The public disgrace of Santa Chiara was due to the evil ways of one of its members, Sister Umilia, a woman who had had some experience in worldly things before she turned her back upon them. Her name was Lucrezia Malpigli, and, as a young girl, she had loved and desired to marry Massimiliano Arnolfini; but her parents objected, and she was affianced to the three Buonvisi brothers in consecutive order before she finally found a husband, the two older brothers dying each time before the wedding ceremony. After her marriage, to her misfortune, she met, at Lucca, Arnolfini, the man whom she had loved as a girl at Ferrara, and it soon appeared that the old love was not dead. Within a short time her husband was stabbed, by Arnolfini's bravo, as he was returning with her from the church, and rumors were at once afloat implicating her in the murder. Guilty or not, she was frightened, and before four days had passed she had taken refuge in the convent of Santa Chiara. Safe from all pursuit, she endowed the convent most liberally, cut her hair, and became the Sister Umilia, who was described as a "young woman, tall and pale, dressed in a nun's habit, with a crown upon her head." For thirteen years little was heard of her, and then a telltale rope ladder hanging from the convent wall led to disclosures of a most revolting nature. It was discovered that the supposedly pious nuns were profligates, the convent was a veritable den of iniquity, and Sister Umilia was found to have several lovers who were disputing her favors. Poisons had been sent to her by a young nobleman, Tommaso Samminiati, that she might dispose of a certain Sister Calidonia, who had become repentant and was threatening to reveal the secrets of their life; and the poisons were so deadly, so the letter ran, that when once Calidonia had swallowed a certain white powder, "if the devil does not help her, she will pass from this life in half a night's time, and without the slightest sign of violence." Penalties were inflicted upon all of these offending nuns, and Umilia was imprisoned for nine years before she was restored to liberty and allowed to wear again the convent dress.