no distinguished stranger unhonored, this regulation served a
hospitable purpose; Ercole I used it simply as a measure of precaution.
In Bologna, too, it was then the rule, under Giovanni II Bentivoglio,
that every passing traveller who entered at one gate must obtain a
ticket in order to go out at another. An unfailing means of popularity
was the sudden dismissal of oppressive officials. When Borso arrested
in person his chief and confidential counsellors, when Ercole I removed
and disgraced a tax-gatherer who for years had been sucking the blood
of the people, bonfires were lighted and the bells were pealed in their
honour. With one of his servants, however, Ercole let things go too
far. The director of the police, or by whatever name we should choose
to call him (Capitano di Giustizia), was Gregorio Zampante of Lucca, a
native being unsuited for an office of this kind. Even the sons and
brothers of the duke trembled before this man; the fines he inflicted
amounted to hundreds and thousands of ducats, and torture was applied
even before the hearing of a case: bribes were accepted from wealthy
criminals, and their pardon obtained from the duke by false
representations. Gladly would the people have paid any sum to their
ruler for sending away the 'enemy of God and man.' But Ercole had
knighted him and made him godfather to his children; and year by year
Zampante laid by 2,000 ducats. He dared only eat pigeons bred in his
own house, and could not cross the street without a band of archers and
bravos. It was time to get rid of him; in 1496 two students, and a
converted Jew whom he had mortally offended, killed him in his house
while taking his siesta, and then rode through the town on horses held
in waiting, raising the cry, 'Come out! come out! we have slain
Zampante!' The pursuers came too late, and found them already safe
across the frontier. Of course it now rained satires some of them in
the form of sonnets, others of odes.