the worst of crimes in expectation of a dukedom.  The game was a difficult one to play.  Not only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible.  It was also an affair of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke s passion.  Yet Marcello did not despair.  The stakes were high enough to justify great risks; and all he put in peril was his sister’s honor, the fame of the Accoramboni, and the favor of Montalto.  Vittoria, for her part, trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in view.

Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1637, was reigning Duke of Bracciano.  Among Italian princes he ranked almost upon a par with the Dukes of Urbino; and his family, by its alliances, was more illustrious than any of that time in Italy.  He was a man of gigantic stature, prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable in manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and incapable of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy.  Upon the habit of his body it is needful to insist, 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 labored 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 towards 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 by poison.[206] 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 honor 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 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, now 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.