essere queste romane salvatiche et male apte a cavallo.

[122] Gerardo to Ercole, October 26, 1501.

[123] The orator Manfredo Manfredi to Ercole, Florence, November 22 and
24, 1501.

[124] The duke to his ambassadors in Rome, October 7, 1501.

[125] Ercole to Gerardo Saraceni, November 24, 1501. Other letters of
like import were written by the duke to his plenipotentiaries.

[126] Ercole to Gerardo Saraceni in Rome, October 11, 1501.

[127] Despatch of the Ferrarese ambassadors to Ercole, Rome, October 31,
1501.

[128] Il quale mal effecto volendo nui fugire, seamo condescesi a
contrahere la affinita cum soa Santita. Responsum illmi Dni ducis
Ferrarie D. Augustino Semetie Ces Mtis secretario. Ferrara, November 22,
1501.

[129] Che il procedere del Duca era un procedere da mercatante. Ercole
to Gerardo Saraceni, December 1, 1501.

[130] Ercole to Alexander VI, December 1, 1501.

CHAPTER XXII

ARRIVAL AND RETURN OF THE BRIDAL ESCORT

In the meantime Lucretia's trousseau was being prepared with an expense
worthy of a king's daughter. On December 13, 1501, the agent in Rome of
the Marchese Gonzaga wrote his master as follows: "The portion will
consist of three hundred thousand ducats, not counting the presents
which Madonna will receive from time to time. First a hundred thousand
ducats are to be paid in money in instalments in Ferrara. Then there
will be silverware to the value of three thousand ducats; jewels, fine
linen, costly trappings for horses and mules, together worth another
hundred thousand. In her wardrobe she has a trimmed dress worth more
than fifteen thousand ducats, and two hundred costly shifts, some of
which are worth a hundred ducats apiece; the sleeves alone of some of
them cost thirty ducats each, being trimmed with gold fringe." Another
person reported to the Marchesa Isabella that Lucretia had one dress
worth twenty thousand ducats, and a hat valued at ten thousand. "It is
said," so the Mantuan agent writes, "that more gold has been prepared
and sold here in Naples in six months than has been used heretofore in
two years. She brings her husband another hundred thousand ducats, the
value of the castles (Cento and Pieve), and will also secure the
remission of Ferrara's tribute. The number of horses and persons the
Pope will place at his daughter's disposal will amount to a thousand.
There will be two hundred carriages--among them some of French make, if
there is time--and with th