Here again we have no means of knowing what passed between the brothers, other than such as can be gathered from the facts which followed thereupon, and from the well–known and well–marked characters of the actors. Drawing from these sources of knowledge, Guerrazzi, in his Racconto, entitled "Isabella Orsini," has fashioned forth the dialogue which may be supposed to have passed between them, with a verisimilitude as to circumstances and words, and an absolute truth as to character, so vividly illustrative of the men and the time, that an extract from it will convey more historical truth than many a page from a matter–of–fact chronicle. Francesco begins by reproaching Don Pietro with his extravagances. "Don Francesco," answers the scapegrace, "Remember that I have come hither on the faith of your safe–conduct. Do not kill me with a sermon." "Do I deserve this at your hands?" returned the elder, after some further disputing. "Have I not given, and do I not continue to give, proof of my love for my own blood?" "As for your own, I don't know; but you certainly love blood...." "I have to tell you then," said Francesco, "that you are the most abject, the most shameless, and most infamous knight that lives this day in Christendom." "Strong language!" sneered Pietro. "Let us come to facts." "Your wife is an adulteress." [Sidenote: FRANCESCO AND PIETRO.] "I am perfectly well aware of the circumstance." "What! you know it! and have not avenged your shame!" "We Medici have never been lucky in our wives." Francesco, in fury, asks what he means to insinuate against either the Grand Duchess or Bianca. And here the writer commits an error in chronology. For he writes as if this conversation occurred after the death of the Grand Duchess, which was not the fact. The circumstances of this narrative took place in 1576, and the Grand Duchess lived till 1578. As to Bianca, in reply to the Grand Duke's assertion that she must be considered as washed from all that had preceded his connection with her, Pietro retorts: "Such washing will not remove all stains. Sometimes a piece of the stuff may sooner be destroyed than the spot on it. And on your hand there must be a certain red mark that all Arno cannot wash away. It is the stain of Bonaventuri's blood." "Who says that I slew Bonaventuri? If my father asserted it, I would tell him that he lied. I neither did nor ordered anything. I can swear it." "Between ordering, insinuating, foreseeing, suspecting, conniving, not seeing, and so forth, no doubt if the cause had to be tried before this world's judges, the pettifoggers of the courts could find you so many limitations and distinctions that you would be acquitted nem. con. But before God one does not appear by means of one's attorney...."