both their chests and they die. Other lords suspect foul play. Caesar discharges his army with good pay and then hires Baglioni to kill Rozzi, an apothecary. Bernardo arrives to collect some powders and poisons from Rozzi. Rozzi sets down his bottles to read a letter. Baglioni drinks from the bottles while he waits to shoot Rozzi. The bottle are poisoned. Bernardo leaves with the potions. Baglioni shoots Rozzi. The Pope and Caesar discuss their plans to poison Cardinal Caraffa at a banquet that night. The Devil arrives at the banquet and plays switcheroo with the poisoned bottles. The Pope and Caesar poison themselves. Caesar stabs Bernardo for the mix up. The Cardinals depart to save themselves. The devils Belchar, Astaroth, and Varca plan to hurry the Pope to hell. The Pope tries to repent and has difficulty accessing his conscience. He retires to his study and finds the Devil there waiting for him. The Pope tries to exorcise the Devil and cannot. They look over the contract he made in exchange for becoming Pope, and because of some tricky math, it is for eleven years and seven days, though the Pope thought it was for eighteen years and eight days. They argue over the terms and the Devil tells the Pope to prepare for eternal torment. The Devil shows the Pope the ghosts of stabbed Candy and poisoned Lucretia—the Pope is poisoned in retribution for poisoning Lucretia, while Caesar will be stabbed in retribution for stabbing Candy. A bunch of devils arrive to take the Pope down to hell. Two Cardinals find his corpse and order Rome's bells to be run in Thanksgiving for being delivered from this wicked pope. Special features The play is notable among scholars of English Renaissance theatre for its unusually full stage directions, which reveal much about the dramatic style of the leading company of the age — and for the fact that those stage directions specify the play's characters carrying their props onto the stage with them. Since the characters are historical personages (Charles VIII of France, Lodovico Sforza, Cesare Borgia, and Francesco Guicciardini among others), the effect can be odd and striking; at the start of Act I, scene v, Lucrezia Borgia enters carrying a chair, "which she planteth upon the stage." Characters murder other characters, then drag the bodies offstage. The text of The Devil's Charter is rich with intellectual, historical,