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On the 14th, so the last paragraph informs us, "The condemned" Luigi Bonci "was beheaded by the public executioner, in the market-place of Perugia, and his head was there exposed for an hour to the gaze of the assembled multitude." On the 18th the report, from which these facts are taken, was placarded on the walls of Rome.
Let me take first the case, which is entitled "Cannara contro Luigi Bonci;" the township of Cannara, where the crime was committed, being what we should call in a civil suit the plaintiff, and the accused Bonci the defendant. Some three years ago, then, there lived in the hamlet of Cannara, near Perugia, a family called Bonci.
At any time any opera house would have been proud of two such tenors as Caruso and Bonci, or of two such sopranos as Melba and Tetrazzini, while there is no period in which a Sembrich would not have been a rara avis.
Melba and Tettrazini and Caruso and Bonci appear before you and warble their nightingale notes, as if behind the footlights with a galaxy of beauty, wealth and fashion before them for an audience.
The facts of the case appear to have been, that Maria Rosa Battistoni being then unmarried, gave birth in July 1835 to a son, who was the prisoner at the bar; that shortly afterwards the vicar of Cannara gave information to the Episcopal court of Assisi, that Maria Rosa had been seduced by Venanzio Bonci and had had an illegitimate child by him; that, in consequence, a formal requisition was addressed by the above court to Venanzio, and that he thereupon acknowledged the paternity of the child, and expressed his readiness to marry the mother.
The marriage was therefore solemnized, and the child entered in the church-books as the legitimized son of Venanzio and Maria Bonci, in June, 1836.
Recently the little Italian tenor Bonci has won my hearty admiration for his splendidly equalized voice, his perfect art, and his knowledge of his resources; and notwithstanding the almost ludicrous figure that he cut in serious parts, he elicited hearty applause. Cannot German tenors, too, learn to sing well, even if they do interpret Wagner?
Simply because it is based on the correctly produced human voice. The old players, especially those of the German school, said, and some still say, the vibrato should only be used at the climax of a melody. If we listen to a Sembrich or a Bonci, however, we hear a vibration on every tone.
Such small evidence as there was could have been ascertained in twenty-four hours, and yet the prisoner was never brought to trial till the 3rd of May, 1858; that is, eighteen months afterwards. On that day Luigi Bonci was arraigned before the civil and criminal court of Perugia, on the two counts of parricide, and of having illegal arms in his possession.
On the night of November the 9th, 1856, Venanzio Bonci, the father, Maria Rosa, his wife, and their daughter, Caterina, were at supper in the miserable room, which formed the whole of their dwelling, waiting for the return of the son, Luigi, who had been absent ever since the morning.
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