the grave with a broken heart, leaving this imprecation unrecalled.  Pompeo grew up to continue the great line of Massimo.  But disaster fell on each of his five brothers, the flower of Roman youth, exulting in their blood, and insolence, and vigor.—­The first of them, Ottavio, was killed by a cannon-ball at sea in honorable combat with the Turk.  Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge in France, was shot down in an ambuscade while pursuing his amours with a gentle lady.  A third, Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the troops of General Farnese.  A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for his share of the step-mother’s murder, but was released on the plea that he had avenged the wounded honor of his race.  He died, however, poisoned by his own brother, Marcantonio, in 1599.[203] Marcantonio was arrested on suspicion and imprisoned in Torre di Nona, where he confessed his guilt.  He was shortly afterwards beheaded on the little square before the bridge of S. Angelo.

Vittoria Accoramboni.

Next in order, I shall take the story of Vittoria Accoramboni.  It has been often told already,[204] yet it combines so many points of interest bearing upon the social life of the Italians in my period, that to omit it would be to sacrifice the most important document bearing on the matter of this chapter.  As the Signora di Monza and Lucrezia Buonvisi help us to understand the secret history of families and convents, so Vittoria Accoramboni introduces us to that of courts.

[Footnote 203:  This fratricide, concurring with the matricide of S. Croce, contributed to the rigor with which the Cenci parricide was punished in that year of Roman crimes.]

[Footnote 204:  The White Devil, a tragedy by John Webster, London, 1612; De Stendhal’s Chroniques et Nouvelles, Vittoria Accoramboni, Paris 1855; Vittoria Accoramboni, D. Gnoli, Firenze, 1870; Italian Byways, by J.A.  Symonds, London, 1883.  The greater part of follows above is extracted from my Italian Byways.]

It will be noticed how the same machinery of lawless nobles and profligate bravi, acting in concert with bold women, is brought into play throughout the tragedies which form the substance of our present inquiry.

Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at Gubbio among the hills of Umbria.  Her biographers are rapturous in their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner.  Not only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all the amiable luster of a modest, innocent, and winning youth.  Her father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an ambitious woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed honors of her house.  Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became the fashion.  She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw her, and many were the offers