ria were to pay to Charles VIII, as subsidy, the sum of 120,000
florins, in three instalments;

The Signoria were to remove the sequestration imposed upon the property
of the Medici, and to recall the decree that set a price on their heads;

The Signoria were to engage to pardon the Pisans, on condition of their
again submitting to the rule of Florence;

Lastly, the Signoria were to recognise the claims of the Duke of Milan
over Sarzano and Pietra Santa, and these claims thus recognised, were to
be settled by arbitration.

In exchange for this, the King of France pledged himself to restore
the fortresses that had been given up to him, either after he had made
himself master of the town of Naples, or when this war should be
ended by a peace or a two years' truce, or else when, for any reason
whatsoever, he should have quitted Italy.

Two days after this proclamation, Charles VIII, much to the joy of
the Signoria, left Florence, and advanced towards Rome by the route of
Poggibondi and Siena.

The pope began to be affected by the general terror: he had heard of the
massacres of Fivizzano, of Lunigiane, and of Imola; he knew that Piero
dei Medici had handed over the Tuscan fortresses, that Florence had
succumbed, and that Catherine Sforza had made terms with the conqueror;
he saw the broken remnants of the Neapolitan troops pass disheartened
through Rome, to rally their strength in the Abruzzi, and thus he found
himself exposed to an enemy who was advancing upon him with the whole
of the Romagna under his control from one sea to the other, in a line of
march extending from Piombina to Ancona.

It was at this juncture that Alexander VI received his answer from
Bajazet II: the reason of so long a delay was that the pope's envoy and
the Neapolitan ambassador had been stopped by Gian della Rovere,
the Cardinal Giuliano's brother, just as they were disembarking at
Sinigaglia. They were charged with a verbal answer, which was that
the sultan at this moment was busied with a triple war, first with the
Sultan of Egypt, secondly with the King of Hungary, and thirdly with the
Greeks of Macedonia and Epirus; and therefore he could not, with all the
will in the world, help His Holiness with armed men. But the envoys were
accompanied by a favourite of the sultan's bearing a private letter to
Alexander VI, in which Bajazet offered on certain conditions to help him
with money. Although, as we see, the messengers had been stopped on