de,
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 hung 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 civilised 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.

II

This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn,
in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his
'Chroniques et Novelles.'[8] He professes to have translated it
literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of
Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this
assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is
it rare for one of them to pass into the common market--as Mr.
Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring
and the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in
the first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in
an age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of
famous trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether,
as in the case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy
was unduly dwelt on, depended, of course, upon the mental bias of the
scribe, upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and
upon the taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in
treating such documents as historical data, we must be upon our
guard. Professor Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of
Vittoria's eventful story by the light of contemporary documents,
informs us that several narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing
more or less accurately with the details of the tragedy. One of these
was published in Italian at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset,
printed the same story i