A TOMB AT RAVENNA 
able and learned director of the Uffizi, who has 
devoted much time and study to the antiquities of 
Ravenna, is of opinion that Paolo Orsini was the 
assassin by whose hand Guidarello died. 1 But there 
can be little doubt that Duke Valentino instigated 
the crime if he did not actually strike the blow. 
Up to the close of 1500, the knight of Ravenna, 
it is plain, had enjoyed Caesar’s confidence and held 
a high post in his councils. But Guidarello’s secret 
correspondence with the Signory of Venice may well 
have excited his suspicions, and Valentino was said 
by those who knew him best never to forgive a wrong, 
and never to allow an enemy to live. His vengeance 
was apt to be swift and sudden, and eighteen months 
later the same fate befell Guidarello’s most distin¬ 
guished colleagues, Paolo Orsini, Vitellozzo, Gravina 
and Oliverotto da Fermo, who were treacherously 
seized and put to death by the Duke’s orders—an act 
described in a famous phrase of the Machiavelli as 
“ il bellissimo inganno di Sinigaglia ” (the magnificent 
deceit of Sinigaglia). 
So the good knight Guidarello came to his end, 
and Ravenna wept bitterly over “ the flower which 
had been plucked before its time,” and lamented 
her warrior’s untimely end. His body was brought 
home to his native city, and buried in the church 
1 Italia Artistica: Ravenna , p. 83. La Statna di Guidarello, p. 21. 
247 
