MURDER OF FEO.
On the 27th of August, 1495, Catherine and her sons and Feo had gone out of Forlì on a hunting excursion. The party were returning to the city in the evening; Madama, and some of her sons, were in a carriage, Feo was riding behind them on horseback. Now, seven[128] citizens of Imola and Forlì, some nobles, some priests, and some peasants, had sworn together that they would that day kill the favourite. So they posted themselves at a spot within the city walls, by which the Court party were sure to pass on their return; and there, letting the carriage with Catherine and her sons pass on unmolested, they stabbed the unfortunate young husband with a pike through the body, so that with one cry he fell dead.
It is of no interest to chronicle the obscure names of these assassins. But it is worth remarking that most, if not all of them, were personally known to their victim. And this is a circumstance, that in almost every case characterises these medieval assassinations of Italian princes. The murderers are not politically fanatical regicides, who for the working out of some theory or hope, salve their consciences with the plea of necessity for the removal of a man whom they have perhaps never seen, and certainly never known. They are men in the habit of daily intercourse with him, and strike with all the virulence of personal hate. The victim apostrophises them by their Christian names, not unconscious in all probability of the items in the score thus finally settled.
In the case of this unfortunate young Feo, as far as can be judged[129] from the scanty notices of the provincial historians, his death seems to have been due to the jealousy occasioned by the reiterated honours showered upon him. This obscure young man, a stranger from Savona, some place, they say, away beyond Genoa, is brought here, raised above all the ancient nobility of the country, made Cavaliere, Conte, Castellano, Governor-General; and now not content with all that, must needs be a French Baron too! This last preferment seems from some feeling to have been the most irksome and most odious of all to the Forlìvesi. Come what might, they would not be lorded over by a French Baron!
And thus, at the age of thirty-three, Catherine was for the second time after five years of marriage, the widow of a murdered husband.