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.”