PRINCE GIULIO CYBO.

The revolt of Naples—Andrea Doria subdues it—Plots of the exiles against his life—Giulio Cybo seizes the feud of Massa and Carrara—His schemes for revolutionizing the Republic—Conference of the Genoese exiles in Venice—Capture of Cybo—Doria labours to have the emperor condemn Giulio to death—Punishment of Cybo and his accomplices—Letter of Paul Spinola to the Genoese government—Scipione Fieschi and his disputes with the Republic—Maria della Rovere—Eleonora Fieschi; her second marriage and death.

Andrea Doria had finally extinguished in Genoa the popular conspiracies for liberty, and on the ruins of the Guelph Fieschi house had firmly planted the Spanish tyranny. Still, in every corner of the Peninsula, the people, not yet corrupted by the servility of the great, cherished the memory of better days, and scarcely concealed their antipathy to Spain. The sword of Doria—which is still sacriligiously suspended over the high altar of the church of San Matteo—was once more stained with the blood of the people.

Don Pietro di Toledo, a man of integrity, but haughty and devoted to Rome, was very solicitous to introduce the Spanish inquisition into Naples in order to wash out in blood the stains of heresy. Orchine da Siena, Lorenzo Romano, Montalcino and Vermiglio were preaching the doctrines of Luther and Zuingle and secretly diffusing the works of Melancthon and Erasmus. The people learned the intentions of Toledo, and rose almost to a man, protesting against inquisitors and martyrdoms. Their protests yielded no fruit and they seized their arms, deposed the foreign governors and created new magistrates, promising, however, to maintain their devotion to the empire. Toledo issued a proclamation that he would proceed to the trial and punishment of Tommaso Aniello of Sorrento and Cesare Mormile, who were reputed the leaders of the sedition. The two rebels came before the judges with such a mass of followers, that the court counted it better policy to honour rather than punish them. But the viceroy, determined to terrify Naples, barbarously butchered Gianluigi Capuano, Fabrizio d’Alessandro and Antonio Villamarino, and threatened capital punishment against any who should remove the bloody corpses.

This exasperated but did not awe the populace. They made common cause with the barons, sent deputies to the emperor and signed a truce with Toledo until the imperial answer should be known. The truce was worse than war. The Bisogni, who had taken refuge in the castles, not only destroyed the surrounding houses, but in their frequent sorties killed all who fell into their hands, and the populace retorted by killing the Spanish prisoners whom they had captured.

Toledo saw that he was too weak to make head against the enraged populace, who were already investing the forts and citadels held by his troops, and sent for Doria to deliver him from his embarrassment. Andrea was ill prepared for so grave an undertaking. His galleys were damaged and without crews; for besides the Barbary slaves who fled in that fatal night of the Fieschi, the convicts had first sacked the ships and then taken refuge in the Apennines. But the admiral entered on the project of aiding Toledo with unwonted zeal. He obtained money from Prince Centurione, enlisted new crews and officers, and soon had a fleet ready to sail. The galleys were sent off under his lieutenants Marco Centurione, son of Adamo, and Antonio Doria. Thanks to these ships of Doria, Toledo suppressed the revolt in Naples, took capital vengeance on the leaders and punished the people with heavy taxation. Yet it has been said that the emperor pardoned the rebels! History spoke falsehood. Still, this stormy protest of the people saved Naples from the inquisition. The masses well knew the real object of Toledo. He sought less to crush heresy than to exterminate the spirit of liberty.

The Neapolitans were a few years later silent witnesses of fierce religious persecution. The inquisition employed such zeal, that to mention Montalto alone, two thousand persons were butchered and nearly an equal number condemned to death in eleven days. Tradition says that the executioner cut them down in the streets, like so many goats. While, through the assistance of Doria, the Spanish power took firm root in Italy and crushed the spirit of popular liberty, (I hope that none will believe my respect for the truth dictated by antipathy towards the great admiral) not a few daring spirits still struggled to emancipate the nation and to destroy the prop on which the emperor leaned. The times were sanguinary; blood was washed out with blood. The partisans of Fieschi raging for vengeance often attempted to assassinate Andrea; and the obstacles in their way only increased their fury. In August, 1547, four men of Valditaro, to whom Galeotto of Mirandola added eight of his bandits, were sent to Genoa for the purpose of assassinating Doria while he should be coming out of his palace. It was intended that a conspiracy organized in the city should seize the moment for proclaiming a popular government and maintaining it by force of arms. Galeotto promised to lead the enterprise in person. He was a terrible man, and his partisans believed that no enterprise could miscarry which had at its head so practiced a conspirator and assassin. The histories relate of him that when the Count Gianfrancesco, a literary man of note, had been restored to the government of Mirandola by the officers of Julius II., Galeotto, in a night of October, 1533, scaled the fortress with forty companions, killed the count who was kneeling before the crucifix, his uncle and his son Alberto, and then shutting up the dependents of the count in the prison of the fortress took possession of the government of Mirandola. Charles V. condemned him to death for this horrid crime; but Galeotto defended himself alike against the arms and the treachery of Leyva, and finally surrendered the castle to Henry of France for a large compensation.

With such men, the conspiracy did not seem likely to fail of its principal object. However, the assassins could not find in Genoa safe hiding for studying the habits of Andrea. Besides, the cunning old man was on the alert for such plots, and never left his house except under a strong escort of his faithful dependents. The assassins found it necessary to save their own lives by a precipitate flight.

A second attempt at his assassination came to the knowledge of Doria. Cornelio Bentivoglio, aided by the exiles, especially the Fieschi, armed a galley with two hundred men and all necessary equipments, with the design of entering the port by night and attacking the palace of Doria. At the same time the exiles assisted by Pier Luigi Farnese were expected to attack the city on the East side. On this occasion, also, the leader had a reputation which promised success. Bentivoglio was an audacious and fierce young man, who, having been expelled from the government of Bologna by his father Costanzo, entered the military service of France and obtained considerable repute in the art of war. Perhaps the prince would have fallen under this conspiracy, if his own counterplot against the Duke of Piacenza had not broken up the plans of Bentivoglio.

But the Fieschi party did not lay down their arms or relinquish their hopes of vengeance. They enlisted Prince Giulio Cybo among others in their cause. This nobleman having taken up and continued the conspiracy of Fieschi, to whom he was allied, deserves a place in our history. The arms of Cybo and Fieschi were the same; the former used more unworthy means than the latter, but both ended their lives in misfortune consecrated by patriotism.

The family of the Cybo was of very ancient, perhaps of, Byzantine origin. They possessed in the tenth century islands and walled towns. In 1188, Ermes Cybo subscribed the treaty of peace between the Pisans and Ligurians. We find in old manuscripts that, in 1261, they had palaces in the via del Campo. A Guglielmo Cybo, who died in 1311, built the magnificent church of St. Francis in Casteletto and there was erected the marble sepulchre of himself and his family. This Guglielmo rendered important services to the Republic for which he obtained the privilege of adding to his arms the device of the Republic.[49] The family produced many other distinguished men, among whom may be mentioned Innocent VIII. In his youth, this pontiff became the father of a son named Francesco who was governor of Rome during the pontificate of Innocent and married Maddalena de’ Medici sister of Leo X. In the year 1500, Lorenzo Cybo was born of this marriage in St. Pierdarena, a suburb of Genoa. Lorenzo devoted himself to arms, and in the Milan war, carried the fortress of Monza by assault. The cardinal Innocent Cybo, his elder brother, ceded him the county of Ferentillo and he also governed Vetralla, Giano and Montegiove. Desirous of enlarging his estates, he married Ricciarda daughter and heiress of Alberico Malaspina, Marquis of Massa and Carrara and widow of Count Scipione Fieschi who died in 1520.

Ricciarda bore Lorenzo several children, one of whom was Eleonora wife of Gianluigi Fieschi. There were besides, Isabella, who married Vitaliano Visconti Borromeo, Giulio and Alberico. Giulio, whose career we shall briefly recount, was born in Rome in 1525, and was educated in the court of Charles V. where the beauty of his person and the sprightliness of his intellect acquired him the admiration of the Spanish courtiers.

The mother of Giulio, who was in possession of Massa and Carrara, formed the resolution of transferring the feud to the younger brother, Alberico. Giulio went to Rome and in vain employed entreaty and threats to change her purpose. He then resolved to take by force of arms a property which he believed his own. In 1545, when Ricciarda and Cardinal Cybo were in Carrara, he attacked the castle of that place at the head of fifty men and endeavoured to capture his mother. She fled into the tower and foiled his design. She punished with severity some vassals who had aided Giulio, and returned to Rome where she ceded the feud to Alberico. This increased the exasperation of Giulio who renewed his hostile purposes with greater energy. Cosimo furnished him some peasant bands of Pietrasanta, and Gianettino Doria supported him with his fleet. In September, 1546, the disinherited count appeared before Massa with one thousand infantry and one hundred cavalry. His partisans in the town, especially the brothers Moretto and Bernardino Venturini, seized the gate of St. Giacomo and opened it to Giulio, who was recognized by the people as their rightful master. The fortress was still held by Pietro Gassani; but Gianettino Doria arrived with his galleys, landed artillery and forced him to surrender to Paolo di Castello. The fortresses of Moneta and Lavenza were also given up to the partisans of Giulio, who, grateful for the assistance of Gianettino, espoused his sister Peretta. But his reign was of short duration. Ricciarda appealed to Charles V., who ordered Gonzaga to have the fortress consigned to Cardinal Cybo. Giulio refused, Cosimo turned against him, captured him at Agnano, and the young count did not obtain his liberty until he had ceded the castle (8th March, 1547) which was occupied by Spanish troops until Ricciarda returned to it two years later.

It is probable that Giulio had at this time some intrigues with the French court. The emperor had declared against him, and he was desirous of obtaining the support of France by ceding the fortress of Massa. The partisans of Spain were alarmed at the prospect of having a French garrison so near to Genoa, and Andrea Doria assisted in forcing Giulio to relinquish his hold on his father’s domains.

The young count, full of bitterness for the treatment he had received, went to Gonzaga in Piacenza (the latter was called to Piacenza by the assassination of Pier Luigi Farnese) and remonstrated against being deprived of his inheritance. He received no encouragement from Spain, who refused to restore the Castle of Massa, and went to Parma and conferred with Ottavio Farnese who was also soured against the imperial agents for old and new acts of hostility. He then returned to Rome and negotiated with his mother, who agreed to recognize him as Lord of Massa and Carrara for forty thousand gold crowns of the sun. He borrowed twenty thousand gold crowns upon interest, and pledged the twenty thousand crowns of the dower of Peretta for the rest. He applied to Andrea Doria for the dower of his wife; but the prince, having suspicions of Giulio’s complicity with Fieschi, refused to pay over the money and neither personal entreaty nor the influence of friends could induce the prince to satisfy the just demands of Giulio and Peretta. He alleged that the damages he had suffered in the Fieschi sedition had rendered it impossible for him to pay so considerable a sum, and wished to charge Giulio with the expenses of Gianettino’s expedition of Massa.

The chronicle of Venturini, which we consult, disproves the statements of those who wrote history without the aid of documents, and renders it clear that Andrea debited Cybo with all the expenses incurred while the galleys lay on the coast of Massa, of which he had preserved a minute account rather as a merchant and usurer than as a Prince.

Cybo was thus deprived of the means of satisfying his mother and recovering his paternal inheritance; and he conspired with the king of France, Duke Ottavio and Signor Mortier to deal a great blow against the Spanish power, beginningwith Genoa where the Dorias constituted the prop of Spain. He held many consultations with the Cardinal of Belais, the exiles Cornelio Fieschi, Paolo Spinola and others. The confederates fixed on the following plan:—The movement should be begun in Genoa where the Fieschi had warm friends and the Spaniards were detested. Ottobuono Fieschi, who though living in Venice had devoted dependents, should furnish five hundred infantry and Spinola should introduce into the city and conceal in his house one hundred men of the valleys; Giulio would send from Massa upon barks a body of men ostensibly to be enrolled at Milan in the imperial regiment which he commanded. They believed that Doria would have no suspicion on account of the close alliance of Cybo with his family, and that all obstacles would be easily overcome. Some persons were placed by intrigue in the service of Andrea and Centurione, with instructions to assassinate them at a preconcerted signal. It was believed that the death of those two and a few other partisans of Spain would open an easy path to the overthrow of the imperial power in Genoa.

Venice was at that period the asylum of all those patriots whom domestic and foreign tyranny had driven into exile. In the shadow of the lion of St. Mark, Donato Gianotti wrote his weighty prose and that wonderful discourse to Paul III. of which we have spoken. There lived Carnesecchi, Gino Capponi, Vico de’ Nobili, the Strozzi, Varchi, the good Nardi and Lorenzino de’ Medici. The latter meditated there that defence of his which has no comparison in our literature. Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, a man of great talents and eloquence, disgusted with the government of Cosimo, had voluntarily joined the exiles. There were also many Genoese who had been expelled from home for complicity with party broils. Thither went Cybo, Gaspare Venturini, Paolo Spinola and captain Alessandro Tomasi of Siena, captain Paolo da Castiglione, who was to have been of the party, pretended to be ill at the moment of setting out and remained in Rome to betray the conspirators to the ministers of Spain.

On Christmas Eve, Cybo collected his partisans in the house of Gaspare Fiesco-Botto. There were present besides the exiles already mentioned, the Fieschi brothers, Ottaviano Zino and Count Galeotto di Mirandola. Cybo spoke warmly of the revolution which he was planning. He declared that he wished to free the country from the yoke of Spain and restore to its bosom the virtuous exiles whom he saw around him, whose only crime was an ardent love of country. He desired to continue the revolution begun by his unfortunate friend and relative the Count Gianluigi, and to avenge his untimely fate. Fortune had crushed that rising too soon to permit him to reËnforce Fieschi with the troops he had collected at Borghetto and ordered to move on Genoa. He had afterwards pretended to support the Doria party only from motives of convenience. But he would now throw aside the mask and proclaim them to be traitors who had bound the Republic and delivered her to the Spanish tyranny. Everything promised success to the new rising; the arms were collected, all hearts burning for action and the Dorias unprepared to encounter the popular storm. CÆsar himself was in no condition to resist the sudden uprising of an indignant people, leagued to sweep Italy clean of his barbarian hordes. The exiles were greatly moved by these bold words, and swore to participate in the struggle for emancipation. But Cosimo was watching Giulio; and Gonzaga and Doria, to whom Castiglione had revealed everything, had their eyes on all the conspirators. The informer paid dearly for his treachery. Venturini tells us that he himself (perhaps with the connivance of Prince Alberico) killed the traitor with his own hand.

The conspirators, true to their promises, abandoned hospitable Venice and went to the posts assigned them by Cybo. Ottaviano Zino returned to Genoa, and, while studying to seem idle, laboured incessantly to prepare the populace for revolt. Paolo Spinola was sent to Garfagnana, once subject to the Fieschi, where he hoped to find ardent partisans. Others on similar missions travelled to other places. Cybo, who had supreme command, obtained through the aid of Montachino a dependent of Scipione Fieschi, three thousand gold crowns. The French agents gave him countersigns for the Governor of Mondovi, Candele, who was instructed to support the movement with two thousand infantry. He then travelled through Ferrara and Parma to Pontremoli. The governor of that feud, Pietro Dureta, encountered him at the ford of the Magra and attacked him. Cybo drew his sword and raised the cry of Gatto hoping to raise the vassals of Fieschi; but he was struck in the head by a halberd, received a wound in his right hand and fell lifeless to the ground. He was sent to Milan under a strong guard and NicolÒ Secco was appointed to prepare the process against him. The letters of the Fieschi which were found on his person left no room to doubt his guilt. Some tell us that he was several times tortured and confessed that Farnese, Maffei, Ghisa and the Pope himself were accomplices in the plot, and that the Fieschi and Farnese were its instigators. The emperor did not wish to execute Cybo; and we find evidence in documents of the period that even the bloodthirsty Gonzaga made every exertion to save him. On the other hand Graneville and Doria laboured with all their power to secure his punishment. In fact, so soon as Doria heard of this plot, committed rather in intention than act and excusable by the youth of the conspirator, “the prince (I use the words of Porzio) inflamed to wrath by the offence and full of vengeful animosity, disregarded the double tie which bound him to the young man, and made incessant appeals to CÆsar for the blood of his relative.”

Many Italian and foreign princes asked grace for the prisoner, and the emperor was at first undecided; but severity triumphed over mercy—Doria desired vengeance and he obtained it. The victim met his fate with manly intrepidity. He was beheaded and his body exposed between two wax candles in the public square. Nearly all the historians are in error regarding the time of his execution. The chronicle of Venturini declares that it occurred on the 18th of May, 1548. He was scarcely twenty years of age. Porzio says:—“His courage and military capacity inspired all who knew him with the conviction that, if he had not perished in boyhood, he would have become one of the first captains of his age. He made a single mistake: that of endeavouring to expel one foreigner with another—to drive out the Spaniards in order to establish the French in Italy.”

Zino was not more fortunate in Genoa. His friends urged him to flee from the city; but he, wrapped in false security, refused to follow their advice. He was arrested and his mangled limbs were found one morning on the piazza of the Ducal palace. Other accomplices lost their property by confiscation or fell in other countries under the dagger of assassins employed by Doria, to whom none could deny the right of inflicting punishment at his own pleasure. He made free use of this privilege of his position. It is certain that he was implicated in the assassination of Luciano Grimaldi, Lord of Monaco, whom Bartolomeo Doria Marquis of Dolceacqua killed with thirty-two stabs. Andrea bequeathed this form of justice to his successor. So far as we know, no one has ever been able to explain why Giovanni Andrea Doria imprisoned his secretary Antonio Ricciardi da Loano, whom Spotorno calls one of the brightest intellects of Liguria. The unhappy victim after being buried for a long time in a dungeon, without being able to soothe his angry master or ever learn the cause of his punishment, became desperate and committed suicide by dashing out his brains against the walls of his cell.

We do not know the fate of Paolo Spinola who was declared a rebel and fled to Venice. There is in the Genoese archives a letter from him written the 6th of April, 1548 to the Genoese government. It paints in vivid colours the triple slavery of Genoa to Charles V., Doria, and the bank of St. George which, having lands and jurisdiction of a peculiar character, was a state within the state.

Spinola writes:—

“Your Excellencies having made a public proclamation, calling upon me to render before you an account of my conduct within the term of one month under pain of being declared a rebel, and this proclamation having only at this moment come to my knowledge, I am constrained to ask you as just persons—which I suppose you to be—to extend the time and give me proper space for presenting myself before you, placing me in fact in the same position I would occupy if the summons bore the present date. And, as I know that all cities have malignant citizens and Genoa above all others, (there being many among you who are opposed to your peace and liberty) so that poor people are no longer free except in name and your Excellencies can give no real security to property and persons, it is necessary that men ask better guarantees than those of the government from the persons who are masters of our liberties. Andrea Doria being the chief of these our masters, prince both in name and fact, and having more power than your Excellencies, and I knowing him to be a mortal enemy of my family, I pray you if you grant my first prayer to hear also the second, which is that you furnish me a safe conduct of the said Andrea Doria promising me freedom from all molestation, direct or indirect, on his part that of any persons dependent upon him. Furthermore, for as much as the emperor, to your shame and mine, takes more thought for the concerns of your city than for his subject provinces, being in name our friend but in fact our master and lord, and since I must pass through his dominions to reach your city, I also ask the safe conduct of Don Ferrante, the imperial lieutenant general in Italy, in the same terms as the former. Further, having learned that the administration of the bank of St. George has, contrary to all right and precedent, added its authority to your summons, I ask that the said administration send me a safe conduct of like tenor with the others above requested. So soon as I receive these several safe conducts, I shall feel myself secure against the malevolence of individuals, and will immediately place myself in your hands and abide your just judgment.”

We have esteemed it our duty to give the letter of the illustrious exile. We leave comment and criticism to other pens.

Among those condemned for contumacy to decapitation and confiscation of goods was Scipione Fieschi. The sentence pronounced against him gave rise to a legal cause which has no equal either in its duration or the fame of the jurists who conducted it. Rolando a Valle was the advocate of Fieschi, and the claims of the Republic were maintained by Giovanni Cefalo, Tiberio Sigiano, Nervio, Menocchio and the college of Padua. The case was contested with singular pertinacity, and most princes were interested for one or the other party.

Scipione after the death of Gianluigi, not being able to return to Loano which was bequeathed to him by his father, because the Dorias had seized the feud, took refuge in Valditaro and there, as we have seen, induced the people to put themselves into the hands of Pier Luigi Farnese. He afterwards visited Rome, where the Pope received him privately and treated him with great affection. At a subsequent period he was the guest of Giulio Cybo in Massa and the two were warm friends.

When Cybo was arrested Scipione saw that it was necessary that he exculpate himself before CÆsar, and he asked an imperial audience through Francesco Barca, but the request was not granted. On the contrary, when the emperor learned that Scipione was charged, in the Cybo process, with being one of the chief accomplices he ordered Suarez, by decree of March 14th, 1550, to institute proceedings against him. He was cited to appear in Genoa for trial and obtained a safe conduct; but afterwards he remembered the breach of faith with Gerolamo and declined to appear. The case against him was conducted by Giovanni Giacomo Cybo-Peirano, and after the death of this advocate, it was carried on by his son. Doria himself employed an advocate to watch the progress of the trial and hasten its completion. In the meantime Scipione passed into France and entered the service of Henry II. He did not however take up a permanent residence there, the jurists of Padua having advised him to reside alternately at Rome, Venice and Mirandola. We know that he was accused of receiving and favouring exiles from Genoa, of capturing Spanish ships with his own galleys, of condemning the prisoners to the oar and plundering the works of art which these vessels were transporting to the empress Augusta. The archives of Spain are full of accusations of similar character; but they are the fictions of informers.

Figuerroa gave his decision on the 28th of January, 1552, but for some reason it was not confirmed by the emperor, and this gave Scipione strong hopes of being reinstated in his father’s domains. But Doria and the Republic employed influences which overcame the imperial scruples and Ferdinand confirmed the sentence on the 12th of April, 1559, in such terms as to destroy all the hopes of Fieschi.

Nevertheless, in the treaty of Castel Cambrese, Phillip II. who had succeeded to the crown of Spain, stipulated with Henry II. of France, that all those who had been punished with confiscation for aiding either crown should be reinstated in their property, particularly mentioning Ottaviano Fregoso and Count Scipione and declaring them as fully restored to their rights as though they were parties to the treaty. Phillip further pledged himself to secure the restoration to Scipione of those feuds which had been seized by the empire or the Republic. The Spanish monarch issued his decree to the senate of Milan ordering the surrender of Pontremoli to Fieschi; but it was not carried into effect. The senate held that the condemnation was a just punishment for a double treason committed both by Scipione and his brothers and refused to obey the imperial decree. The queen of France who had a high esteem for the young Scipione interceded for him, and Ferdinand moved by her powerful entreaties on the 13th of July, 1552, invested the count with Varese, Montobbio and Roccatagliata; at the same time he signed some other decrees in his favour. These various decrees gave rise to the controversy before the tribunals, with Scipione on one side, and the Republic and the possessors of the feuds on the other. The count maintained the nullity of his condemnation, while the Republic insisted on its legality and maintained that Scipione had lost all claims to the property confiscated for his treason, and that the decrees of the emperor were without force or validity. Finally, on the 2nd of August, 1574, the emperor Maximilian gave his decision against the claims of Scipione and absolved the Republic, Antonio and Pagano Doria, Ettore Fieschi (of the Savignone branch) and Count Claudio Landi, who were in possession of the lands and castles of the Fieschi.

We shall speak of Ottobuono Fieschi in another place. It is enough to say here that, after the fall of Montobbio and the union of Valditaro with Piacenza, he went to the court of Farnese, where he lived for some time. He afterwards went to Mirandola under an escort of ducal cavalry, and waited there for brighter days. Maria della Rovere shut herself up in the castle of Calestano. The governor of Parma requested her in the name of the duke to leave that residence, in order to relieve Pier Luigi from the charge of sustaining herself and sons. The suspicions of the imperial party respecting the duke were about this time turned into certainty. Cesare della Nave, of Bologna, a man of good education who had been created ducal commissary in Valditaro, divulged the fact that Manara had been instructed by Pier Luigi to render all possible assistance to Gerolamo at Montobbio. Maria then went to Rome, and afterwards spent some time in Parma, where she dictated her will on the 23rd of October, 1553. She bequeathed all her property to her daughter Camilla, wife of NicolÒ Doria who afterwards as we shall see took up the conspiracy of Gianluigi. Maria lived for several years after the date of her will. The registers of the notary Antonio Roccatagliata show that Camilla only entered upon the inheritance of her mother on the 26th of September, 1561.

As for Panza, we find in some old manuscripts, for which we are indebted to the courtesy of the learned Baron Giacomo Baratta, that about 1550, he was archpriest in the parochial church of Rapallo. Probably the preceptor of Gianluigi, after the destruction of his master’s family, retired to some spot secluded from political tumults and ended his days in the practice of those virtues which adorned his previous life.

The memory of Eleonora wife of Gianluigi has been blackened by recent accusations. After the death of her husband, beside herself with grief she threw herself into the arms of her mother. The Strozzi papers contain a petition addressed by her to Charles V. in which she sets forth that her dower was secured upon the feud of Cariseto, and prays that the emperor may command Gonzaga to deliver it to her with all its appurtenances in satisfaction of her claims against the estate of Gianluigi Fieschi. Perhaps she did not obtain her request; for we learn from confused notices that she did not recover her dower for some years after when she invested it in the bank of St. George.

Some years after Gianluigi’s death, she married Chiappino Vitelli. Her husband was the son of that NicolÒ who was killed by Braccolini for stabbing his own wife, Gentilina, while she lay in bed beside him. Chiappino was a brave soldier and a captain of some repute. He was a friend of Cosimo, followed the fortunes of the empire and received for his warlike virtues the investiture of Cetona with the title of marquis. He distinguished himself in the affair of Pignone with the Moors, in the liberation of Malta from the siege of the Turks, in Flanders and in Holland. Phillip II. gave him the principal charge of the last named war. He was at this time of monstrous obesity, and having received several wounds had to be carried in a palanquin to visit his trenches. While making the round of his work the Bisogni, who fretted at being commanded by an Italian, threw him down into the foss, (1575). On receiving intelligence of his death, Eleonora gave up her life to pious duties, and entered the convent of the Murate in Florence, a foundation noted for the illustrious women who fled to it for peace, some of whom were members of her own family.

We find evidence that she lived in the same cell which had sheltered Caterina Sforza Riario—the heroic mother of the heroic Giovanni of the black bands—until new were constructed for her at her own expense. She ended her days here in 1594, and Alberico I., prince of Massa and Carrara caused her mortal remains to be placed, with an appropriate inscription, beside those of her aunt Catterina, widow of Gio. Maria Varano Duke of Camerino, who with a courage more than manly sustained the siege of her castles by Mattia Varano.

The name of Eleonora was rendered immortal not only by her love of letters, but also by her splendid charities, of which the Monte di PietÀ of Massa is a living monument.