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Tuscany today is a day of celebration!
This festival was established ten years ago by the Tuscany Region to commemorate the abolition of the death penalty in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, back in November 30, 1786 (first state in the world to abolish it).
(Transcription of the Preamble and Article LI Abolition of death penalty
Criminal Law Reform, 30 November 1786, n. LIX.)
________________________________________
Leopold
BY THE GRACE OF GOD
ROYAL PRINCE OF HUNGARY AND BOHEMIA
Archduke of AUSTRIA
GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY
Up from our future to the Throne of Tuscany regarded as one of our main duties the examination and reform of criminal legislation, and having soon recognized too severe, and derived from the maximum established in less happy times of the Roman Empire, or in turbulence anarchy of the low times, and especially not suited to the sweet and gentle character of the nation, providing provisional temper the rigor with instructions and orders to our courts, and with special edicts, by which the death sentences were abolished, the torture, and punishment immoderate, and not proportionate to the offense, and fines to the tax laws, until we were in a position through a serious and mature consideration, and by the help of the experiment with these new provisions to reform entirely the said Legislation.
With the greatest satisfaction of our father's heart We have finally recognized that mitigation of punishment combined with more accurate surveillance in order to prevent the reaction, and by the swift dispatch of the process and the readiness and safety of the sentence true criminals, instead of increase the number of crimes has considerably decreased the most common, and rendered almost unheard of in the terrible, so we come to the determination of not longer delay the reform of criminal legislation, with which abolished the death penalty, the maximum steady, as not necessary for the purpose proposed by the Company in the punishment of offenders, in any way obviate the use of torture, confiscation of property of offenders, tending mostly to the detriment of their innocent families who have no complicity in the murder, and banished by the law the proliferation of crimes of lese-majeste with improperly called refinement of cruelty invented in times perverse, and fixing the punishment proportionate to the crime, but inevitable in the cautious case, we are determined to order with all the fullness of our Supreme Authority as follows.
(... Omitted ...)
LI. We have seen with horror how easily passed in the legislature was decreed the death penalty even for crimes not serious, and having considered that the object of punishment should be the satisfaction in the private and the public injury, the Reo son also corrected it Society and the State, which amends can never despair, Rei security in the most serious and heinous crimes that do not remain at liberty to commit further, and finally the public example, that the government in punishing the crimes, and serve the properties to which this unique and direct, he must always make use of the most effective with the least possible harm to the offender that the effectiveness and restraint set is obtained than with the Death Penalty, with the penalty of Public Works , which serve as a continued, and not a momentary terror that often degenerate into pity, and removes the ability to commit new crimes, and the possible hope of returning to the Company a useful citizen, and correctly, having also considered that a very different laws could no longer agree with most gentle and docile manners of this century, and especially in the Tuscan people, we have come to abolish the determination as we abolished by this Act and for all the death penalty against any Reo , is present, is in default, and even confess, and convinced of any Capital Crime declared by the Laws enacted so far, which we all want in this part of the cease and abolished.
(... Omitted ...)
Such is our will, to which command that they be given full effect in all our Grand-Duchy, notwithstanding any law, statute, ordinance, or custom to the contrary.
Given in Pisa on 30. November 1786.
Leopold.
V. ALBERTI.
CARLO bons.
________________________________________
In Florence in 1786. For Gaetano Cambiagi Printer Granducale.
This festival was established ten years ago by the Tuscany Region to commemorate the abolition of the death penalty in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, back in November 30, 1786 (first state in the world to abolish it).
(Transcription of the Preamble and Article LI Abolition of death penalty
Criminal Law Reform, 30 November 1786, n. LIX.)
________________________________________
Leopold
BY THE GRACE OF GOD
ROYAL PRINCE OF HUNGARY AND BOHEMIA
Archduke of AUSTRIA
GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY
Up from our future to the Throne of Tuscany regarded as one of our main duties the examination and reform of criminal legislation, and having soon recognized too severe, and derived from the maximum established in less happy times of the Roman Empire, or in turbulence anarchy of the low times, and especially not suited to the sweet and gentle character of the nation, providing provisional temper the rigor with instructions and orders to our courts, and with special edicts, by which the death sentences were abolished, the torture, and punishment immoderate, and not proportionate to the offense, and fines to the tax laws, until we were in a position through a serious and mature consideration, and by the help of the experiment with these new provisions to reform entirely the said Legislation.
With the greatest satisfaction of our father's heart We have finally recognized that mitigation of punishment combined with more accurate surveillance in order to prevent the reaction, and by the swift dispatch of the process and the readiness and safety of the sentence true criminals, instead of increase the number of crimes has considerably decreased the most common, and rendered almost unheard of in the terrible, so we come to the determination of not longer delay the reform of criminal legislation, with which abolished the death penalty, the maximum steady, as not necessary for the purpose proposed by the Company in the punishment of offenders, in any way obviate the use of torture, confiscation of property of offenders, tending mostly to the detriment of their innocent families who have no complicity in the murder, and banished by the law the proliferation of crimes of lese-majeste with improperly called refinement of cruelty invented in times perverse, and fixing the punishment proportionate to the crime, but inevitable in the cautious case, we are determined to order with all the fullness of our Supreme Authority as follows.
(... Omitted ...)
LI. We have seen with horror how easily passed in the legislature was decreed the death penalty even for crimes not serious, and having considered that the object of punishment should be the satisfaction in the private and the public injury, the Reo son also corrected it Society and the State, which amends can never despair, Rei security in the most serious and heinous crimes that do not remain at liberty to commit further, and finally the public example, that the government in punishing the crimes, and serve the properties to which this unique and direct, he must always make use of the most effective with the least possible harm to the offender that the effectiveness and restraint set is obtained than with the Death Penalty, with the penalty of Public Works , which serve as a continued, and not a momentary terror that often degenerate into pity, and removes the ability to commit new crimes, and the possible hope of returning to the Company a useful citizen, and correctly, having also considered that a very different laws could no longer agree with most gentle and docile manners of this century, and especially in the Tuscan people, we have come to abolish the determination as we abolished by this Act and for all the death penalty against any Reo , is present, is in default, and even confess, and convinced of any Capital Crime declared by the Laws enacted so far, which we all want in this part of the cease and abolished.
(... Omitted ...)
Such is our will, to which command that they be given full effect in all our Grand-Duchy, notwithstanding any law, statute, ordinance, or custom to the contrary.
Given in Pisa on 30. November 1786.
Leopold.
V. ALBERTI.
CARLO bons.
________________________________________
In Florence in 1786. For Gaetano Cambiagi Printer Granducale.
embarrassed