In the course to be pursued with the lesser malefactors, no difficulty
was likely to arise: the rack and the gibbet were their legal portion.
But for the doge, the law afforded no precedent; and, upon a crime which
it had not entered into the mind of man to conceive (as with that nation
which, having never contemplated parricide, had neglected to provide
any punishment for it), no tribunal known to the constitution was
competent to pass judgment. The Council of X. demanded the assistance of
a _giunta_ of twenty nobles, who were to give advice, but not to
ballot; and this body having been constituted, "they sent for my Lord
Marino Faliero the Duke, and my Lord was then consorting in the palace
with people of great estate, gentlemen, and other good men, none of whom
knew yet how the fact stood."
The ringleaders were immediately hanged between the Red Columns on the
_Piazzetta_--some singly, some in couples; and the two chiefs of
them, Bertuccio Israello and Calendaro, with a cruel precaution not
uncommon in Venice, were previously gagged. Nor was the process of the
highest delinquent long protracted.
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