[202] Litta supplies the facts related above.
[203] This fratricide, concurring with the matricide of S. Croce, contributed to the rigor with which the Cenci parricide was punished in that year of Roman crimes.
[204] The White Devil, a tragedy by John Webster, London, 1612; De Stendhal's Chroniques et Nouvelles, Vittoria Accoramboni, Paris 1855; Vittoria Accoramboni, D. Gnoli, Firenze, 1870; Italian Byways, by J.A. Symonds, London, 1883. The greater part of follows above is extracted from my Italian Byways.
[205] I find a Felice Peretti mentioned in the will of Giacomo Cenci condemned in 1597. But this was after the death of this Peretti, whom I shall continue to call Francesco.
[206] The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself assassinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards.
[207] 'La Duchesse de Palliano,' in Chroniques et Nouvelles, De Stendhal (Henri Beyle).
[208] This touch shows what were then considered the accomplishments of a noble woman.
[209] It was a street-brawl, in which the Cardinal Monte played an indecent part, that finally aroused the anger of Paul IV. De Stendhal's MS. shifts the chief blame on to the shoulders of Cardinal Caraffa, who indeed appears to have been in the habit of keeping bad company.
[210] Mutinelli, Storia Arcana, vol. ii. p. 64.
[211] Ib. vol. ii. p. 162.