in terror, and were henceforth incapable of another enterprise of the
kind. After a time a partial reconciliation took place, and some of the
exiles were allowed to return. But Perugia became none the safer or
more tranquil: the inward discord of the ruling family broke out in
frightful excesses. An opposition was formed against Guido and Ridolfo
and their sons Gianpaolo, Simonetto, Astorre, Gismondo, Gentile,
Marcantonio and others, by two great-nephews, Grifone and Carlo
Barciglia; the latter of the two was also nephew of Varano Prince of
Camerino, and brother-in-law of one of the former exiles, Gerolamo
della Penna. In vain did Simonetto, warned by sinister presentiment,
entreat his uncle on his knees to allow him to put Penna to death:
Guido refused. The plot ripened suddenly on the occasion of the
marriage of Astorre with Lavinia Colonna, at Midsummer, 1500. The
festival began and lasted several days amid gloomy forebodings, whose
deepening effect is admirably described by Matarazzo. Varano himself
encouraged them with devilish ingenuity: he worked upon Grifone by the
prospect of undivided authority, and by stories of an imaginary
intrigue of his wife Zenobia with Gianpaolo. Finally each conspirator
was provided with a victim. (The Baglioni lived all of them in separate
houses, mostly on the site of the pre sent castle.) Each received
fifteen of the bravos at hand; the remainder were set on the watch. In
the night of July 15 the doors were forced, and Guido, Astorre,
Simonetto, and Gismondo were murdered; the others succeeded in
escaping.

As the corpse of Astorre lay by that of Simonetto in the street, the
spectators, 'and especially the foreign students,' compared him to an
ancient Roman, so great and imposing did he seem. In the features of
Simonetto could still be traced the audacity and defiance which death
itself had not tamed. The victors went round among the friends of the