The she-wolf of Siena had fallen into the jaws of the Florentine lion, but the French troops under the command of Flaminio Orsino, Pietro Strozzi, Port’ Ercole, Orbetello and Talamone remained to be vanquished, and the Count Marignano moved upon them with a strong army. Andrea Doria supplied provisions and artillery and his forty galleys prevented the reënforcement or retreat of the French by sea. Marignano carried the fortress of Sant’Ippolito by storm, and successively the castles of Avvoltojo and Stronco fell into his hands. Chiappino Vitelli, captain in the pay of Orsino, distinguished himself greatly at Stronco. Strozzi found his position untenable and retired with Orsino to Montalto, a castle belonging to the Farnese, situated near the sea. This retreat discouraged the friends of Siena and all the towns which had favoured them surrendered to the imperials. At Avvoltojo, Ottobuono Fieschi was taken prisoner and delivered to Andrea Doria. Neither his own great age, nor the memory of his bloody vengeance against the Fieschi family, softened the spirit of the admiral. It is enough to make one’s heart bleed to think that he who had often spared the lives of Turkish pirates, who treated the inhuman Barbarossa with courtesy and released Dragut from his chains, ordered Ottobuono to be brought to him enclosed in a sack and barbarously butchered before his eyes. The murder of this brave warrior, captured while fighting for national independence, deepened the resentment in the Genoese already exasperated by the sanguinary vengeance taken against the Fieschi and the perversion of the Republic. Nor was Genoa alone in opposing the Doria government; the Ligurians generally shared the feeling of the capital and the Corsicans, suffering under the despotism of our nobles, began to show signs of revolt. Fregoso and Sampiero shared the perils of Ottobuono in the siege of Siena. Aurelio Fregoso and Fieschi had laid aside their hereditary enmity at Mirandola and set out together for the seat of war. Eleonora, widow of Gianluigi, had sealed this new friendship by giving in marriage to Fregoso her sister-in-law Lucrezia Vitelli. Aurelio was a soldier of great merit and was afterwards honoured for his valour. Siena enrolled him among her citizens, Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, invested him with the feud of St. Agata, and Cosimo himself treated him as an intimate friend. Sampiero, Fregoso’s companion in the vicissitudes of a stormy career, was the most formidable soldier and captain of his time. The example of the Fieschi whom he had known in Rome, Mirandola, Siena and France, led him to draw his sword against the Genoese government; and therefore we may be permitted to touch upon the overthrow of his family in a struggle which dyed his native rocks with Genoese blood.