The Food Supply

Early the next day, Masaniello’s followers began to ensure that allthe people were following orders. Fra Sebastiano di Bologna recounts how hewas at a bakery when some lazzari approached him, shouting,“Off with the capes!” The friar still had his on, andwithout hesitation the lazzari took it off him. Others kepthunting for Maddaloni, but never caught him. They did capture a slave ofhis, one Mustafà, who, in exchange for his life, swiftly told themwhere Maddaloni had stashed his goods. They were found in the monastery ofthe Barefoot Fathers of Sant’Agostino and the church of Santa Mariadella Stella – a treasure precious beyond counting. Thelazzari heaped it all in big carts and went to themarket, where it kindled amazement; here were the furniture and personaleffects of the most potent knight in Naples. Tutini and Verde report thatthere was also a fine carriage hitched to oxen, as a form of insult:“And so were brought all the silverware and goldware, drapes,decorations, and other household furnishing to the market, and a famouscarriage made a few years earlier when he took a wife, worth some fifteenthousand scudi; for ignominy they had it driven to themarket pulled by oxen.”

From the monastery of Sant’Agostino they extracted cloths of gold, andsilk, “very rich tapestries, coins, pictures very nobly painted,vessels of silver, gold, and gems, coaches decorated with gold, fine horses,and other furnishings of very great value.