Mastro Titta: diary of an executioner

Posted On July 27, 2020

We already mentioned Mastro Titta as one of the most famous ghosts in Rome. His career as official executioner of the Pope has inspired many tales and legends, thanks also to his personal journal.

Selling umbrellas and serving justice

Although Romans called him Mastro Titta, his real name was Giovanni Battista Bugatti.
On March 22^nd 1796, at the age of 17, Giovanni attended his first executions and, despite his young age, he acted professionally.
Chronicles of that time describe him as short and portly and always well dressed. When not working as executioner, he sold painted umbrellas to tourists and frequented the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina with his wife.
A happy and normal life, except that for his safety he couldn’t leave Trastevere at all.

“Memories of an executioner written by himself”

In his diary, lately published as “Memories of an executioner written by himself”, he listed 516 “patients” and several techniques like hanging, beheading with guillotine or axe, quartering.
He wrote every detail of every execution: date, name of the convict, accusation, punishment, last words… Very specific!
For example, we know about victim #85: Bernardino Rinaldi, condemned on Oct 9^th 1805 for killing his wife and her lover. Two years later he wrote about Tommaso Grassi, who killed his brother-in-law because he refused to lend him money.
Mastro Titta retired in 1864, at the age of 85 with a monthly pension of 30 scudi.

Witnessing an execution

During his stay in Rome, Lord Byron had the chance to see Mastro Titta at work. It happened on May 19^th 1817, at Piazza del Popolo, when he beheaded three men. It impressed Lord Byron so much that he wrote a letter to his editor, John Murray, describing this experience.
On March 8^th 1845, Charles Dickens witnessed the beheading of Giovanni Vagnarelli. In his Pictures from Italy, he described meticulously the crowd, the street, the soldiers and also Mastro Titta:

The body was carted away in due time, the knife cleansed, the scaffold taken down, and all the hideous apparatus removed.

The executioner: an outlaw EX OFFICIO (what a satire on the Punishment!) who dare not, for his life, cross the Bridge of St. Angelo but to do his work: retreated to his lair, and the show was over.