A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present narrative on the ground that Bracciano"s disease considerably affects our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically tainted, and with her husband"s blood upon his hands. At any rate, the Duke"s _lupa_ justified his trying what change of air, together with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him.
The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zueca. There they only stayed a few days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari in the Arena and a house called De"Cavalli. At Sal, also, on the Lake of Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their princely state and their large retinues, intending to divide their time between the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and the simpler enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But _la gioia dei profani e un fumo pa.s.saggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Sal on November 10, 1585, leaving the young and beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What was the cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and certain answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and voracious disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have made progress. Yet though this malady may well have cut his life short, suspicion of poison was not, in the circ.u.mstances, quite unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a will in Vittoria"s favor, leaving her large sums of money, jewels, goods, and houses--enough, in fact, to support her ducal dignity with splendor. His hereditary fiefs and honors pa.s.sed by right to his only son, Virginio.
Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini a.s.sumed the duty of settling Vittoria"s affairs under her dead husband"s will. In life he had been the duke"s ally as well as relative. His family pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an ign.o.ble, as it was certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed himself the relentless enemy of the d.u.c.h.ess. Disputes arose between them as to certain details, which seem to have been legally decided in the widow"s favor. On the night of December 22, however, forty men, disguised in black and fantastically tricked out to elude detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long galleries and chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing torches, in search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, having fled the house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own followers. Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and singing _Miserere_ in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised him with a shot from one of their harquebusses. He ran, wounded in the shoulder, to his sister"s room. She, it is said, was telling her beads before retiring for the night. When three of the a.s.sa.s.sins entered, she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed her in the left breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking her with savage insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, "Jesus, I pardon you." Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him pierced with seventy-four stiletto wounds.
The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open coffin for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through the following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria"s dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened the populace with its surpa.s.sing loveliness.
"_Dentibus fremebant_." says the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to a.s.sume, the spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder that the folk forgot her first husband"s murder, her less than comely marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of surpa.s.sing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom.
Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, fell on Prince Lodovico.
The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to their questions and demanded free pa.s.sage for his courier to Virginio Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the precaution of waylaying the courier and searching his person was very wisely taken. Besides some formal despatches which announced Vittoria"s a.s.sa.s.sination, they found in this man"s boot a compromising letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and a.s.serting that Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed itself in a state of defense, and prepared to besiege the palace of Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. Engines, culverins, and fire-brands were directed against the barricades which he had raised.
The militia was called out and the Brenta was strongly guarded.
Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had despatched the Avogadore, Alois...o...b..agadin, with full power, to the scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their service: and had not this affair intervened, he would in a few weeks have entered on his duties as Governor for Venice of Corfu.
The bombardment of Orsini"s palace began on Christmas Day. Three of the Prince"s men were killed in the first a.s.sault; and since the artillery brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house and its inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. "The Prince Luigi,"
writes one chronicler of these events, "walked attired in brown, his poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under his arm. The weapon being taken from him he leaned upon a bal.u.s.trade, and began to trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened to find there."
On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the Venetian Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his own will, in the church of S. Maria dell"Orto at Venice. Two of his followers were hanged next day. Fifteen were executed on the following Monday; two of these were quartered alive; one of them the Conte Paganello, who confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side probed with his own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, six to prison, and eleven were acquitted.
Thus ended this terrible affair, which brought, it is said, good credit, and renown to the lords of Venice through all nations of the civilized world. It only remains to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope"s vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished.
_The d.u.c.h.ess of Palliano_.
It was the custom of Italians in the 16th and 17th centuries to compose and circulate narratives of tragic or pathetic incidents in real life.
They were intended to satisfy curiosity in an age when newspapers and law reports did not exist, and also to suit the taste of ladies and gentlemen versed in Boccaccio and Bandello. Resembling the London letters of our ancestors, they pa.s.sed from hand to hand, rarely found their way into the printing office, and when they had performed their task were left to moulder in the dust of bookcases. The private archives of n.o.ble families abound in volumes of such tales, and some may still be found upon the shelves of public libraries. These MS. collections furnish a mine of inexhaustible riches to the student of manners. When checked by legal doc.u.ments, they frequently reveal carelessness, inaccuracy, or even willful distortion of facts. The genius of the Novella, so paramount in popular Italian literature of that epoch, presided over their composition, adding _intreccio_ to disconnected facts, heightening sympathy by the suggestion of romantic motives, turning the heroes or the heroines of their adventures into saints, and blackening the faces of the villains. Yet these stories, pretending to be veracious and aiming at information no less than entertainment, present us with even a more vivid picture of customs than the Novelle.
By their truthful touches of landscape and incident painting, by their unconscious revelation of contemporary sentiment in dialogue and ethical a.n.a.lysis of motives, they enable us to give form and substance to the drier details of the law-courts. One of these narratives I propose to condense from the transcript made by Henri Beyle, for the sake of the light it throws upon the tragedy of the Caraffa family.[207] It opens with an account of Paul IV."s ascent to power and a description of his nephews. Don Giovanni, the eldest son of the Count of Montorio, was married to Violante de Cardona, sister of the Count Aliffe. Paul invested him with the Duchy of Palliano, which he wrested from Marc Antonio Colonna. Don Carlo, the second son, who had pa.s.sed his life as a soldier, entered the Sacred College; and Don Antonio, the third, was created Marquis of Montebello. The cardinal, as prime minister, a.s.sumed the reins of government in Rome. The Duke of Palliano disposed of the Papal soldiery. The Marquis of Montebello, commanding the guard of the palace, excluded or admitted persons at his pleasure. Surrounded by these nephews, Paul saw only with their eyes, heard only what they whispered to him, and unwittingly lent his authority to their lawlessness. They exercised an unlimited tyranny in Rome, laying hands on property and abusing their position to gratify their l.u.s.ts. No woman who had the misfortune to please them was safe; and the cells of convents were as little respected as the palaces of gentlefolk. To arrive at justice was impossible; for the three brothers commanded all avenues, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, by which the Pope could be approached.
Violante, d.u.c.h.ess of Palliano, was a young woman distinguished for her beauty no less than for her Spanish pride. She had received a thoroughly Italian education; could recite the sonnets of Petrarch and the stanzas of Arios...o...b.. heart, and repeated the tales of Ser Giovanni and other novelists with an originality that lent new charm to their style.[208]
Her court was a splendid one, frequented by n.o.ble youths and gentlewomen of the best blood in Naples. Two of these require particular notice: Diana Brancaccio, a relative of the Marchioness of Montebello; and Marcello Capecce, a young man of exceptional beauty. Diana was a woman of thirty years, hot-tempered, tawny-haired, devotedly in love with Domiziano Fornari, a squire of the Marchese di Montebello"s household.
Marcello had conceived one of those bizarre pa.s.sions for the d.u.c.h.ess, in which an almost religious adoration was mingled with audacity, persistence, and apt.i.tude for any crime. The character of his mistress gave him but little hope. Though profoundly wounded by her husband"s infidelities, insulted in her pride by the presence of his wanton favorites under her own roof, and a.s.sailed by the importunities of the most brilliant profligates in Rome, she held a haughty course, above suspicion, free from taint or stain, Marcello could do nothing but sigh at a distance and watch his opportunity.
[Footnote 207: "La d.u.c.h.esse de Palliano," in _Chroniques et Nouvelles_, De Stendhal (Henri Beyle).]
[Footnote 208: This touch shows what were then considered the accomplishments of a n.o.ble woman.]
At this point, the narrator seems to sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of combining his chief characters in one intrigue.[209]
[Footnote 209: It was a street-brawl, in which the Cardinal Monte played an indecent part, that finally aroused the anger of Paul IV. De Stendhal"s MS. shifts the chief blame on to the shoulders of Cardinal Caraffa, who indeed appears to have been in the habit of keeping bad company.]
Though he a.s.sumes the tone of a novelist rather than a chronicler, there has. .h.i.therto been nothing but what corresponds to fact in his description of the Caraffa Cabal. He now explains their downfall; and opens the subject after this fashion. At the beginning of the year 1559, the Pope"s confessor ventured to bring before his notice the scandalous behavior of the Papal nephews. Paul at first refused to credit this report. But an incident happened which convinced him of its truth. On the feast of the Circ.u.mcision--a circ.u.mstance which aggravated matters in the eyes of a strictly pious Pontiff--Andrea Lanfranchi, secretary to the Duke of Palliano, invited the Cardinal Caraffa to a banquet. One of the loveliest and most notorious courtesans of Rome, Martuccia, was also present; and it so happened that Marcello Capecce at this epoch believed he had more right to her favors than any other man in the capital. That night he sought her in her lodgings, pursued her up and down, and learned at last that she was supping with Lanfranchi and the Cardinal. Attended by armed men, he made his way to Lanfranchi"s house, entered the banquet room, and ordered Martuccia to come away with him at once. The Cardinal, who was dressed in secular habit, rose, and, drawing his sword, protested against this high-handed proceeding. Martuccia, by favor of their host, was his partner that evening. Upon this, Marcello called his men; but when they recognized the Cardinal nephew, they refused to employ violence. In the course of the quarrel, Martuccia made her escape, followed by Marcello, Caraffa, and the company. There ensued a street-brawl between the young man and the Cardinal; but no blood was spilt, and the incident need have had but slight importance, if the Duke of Palliano had not thought it necessary to place Lanfranchi and Marcello under arrest. They were soon released, because it became evident that the chief scandal would fall upon the Cardinal, who had clearly been scuffling and crossing swords in a dispute about a common prost.i.tute. The three Caraffa brothers resolved on hushing the affair up. But it was too late. The Pope heard something, which sufficed to confirm his confessor"s warnings; and on January 27, he p.r.o.nounced the famous sentence on his nephews. The Cardinal was banished to Civita Lavinia, the Duke to Soriano, the Marquis to Montebello. The d.u.c.h.ess took up her abode with her court in the little village of Gallese. It was here that the episode of her love and tragic end ensued.
Violante found herself almost alone in a simple village among mountains, half-way between Rome and Orvieto, surrounded indeed by lovely forest scenery, but deprived of all the luxuries and entertainments to which she was accustomed. Marcello and Diana were at her side, the one eager to pursue his. .h.i.therto hopeless suit, and the other to further it for her own profit. One day Marcello committed the apparent imprudence of avowing his pa.s.sion. The d.u.c.h.ess rejected him with scorn, but disclosed the fact to Diana, who calculated that if she could contrive to compromise her mistress, she might herself be able to secure the end she had in view of marrying Domiziano. In the solitude of those long days of exile the waiting-woman returned again and again to the subject of Marcello"s devotion, his beauty, his n.o.ble blood and his manifold good qualities. She arranged meetings in the woods between the d.u.c.h.ess and her lover, and played her cards so well that during the course of the fine summer weeks Violante yielded to Marcello. Diana now judged it wise to press her own suit forward with Domiziano. But this cold-blooded fellow knew that he was no fit match for a relative of the Marchioness of Montebello. He felt, besides, but little sentiment for his fiery _innamorata_. Dreading the poignard of the Caraffas, if he should presume to marry her, he took the prudent course of slipping away in disguise from the port of Nettuno. Diana maddened by disappointment, flew to the conclusion that the d.u.c.h.ess had planned her lover"s removal, and resolved to take a cruel revenge. The Duke of Palliano was residing at Soriano, only a few miles from Gallese. To bring him secret information of his wife"s intrigue was a matter of no difficulty. At first he refused to believe her report. Had not Violante resisted the seductions of all Rome, and repelled the advances even of the Duke of Guise? At last she contrived to introduce him into the bedroom of the d.u.c.h.ess at a moment when Marcello was also there. The circ.u.mstances were not precisely indicative of guilt. The sun had only just gone down behind the hills; a maid was in attendance; and the d.u.c.h.ess lay in bed, penciling some memoranda. Yet they were sufficient to arouse the Duke"s anger. He disarmed Marcello and removed him to the prisons of Soriano, leaving Violante under strict guard at Gallese.
The Duke of Palliano had no intention of proclaiming his jealousy or of suggesting his dishonor, until he had extracted complete proof. He therefore pretended to have arrested Marcello on the suspicion of an attempt to poison him. Some large toads, bought by the young man at a high price two or three months earlier, lent color to this accusation.
Meanwhile the investigation was conducted as secretly as possible by the Duke in person, his brother-in-law Count Aliffe, and a certain Antonio Torando, with the sanction of the Podesta of Soriano. After examining several witnesses, they became convinced of Violante"s guilt. Marcello was put to the torture, and eventually confessed. The Duke stabbed him to death with his own hands, and afterwards cut Diana"s throat for her share in the business. Both bodies were thrown into the prison-sewer.
Meanwhile Paul IV. had retained the young Cardinal, Alfonso Caraffa, son of the Marquis of Montebello, near his person. This prelate thought it right to inform his grand-uncle of the occurrences at Soriano. The Pope only answered: "And the d.u.c.h.ess? What have they done with her?" Paul IV.
died in August, and the Conclave, which ended in the election of Pius IV., was opened. During the important intrigues of that moment, Cardinal Alfonso found time to write to the Duke, imploring him not to leave so dark a stain upon his honor, but to exercise justice on a guilty wife.
On August 28, 1559, the Duke sent the Count Aliffe, and Don Leonardo del Cardine, with a company of soldiers to Gallese. They told Violante that they had arrived to kill her, and offered her the offices of two Franciscan monks. Before her death, the d.u.c.h.ess repeatedly insisted on her innocence, and received the Sacrament from the hands of Friar Antonio of Pavia. The Count, her brother, then proceeded to her execution. She covered her eyes with a handkerchief, which she, with perfect _sang froid_, drew somewhat lower in order to shut his sight out. Then he adjusted the cord to her neck; but, finding that it would not exactly fit, he removed it and walked away. The d.u.c.h.ess raised the bandage from her face, and said: "Well! what are we about then?" He answered: "The cord was not quite right, and I am going to get another, in order that you may not suffer." When he returned to the room, he arranged the handkerchief again, fixed the cord, turned the wand in the knot behind her neck, and strangled her. The whole incident, on the part of the d.u.c.h.ess, pa.s.sed in the tone of ordinary conversation. She died like a good Christian, frequently repeating the words _Credo, Credo_.
Contrary to the usual custom and opinion of the age, this murder of an erring wife and sister formed part of the accusations brought against the Duke of Palliano and Count Aliffe. It will be remembered that they were executed in Rome, together with the elder Cardinal Caraffa, during the pontificate of Pius IV.
_Wife-Murders._
It would be difficult to give any adequate notion of the frequency of wife-murders at this epoch in the higher ranks of society. I will, however, mention a few, noticed by me in the course of study. Donna Pellegrina, daughter of Bianca Capello before her marriage with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was killed at Bologna in 1598 by four masked a.s.sa.s.sins at the order of her husband, Count Ulisse Bentivoglio. She had been suspected or convicted of adultery; and the Court of Florence sent word to the Count, "che essendo vero quanto scriveva, facesse quello che conveniva a cavaliere di honore." In the light of open day, together with two of her gentlewomen and her coachman, she was cut to pieces and left on the road.[210] In 1690 at Naples Don Carlo Gesualdo, son of the Prince of Venosta, a.s.sa.s.sinated his wife and cousin Donna Maria d"Avalos, together with her lover, Fabricio Caraffa, Duke of Andri. This crime was committed in his palace by the husband, attended by a band of cut-throats.[211] In 1577, at Milan, Count Giovanni Borromeo, cousin of the Cardinal Federigo, stabbed his wife, the Countess Giulia Sanseverina, sister of the Contessa di Sala, at table, with three mortal wounds. A mere domestic squabble gave rise to this tragedy.[212] In 1598, in his villa of Zenzalino at Ferrara, the Count Ercole Trotti, with the a.s.sistance of a bravo called Jacopo Lazzarini, killed his wife Anna, daughter of the poet Guarini. Her own brother Girolamo connived at the act and helped to facilitate its execution. She was accused--falsely, as it afterwards appeared from Girolamo"s confession--of an improper intimacy with the Count Ercole Bevilacqua. I may add that Count Ercole Trotti"s father, Alfonso, had murdered his own wife, Michela Granzena, in the same villa.[213]
[Footnote 210: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii. p. 64.]
[Footnote 211: _Ib._ vol. ii. p. 162.]
[Footnote 212: _Ib._ vol. i. p. 343.]
_The Medici_.
The history of the Medicean family during the sixteenth century epitomizes the chief features of social morality upon which I have been dwelling in this chapter. It will be remembered that Alessandro de"
Medici, the first Duke of Florence, poisoned his cousin Ippolito, and was himself a.s.sa.s.sinated by his cousin Lorenzino. To the second of these crimes Cosimo, afterwards Grand Duke of Tuscany, owed the throne of Florence, on which, however, he was not secure until he had removed Lorenzino from this world by the poignard of a bravo. Cosimo maintained his authority by a system of espionage, remorseless persecution, and a.s.sa.s.sination, which gave color even to the most improbable of legends.[214]
[Footnote 213: _I Guarini, Famiglia n.o.bile Ferrarese_ (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1870), pp. 83-87.]
[Footnote 214: In addition to the victims of his vengeance who perished by the poignard, he publicly executed in Florence forty-two political offenders.]
But it is not of him so much as of his children that I have to speak.
Francesco, who reigned from 1564 till 1587, brought disgrace upon his line by marrying the infamous Bianca Capello, after authorizing the murder of her previous husband. Bianca, though incapable of bearing children, flattered her besotted paramour before this marriage by pretending to have borne a son. In reality, she had secured the co-operation of three women on the point of child-birth; and when one of these was delivered of a boy, she presented this infant to Francesco, who christened him Antonio de"Medici. Of the three mothers who served in this nefarious transaction, Bianca contrived to a.s.sa.s.sinate two, but not before one of the victims to her dread of exposure made full confession at the point of death. The third escaped. Another woman who had superintended the affair was shot between Florence and Bologna in the valleys of the Apennines. Yet after the manifestation of Bianca"s imposture, the Duke continued to recognize Antonio as belonging to the Medicean family; and his successor was obliged to compel this young man to a.s.sume the Cross of Malta, in order to exclude his posterity from the line of princes.[215]
[Footnote 215: See Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii. pp.54-56, for Antonio"s reception into the Order.]
The legend of Francesco"s and Bianca"s mysterious death is well known.
The d.u.c.h.ess had engaged in fresh intrigues for palming off a spurious child upon her husband. These roused the suspicions of his brother Cardinal Ferdinando de"Medici, heir presumptive to the crown. An angry correspondence followed, ending in a reconciliation between the three princes. They met in the autumn of 1587 at the villa of Poggio a Cajano.
Then the world was startled by the announcement that the Grand Duke had died of fever after a few days" illness, and that Bianca had almost immediately afterwards followed him to the grave. Ferdinand, on succeeding to the throne, refused her the interment suited to her rank, defaced her arms on public edifices, and for her name and t.i.tles in official doc.u.ments subst.i.tuted the words, "la pessima Bianca." What pa.s.sed at Poggio a Cajano is not known. It was commonly believed in Italy that Bianca, meaning to poison the Cardinal at supper, had been frustrated in her designs by a blunder which made her husband the victim of this plot, and that she ended her own life in despair or fell a victim to the Cardinal"s vengeance. This story is rejected both by Botta and Galluzzi; but Litta has given it a partial credence.[216] Two of Cosimo"s sons died previously, in the year 1562, under circ.u.mstances which gave rise to similar malignant rumors. Don Garzia and the Cardinal Giovanni were hunting together in the Pisan marshes, when the latter expired after a short illness, and the former in a few days met with a like fate. Report ran that Don Garzia had stabbed his brother, and that Cosimo, in a fit of rage, ran him through the body with his own sword.
In this case, although Litta attaches weight to the legend, the balance of evidence is strongly in favor of both brothers having been carried off by a pernicious fever contracted simultaneously during their hunting expedition.[217] Each instance serves however, to show in what an atmosphere of guilt the Medicean princes were enveloped. No one believed that they could die except by fraternal or paternal hands. And the authentic crimes of the family certainly justified this popular belief. I have already alluded to the murders of Ippolito, Alessandro, and Lorenzino. I have told how the Court of Florence sanctioned the a.s.sa.s.sination of Bianca"s daughter by her husband at Bologna.[218] I must now proceed to relate the tragic tales of the princesses of the house.
Pietro de"Medici, a fifth of Cosimo"s sons, had rendered himself notorious in Spain and Italy by forming a secret society for the most revolting debaucheries.[219] Yet he married the n.o.ble lady Eleonora di Toledo, related by blood to Cosimo"s first wife. Neglected and outraged by her husband, she proved unfaithful, and Pietro hewed her in pieces with his own hands at Caff.a.ggiolo. Isabella de"Medici, daughter of Cosimo, was married to the Duke of Bracciano. Educated in the empoisoned atmosphere of Florence, she, like Eleonora di Toledo, yielded herself to fashionable profligacy, and was strangled by her husband at Cerretto.[220]
[Footnote 216: I refer, of course, to Galluzzi"s _Storia del Gran Ducato_, vol. iv. pp. 241-244. Botta"s _Storia d"Italia_, Book xiv., and Litta"s _Famiglie Celebri_ under the pedigree of Medici.]
[Footnote 217: See Galluzzi, _op. cit._ vol. iii. p, 25, and Botta, _op.
cit._ Book xii.]
[Footnote 218: See above, p. 381.]
[Footnote 219: Litta may be consulted for details; also Galluzzi, _op.
cit._ vol. v. p. 174.]
[Footnote 220: It maybe worth mentioning that Virginio Orsini, Bracciano"s son and heir, married Donna Flavia, grand niece of Sixtus V., and consequently related to the man his father murdered in order to possess Vittoria Accoramboni. See Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii.
p. 72.]
Both of these murders took place in 1576. Isabella"s death, as I have elsewhere related, opened the way for the Duke of Bracciano"s marriage with Vittoria Accoramboni, which had been prepared by the a.s.sa.s.sination of her first husband, and which led to her own murder at Padua.[221]
Another of Cosimo"s daughters, Lucrezia de"Medici, became d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara, fell under a suspicion of infidelity, and was possibly removed by poison in 1561.[222] The last of his sons whom I have to mention, Don Giovanni, married a dissolute woman of low birth called Livia, and disgraced the name of Medici by the unprincely follies of his life.