ying that 'the Republic of S. Mark would not initiate a course of
action prejudicial to the hospitality which every sort of person was
wont to enjoy there.' But the young man was banished to Candia, whither
he obediently retired. Pietro, the painter, was eventually permitted to
return to the territory but not the town of Lucca. Dati surrounded
himself with armed men, as was the custom of rich criminals on whose
head a price was set. After wandering some time, he submitted, and took
up his abode in Sardinia, whence he afterwards removed, by permission of
the Signory, to France. There he died. With regard to the nuns, it
seemed at first that the ends of justice would be defeated through the
jealousies which divided the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in
Lucca. The Bishop was absent, and his Vicar refused to institute a
criminal process. Umilia remained at large in the convent, and even
began a new intrigue with one Simo Menocchi. At last, in 1609, the Vicar
prepared his indictment against the guilty nuns, and forwarded it to
Rome. Their sentence was as follows: Sister Orizia condemned to
incarceration for life, and loss of all her privileges; Sister Umilia,
to the same penalties for a term of seven years; Sisters Paola,
Cherubina, and Dionea, received a lighter punishment. Orizia, it may be
mentioned, had written a letter with her own blood to some lover; but
nothing leads us to suppose that she was equally guilty with Umilia,
who had entered into the plot to poison Sister Calidonia.

Umilia was duly immured, and bore her punishment until the year 1616, at
which time the sentence expired. But she was not released for another
two years; for she persistently refused to humble herself, or to request
that liberation as a grace which was her due in justice. Nor would she
submit to the shame of being seen about the convent without her monastic
habit. Finally, in 1618, she obtained freedom and restoration to her
privileges as a nun of S. Chiara. It may be added, as a last remark,
that, when the convent was being set to rights, Umilia's portrait in the
character of S. Ursula was ordered to be destroyed, or rendered fit for
devout uses by alterations. Any nun who kept it in her cell incurred the
penalty of excommunication. In what year Umilia died remains unknown.

* * * * *

_The Cenci_.

Shifting the scene to Rome, we light upon a group of notable misdeeds
enacted in the last half of the si