De Dominis was decoyed to Rome through the promise of an archbishopric, and the hope of a cardinal's hat.

He was lodged in a fine residence, but carefully watched.

Accused of having suggested a concord between Rome and England, he was imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo, and there died.

He was brought in his coffin before an ecclesiastical tribunal, adjudged guilty of heresy, and his body, with a heap of heretical books, was cast into the flames.

Franklin, by demonstrating the identity of lightning and electricity, deprived Jupiter of his thunder-bolt.