[182] In drawing up these paragraphs I am greatly indebted to a vigorous passage by Signor Salvatore Bonghi in his Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi, pp. 7-9, of which I have made free use, translating his words when they served my purpose, and interpolating such further details as might render the picture more complete.
[183] The lax indulgence accorded by the Jesuit casuists to every kind of homicide appears in the extracts from those writers collected in Artes Jesuiticae (Salisburgi, 1703, pp. 75-83). Tamburinus went so far as to hold that if a man mixed poison for his enemy, and a friend came in and drank it up before his eyes, he was not bound to warn his friend, nor was he guilty of his friend's death (Ib. p. 135, Art. 651).
[184] See Salvatore Bonghi, op. cit. p. 159.
[185] Bonghi, op. cit. p. 159, note.
[186] In support of this assertion I translate a letter addressed (Milan, September 15, 1622) by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo to the Prioress of the Convent of S. Margherita at Monza (Dandolo, Signora di Monza, p. 132). 'Experience of similar cases has shown how dangerous to your holy state is the vicinity of soldiers, owing to the correspondence which young and idle soldiers continually try to entertain with monasteries, sometimes even under fair and honorable pretexts.... Wherefore we have heard with much displeasure that in those places of our diocese where there are convents of nuns and congregations of virgins, ordinary lodgings for the soldiery have been established, called lonely houses (case erme), where they are suffered or obliged to dwell through long periods.' The Bishop commands the Prioress to admit no soldier, on any plea of piety, devotion or family relationship, into her convent; to receive no servant or emissary of a soldier; to forbid special services being performed in the chapel at the instance of a soldier; and, finally, to institute a more rigorous system of watch and ward than had been formerly practiced.
[187] In Venice, for example, they were called Monachini. But the name varied in various provinces.
[188] The following abstract of the history of Virginia Maria de Leyva is based on Dandolo's Signora di Monza (Milano, 1855). Readers of Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi, and of Rosini's tiresome novel, La Signora di Monza, will be already familiar with her in romance under the name of Gertrude.
[189] Carlo Borromeo found it necessary to suppress the Umiliati. But he left the female establishment of S. Margherita untouched.
[190] In ecclesiastical affairs the diocese of Milan exercised jurisdiction over that of Bergamo, although Bergamo was subject in civil affairs to Venice. This makes the matter more puzzling.
[191] Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi, by Salvatore Bonghi, Lucca, 1864. This is an admirably written historical monograph, based on accurate studies and wide researches, containing a mine of valuable information for a student of those times.