as military supremacy. How he fearfully abused his power, how a crusade
was preached against him,[1] and how he died in silence, like a boar at
bay, rending from his wounds the dressings that his foes had placed to
keep him alive, are notorious matters of history. At Padua alone he
erected eight prisons, two of which contained as many as three hundred
captives each; and though the executioner never ceased to ply his trade
there, they were always full. These dungeons were designed to torture by
their noisomeness, their want of air and light and space. Ezzelino made
himself terrible not merely by executions and imprisonments but also by
mutilations and torments. When he captured Friola he caused the
population, of all ages, sexes, occupations, to be deprived of their
eyes, noses, and legs, and to be cast forth to the mercy of the
elements. On another occasion he walled up a family of princes in a
castle and left them to die of famine. Wealth, eminence, and beauty
attracted his displeasure no less than insubordination or disobedience.
Nor was he less crafty than cruel. Sons betrayed their fathers, friends
their comrades, under the fallacious safeguard of his promises. A
gigantic instance of his scheming was the coup-de-main by which he
succeeded in entrapping 11,000 Paduan soldiers, only 200 of whom escaped
the miseries of his prisons. Thus by his absolute contempt of law, his
inordinate cruelty, his prolonged massacres, and his infliction of
plagues upon whole peoples, Ezzelino established the ideal in Italy of a
tyrant marching to his end by any means whatever. In vain was the
humanity of the race revolted by the hideous spectacle. Vainly did the
monks assemble pity-stricken multitudes upon the plain of Paquara to
atone with tears and penitence for the insults offered to the saints in
heaven by Ezzelino's fury. It laid a deep hold upon the Italian
imagination, and, by the glamor of loathing that has strength to
fascinate, proved in the end contagious. We are apt to ask ourselves
whether such men are mad--whether in the case of a Nero or a Maréchal