[Sidenote: _Pinelli, Raccolta di Leggi Crim._] 1549, in order to protect ‘the dignity of the Republic, and the goods and lives of its subjects.’ Thereafter the bravi and the bandits led more quiet lives, and returned to their former occupations. There existed at that time a statue of a hunchback modelled by the sculptor Pietro di Salò, which had been used to support a ladder, or short staircase, by which the public criers ascended the column of the Rialto, in order to proclaim banns of marriage and other matters [Illustration: FROM THE BALCONY OF THE DUCAL PALACE] which were to be made public. From 1541 to 1545 thieves were usually sentenced to be flogged through the city from Saint Mark’s to the Rialto, where the ceremony ended by their being obliged to kiss the statue of the hunchback. In order to get rid of this degrading absurdity a small column was set up near by, surmounted by a cross, in order that ‘sinners might undergo their sentence in a Christian spirit.’ On the sixteenth of December 1560, the Council of Ten met to discuss the question of the bravi. It was now admitted that the government no longer had isolated criminals to deal with, but regular bands of ruffians continually [Illustration: THE COLUMNS, PIAZZETTA] on the look-out for adventures. The Ten published an edict by which all bandits were formally warned that any one who exercised the profession of a bravo, whether a subject of the Republic or not, would be taken and led in irons to the place between the columns of the Piazzetta, where his nose and ears would be carved off. He would then be further sentenced to five years at the oar on board one of the State galleys, unless some physical defect made this impossible for him, in which case he was to have one hand chopped off and to be imprisoned for ten years. In passing, I call [Sidenote: _Horatio Brown, Venetian Studies._] attention to the fact that life between decks on a State galley cannot have been pleasant, since five years of it were considered equivalent to the loss of a hand and ten years of imprisonment. These terrific penalties inspired little or no fear, for the bravi were infinitely quicker and cleverer than the sbirri of the government, and were very rarely caught. Besides, they had powerful supporters and secure refuges from which they could defy justice, for they were sheltered and protected in the foreign embassies, where they knew how to make themselves useful as spies, and occasionally as professional assassins, and it was not an uncommon thing to see a sbirro standing before the French or the Spanish embassy and looking up at a window whence some well-known bravo smiled down on him, waved his hat, and addressed him with ironical politeness. The picture vividly recalls visions of a cat on top of a garden wall, calmly grinning at the frantic terrier below.