event. On one side is
his bust and on the other a broken yoke with the words PATRIA
RECEPTA.[187] Filled with the desire for revenge he punished the rebels
of Pesaro by confiscating their property, casting them into prison, or
by putting them to death. He had a number of the burghers hanged at the
windows of his castle. Even Collenuccio, who had placed himself under
the protection of Lucretia and the duke, in Ferrara, was soon to fall
into his hands. With flattering promises Giovanni induced him to come to
Pesaro, and then on the ground of the complaint he had addressed to
Caesar Borgia, which Sforza claimed he had only just discovered, he cast
him into prison. Collenuccio, not wholly guiltless as far as his former
master and friend was concerned, resigned himself to his fate and died
in July, 1504.[188]

Meanwhile Lucretia was anxiously following the course of events in Rome.
None of her letters to Caesar written at this time are preserved, nor are
any of Caesar's to her. The only ones we have are those which he
exchanged with the Duke of Ferrara, who continued to write him.
September 13th Ercole wrote congratulating him on his recovery, and
informing him that he had sent a messenger to the people of Romagna
urging them to remain true to him.

Caesar was in Nepi when he received this letter, having gone there
September 2d after he had arranged with the French ambassador in Rome,
on the suggestion of the cardinal, to place himself under the protection
of France. He was accompanied by his mother, Vannozza, his brother
Giuffre, and, doubtless, also by his little daughter Luisa and the two
children Rodrigo and Giovanni, the latter of whom was Duke of Nepi.
There he was safe, as the French army was camped in the neighborhood.
Just as if nothing had happened, he wrote letters to the Marquis
Gonzaga, who was then at his headquarters in Campagnano. He even sent
him some hunting dogs as a present. There is also in existence a letter
written by Giuffre to the same Gonzaga, dated Nepi, September 18th.
While here Caesar learned that his protector and friend, Amboise, had
not been elected pope as he had hoped, but that Piccolomini had been
chosen. September 22d this cardinal, senile and moribund, ascended the
papal throne, assuming the name Pius III. He was the happy father of no
less than twelve children, boys and girls, who would have been brought
up in the Vatican as princes but for his early death. He permitted Caesar
to retu