Invited to Rome by the revolutionary Cola di Rienzi, who wanted his wealth, Monreale overconfidently entered alone, was seized, tried as a public robber, and executed. He went to the block magnificently dressed in brown velvet embroidered in gold and had his own surgeon direct the ax of the executioner. Unrepentant at the end, he declared himself justified “in carving his way with a sword through a false and miserable world.”
