swiftness and
accuracy of their attack. The pontifical troops were put to flight,
though after a longer resistance than might have been expected when they
had to sustain the attack of an army so much better equipped than their
own; with them they bore to Ronciglione the Duke of Gandia, wounded in
the face by a pike-thrust, Fabrizia Calonna, and the envoy; the Duke
of Urbino, who was fighting in the rear to aid the retreat, was taken
prisoner with all his artillery and the baggage of the conquered
army. But this success, great as it was, did not so swell the pride of
Vitellozza Vitelli as to make him oblivious of his position. He knew
that he and the Orsini together were too weak to sustain a war of such
magnitude; that the little store of money to which he owed the existence
of his army would very soon be expended and his army would disappear
with it. So he hastened to get pardoned far the victory by making
propositions which he would very likely have refused had he been the
vanquished party; and the pope accepted his conditions without demur;
during the interval having heard that Trivulce had just recrossed the
Alps and re-entered Italy with three thousand Swiss, and fearing lest
the Italian general might only be the advance guard of the King of
France. So it was settled that the Orsini should pay 70,000 florins for
the expenses of the war, and that all the prisoners on both sides should
be exchanged without ransom with the single exception of the Duke of
Urbino. As a pledge for the future payment of the 70,000 florins,
the Orsini handed over to the Cardinals Sforza and San Severino the
fortresses of Anguillara and Cervetri; then, when the day came and they
had not the necessary money, they gave up their prisoner, the Duke
of Urbino, estimating his worth at 40,000 ducats--nearly all the sum
required--and handed him over to Alexander on account; he, a rigid
observer of engagements, made his own general, taken prisoner in his
service, pay, to himself the ransom he owed to the enemy.

Then the pope had the corpse of Virginio sent to Carlo Orsini and
Vitellozzo Vitelli, as he could not send him alive. By a strange
fatality the prisoner had died, eight days before the treaty was signed,
of the same malady--at least, if we may judge by analogy--that had
carried off Bajazet's brother.

As soon as the peace was signed, Prospero Calonna and Gonzalvo de
Cordova, whom the Pope had demanded from Frederic, arrived at Rome with
a