(see my page on him),
in 1897 to the socialist carpenter Romeo
Frezzi (see my page on him),
in 1901 to the regicidal anarchist weaver Gaetano
Bresci (see my page on him),
and as it will happen in 1930 to the young Calabrian communist
Rocco Pugliese (see my
page on him), and to the
anarchist railwayman Giuseppe Pinelli,
thrown from a window of the Milan police headquarters on December
16th, 1969.
Memory
Giacomo D'Angelo was not a political militant, so no political
groups or party headquarters were named after him.
In 2005, Professor Mario Da Passano
(1946-2005), dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the
University of Sassari, published «Il Delitto di Regina
Cœli», republished
in May 2012 by Il Maestrale.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ANSALDO
Giovanni (2010) Gli anarchici della Belle Époque. Le
Lettere, Firenze. p. 49
AdS - Archivio di Stato di Roma - succursale di via Galla
Placidia - Fondo "Carceri giudiziarie di Roma (1870-1920)".
BADON Cristina (2018) Gli anarchici romani nella crisi di fine
XIX secolo: una storia da riscoprire. Storia e Futuro, Issue
48, December 2018. link
CAMERA DEI DEPUTATI (1903) Atti Parlamentari - Legislatura XXI
— 2a Sessione — Discussioni — CXCVI Session of
16 May 1903
CAMERA DEI DEPUTATI (1904) Atti Parlamentari - Legislatura XXI
— 2a Sessione — Discussioni — CCCXI -2nd Session
of Friday 18 March 1904, p. 11821,
DA PASSANO Mario (2005) Il «delitto di Regina Cœli».
Diritto e Storia, n.4 - In memoriam - Da Passano link
GIBSON Mary (2019) Italian Prisons in the Age of Positivism, 1861-1914.
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
REGISTRO ITALIANO per la classificazione dei bastimenti - Libro
Registro 1902. Stabilimento Tipografico e Litografico di Pietro
Pellas fu L. - Genoa, 1st January, 1902.
TURATI Filippo (1904) I cimiteri dei vivi (Per la riforma carceraria),
6. – Una morte senza responsabili. Roma.
Websites visited:
Digital
Library of the Italian Senate of the Republic (Avanti!)
- link
Digital collection
of journals of the National Central Library of Rome (Il Messaggero,
Il Giornale d'Italia) link
Digital collection
of journals of the Pontifical Gregorian University (L'Osservatore
Romano) no more available
Personal communications
:
AMA
- cimiteri capitolini
page
created on: December
16th, 2021 and last updated
on:
January
13th, 2022