Venice was at that period the asylum of all those patriots whom domestic and foreign tyranny had driven into exile. In the shadow of the lion of St. Mark, Donato Gianotti wrote his weighty prose and that wonderful discourse to Paul III. of which we have spoken. There lived Carnesecchi, Gino Capponi, Vico de’ Nobili, the Strozzi, Varchi, the good Nardi and Lorenzino de’ Medici. The latter meditated there that defence of his which has no comparison in our literature. Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, a man of great talents and eloquence, disgusted with the government of Cosimo, had voluntarily joined the exiles. There were also many Genoese who had been expelled from home for complicity with party broils. Thither went Cybo, Gaspare Venturini, Paolo Spinola and captain Alessandro Tomasi of Siena, captain Paolo da Castiglione, who was to have been of the party, pretended to be ill at the moment of setting out and remained in Rome to betray the conspirators to the ministers of Spain. On Christmas Eve, Cybo collected his partisans in the house of Gaspare Fiesco-Botto. There were present besides the exiles already mentioned, the Fieschi brothers, Ottaviano Zino and Count Galeotto di Mirandola. Cybo spoke warmly of the revolution which he was planning. He declared that he wished to free the country from the yoke of Spain and restore to its bosom the virtuous exiles whom he saw around him, whose only crime was an ardent love of country. He desired to continue the revolution begun by his unfortunate friend and relative the Count Gianluigi, and to avenge his untimely fate. Fortune had crushed that rising too soon to permit him to reënforce Fieschi with the troops he had collected at Borghetto and ordered to move on Genoa. He had afterwards pretended to support the Doria party only from motives of convenience. But he would now throw aside the mask and proclaim them to be traitors who had bound the Republic and delivered her to the Spanish tyranny. Everything promised success to the new rising; the arms were collected, all hearts burning for action and the Dorias unprepared to encounter the popular storm. Cæsar himself was in no condition to resist the sudden uprising of an indignant people, leagued to sweep Italy clean of his barbarian hordes. The exiles were greatly moved by these bold words, and swore to participate in the struggle for emancipation. But Cosimo was watching Giulio; and Gonzaga and Doria, to whom Castiglione had revealed everything, had their eyes on all the conspirators. The informer paid dearly for his treachery. Venturini tells us that he himself (perhaps with the connivance of Prince Alberico) killed the traitor with his own hand.