Mantua was the hereditary Prince Federico,
born May 17, 1500. Two years later, when Caesar was at the zenith of his
power, Gonzaga requested the honor of the betrothal of this son and the
duke's little daughter Luisa.

Caesar remained in Rome several months to secure funds for carrying out
his plans in Romagna. All his projects would have been wrecked in a
moment if his father had not escaped, almost unharmed, when the walls of
a room in the Vatican collapsed, June 27, 1500. He was extricated from
the rubbish only slightly hurt. He would allow no one but his daughter
to care for him. When the Venetian ambassador called, July 3d, he found
Madonna Lucretia, Sancia, the latter's husband, Giuffre, and one of
Lucretia's ladies-in-waiting, who was the Pope's "favorite," with him.
Alexander was then seventy years of age. He ascribed his escape to the
Virgin Mary, just as Pius IX did his own when the house near S. Agnese
tumbled down. July 5th Alexander held a service in her honor, and on his
recovery he had himself borne in a procession to S. Maria del Popolo,
where he offered the Virgin a goblet containing three hundred ducats.
Cardinal Piccolomini ostentatiously scattered the gold pieces over the
altar before all the people.

The saints had saved a great sinner from the falling walls in the
Vatican, but they refrained from interfering eighteen days later to
prevent a hideous crime--the attempted murder of a guiltless person. In
vain had the youthful Alfonso of Biselli been warned by his own
premonitions and by his friends during the past year to seek safety in
flight. He had followed his wife to Rome like a lamb to the slaughter,
only to fall under the daggers of the assassins from whom she was
powerless to save him. Caesar hated him, as he did the entire house of
Aragon, and in his opinion his sister's marriage to a Neapolitan prince
had become as useless as had been her union with Sforza of Pesaro;
moreover, it interfered with the plans of Caesar, who had a matrimonial
alliance in mind for his sister which would be more advantageous to
himself. As her marriage with the Duke of Biselli had not been
childless, and, consequently, could not be set aside, he determined upon
a radical separation of the couple.

July 15, 1500, about eleven o'clock at night, Alfonso was on his way
from his palace to the Vatican to see his consort; near the steps
leading to S. Peter's a number of masked men fell upon him with daggers.
Severely