In Turin he was befriended by presidents Catto and Birago. The latter concealed him in one of his own houses on the banks of the Po. He had friends, kept up party affiliations, and hoped that the recent death of the English monarch would occasion a war in Italy. In other letters, addressed to his wife Alessandra, he alludes to his hope of French interference and expresses an intention of returning to that court. He gives her advice for the management of domestic affairs and recommends her to Nicolò Doria, Antonio De Fornari and Giovanni Gerolamo Salvago. There is a letter to count Gerolamo Fieschi in which he asks a hundred crowns and letters of recommendations to the king of France, Delfino, the admiral and the cardinals Tornone and Ferrara. He exhorts the count to be diligent in furnishing his fortresses and to put on a bold front in order to discourage his enemies and inspirit his friends. The records of the trial show that the Ferrero gave these letters to the senate. The most important of these epistles is the one written in July to Pietro Francesco Grimaldi Robio, doctor of the college of judges, in which he exculpates himself from the charge made by Verrina of having been the first instigator of the conspiracy. He shows that Verrina had been the beginning, middle and end of the plot. He says that if Calcagno were alive, he would fully exculpate him from the accusations; but as this person was dead it only remained for him to recite all the facts of the conspiracy. This history he says will show him to have been innocent. His only fault was that he had been born in Savona. Had he been a Genoese he would have communicated his first knowledge of the plot to the senate and thus escaped condemnation, or be as lightly punished as many of his present accusers. He admits that he concealed the conspiracy but asks: “Ought I to have denounced the count, my master and exposed him to death and infamy? If this silence is a fault, I do not hesitate to accept the responsibility of it, I have already written to the Doge and I repeat, that if the senate will send to Turin a person in whom they have confidence I will recite the whole story of the plot. I do not say this to beg pardon for what I have done, but to disprove unjust charges heaped upon my name.” These are the customary phrases of informers.
These papers show that Sacco was not involved in the condemnation of his accomplices. For the rest, we are not permitted to know what was the nature of his revelations, because the most important papers of this trial are wanting. We believe, however, that some mutilated documents refer to this matter. We learn from them that a certain Filippo di Graveggia carried letters under the saddle of a mule to Parma, Bologna and other cities.
Having restored order, the government informed its friends of the taking of Montobbio, especially Duke Cosimo whose aid had been so valuable to the besiegers. But there were ominous signs of discontent in all classes of the people in every part of the Republic. The government sent Tommaso Spinola and Antonio Doria to Henry II. to condole with him on the death of his father and congratulate him on his accession to the throne; but the more important part of their business was to spy out the movements of the Fieschi and to render them obnoxious at the court where the name was held in such high esteem.
The fortress of Montobbio shared the fate of the palace in Vialata. The government, in concert with Doria and Figueroa, decreed on the 11th of June that it should be levelled with the earth, “so that,” said the proclamation, “no evidence may remain that any fortification has ever existed there.” Even the brow of the mountain was ordered to be thrown into the valley so that no castle could ever be erected on the site. Whoever should attempt to build there was declared a rebel and his goods confiscated to the state.
Prince Doria assumed the charge of this demolition, but the expense was borne by the Republic. Giovanni Bozzo, podestà of Montobbio, reported on the 10th of August that Paolo di Mirandola had excavated three mines under the castle, one on the East side seventy-six palms in length with openings at the two sides; the second, on the South, ran twenty palms into the mountain from the bank of the stream, the third, on the West side where the principal battery had stood, penetrated a distance of ten palms. Mirandola, he reports, declared that the mines must be extended as the castle had the strength of steel. The explosion of these mines blew the whole work to the ground reducing it at once to a total ruin.
In our time even the face of nature is changed. Wild weeds grow on that slope where gardens once bloomed. The daffodils which breathe their perfume over the place are the only witnesses to ancient culture. A beautiful lake which lay at the foot of the castle has disappeared. It probably covered a spot to which tradition gives the name Lago della Signora.
[CHAPTER XII.]
PIER LUIGI FARNESE.