Petra Rubea

FRAUDOLENTE

FRAUDOLENTE

In Sant'Angelo in Vado, just before sunrise on 20 July 1262, a swaddled infant was abandoned on the porch in front of St. Michael's church. Pitch black, he was a beautiful baby who, desperate from hunger, was found screaming at the top of his lungs. Needing a nursemaid, he was given to a girl who had recently delivered a son who tragically died shortly after birth. So she passed down this unusual name to the infant: Fraudolente.

Raised by the clergy, the boy lived his childhood within the old rectory. He was lively, healthy, intelligent and astute. The old parish priest, a small man with strong inner strength, was a true presbyter, virtuous and seriously consecrated to chastity. He loved Fraudolente like a son.

The unfavorable episode that upset the life of the boy happened at the beginning of the summer of 1274.

On the occasion of religious ceremonies, Martina used to drag herself around the churchyard, limping with difficulty, to ask for a handout.

The girl was an unfortunate orphan, homeless and without family, born with a slight hunchback and one leg shorter than the other. Small and sickly with a violent cough, she would shake her disheveled, sparse and reddish hair while contorting her pale and emaciated face into a horrible and nearly terrifying grimace, thanking her pittance with a timid and hideous toothless sneer. No one knew how she was able to survive the last freezing winter, her only refuge in the ruins of an old damp pigsty, curled up in the straw in patched and filthy clothing.

Behind the church at the cemetery, there was a small vegetable garden and a well. This is where Domino Giuliano found her, under a fig tree curled up on a patch of lawn in a mass of fetid rags. The beggar girl, who appeared to be moronically contemplating the sky, was moaning ecstatically and smiling while the boy frenetically touched the poor beggar's devastated body.

The priest was horrified and speechless with surprise and shock. He let out a high-pitched scream.

«Evil wretches! What are you doing?»

It took a few seconds for Fraudolente to squirm his way out of Martina's embraces, leaving her on the ground, victim to her own frenzy.

Domino Giuliano took a deep sigh of relief, knowing that he had arrived just in time.

Caught in the lewd and despicable act left the boy terrified. The priest said nothing more, ignoring the sinful creature that lay on the ground, and dragged Fraudolente by his ear to the well. Leaning against the trough was the strong and sinewy branch from a willow tree used to herd the animals from the courtyard. The Domino grasped the whiplike twig, swinging till it whistled through the air. He then led the sinner into the canonical cell.

«Undress!» he ordered. With eyes lowered and a shaking mouth while holding back tears of fear, Fraudolente obeyed.

«Kneel!»

The boy, resigned to his fate, lowered himself onto the faldstool.

Domino Giuliano flagellated him with rage, releasing repressed delusion and frustration with each flogging. How could this ungrateful boy betray his trust?

Fraudolente did not beg for mercy, shout or weep. In the end, devastated by the pain and humiliation, he fainted and slid to the stone floor.

The presbyter left, closing the door and abandoned Fraudolente on the ground naked and bleeding. He went searching for Martina in the orchard, but the poor girl had run away. He then went looking for her at the old pigsty.

But she had fled.