“Your Excellencies having made a public proclamation, calling upon me to render before you an account of my conduct within the term of one month under pain of being declared a rebel, and this proclamation having only at this moment come to my knowledge, I am constrained to ask you as just persons--which I suppose you to be--to extend the time and give me proper space for presenting myself before you, placing me in fact in the same position I would occupy if the summons bore the present date. And, as I know that all cities have malignant citizens and Genoa above all others, (there being many among you who are opposed to your peace and liberty) so that poor people are no longer free except in name and your Excellencies can give no real security to property and persons, it is necessary that men ask better guarantees than those of the government from the persons who are masters of our liberties. Andrea Doria being the chief of these our masters, prince both in name and fact, and having more power than your Excellencies, and I knowing him to be a mortal enemy of my family, I pray you if you grant my first prayer to hear also the second, which is that you furnish me a safe conduct of the said Andrea Doria promising me freedom from all molestation, direct or indirect, on his part that of any persons dependent upon him. Furthermore, for as much as the emperor, to your shame and mine, takes more thought for the concerns of your city than for his subject provinces, being in name our friend but in fact our master and lord, and since I must pass through his dominions to reach your city, I also ask the safe conduct of Don Ferrante, the imperial lieutenant general in Italy, in the same terms as the former. Further, having learned that the administration of the bank of St. George has, contrary to all right and precedent, added its authority to your summons, I ask that the said administration send me a safe conduct of like tenor with the others above requested. So soon as I receive these several safe conducts, I shall feel myself secure against the malevolence of individuals, and will immediately place myself in your hands and abide your just judgment.” We have esteemed it our duty to give the letter of the illustrious exile. We leave comment and criticism to other pens. Among those condemned for contumacy to decapitation and confiscation of goods was Scipione Fieschi. The sentence pronounced against him gave rise to a legal cause which has no equal either in its duration or the fame of the jurists who conducted it. Rolando a Valle was the advocate of Fieschi, and the claims of the Republic were maintained by Giovanni Cefalo, Tiberio Sigiano, Nervio, Menocchio and the college of Padua. The case was contested with singular pertinacity, and most princes were interested for one or the other party.