We have already stated that Sinibaldo had, besides his legitimate children, a son named Cornelio and a daughter named Claudia. This daughter was beautiful and attractive in person and manners. While yet very young she was married to Simone Ravaschiero di Manfredi. He was a rich and influential citizen of Chiavari and desired a family alliance with the Fieschi, in order to secure their assistance against count Agostino Lando, with whom he was contesting the jurisdiction of a castle in the duchy of Piacenza. The marriage was celebrated with the splendour to which the Fieschi were habituated, and Claudia took up her residence in Chiavari, acquiring through the purity of her life and the charms of her conversation the admiration of all who knew her. Giovanni Battista Della Torre, one of the most high-born and wealthy citizens of the district, paid her such assiduous court that she soon perceived the object of his attentions. She defended herself with dexterity and disappointed the hopes of her admirer. The young man, beside himself with his foolish passion and consuming with amorous fires, studied to find some means of obtaining by stratagem that which had been denied to his love. He chose the occasion of her husband’s absence in Genoa to adjust his accounts with Gianluigi, and, by bribing a servant, penetrated into the chamber of Claudia and concealed himself under her bed. The lady was accustomed, when her husband was absent, to require her maid before she retired to rest to examine all the corners and hiding-places of her apartments; and on that evening, as if presaging the danger which was near, ordered the servant to make careful search whether any one was there concealed. The maid looked under the bed, and, seeing a man hidden there, uttered a loud cry, at which Claudia leaped from her couch and ran into her father-in-law’s room. The old man roused his servants, armed them and went to take vengeance on the violater of his domestic dominions. But Della Torre, finding his plot had failed, leaped from a window of considerable height, and, falling, received severe bruises and wounds. Nor would he have escaped, if some neighbours who heard the noise of his fall had not come to his relief and saved him from the fury of Manfredi, by bearing him away to the house of one of them.