Perhaps the mystery of the white lady is perhaps definitively clarified? – Study Center for Legality Security and Justice

Hyperstitions are “self -valerity prophecies”, that is, representations of reality, conceptions, beliefs, interpretations, behaviors and so on, whose main foundation are conceptual marketing and massive diffusion through digital media (definition found on concetticontrastivi.org). The term was coined by Nick LandBritish philosopher and writer, father of the “Accelerationism“, To define news without any foundation which, however, travel over time and progressively assume more and more credibility. To analyze a case of this kind and to try to understand if the story had a real foundation or if it was instead a sort of” hyperstition “produced in 1930 and which was then preserved and spread successfully (being functional to different social, political and cultural contexts), we have tried to apply a method to apply a method. Scientific, breaking up the information picture proposed by writings and oral communications in several sub -elements that were then verified individually.

1. The skeleton contained in a cell inside the criminological museum of Rome would belong to a woman killed in mysterious circumstances around the end of the 14th century: false news (the skeleton is of a man);
2. The skeleton would belong to a person killed at the beginning of the 16th century: false news (from an external observation of the finding, the skeleton should go back to the second half of the 19th century and in any case in the absence of an examination to the carbon isotope, each dating is pure conjecture awaiting the lack of contextualization of the find at the time of discovery);
3. At the time of the discovery of a skeleton in Poggio Catino of the emissaries of the criminological museum they would have taken him together with the walls of the cell which was then re -assembled in the museum: false news (the cell of the museum that houses the skeleton is a plasterboard reconstruction); therefore no dismantling of the environments of the fortification;
4. The skeleton found in Poggio Catino would have had hands and full linked by chains that would have been brought to the museum together with other material found on the occasion: false news; The strains currently present around the wrists of the skeleton in the museum are the means of restraint for the ankles and attributable, apparently at the end of the 19th century;
5. Second Sergio Biraghinephew of the owner of the castle at the time of the discovery of the skeleton, the place where the “macabre discovery” would have occurred would be leaning against a wall, to the right of the entrance to the upper part of the fortification and where in the past there was a tower: false news (experts in Castelli, after accurate inspections, have excluded that at the point indicated there may have been a tower then collapsed);
6. Second Sergio Biraghiat the time of the discovery of the skeleton of the white lady, an armigero would also have come to light, perhaps also held in an adjacent cell, which would then be buried in a tomb in the municipal cemetery of Poggio Catino: false newsfrom accurate investigations within the municipal cemetery there are no traces of tombs of the time that could host the armigero.

In fact, we had the feeling from the beginning that the history of the white lady was not very credible for the simple reason that the reconstruction of the story, so articulated, full of details, motives, characters, family and economic dynamics, had been possible simply by finding a nameless skeleton.

In order not to fall into the trap of pseudo -sciences and hasty conclusions based on intuition and not on the results of a scientific method, we have faced the case in a “endorsement” way, gradually excluding, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle suggested Sir, all the hypotheses impossible to reach what is probably the truth about this intricate and exciting legend. How it was possible that a “fake new“As that of the white lady may have survived over time and indeed it has amplified, even finding space in literary works and official institutional sites, is then relatively easy to understand.

In fact, legend has all the ingredients to become attractive and transmissible. He is able to provoke strong emotions, refers to a terrible abuse, it concerns a young and perhaps beautiful woman, finally they overlook the betrayal and infidelity issues. “The hyperstition” of the white lady of Poggio Catino has therefore seen, since its beginning in the 1930s, a conspicuous series of “sellers of stories” and later a plethora of Creduloni who over the years have handed down the story (actually never occurred) through writings and journalistic pieces, sometimes enriching it with further imaginative details but without any feedback. The superstition of the ghost in the castle was also grafted on this with some ease. In doing so, in essence, they created a legend that has “historical” in the collective imagination even if devoid of scientific findings, documents, materials. First of all, the managers and the managers of the criminological museum in the fascist period who, although certainly having a dispute, have ridden the “gluttonous” legend of the white lady, able, by nature, to stimulate impetuous popular feelings and to affect the visitors morbidly. The emotion that is able to generate the thought of the horrible and unjust end of a young woman was then skillfully exploited and made spectacular over the years for thousands of unsuspecting spectators of the Rome Criminological Museum. Then, at the beginning of 2019, when increasingly insistent requests began to come from unsuspected scholars who could have discovered the staging, the current managers of the museum tried, perhaps out of modesty, a last strenuous resistance to reveal “the original deception” of their colleagues of the twenty years, making it difficult to access the files and documents relating to the museum installation and not allowing an observation “Close”, an accurate inspection or analysis of the alleged white lady. But this was not enough not to reveal this deception. And at this point a question arises spontaneously. Who belongs to the male skeleton present in the criminological museum of Rome and subtracted for so many years from pitiful burial to satisfy the macabre prury of visitors who have come from all over the world? We did our part to throw light in the story of the white lady. We leave the study of this further “case cold“To the initiative of other diligent scholars to whom we wish all the fortunes.

One thing, however, is now certain: the long and sometimes disturbing sounds, similar to real howls, who in some nights feel distinctly come from the apex of the castle and which disturb the sleep of the inhabitants of the historic center of Poggio Catino, are not the requests for justice by the ghost of the white lady but it is the wind of Scirocco, who perhaps always aware of the deception, makes his long laughs hear. Poggio Catino, however, does not need ghosts and legends to demonstrate its beauty. Its charm is in its ancient atmospheres, in the medieval spirit that arises from every stone of its alleys, in its breathtaking views and in the wise, aware and sly looks of its inhabitants.

The invitation to the municipal administration of Poggio Catino to participate in the final stages of the editorial staff of our research has not been answered.