[1] See what Guicciardini in his _History of Florence_ says about
the suspicious temper of even such a tyrant as the cultivated and
philosophical Lorenzo de' Medici. See too the incomparably eloquent
and penetrating allegory of _Sospetto_, and its application to the
tyrants of Italy in Ariosto's _Cinque Canti_ (C. 2. St. 1-9).

[2] Our dramatist Webster, whose genius was fascinated by
the crimes of Italian despotism, makes the Duke of Bracciano exclaim
on his death-bed:--

'O thou soft natural Death, thou art joint-twin
To sweetest Slumber! no rough-bearded comet
Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl
Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse wolf
Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse,
Whilst horror waits on princes.'

Instances of domestic crime might be multiplied by the hundred.
Besides those which will follow in these pages, it is enough to
notice the murder of Giovanni Francesco Pico, by his nephew, at
Mirandola (1533); the murder of his uncle by Oliverotto da Fermo;
the assassination of Giovanni Varano by his brothers at Camerino
(1434); Ostasio da Polenta's fratricide (1322); Obizzo da Polenta's
fratricide in the next generation, and the murder of Ugolino Gonzaga
by his brothers; Gian Francesco Gonzaga's murder of his wife; the
poisoning of Francesco Sforza's first wife, Polissena, Countess of
Montalto, with her little girl, by her aunt; and the murder of
Galeotto Manfredi, by his wife, at Faenza (1488).