Another point which struck a northern visitor in Italy was the frequency of private and domestic murders.[1] The Italians had and deserved a bad reputation for poisoning and assassination.  To refer to the deeds of violence in the history of a single family, the Baglioni of Perugia, as recorded by their chronicler Matarazzo; to cite the passages in which Varchi relates the deaths by poison of Luisa Strozzi, Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, and Sanga; or to translate the pages of annalists, who describe the palaces of nobles swarming with bravi, would be a very easy task.[2] But the sketch of Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography, which will form part of my third volume, gives so lively a picture of this aspect of Italian life, that there is no reason to enlarge upon the topic now.  It is enough to observe that, in their employment of poison and of paid assassins, the Italians were guided by those habits of calculation which distinguished their character.[3] They thought nothing of removing an enemy by craft or violence:  but they took no pleasure in murder for its own sake.[4] The object which they had in view prompted them to take a man’s life; the mere delight in brawls and bloodshed of Switzers, Germans, and Spaniards offended their taste.

    [1] See Guicc. St. Il. vol. i. p. 101, for the impression
    produced upon the army of Charles by the murder by poison of
    Gian Galeazzo Sforza.

[2] A vivid illustration of the method adopted by hired assassins in tracking and hunting down their victims is presented by Francesco Bibboni’s narrative of his murder of Lorenzino de’ Medici at Venice.  It casts much curious light, moreover, on the relations between paid bravi and their employers, the esteem in which professional cutthroats were held, and their connection with the police of the Italian towns.  It is published in a tract concerning Lorenzino, Milano, Daelli, 1862.

    [3] See the instructions given by the Venetian government to
    their agents for the purchase of poison and the hiring of
    secret murderers.  See also the Maxims laid down by Sarpi.

[4] This at least was accounted eccentric and barbarous in the extreme.  See Pontano, de Immanitate, vol. i. p. 326, concerning Niccolo Fortibraccio, Antonio, Pontadera, and the Riccio Montechiaro, who stabbed and strangled for the pleasure of seeing men die.  I have already discussed the blood-madness of some of the despots.

While the imagination played so important a part in the morality of the Italians, it must be remembered that they were deficient in that which is the highest imaginative safeguard against vice, a scrupulous sense of honor.  It is true that the Italian authors talk much about Onore.  Pandolfini tells his sons that Onore is one of the qualities which require the greatest thrift in keeping, and Machiavelli asserts that it is almost as dangerous