in order that the part he played in this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well defined.  He found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his weight, and he was so fat that a special dispensation relieved him from the duty of genuflexion in the Papal presence.  Though lord of a large territory, yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy debts; for no great noble of the period lived more splendidly, with less regard for his finances.  In the politics of that age and country, Paolo Giordano leaned toward France.  Yet he was a grandee of Spain, and had played a distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto.  Now the Duke of Bracciano was a widower.  He had been married in 1553 to Isabella de’ Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of Francesco, Bianca Capello’s lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando.  Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in 1576 from this world.[7] No one thought the worse of Bracciano for this murder of his wife.  In those days of abandoned vice and intricate villany, certain points of honour were maintained with scrupulous fidelity.  A wife’s adultery was enough to justify the most savage and licentious husband in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame she brought upon his head was shared by the members of her own house, so that they stood by, consenting to her death.  Isabella, it may be said, left one son, Virginio, who became in due time Duke of Bracciano.

It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria’s marriage, the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance Francesco Peretti’s murder.  Marcello, feeling sure of his game, introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and gross lover.  Having reached this point, it was imperative to push matters quickly on toward matrimony.

But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped?  They caught him in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings which his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the Acooramboni.  Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome.  Late in the evening of the 18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at once to Monte Cavallo.  Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance to communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a grievous pinch.  The letter containing this request was borne by one Dominico d’Aquaviva, alias Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria’s waiting-maid.  This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti’s house, and had made himself familiar with its master