Ottolini, the Podesta of Bergamo, an instrument of tyranny in the hands of the State inquisitors, then harassed the people of Bergamo and Brescia, who, after the reduction of Mantua, wished to be separated from Venice.

He drew up, to be sent to the Senate, a long report respecting the plans of separation, founded on information given him by a Roman advocate, named Marcelin Serpini; who pretended to have gleaned the facts he communicated in conversation with officers of the French army.

The plan of the patriotic party was, to unite the Venetian territories on the mainland with Lombardy, and to form of the whole one republic.

The conduct of Ottolini exasperated the party inimical to Venice, and augmented the prevailing discontent.

Having disguised his valet as a peasant, he sent him off to Venice with the report he had drawn up on Serpini's communications, and other information; but this report never reached the inquisitors.