The Virgin of the Carmine and the Revolt of Masaniello

Author(s): Peter Burke

Source: Past & Present , May, 1983, No. 99 (May, 1983), pp. 3-21
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/650582

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 THE VIRGIN OF THE CARMINE AND
THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO*
THIS ARTICLE HAS TWO AIMS. THE MORE SPECIFIC ONE IS TO CONTRIBUTE

to the understanding of one of the most spectacular of the "r

utions" of seventeenth-century Europe. Despite the fundam
researches of Michelangelo Schipa and Rosario Villari, the last
on the revolt of 1647 is very far from being said.1 The more gen
purpose is to contribute to the growing body of historical studie
unofficial rituals, seen as expressions of popular attitudes or men
ties, and to discuss some of the intellectual problems posed by su
studies.
The traditional view of popular violence as "blind fury", a pav-
lovian response to hunger or the expression of an urge towards
disorder, is far from dead today.2 However, it has often been challen-
ged in the last decade or so, and it is now commonplace to point out
that this popular violence is often the organized - and ritualized -
expression of particular aims, and also that it has its own calendar,
tending to occur at major festivals.3 Beyond this point, consensus
among the challengers begins to break down. The scholars who have
revised traditional views of popular revolts have drawn their concepts
from two rival sociological traditions, that of Durkheim and that of
Marx. Some stress class conflict, while others emphasize community
cohesion.4 What is needed now is a synthesis, as opposed to an
unstable compound, of these opposing elements. To this synthesis a
study of Naples in 1647 may have something to offer.
It should be pointed out at the start that this "ritualistic" interpret-
* I should like to thank the participants in discussions of earlier versions of this
paper, at seminars in Birmingham, Cambridge, Chicago, Copenhagen, London, Ox-
ford, Uppsala and Washington.
1 M. A. Schipa, "La mente di Masaniello", Archivio storico per le provincie napolet-
ane, ix (1913); M. A. Schipa, "La cosi detta rivoluzione di Masaniello', Archivio storico
per le provincie napoletane, new ser., ii-iii (1916-17); R. Villari, La rivolta antispagnola
a Napoli: le origini, 1585-i647 (Bari, 1967). See also V. I. Comparato, Uffici e societc~
a Napoli, I6oo-I647 (Florence, 1974), ch. Io.
2 R. Mousnier, Fureurs paysannes: les paysans dans les revoltes du 17e siecle (France,
Russie, Chine) (Paris, 1967), trans. B. Pearce as Peasant Uprisings (London, 1973).
3 E. P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth
Century", Past and Present, no. 50 (Feb. 1971), PP. 76-136; N. Z. Davis, "The Rites
of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France", Past and Present, no. 59
(May 1973), PP. 51-91; W. M. Reddy, "The Textile Trade and the Language of the
Crowd at Rouen, 1752-1871", Past and Present, no. 74 (Feb. 1977), pp. 62-89.
4 Mousnier's pupils, R. Pillorget, Les mouvements insurrectionels de Provence entre
i596 et 1715 (Paris, 1975), and Y. M. Berc6, Histoire des croquants: ,tude des
soulkvements populaires au XVIFI si'cle dans le sud-ouest de la France (Geneva, 1974),
both draw on the Durkheimian tradition.

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 4 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99

ation of the revolt of Masaniello is not in

as to complement the received account, o
judicious summary in 1970, at a conferen
of Revolution in Early Modern Europe"
deny that the "precipitants" or "triggers"
as he put it, "rising food prices, deart
taxes on flour, fruit and vegetables lev
contribution to the Thirty Years War, the
be equally hard to deny that the "precond
"social and economic grievances", such
which the aristocratic landlords were mak
result of which many of these peasants f
Although the distinction between "pr
tants" is a useful one, the "behavioural sc
tants" and "triggers" does sound rather in
It too smacks of the pavlovian response
case of Naples, come to terms with the
mythic quality, his popular appeal.6 Henc
needs to be complemented, if possible,
culture of the crowd, the hopes and fears
the rebels, who seem to have included ma
of Naples.
But is this discussion possible? Is the evidence full or reliable
enough? If the feelings and thoughts of ordinary Neapolitans of this
period can be reconstructed at all, it can only be by a process of
"reading" collective actions, and showing that what appeared to
others as a blind fury, signifying nothing, really did have a meaning
for the participants. Such a process of reading will be attempted here.
The actions to be studied are those of the first ten days of the revolt,
7-16 July 1647, when Masaniello was the leader; and, to a lesser
degree, the second revolt, from 21st August onwards.7 The later
stages, after the French intervened in December, melt into the inter-
national power struggle between Habsburgs and Bourbons, and
reveal much less about popular attitudes. Hence the "royal republic"
of 1648, despite its great historical interest, will not be discussed.
More than twenty contemporary narratives of the revolt of 1647
have survived. So far as the sequence of events is concerned, the most
reliable accounts are the reports of three diplomats (the representa-
5 J. H. Elliott, "Revolts in the Spanish Monarchy", in R. Forster and J. P. Greene
(eds.), Preconditions of Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore and London,
1970); quotations from pp. III, 126.
6 A study of the myth of Masaniello is lacking, but it is clear that he fascinated
intellectuals in a number of European countries, including England, France, the
Netherlands and the Empire. Spinoza is said to have drawn a self-portrait dressed as
Masaniello: Jean Colerus, Vie de Spinosa (Brussels, 1731), p. 43.
7 Schipa seems to have been the first to distinguish between the early "rivolta
proletaria" and later developments.

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 5

tives of Florence, Venice and Genoa), who w

rising was in progress, before they knew wh
be. The letters from the archbishop of Naples
same advantage.8 Of the remaining narrative
that of Alessandro Giraffi, published in 1647
English - political conditions being favourabl
popular revolution - three years later.9 Of th
Spanish accounts by De Sanctis, Nicolai and
material relevant to my purpose. So does the mo
(an obvious pseudonym).10 Particularly rich in w
"ethnographic detail" are two anti-Spanish a
happens, by physicians; one by Giuseppe Don
lished in 1647, but suppressed by the authoritie
control of the city, and another by Angelo D
never been published at all.11
The limitations for our purpose of these na
emphasis. Some of the authors wrote to rehab
and so to disparage or "delegitimate" the revo
were members of the upper classes, and thei
"tumults" (one of their favourite words for t
removed from the interpretation in terms of bli
be remembered that these writers were working
baroque historiographical tradition which, like t
from which it largely derived, was organized ar
"dignity of history". Like epic and tragedy, h
genre of high status, a genre which required its
a noble subject and to write about it in the high
8 Vincenzo de'Medici's reports to the Grand Duke of Tusc
menti sulla storia economica e civile del regno [di Napoli]",
storico italiano, ix (1846), pp. 348-53; Archbishop Ascanio
Innocent X are in "Sette lettere del Cardinal Filomarin
ibid., pp. 379-93. Ottaviano Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti
L. Correra, Archivio storico per le provincie napoletane, xv
Rosso, "La rivoluzione di Masaniello visto dal resident
Capograssi, Archivio storico per le provincie napoletane, n
167-235.
9 Alessandro Giraffi, Le rivolutioni di Napoli (Venice, 1647), trans. James Howell
as An Exact History of the Late Revolution in Naples, 2 vols. (London, 1650-2).
10 Tommaso De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli (Leiden, 1652; repr. Trieste,
1858), written by an officer of the Spanish army and dedicated to Philip IV: Agostino
Nicolai, Historia, o vero narrazione giornale dell'ultime rivolutioni della cittac e regno di
Napoli (Amsterdam, 1648), by a councillor of state to the duke of Lorraine, dedicated
to Philip IV's son Don Juan; Gabriele Tontoli, II Masaniello (Naples, 1648), by a
lawyer, dedicated to the same Don Juan; Nescipio Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni
popolari di Napoli (Padua, 1648).
11 Giuseppe Donzelli, Partenope liberata (Naples, 1647), dedicated to Henri Duc
de Guise, a rare book of which there is a copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris;
Angelo Della Porta, "Giornale istorico di quanto piui memorabile e accaduto nelle
rivoluzioni di Napoli": Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, fonds italien, no. 299. There
are other accounts which are less useful for the purposes of this article, and yet others
currently inaccessible in Naples.

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6 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99
words and things. As the literary critic Erich Au
in a famous study of Tacitus and Ammianus
conventions did not allow historians to find sens
of, the actions of "low" people. The patrician con
found a historian, but the slave revolt of Spar
were similar rules for painters of "histories", wh
to choose noble subjects and portray them in a d
These conventions were still very much ali
they had recently been reiterated, in an Italian c
Mascardi, professor of rhetoric at the Jesuit C
Mascardi had already practised what he was preac
of the Fieschi conspiracy at Genoa which was
account of Catiline. 13 The conventions were cha
existence of Masaniello, and some contemporary
challenge.14 The historians, on the whole, di
Raffaello Della Torre, for example, wrote a L
revolt of Naples in which he did his best to
conspiracy of Catiline.'i The others give the imp
ing quite what to do with their subject. They we
to treat the revolt as a "tragedy" or a "tragi
term being used not because the story ended
protagonist was of low status); whether Mas
leader, or merely a puppet manipulated by the la
whether the people played an active or a passi
metaphors used to describe the actions of the
For Archbishop Filomarino, the people "boile
For Alessandro Giraffi, they resembled a thorou
disliked saddle and bridle.16 Donzelli, on the o
the revolt as "the heroic decision of the peop
themselves from the unbearable yoke of the
equally anti-Spanish Della Porta stressed the
people, their passivity until worked on by "t
12 E. Auerbach, Mimesis (Bern, 1947), trans. W. R. Trask a
tation of Reality in Western Literature (New York, 1955), ch
13 Agostino Mascardi, Dell'arte historica trattati cinque
Mascardi, La congiura del Conte Gio. Luigi de'Fieschi (Ven
14 F. Saxl, "The Battle Scene without a Hero: Aniello Fa
Ji. Warburg Inst., iii (1939-40); F. Haskell, Patrons and
Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the
139.
5s Raffaelle Della Torre, Dissidentis Neapolis libri xvi (G
16 As tragedy: Rosso, "Rivoluzione di Masaniello", p. 18
p. 4. As tragicomedy: Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti napo
Relatione delle rivolutioni popolari di Napoli, p. 267; Ton
Actual tragedies on the subject were written by Thomas As
Weise (1683), to say nothing of eighteenth- and nineteenth
image of "boiling", see Filomarino to Innocent X, 8 July 1
Cardinal Filomarino al papa", ed. Palermo, p. 381; for the h
tioni di Napoli, p. 3.

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 7

the tumult", and finally their "strange mad

Although he approved of the aims of the rebels
as irrational.17
Despite their dependence on these traditional schemata, some of
the contemporary acounts of the revolt are so detailed in their descrip-
tions of popular action as to make possible an alternative interpret-
ation of the same events, against the grain of the texts themselves.
This alternative interpretation will be couched in terms of "social
drama".18 The metaphor, recently revived by social anthropologists,
would not have displeased seventeenth-century Neapolitans, who
lived, like their Sicilian neighbours, in a society where it was - and
is - necessary fare bella figura, in other words to play one's social
role well in public. Contemporary references to the "tragedy" of
Masaniello have already been quoted, while even a history of the
viceroys of Naples could be entitled, in best baroque style, the
"heroic theatre" of their actions.19
Before the curtain goes up on this play it may be useful to say a
few words about the setting. Naples in 1647 was one of the largest
cities in Europe, with some three hundred thousand inhabitants. It
was a busy port with a considerable population of fishermen, sailors
and stevedores. There was also a substantial silk-weaving industry,
and a university with perhaps as many as five thousand students.
Naples was also the seat of the viceregal court and so a city where the
upper nobility congregated, living in huge palaces and surrounded by
swarms of servants. As the administrative and legal capital of a
kingdom of three million people, the city also contained many law-
yers and officials. However, there was not sufficient employment in
the city for all the immigrants who came to it from the surrounding
countryside, "pushed" by the need to escape the demands of land-
lords and tax-collectors, and "pulled" by the twin attractions of
cheap food and fiscal privilege.20
Tommaso Campanella, a Calabrian who had lived in Naples and
saw it as the disorderly converse of his orderly utopia the City of the
17 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, title-page; Della Porta, "Giornale istorico", fos.
3r, 7v, 32'. Cf. his alternative title, "Causa di stravaganze", in other words "The
Reasons for the Eccentric Behaviour of the People of Naples".
18 V. Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Society (Manchester, 1957),
which launched the phrase "social drama", distinguishes four phases: breach, crisis,
redressive action, and reintegration. The history of Naples in the mid-seventeenth
century could no doubt be discussed in terms of all four phases, but this article is
concerned only with the phase of "redressive action", so that my distinction between
four acts does not correspond to Turner's.
19 On life as drama in Naples today, see T. Belmonte, The Broken Fountain (New
York, 1979); on the "theatre society" of seventeenth-century Sicily, see V. Titone,
La societac siciliana sotto gli Spagnoli (Palermo, 1978), ch. 3; on the viceroys, see
Domenico Antonio Parrino, Teatro eroico e politico de'governi de'vicere del regno di
Napoli, 3 vols. (Naples, 1692-4).
20 C. Petraccone, Napoli dal '5oo al '8oo: problemi di storia demografica e sociale
(Naples, 1974); R. Romano, Napoli dal viceregno al regno (Turin, 1976).

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 8 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99
Sun, suggested, earlier in the seventeenth ce
three hundred thousand inhabitants, no m
worked.21 He probably exaggerated, but ther
the middle of the century the upper classes w
ly aware of the problem of the so-called "
bodied but idle men who could be seen sle
night and by day.22 What gave these lazz
profile was the fact that some zones of th
Mercato, Piazza del Lavinaro and Piazza del
tially popular quarters, overcrowded by the
with "high rise" developments not far aw
erected on Piazza del Mercato itself.23
"The people is a huge and inconstant animal which does not
know its own strength", wrote Campanella, who had himself tried to
mobilize it against Spain in 1599 - without success.24 The impli-
cation, that ordinary people, in Naples and elsewhere, lacked a
common consciousness, is of course highly relevant to the central
argument of this paper. Campanella's point was not often made in
the seventeenth century, and it is probably no accident that it came
from an intellectual of humble origins. Upper-class observers found
the people of Naples all too prone to rebel. "The populace (plebe)
is like Cerberus", wrote one (as pavlovian as it was possible to be in
the period), "and to stop it barking it is necessary to fill it with
bread".25 Similarly, the town clerk, writing early in the century,
declared that "Every popular tumult and every rising in this city is
the work of this canaille (questa canaglia), for whom there is no
cure but the gallows".26 By distinguishing respectable popolo from
seditious plebe he was in effect offering a "class" interpretation of
the many rebellions in Neapolitan history. He was thinking, no
doubt, of the rising against the Inquisition in 15io; of the second
rising against the Inquisition, in 1547, led by a certain Masaniello;
and, above all, of the events of 1585.
The year 1585 was one of famine. At this time, Naples was adminis-
tered by six eletti, in other words elected officials, five representing
21 Tommaso Campanella, La citta del sole, ed. B. Widmar (Milan, 1963), P. 47.
22 Evidence of increasing awareness of the problem is the coining of the term lazzari
at this time. See B. Migliorini, Storia della lingua italiana (Milan, 1960), p. 492, and
cf. Della Porta, "Giornale istorico", fo. Ior.
23 On buildings of six or seven storeys in Naples, see Giulio Cesare Capaccio, II
forastiero (Naples, 1634) p. 851, and Coppola's painting of the surrender of the city
in 1648, reproduced in Storia di Napoli, II vols. (Naples, 1967-78), v, p. 232. The
evidence for the shacks comes from later in the century: C. de'Seta, Storia della citta
di Napoli (Bari, 1973), p. 268.
24 Tommaso Campanella, sonnet "Della plebe", in his Poesie filosofiche, ed. A.
d'Ancona (Turin, 1854), PP. 79-80.
25 Marino Frezza (1623), quoted in Comparato, Uffici e societh a Napoli, p. 418.
26 Giulio Cesare Capaccio, "Descrizione di Napoli" (circa 1607), ed. B. Capasso,
Archivio storico per le provincie napoletane, vii (1882), p. 535.

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 9

the nobility and one the people. The represe

Giovanni Vicenzo Starace (or Storace) by nam
goat for the famine and the policies of the gove
a public meeting he was lynched. The victim wa
of "execution" hatless and facing backwards
a charivari, and his corpse was later dragged th
the ritual of "drawing" a dead criminal. The me
of popular justice will be obvious enough.27
Notorious for disorder since Roman times,
ebrated for its religious devotion, especially pop
would be abundant evidence of this popular
Jesuit mission of 1651, and still more during
Devotion focused on San Gennaro, the most imp
eight patron saints, whose blood liquefied regul
as a sign of his concern for his people, and
Virgin Mary, especially the Virgin of the Car
the church of the Carmelite friars on the corner o
This church contained a miracle-working image
was dark in colour and at some point given the a
"Maria la Bruna" (Brown Mary) and "Mamma
ence to the Slavs, especially the Dalmatians).
Naples in 1647 experienced a long hot summer
had risen against Spanish rule on 20th May,
tax) was abolished there the next day. By June
reached Naples, and on the 6th, the feast of th
an attack on the tax office on Piazza del Mercato. Several sources
refer to the effect on the Neapolitans of the Sicilian example and of
remarks like "Aren't we as good as Palermo?" (Siamo noi da meno da
Palermo?).30 A number of placards offering "extremely pungent"
criticisms of the government appeared on walls, alarming the viceroy,
the duke of Arcos.31 Here as elsewhere the authorities regarded times
of festival as times of potential disorder, and in late June the cavalcade
customary on the feast of St. John the Baptist (which was usually
celebrated in the popular quarter of the Sellaria) was called off by
the archbishop, Cardinal Ascanio Filomarino, for fear of riots.32
27 Villari, Rivolta antispagnola a Napoli, pp. 42-6; Tommaso Costo, "Giunta"
(Addition) to Pandolfo Collenuccio, Compendio dell'istoria del regno di Napoli (Venice,
1591), fos. 63-5 (the first edition of Costo's account is 1588).
28 Scipione Paolucci, Missioni de'padri della Compagnia di Giesz' nel regno di Napoli
(Naples, 1651), a rare book, of which there is a copy in the Biblioteca Nazionale,
Rome; on the plague, see Angelo Della Porta, "Descrizione del contagio del 1656",
bound up with his account of the 1647 revolt in Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, fonds
italien, no. 299.
29 Tontoli, II Masaniello, pp. 4-5; Donzelli, Partenope liberata, p. 136. On the
nicknames, see G. Doria, Le strade di Napoli, 2nd edn. (Milan and Naples, 1971),
pp. Io4-5.
30 Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, p. 9. Cf. Rosso, "Rivoluzione di Masaniello", pp.
178-80; Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti napoletani", pp. 355-6.
31 Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, p. 8. Most accounts refer to the placards (cartelli
32 Ibid., p. 7.

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IO PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99

However, two major festivals of the

celebrated in July, Santa Maria della
Maria del Carmine on the I6th. A dan
and there was also a particularly dan
economic and political fields of force (e
image, the fruit market and the tax of
Piazza del Mercato. At a highly charg
a festival, moreover, following the im
on food, these three elements formed
bination - and an explosion there cer
For the feast of the Virgin of the C
erect a castle of wood covered with p
Piazza del Mercato and to besiege it in a
between young men armed with fruit a
Such battles and sieges were common it
time, and indeed as late as the nineteen
was organized, in this case as in so man
composed of young men from the qu
"like Moors" (alla moresca) and blacked
group the nickname of the "Arabs"
Some sources suggest that four hund
and that the leaders met in the hostelr
in the group was a fisherman in his tw
Mercato and had recently had a brush w
had imprisoned his wife for attempt
only a few days to live, but his name
well, was soon to be known all over E
same name as that of the leader in t
which may have given him ideas.
Whether Masaniello, or anyone else,
July, as some sources assert, we sha
certain. Perhaps he created his opportu
it. It is possible that there was a grey e
first; he was certainly joined very quick
who had long before made himself the
"the people" (in other words, the wealt
with the nobles in municipal governme
Just as it is impossible to say for certa
it is difficult to give an exact account o

33 Francesco Capecelatro, Diario dei tumulti del

vols. (Naples, 1850-4), i, PP. 15-16; Tontoli, II
liberata, p. 7; Della Porta, "Giornale istorico",
34 The importance of Genoino was emphasized
cenzo de'Medici that "everything is guided wit
Giulio Genoino": Medici to Grand Duke of Tu
sulla storia economica e civile del regno", ed. P

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO II

July days, despite the variety of sources

contradict one another about the order of events. Yet the main se-
quence of this social drama is clear enough, and it is this sequence
which will be studied here in the attempt to illuminate popular
attitudes. It may be useful to divide the drama into four acts.
Act I. Sunday 7th July was a feast of the Virgin Mary. There was
a mock-battle in Piazza del Mercato - perhaps a rehearsal for the
festival on the I6th - and there was also a dispute in the market
over the distribution of the burden of the new fruit tax. Somehow or
other the two happenings merged into one, whether this was planned
in advance or not. The tax office and its records were burned, a
proceeding so common in fiscal revolts from the middle ages onwards
that it might reasonably be described as part of a ritual. There were
equally predictable shouts of "Long Live the King of Spain" and
"Death to Misrule" (Muoia ii Malgoverno), the language to be ex-
pected whenever this particular scene was played. There were also
shouts, more distinctively Neapolitan, perhaps, of "Long Live God"
and "Long Live the Virgin of the Carmine". It was at this point that
Masaniello emerged as leader, carrying a tavern sign as a banner. "In
the twinkling of an eye, thousands and thousands of common people
joined him".35 There was an attack on a flour store and a march on
the palace of the viceroy by a crowd, some armed with sticks (perhaps
the "Arabs"), while others carried pikes with loaves on the points, a
traditional gesture of ritualized aggression in protest against the price
of bread. It was said at the time that fifty thousand people took part
in the march; the figure cannot of course be trusted, but it testifies
to the impression made on the bystanders. There were demands for
the abolition of the taxes on fruit and bread. The rebels won a
bloodless victory, for the viceroy fled without offering resistance,
leaving his palace to be sacked by the crowd. The mock-battle had
certainly turned serious; a ritual of conflict had turned into a real
riot. On the other hand, it might reasonably be argued that protest
had so far taken a fairly light-hearted, festive form (in any typology
of popular revolt it might be useful to distinguish those which start
in this way from those which do not). Since aggression was ritualized,
it was kept under control. Violence was largely symbolic. Popular
action was neither blind nor furious.36
Act II. The authorities - viceroy and archbishop - now tried to
restore order. The principal means adopted was that of religious
rituals. The archbishop had the blessed sacrament exposed, together
with the blood and the head of San Gennaro. The Dominicans,
3s Tontoli, II Masaniello, p. 7.
36 This discussion of ritualized aggression is indebted to R. Fox, "The Inherent
Rules of Violence", in P. Collett (ed.), Social Rules and Social Behaviour (Oxford,
1977), and to P. Marsh, E. Rosser and R. Harr6, The Rules of Disorder (London,
1978).

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12 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99

Franciscans, Carmelites, Jesuits and T

sion. At the viceroy's request, the pri
reputation of being an aristocratic fr
Piazza del Mercato with a crucifix in h
from the pulpit of the Carmine, askin
love of God and the Virgin. To rea
Protestant world in the early mode
symbols such as the crucifix and the
crowd control may seem odd, but it w
areas at this time. In Naples in 1585
began to loot houses, the Jesuits appea
because the normal reaction to that
one was doing and kneel down.37 Agai
went to burn the house of the March
off by Carmelites carrying the sacram
of the duke of La Montagna instea
Theatines, again carrying the sacrame
age reverence. The next day, crucif
again to be pressed into service to que
The people, for their part, believed
the Virgin of the Carmine were on th
the procession of the Jesuits, and an a
a crucifix carried by the Dominicans.3
would succeed in capturing a silver im
saying that they had "liberated" him
according to them, imprisoned him
reference which is particularly intere
awareness of the Portuguese revolt
minded of the dispute which broke ou
Gennaro and the route they were t
which culminated in the archbishop's
were his, and the city had no part
"whose relics?" was such a topical a
Naples in 1647 may tell us something
of both clergy and laity, upper clas
important to have the support of heav
small children could be seen licking
Carmine, in a traditional gesture of s
37 Costo, "Giunta", fo. 66r.
38 Andrea Pocili, Delle rivolutioni della cittd di Palermo (Verona, 1648), pp. Io-
II, 16-17, 23.
39 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, p. 16; Della Porta, "Giornale istorico", fo. IIv; De
Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, p. 54.
40 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, p. 8I; Della Porta, "Giornale istorico", fo. 41'; De
Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, p. 59.
41 ,. . . le reliquie esser sue, e la citta non aver parte in esse": Della Porta,
"Giornale istorico", fo. 2r

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 13

South Italy by people who solicit supernatural

proclamations carried the image of the Virgin of
were struck by the rebels with the image of
church of the Carmine, over a hundred witnesse
a vision of San Gennaro holding a sword, presum
of his people.43 Thus the happenings in the s
summer 1647 had their reflections or counterpart
world.
Act III. Another act in the social drama bega
mounted the stage on Piazza del Mercato (a stage
of popular entertainers), to call out the civic g
more or less spontaneous riot was transforme
revolt, based no longer on a youth group or cr
militia, and so involving respectable craftsmen an
Florentine envoy believed that there were no
fifty thousand people under arms, an implau
population of some three hundred thousand
extent to which contemporaries were impressed
participation.44 The militia was organized on the
nine wards (or ottine, as they were called in Nap
by the ringing of the bells of the Carmine, San A
of the official representative of the popolo), and
According to some witnesses, this was no o
more exactly, it included some extraordinary rec
reported to have been seen marching under th
signs and sergeants (capitanesse, alfieresse, sargen
ing to some, with spits and shovels, but accor
arquebuses and halberds.45 How seriously sho
counts of these "Amazons", as one contemporary
at least one pinch of salt. The work of Natalie
historians in her wake has taught us to be alert f
participation in popular revolts, and Naples (alt

42 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, pp. go, I30; Liponari, Re

popolari di Napoli, p. 277. On self-abasement of this sor
Italian popular religion, see A. Rossi, Lefeste dei poveri (Bar
43 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, p. 13o; Liponari, Relation
lari di Napoli, p. 277.
44 Medici to Grand Duke of Tuscany, 13 July 1647, in
economica e civile del regno", ed. Palermo, p. 348. This is a
his "class interpretation" of the revolt as the work of "t
"respectable people" (il popolo civile) remained loyal: i
reconcile the two statements would be to adopt the suggest
di Masaniello", that "prosperous shopkeepers" (i bottegari
forced to join the revolt (p. 18o). But personally I doubt this
militia sounds too enthusiastic in the contemporary descrip
45 Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, p. 70; cf. Donzelli, Pa
followed by Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni popolari
suspiciously close to Giraffi.

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 14 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99

of southern Italy, a stronghold of mach

exception here. According to the Gen
had lobbied the viceroy about the new
revolt broke out, and women are also re
the civic pawnshop, or Monte di Pietdt.
On the other hand, there are reasons f
women may be a myth. The suggestion
spits, not implausible in itself, has o
kitchen-battles in Italian popular literat
the tavern sign under which Masanie
his men, and the mountebanks' stage
accounts would appear to have been st
sciously, according to the contempor
turned upside down".47 It is also poss
men dressed as women; we are told of a
during the revolt.48 But even this testi
down paradigm!
What were the aims of the rebels at t
is probably the "hit list" of some sixty
planned. Their owners were leading c
administration (Cennamo and the Caraf
leading financiers, such as Bartolome
Geronimo da Letizia, who were heav
system.49 Even hostile witnesses reco
palaces was carried out in a relativel
images were spared and private loot
found in the palaces was either destr
other words, the attacks enacted a ritual
sequence of actions with a function w
The point of the operation seems to h
sense of exploitation, a sense that "th
In this shift in the social basis of the
to the militia, and perhaps from the "p
"people", the necessary continuity was
46 N. Z. Davis, "Women on Top", in her Soci
France (London, 1975), pp. 124-52; for a recent
R. Dekker, Holland in beroering: oproeren in de
5I1-60; Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti napoletani",
P. 75.
47 G. Cocchiara, II mondo alla rovescia (Turin, 1963); Libro di carnevale, ed. L.
Manzoni (Bologna, 1881).
48 De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, p. Ioo.
49 Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, p. 51.
50 On the orderly nature of the destruction, see Filomarino to Innocent X, 12 July
1647, in "Sette lettere del Cardinal Filomarino al papa", ed. Palermo, p. 382; Sauli,
"Relazione dei tumulti napoletani", p. 362; Tontoli, II Masaniello, pp. 52-3. "Queste
robbe sono il sangue nostro": Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, p. 52, followed (again)
by Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni popolari di Napoli, p. 74.

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 15

viceroy swore to an agreement with the peop

and the Virgin of the Carmine. The failure of an
Masaniello by shooting at him with an arquebu
of the Virgin of the Carmine, whose scapular h
tans, was wearing.
The attempted assassination also set off a m
which reveals something about the mentali
would-be assassins, and the Caraffa brothers, w
killings were surrounded by rituals of popular
the killing of Starace in 1585. The corpses w
the streets and pelted with rubbish. The seve
on pikes and taken round the city to the sound
the drums of the militia). One head was disp
"false gold" on it, and Masaniello insulted th
moustache. Some corpses had their testicles c
allowed the crowd to participate in the punishm
they also carried more precise messages.
The crown of false gold, for example, was pro
symbol of treachery (falsity), and the placin
head was an example of a degradation ceremo
literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin would have said
In case onlookers were in doubt about the m
was confirmed in writing, by placards bearin
"Rebel against the Fatherland and Traitor t
People". "Traitor to the People": This was st
in the seventeenth century, and so a revealin
the actions as well as the words were designed
messages is confirmed by an incident later in
head of an unpopular official, Cennamo, was
Mercato covered with pieces of melon rind a
an insult to the corpse in the style of the Man
boldo and a reminder that it was the fruit tax for which he had
suffered.54
These rituals of degradation or desecration were accompanied by
their converse, rituals of consecration. The revolt against the fruit

51 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, pp. 33-7; Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni popo-
lari di Napoli, pp. 141-2; De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, pp. 87-9; Tontoli,
II Masaniello, pp. 1o5-6.
52 M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World (Moscow, 1965), trans. H. Iswolsky (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1968), p. 197; cf. H. Garfinkel, "Conditions of Successful Degradation
Ceremonies", Amer. Jl. Sociology, lxi (1955-6). For the use of a crown of false gold
in an official degradation, that of a priest-bandit in Rome in 1585, see L. von Pastor,
History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, 6th edn., 40 vols. (London,
1938-53), xxi, p. 77.
53 For a still earlier example, see Shakespeare, Coriolanus, III. iii. 88.
54 Donzelli, Partenope liberata, p. 93; Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni popolari
di Napoli, p. 141; De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, pp. 196-7.

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 16 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99
tax was given secular as well as religious legitimat
in terms of the myth that Charles V had granted
privilege exempting them from all taxes for e
manded to be shown the original document, par
Charles was turned into a popular hero as a re
together with that of the reigning monarch Phili
in the street and treated with ostentatious revere
of appeal by the opponents of a king's policy to a
safely dead was, of course, not uncommon in earl
A myth of tax exemption was part of the ideolog
rebels of Dauphine in 1580, while the Norman
pealed to Louis XII against Louis XIII.56 Such ex
be multiplied.
More unusual is the fact that Masaniello was also consecrated. "A
man sent from God", so it was said, and some claimed to have seen
a white dove circling his head.57 Officially Captain-General of the
People, he was treated "like a king", according to one account, and
acted with "more than royal power", according to another, holding
a dagger - or an arquebus - as if it were a sceptre and sitting on a
kind of throne.58 Having begun as the "king" of a youth group,
Masaniello now found himself really in command, in a situation with
few parallels in the early modern period; the closest analogy is
perhaps Jan of Leiden. In conformity with his policy of avoiding
confrontation, the viceroy encouraged or at least played along with
Masaniello's metamorphosis, calling him "my son" (hijo mio), giving
him a horse and dressing him in cloth of silver, perhaps in the hope
that power would turn his head and alienate his supporters. This
brings us to the play's last act, the assassination.
Act Iv. Whether Masaniello's head really was turned by power it
is now impossible to say. This is certainly the message of the sources,
but before accepting it we need to remind ourselves that all the
contemporary accounts were written by members of the upper
classes, some of whom were trying to justify the assassination of
Masaniello, while they all expected a man of the people in his position
to behave in a peculiar way. They claim that the popular leader
planned to erect a palace for himself on Piazza del Mercato, and also
that he went mad, slashing at his followers with his sword, spouting
nonsense and heresy from the pulpit of the Carmine, and finally

55 Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti napoletani", p. 358.

56 On Dauphine, see E. Le Roy Ladurie, Carnaval de Romans (Paris, 1979), p. 58;
on Normandy, see M. Foisil, La revolte des nu-pieds (Paris, 1970), p. 192.
57 Comparato, Uffici e societd a Napoli, p. 420; Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti
napoletani", p. 361.
58 Filomarino to Innocent X, 12 July 1647, in "Sette lettere del Cardinal Filomarino
al papa", ed. Palermo, p. 385; Tontoli, Il Masaniello, p. 47; Liponari, Relatione
delle rivolutioni popolari di Napoli, pp. 185, 255.

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 17

dropping his trousers in public.59 It was in the C

day I6th July, that the second attempt to assassi
made, by Michelangelo Ardizzone, keeper of the
the baker Salvatore Cataneo and others, and th
met with success.60
Whether Masaniello went mad or not, whether or not his assassin-
ation was engineered by the viceroy, or by Genoino, are problems
which, despite their intrinsic interest, should not concern us here.
What is important for the purposes of this article is the popular
reaction to his death. This reaction went through two phases. In the
first phase, there were shouts of "death to the tyrant Masaniello!"
while it was now the turn of his head to be carried round the city on
the end of a pike, and of his body to be dragged through the streets
by the local children.61 Like a carnival king, he had lasted no more
than a few days. If he was not ritually killed, like one of Sir James
Frazer's kings, as a sacrificial victim to purify the community from
their sins, he was certainly given the full scapegoat treatment after
his death.62
At this point, however, the government was rash enough to reduce
the size of the loaf to 18 ounces. In Naples, as in other early modern
cities, a loaf of bread did not normally fluctuate in price, but it
fluctuated in weight instead and sometimes in quality as well. When
the revolt began, the Neapolitan loaf was 22 or 24 ounces; it was
then increased by the viceroy to 32 or 33 ounces. This thermometer
of popular success recorded its highest reading (42 ounces), just
before Masaniello's death.63 The news of the reduction was followed,
naturally enough, by a reaction in his favour. His body was carried
round the city "in triumph", to shouts of Viva Masaniello. He was
given a magnificent funeral with full military honours; standards
lowered, arms reversed, drums muffled and over six thousand people,
so we are told, following the bier. "He could not have received more
honour", so the Venetian envoy declared, "if it had been the king
himself".64 The people, switching from one stereotyped response to
another, now saw him as a saint and martyr. Indeed, the archbishop

59 Nicolai, Historia, p. 86; Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni popolari di Napoli,

p. 270; De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, pp. 113-14, 135-
60 Nicolai, Historia, p. 88; Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni popolari di Napoli,
p. 273; De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, p. 138.
61 Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, pp. 185-7; Liponari, Relatione delle rivolutioni
popolari di Napoli, p. 273; Rosso, "Rivoluzione di Masaniello", p. 185; De Santis,
Storia del tumulto di Napoli, pp. 138-9.
62 J. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd edn., 12 vols. (London, 1913), iv [i.e. pt. 31],
"The Dying God", ch. 2. For a general critique of Frazer, see E. Leach, "Golden
Bough or Gilded Twig?", Daedalus, xc (1961), pp. 371-84.
63 Rosso, "Rivoluzione di Masaniello", p. 185; De Santis, Storia del tumulto di
Napoli, p. 141.
64 Della Porta, "Giornale istorico", fo. 33r; Rosso, "Rivoluzione di Masaniello",
p. 185; cf. Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti napoletani", p. 380.

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 18 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99
even heard people referring to Masaniello as "o
redeemer". His hair was torn out for relics. There w
his miracles. An unorthodox addition was made to
Masanello, pray for us" (Sancte Masanelle, ora
even said that he would rise again. In short, Ma
become a myth.65
As for the revolt, it did not come to an end till
this point it disintegrated. One day the silk-we
through the streets, demanding the prohibition
countryside; on another day there would be a dem
hundred armed students, protesting against incre
doctorates.66 The unity of the July days was lost
What, to sum up, were the functions of ritual i
revolt? They were essentially threefold. In the fi
the expressive function. Marching to the viceroy'
of bread stuck on the end of pikes, or sacking the houses of
financiers - in a disciplined way - communicated a clear message
to the authorities. To enact traditional rituals of this type was to
make the point that there were grievances, but also that the people,
far from being carried away by blind fury, were very much under
control.
In the second place, rituals had a legitimating function. The ritual-
ization of the lynchings turned them into executions. Dragging by
the feet, crowning with false gold, and other marks of infamy were
part of the apparatus of official justice, here imitated by popular
justice. The conspicuous reverence paid to the portraits of Charles V
showed, and was surely designed to show, that it was not the crowd
who were upsetting the order of things, but rather those who had
levied an illegitimate tax. The appeal to the Virgin of the Carmine had
a similar legitimating function. Curiously enough, the very phrase "to
legitimate" was used - two hundred and fifty years before Max
Weber - by one of the chroniclers of these events, noting, for
example, that when the archbishop blessed Masaniello's sword, the
Spaniards were shocked that "he should have wished to legitimate
the popular revolt" (legittimare la mossa popolare).67
In the third place, rituals had an organizing function. Whether or
not Masaniello or Genoino had planned the events of 7th July in
advance, we may be sure that the crowd as a whole did not know
what was about to take place. It has been pointed out that the
coherence of crowd action depends on the "shared expectations"

65 Filomarino to Innocent X, 12 July 1647, in "Sette lettere del Cardinal Filomarino

al papa", ed. Palermo, p. 385; Sauli, "Relazione dei tumulti napoletani", p. 380;
Donzelli, Partenope liberata, p. 67; Tontoli, II Masaniello, pp. 154-5.
66 Della Porta, "Giornale istorico", fos. 38v, 4ov.
67 De Santis, Storia del tumulto di Napoli, p. I Io; cf. p. 53.

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 19

which participants have of each other.68 How ca

others expect of them? If a crowd begins to tak
hearsed action, how does anyone know what t
ritual is just what is needed in the circumst
co-ordinated semi-spontaneous group action. B
everyone knows what to do. In this sense the
hearsed as it was, did have a script.
In other words, the rituals both expressed c
and created it. However, to speak of "commun
the problems of the Durkheimian approach men
and left in suspense. What is problematic about
community in early modern Naples emerges c
controversy between the historians Rosario
Galasso about the meaning of an incident discuss
ing of Starace in 1585. Villari, inspired by Le Ro
of the Carnival of Romans (in its original 196
the lynching as an enactment of the popular des
upside down. Galasso retorted that the people
them recent immigrants uprooted from the cou
possessed the common attitudes and values a
The year 1647 presents us with a similar problem
The fragmentation of the revolt after the death
that Galasso has a point; in this large city there
pational groups, such as students and silk-wor
and grievances had little in common. However, th
were different. The sources which refer to thos
impression of genuinely collective action, held t
association with a particular quarter of the
Lavinaro-Sellaria area was a community, even
was not. What made it a community was its dom
or at any rate one social group; in this sense
"community" interpretations of the revolt e
sights. Naples thus offers an illustration of wha
so-called "uprooting theory of protest". As in
Paris and London, so in seventeenth-century
seem to have been the uprooted who took the le
settled inhabitants of particular quarters.70 The
mine was a powerful symbol of this sense of com
The revolt of 1647 was not, of course, the only
Virgin Mary played a significant part. Indeed, it
68 Reddy, "Textile Trade and the Language of the Crow
69 Villari, Rivolta antispagnola a Napoli, pp. 42-6; G. G
storia di Napoli, ed. P. Allum (Bari, 1978), p. 91.
70 G. Rude, The Crowd in the French Revolution (Oxfo
verian London (London, 1971); cf. C. Tilly, "The Chaos o
Tilly (ed.), An Urban World (Boston, Mass. 1974), p. 87.

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20 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 99

think in terms of a "Viva Maria" synd

of it being the riots and risings in
1790s. In Arezzo and Livorno in 1796
has shown), the Virgin helped to legit
the case of Naples in 1647, we find bot
manipulating religious symbols for th
However, it would be misleading to e
The reactions of the Neapolitans to th
as to the plague of 1656 show how seri
They looked to the Virgin Mary and t
against unjust taxes as well as again
authorities did not, I think, use the cr
as the police use tear-gas today, m
crowd, or even simply to deny the
They were also trying to exorcise the
rioters; a conclusion which is sugges
to the pope about the role of the devi
by the solemn blessing of the city of
had been suppressed.73 Order had to b
as well as in the natural world. In sho
to ritual to placate God as well as th
silver image to the Virgin of the Carm
out in procession on the first days of
so not only to calm the people, but
In this social drama, all the actors w
one in this world and one in the next.
A danger of the emphasis on ritual, necessary if we are to recon-
struct popular attitudes, is to project an image of 1647 which is too
archaic, a picture of "primitive rebels" and nothing more. Perhaps
it will serve as a corrective to the temptation to interpret 1647 in
terms of 1789, a view encouraged by picturesque details like the
heads stuck on pikes, the drums, and the figure of Masaniello
portrayed wearing what looks like a cap of liberty; it is hardly surpris-
ing to learn that a play about Masaniello was indeed written early in
the French Revolution." However, we need to remember that the

71 G. Turi, 'Viva Maria': la reazione alle riforme leopoldine, 1790-1799 (Florence,

1969).
72 Paolucci, Missioni de'padri della Compagnia de Giesta; Della Porta, "Descrizione
del contagio del 1656".
73 Filomarino to Innocent X, 12, 16 July 1647, in "Sette lettere del Cardinal
Filomarino al papa", ed. Palermo, pp. 383, 387; Pocili, Rivolutioni della cittd di
Palermo, p. 211. The normal vehicles for exorcism are water, salt and oil; for an
earlier example of the use of the blessed sacrament for this purpose, see D. P. Walker,
"L'exorcisme en France et en Angleterre a la fin du XVIe si&cle", in J. Lafond and
A. Stegmann (eds.), L'automne de la Renaissance, 158o-i630 (Paris, 1981), p. 299.
74 Giraffi, Rivolutioni di Napoli, p. 36.
75 Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht, Masaniello von Neapel (Berlin, 1789).

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 THE REVOLT OF MASANIELLO 21

ruling class did not participate in t

tragedy, we may say with hindsight
leader without aristocratic or bourgeoi

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Peter Burke

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