" The
court, however, dismisses this plea at once, on the ground that it is not
competent to take cognizance of an argument based on the abstract merits
of the case, and therefore confirms the verdict.
On the 25th of November the sentence is submitted to, and approved by,
the Pope. On the 3rd of January, 1860, orders are issued from Rome for
the execution to take place. On the 17th the authorities of Viterbo
notify to the prisoner that his last appeal has been dismissed, and "call
on the military to lend their support to the execution of the sentence,"
and on the following day, two years and eight months after his arrest,
Volpi is executed for the murder of Ugolini on the Piazza della Rocca at
Viterbo. On that day, too, appears the first report of his crime and
trial.
CHAPTER V.--continued. THE "AVANZI" MURDER.
In July, 1859, there were in the Bagnio of Civita Vecchia two galley
slaves, Antonio Simonetti and Domenico Avanzi. Simonetti was a man of
thirty, whose life, short as it was, seemed to have been one long career
of crime. He had enlisted at an early age in the Pontifical dragoons,
and served for seven years; on leaving the army, he became a porter, and
within a few months was guilty of a highway robbery, and sentenced to the
galleys for life, then to five years' hard labour for theft, and again to
seven years at the galleys for an attempt to escape, though how the last
punishment could be super-added to the first, is a fact I cannot hope to
explain.
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