nemies, took into their service
soldiers of adventure, partly to protect their persons, but also to
make war, when occasion offered, on their foes. The _bravi_, as
they were styled, had quarters assigned them in the basement of
the palace, where they might be seen swaggering about the door or
flaunting their gay clothes behind the massive iron bars of the
windows which opened on the streets. When their master went abroad
at night they followed him, and were always at hand to perform secret
services in love affairs, assassination, and espial. For the rest,
they haunted taverns, and kept up correspondence with prostitutes. An
Italian city had a whole population of such fellows, the offscourings
of armies, drawn from all nations, divided by their allegiance of the
time being into hostile camps, but united by community of interest and
occupation, and ready to combine against the upper class, upon whose
vices, enmities, and cowardice they throve.

Bibboni proceeds to say how another gentleman of Vicenza, M. Francesco
Manente, had at this time a feud with certain of the Guazzi and the
Laschi, which had lasted several years, and cost the lives of many
members of both parties and their following. M. Francesco being a
friend of M. Antonio, besought that gentleman to lend him Bibboni and
Bebo for a season; and the two _bravi_ went together with their
new master to Celsano, a village in the neighbourhood. 'There both
parties had estates, and all of them kept armed men in their houses,
so that not a day passed without feats of arms, and always there was
some one killed or wounded. One day, soon afterwards, the leaders of
our party resolved to attack the foe in their house, where we killed
two, and the rest, numbering five men, entrenched themselves in
a ground-floor apartment; whereupon we took possession of their
harquebuses and other arms, which forced them to abandon the villa and
retire to Vicenza; and within a short space of time this great feud
was terminated by an ample peace.' After this Bebo took service with
the Rector of the University in Padua, and was transferred by his new
patron to Milan. Bibboni remained at Vicenza with M. Galeazzo della
Seta, who stood in great fear of his life, notwithstanding the peace
which had been concluded between the two factions. At the end of ten
months he returned to M. Antonio da Roma and his six brothers, 'all of
whom being very much attached to me, they proposed that I should
live my