t some day become the head of the Church, took action in
his behalf and ordered that Elizabetta should be confined in a
Florentine convent. Thereupon Roberto fled to Mantua, and, after having
married her by letter, publicly proclaimed his act and demanded that his
wife be delivered up to him. The best lawyers in Lombardy now declared
the marriage a valid one, but in Florence the steps taken were
considered merely as the equivalent of a public betrothal. So the matter
stood for a time, until the pope died and the ambitious cardinal
presented himself as a candidate for the pontiff's chair. Then the
outraged nephew sent to each one of the papal electors a detailed
account of what had taken place, with the result that his uncle's
candidacy was a complete failure. Cosmo, moved somewhat by public
opinion, which was all upon the side of the lovers, ordered Elizabetta
to be released from her captivity, whereupon she joined her husband in
Venice, that she might share his exile. They were not allowed to remain
there for a long time in peace, however, as Cosmo, smarting under the
lash of popular disapproval, decided to make an effort to get them
within his power again, that he might wreak his vengeance upon them.
Accordingly, he demanded that the Venetian republic should deliver them
up, charging that they had been guilty of gross disrespect toward him,
their sovereign. Hearing of this requisition, Roberto and Elizabetta,
disguised as monks, fled to Germany, but were recognized at Trent and
taken back to Tuscany. Acciaiuoli was then deprived of all his property
and imprisoned for life in the fortress of Volterra, and his wife was
threatened with the same treatment if she persisted in maintaining the
validity of the marriage. Worn by all this trouble and persecution,
Elizabetta weakened, failed to show the courage which might be expected
from the heroine of such a dramatic story, and preferred to live alone
for the rest of her days than to spend her life in prison with her
devoted husband.

The eighteenth century found Italy still under the control of foreign
rulers, and the national spirit was still unborn; public morals seem to
have degenerated rather than improved, and then, as always, the women
were no better than the men desired them to be. Details of the life of
this period are extremely difficult to obtain, as the social aspects of
Italian life from the decline of the Renaissance to the Napoleonic era
have been quite general