However black this picture may appear, it is passing fair when compared with the career of the notorious Lady of Monza. Virginia Maria de Leyva was a lady of noble birth who had entered the convent of Santa Margherita, at Monza, where she had taken the veil, being induced to take this step because her cousin had in some way deprived her of her inheritance, and without a dowry she had not found marriage easy. In the convent, because she was well born and well connected, she became a person of much influence and received many callers. Adjoining the convent was the residence of young Gianpaolo Osio, a reckless, amorous dare-devil, who was _beau comme le jour_, as the French fairy tales say. So much of the story having been told, it is not difficult to guess what is to come. It was a case of love at first sight, and Osio was aided in his conquest by a number of the older and more corrupt nuns and several other people about the convent, not excepting the father confessor, who wrote some of Osio's love letters and seemed to smile upon the affair and wish it all success. Virginia yielded, as might have been expected under such circumstances; and the amour ran along smoothly for several years, until Virginia and Osio, with the help of four obliging nuns, felt constrained to take the life of a disgruntled serving-maid who was threatening to reveal all to Monsignor Barca, the inspector of the convent, at the time of his approaching visit. When once the deed was done, the corpse was dismembered for purposes of better concealment; but suspicion was aroused by this sudden disappearance of the maid, and Osio took Virginia from the place, to shield her as much as possible. Next, he offered to help her two most active accomplices, Ottavia and Benedetta, to escape and seek refuge in a Bergamasque convent, where they would be safe; but on the way thither he treacherously assaulted them and left them both for dead. One crime rarely covers up another, however; the facts soon came to light, and all concerned were fitly punished. Virginia was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in the convent of Santa Valeria, at Milan; and there she remained for many years, in a dark cell, until she was finally given better quarters through the interposition of Cardinal Borromeo, who had been impressed by her growing reputation for sanctity. How old she grew to be, deponent saith not, but she must have lived for many years, as the following description will attest: "a bent old woman, tall of stature, dried and fleshless, but venerable in her aspect, whom no one could believe to have been once a charming and immodest beauty." What an awful century it was! Vice and corruption in all quarters, the pope an acknowledged sinner, the nobility tainted, and even the holy daughters of the Church virgins in name only! And this was the century in which the most beautiful Madonnas were painted! CHAPTER IX THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY