“The lady in question was Caterina Ginori, sister to Lorenzino’s mother. She lived close to the back entrance of the Palazzo Medici and was as virtuous as she was beautiful. But she lived in a poor way, as Leonardo, her husband, had dissipated his patrimony and was living as an outlaw in Naples. The Duke, falling in love with her beauty, had asked Lorenzino to help him to obtain speech of her, and Lorenzino encouraged him in his passion, hoping thereby to find means to effect his traitorous design. He went straight to the house of a certain Piero di Gioannabate, surnamed Scoronconcolo, a quarrelsome man of vile character, devoted to Lorenzino, who by his influence with the Duke had saved him from execution. Some days before Lorenzino had said to him: I have an enemy who is always jeering at me and turning me into ridicule, what can we do? Point him out to me, answered Scoronconcolo, and if he annoys you again, complain of me and not of him. Being thus sure of the villain’s courage, Lorenzino said: Pietro, the time has come for fulfilling the promise you made me; the enemy who continually derides me is now in my room, let us go and kill him. It is well, replied the fellow, it is not I that will fail you. At the threshold, fearing he might lose courage, Lorenzino turned to him and said: You will not fear even if it is a friend of the Duke’s? Strike hard. Were it the Duke himself I should not fear, answered Piero. You have guessed aright, said Lorenzino, it is the Duke; he cannot escape us, let us set to work heartily. For an instant the assassin seemed to hesitate, but plucking up courage he exclaimed: Here we are, let us proceed even though it were the devil himself. Entering the room Lorenzino advanced to the bed whereon the Duke was sleeping profoundly. Raising the curtain he called in an angered tone: What, Duke, are you asleep? and with a short sword pierced him in the back. The blade passed through his body, and rising in a fury the Duke staggered towards the door shouting: Traitor. Then turning his eyes, still heavy with sleep, he saw Lorenzino and exclaimed: This from thee, and attempted to defend himself. Lorenzino threw himself upon him and placed his open hand over his mouth to prevent his cries from being heard, while his abominable companion gave the Duke Alessandro a stab on the temple which crushed his left cheek. The bleeding and dying prince seized Lorenzino’s thumb between his teeth, and the pain caused him to fall on the top of the Duke; he called to Scoronconcolo for help, who could do nothing for fear of wounding him instead of the victim. Lorenzino recollecting that he had a knife in his pocket, took it out with the other hand and opening the blade with his teeth stabbed the Duke in the throat. Raising the bleeding body from the floor they placed it on the bed and Lorenzino wrote on a sheet of paper _Vincit amor patriae laudumque immenso cupido_, and laid it on the corpse. Then locking the door they