Even the sons and
brothers of the duke trembled before this man; the fines he inflicted
amounted to hundreds and thousands of ducats, and torture was applied
even before the hearing of a case: bribes were accepted from wealthy
criminals, and their pardon obtained from the duke by false
representations. Gladly would the people have paid any sum to their
ruler for sending away the 'enemy of God and man.' But Ercole had
knighted him and made him godfather to his children; and year by year
Zampante laid by 2,000 ducats. He dared only eat pigeons bred in his
own house, and could not cross the street without a band of archers and
bravos. It was time to get rid of him; in 1496 two students, and a
converted Jew whom he had mortally offended, killed him in his house
while taking his siesta, and then rode through the town on horses held
in waiting, raising the cry, 'Come out! come out! we have slain
Zampante!' The pursuers came too late, and found them already safe
across the frontier. Of course it now rained satires some of them in
the form of sonnets, others of odes.
It was wholly in the spirit of this system that the sovereign imposed
his own respect for useful servants on the court and on the people.
When in 1469 Borso's privy councillor Lodovico Casella died, no court
of law or place of business in the city, and no lecture-room at the
University, was allowed to be open: all had to follow the body to San
Domenico, since the duke intended to be present.
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