He must have been a young man of distinguished appearance; for when Virginia first set eyes upon him from a window overlooking his grounds, she exclaimed: 'Is it possible that one could ever gaze on anything more beautiful ?' He attracted her notice as early as the year 1599 or 1600, under circumstances not very favorable to the plan he had in view.

His hands were red with the blood of Virginia's bailiff, Giuseppe Molteno, whom he had murdered for some cause unknown to us.

During their first interview (Virginia leaning from the window of her friend Candida's cell, and Osio standing on his garden-plot beneath), the young man courteously excused himself for this act of violence, adding that he would serve her even more devotedly than the dead Molteno, and begging to be allowed to write her a letter.

When the letter came, it was couched in terms expressive of a lawless passion.

Virginia's noble blood rebelled against the insult, and she sent an answer back, rebuffing her audacious suitor.