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The letters of Bentivoglio have obtained European celebrity. They are distinguished for elegance of style as well as for the interest of those historical recollections which they transmit; they are considered superior to his history.
"This 25th day of April, 1498, be...ing invited to dine by his Holiness Alexander VI., and fearing that not...content with making me pay for my hat, he may desire to become my heir, and re...serves for me the fate of Cardinals Caprara and Bentivoglio, who were poisoned...I declare to my nephew, Guido Spada, my sole heir, that I have bu...ried in a place he knows and has visited with me, that is, in...the caves of the small Island of Monte Cristo all I poss...ssed of ingots, gold, money, jewels, diamonds, gems; that I alone...know of the existence of this treasure, which may amount to nearly two mil...lions of Roman crowns, and which he will find on raising the twentieth ro...ck from the small creek to the east in a right line.
Bentivoglio, in his history of the war in Flanders, calls it "the largest and most mercantile of the lands of Holland." But its greatest prosperity did not begin until 1830, or after the separation of Holland and Belgium, when Rotterdam seemed to draw to herself everything that was lost by her rival, Antwerp. Her situation is extremely advantageous.
The great convoy which was now to be despatched required great care and a powerful escort. Twenty-five hundred musketeers and pikemen, of whom one thousand were Spaniards, and six hundred cavalry, Epirotes; Spaniards, and Italians, under Hannibal Gonzaga, George Crescia, Bentivoglio, Sesa, and others, were accordingly detailed for this expedition.
The people of the Netherlands knew full well that there was no liberty for them without fighting, no fighting without an army, no army without wages, and no wages without taxation; and although by the end of the century the imposts had become so high that, in the language of that keen observer, Cardinal Bentivoglio; nuncio at Brussels, they could scarcely be imagined higher, yet, according to the same authority, they were laid unflinchingly and paid by the people without a murmur.
She was esteemed majestically beautiful by her courtiers, and Cardinal Bentivoglio, himself a man of splendid intellect, pronounced her a woman of genius, who had grown to be a prodigy of wisdom, under the tuition of her father, the most sagacious statesman of the age.
The same day January 31st towards evening, Lucretia reached Castle Bentivoglio, which was but twenty miles from Ferrara. She had no sooner arrived at that place than her consort Alfonso suddenly appeared. She was greatly overcome, but promptly recovered herself and received him "with many professions of esteem and most graciously," to all of which he responded with great gallantry.
On the way from Faenza to Imola the cavalcade stopped at Castle Bolognese, which had been abandoned by Giovanni Bentivoglio when he was threatened by Cæsar. They found the walls of the town razed, the moat filled up, and even its name changed to Cesarina. After resting a day in Imola the cavalcade set out January 28th for Bologna.
That was the present trouble, for hitherto her charm had lain precisely in herself, in the little everyday acts which were her own nature. Bentivoglio had reasonably wanted more: so would Borgia want very much more. Could Molly be brought, not to surrender all he wanted, but to make him want?
In four years later, when I describe my stay at Venice, I shall give some further account of him. About noon we reached Parma, and I bade adieu to Bentivoglio and his friends.
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