Chronology of a Circus Trial

Abstract

This chapter steps away from historical analysis to present in chronological order a selection of the newspaper reports of the journalists who followed the Fadda trial’s daily sessions throughout its monthlong duration and dramatized it for the national public. By widening their perspective beyond the strict determination of culpability, reporters covered the trial less as a legal procedure than as a social spectacle in which the spectators themselves played a crucial role. At the center of attention stood women, whose visibility itself became the news, the sensation, and the scandal that the invariably male gaze attended the trial to report on. The aim of this chapter is to provide readers an unalloyed experience of the rhythms and rhetoric of the coverage as it developed day by day, so as to witness how the trial proper became a backdrop to a much larger social phenomenon, calling for a variety of modes of narration. Unassisted by commentary, the chosen selections convey directly and vividly the attraction of the trial as it built breathlessly toward the climax of the jury’s decision. Most prominent, for their mordant wit, are the observations of Luigi Arnaldo Vassallo, reporter for Il Messaggero, widely recognized as the leading chronicler of the trial. Vassallo’s sexism stands out for its libertine insouciance but differs little in substance from that of his fellow journalists.