The Contessa Violante The Contessa Violante Marliani lived, as has been said, with her great-aunt, a sister of the Cardinal.

They occupied a small house nearly contiguous to the palace, which was almost more their home than their own dwelling.

The Marchesa Lanfredi, the Cardinal's sister, though a great-aunt, was not yet sixty years old.

She had been left a childless widow, very scantily provided for, early in life, and had retired from Bologna, her husband's native place, to live first at Foligno, of which city her brother had been bishop, and afterwards at Ravenna, to which he had been subsequently promoted.

The Cardinal was six or seven years her senior.