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Non-Utopian Euthanasia: An Italian Report, c. 1554

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

René Graziani
René Graziani*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

The Utopian custom of euthanasia used, quite rightly, to be discussed in terms of classical sources and generally turned on whether Sir Thomas More advocated it personally or not. The fruitfulness of such discussion has its limits, and I find that More scholars have largely dropped the subject. Some new evidence has come to light, however, which raises the question whether More's apparently speculative projection had not in fact some basis in actual practice. An Italian diplomat who visited England during the reign of Mary in 1554, that is twenty-eight years after Utopia was published, stated unequivocally that euthanasia (he does not use the term, of course) was customary among some people in England. He thought it a primitive survival.

I have found two main sources for the text of the report: (1) the various copies of an anonymous manuscript usually called ‘Ritratti del Regno d'lnghilterra’ (2) a book by the Ferrarese diplomat Giulio Raviglio Rosso, I Successi d'lnghilterra dopo la morte di Odoardo sestofno al giunta in quel Regno del Sereniss.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , Winter 1969 , pp. 329 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1969

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References

1 See Edward, Surtz S.J., In Praise of Wisdom (Chicago, 1957), pp. 88–93 Google Scholar. Father Surtz believes that ‘Thomas More cannot, by the farthest stretch of imagination, be supposed to advocate mercy killing, whether pagan or Christian,’ but with the reservation ‘in the light of present evidence.'

2 In B.M. Add. 8262, fols. 402-410, in a seventeenth-century hand according to B. M. staff; another version, Add. 14,098, fols. 133-147; Eugenio Albèri's limited edition (12 copies) of the Marchese Gino Capponi's manuscript Cod. m. cart. 169-190 in Relazioni dello Impero Britannia (Firenze, 1852), pp. 141-158, and again in Albèri's Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al’ Senato, 3 ser., 15 vols. (Firenze, 1839-63), Ser. 1, 11, 381-398. Albèri's choice of this manuscript (apparently he had seen others) may have been influenced by the fact that the Marchese was the main sponsor of the latter series. Albèri thought the ‘Ritratti’ Venetian because of some similarity of content to the public relazioni customarily delivered to the Doge and Senate by returning Venetian ambassadors. But there are no signs of its being addressed to or intended for such an audience. For an informative listing of some of these materials, see John Holmes, F.S.A., in B.M. Add. 20,759, fols- 12-16, and in C. A., Sneyd, A Relation … about 1500 (London, 1847), p. ix Google Scholar. Holmes thought that the ‘Ritratti’ was compiled from the private papers or communications of Micheli. Since writing my note I have come upon a further version, substantially the same, in Two Italian Accounts of Tudor England. A Journey to London in 1497. A Picture of English Life under Queen Mary. Translated into English and published by C. V. Malfatti (Barcelona, 1953), 45-70, 88-99, from an Italian manuscript in the Library of the Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real del Escorial (X. III-8. fols. 241-266). Malfatti records no other versions and leaves the author anonymous.

3 Nel qual proposito non voglio tacere un’ altra sorte di pietà che usano ne gli infermi, la quale é, che essendo abbandonato uno da Medici, (& per opinioni loro) non havendo rimedio al suo scampo; I piu prossimi parenti pigliano un cussino, & lo pongono sopra il volto dell’ amalato, & dopoi vi si pongono a seder sopra, & con quel modo l'affogano, cosi facendo il Padre al figliuolo, come il figliuolo al Padre, & ciò fanno perche tenendo al sicuro le parole del Medico per vere & che al male dell’ infermo non sia alcun rimedio, crcdono di fare cosa molto grata à Dio, col levarlo di stento: Non nascono però questi effetti di pieta in ogni grado di persona, ma solamente in genti basse, & in certe Terre lontane dal mare, che serbano ancora alcuni costumi Barbari per la poca loro conversatione. (7 Successi, fol. 107). I note that the phrase ‘& in certe Terre lontane dal mare’ occurs here and in B.M. Add. 8262 and Add. 14,078, but not in Alberi.

4 Rosso was in England only for some days; Micheli for at least (authorities vary) two years: see below.

5 The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Vol. 4. Utopia, ed. Edward Surtz, s.j., and J. H. Hexter (New Haven, 1965), pp. 185-187.

6 Material from the ‘Ritratti’ starts appearing at Annot. VIII.

7 See ‘Alle Illustrissime et Eccellentissime Signore Donna Lucretia & Donna Leonora D'Este’ and ‘à Discreti Lettori.'

8 This may be supported by the fact that a less finished version of I Successi without the annotations (possibly the source of the pirated Venetian edition) appears next to a manuscript ‘Ritratti’ in B.M. Add. 8262, a miscellaneous Italian collection.

9 Sir James Fitzjames, Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England (London, 1883), in, 105 Google Scholar; J. S. Burns, The History of Parish Registers in England, sec. ed. 1862, p. 108; ‘1579 Aug. 4. John Lacone, infamously buried, for killing himself desperately,’ and cf. p. 116.