some hired assassins in the room who had been concealed there by Antonio’s orders. The murderers but waited till their victims were buried in sleep. They then stole quietly from their recesses and stabbed the weary hunters to death. Bartolomeo received no less than twenty-six wounds in his breast, and the murderers, favoured by the silence and darkness, proceeded to wrap the bodies in two black hooded mantles, and then dragged them to the little square of Sta. Cecilia where they threw them down close beside the Nogarola palace. The news of the murder spread like wildfire through the city, and amid clamours of horror and indignation the name of the assassin was eagerly demanded. Antonio declared that his brother had been foully done to death at the instigation of Malaspina and with the connivance of Nogarola, who had willed in this manner to avenge an outrage committed on his daughter by the murdered man. To give colour to his accusation he then proceeded to order the arrest of Malaspina and Nogarola together with the maiden, and caused them to be put to the torture so as to acknowledge their crime. Not one of the victims confessed. They preferred death to perjury; and the luckless girl succumbed to the agony of the rack sooner than declare herself guilty of a sin which she had never committed. The assertion of such innocence, even unto death, aroused the suspicions of the people, and it was not long before Antonio was denounced as his brother’s murderer. The fratricide was in too secure a position to suffer the vengeance due to him, but the growing indignation and wrath throughout the city made his life far from pleasant, and he deemed it prudent to distract the thoughts of his subjects and to drown ugly facts and recollections in scenes of revelry and feasting. He was betrothed to Samaritana da Polenta, daughter of the lord of Ravenna, and he resolved to make his bride’s reception in Verona the occasion for such merriment as would drive out all remembrance of the past. Troops of gaily mounted cavaliers rode out to meet the bride; others patrolled the town imparting a sense of festivity, and preparing men’s mind for the welcome that all were required to extend to the fair Samaritana. Her beauty is said to have been extraordinary, and when she rode into the city in a robe of dazzling whiteness covered with gems and seated on a magnificent white steed, she was hailed with transports of delight. Courtiers, heralds, pages and trumpeters preceded and followed her, flags waved throughout the city, joyousness pervaded every heart, and the recollection of the corpses wrapped in their grim sere cloths and crying for vengeance seemed to have faded from the memory. For twenty-seven days the revels lasted; and among the jousts which took place in the Arena was one called the “Castle of Love,” a joust much in vogue at that period. It consisted of an erection set up in the middle of the Amphitheatre, and representing a rock which was covered with hangings of