(somewhat of the priest-nature remaining), he had Medea strangled in
the convent, and, what is remarkable, insisted that only women--two
infanticides to whom he remitted their sentence--should be employed for
the deed.

"This clement prince," writes Don Arcangelo Zappi in his life of him,
published in 1725, "can be blamed only for one act of cruelty, the more
odious as he had himself, until released from his vows by the Pope,
been in holy orders. It is said that when he caused the death of the
infamous Medea da Carpi, his fear lest her extraordinary charms should
seduce any man was such, that he not only employed women as
executioners, but refused to permit her a priest or monk, thus forcing
her to die unshriven, and refusing her the benefit of any penitence
that may have lurked in her adamantine heart."

Such is the story of Medea da Carpi, Duchess of Stimigliano Orsini, and
then wife of Duke Guidalfonso II. of Urbania. She was put to death just
two hundred and ninety-seven years ago, December 1582, at the age of
barely seven-and twenty, and having, in the course of her short life,
brought to a violent end five of her lovers, from Giovanfrancesco Pico
to Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi.

_Sept. 20th._--

A grand illumination of the town in honor of the taking of Rome fifteen
years ago. Except Sor Asdrubale, my landlord, who shakes his head at
the Piedmontese, as he calls them, the people here are all
Italianissimi. The Popes kept them very much down since Urbania lapsed
to the Holy See in 1645.