United States or Armenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The most striking disclosures have been left us with respect to the murderers of Galeazzo Sforza, Lampugnani, Olgiati, and Visconti. Though all three had personal ends to serve, yet their enterprise may be partly ascribed to a more general reason.
"Have you not fools enough already at Cesena?" I asked him. A moment he looked as if he were inclining to anger. Then he burst into a coarse laugh, and turned to one of his gossips. "Did I not tell you, Lampugnani, that his wit was quick and penetrating? Hear him, rogue. Already has he discerned your quality."
"You heard Lampugnani quip Ramiro with the fact that three messengers have ridden desperately within the week from Citta di Castello to Cesena, and you heard, perhaps, his obscure reference to the hat?" "I heard both, and both I weighed," said I. The old man looked at me as if surprised. "And what," he asked, "was the conclusion you arrived at?"
He paused a moment; then continued: "Lampugnani must have suspected something and watched Ramiro to make sure that his suspicions were well founded. In that he was wise, but he was a fool to allow Ramiro to see what lie he had discovered. Already he has paid the penalty. He is lying with a dagger in his throat, for an hour ago Ramiro stabbed him while he slept." I shuddered.
About this time Cola de' Montani, a humanist and professor of eloquence, had awakened among many of the young Milanese nobility a vague passion for glory and patriotic achievements, and had mentioned to Lampugnani and Olgiati his hope of delivering Milan. Suspicion was soon aroused against him: he was banished from the city, and his pupils were abandoned to the fanaticism he had excited.
At one and the same moment the daggers of the three conspirators struck him Olgiati's in the breast, Visconti's in the back, Lampugnani's in the belly. He cried 'Ah, Dio! and fell dead upon the pavement. The friends were unable to make their escape; Visconti and Lampugnani were killed on the spot; Olgiati was seized, tortured, and torn to death.
Stephen, in whose church it was fulfilled. Many of their comrades were now informed of the plot, nightly meetings were held in the house of Lampugnani, and the conspirators practiced for the murder with the sheaths of their daggers.
But let Lampugnani be. I am not come to talk of him. "Returning from his bloody act, Ramiro ordered me to bed. I went, and as I passed Lampugnani's room I saw the door standing wide. It was thus that I learnt what had befallen.
"If he knew you," answered Ramiro, with a scowl, "he would counsel me to strangle some of the over-inquisitive rascals that surround me." "Over-inquisitive?" echoed Lampugnani boldly. "Body of God! It were enough to wake the curiosity of an ecstatic hermit to have a mud-splashed courier from Citta di Castello at Cesena three times within one little week."
The reason for this that at once arose in my mind was that within the messenger's hat there was a second and more secret communication for the Governor. This secrecy and Ramiro's display of anger at seeing a hint of it betrayed by Lampugnani struck me, not unnaturally, as suspicious. What were these hidden communications that passed between Vitellozzo Vitelli and the Governor of Cesena?
Word Of The Day