Genoa, though she had the forms of a Republic, was no better than the rest of Italy. Let us admit then, for a moment, that Bonfadio fell into the common sin. It was neither so new nor scandalous to the senate as to have led to his death by fire. Such a charge was in the sixteenth century little less than ridiculous. We have gone over many volumes of the criminal _Ruota_ of the time, and, though we have studied diligently, we find not a single case of severe punishment for that crime. Whether no cases are found because proofs of such beastly crimes are difficult to find, or because the vice was universal, is hard to decide. We find that a Francesco Spinola called the _Caboga_, who was brutally addicted to the vice was, not burned, but sent to the frontiers a few years after the death of Bonfadio. Though in 1479, a master workman in coral, who had violated a girl in Albaro was quartered with red hot irons, the severe sentence was not for the rape, but because he had afterwards killed his victim. It is not probable then that the government was severe against so common a crime, or would have condemned to the flames for it a man of such talent and position as Bonfadio. Had this been his only offence, his numerous friends in the senate would have encountered little difficulty in saving his life. Andrea Doria so lauded in Bonfadio’s immortal pages, who controlled all the affairs of the Republic, whose will was mightier than law, would have saved him from death. We must therefore believe that the blow which felled him came from a higher hand than Genoese law, from a hand with which it was idle to contend. This conclusion will help us to find elsewhere the true cause of his condemnation.