Lisabetta’s Brothers Murder Lorenzo

Lisabetta’s Brothers Murder Lorenzo is the concealed killing at the center of a family’s attempt to suppress a relationship they fear will bring reproach. The brothers turn a discovery they first choose to hide into a planned murder: Lorenzo is removed from their household, buried in a lonely place, and falsely said to have been sent away on business.

The Relationship and Its Discovery

In Messina, three brothers, wealthy merchants left rich by their father, lived with their only sister, Lisabetta, whom they had not yet married. Lorenzo, a comely and agreeable young man from Pisa, worked in one of their warehouses and managed their affairs. Lisabetta’s repeated looks drew his attention; he returned her affection, and the two began a relationship, each finding the other pleasing.

They did not keep the relationship secret. One night, Lisabetta went to where Lorenzo lay, and the eldest brother saw her. Although the discovery troubled him, he did not confront them at once. In the morning he told his brothers what he had witnessed, and the three considered how to make the matter disappear from their sight before it brought reproach upon them or their sister.

The Murder and Its Concealment

The brothers maintained their usual manner toward Lorenzo while they planned. One day they pretended to be leaving the city for pleasure and took him with them to a very lonely, remote place. When the opportunity came, they killed him while he was off his guard and buried him so that no one would know what had happened.

Their return to Messina completed the deception. They said that they had sent Lorenzo elsewhere on their business, a plausible explanation because they often dispatched him on errands. His absence could therefore be presented as an ordinary consequence of his work rather than as a sudden break in the household’s routine.

The Murder’s Immediate Consequences

Lisabetta repeatedly asked her brothers about Lorenzo, distressed by the length of his absence. One brother rebuked her for asking so often and threatened that, if she continued to inquire after him, they would give her an answer she deserved. The threat made her sad, grieving, and afraid of something she could not identify; she stopped asking aloud.

The brothers’ effort to prevent public reproach thus produces a private violence that they conceal from Lisabetta as well as from the city. Their account explains Lorenzo’s absence, but not the grief that keeps her waiting for him. The murder’s immediate consequence is not resolution but enforced silence: the brothers control what can be said, while Lisabetta remains unaware of the killing that has made Lorenzo’s return impossible.