“David Lazzaretti…his doctrines were a strange medley of Christianity and Socialism. He proclaimed the advent of the Divine Republic, the death of tyrants, and the triumph of eternal justice.”
-From “Death of a Fanatic”, in The Cincinnati Evening Star, 26 November 1878
It’s been said that a prophet never achieves fame in his own homeland, but David Lazzaretti was an exception to the rule. Born into a peasant family in 1834 in Arcidosso, a rural hamlet situated in the Tuscan highlands, Lazzaretti spent his early years as a barocciaio, a wagoner. A heavy drinker, he frequently brawled at country fairs and cursed out anyone who offended him. After a while Lazzaretti opted for a change of scenery, and joined a military regiment allied with Giuseppe Garibadi. All in all, his youth was full of highs and lows; like his peers, he ate, drank, was merry and married. It was an ordinary life, and it would have remained so had Lazzaretti not–to use his own words–become a “man of mystery”.
By the time of his death in 1878, he was regarded by many of his neighbours as the messiah. “His prestige in the eyes of the people,” said the philologist Angelo de Gubernatis in an 1878 essay, “was great and increasing.” His disciples, most of whom were drawn from Arcidosso, Grosseto, and villages across the Maremma, numbered in the thousands. This fact in particular was repeated ad infinitum by the international media, which variably called Lazzaretti a saint, madman, and fanatic.
The New York Times, which dubbed him the “great Italian imposter”, said that his death would have a prominent place in the “annals of social and religious delusions”. Conversely, The Englishman, a London weekly, compared him to Charles Spurgeon, Ignatius of Loyola, and the abolitionist insurrectionist John Brown. His blood it argued, could “prove the prolific seed of new ideas in Italy”, and trigger the re-establishment of a “Great New Italian Republic”.
But Lazzaretti initially had much simpler aims. As he explained in his 1870 treatise, The Awakening of The People (Il Risveglio dei popoli) he did not want to be regarded as a “thaumaturgist or as a political and ambitious man”. He saw himself only as a “poor son of the people” graced with a “mysterious mission”.
Lazzaretti’s own awakening began in 1868, when after a mystical encounter with the Virgin Mary, he secured an audience with Pope Piux IX. The meeting was brief, but the pontiff, apparently impressed by Lazzaretti’s zeal, encouraged him to spend some time in a monastery. Afterwards, he withdrew to a dilapidated convent on Montorio Romano, where according to one of his biographers, Giacomo Barzellotti, he was educated by a Prussian monk named Ignatius Mikus.
During this contemplative chapter of his life, Lazzaretti lived in remote caves and was apparently ministered to by a series of spiritual beings, one of which– a ghostly knight in full armour — helped him uncover a long-forgotten sack of bones. After further discoveries and supernatural signs, he was led to believe that he was the rightful heir to the French throne.
These mystical experiences had a real effect on Lazzaretti’s spiritual development. In his book Unknown Tuscany (1909), Edward Hutton wrote that the young hermit, transfigured in the “byways of the mountains” became unrecognisable to his friends and family. Similarly, Augusto Tebaldi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Padua, and the author of “Reason and Madness” (1892) wrote that Lazzaretti “became sober, silent and addicted to strict fastings”. He was rendered “worthy of admiration; his language became more inspired, his writings more studied and elegant, his aspect solemn, his beard long, and his gait stately”.
In 1870, Lazzaretti, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, departed for the isle of Monte Cristo and took up residence in the grotto of Mamiliano. Again he was visited by a divine presence. In the midst of a ferocious thunderstorm, which “shook the entire island”, God manifested as a quiet, melodious voice. The experience was in many ways a consummation of Lazzaretti’s prophetic training, and when he finally emerged from his cave of solitude, he was a changed man.
Upon his return to the mainland, he was received as a Christ-like sage. In a memo to William M. Evarts, the United States Secretary of State, George Washington Wurts, an American diplomatic attaché based in Rome, wrote that as soon as Lazzaretti arrived at the port city of Santo Stefano, he caused such a “commotion and excitement among the people that the local authorities were obliged to ask him to leave”. Slowly making his way across the countryside, Lazzaretti eventually established himself on Monte Labbro, a lofty and desolate hill located several miles south of Arcidosso. He then took steps to put into practice what the psychiatrist Eugenio Tanzi has described as a “Neo-christianity impregnated by communism”.
To provide direct relief for local sharecroppers and farmers, he launched the Holy League, or Christian Brotherhood (Santa Lega o Fratellanza Cristiana), a welfare programme that also functioned as a cooperative bank. In time, a sizable community, buoyed by Lazzaretti’s charismatic preaching, began to take shape. According to the London Times: “His words had such an effect that in a short time he had induced a large number of individuals, not peasants only, but persons of substance and even position, to make over their possessions to him by regular acts of transmission; he became the owner, more or less by right of a large extent of property and was able to dispose of the labour of some sixty peasant families.” Over time, this community became known as the Society of Christian Families (Società delle famiglie cristiane).
With such manpower at his fingertips, Lazzaretti was able to build a tower, hermitage, and chapel. Hundreds of men, women, and children, reported the London Times, “were seen carrying large masses of stone, chanting the Rosary as they went.” The buildings, completed rapidly as if by magic, soon became Lazzaretti’s Delphi, a physical testament to his prophetic leadership. Lazzaretti even appointed his own high priest, an Oratorian brother named Philip Imperiuzzi.
Yet Lazzaretti was not immune to legal scrutiny. Despite his popular appeal, and perhaps due to his seemingly preternatural ability to raise money, Lazzaretti was often a target of prosecution. Accusations of fraud, vagabondage, extortion, and sedition followed him wherever he went, but his powerful counsellors, such as the ex-attorney general of the Duchy of Tuscany (Giovanni Salvi) helped him evade conviction. In 1873, however, the prophet was condemend to fifteen months’ imprisonment for fraud. The sentence was ultimately overturned by the Perugia court of appeals.
Not long after his release from prison, Lazzaretti relocated to France where, according to Barzellotti, he befriended Leon du Vachat. A wealthy lawyer with political links to the Legitimist movement, Du Vachat became Lazzaretti’s “true and major benefactor”, providing housing for Lazzaretti’s family, translation services for his manuscripts, and financial backing (at least several thousand francs) for his community.
In Lyons, Lazzaretti is also said to have gathered around himself a group of passionate followers. “He had ‘fervent adepts’ at Lyons,” wrote a contributor to the 1929 Occult Review, “and their survivors or descendants still cherish his memory with pious affection.” According to the New York Herald, his writings, which were openly critical of the secular Italian state, also reportedly attracted the attention of ultramontanist activists. Seeing an opportunity to broadcast the case for papal supremacy, they used their influence to distribute copies across Europe. Nevertheless, Lazzaretti’s views began to grow more and more heterodox.
In 1876, he brought out My Struggle with God (La Mia Lotta con Dio), a treatise in which he described his ascent into heaven, conversations with God, and future destiny as the head of the Church. In another text, Manifesto to all Christian Peoples and Princes (Manifeste aux peuples et aux princes chrétiens), Lazzaretti was even more self-aggrandising. Claiming descent from Constantine I, he proclaimed that he was the “king of kings, monarch of all monarchs”. Everything belonged to him–soldiers, carabinieri, even “all the princes of the world”. His theological views also began to resemble universalism. Downplaying the role of hell and the Devil, Lazzaretti emphasised that all people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, would eventually be reconciled with God.
In 1878, two important events occurred that probably spurred the prophet to hasten his return to Italy. First, Pope Pius and King Victor Emmanuel II died within a month of each other. Next, the Vatican decided to include his works in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Following this series of events, Lazzaretti became a full-fledged anti-prelatical preacher. Free at last from his bond to the Church, he set his sights on Monte Labbro, the airy kingdom he imagined would serve as a model for his new world order.
As the prophet and his followers made their way back to Grosseto, municipal officials kept their ears to the ground. As always, they feared that Lazzaretti would unleash the full kinetic power of his thousands-strong followers. They believed (or so the papers reported) that he represented a very real threat, both to public safety, and to the established political order. Thus, when Lazzarettists assembled on Monte Labbro on 14 August , the government suspected that an armed revolt was at hand. As a last resort, police agents persuaded Lazzaretti’s brother to intervene, but Lazzaretti , convinced of his messiahship, refused to back down.
Finally, after spiritedly preaching to his followers for three days, Lazzaretti announced that it was time to descend on Arcidosso. On 18 August, the prophet-king, trailed by his vibrantly uniformed acolytes, started making his way towards the village. It was a spectacle for the ages: the Lazzarettists sang as they marched, and in their hands they carried bells and red banners embroidered with the words La Repubblica e Il Regno di Dio (The Republic and the Kingdom of God). As Shakespeare said, “wizards know their times,” and Lazzaretti, well-prepared for the first day of his messianic ascension, was certainly dressed for the part.
He wore a half regal, half pontifical costume comprised of a red tunic with gold trimmings, a blue cape, and a plumed hat. He also carried a wand, which he reportedly claimed would force every earthly power to submit to him, “even as the walls of the Philistines crumbled at the sound of Joshua’s trumpet.”
As the Lazzarettists reached the outskirts of Arcidosso, they were confronted by the mayor and a squad of rifle-bearing policemen. There was an exchange of words; Lazzaretti was ordered to retreat, but the prophet, indignant, pressed forward. Suddenly the carabiniers opened fire, striking Lazzaretti in his forehead. After seeing their leader fall, the Lazarettists turned around and fled the scene. Most escaped, but a select few, including Imperiuzzi and several other members of Lazzaretti’s inner circle, were rounded up and arrested.
The event immediately sent shockwaves around the world. In the words of the New York Times, it “turned public attention for a time completely away from European politics”. Yet in almost every single news article Lazzaretti was described as an extremist who planned to lead an armed rebellion against the Italian state. His intentions, it was widely reported, were militant and vainglorious; similarly, his followers were a violent mob that had forced the police to take drastic measures. For months these views, accepted as plain facts, remained unchallenged, but with the commencement of court proceedings against Imperiuzzi and other high-ranking Lazzarettists, a more detailed picture of the Lazzaretti affair began to emerge.
In the course of the trial, the Lazzarettists were shown to have been nothing more than peaceful and unarmed demonstrators who believed they were “exercising their legal rights as Republicans and Reformers of the Church”. Over 160 witnesses were called to the stand and yet every single defendant was acquitted. Following the verdict, The Tablet, a London-based Catholic paper, described Lazzaretti’s killing as “unwarranted” and suggested that his “slayers” be tried for murder. The outlet also argued that the Government had initially hoped Lazzaretti’s activities would sow division in the Catholic Church. “The Government,” The Tablet concluded, “permitted the imposture of Lazzaretti and his agents to flourish while it suited their purpose, and then wantonly and illegally caused it to be suppressed with violence and bloodshed.”
Still, many scholars, such as Cesare Lombroso, Tebaldi, and De Gubernatis, disparaged the event as a medieval moment and demonised Lazzaretti and his followers as maniacal degenerates. Yet it would perhaps be more accurate, and less positivist, to call the rise of Lazzaretti a mysterious moment. Deeply influenced by the Book of Revelation, Lazzaretti was convinced that history itself would begin anew. A sort of Noahic figure, Lazzaretti believed that he was destined to use his hidden knowledge to re-organise and govern the new cosmos.
There was also a timeliness to his message. He emerged in a context in which the stresses and injustices of daily life (chief of which were organised crime, misgovernment, and heavy taxation) had instilled in the disenfranchised masses a desire for immediate deliverance. And like Jesus before him, Lazzaretti was well-positioned to instrumentalise religious sentiment to promote a radical re-thinking of society.
Ever present, he acted to uplift the oppressed classes, and they never forgot it. Decades after his death, he lived on in the hearts of his followers, many of whom continued to see him as their saviour. Lazzaretti’s mysterious rise, an enigma to the socially privileged few, was always understood by his working-class paisans. Hutton put it well: “He died for the abused poor, those contadini who even to-day are too often the mere slaves of the Padrone, and who in Tuscany, at any rate, are the salt of the earth, in whom one day we shall find the salvation of Italy.”
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