ny, and the president of the Provencal Parliament. The mission of
this embassy was to demand from the Italian princes their co-operation in
recovering the rights of the crown of Naples for the house of Anjou.

The embassy first approached the Venetians, demanding aid and counsel for
the king their master. But the Venetians, faithful to their political
tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the Jews of
Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to give any aid to
the young king, so long as they had to keep ceaselessly on guard against
the Turks; that, as to advice, it would be too great a presumption in
them to give advice to a prince who was surrounded by such experienced
generals and such able ministers.

Perrone dei Baschi, when he found he could get no other answer, next made
for Florence. Piero dei Medici received him at a grand council, for he
summoned on this occasion not only the seventy, but also the gonfalonieri
who had sat for the last thirty-four years in the Signoria. The French
ambassador put forward his proposal, that the republic should permit
their army to pass through her States, and pledge herself in that case to
supply for ready money all the necessary victual and fodder. The
magnificent republic replied that if Charles VIII had been marching
against the Turks instead of against Ferdinand, she would be only too
ready to grant everything he wished; but being bound to the house of
Aragon by a treaty, she could not betray her ally by yielding to the
demands of the King of France.

The ambassadors next turned their steps to Siena. The poor little
republic, terrified by the honour of being considered at all, replied
that it was her desire to preserve a strict neutrality, that she was too
weak to declare beforehand either for or against such mighty rivals, for
she would naturally be obliged to join the stronger party. Furnished
with this reply, which had at least the merit of frankness, the French
envoys proceeded to Rome, and were conducted into the pope's presence,
where they demanded the investiture of the kingdom of Naples for their
king.

Alexander VI replied that, as his predecessors had granted this
investiture to the house of Aragon, he could not take it away, unless it
were first established that the house of Anjou had a better claim than
the house that was to be dispossessed. Then he represented to Perrone
dei Baschi that, as Naples was a fief of the Holy See