Among the Great

AbstractMasaniello cooperates with the cardinal and Genoino, to draft some capitoli, granting rights that the people were keen, otherwise, to achieve by force. Naples, writes an anonymous observer, seemed like the Roman Republic. A new grassiere, in charge of food supply, and a new eletto del popolo are chosen, men who have the nod of Masaniello’s chief advisors. The young leader is given to accommodation. The cardinal, wishing to seem a canny mediator, rather than a supporter of the people’s wishes, as he really is, persuades Masaniello, says one source, to give up his claim to powerful Castel Sant’Elmo, left in royal hands. That, for the popular alliance, is a grave strategic error.Keywords: Cardinal Filomarino, Capitoli, Neapolitan plebs, public discussionLetting it Happen“Signò Masaniello! Signò Masaniello!” Friar Sebastiano (Alessandro Molini) had been robbed of bread and he sought justice. It was the morning of 9 July. Masaniello came to the window of his house, heard what had happened, and invited the friar up. Then he reassured him: he ordered the crowd to find the thief who had barely escaped from the friar’s hand, and, in no time, it goes without saying, the man was delivered to Masaniello. “You are the first and I forgive you.” And then he said to me [the friar recounts], ‘Go with this man who will give you your bread, and if he will not give it to you come back to me, and I will give you justice. My Fra’ Sebastiano, you know that I love you and if you need anything, give me the order’.”Masaniello, on 9 July, two days into the uprising, now that Perrone’s and Palumbo’s stars had set, was already the capo, the chief, as emerges from this and other stories, which relate how he climbed onto the stage and intervened. He reiterated, above all, the order that no one “dare to rob or disturb the city,” threatening those who disobeyed that he would have “their ears cut off.” The first to be caught in the act were five military captains of the people, “who had not carried justly some goods taken in some houses ordered by him. He had their long hair cut and forgave the amputation of the ear, at the prayers of many of his friends.”