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In the year 1532 it was arranged that Guidobaldo II, son of Francesco Maria and Eleonora Gonzaga, should marry Giulia Varano, although he himself wished to marry a certain Orsini. Guidobaldo acquiesced in this view and replied that he knew he had a father who would never compel him to take a wife like Lucretia Borgia, "one as bad as she and of so many disreputable connections."
So, since on the 1st of May in the preceding year the pope had pronounced sentence of forfeiture in full consistory against Julius Caesar of Varano, as punishment for the murder of his brother Rudolph and for the harbouring of the pope's enemies, and he had accordingly been mulcted of his fief of Camerino, which was to be handed over to the apostolic chamber, Caesar left Rome to put the sentence in execution.
This State, lying on the Eastern spurs of the Apennines, midway between Spoleto and Urbino, was ruled by Giulio Cesare Varano, an old war-dog of seventy years of age, ruthless and bloodthirsty, who owed his throne to his murder of his own brother. He was aided in the government of his tyranny by his four sons, Venanzio, Annibale, Pietro, and Gianmaria.
In these, where the family was numerous and all the members wished to live in a manner befitting their rank, disputes respecting the inheritance were unavoidable. Bernardo Varano of Camerino put two of his brothers to death, wishing to divide their property among his sons.
A capitulation was arranged whereby Varano engaged to give up the town, on condition that he and his sons were allowed to retire safe and sound, taking with them their furniture, treasure, and carriages.
He remained at the French court some time for the purpose of making his fortune, in which, however, he did not succeed. Thereupon the Infante of Rome again disappeared from view until the year 1530, when we find him in Rome, laying claim to the Duchy of Camerino. The last Varano, Giammaria, had returned thither on Cæsar's overthrow, and had been recognized by Julius II as a vassal of the Church.
Besides those which will follow in these pages, it is enough to notice the murder of Giovanni Francesco Pico, by his nephew, at Mirandola ; the murder of his uncle by Oliverotto da Fermo; the assassination of Giovanni Varano by his brothers at Camerino ; Ostasio da Polenta's fratricide ; Obizzo da Polenta's fratricide in the next generation, and the murder of Ugolino Gonzaga by his brothers; Gian Francesco Gonzaga's murder of his wife; the poisoning of Francesco Sforza's first wife, Polissena, Countess of Montalto, with her little girl, by her aunt; and the murder of Galeotto Manfredi, by his wife, at Faenza .
In a brief dated June 7, 1532, Clement VII commanded him to cease annoying Giulia Varano and her mother with any further claims. From that time we hear nothing more of this Borgia except from a letter written in Rome, November 19, 1547, apparently by a Ferrarese agent to Ercole II, then reigning duke. In it he mentions the death of Don Giovanni.
The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's boldness Camerino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart charms.
On the other side, Corella in Pesaro hanged five men whom he caught practising against the duke's government, and, having taken young Pietro Varano who was on his way to join his brother in Camerino in view of the revolt there he had him strangled in the market-place. There is a story that, with life not yet extinct, the poor youth was carried into church by the pitiful crowd.
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