Giacomo Cenci is executed in Rome for the killing of his father Count Cenci, by being struck on the head with a mallet (mazzolatura). Etching, ca. 1850.
The Mazzatello (abbreviated mazza), more properly mazzolatura (hitting with a mace), was a method of capital punishment occasionally used by the Papal States for the most loathsome crimes, involving the infliction of head trauma.[1][2] The method was named after the implement used in the execution: a large, long-handled mallet or pollaxe.[1] The last reported use of this form of punishment was in September 1806: the much more common capital punishments inflicted by the Papal States were hanging or beheading. According to author Geoffrey Abbott, mazzatello constituted "one of the most brutal methods of execution ever devised, requiring minimal skill on the part of the executioner and superhuman acquiescence by the victim".[2] Megivern cites mazzatello as one example of an execution method devised by the Papal States that "competed with and in some instances surpassed those of other regimes for cruelty".[1]
The condemned would be led to a scaffold in a public square of Rome, accompanied by a priest (the confessor of the condemned[2]); the platform also contained a coffin and the masked executioner, dressed in black.[1] A prayer would first be said for the condemned's soul.[2] Then, the mallet would be raised, swung through the air to gain momentum, and then brought down on the head of the prisoner, similar to a contemporary method of slaughtering cattle in stockyards.[1] The condemned was usually knocked unconscious[3] rather than being killed instantly, so the throat of the prisoner would then be slit with a knife.[1][4]
Along with drawing and quartering (sometimes, but not always, after a hanging), mazzatello was reserved for crimes that were considered "especially loathsome".[5]
A variation of this method appears in chapter 35 of Alexandre Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo as la mazzolata and mazzolato, when a prisoner sentenced to execution is bludgeoned on the side of his head with a mace.[6]
See also
Beatrice Cenci, beheaded for patricide, whose brother Giacomo was executed by mazzatello for the same crime.
A guillotine is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with a pillory at the bottom of the frame, holding the position of the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly and forcefully decapitating the victim with a single, clean pass; the head falls into a basket or other receptacle below.
Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is inevitably fatal to humans and most animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function.
The electric chair is a specialized device employed for carrying out capital punishment through the process of electrocution. During its use, the individual sentenced to death is securely strapped to a specially designed wooden chair and electrocuted via strategically positioned electrodes affixed to the head and leg. This method of execution was conceptualized by Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist based in Buffalo, New York, in 1881. Over the following decade, this execution technique was developed further, aiming to provide a more humane alternative to the conventional forms of execution, particularly hanging. The electric chair was first utilized in 1890 and subsequently became known as a symbol of this method of execution.
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (père) completed in 1844. It is one of the author's most popular works, along with The Three Musketeers. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
The breaking wheel, also known as the execution wheel, the Wheel of Catherine or the (Saint) Catherine('s) Wheel, was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages up to the 19th century by breaking the bones of a criminal or bludgeoning them to death. The practice was abolished in Bavaria in 1813 and in the Electorate of Hesse in 1836: the last known execution by the "Wheel" took place in Prussia in 1841. In the Holy Roman Empire it was a "mirror punishment" for highwaymen and street thieves, and was set out in the Sachsenspiegel for murder, and arson that resulted in fatalities.
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a method of suicide.
Albert Pierrepoint was an English hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry and uncle Thomas were official hangmen before him.
An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who effects a sentence of capital punishment on a condemned person.
Capital punishment in Canada dates back to Canada's earliest history, including its period as a French colony and, after 1763, its time as a British colony. From 1867 to the elimination of the death penalty for murder on July 26, 1976, 1,481 people had been sentenced to death, and 710 had been executed. Of those executed, 697 were men and 13 women. The only method used in Canada for capital punishment of civilians after the end of the French regime was hanging. The last execution in Canada was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin on December 11, 1962, at Toronto's Don Jail. The National Defence Act prescribed the death penalty for certain military offences until 1999, although no military executions had been carried out since 1946.
Giovanni Battista Bugatti (1779–1869) was the official executioner for the Papal States from 1796 to 1864. He was the longest-serving executioner in the States and was nicknamed Mastro Titta, a Roman corruption of maestro di giustizia, or master of justice. At the age of 85, he was retired by Pope Pius IX with a monthly pension of 30 scudi.
Capital punishment in Sweden was last used in 1910, though it remained a legal sentence for at least some crimes until 1973. It is now outlawed by the Swedish Constitution, which states that capital punishment, corporal punishment, and torture are strictly prohibited. At the time of the abolition of the death penalty in Sweden, the legal method of execution was beheading. It was one of the last states in Europe to abolish the death penalty.
Alexander Armstrong English was a British national who was the official hangman of Canada between 1912 and 1935. It is estimated he carried out more than 600 hangings in all of Canada's provinces and incorporated territories.
Execution by shooting is a method of capital punishment in which a person is shot to death by one or more firearms. It is the most common method of execution worldwide, used in about 70 countries, with execution by firing squad being one particular form.
Capital punishment remained in Polish law until September 1, 1998, but from 1989 executions were suspended, the last one taking place one year earlier. No death penalty is envisaged in the current Polish penal law.
William Calcraft was a 19th-century English hangman, one of the most prolific of British executioners. It is estimated in his 45-year career he carried out 450 executions. A cobbler by trade, Calcraft was initially recruited to flog juvenile offenders held in Newgate Prison. While selling meat pies on streets around the prison, Calcraft met the City of London's hangman, John Foxton.
To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
Capital punishment in Thailand is a legal penalty, and the country is, as of 2021, one of 54 nations to retain capital punishment both in legislation and in practice. Of the 10 ASEAN nations, only Cambodia and the Philippines have outlawed it, though Laos and Brunei have not conducted executions for decades.
Drowning as a method of execution is attested very early in history, for a large variety of cultures and as the method of execution for many types of offences.
In Iran, public executions occurred regularly during the Qajar dynasty but declined with the Persian Constitutional Revolution and became a rare occurrence under the Pahlavi dynasty. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, capital punishment and public executions returned on an unprecedented scale. In 2013, Iran was one of only four countries known to have committed public executions.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
