security of life, than any trade within the walls
of Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the
Sabine and Ciminian hills, the quarters of the aristocracy within the
city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed
by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the
assistance of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had
become impossible without fixed compact with the powers of
lawlessness. There was hardly a family in Rome which did not number
some notorious criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love
of adventure, thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant
faction of the moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary
outlawry; nor did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other
than honourable.

It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the
grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of
these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public
trials and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the
Cenci, in which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a
popular novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in
characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its
_dramatis personae_, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni.

Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at
Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in
their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not
only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all
the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her
father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous
children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an
ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed
honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became
the fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw
her, and many were the offers of marriage she refused. At length a
suitor appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman
ecclesiastical nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the
Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful
candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to
Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had
changed his surname in compliment to this