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    Michel di Morano , where more than a hundred Carbonari were already imprisoned . There he obtained information of some few of his compatriots . Maroncelli , his most intimate friend , and afterwards sharer of his apartment at Spielberg , Rezia , Rossi , and others . On the 21 st of February he was at length called up to receive sentence , before the president inquisitors and two assistant judges ,

    and was told by the former in a feeling tone , that the sentence was come ; that the judgment had been terrible , but the emperor had mitigated its severity . He had been sentenced to die , the penalty was commuted for fifteen years of rigorous imprisonment in the castle of Spielberg . ' The will of God be done ! ' was Pellico ' s reply , and he returned in silence , after being informed , that on the next day the sentence must be publicly announced , but

    that meantime he should be placed with Maroncelli . After an agitating night , in which his thoughts seem chiefly to have turned upon his afflicted parents , he and his friend were conveyed to the palace of the Doge , where , from a scaffold erected in the square , the captives were beheld by an immense assembled multitude , while an officer proclaimed their dole of suffering—to Maroncelli , twenty years ' imprisonment , to Pellico fifteen . Another month

    however passed , before the Commissary from Germany was in readiness to attend them on their journey ; but when he did arrive , he brought gracious intelligence , the emperor ^ out of his abundant mercy , intended to reckon the days of their captivity not by twenty-four hours , but by twelve . If this announcement had any meaning , it might naturally be supposed to signify , that one half of the term of punishment was cut off , and such Pellico concluded was the Emperor ' s intention .

    At last , on the 25 th of March , the prisoners set out , four in number , Rezia and Canova in one vehicle , Maroncelli and Pellico in another , and arrived at Brunn , the Moravian capital , on the 10 th of April . Near the walls of the city , to the West , is a hill , surmounted by the rock and castle of Spielberg , once the palace of the lords of Moravia , now the strongest of the Austrian monarch ' s prisons . About three hundred prisoners condemned for various crimes here suffer the punishment some of duro , some of

    durissimo imprisonment . We must explain . Duro , in the Austrian dictionary , means compulsory employment with chains on the feet , sleeping upon bare boards , and eating the poorest food . Durissimo , a more annoying method of fettering the captives , an iron ring being placed round the body , and the chain fastened to the wall in such a manner , that it barely reaches the boards which serve for a bed , the food is the same , whatever the law may say , bread and water . Their names being first entered in the superintendent ' s book , Maroncelli and Pellico were conducted to their

    future abodes , two darkrooms , not contiguous , opening into a subterraneous passage . The separation was unexpected , and proved the bitterest part of the lot *

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    408 Silvio Pellico .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 408, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/48/