Being belated on his road, he resolved to stop over the night at the house of a certain Andrea Volpi which lay on his road, and where he had often slept before.

On the following morning, about eight o'clock, he left Volpi's house and went on his journey towards Viterbo.
Nothing more is positively known about him, except that on the same day his body was found on a bye-path, a little off the direct Viterbo road, covered with wounds.

No money was discovered about his person, while there was every indication of his clothes and pack having been rummaged and rifled.
Assuming, as one must, the correctness of these facts, there can be no doubt that a very brutal murder and robbery had been committed.

For some reasons, what, we are not told, the suspicions of the police fell at once on one of Volpi's sons, called Serafino, a lad of about 22, and on a friend of his, Bonaventura Starna, about two years older than himself.
Both of these persons, who were common labourers, were, in consequence, arrested on the 7th of May.

They were not tried, however, till the 27th of April, in the year following, when they were arraigned for the murder before the lay criminal and civil court of Viterbo.
The two prisoners, nevertheless, are not tried on the same charge.