es. She
has also a certain Madonna Girolama, Cardinal Borgia's sister, who
is married to one of the Orsini. She and three of her women will
accompany her. These are the only ladies of honor she has hitherto
had. I have heard that she will endeavor to find others in Naples,
but it is believed that she will be able to secure only a few, and
that these will merely accompany her. The Duchess of Urbino has
announced that she expects to come with a mounted escort of fifty
persons. So far as the men are concerned, his Holiness said that
there would not be many, as there were no Roman noblemen except the
Orsini, and they generally were away from the city. Still, he hoped
to be able to find sufficient, provided the Duke of Romagna did not
take the field, there being a large number of nobles among his
followers. His Holiness said that he had plenty of priests and
scholars to send, but not such persons as were fit for a mission of
this sort. However, the retinue furnished by your Majesty will
serve for both, especially as--according to his Holiness--it is
better for the more numerous escort to be sent by the groom, and
for the bride to come accompanied by a smaller number. Still I do
not think her suite will number less than two hundred persons. The
Pope is in doubt what route her Majesty will travel. He thinks she
ought to go by way of Bologna, and he says that the Florentines
likewise have invited her. Although his Holiness has reached no
decision, the Duchess has informed us that she would journey
through the Marches, and the Pope has just concluded that she might
do so. Perhaps he desires her to pass through the estates of the
Duke of Romagna on her way to Bologna.

Regarding your Majesty's wish that a cardinal accompany the
Duchess, his Holiness said that it did not seem proper to him for a
cardinal to leave Rome with her; but that he had written the
Cardinal of Salerno, the Legate in the Marches, to go to the seat
of the Duke in Romagna and wait there, and accompany the Duchess to
Ferrara to read mass at the wedding. He thought that the cardinal
would do this, unless prevented by sickness, in which case his
Holiness would provide another.

When the Pope discovered, during this conversation, that we had so
far been unable to secure an audience with