s of the crown of Naples for the house of Anjou.

The embassy first approached the Venetians, demanding aid and counsel
for the king their master. But the Venetians, faithful to their
political tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the
Jews of Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to give
any aid to the young king, so long as they had to keep ceaselessly on
guard against the Turks; that, as to advice, it would be too great a
presumption in them to give advice to a prince who was surrounded by
such experienced generals and such able ministers.

Perrone dei Baschi, when he found he could get no other answer, next
made for Florence. Piero dei Medici received him at a grand council,
for he summoned on this occasion not only the seventy, but also the
gonfalonieri who had sat for the last thirty-four years in the Signoria.
The French ambassador put forward his proposal, that the republic should
permit their army to pass through her States, and pledge herself in that
case to supply for ready money all the necessary victual and fodder.
The magnificent republic replied that if Charles VIII had been marching
against the Turks instead of against Ferdinand, she would be only too
ready to grant everything he wished; but being bound to the house of
Aragon by a treaty, she could not betray her ally by yielding to the
demands of the King of France.

The ambassadors next turned their steps to Siena. The poor little
republic, terrified by the honour of being considered at all, replied
that it was her desire to preserve a strict neutrality, that she was too
weak to declare beforehand either for or against such mighty rivals,
for she would naturally be obliged to join the stronger party. Furnished
with this reply, which had at least the merit of frankness, the French
envoys proceeded to Rome, and were conducted into the pope's presence,
where they demanded the investiture of the kingdom of Naples for their
king.

Alexander VI replied that, as his predecessors had granted this
investiture to the house of Aragon, he could not take it away, unless it
were first established that the house of Anjou had a better claim than
the house that was to be dispossessed. Then he represented to Perrone
dei Baschi that, as Naples was a fief of the Holy See, to the pope alone
the choice of her sovereign properly belonged, and that in consequence
to attack the reigning sovereign was to attack the Church itself.

The resu