One Pietro Bonaventuri, a young Florentine, employed in a Florentine bank at Venice, found the means of becoming acquainted with Bianca, the motherless daughter of the noble Bartolommeo Cappello, a young lady then in her sixteenth year, but already noted for conduct none of the strictest; and noted also as the heiress of a considerable fortune. Giving her falsely to understand, as there is reason to believe,[146] that he was a member of the great Salviati family, Bonaventuri induced her to accord him secret meetings, and continued this intercourse till Bianca found herself to be with child. The couple thereupon determined on a secret flight to Florence, there to be married. And they did accordingly leave Venice on the night of the 28th of November, 1563; and did succeed, notwithstanding condemnation to death and large rewards for their apprehension, in reaching Florence in safety. That the journey was one of difficulty and danger, may also be asserted without fear of error; for the roadless Apennine had to be crossed; it was winter; and the sixteen–year–old fugitive was not in a condition to perform such travel safely. But we get no distinct sight of the pair, from the time of their flight on that 29th of November, till we find them married and lodged in comparative safety in the poor dwelling—"tugurio"—of the bridegroom's mother in the Piazza di San[147] Marco at Florence. In comparative, but by no means in absolute safety. For the Queen of the Adriatic had long arms, and, as treaties of extradition had not then come into use, it was a common practice for rulers to execute by the hand of a hired assassin in a foreign country, the sentence, which the culprit's flight made it impossible for them to carry out more regularly at home. Assassinations were extremely common then in the streets of Florence; and the "brave ones," whose trade it was to commit them, were not likely to neglect so good a job, as that commissioned by the "most Serene" Republic. [Sidenote: PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO.] So Bianca and her husband had to keep themselves close prisoners in the little house in the square of St. Mark. She had found out by this time, that he was no Salviati, but a poor clerk, now without a clerkship. And he had found out, that he had calculated amiss on those six thousand crowns, which Bianca inherited from her mother, and which, according to the Venetian law–records, had been to him the maiden's chief attraction. For the Republic declared them to be confiscated! A state of things not calculated, it may be feared, to conduce to that mutual affection, which must have been so necessary to make their misfortunes, and imprisonment in the little "tugurio," endurable.