In Italy as elsewhere there were
ghosts, that is, reappearances of deceased persons; and if the view
taken of them differed in any respect from that which prevailed in the
North, the difference betrayed itself only in the ancient name 'ombra.'
Even nowadays if such a shade presents itself, a couple of Masses are
said for its repose. That the spirits of bad men appear in a dreadful
shape, is a matter of course, but along with this we find the notion
that the ghosts of the departed are universally malicious. The dead,
says the priest in a novel of Bandello, kill the little children. It
seems as if a certain shade was here thought of as separate from the
soul, since the latter suffers in Purgatory, and when it appears, does
nothing but wail and pray. At other times what appears is not the ghost
of a man, but of an event - -of a past condition of things. So the
neighbors explained the diabolical appearances in the old palace of the
Visconti near San Giovanni in Conca, at Milan, since here it was that
Bernab Visconti had caused countless victims of his tyranny to be
tortured and strangled, and no wonder if there were strange things to
be seen. One evening a swarm of poor people with candles in their hands
appeared to a dishonest guardian of the poor at Perugia, and danced
round about him; a great figure spoke in threatening tones on their
behalf, it was St.
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