56, The Hat-Trap. [Jax. 



peals, Pope Innocent steadily refused to interfere ; and the trading popula- 

 tion of Ravenna — a class necessarily hostile always to tumult and disor- 

 der — finding that there was, at last, a power in the state able to protect 

 them, took courage, and rallied round it. In a fierce insurrection, which 

 the Cardinal himself was accused of having promoted, and which certainly 

 did afford him the opportunity of at once striking a decisive blow against 

 his opponents, these men alone, fighting vigorously through the streets 

 of Ravenna, beat the best of the aristocratic faction, and, almost witJiout 

 the aid of the legate's troops, decided the day. The vengeance which 

 followed was sanguinary, for " banishment" was not upon the Cardinal's 

 list of punishments. He inflicted no torture — but his maxim was, Death ! 

 Not the sending his enemies (as he said) to plot against him, beyond the 

 reach of his power, or scope of his observation. A few of the insurgent 

 leaders were spared ; and these, which were but few, at no other inter- 

 cession than that of the citizens who had fought and vanquished them. 

 In time, the rest of the turbulent began to believe that the new viceroy 

 could bow their necks, and woidd do it — upon which discovery, they 

 very soon, at least as a body, became weary of the contest. They hated 

 their new ruler, most classes in Ravenna abundantly ; but they feared 

 him — and their affection was a boon with which he could dispense. All 

 he cared for was, that they should implicitly obey his dictates, or die 

 for the violation of them. They did obey ; and the executions began 

 gradually to fall off. 



Now while this contest lasted, with the irregularities of the great 

 population of Ravenna, the Cardinal overlooked, as an evil of minor 

 magnitude, the hordes of professional desperadoes with which the city 

 was infested ; but, at length, the turn of these persons came to be 

 attacked, and fierce and obstinate was their resistance : for, with them, 

 it went beyond any question of mere change of system — it was resistance 

 or submission to a total loss of livelihood. Tlie gallies, the gibbet, and 

 the wheel, thinned their numbers. Under the new police, they could no 

 longer swagger, as they had been used to do, through the streets in 

 broad day ; and even their secret haunts, within the town, were in a 

 short time searched from night to night, and rendered impracticable. 

 But, though driven thus from the capital, strong bands, in defiance of 

 all exertion, continued long to maintain themselves in the suburbs and 

 adjoining villages, making the roads near hand, especially for traffic, 

 dangerous, or impassable. And it was against the last of these marauding 

 associations, a gang headed by the notorious Ludovico Pezzali, that the 

 Cardinal Sansovino struck that blow, which is still remembered in all the 

 ballads of central Italy, and which formed the subject of an adventure 

 yet more extraordinarj' and romantic than, even from his enterprizing 

 and chivalrous spirit, the times in whic^Ji he lived could have expected. 



As mere common plunderers in the province, the Cardinal's love of 

 regularity would have made him anxious for Pezzali and his people's 

 (bodily) suspension ; but there were one or two other causes which 

 rendered him desirous of that event, in a very peculiar and solicitous 

 degree. They vvere the last body, these — that remained at all formi- 

 dable ; and freed from them — the nucleus for stragglers destroyed — the 

 country would be speedily at rest. Then their cruelty and insolence, 

 wherever outrages were committed, exceeded even the practice of 

 Italian robbers in general. And, moreover — this was the main consi- 

 deration — there were still unquiet spirits enough — though silent for the 



