The historians admit that there exists no direct proof that Francesco and Ferdinando, both or either of them, were accomplices in this murder. But they appear to have very little doubt upon the subject; and, indeed, the circumstantial evidence seems almost conclusive, especially as regards Francesco. There is the direct statement of the Settimanni[166] chronicle, that Orsini was sent for from Rome that he might consent to his wife's death. There is the general popular belief at the time and ever since. And there is the fact that both Ferdinando and Francesco continued on perfectly friendly terms with Paolo Giordano after Isabella's death, and interested themselves, as they had not before done, in the settlement of his numerous debts. [Sidenote: ISABELLA ORSINI.] The unfortunate Isabella Orsini has been very leniently judged by her countrymen. She was beautiful; carefully and highly educated, so far as the phrase includes exclusively intellectual culture; was a distinguished musician; spoke and wrote correctly several languages, including that of ancient Rome; was a poetess in a small way; and some philological treatise by her, still to be found in print in Italian libraries, indicates that she was not _wholly_ given up to pursuits little compatible with intellectual exercise. Impudicity had been from her tender years instilled into her, both by precept and example, by an authority which nature's earliest dictates teach a child to consider as sacred above all others. With such a father and sovereign as Cosmo, and living in such a state of society as that which surrounded her, where the abundant practice of "religious duties" intertwined with, and forming a large part of every–day life, was joined to a degree of ignorance and neglect of "moral duties" unequalled, perhaps, in any other age and country, could Isabella Orsini have been other than lost as she was? But the reforming hand which was to restore the court and family of the Medici to respectability, was not satisfied with one victim. It was on the 16th of July that Isabella Orsini was murdered; some days having been lost, as may be supposed, between the remonstrance of the Cardinal and the arrival of Paolo Giordano in Florence. The other victim, therefore, whose destined executioner was at hand, perished exactly one week earlier. When Francesco sent for his brother–in–law from Rome, he also summoned his brother Pietro to an interview.