of marriage she refused.  At length a suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the Accoramboni.  Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful candidate for Vittoria’s hand.  His mother, Camilla, was sister to Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had changed both of his names to Felice Peretti in compliment to this illustrious relative.[205]

It was the nephew, then, of the future Sixtus V., that Vittoria Accoramboni married on June 28, 1573.  For a short while the young couple lived happily together.  According to some accounts of their married life, the bride secured the favor of her powerful uncle-in-law, who indulged her costly fancies to the full.  It is, however, more probable that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved in debt.  Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the score of levity in her behavior; and it was rumored that even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless wife.  Yet she contrived to keep Francesco’s confidence, and it is certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti.  Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, was a favorite courtier of the great Cardinal d’Este.  Ottavio was in orders, and through Montalto’s influence obtained the See of Fossombrone.  The same eminent protector placed Scipione in the service of the Cardinal Sforza.  Camillo, famous for his beauty and his courage, followed the fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France.  Flaminio was still a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, upon his sister’s destiny.

[Footnote 205:  I find a Felice Peretti mentioned in the will of Giacomo Cenci condemned in 1597.  But this was after the death of this Peretti, whom I shall continue to call Francesco.]

Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the action of this tragedy, it is needful to speak with more particularity.  He was young, and, like the rest of his breed, singularly handsome—­so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose privy chamberlain he had become.  Marcello was an outlaw for the murder of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name.  This did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making him his favorite and confidential friend.  Marcello, who seems to have realized in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting his own fortunes by trading on his sister’s beauty.  He worked upon the Duke of Bracciano’s mind so cleverly that he brought this haughty prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti’s young wife; and meanwhile he so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare