Re: ARACHNE
Looking at Mazzini and Pike.
Came across a movie with a character named Mazzini. Mostly coincidental.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_Hearts_and_Coronets
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy film. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays nine characters.[1] The plot is loosely based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907) by Roy Horniman. It concerns Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a woman disowned by her aristocratic family for marrying out of her social class. After her death Louis decides to take revenge on the family, and to take the dukedom, by murdering the eight people ahead of him in succession to the title.
Interestingly, G Mazzini was a player in the unification of Italy, which was in 8 states at the time and did not unite to his liking.
The new Kingdom of Italy was created in 1861 under the Savoy monarchy. In 1862, Mazzini joined Garibaldi in his failed attempt to free Rome. In 1866, Italy joined the Austro-Prussian War and gained Venetia. At this time Mazzini frequently spoke out against how the unification of his country was being achieved, and in 1867 he refused a seat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. In 1870, he tried to start a rebellion in Sicily, and was arrested and imprisoned in Gaeta. He was freed in October, in the amnesty declared after the Kingdom finally took Rome, and returned to London in mid-December.
Ebook original https://books.google.com/books/about/Israel_Rank.html?id=rkM2AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/nov/12/kind-hearts-and-coronets
There is a very specific reason why Israel Rank has been shrouded in reticence and unspoken embarrassment. In the movie, Dennis Price's social-climbing serial killer was supposed to be half-Italian: in the book he is a Jew, whose first name speaks for itself and whose second name hints punningly at social hierarchy but also, unquestionably, at a bad smell.