veral
years, until Virginia and Osio, with the help of four obliging nuns,
felt constrained to take the life of a disgruntled serving-maid who was
threatening to reveal all to Monsignor Barca, the inspector of the
convent, at the time of his approaching visit. When once the deed was
done, the corpse was dismembered for purposes of better concealment; but
suspicion was aroused by this sudden disappearance of the maid, and Osio
took Virginia from the place, to shield her as much as possible. Next,
he offered to help her two most active accomplices, Ottavia and
Benedetta, to escape and seek refuge in a Bergamasque convent, where
they would be safe; but on the way thither he treacherously assaulted
them and left them both for dead. One crime rarely covers up another,
however; the facts soon came to light, and all concerned were fitly
punished. Virginia was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in the
convent of Santa Valeria, at Milan; and there she remained for many
years, in a dark cell, until she was finally given better quarters
through the interposition of Cardinal Borromeo, who had been impressed
by her growing reputation for sanctity. How old she grew to be, deponent
saith not, but she must have lived for many years, as the following
description will attest: "a bent old woman, tall of stature, dried and
fleshless, but venerable in her aspect, whom no one could believe to
have been once a charming and immodest beauty."

What an awful century it was! Vice and corruption in all quarters, the
pope an acknowledged sinner, the nobility tainted, and even the holy
daughters of the Church virgins in name only! And this was the century
in which the most beautiful Madonnas were painted!

Chapter IX

The Brighter Side of the Sixteenth Century

The tales of crime and sensuality which fill the annals of the sixteenth
century are so repulsive that it is with a feeling of relief that we
turn our attention to other pictures of the same time which are
altogether pleasing in their outlines. The court of the Duke of Urbino
is the most conspicuous example of this better side of life, and his
talented and accomplished wife, Elizabetta Gonzaga, a daughter of the
reigning house of Mantua, presided over a literary salon which was
thronged with all the wit and wisdom of the land. Urbino was but a
rocky, desolate bit of mountainous country, not more than forty miles
square, in the Marches of Ancona, on a spur of the Tuscan Apennines,