o he only stayed three days,
and then, with all the troops His Holiness could supply, rejoined his
forces on the borders of the Euza, and marched at once to Imola. This
town, abandoned by its chiefs, who had retired to Forli, was forced to
capitulate. Imola taken, Caesar marched straight upon Forli. There he
met with a serious check; a check, moreover, which came from a woman.
Caterina Sforza, widow of Girolamo and mother of Ottaviano Riario, had
retired to this town, and stirred up the courage of the garrison by
putting herself, her goods and her person, under their protection.
Caesar saw that it was no longer a question of a sudden capture, but of a
regular siege; so he began to make all his arrangements with a view to
it, and placing a battery of cannon in front of the place where the walls
seemed to him weakest, he ordered an uninterrupted fire, to be continued
until the breach was practicable.

When he returned to the camp after giving this order, he found there Gian
Borgia, who had gone to Rome from Ferrara and was unwilling to be so near
Caesar without paying him a visit: he was received with effusion and
apparently the greatest joy, and stayed three days; on the fourth day all
the officers and members of the court were invited to a grand farewell
supper, and Caesar bade farewell to his cousin, charging him with
despatches for the pope, and lavishing upon him all the tokens of
affection he had shown on his arrival.

Cardinal Gian Bargia posted off as soon as he left the supper-table, but
on arriving at Urbino he was seized with such a sudden and strange
indisposition that he was forced to stop; but after a few minutes,
feeling rather better, he went an; scarcely, however, had he entered
Rocca Cantrada when he again felt so extremely ill that he resolved to go
no farther, and stayed a couple of days in the town. Then, as he thought
he was a little better again, and as he had heard the news of the taking
of Forli and also that Caterina Sforza had been taken prisoner while she
was making an attempt to retire into the castle, he resolved to go back
to Caesar and congratulate him on his victory; but at Fassambrane he was
forced to stop a third time, although he had given up his carriage for a
litter. This was his last halt: the same day he sought his bed, never to
rise from it again; three days later he was dead.

His body was taken to Rome and buried without any ceremony in the church
of Santa Maria del Populo,