The true cause of his condemnation must be sought in his _Annals_. He probably blamed pretty freely some persons who expected great praise. This opinion is adopted by Teissier among foreign writers, and in Italy by Fontanini and Mazzucchelli besides those already mentioned. A careful reading of Scipione Ammirato will show that he really does not differ from these writers. “He was punished,” says Ammirato, “for teaching political principles contrary to those of his time and place,” although Bonfadio supported the Doria and Spanish party and opposed those who fought for more liberal government. We must now enquire what persons offended by the bias of Bonfadio were sufficiently powerful to satiate their vengeance in his blood? The times were unpropitious to literary freedom. Offences of the pen were punished by the dagger or by banishment. Boccalini was assassinated in Venice; Sarpi fell under a stiletto aimed by Rome. Oberto Foglietta was banished from Genoa, and if the government could have put hands on him he might have gone to the scaffold. Every independent writer was the target of powerful malevolence. So fell Bonfadio. In describing the conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi, he used unmeasured terms of reproach against that noble family and praised beyond all limit the Dorias and the Spanish government. His treatment of the Fieschi, whose fate nearly all lamented and who still had powerful friends in the Senate, provoked the vengeance of the partisans of Gianluigi and popular liberty and also of those nobles who were hostile to Doria and Spain. All other attempts to avenge the dead had failed, and they turned fiercely upon the historian who had outraged the memory of the vanquished. They charged him with a crime which must be punished by fire and secured his condemnation. Nor did the rage of his enemies cease with his death; for they made every exertion to prevent the publication of his _Annals_; and, though the times were quiet and the Doria interest clamoured for the publication, their enemies kept the work locked up in the public archives. It was not published until 1586, (in Pavia by Gerolamo Bartoli) that is thirty-six years after the death of its author. Though Bayle and Papadopoli assert that Bonfadio himself published it, this statement must be put down among the numerous errors of his biographers. We have seen what was the probable reason for the attack of Bonfadio’s enemies; it remains to investigate the pretext which they put forth, since the charge of Attic venery cannot be entertained. Two other crimes were punished among us by fire; and as there is no ground for supposing him accused of witchcraft or magic, we are forced to conclude that he was charged with holding the new religious doctrines which were then striking root in Italy. This opinion, so diverse from that hitherto held, may seem bold and we will briefly consider its probability.