murderer was probably no little astonished at the
measures the Venetian magistrates were taking.
His Roman experiences fully justified him in
thinking that it was quite out of the question
that a man of his name and station should be
in earnest called upon to answer for his deeds.
And he probably little thought, even yet, that
the outrage his bravoes had committed would
be followed by any serious results. When
ordered to put his answer to the questions of
the tribunal into writing, he positively refused
to degrade himself by doing anything of the
kind. But he offered to show the magistrates
a letter, which he had written to his relative,
the Prince Virginio Orsini, at Florence, in which
the truth, as far as he was concerned, respecting
the late occurrences, was stated, and which he
demanded to be allowed to send. The
magistrates consulted on the propriety of at once
arresting him. But the presence of his band of
armed followers, and the certainty that the
arrest would not be effected without the loss of
probably many lives, induced them to temporise.
He was permitted to send the letter, which, of
course, represented him as altogether ignorant
of the means by which the Princess Vittoria had
met her death, and to depart from the town-
hall.

But the magistrates gave instant orders that
the gates and walls of the city should be guarded,
and no one permitted, without special license, to
leave the town. They also caused the messenger,
who was carrying Orsini's letter to his
cousin, to be stopped as soon as he was clear of
the city gates; and, on searching him, found a
second letter, to the following effect:

"TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS LORD, THE PRINCE
VIRGINIO ORSINI.

"MOST ILLUSTRIOUS SIGNOR. We have
executed that which was determined on between
us; and that in such sort, that we have entirely
duped the noble Captain Tondini [probably the
chief of the Paduan magistrates], so that I pass
here for the most upright man in the world. I
did the job in person. Do not fail, therefore, to
send here forthwith the people you know of."

This letter was immediately sent off to Venice
by the magistrates. And the same evening (say
the contemporary accounts, though, bearing in
mind the distance, about twenty miles, and the
usual rate of locomotion at that day, this seems
hardly credible) a special commissioner, Signor
Luigi Bragadino, no less a man than one of the
chiefs of the Council of Ten, arrived in Padua
with full powers from the senate, and orders to
take, alive or dead, at any cost, Ludovico Orsini
and all his followers.

The lion of St. Mark was a different guess
sort of power to have to deal with from the
imbecile and corrupt successors of St. Peter, under
whose no-rule Orsini had formed his ideas of
public justice. Things began to look very serious.
But still he could not yet imagine that it would
literally come to pass that he should be seized
and brought to trial, like a common plebeian.
He thought, probably, that a show of resistance
would be sufficient to convince the magistrates
that the easiest and best course was to drop the
matter, as he had so often seen to be the case.
So he gathered his men into his house, barricaded
doors and windows, and prepared to stand
a siege.

The audacity, and to modern notions, the
absurdity, of an individual thus attempting to
brave the whole power of the state, and that
state Venice, is to us hardly intelligible. But
powerful as the senate of Venice was—far more
powerful than any other Italian government of
that period—and fully determined as the
magistrates were to vindicate the outrage done to
their authority by the perpetrators of the late
crime, "at any cost," as their orders ran, the
means to which they were obliged to resort for
the attainment of this end are a very significant
proof of the sort of difficulties the civil
power had to contend with in sixteenth-century
Italy.

Luigi Bragadino, chief of the dreaded Ten,
immediately on his arrival proceeded to the
town-hall, and sat there in council with the
podesta and captain more than an hour. A
proclamation was then issued, calling on all
well-disposed subjects of St. Mark to present
themselves armed in the neighbourhood of the
house occupied by the prince. Those who had
no arms were directed to apply at the fortress,
where arms would be distributed to them. Two
thousand ducats were promised to any man who
should deliver Ludovico Orsini, alive or dead, to
the captain; and five hundred ducats for any
one of his followers. Cannon were placed on
the city walls, near which the house held by the
enemy was situated. Boats full of armed men
were stationed on the river, which likewise
passed near the house, to prevent the possibility
of escape by that means. A body of cavalry
was placed in an open spot in the vicinity.
Barricades were erected in the streets of the
city, in case the enemy should make a united
sally against the citizens. And, finally, all
persons who were not armed were enjoined to
keep within doors, that they might not run into
danger needlessly, or embarrass the movements
of the armed men.

It must be admitted that these preparations
for the arrest of a murderer testify that the
Venetian government, if it declined to admit the
noble Signor Ludovico's theory that an Orsini
ought to be allowed to do whatever he pleased
unquestioned, was at least abundantly impressed
with the difficulty of laying hands on so great a
man. One of the old writers, indeed, who has
recorded these warlike dispositions, seems to
have felt that his readers might be struck by
the apparent disproportion of the extent of them
to the object in view. And to explain it, he
enlarges on the consideration that the desperadoes
under Orsini's orders, though but forty
men, were all soldiers, thoroughly armed,
accustomed to warfare, and to desperate deeds of all
sorts, opposed to citizens altogether unused to
arms. And he seems to imply that even the
paid men-at-arms at the disposal of the city