down his throat. What passed in the prisons of the State,
after his arrival at Venice, is not known. But on May 14, he was
beheaded between the columns on the Molo.

Venice, at this epoch, incurred the reproaches of her neighbors for
harboring adventurers of Lodovico's stamp. One of the Fregosi of Genoa a
certain Valerio, and Pietro Strozzi, the notorious French agent, all of
whom habitually haunted the lagoons, roused sufficient public anxiety to
necessitate diplomatic communications between Courts, and to disquiet
fretful Italian princelings. Banished from their own provinces, and
plying a petty Condottiere trade, such men, when they came together on a
neutral ground, engaged in cross-intrigues which made them politically
dangerous. They served no interest but that of their own egotism, and
they were notoriously unscrupulous in the means employed to effect
immediate objects. At the same time, the protection which they claimed
from foreign potentates withdrew them from the customary justice of the
State. Bedmar's conspiracy in 1617-18 revealed to Venice the full extent
of the peril which this harborage of ruffians involved; for though
grandees of the distinction of the Duke of Ossuna were involved in it,
the main agents, on whose ambition and audacity all depended, sprang
from those French, English, Spanish, and Italian mercenaries, who
crowded the low quarters of the city, alert for any mischief, and
inflamed with the wildest projects of self-aggrandizement by policy and
bloodshed. Nothing testifies to the social and political decrepitude of
Italy in this period more plainly than the importance which folk like
Lodovico Dall'Armi acquired, and the revolutionary force which a man
like Jaffier commanded.

_Brigands, Pirates, Plague_.

After collecting these stories, which illustrate the manners of the
upper classes in society and prove their dependence upon henchmen paid
to subserve lawless passions, it would be interesting to lay bare the
life of the common people with equal lucidity. This, however, is a more
difficult matter. Statistics of dubious value can indeed be gathered
regarding the desolation of villages by brigands, the multitudes
destroyed by pestilence and famine, and the inroads of Mediterranean
pirates. I propose, therefore, to touch lightly upon these points, and
especially to use our records of plague in different Italian districts
as tests for contrasting the condition of the people at this epoch w