ABSTRACT
Public antipathy towards executioners had always run deep, and as late as 1827, even the assistant executioner of Bologna was not allowed to eat or drink in public for fear of disorder. The chronicles of Bologna and Rome are full of conflicts between sbirri and nobles, with the former usually getting the worst of it. No clear-cut "police" institution existed before the nineteenth century in the Papal States, and the sbirri's primary function consisted of executing the dictates and warrants of the judiciary. Popular prejudice against the standard police practices automatically limited any attempt at reform, since no one but sbirri could be expected to perform them. When the government shifted some police duties to the military in 1793, it stressed that the material act of arrest be executed by "a birro or some other vile person." During the Risorgimento, critics of the papal regime were quick to identify the Pope's police as the natural heirs of the sbirri.
