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I only heard the following circumstance: Ascanio Pogomas, or Passano, had been released at the end of November, and had then been embarked on a felucca bound for Toulon. The same day I wrote a long and grateful letter to M. Grimaldi. I had indeed reason to be grateful, for if he had listened to my enemy he might have reduced me to a state of dreadful misery.
When Lodovico heard that Alessandria was lost, his courage failed him. He determined to seek safety in flight, and prepared to send his sons to Germany under the charge of his brother Cardinal Ascanio Sforza and Cardinal Sanseverino, both of whom had left Rome secretly on the 14th of July, and travelled by Genoa to Milan.
Doria and Ascanio de la Corgnia reminded their young commander that the Turk, who was evidently bent upon fighting, had a convenient harbor and arsenal behind him at Lepanto; while for the fleet of the League, far from accessible ports, a disaster implied total destruction. Some of their colleagues ventured to advise Don John to retire while it was still in his power to do so.
Seeing the rapidity of this conquest and their numerous victories, Ludovico Sforza, despairing of holding out in his capital, resolved to retire to Germany, with his children, his brother, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and his treasure, which had been reduced in the course of eight years from 1,500,000 to 200,000 ducats. But before he went he left Bernardino da Carte in charge of the castle of Milan.
At the news of his brother's capture, Ascanio Sforza left Milan to seek refuge across the Alps, but was himself taken prisoner, with his nephew Ermes, at the Castle of Rivolta, near Piacenza, by the Venetians, who delivered them up to the French king.
1 See Sanuto's Diarrii. The chances of the last-named do not appear ever to have amounted to very much. The three best supported candidates were della Rovere, d'Amboise, and Ascanio Sforza who made his reappearance in Rome, released from his French prison at last, in time to attend this Conclave.
He went at once to his betrothed in the palace of S. Maria in Portico. In the Vatican, July 21st, the marriage was blessed by the Church. Among the witnesses to the transaction were the Cardinals Ascanio, Juan Lopez, and Giovanni Borgia.
Here let it suffice to say that it was not until nine months after the deed that the name of Cesare Borgia was first associated with it; that public opinion had in the mean time assigned the guilt to a half-dozen others in succession; that no motive for the crime is discoverable in the case of Cesare; that the motives advanced will not bear examination, and that they bear on the face of them the stamp of having been put forward hastily to support an accusation unscrupulously political in purpose; that the first men accused by the popular voice were the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor Ascanio Sforza and his nephew Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro; and, finally, that in Matarazzo's "Chronicles of Perugia" there is a fairly detailed account of how the murder was perpetrated by the latter.
The two brothers went out together, mounted their horses, which were waiting for them at the door, and rode side by side as far as the Palazzo Borgia, the present home of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who had taken it as a gift from Alexander the night before his election to the papacy.
"Yes, holy father," replied Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the same who had sold to Roderigo the nine votes that were at his disposal at the Conclave for four mules laden with silver; "and we hope by your election to give glory to God, repose to the Church, and joy to Christendom, seeing that you have been chosen by the Almighty Himself as the most worthy among all your brethren."
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