Editing Ezio Auditore da Firenze (section)

===Hunt in Venice=== 

:'''Carlo Grimaldi''': "''It's the Assassin you should be worried about!''"
:'''Emilio Barbarigo''': "''Why? Is... Is he in Venezia?''"
:—Carlo Grimaldi and Emilio Barbarigo discuss Ezio minutes before the latter's assassination.

====The road to Venice====
Ezio's encounter with Rodrigo Borgia and his Venetian associate distressed him greatly as he had hoped that he might lay his vengeance to rest with the death of Jacopo. Instead, he returned to Lorenzo in 1480, declaring his success in Tuscany, but that he needed to continue his quest for revenge in Venice. Before leaving Florence for Venice, Ezio was granted a gift, the Medici cape that would identify him to the Florentine guards as an ally of the Medici and therefore grant him more immunity to the law. Ezio then made his way to Leonardo's workshop, only to find that the artist had just left for Venice himself.

By chance, Ezio caught up with with Leonardo just before the Apennine Mountains as his friend's carriage had broken down. While helping him with repairs, he caught his first glimpse of Leonardo's Flying Machine. On the Apennine Mountain paths, they were ambushed by Templar horsemen and archers and pursued the whole way to the outskirts of Forlì. There, Ezio leapt off their carriage to confront the remaining Templars on his own, allowing Leonardo to proceed to safety ahead of him.

In Romagna, he asked for help finding a boat to Venice from a trio of strangers. One among them, a woman named Amelia, in turn asked that he race her friend on horseback to settle her bet that the first stranger they encountered could beat him. As he had some time to spare, Ezio accepted the challenge and won, sharing an intimate moment with Amelia as she had implied would be his reward.

Amelia had told Ezio that he was already near where he needed to be, and sure enough, he reunited with Leonardo not long after at a port in the wetlands. However, Ezio was refused permission to board because he lacked a pass. Just as he reassured Leonardo that he would find a solution in time, the two heard the screams of a noblewoman stranded on an islet of a bog. Ezio hastened to her rescue in a boat and was able to row the woman back to shore. The lady introduced herself as Caterina Sforza, the lady of Forlì, and secured for Ezio passage to Venice as a sign of gratitude.

====Joining the Thieves' Guild====
Once in Venice, Ezio and Leonardo were given a brief tour of the city by Alvise da Vilandino. Almost immediately, they witnessed guards ransacking the stalls of local shopkeepers, learning that Emilio Barbarigo, who owned the Venetian police through his vast wealth, used them to extort money from the local merchants. Ezio also had his purse stolen by a female thief. After Leonardo installed his new workshop, Ezio started his hunt for his target.

He began by investigating a way into the Palazzo della Seta, the palace of Emilio Barbarigo, but was dejected to find that there was a gap between two ledges that were too far apart for him to scale. Just as he was pondering this, a gang of thieves ran past him, executing a raid on the palace. One among them, the same female thief who had stolen from him earlier, effortlessly leapt past the gap he had been eyeing but was shot down by an arrow moments later. Wounded in her leg, she pleaded Ezio for aid, and he helped defend her against the city guards while she rendezvoused with another thief, Ugo, at a dock. By that point, the woman, who had introduced herself as Rosa to Ezio, could no longer stand, and she was carried onto a gondola to be ferried back to their base. In the meantime, Ezio protected them from the guards who pursued them by killing them across rooftops.

Arriving at the Thieves' Guild, Ezio helped their leader Antonio de Magianis to treat Rosa. As Antonio already knew who Ezio was and why he was in the city, he asked the Florentine to meet him in his office to discuss further. In his office, Antonio explained to Ezio that the thieves wanted to liberate the San Polo District from Emilio's grip but that they could not afford to be hasty and risk another failure. He invited Ezio to work with him to concoct a plan for another strike at Emilio. Ezio accepted and helped Ugo to liberate the thieves who were captured during the attack, following which he retrieved a shipment of guard uniforms that they planned to use for their next attack. He also killed the traitors in the guild who were bribed by Emilio. With Rosa, Ezio perfected his climbing skills, learning the climb leap technique.

====Assassination of Emilio Barbarigo====
After four years of reinforcing the Thieves Guild, the group executed their assassination on the night of 11 September 1485. Acting according to Antonio's plan, Ezio killed the archers who protected the palace from the rooftops, following which they were replaced with disguised thieves. The thieves regrouped at the entry to the palace for their next step, where Ezio was to scale the palace wall while the rest of the thieves lured its guards away. Thanks to Rosa's instruction, Ezio had no trouble doing so. Within the palace, he eavesdropped on a conversation between Emilio and a government official named Carlo and learned that they would be holding a Templar meeting in three days at Santo Stefano. After Carlo left the palace, Ezio assassinated Emilio, and the rest of his guards were shot down by the thief archers. Antonio informed him that the official was Carlo Grimaldi, a member of the Council of Ten. With this new lead, Ezio decided to attend the upcoming meeting.

====The murder of Doge Mocenigo====
Three days after Emilio's death, Ezio spied on the meeting between Carlo and Silvio Barbarigo, Emilio's cousin and inquisitor of Venice. Following them, he saw the two men joined by another one of Emilio's cousin, Marco Barbarigo, and his simple-minded bodyguard Dante Moro. As they were joined by Rodrigo Borgia himself, Ezio uncovered their plot to poison the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo and replace him with Marco Barbarigo and that it was to happen that very night. Realizing the urgency, Ezio and Antonio sought a way into the Palazzo Ducale, examining the front gates, the rear walls and even passing over the Basilica di San Marco, but they were hampered at every turn. As they returned to the piazza below, a frustrated Antonio remarked that only birds could get into the Doge's palace, but this reminded Ezio of Leonardo's flying machine, which he had seen on the way to Forlì.

After a somewhat unsuccessful test flight with the machine, Leonardo came up with a way to ensure that Ezio reached his destination by using the heat of bonfires to stabilize the fly. After removing the city guards at four separate locations, Antonio's thieves proceeded to light massive bonfires throughout the city, giving Leonardo's flying machine enough lift for Ezio to make it to the Palazzo Ducale. The plan worked, and Ezio flew over Venice and breached the Palazzo Ducale although too late to save the Doge. Carlo quickly fled the scene, crying out that Ezio had assassinated the Doge, only to meet his own end at Ezio's hands moments later. On his body, Ezio found a Codex page. However, as the Doge pointed his murder in the direction of Carlo's corpse, Ezio was now the most wanted man in Venice and was forced to flee the city guards.

====The Carnival of Venice====
Returning to Leonardo's workshop during the Carnevale of 1486, Ezio asked the help of Leonardo to decipher the Codex page he found on Carlo. With that, Leonardo created a Hidden Gun for Ezio and gave him a mask to hide his identity. He informed him that Antonio was at La Rosa della Virtù, a brothel directed by Sister Teodora. Arriving there, Ezio was introduced to Teodora by Antonio, but their meeting was interrupted by the murder of one of the courtesans, Lucia, by a thief. Ezio chased after the murderer and killed him with his Hidden Gun when he took another courtesan hostage, proving its effectiveness. Returning to the brothel, Ezio told Antonio about his plan to kill Marco Barbarigo. As the new Doge of the city, the Templar would normally be well protected within his palace, but Teodora informed Ezio that that night, Marco was hosting a party outside and that Ezio could compete in the four games of the Carnevale to win the Golden Mask that would gain him entrance to Marco's private party.

With this plan in mind, Ezio participated in the different games of the Carnevale. He won the race across the Dorsoduro district, defeated an opponent in a game of capture-the-flag,  and in the third game, Ezio's handsomeness helped him to collect the most ribbons from the ladies of the Carnevale. During the last challenge, Ezio first fought in a fistfight against three adversaries, before having to face off against Dante Moro. As the bodyguard was defeated, Silvio sent armed guards to kill Ezio, but even then, the Florentine won the fight. At the ceremony, Ezio was prepared to receive the Golden Mask, but Silvio had intimidated and bribed the judges into denying him his prize, handing it over to Dante instead in a blatant display of cheating that angered the audience. Returning to La Rosa della Virtù, Ezio, Antonio and Teodora prepared another plan by stealing the Golden Mask of Dante before he joined the party.

Before the party began, Ezio was contacted by Leonardo who informed him that Cristina Vespucci was in Venice for the Carnevale. Ezio decided to arrange a meeting with her, believing that his mask would conceal his identity. He wrote a note to Cristina impersonating her husband and inviting her to join him in a nearby street. After he slipped the note into her pocket, he waited for her at the designated alleyway, and sure enough, Cristina arrived at their "date". The two kissed passionately, with Cristina remarking that her husband was more romantic than usual but then discovered that it was Ezio. Infuriated, she rebuked Ezio, blaming him for leaving her behind to marry Manfredo when she had loved Ezio instead. She asked him to never meet her again and left him alone.

Though heartbroken, Ezio returned to his mission at hand and was successful in stealing the mask from Dante and infiltrating the Doge's personal party. During the party, Dante arrived and searched with guards the man who stole the Mask. Ezio eluded the patrol during the party by blending in with Teodora's courtesans. As his Marco appeared on a docked ship which posed as a stage to make a speech, Ezio shot him from afar with the Hidden Gun, timing it with the fireworks to hide the sound of the blast. Escaping the scene, he returned to the brothel where Antonio and Teodora congratulated him for the success of the assassination. Ezio flirted with Teodora to pass the night with her, but the Madam sent her courtesans to satiate Ezio's desires.

====Attack on the Arsenal====
Three months after the Doge's death, Ezio was invited by Antonio to the Palazzo della Seta and met the new Doge of Venice, Agostino Barbarigo, Marco's brother, who wasn't involved with the Templars. During their meeting, they discussed the matter that Silvio Barbarigo and Dante Moro occupied the Venetian Arsenal with an army of mercenaries to remove the Doge. As Agostino was powerless against the Templars, they were forced to confront this threat with an army of their own. Antonio directed Ezio to the ''condotierro'', Bartolomeo d'Alviano, who was a personal enemy of Silvio. The young Florentine arrived at Bartolomeo's barracks just as they had been attacked by Silvio's men. He swiftly liberated Bartolomeo and his soldiers from captivity, and once Bartolomeo learned of Ezio's purpose, he was more than willing to assist in Silvio's destruction.

Knowing that a direct assault would prove disastrous, Bartolomeo planned for his mercenaries to simultaneously attack Silvio's men throughout the Castello District, thereby drawing his soldiers away from the Arsenal. Ezio positioned groups of mercenaries at strategic points across the district before signalling them with a flare. With most of Silvio's forces dispatched outside the Arsenal, Ezio and Bartolomeo launched their attack on the shipyard itself. The two engaged against Dante, driving him away to Silvio, whereupon they clashed once more. On this second engagement, Silvio ordered Dante to withdraw as the ship they had been planning to embark on prepared to leave, yet they were too late—it had already departed without them, leaving them to the mercy of the Assassin.

The frantic Silvio ordered another ship to be readied, but by this point, Ezio had caught up to them, mortally wounding both at once with a double assassination technique. Perplexed by their planned trip, Ezio questioned the dying Templars. Silvio refused to reveal more than that seizing the Doge's seat was only a distraction, but Dante confessed that Cyprus was their destination, passing away before he could reveal their target. Disturbed by this twist, Ezio was in no mood to join Bartolomeo and his men, determining to discover the truth of the matter as soon as possible.