Now it chanced that the latter, in the month of July, 1381, was courting a beautiful daughter of the family of Nogarola, whose dwelling stands in the street of “the two Moors,” not far from the palace of the Scaligeri. Bartolomeo, though, was not her only suitor, for he had a rival in the person of a cadet of the house of Malaspina. And Antonio, seeing how the thing was, resolved to make use of this situation to rid himself of Bartolomeo and to reign alone in Verona. Accordingly, on the evening of July 12, 1381, he hired a number of “bravi,” or professional assassins, and concealed them in Bartolomeo’s apartments in the Palazzo Scaligeri. Later on, Bartolomeo, who had been hunting, came home attended by a friend called Galvani, and they supped together, after which the two lay down and fell asleep; thereupon the murderers came out from their hiding-place and killed the sleepers with many blows of their knives, Bartolomeo receiving as many as twenty-six stabs, all in front. Then the “bravi,” having draped the bodies in black mantles with hoods that they pulled over the faces of them, carried them noiselessly down out of the palace and through the deserted streets to the “piazzetta” of Santa Cecilia, where they left them at the door of Palazzo Nogarola—so that all might believe the murder to have been the work of that family. And there the dead Bartolomeo and his friend were found in the morning by the indignant citizens of Verona, who had loved Bartolomeo more than they loved his younger brother. But when they came to Antonio with the dreadful news, he feigned great sorrow and anger, and declared it to be his belief that the Lord Nogarola, together with young Malaspina, had committed the crime in order to be revenged upon Bartolomeo della Scala for having dishonoured the girl to whom, as was well known, he had been paying court.