Note 1 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Discorsi, i. 27. This episode in Gianpaolo Baglioni's life may be illustrated by the curious story told about Gabrino Fondulo, the tyrant of Cremona. The Emperor Sigismund and Pope John XXIII. were his guests together in the year 1414. Part of their entertainment consisted in visiting the sights of Cremona with their host, who took them up the great Tower (396 feet high) without any escort. They all three returned safely, but when Gabrino was executed at Milan in 1425, he remarked that he only regretted one thing in the course of his life—namely, that he had not pitched Pope and Emperor together from the Torazzo. What a golden opportunity to have let slip! The story is told by Antonio Campo, Historia di Cremona (Milan, 1645), p. 114.