The statutes of Genoa attached the penalty of death to the crimes of Attic venery, heresy and witchcraft, for one of which Bonfadio must have been punished. No one accuses him of the last two. Tuano, who is quoted among those who charge him with lustful crimes, says nothing clearly but only that “Bonfadio was punished for an offence which it is prudent to conceal” (_ob rem tacendam_). But, besides that many things are better concealed, it is important to remember that Tuano, who did not even know the year in which Bonfadio was executed is a suspected authority in Italian affairs. Paolo Manuzio leaves us in equal uncertainty; in his golden Latin song he says that Bonfadio perished for a crime over which the sword of justice could not slumber, but he does not define the singular offence which he also says would not tarnish the glory of his name. The only one of his contemporaries who openly accuses him is the base Marini, whose verses, worshipped both by princes and the populace, invested falsehood with the appearance of truth. Cardano took up the tale and no one has yet destroyed the basis of the calumny. The judicious and impartial critic knows how little value is to be attached to any statement by Cardano; nor can a verse of the author of the Adonis be accepted as a guide for the opinions of posterity, especially since Garuffi has so severely criticized him for traducing the memory of so great a writer as Bonfadio. One must know little of the low morals of an age which put a price upon sin and absolved offences before they were committed, to doubt that the vice with which Bonfadio is charged prevailed to a fearful extent.