Character Analysis
Lodovico is a sociopathic villain: he's kind of like Flamineo, except he's playing for the other team. But he wants to get revenge. Why, you ask? Simple: he was carrying a torch for Isabella, the wife of Brachiano, and she was killed in the story's central murder plot. You might think that a depraved count with a taste for piracy couldn't love somebody seriously enough to pursue revenge. But you'd be wrong.
Like Flamineo, Lodovico also has a bitter, cynical perspective on life: we're all just victims of fate, trying to get some selfish rewards before we need to cash it all in at death. However, we don't get to see him develop this philosophy too much. We more frequently see him conspiring with Francisco and Monticelso, and committing murders. He somewhat blasphemously poses as a Franciscan in order to kill Brachiano, and also murders Vittoria and Flamineo. Lodovico gets a real thrill out of killing. As he gets arrested and dragged off the stage for committing these vengeance murders, he says:
I do glory yet,
That I can call this act mine own. For my part,
The rack, the gallows, and the torturing wheel,
Shall be but sound sleeps to me: here 's my rest;
I limn'd this night-piece, and it was my best. (5.6)