After killing a Venetian noble, Castruccio flees Venice for Holland. The ship on which he flees first lands at Ostend (Valperga 96), which (in Castruccio's time) is a coastal "fishing village" (Britannica.com). This is where Castruccio meets an unnamed "rich merchant of Ostend, living in the Italian style, and surrounded by a family, whose language and persons transported him to the plains of Lombardy, or the vallies of his native Tuscany" (97). This merchant hosts Castruccio at Ostend, and it is through this merchant that Castruccio learns about and is later introduced to Alberto Scoto.