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Collenuccio gave the duke a report of his mission, October 29th, in the following remarkable letter: MY ILLUSTRIOUS MASTER: Having left your Excellency, I reached Pesaro two and a half days ago, arriving there Thursday at the twenty-fourth hour. At exactly the same time the Duke of Valentino made his entry.
They were half submerged in the water, and the balloon dragged them along, as if under sail, for several hours. "At daybreak they found themselves opposite Pesaro, four miles from the coast. They were about to reach it, when a gale blew them back into the open sea. They were lost! The frightened boats fled at their approach.
In his own hands he held, to be sure, only the least in size of the Italian territories; but by the marriage of his daughter Lucrezia with the lord of Pesaro he was stretching out one hand as far as Venice, while by the marriage of the Prince of Squillace with Dona Sancia, and the territories conceded to the Duke of Sandia, he was touching with the other hand the boundary of Calabria.
All measures being taken so far as Forli was concerned, Cesare turned his attention to Pesaro, and prepared to invade it.
This villa is now in a deplorable state of decay. Pesaro offered but little in the way of entertainment for a young woman accustomed to the society of Rome. The city had no nobility of importance. The houses of Brizi, of Ondedei, of Giontini, Magistri, Lana, and Ardizi, in their patriarchal existence, could offer Lucretia no compensation for the inspiring intercourse with the grandees of Rome.
Fool, the gates of Pesaro close at the second hour of night. Where are your wits?" Outwardly calm, but inwardly in a panic more for Madonna's sake than for my own I promptly held out the hand on which I wore the Borgia ring. In a flash of inspiration did that counter suggest itself to me. "There is a key that will open any gate in Romagna at any hour."
From that time the Malatesta, lords of nearby Rimini, controlled not only Pesaro, but a large part of the March which they appropriated to themselves when the papacy was removed to Avignon.
And now it was a very contrite and humbled lady that rode with me, and one that was at no pains to dissemble her contrition, but, rather, could speak of nothing else. It moved me strangely to have her suing pardon from me, as though I had been her equal instead of the sometime jester of the Court of Pesaro, dismissed for an excessive pertness towards one with whom his master curried favour.
These judges showed that Sforza had never consummated the marriage, and that his spouse was still a virgin, which, according to her contemporary Matarazzo of Perugia, set all Italy to laughing. Lucretia herself stated she was willing to swear to this. During these proceedings her spouse was in Pesaro.
He was met at the gates by the Council, which came to offer him the keys of the town, and, despite the pouring rain under which he entered the city, the people of Pesaro thronged the streets to acclaim him as he rode.
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