No evidence whatever appears to have
been brought in support of this confession. The court, notwithstanding,
decides that the truth of this statement is fully established by internal
and external testimony, and therefore declares that the alleged crimes
are clearly proved against both the prisoners. "Considering,"
nevertheless, "that though Starna was an accomplice in the crime, from
his having assisted Volpi, and from having, by his own confession, shared
in the booty, yet that his guilt was less, both in the conception and in
the perpetration of the crime, there being no proof that he had taken any
active part in the murder of Ugolini," therefore, "in the most holy name
of God," the court sentences Volpi to public execution, and Starna to
twenty years at the galleys.
Of course, both the prisoners resorted to their invariable right of
appeal, but their case did not come on before the lower court of the
Supreme Clerical Tribunal at Rome for upwards of a year, namely, on the
17th of May, 1859. At this trial, no new facts whatever appear to have
been adduced. I gather indistinctly, that Volpi's defence was that he
had not left his father's house at all on the morning of the murder, but
that his attempt to prove an "alibi" was unsuccessful. The chief object
indeed of the very lengthy sentence of the court, recapitulating the
evidence already stated, is to establish the comparative innocence of
Starna, who, for some cause or other, seems to have been favourably
regarded.
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