Fabrizio Maramaldo - Maramaldo in The Italian Language

Maramaldo in The Italian Language

The phrase, 'you are killing a dead man', in Italian, tu uccidi un uomo morto, became proverbial. However there are notable differences in contemporary Renaissance accounts of Ferrucci's last words. The version here is comes from the contemporary historian Benedetto Varchi's History of Florence. Paolo Giovio, in his Historiarum sui temporis libri XLV,(1550–1552) has Ferrucci saying, 'If you kill me, you will gain neither profit nor the approbation of praise from my murder'. A third minor contemporary source, given in the Tuscan dialect, has Ferrucci say, 'Tu darai a un morto'(You'll be bashing a corpse), which may be more probable. Ten days later, Florence surrendered, and was forced to accept the return of the Medici.

The feats of the Neapolitan condottiere, particularly this last incident, impressed themselves on the popular imagination, to the point that his name became synonymous with maltreatment of the weak or anyone incapable of defending himself, or for the type of person who shows himself ready to overcome or betray others as soon as he detects some weakness.

Thus, in the Italian language, the substantive maramaldo and the adjective maramaldesco ("Maramaldesque") has become eponymous of "ruthless", "villainous". One occasionally comes across the verb, maramaldeggiare in the sense of 'treat someone badly by ruthless mockery'