spoke of Duchess Isabella in her letters to her cousins in
Venice. "I had," she says, for example, on 17th July 1574, "the
illustrious Domina Isabella to dine with me in my garden, and with her
came my good friends her brother Don Piero and his young wife...."
Beautiful, accomplished, and light-hearted, Isabella and Bianca were the
dearest and most constant of companions. They lived apparently only for
admiration and adulation, but the Duchess' position was infinitely more
free and unconventional than that of the Venetian: the latter lived for
one man's love alone--Francesco--Isabella dispensed her favours where
she willed!

Duke Paolo grew suspicious of his wife's liberty of action. His
protests, at first couched in deprecatory language, were met with
girlish _insouciance_; but, when he began to complain arrogantly,
Isabella replied with spirit and determination. His jealous reprimands
were met by like charges and, truth to tell, there was not a pin to
choose between the two.

The Grand Duke Cosimo before his death in 1574, and the Grand Duke
Francesco, were alike irritated by Bracciano's cool, calculating
conduct; and both upheld Isabella against her husband's ill-humour and
harsh judgments. Duke Paolo, however, kept his own counsel, and by means
of spies discovered that Troilo d'Orsini's monthly reports were at least
open to doubt as to their truthfulness with respect to his wife's
conduct in private. Matters, however, drifted--he was too intent upon
his own affairs in Rome and elsewhere to disturb rudely the state of
things at Poggio Baroncelli.

His suspicions at length were brusquely confirmed, and the uneasy peace
of evil deeds was broken by portentous news from Florence. A courier in
his pay arrived one evening, in July 1576, breathless, at the Bracciano
Palace, with the intelligence that the trusty chamberlain had stabbed to
the heart an attractive young page, Lelio Torello, attached to the
household of the Grand Duke; and had, moreover, at once taken flight
precipitately from the Villa!

Bracciano knew exactly what this purported--young Torello was a lover of
his wife as well as Troilo d'Orsini! Without a moment's delay, he
started off for Florence to tax the Duchess with unfaithfulness. At the
Porta Romana he was staggered by the news which greeted him--Piero de'
Medici had killed his wife, Eleanora de Garzia de Toledo, at
Cafaggiuolo!

He tarried not to pay his respects to the Grand Duke and Grand Duch