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The Legend:
Sometime previous to April 4, 1731, when an account of the event was published, the remains of the 62-year-old Countess Cornelia di Bandi of Cesena, Italy, were found on the floor of her bedroom by her maid. Her body had been reduced to ashes; all that survived were her stockinged legs and, on the floor between them, a large portion of her head. The air was full of soot, and her bed, with the covers thrown back, was undamaged. It was assumed that she was suddenly consumed by fire after she had arisen from bed for some reason, the event occurring so fast that her head fell down through the space her body used to occupy, and landing on the floor between her unburned legs.
My Earliest Sources
The earliest account of this case I have found is from the famous novelest Charles Dickens [1812-1870] of all people, and it is perhaps because of this attention of his to the case that it is so well known today. In the preface to the 1853 edition of his novel Bleak House, he defends both his literary use of and his belief in Spontaneous Human Combustion (a villain in this novel dies in this manner, and Dickens had been criticized for it) by citeing details from three real life cases; the Countess Cornelia's death is one of them. Here's his account of it:
"There are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of the Countess Cornelia de Bandi Cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at Verona, in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome."
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And this is all he has to say on the matter, which, at the very least, says the event occured previous to 1732... which is not a lot of information. Naturally, I will attempt to locate the source he mentioned.
However, my second oldest source has more useful information about this case. John Knott, in an article on spontaneous combustion written in 1905, tells of a letter recieved by the Royal Society of London on June 20, 1745, which featured a translation of an Italian account of the death of "the Countess Cornelia Zangari and Bandi, of Cesena"; the original Italian account was said to have been written by Reverend Joseph Bianchini of Verona (and I do have to wonder if he is related to the Giuseppe Bianchini mentioned above by Dickens), and dated from April 4, 1731... thus the date for the event above as 'previous to April 4, 1731'. I will try to track a copy of this earlier Italian account; in the meantime, the death of the Countess as described in the translation runs thus.
The Countess, aged 62, had been fine all day long but appeared to be "dull and heavy" at supper that night. She was put to bed by a maid, who stayed to talk and pray with her for about three hours until the Countess went to sleep, and the maid left the room. In the morning the Countess had not arisen by her usual time, so the same maid went to the bedroom to check on her; and when the Countess did not respond to the maid calling her name, the maid opened the window to the room to let in light... and discovered the remains of the Countess.
The air in the room was full of soot. The remains, found four feet from the Countess' bed, were described as a heap of ashes, the Countess' legs from the knees down still wearing stockings, the front portion of her head -- her chin, "half of the back-part of the scull", and her brains had all been destroyed -- and three blackened fingers, found within the ashes. The ashes left a "greasy and stinking moisture" on the skin when picked up, and the floor of the room was "so thick smear'd with a gluish moisture, that it could not be taken off".
On the floor was a small oil-lamp covered in ashes; it had no oil in it when it was found. Two candlesticks on a table still had their wicks, but the tallow that made up the candles was gone; there was moisture around the feet of the candlesticks. The bed and furniture in the room had a layer of moist ash-colored soot upon them, but were otherwise undamaged. The same soot had penetrated a chest of drawers and ruined the linen within; it had also coated the interior, furniture, and utensils of a kitchen and pantry that was next to the Countess' bedroom. In addition, in a room either above the kitchen or the bedroom the soot was thicker, to the point that the greasy stinking moisture was trickling down the windows in the room. In all of these rooms there was an undefinable stinking odor, and this odor proceeded to drift through the rest of the house after the maid opened the Countess' door. In addition to all this, it was stated that the sheets on the bed had been lifted on just one side, as when someone has just arisen from it.
It is important to note that while the letter describes essentially the same remains that modern accounts describe -- ashes, legs, and head -- unlike modern versions of the story, it does not state that the head was found lying between the legs. Joe Nickell in his book Secrets of the Supernatural, however, quotes an alternative early source which he claims does mention that the head was found between the legs, an account found in a 1746 issue of Gentleman's Magazine (#16, pg. 368). I will track a copy of this and double-check this detail, as it has been used as proof for the suddeness of the Countess' combustion and therefore proof of spontaneous combustion as the cause of her death.
Theories
The letter sent to the Royal Society also contained a number of theories. Bianchini, author of the original Italian account, felt a lightning strike could be the cause of the scene described, or possibly that the house was built over an undiscovered mine full of sulpher which somehow caused the Countess' death. The author of the translation and letter, Paul Rolli, was of a different opinion... and was perhaps the first person to put in writing his belief that the Countess' death was nothing other than an example of Spontaneous Human Combustion, which he believed to be caused by a gastro-intestinal imbalance of some sort.
These three theories all have one thing in common... they assumed that the oil lamp found on the scene could not possibly have been involved in the Countess' death, as made clear by the author of the original Italian account, Bianchini: "It is impossible that, by any accident, the lamp should have caused such a conflagration." This is just an opinion.
Given that the lamp was covered by ash -- not just soot -- then it's likely that at least part of the Countess' body had covered the lamp at some point. If the Countess had collapsed on top of the lit lamp due to illness or death, then it could have ignited her clothing and body, the resulting fire reducing her body largely to ash and airbron fat-saturated soot, a scenario proposed by Nickell in his book, mentioned above. But a question still exists; if, as Nickell describes, the Countess' head was found lying between her legs, then how did it get to that position? As I have said, I will double-check this detail.
Variations
Colin and Damon Wilson in their book The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries, mention that the Countess was not given to intoxication, and that this confounded those who believed spontaneous combustion to be caused by an overindulgence of alchoholic drink -- a popular theory at the time concerning the causes of spontaneous human combustion.
Joe Nickell in his book, Secrets of the Supernatural, also mentions that the Countess was not a drinker and gives an alternative possible name for the Countess, namely 'Baudi' instead of 'Bandi.' He also reports the remains included the Countess' unburned arms.
Sources:
- Bleak House, Charles Dickens, 1853 Bradbury & Evans [London], 1972 Everyman's Library, pg. xvi.
- The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries, Colin and Damon Wilson, 1988 Contemporary Books, Inc, pg.250.
- Mysteries of the Unexplained, 1982 Reader's Digest Association, pg. 81-82.
- Secrets of the Supernatural, Joe Nickell (with John F. Fischer), 1988 Prometheus Books, pg. 151,161-162.
- "Spontaneous Combustion", by John Knott, in American Medicine, April 22, 1905, pp. 653-660... for this particular account, see pg. 657-658.
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