As in the Tower of London, so also in the gloomy dens of the Pozzi, former prisoners have left short records of themselves. For instance: [Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Annali Urb._] ‘1576, 22 March. I am Mandricardo Matiazzo de Marostega’; ‘Galeazze Avogadro and his friends 1584’; and lower down the following misspelt Latin words, ‘Odie mihi, chras tibi (_sic_)’--‘My turn to-day, to-morrow yours.’ Occasionally some daring convict succeeded in escaping from those deep and secure prisons. In his journal, under the fifth of August 1497, Marin Sanudo writes:-- It has happened that in the prisons of Saint Mark a number of convicts who were to remain there till they died have plotted to escape; they elected for their chief that Loico Fioravante, who killed his father on the night of Good Friday in the church of the Frari. There was also Marco Corner, sentenced for an unnatural crime; Benedetto Petriani, thief, and many others. On the evening of the fourth, when the jailers were making their usual rounds, the prisoners succeeded in disarming and binding them, and went on from one prison to another, their numbers increasing as they went, till they reached the last (novissima); there they found arrows and other arms, and began to discuss a plan of escape. Now it chanced that two Saracens who were amongst them wished to get out more quickly, without waiting for the deliberations of their comrades. One of them was almost drowned in the canal, the other took fright and began to cry out for help. A boat of the Council of Ten which was just passing picked up the half-drowned man; the fact that he was a Saracen suggested that he might be a fugitive, and he was frightened into confessing. The plot was now revealed and the guard was immediately informed. On the following morning the chiefs of the Ten, Cosimo Pasqualigo, Niccolò da Pesaro, Domenico Beneto, went to the prisons with a good escort, but they could not get in, for the prisoners defended themselves. Then wet straw was brought, and it was lighted in order that the smoke might suffocate them. And they were advised to yield before the order of the Council of Ten was repeated thrice, for otherwise they would all be hanged. Marco Corner was the first to surrender, and after him all the others. They were taken back, each to his prison, under a closer watch.