The house of Visconti was now represented by the three sons of Stefano: Matteo, Bernabo, and Galeazzo. They agreed to divide their uncle’s dominions between them, but to keep the two chief cities of Milan and Genoa under their joint rule. Matteo, who was vicious and debauched even [Sidenote: Bernabo and Galeazzo Visconti.] beyond the standard of the Visconti, was assassinated by order of his brothers in 1355, and Bernabo and Galeazzo divided his share between them. On the whole their joint rule was wonderfully harmonious, though in later life they fell rather apart and adopted different residences—Bernabo in Milan and Galeazzo in Pavia. Few pictures are more repulsive than that which has been handed down of the domestic government of the two brothers. In the midst of lavish profusion and ostentatious patronage of men of letters, they ruled their subjects with a rod of iron. State criminals, instead of immediate execution, were publicly tortured for forty days according to a fixed daily programme. The game laws were enforced with atrocious severity even for those days. A peasant who had killed a hare was given to Bernabo’s hounds to be devoured by them. Yet these bloodthirsty despots, belonging to an upstart family and without any recognised or legal title in their dominions, were allowed to ally themselves by intermarriage with the greatest dynasties in Europe. They were the richest rulers of their time, and their wealth induced even kings to shut their eyes both to the cruelty of their rule and to their ignoble origin. Bernabo married his daughter Verde or Virida to the Leopold of Hapsburg who afterwards fell in the battle of Sempach. Galeazzo obtained for his son, Gian Galeazzo, the hand of Isabella, daughter of John of France, with the county of Vertus in Champagne; and his daughter Violante was married to Lionel of Clarence, the second son of Edward III. of England.