In the circle of the chronicles we have consulted, the synthetic views of theMasaniello affair are rare. In some of them, as we have already seen inpart, the judgement is negative. As we have noted, Cardinal Filomarino,Giraffi, and Tontoli speak of him as a man who changed in the course ofthose days: from humble, he became a tyrant. For Giraffi, he tried totransgress every boundary: “he wanted to subjugate the earth, to tamethe ocean, to make war on the world, rub shoulders with the stars, and seethe rising and setting of the sun,” until he was found, like Absalom,the victim of his own ambition. Absalom, remember, died hanging from a treeby his own long hair. So, Masaniello condemned himself to his tragic end.Tontoli is even more explicit. Masaniello was dead “with goodreason”: ambition, pride or madness were mortal sins.“Masaniello died with good reason because the provoker of sedition isa capital criminal; [he quotes the jurist Baldus]: he who provokes a tumult,and a clamour in the people, ought to die, the punishment ofsedition.” He died because a kingdom cannot have two suns, nor canthe world, as Seneca said.

The Capopopolo was also condemned on the basis of a seriesof moral examples, arguments, and religious and juridical doctrines.