Note 139 — Chapter II · GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.

Barzellotti, David Lazzaretti di Arcidosso detto il Santo. Bologna, 1885.

Somewhat similar is the career of an ex-sergeant of the Italian army named Gabriele Donnici, who has founded in the Calabrian highlands a sect dignifying itself with the title of the Saints. Gabriele is a prophet announcing the advent of a new Messiah, who is to come not as a lamb, but as a lion breathing vengeance and armed with bloody scourges. He and his brother Abele were tried for the murder of the wife of the latter, Grazia Funaro, who refused to submit to the sexual abominations taught in the sect. They were condemned to hard labor and imprisonment, but were discharged on appeal to the Superior Court of Cosenza. Other misdeeds of the sectaries are at present occupying the attention of the Italian tribunals.—Rivista Cristiana, 1887, p. 57.