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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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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 *
Untitled Article
408 Silvio Pellico .
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Citation
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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/
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