Sampiero di Ornano, who had been again for sometime in France, having loft his royal master, went himself to the Ottoman Porte, and earnestly solicited fresh assistance to his unhappy nation. But the face of affairs was changed. The same political views no longer existed; and it must be a miracle indeed, when states are moved by virtuous principles of generosity. This brave man, being unsuccessful at Constantinople, returned to Corsica, where his presence inspired the islanders with fortitude, and occasioned a very general revolt.
He carried on his glorious enterprise with considerable effect; and the more so, that, as he had now no foreign assistance, he was not looked upon as very formidable, and the republick made little preparation against him. But he was stopped in his career by the treachery of the Genoese, who had him basely assassinated, by a wretch of the name of Vitolli[1], in the year 1567.
- ↑ Michael Metello, who writes a particular history of the Corsican revolt under Sampiero, gives a different account of his death. He will have him to have been killed from motives of private revenge, by his brother in law, Michael Angelo di Ornano. But, besides the improbability that Vannina, the spouse of Sampiero, had a brother, when it is certain she inherited the family domains; I own, that the assassination, as related by several other authours, appears to me so much of
