This earthquake ruined in one night the castles of Sanguine[216], Presole[217], and la Roche Capoa[218], where neither walls nor houses were left standing. One half of the city of Sermone[219] and the castle of Oliveto[220] were destroyed: in which last five hundred persons were killed, and in the castle of Pesolo[221] six hundred. In like manner, when the castle of Thoco[222] was overthrown, its lord and all within perished. This accident ruined also part of the port of Ancona, and such damages were done to the buildings of Capua[223], Aversa[224], and Benevento[225], and to the castle of Lusano[226], as would have been incredible but to those who saw it. The account of this unfortunate disaster was sent in writing to the marquis of Ferrara by his brother Hercules[227], then in the kingdom of Naples with the king of Arragon, and written at Rougia[228], the 7th day of December, in the year 1456. On the first day of this same year, while the king of France was at St Prier, near to Lyon, Otho Castellan, a Florentine and treasurer of the king's household, was arrested on the bridge at Lyon by the provost of the palace, from informations the king had received that the said Otho had formed certain devices prejudicial to his personal safety. He had made certain images that, by diabolical arts, would assure him the government of the king, and cause him to do whatever the said Otho should please. Guillaume Gouffier was his accomplice, and was long detained in prison to obtain from him the truth of these charges. Otho was carried prisoner before the parliament of Tholouse, where he had long acted as the king's treasurer; and Gouffier was sent to Tours. In the ensuing year, Otho was condemned by the chancellor to banishment and confiscation of his effects; but the king pardoned him, so that he only lost the places he had held, and was banished to twenty leagues distant from wherever the king should be, and was compelled to pay a fine of a thousand crowns for the expenses of his suit. But Otho was then accused of sodomy, and brought back to Tours for trial, and thence sent to Paris, as it was said that he had appealed to the parliament; but I cannot say how this matter ended, for he was transported from one prison to another, so that I am ignorant of the conclusion. This was a great year of rain. The duke and duchess of Savoy came this year to the king of France and the prince of Piedmont, eldest son to the duke, was married to Yolande, daughter to the king of France. An embassy now arrived in France from Spain, to confirm the alliances between the two kingdoms; and at the same time, the prince of Navarre came to demand from the king the duchy of Nemours,--and also the cardinal of Avignon from Brittany, on his return from canonising St Vincent at Vannes. Shortly after, the cardinal waited on the king, to require a tenth from the clergy of his realm, to carry on the war, as he said, against the Turks. FOOTNOTES: