ll from the scaffold to the ground below; the dress being
partially torn from the body, which was so besmeared with dust and blood
that much time was occupied in washing it. Poor Bernardo was so overcome
by this horrible scene that he swooned away for the third time, and it
was necessary to revive him with stimulants to witness the fate of his
elder brother.

The turn of Giacomo at length arrived: he had witnessed the death of
his stepmother and his sister, and his clothes were covered with their
blood; the executioner approached him and tore off his cloak, exposing
his bare breast covered with the wounds caused by the grip of red-hot
pincers; in this state, and half-naked, he rose to his feet, and turning
to his brother, said--

"Bernardo, if in my examination I have compromised and accused you,
I have done so falsely, and although I have already disavowed this
declaration, I repeat, at the moment of appearing before God, that you
are innocent, and that it is a cruel abuse of justice to compel you to
witness this frightful spectacle."

The executioner then made him kneel down, bound his legs to one of the
beams erected on the scaffold, and having bandaged his eyes, shattered
his head with a blow of his mallet; then, in the sight of all, he hacked
his body into four quarters. The official party then left, taking with
them Bernardo, who, being in a state of high fever, was bled and put to
bed.

The corpses of the two ladies were laid out each on its bier under the
statue of St. Paul, at the foot of the bridge, with four torches of
white wax, which burned till four o'clock in the afternoon; then,
along with the remains of Giacomo, they were taken to the church of
San Giovanni Decollato; finally, about nine in the evening, the body
of Beatrice, covered with flowers, and attired in the dress worn at her
execution, was carried to the church of San Pietro in Montorio, with
fifty lighted torches, and followed by the brethren of the order of the
Stigmata and all the Franciscan monks in Rome; there, agreeably to her
wish, it was buried at the foot of the high altar.

The same evening Signora Lucrezia was interred, as she had desired to
be, in the church of San Giorgio di Velobre.

All Rome may be said to have been present at this tragedy, carriages,
horses, foot people, and cars crowding as it were upon one another.
The day was unfortunately so hot, and the sun so scorching, that many
persons fainted, others returned home