United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Both Ascanio Sforza and Galeazzo di Sanseverino, it is said, entertained doubts of Bernardino da Corte's fidelity, and warned the duke not to leave him without a colleague in this responsible office; but Lodovico did not share their fears, and trusted implicitly in the loyalty of this servant, whom he had advanced from a humble position to fill this responsible post and loaded with favours.
Neither of them lost any time, and wishing to profit by this enthusiasm, Ascanio undertook to besiege the castle of Milan while Ludovico should cross the Tesino and attack Novarra. There besiegers and besieged were sons of the same nation; for Yves d'Alegre had scarcely as many as 300 French with him, and Ludovico 500 Italians.
He was still more drawn to France by the offers of Louis XII. to forward the ambitious designs of his son Cæsar Borgia, who had renounced his cardinal's hat and was seeking the hand of the King of Navarre's daughter. The discovery of these intrigues led to a sharp passage-at-arms between the Pope and Ascanio Sforza in a consistory held on the 3rd of December.
Ascanio had naturally lost this town when he attached himself to the fortunes of the Duke of Milan, his brother; and when the pope was about to take it again, he invited his daughter Lucrezia to join him there and be present at the rejoicings held in honour of his resuming its possession.
"'Ah, said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, 'I see your excellency wearies of me already. "'I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health. "With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill the Duchess's.
The evenings at Vigevano were enlivened with music and singing, and, by Lodovico's orders, a band of Spanish musicians who had been sent from Rome to Milan by his brother, Cardinal Ascanio, came to play before Beatrice and her mother, who both admired the sweet strains of their large viols, and examined the shape and size of their instruments with curiosity.
Prince Ascanio, dead since 1848, had left four children by his wife, a Corvisieri; first Pio, the Cardinal; then Serafina, who, in order to remain with her brother, had not married; and finally Ernesta and Onofrio, both of whom were deceased.
Cardinal Ascanio's numerous enemies took care to keep the accusation alive at the Vatican, and Ascanio, in fear for his life, had left Rome and fled to Grottaferrata. When summoned to Rome, he had refused to come save under safe-conduct.
Now Senhora Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, and sister of Senhor Ascanio Colonna, is one of the most illustrious and famous ladies in Italy and in all Europe, which is the world, chaste yet beautiful, a Latin scholar, well-informed and with all the other parts of virtue and fairness to be praised in woman.
At the beginning of July Ascanio Sforza, now openly at strife with Alexander, also left the city. He went to Genazzano and joined the Colonna, who were in the pay of France. Charles VIII was already preparing to invade Italy. The Pope and King Alfonso met at Vicovaro near Tivoli, July 14th. In the meantime important changes had taken place in Lucretia's palace.
Word Of The Day