A cardinal’s nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed without some noise being made about the matter.  Accordingly, Pope Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of the crime.  Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, notwithstanding the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged that the investigation might be dropped.  The coolness with which he first received the news of Francesco Peretti’s death, the dissimulation with which he met the Pope’s expression of sympathy in a full consistory, his reserve while greeting friends on ceremonial visits of condolence, and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the presence of the Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with the belief that he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper.  It was thought that the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew’s murder, and suspend the arm of justice when already raised for vengeance, must prove a mild and indulgent ruler.  When, therefore, in the fifth year after this event, Montalto was elected Pope, men ascribed his elevation in no small measure to his conduct at the present crisis.  Some, indeed, attributed his extraordinary moderation and self-control to the right cause. ‘Veramente costui e un gran frate!’ was Gregory’s remark at the close of the consistory when Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti’s murder rest. ’Of a truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!’ How accurate this judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of power.  The priest who, as monk and cardinal, had smiled on Bracciano, though he knew him to be his nephew’s assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, bade the chief of the Orsini purge his palace and dominions of the scoundrels he was wont to harbor, adding significantly, that if the Cardinal Felice Peretti forgave what had been done against him in a private station, the same man would exact uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the will of Sixtus.  The Duke of Bracciano judged it best, after that warning, to withdraw from Rome.

Francesco Peretti had been murdered on April 16, 1581.  Sixtus V. was proclaimed on April 24, 1585.  In this interval Vittoria underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures.  First of all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581.  That is to say, Marcello and she secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after Francesco had been removed by murder.  But no sooner had the marriage become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it void.  After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, and sent Vittoria back to her father’s house.  By an order issued under Gregory’s own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and finally to the Castle of S. Angelo.  Here at