In Rome, 1849, when English writer Charles Dickens visited the eternal city, he witnessed something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. A small, neatly dressed man stepped into the center of a packed public square — not a general, not a pope — but the official executioner of the Papal States. His name was Giovanni Battista Bugatti. And this was somewhere past his 400th execution.
The 17-Year-Old Who Took the Job No One Else Dared Touch
Born in Senigallia — a small port town on Italy’s Adriatic coast — Bugatti entered the profession at the age of 17, becoming the official executioner of the Papal States. History
This was not a career anyone dreamed of. In Rome at the time, executioners were considered socially unclean — forbidden from living inside the city walls, barred from crossing the Ponte Sant’Angelo into the heart of Rome except when carrying out their duties. Dickens recorded in his memoirs that Bugatti “retreated to his lair on the west side of the River Tiber, daring never to cross the bridge into the city except when discharging his macabre office.”
And yet Bugatti accepted. And he stayed for 68 years.
The Name That Kept Roman Children Indoors After Dark
The people of Rome did not call him by his real name. They called him “Mastro Titta” — a Roman corruption of the Latin phrase maestro di giustizia, meaning “Master of Justice.”
During his nearly 70-year tenure (1796–1864), Bugatti was treated like a celebrity. He conducted 516 executions and was known for his cold professionalism. He would sometimes even offer snuff to the condemned as a final gesture of compassion. Listverse
His executions drew entire families — grandparents, parents, small children. In the 19th century, this was public entertainment. Bugatti understood that, and he never left the crowd disappointed.
Four Methods of Killing — All Vatican-Approved
Bugatti’s preferred methods of execution included beheading, hanging, and breaking on the wheel — a particularly gruesome form of punishment in which the condemned was tied to a large wheel and beaten with iron bars until every bone in their body was broken. Listverse
But the most feared weapon in Bugatti’s arsenal was deceptively simple: a large wooden mallet. The Romans called it the mazzatello.
It was an extraordinarily brutal method: the executioner would swing the mallet with full force and bring it down onto the condemned person’s head. If that blow did not kill them outright, their throat would be cut immediately afterward. Listverse
This method was reserved only for crimes considered especially abhorrent — killing a family member, betraying the Church, the gravest of criminal offenses. Bugatti carried it out not out of cruelty, but because the Papal States commanded it.
By the time France introduced the guillotine to Italy in 1808, it gradually became Bugatti’s preferred instrument. He used it on more than 50 occasions. Listverse
The Strange Celebrity of the Vatican’s Holy City
The most extraordinary thing about Bugatti was not the number of people he killed — it was how society treated him.
Bugatti was celebrated as an Italian hero for conducting more than 500 papal executions, and was also renowned for holding the longest tenure of any executioner in the history of the Church. TopTenz
The great Italian poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli wrote satirical verses about him. Lord Byron — the English poet — witnessed one of Bugatti’s executions and recorded the memory. To this day, Mastro Titta remains a well-known figure in Italy, featuring in plays and films, and serving as a traditional bogeyman in the bedtime stories Roman mothers tell their children. History
The Peaceful End of a Man Who Killed 516 People
In 1864, at the age of 85, Bugatti submitted his letter of retirement. Pope Pius IX granted his request and awarded him a monthly pension of 30 scudi — a lifetime stipend — as reward for nearly seven decades of service. Listverse
He lived four more years after retiring, dying in 1869 at the age of 90 — an old man, in good health, cared for by the state until the very end.
No regret. No haunting. No psychological collapse — unlike England’s Albert Pierrepoint, who after executing more than 400 people went on to publicly speak out against the very death penalty he had spent his career enforcing.
Bugatti was simply a man who did his job well — by the standards of the 19th century’s definition of “well.”
Giovanni Battista Bugatti still holds the record as the longest-serving executioner in the history of the Papal States. His collection of execution tools is preserved at the Criminology Museum in Rome.