This time the Inquisitors of State took matters seriously, and sent a squadron of cuirassiers and a detachment of Sbirri, under the command of an officer called Rizzi, to arrest him and his henchman Molinari. Rizzi came to Pralboino and broke down the gates, but the two men were already gone, and the expedition ended in the confiscation of a few insignificant letters found in Alemanno’s desk.
He had understood that he must leave Venetian territory for a time, and riding down into the Duchy of Parma he sought the hospitality of his friend, the Marchese Casali, at Monticelli. He next visited Genoa, and judging that it was time to settle in life, he married the Marchesa Carbonare, whom he judged, with some reason, to be a woman worthy of his companionship.
They returned together to Monticelli, where they led a riotous existence for some time. Being one day short of money, Alemanno stopped the messengers who were conveying to Venice the taxes raised in Brescia, and sent them on after giving them a formal receipt for the large sum he had taken from them. But this was too much for the Duke of Parma, who now requested the couple to spend their time elsewhere than in his Duchy.
They consulted as to their chances of getting a free pardon for the crimes the Count had committed on Venetian territory and against the Republic, and the Countess addressed a petition to the Doge which begins as follows: ‘Every penitent sinner who sincerely purposes to mend his life obtains of God mercy and forgiveness; shall I, Marianna Carbonare, the most afflicted wife of Count Alemanno Gambara, not feel thereby encouraged to fall upon my knees before the august Throne of your Serenity?...’ And much more to the same effect.
Another petition signed by both was addressed to the Inquisitors, and a third, signed only by Alemanno, to the Doge and the Inquisitors together. In this precious document he calls them ‘the most perfect image of God on earth, by their power.’
The object of these petitions was that the Count might be sent into exile, anywhere, so long as he were not shut up in a fortress, a sentence which would soon kill him, as he was in bad health.
He had certainly committed many murders and had killed several servants of the Republic in the performance of their duties; and he had stolen the taxes collected in Brescia. Amazing as it may seem, his petition was granted, and he was exiled to Zara for two years, after which he was allowed to come to Chioggia on the express condition that he should not set foot outside the castle, and should see no one but his wife and son. He remained in Chioggia just a year, from the twenty-fifth of September 1777, to the twenty-sixth of September 1778, after which the Inquisitors were kind enough to give him his liberty if he would present himself before their Secretary, which he did with alacrity.
My readers need not be led into a misapprehension by the touching unanimity which the loving couple exhibited in the petitions they signed. They never agreed except when their interests did, and were soon practically separated in their private life. The Countess took Count Miniscalchi of Verona for her lover, while Alemanno showed himself everywhere with the Countess of San Secondo. In the end they separated altogether, and the son, Francesco, remained with his father, who educated him according to his own ideas.
So far as can be ascertained, the man never changed the manner of his life. After his pardon he returned to his estates in the province of Brescia, where he found his old friends, who were few, and the recollections of his youth, which were many. In a short time Pralboino and Corvione were once more dens of murderers and robbers as of old, and as in former days he had been helped in his blackest deeds by Carlo Molinari, his chief Bravo, so now he was seconded by his steward, Giacomo Barchi, who kept the reign of terror alive in the country when it pleased the Count to reside in Venice.
He was sleeping soundly in his apartment in the capital one morning towards the end of March 1782, after having spent most of the night at a gambling house by the Ponte dell’ Angelo—he never slept more than four hours—when he was awakened by an unexpected visit from Cristofolo de’ Cristofoli, who requested him to appear at once before the Secretary of the Inquisitors. An examination of conscience must have been a serious affair for Alemanno, and not to be undertaken except at leisure; and it appears that on this occasion he really did not know what he was to be accused of doing. The Secretary of the Inquisitors merely commanded him not to leave the city on pain of the Tribunal’s anger, and on the morrow he learned that his steward Barchi had also been arrested.