The practice of these scientific assassins appears to have been singular; and we find Lampugnano, previous to his murdering Galeas Maria Sforza, getting a portrait of his victim painted, and exercising himself in stabbing it in various parts, until he found himself sufficiently dexterous to kill him in church with seven mortal stabs.
In 1528, four Florentines fought in presence of the Prince of Orange, when one of the combatants summoned his antagonist whom he had overthrown to surrender; but the prostrate champion exclaimed, “I surrender to the Prince!” “There is no other prince here but myself,” replied his adversary; and with a dagger at his throat he compelled him to submit.
In the expedition of the Duke de Guise, in 1557, under Henri II, a duel was fought at Ferrara, in presence of the Duke Hercules d’Este, and his brother the cardinal, in a hall of the palace, which was lighted up with torches on the occasion.
The Prince of Melfe Caraccioli, who commanded the forces of Francis I. from 1545 to 1550, issued many orders to check the practice of duelling: one of them was to compel duellists to fight upon the parapet of the bridge of Turin, so that the combatant who lost his equilibrium, ran a fair chance of being drowned.
The Italian princes not unfrequently were engaged in murderous quarrels, although it is related of Humbert II, the dauphin of Viennois, that on receiving a challenge from Amédée, Count of Savoy, he sent the following reply to his herald:--“My friend, tell your master, that the virtues of a prince do not lie in corporeal strength; but that if he is desirous of displaying his prowess, I have not a bull in my possession that is not stronger than he is; if he wishes to ascertain the fact, I shall have great pleasure in sending him one of the fiercest.”