If on minor points the narration of this writer is more accurate, it still bears the seal of the degraded time in which it was written. Though the author professes to have taken great pains to discover the truth, having spent a long time in Genoa for that purpose, it is very easy to see that he did not escape the contagion of party feeling and of the malevolence of the faction then dominant in Liguria. It is not strange, therefore, that he finds a mean and avaricious spirit in Gianluigi, while he describes Gianettino as an illustrious victim, rather, as the most virtuous knight of all Christendom. Carlo Sigonio, in his life of Andrea Doria, and, among Genoese writers, Oberto Foglietto have treated the matter with elegance of diction but with unblushing plagiarism. The same may be said of Lorenzo Capelloni, who described the conspiracy of Fieschi in a report to Charles V. He was too devoted to Cæsar, and to Doria, whose life he wrote, not to imitate the others whom we have mentioned in treating the attempt of Fieschi as a plot of like character with that of Cybo which he also described. Agostino Mascardi, who was more of a rhetorician than an historian, tells us nothing new. Casoni was less devoted to the Spanish power and therefore more humane towards Fieschi, but he adopted without question the opinion professed by the party in power who never opened the archives of the state for the study of the historian. We therefore conclude that a prudent and impartial criticism forbids us to give full faith to those who have given to Count Fieschi a dishonourable place in history. In our opinion two qualifications are essential to the historian:--That he be able to collect the most accurate accounts of the facts, and that party spirit do not cloud the serenity of his mind. The writers whom we have mentioned lack these credentials. In fact, after studying the annals of the sixteenth century, we are satisfied that most of them were ignorant of the true causes of events. Sometimes they knew only a part of the facts; sometimes, acting under the influence of personal or political jealousy, they betrayed the truth by silence, by misrepresentation or by additions of what would serve their own purposes or the wishes of their masters. The reader must judge whether we have truly balanced the account. We see, from what has been said, that it was impossible Fieschi should have had truthful historians in the provinces ruled by Charles V. It was not to be expected in Genoa, where the supreme authority of the Dorias compelled even the least servile writers to the most skilful management of conscience and speech.