Fra Paolo Sarpi, the historian of the Council of Trent, was nearly undone by an invitation to appear in Rome, which he prudently evaded, but an unsuccessful attempt was made to assassinate him secretly, and he was dangerously wounded. His Latin pun is remembered when he said, “agnosco stylum Romanum,” a phrase with a double meaning, “I recognize the Roman way” or “I know the Roman dagger.” His friend and brother priest, Fulgencio Manpedi, was less fortunate. Manpedi rashly accepted the invitation to Rome, and left Venice under a safe conduct which was tantamount to an arrest. On arrival, he was treated at once as a prisoner for trial and sentence was in due course passed upon him. He was to remain in Rome for five years, during which he was to visit weekly the seven “privileged” churches within the city and recite in them the seven penitential psalms with certain litanies, orisons and prayers, and he was to fast rigorously every Friday. This fiat was pronounced by the commissary of the Inquisition seated in state in the palace of the Holy Office, and Manpedi heard it kneeling. His offence was a suspicion of heresy in his preaching in Venice, and too great friendliness with Sir Henry Wotton, the British ambassador there. He was not, however, to be let off thus lightly, and being persuaded to make abjuration, signed his own death warrant. He was thrown into the Tor di Nona and thence removed to a dungeon of the Inquisition, and fresh charges were brought against him, based on the papers seized at his arrest. Examination under torture followed, then conviction and sentence. He was then handed over to the governor of Rome and whipped with a lash of bulls’ hide but without drawing blood. Last of all, he was taken to the Campo di Fiori, that Smithfield of Rome, and there strangled and burned.