Grünthler was so long finding what he wanted, that his good friend, George Hermann, advised him to fetch his wife and live with him at Augsberg, till something should turn up—which he did. Olympia's grief was great at parting with her mother and sisters, whom she had little hope of ever seeing again: her brother Emilio, eight years of age, she took with her. Thus Italy lost one of its most distinguished women.
Once settled in Germany, she was very happy. "We are still," she wrote, "with our excellent friend, and I am delighted with my home here. I pass my entire day in literary pursuits—me cum Musis delecto—and have no cares to draw me away from them. I also apply myself to the study of Holy Writ, which is so productive of peace and contentment."
The occupation she chiefly found for her pen was translating the Psalms of David into Greek verse. These her husband used to set to music, and the singing of them formed the evening amusement of their little circle.
After residing some months with George Hermann, they removed to another friend, John Sinapi, a good physician who had married Olympia's early companion, Francesca Bucyronia. At length they obtained a humble home of their own at Schweinfurth on the Maine. And here they dwelt usefully and happily till war and pestilence raged around them. Schweinfurth was sacked: Olympia fled from it barefoot, in worse plight than Giulia Gonzaga, for she had no horse to carry her to the nearest refuge, ten miles off. "I might have been taken," she said, "for the queen of the beggars."
At length they reached Erbach, where the good Countess received her like a mother, and nursed her through her sickness. But Olympia never recovered from the effects of that fearful flight; and an early death crowned her beautiful and exemplary life.
The persecution which raged against the humbler confessors in Ferrara, failed not to attack the Duchess herself, though the daughter of a King of France. It was not till she had endured a short imprisonment that she was intimidated into concealing her convictions. On the death of the Duke, she returned to France, where she made open profession of the reformed faith, and afforded shelter to its confessors.
In the Venetian states, the persecution raged with great violence. Francesco Spira, a lawyer of Padua, died in such agonies of mind at having been induced, by the terrors of the Inquisition, to recant, that Vergerio, the converted bishop of Capo d' Istria, who was present at his death, was greatly affected by it. "To tell the truth," says he, "I felt such a flame in my breast, that I could hardly help going to the legate at Venice, and crying out, "Here I am! where are your prisons and your fires?" Instead of this, he sought refuge among the Grisons.
The way of putting the Venetian martyrs to death was not by fire but by water. At dead of night, the prisoner was taken from his cell, and put into a gondola, attended by a priest. He was rowed out to sea, beyond "The two Castles," where another boat was waiting. A plank was then laid across the two gondolas, upon which the prisoner, heavily chained to a stone, was placed. On a given signal, the two boats paddled different ways.
The first martyr who thus suffered was Giulio Giurlanda. When set on the plank, he calmly bade the gondoliers farewell, and, calling on the Lord, sank into the deep.
Antonio Bicetto, of Vicenza, followed his example, though urged to recant by the most tempting bribes. Space would fail if I undertook to recount all who in their turn were faithful unto death. Others escaped; and there was not a city of note in Italy that did not swell the list of fugitives. This shows how widely the reformed opinions must have spread.