The story of Cristoforo Frangipane shows that political delinquents were not judged according to any particular code, and that each case was examined as being entirely independent from any other. I must recall to the reader that during the league of Cambrai the Emperor Maximilian was commissioned to win back Friuli, Istria, and other provinces annexed by the Republic. Though the league had been formed in great haste, Venice was not taken by surprise, for it had long been apparent that the European powers desired her destruction and dismemberment. [Sidenote: _Venice defying Europe, Palma Giovane; Sala dei Pregadi, ducal palace._] During the war which followed the Venetian army was at one time under the orders of Bartolomeo d’ Alviano, and that of the Emperor was commanded by Cristoforo Frangipane. Now the Frangipane family held lands in fee from Venice as well as from the Emperor, and owed feudal service to both; so that the Republic was justified in considering Cristoforo as a traitor according to feudal law, since he was in command of a hostile army. A learned German student, Doctor Heinrich Thode, has discovered and told with great charm the following story concerning the imperial general. In 1892, Doctor Thode being then in Venice, certain peasants of the village of Osopo, near Pordenone, showed him a gold ring of marvellous workmanship and in the style of the sixteenth century, which they had found in a field. The ring consisted of two spirals, one within the other, which could be taken apart, so that a lock of hair or a relic could be placed between them. On the outer spiral of the ring were engraved the words, ‘Myt Wyllen deyn eygen,’ which may be translated, ‘By mine own will thine own.’ Doctor Thode bought the ring, but for a long time could make nothing of it. At last, however, his industry was rewarded by the discovery of an interesting passage in the almost inexhaustible diary of Marin Sanudo, of which I shall abridge the substance as much as possible. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Emperor Maximilian met in Augsburg a very beautiful girl named Apollonia von Lange, with whom he fell deeply in love. He caused her to come to the Court of Vienna, where she behaved so admirably that, according to the chronicler, all the Austrian nobles wished to marry her. As a matter of fact she was married in 1503 to the Count of Lodron, who happens to be the very person whom the Cappelletti of Verona wished to marry to their Juliet in spite of her promise to Romeo Montecchi.