Thus spoke the Italian Judas.  The appearance of La Casa on the scene is interesting.  He was the celebrated author of the scandalous ‘Capitolo del Forno,’ the author of many sublime and melancholy sonnets, who was now at Venice, prosecuting a charge of heresy against Pier Paolo Vergerio, and paying his addresses to a noble lady of the Quirini family.  It seems that on the territory of San Marco he made common cause with the exiles from Florence, for he was himself by birth a Florentine, and he had no objection to take Brutus-Lorenzino by the hand.

After the noblemen had rowed off in their gondola to dine with the Legate, Bibboni and his friend entered their palace, where he found another old acquaintance, the house-steward, or spenditore of Lorenzo.  From him he gathered much useful information.  Pietro Strozzi, it seems, had allowed the tyrannicide one thousand five hundred crowns a year, with the keep of three brave and daring companions (tre compagni bravi e facinorosi), and a palace worth fifty crowns on lease.  But Lorenzo had just taken another on the Campo di San Polo at three hundred crowns a year, for which swagger (altura) Pietro Strozzi had struck a thousand crowns off his allowance.  Bibboni also learned that he was keeping house with his uncle, Alessandro Soderini, another Florentine outlaw, and that he was ardently in love with a certain beautiful Barozza.  This woman was apparently one of the grand courtesans of Venice.  He further ascertained the date when he was going to move into the palace at San Polo, and, ’to put it briefly, knew everything he did, and, as it were, how many times a day he spit.’  Such were the intelligences of the servants’ hall, and of such value were they to men of Bibboni’s calling.

In the Carnival of 1546 Lorenzo meant to go masqued in the habit of a gipsy woman to the square of San Spirito, where there was to be a joust.  Great crowds of people would assemble, and Bibboni hoped to do his business there.  The assassination, however, failed on this occasion, and Lorenzo took up his abode in the palace he had hired upon the Campo di San Polo.  This Campo is one of the largest open places in Venice, shaped irregularly, with a finely curving line upon the western side, where two of the noblest private houses in the city are still standing.  Nearly opposite these, in the south-western angle, stands, detached, the little old church of San Polo.  One of its side entrances opens upon the square; the other on a lane, which leads eventually to the Frari.  There is nothing in Bibboni’s narrative to make it clear where Lorenzo hired his dwelling.  But it would seem from certain things which he says later on, that in order to enter the church his victim had to cross the square.  Meanwhile Bibboni took the precaution of making friends with a shoemaker, whose shop commanded the whole Campo, including Lorenzo’s palace.  In this shop he began to spend much of his time; ’and oftentimes I feigned to be asleep; but God knows whether I was sleeping, for my mind, at any rate, was wide-awake.’