[ [410] {383}[The sbirri were constables, officers of the police magistrates, the signori di notte. The Italians have a saying, Dir le sue ragioni agli sbirri, that is, to argue with a policeman.]
[ [411] {384}["It was concerted that sixteen or seventeen leaders should be stationed in various parts of the city, each being at the head of forty men, armed and prepared; but the followers were not to know their destination."—See translation of Sanudo's Narrative, post, [p. 464].]
[ [412] [In the earlier chronicles Beltramo is named Vendrame. He was, according to some authorities, compare with Lioni, i.e. a co-sponsor of the same godchild. Signor Lazzarino (La Congiura, p. 90 (2)) maintains that in all probability Beltramo betrayed his companions from selfish motives, in order to save himself, and not from any "compunctious visitings," or because he was "too full o' the milk of human kindness." According to Sanudo (vide post, [p. 465]), "Beltramo Bergamasco" was not one of the principal conspirators, but "had heard a word or two of what was to take place." Ser Marco Soranzano (p. 466) was one of the "Zonta" of twenty who were elected as assessors to the Ten, to try the Doge of high treason against the Republic.]
[ [413] {386}[Compare—
"If we should fail,——We fail.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail."
Macbeth, act i. sc. 7, lines 59-61.]
[ [di] In a great cause the block may soak their gore.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]
[ [dj] If Brutus had not lived? He failed in giving.—[MS. M.]
[ [414] [At the battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, Brutus lamented over the body of Cassius, and called him the "last of the Romans."—Plutarch's Lives, "Marcus Brutus," Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 686.]
[ [415] [The citizens of Aquileia and Padua fled before the invasion of Attila, and retired to the Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto. Theodoric's minister, Cassiodorus, who describes the condition of the fugitives some seventy years after they had settled on the "hundred isles," compares them to "waterfowl who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves." (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., 1825, ii. 375, note 6, and 376, notes 1, 2.)]