Three years later, on October 26, 1277, Mastino della Scala was treacherously murdered together with Antonio Nogarola who happened to be with him at the moment. No reason has been discovered for the cause of this murder. Some accounts declare that Mastino fell a victim to a conspiracy planned against him by the families of Scaramelli and Pigozzi; others that he was striving to make peace between two inimical parties who stabbed him in return for his good offices. It has even been hinted that his brother Alberto was the real author of the assassination, but no conclusive evidence exists to countenance so foul an accusation. The scene of the murder was close to Mastino’s own house, in a courtyard known as the “Volto Barbaro,” not as most writers assert from the “barbarous” act here committed, but from its being the quarter inhabited by the family of the Barbaro who had their dwelling-place in that spot.[16] Mastino’s murder was fully avenged. Alberto hastened from Mantua, and passed sentence of death or of exile on those assassins who had escaped the summary justice meted out to them by the mob at the moment of the murder. Alberto was formally installed in his brother’s stead, and became more powerful than his predecessor, being in fact absolute lord of Verona, and able to establish the succession firmly in his dynasty. Nor was his state confined to the limits which had bounded it in the days of Mastino. Besides confirming his rule over the Trentino, Alberto became lord of Riva, Castel d’Arco, Reggio, and Parma. Este and Vicenza voluntarily recognised him as their chief, and he also added Feltre and Belluno to his possessions. Thus an extensive territory owned the dominion of the Scaligers and the capital of this newly-formed principality was Verona. Alberto’s rule was a wise one, and to some extent a peaceful one too. There were occasional wars with many of the neighbouring towns, but none of such duration or importance as to hinder the development of art, or prevent Alberto from enlarging and beautifying the town and adding to the number of its fine edifices. “He beautified Verona with buildings,” says a modern writer, “with bridges, fortified it with new walls, and in the spring of 1301 laid the first stone of the ‘Casa dei Mercanti.’ ”[17]