FIES'CHI, Count GIOVANNI LUIGI, a member of one of the most illustrious houses of Genoa, was b. about the year 1523. In addition to the luster of ancestral fame, his name has attained a tragic historical .celebrity in connection with a remarkable con spiracy of which he was the chief. Andrea Doria, a famous admiral, sprung from a race hereditarily at feud with that of F., having expelled the forces of Francis I. from the state, had restored the republican form of government, but at the same time, by his vigorous administration, effectually held in check the ambition of the nobles. Count F. organized a plot, having for its object the death of Doria, and his nephew Gianettino, the object of F.'s special hatred, and the establishment of an oligarchic form of govern ment. Instigated by the approval of France and Rome, and supported by an alliance with the duke of Parma, F. speedily enrolled a formidable array of accomplices, his three brothers among the foremost. Crowds of his own feudal retainers were secretly armed and assembled from the various hereditary lands of the house; three galleys, purchased with the connivance of the pope, were fully equipped; and all being in readi ness, the attempt was fixed for the 2d of Jan., 1547. Doria, in spite of repeated warn
ino-s, refused to ascribe treacherous or subversive designs to F., whom he regarded as a fast friend and partisan. Complete success seemed at first to crown the conspirators; the gates of the city were forced, the fleet captured, Gianettino assassinated, Doria in flight. F. had but to appear and dictate, but he was nowhere to be found; and the strangest episode of this wild drama, is the sudden disappearance of its hero. In step ping from one galley to the other in the darkness of night, F. stumbled, and falling overboard, was borne down by his ponderous armor, and miserably drowned in the harbor, or, according to some, stifled in the slime.