Murder in the Garden of God (35 page)

Lodovico’s death was the first of many. The following morning, December 28, the two traitors in Vittoria’s household – Furio Savorgnano, a beloved servant of the duke’s, and Paolo Giordano’s secretary Domenico di Citta di Castello – were hanged.

Meanwhile, the remaining men were being interrogated, often under torture. The rectors asked them whether Lodovico had come up with the idea to murder Vittoria himself, of if he had been commissioned by someone else to do the job. But the head of the Council of Ten instructed the rectors to stop this dangerous line of questioning. Testimony was emerging that the grand duke of Tuscany had given Lodovico the orders.

On December 29, one of Lodovico’s men who had escaped his besieged palace on Christmas Day reached Florence and told the grand duke what had happened, ending with his master’s incarceration. Since Lodovico had been acting on Francesco’s orders, the grand duke wanted to save him without getting personally involved. He wrote his brother in Rome that he must take action “immediately so that you can help Lodovico, who has acted so badly, however it seems best to you.”
⁷
They had no idea that Lodovico had been dead for two days.

On the morning of December 30, thirteen men, one after the other, were hanged, and among them was Visconti, the man who had plunged the dagger into Vittoria’s heart. He had already been sentenced merely to hanging before others revealed his vile deed, and the Senate was legally unable to increase his sentence. But his two companions, those who had held down Vittoria’s arms, suffered the full penalty. Splandiano Adami and Pagenello Ubaldi were each chained to a large table on a cart and rolled through town as crowds gawked. During this last, horrible journey, their flesh was torn out by red hot pincers. Then a knife was plunged into the flesh next to their hearts in imitation of what they had done to Vittoria, but placed so that it did not cause immediate death. For half an hour they lingered in unspeakable agony. Their corpses were each divided into four parts, and the parts were hung on gallows at the four city gates.

Ten of Lodovico’s men were found innocent of any foreknowledge of Vittoria’s murder; they had either not gone to her palace that night, or had merely followed their master’s orders to watch for pedestrians in the street, unaware of what was happening inside. Nor had they taken up arms and fired at authorities. Several men received sentences of one or three years; they had thrown up mattresses to defend Lodovico’s palace at his orders.

But Filelfo was given a fifteen-year prison sentence. Though the three murderers under torture had cleared him of any involvement in or knowledge of the plan to kill Vittoria, investigators found it suspicious that he had brought the murderers into Padua the night before the “accident.” It seemed to them unlikely that it had been a chance meeting on the road. It was also believed that Filelfo might have prodded Lodovico to kill Vittoria to maintain family honor. This last was unlikely; Lodovico had hated her for years and required no goading.

Filelfo had a two-fold purpose in denying any involvement in pushing Lodovico to murder Vittoria. Clearly, he wanted to get himself off the hook and was angling for an early release from prison. Second, it was an insult to Lodovico’s memory that some were pinning the blame on Filelfo, as if so great a cavalier could be persuaded to such an extraordinary act by a mere servant. Lodovico had been clearly motivated by a feeling of outraged honor.

In his 1586 pamphlet,
Defense of Filelfo,
written in prison, the secretary stated, “Those who want to calumniate me stain the good reputation of that unhappy cavalier as if he had committed this homicide without cause and at the instigation of others and not for the interests of honor and justice, the only two causes that save a gentlemen from infamy… Though I was not informed of the causes that pushed the signor to do this, at least I was informed of his honorable thoughts on other occasions, and I am sure that he resolved to do this because he thought he was obligated for honor and justice to do it.”
⁹

Filelfo, who described himself as “buried” in prison, and “miserable and depressed,” hoped that Pope Sixtus would remember his years of service and his promise to help him if he ever needed it. “The words of such a prince towards his servant lead me to believe I can hope for something notable,” he wrote, “and the world will be the judge.”
⁹

Did Filelfo serve his fifteen-year sentence and emerge blinking in the dawn of a new century? Did he die of illness in prison as so many convicts did? Or did Pope Sixtus live up to his promise and spring him from his cell? Venetian archives, which chatter loudly in many voices about Vittoria’s murder and Lodovico’s execution, are silent about Filelfo’s fate.

Chapter 27

Vengeance Unmasked

Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come,
trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats
overflow – so great is their wickedness!

– Joel 3:13

T
hough Vittoria and Lodovico were dead and buried, there was still the little matter of Paolo Giordano’s furniture to attend to. The Venetian Senate had decreed that it legally belonged to Vittoria. Marcello, as her brother, could claim it as her heir, cart it out of the Foscari Palace, and hide it from the Orsini family. On January 10, 1586, Vittoria’s father, Claudio, instructed his lawyer to start legal proceedings to obtain his daughter’s estate.

But Grand Duke Francesco was not about to let the furniture slip into the hands of the remaining Accorambonis. On January 11, 1586, the grand duke wrote to Cardinal de Medici that if the items from Padua “be molested by Marcello, as it is thought they will try to do, it will be necessary that you order the appropriate authority to defend them and get them back for Virginio.”
¹
Despite two months of death, murder, execution, and legal wrangling, the furniture situation hadn’t changed a bit.

Though the furniture was not yet in their possession, the de Medicis were delighted that Vittoria was no longer in a position to siphon off Orsini patrimony. Crammed, as she was, into half a coffin, there would be no dowry for her, no pensions or palaces, no room and board for forty of her attendants and their fifteen horses. Virginio wouldn’t have to sell or mortgage his lands, bankrupting himself in an effort to fulfill the instructions of his father’s will.

The de Medicis also heaved a huge sigh of relief when it became clear that Pope Sixtus was no longer thinking of taking the duchy of Bracciano away from the Orsinis. Clearly, Paolo Giordano had deserved punishment for his many misdeeds, but little orphaned Virginio did not, and the justice-spouting pontiff would hardly penalize an innocent child. Instead of swiping the duchy and giving it to a Peretti family member, Sixtus would obtain the duchy for his family through a marriage, a much more elegant means. He finally agreed to betroth his grand-niece, Flavia Peretti, to Virginio and hold the wedding when she became of suitable age. Flavia would be the new duchess of Bracciano, effortlessly enjoying for decades what Vittoria, after so many years of struggle, had possessed for a few nerve-wracking months.

Vittoria’s death was the clarion call for Sixtus to seek revenge against the murderers of his nephew. The pope had been keeping tabs on them through his spy network. He knew exactly where they were – scattered over much of Italy – and asked all princes to arrest them and send them to Rome. It is amazing that in an age before photographs some criminals were easily apprehended. The pope sent detailed descriptions of the men – their height, weight, coloring, scars, accents, missing teeth, and aliases. They were duly arrested and shipped off to the pontiff’s executioner.

Unfortunately for Sixtus, many of the key players had followed Paolo Giordano to the Venetian Republic, which usually denied requests for extradition. One Sunday, the Venetian ambassador to Rome, Lorenzo Priuli, saw Governor Pierbenedetti speaking with the pope at church. After the service, the governor asked Priuli, “Could they not take in hand those wicked ones who so cruelly killed the pope’s nephew?”
²

The ambassador said he could not give a certain reply; on the one hand, the republic was very independent-minded, and some of the criminals wanted by the pope had been promised sanctuary. On the other hand, he knew the senators desired the pontiff’s good will and would be ready to agree to his wishes. This desire to comply was heightened by the lucrative shipbuilding contract Sixtus was talking about awarding Venice to build ten galleys to fight the Turks.

Later that evening, Governor Pierbenedetti presented himself at Priuli’s residence. He had spoken once more to Sixtus, and now the governor asked the ambassador “with great insistence,” Priuli wrote to the doge, “to write to your Serenity, asking you to hold the men listed below, who are deserving of the death penalty, … assuring me that this would be the greatest favor to the pope and his sister.”
³

Curious to see if the pope was making an official request, Ambassador Priuli asked the governor “if the order came from his Holiness.” But the pope and the governor were wary of such a trap. “He replied to me that I could assume that without the consent of his Holiness this petition would not be made,” the ambassador explained. “Whenever this case is spoken of, he [Sixtus] does nothing but cry and sigh, saying that justice should be done without giving any particular order. He [the governor] told the pope’s sister that he would meet me for this purpose, and she was glad to hear it. And he affirmed that your Serenity can rest assured that this would be the most signal favor for the pope and his sister.”
⁴
This last statement surely signified the immediate signing of the shipbuilding contract.

The pope named four men involved in Francesco’s death whom he wanted executed – Marcello Accoramboni, Paolo Barca of Bracciano, Marchio of Gubbio, and Lelio of Vicovaro. He gave the ambassador written descriptions of the men. Some might already be in a Paduan jail, the pope said, serving light sentences for Lodovico’s last excess.

Marcello no longer had to hide from Lodovico. Public sentiment in Venice was on Marcello’s side, the poor man having just lost his brother and sister in such a brutal way. Nor would the authorities wish to take a third child from the bereaved parents. In the middle of January, he returned to Padua from his hiding place in Parma and gave himself up for the murder of his servant Moricone. As expected, the authorities absolved him. When Sixtus heard the news, he was furious. Marcello, killer of Francesco Peretti, and Cardinal Pallavicino’s brother, and the pharmacist’s assistant, and his servant Moricone, and probably several others, had once again gotten away with murder. Sixtus contacted Venetian authorities who, on February 1, imprisoned Marcello again, though he could not be charged with the same crime. The reason given for his detention was “the pleasure of his Holiness.”
⁵

The Accorambonis were terrified that they would lose another child. They sent Marcello 700 scudi, part of it probably for his maintenance – prisoners had to buy their own food – but the bulk of it available to bribe his way out. Unfortunately for Marcello, it was not as easy to bribe one’s way out of a Venetian jail as it had been out of a Roman one before Pope Sixtus. The pope’s nuncio to Venice wrote, “Marcello has been conducted to the secure prisons of the Council of Ten, according to the instructions of your most illustrious Holiness, and at the moment nothing else is planned. As time goes by, the compassion for his losses is reduced with each passing day.”
⁶

On February 15, the papal secretary, Monsignor Decio Azzolini, wrote the nuncio in Venice, “With regards to Marcello Accoramboni, he having committed a murder in the state of those lords … we believe that those lords will not fail to do justice, and your lordship with the necessary prudence and deftness will procure it
without mentioning the name of his Holiness.”
⁷

On February 22, the nuncio replied, “Regarding Marcello, I know that justice will not be served if he lives in liberty, and I believe the others agree. I will bring this up when it is appropriate,
without mentioning the [pope’s] name.
”
⁸

Sixtus was also out to get the Greek enchantress, thought to be responsible for poisoning his niece, Maria, in 1581. He ordered a bishop to launch a trial against “a woman in Padua believed to be a witch, who served Signora Accorambona many years, and it is believed that she bewitched Signor Paolo Giordano, other bewitchings being imputed to her.”
⁹

It would be an easy matter to burn the witch, but Marcello’s fate was more difficult. Venetian law, tradition, and the dignity of the republic prevented them from retrying a man who had been pardoned. By negating one law, the Senate would bring into question all laws and make an open declaration that the republic could no longer be trusted. Worse, they would look like the dancing puppet of Rome.

They could, however, send Marcello to Rome where the pope could try him for the murder of Francesco. But the pope found himself in a similar bind. He had publicly pardoned Marcello years earlier and couldn’t try him for the same crime. He wanted Marcello to be executed in Venice.

The Venetian Senate, who so studiously avoided quagmires, now found themselves stuck in a deep one. They met several times to find a way out of the dilemma. They knew that Sixtus’s friendship and, more importantly, the shipbuilding contract, depended on Marcello’s execution. On the first of March, the nuncio wrote to Monsignor Azzolini, “These lords have called the Senate many times without being able to come to the desired conclusion. The difficulty is this, that Marcello being absolved totally of that murder … the laws prevent the republic from retrying the case… It seems to me that the most successful way would be to send him to Rome, but I do not have orders to procure this.” Then the nuncio came up with a clever solution. “The sea route up to Ancona would be easy, where justice could be carried out without sending him to Rome.”
¹⁰

The Venetian Senate liked this idea of a place of execution neither in Rome nor Venice. They decided to deliver Marcello, along with other bandits wanted by the pope, to Ancona, the Adriatic seaport of the Papal States. Though Venice insisted the pope promise not to retry him for the murder of Moricone, he could charge him with other crimes and no one could point the finger at the republic for not upholding its own laws. The pope, too, could dispatch him quietly outside of Rome. It was the perfect solution.

On May 19, Marcello boarded ship in Venice, along with the Greek witch and five bandits. The pope gave explicit orders that the food given to Marcello be carefully guarded from poison in case the Accorambonis, to save their honor, tried to prevent the shame of an execution. Just a few years earlier, the murderer Pietro Ramberti had avoided execution in Venice when his brother, giving him a farewell kiss in his jail cell, passed a poisoned pellet into his mouth which he had concealed in his own. Pietro bit down and immediately died, salvaging the family honor. Sixtus wanted Marcello to die at the hands of the law, the just punishment for Francesco’s murderer.

Disembarking in Ancona, the others were conducted overland to Rome, but Marcello was put in the local prison and tried for the 1580 murder of Cardinal Pallavicino’s brother. It was odd, some thought, that he had been interrogated at Venice for the murder of Moricone, and now at Ancona about the murder of Pallavicino, but he had never been asked about the real reason for his imprisonment – the death in a garden of Francesco Peretti, five years earlier.

Aware that he would, finally, pay for his crime, Marcello fell gravely ill. When the pope learned of this, he feared that a natural death would take away the satisfaction of his long-delayed revenge and ordered the governor of Ancona to have him beheaded immediately.

Marcello received the news of his imminent execution courageously and said he wanted to die like a good Christian. He gave thanks to the pope for letting him die a Christian death. He asked those present to remember him, and asked the executioner to do his job quickly. His head was cut off with the cleaver, and the beheaded corpse displayed to the curious public. And now the pope’s revenge on Vittoria’s conniving mother, Tarquinia, was made manifest.

The
avvisi
of June 18 said that Marcello was beheaded in secret, dying “intrepidly and as a good Catholic.” Just before the execution, Marcello had asked the pope for absolution of the murders of Pallavicino and Moricone “but not for that other murder that was attributed to him,” according to an
avvisi.
¹¹
Everyone agreed to pretend that Francesco’s murder and Marcello’s execution were not connected in any way, but no one was fooled.

Until his death, Sixtus continued the relentless hunt for the murderers of Francesco Peretti. Cardinal Santorio wrote, “Having assumed the pontificate, he avenged the death of his nephew against Paolo [Giordano] and against the Accorambonis with great severity, as if it were the day his nephew was killed.”
¹²

In 1590, the last accomplices in Francesco’s murder were ferreted out and executed. The harvest of justice was complete, and the pope lay down his pruning shears. His garden, God’s garden, was now properly trimmed, all the life-choking weeds uprooted.