In 1845, Charles Dickens witnessed a public execution in Rome. A man had been found guilty of beating a Bavarian noblewoman to death with her pilgrim’s staff and, on the day of the culprit’s beheading, the “pope’s dragoons” were deployed to keep the crowds in check. Dickens observed “fierce-looking Romans of the lowest class”, artists “in inconceivable hats”, and even a pastry merchant who “divided his attention between the scaffold and his customers”.
Dickens was appalled that “there was no manifestation of disgust, or pity, or indignation, or sorrow.” Rome was apparently accustomed to this kind of “ugly, filthy, careless, sickening spectacle”, so “nobody cared, or was at all affected”. According to Dickens, the nonchalance extended to the city’s priests and monks, who “elbowed a passage for themselves among the people, and stood on tiptoe for a sight of the knife”.
