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Interpretative Revival of
Tommaso Crudeli
First reader
Thomas
Second reader
not a Thomas,
First reader
but our Thomas who, after 250 years, is present among us for his defiance to imposed thought and for his liberal allegiance.
For some the 250 years seem many and sufficient to shadow memory of the facts; to us they are not enough to make us forget that the death by torture of Thomas is the most exclamatory conclusion of the most relentless phase of religious absolutism.
Second reader
self-justified also in sanguinary resolutions.
First reader
Apparent but not actual conclusion because even today subtle coercions and psychological vexations are also piloted with great surges of opinion, with consequent upsetting of the basic rights and values.
Second reader
I dont accuse you with proof but with suspicions, indications, circumstantial evidence, quasi-proof...
I seclude you and you must prove your innocence...
if you will not demonstrate it you can always repent.
First reader
Also today little has changed:
Second reader
I isolate you,
I deprive you of all communication, of your human dimension,
I extort from you an imaginative confession,
I convince you to repent.
First reader
Thomas, very weak and near collapse, did not confess what they suggested to him, did not abjure after a year of torture;
Second reader
...you, Inquisitor, here in the black shrouded Uffizi Chapel, foaming in the mouth for the thousands and thousands of words...I, with lips humid from blood, move my head in refusal of what you want....**
First reader
then the benevolent solution of >grace< was devised ...
Second reader
but what grace....and before what wrong such generosity?
First reader
The detention of Thomas continued so that he would not die in prison;
Second reader
29th May: strong cough, but no ejection
30th May: ejection of three ounces at 17:30
31st May: ejection of three ounces at 19:00
eight more days of this...
Goodbye my very beloved friend***
First reader
but the inexorable inquisitorial grip did not loosen even after death: in fact two years later they wanted to exorcise with fire the end of his tought and in Piazza Signoria his works were burned on the pyre.
Second reader
- like all the pyres of all the centuries -
First reader
it was done as a warning to all who still doubted the persecutory capacity of an integralist and fundamentalist clergy.
First reader
Today these persecutory capacities, ever more refined, are no longer a prerogative of the clergy but of all governments and the intolerant increasingly diffused religions.
First reader
With pride after seven,
Second reader
eight generations
First reader
we bear in our name the sign of such suffered injustice
Second reader
which, on the other hand, has become the heart of our family life.
Notes
* P. Verri
** possible autobiography dated 20 August 1740
*** manuscript by Tommaso
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