“When the capture of the delinquents was known in Rome, a multitude of the people hastened to see them as they were conveyed bound on horses into the city.  It is related that Franceschini having asked one of the police officers in the course of the journey how ever the crime had been discovered, and being told that it had been revealed by his wife, whom they had found still living, was almost stupefied by the intelligence.  Towards twenty-three o’clock (the last hour before sunset) they arrived at the prisons.  A certain Francesco Pasquini, of Citta di Castello, and Allessandro Baldeschi, of the same town, both twenty-two years of age, were the assistants of Guido Franceschini in the murder of the Comparini; and Gambasini and Agostinelli were those who stood on guard at the gate.”

“Meanwhile the corpses of the assassinated Comparini were exposed at San Lorenzo, in Lucina, but so disfigured, and especially Franceschini’s wife, by their wounds in the face, that they were no longer recognizable.  The unhappy Francesca, after taking the sacrament, forgiving her murderers, under seventeen years of age, and after having made her will, died on the sixth day of the month, which was that of the Epiphany; and was able to clear herself of all the calumnies which her husband had brought against her.  The surprise of the people in seeing these corpses was great, from the atrocity of the deed, which made one really shudder, seeing two septuagenarians and a girl of seventeen so miserably put to death.”

“The trial proceeding meanwhile, many papers were drawn up on the subject, bringing forward all the most incriminating circumstances of this horrible massacre; and others also were written for the defence with much erudition, especially by the advocate of the poor, a certain Monsignor Spreti, which had the effect of postponing the sentence; also because Baldeschi persisted in denial, though he was tortured with the rope, and twice fainted under it.  At last he confessed, and so did the others, who also revealed the fact that they had intended in due time to murder Franceschini himself, and take his money, because he had not kept his promise of paying them the moment they should have left Rome.”

“On the twenty-second of February there appeared on the Piazza del Popolo a large platform with a guillotine and two gibbets, on which the culprits were to be executed.  Many stands were constructed for the convenience of those who were curious to witness such a terrible act of justice; and the concourse was so great that some windows fetched as much as six dollars each.  At eight o’clock Franceschini and his companions were summoned to their death, and having been placed in the Consorteria, and there assisted by the Abate Panciatici and the Cardinal Acciajuoli, forthwith disposed themselves to die well.  At twenty o’clock the Company of Death and the Misericordia reached the dungeons, and the condemned were let down, placed on separate carts, and conveyed to the place of execution.”