Pagina 66 de 310

After these murders Oliverotto, mounted on horseback, rode up and

down the town and besieged the chief magistrate in the palace, so

that in fear the people were forced to obey him, and to form a

government, of which he made himself the prince. He killed all

the malcontents who were able to injure him, and strengthened

himself with new civil and military ordinances, in such a way

that, in the year during which he held the principality, not only

was he secure in the city of Fermo, but he had become formidable

to all his neighbours. And his destruction would have been as

difficult as that of Agathocles if he had not allowed himself to

be overreached by Cesare Borgia, who took him with the Orsini and

Vitelli at Sinigalia, as was stated above. Thus one year after he

had committed this parricide, he was strangled, together with

Vitellozzo, whom he had made his leader in valour and wickedness.