re us. Monseigneur d'Allegre caught the ladies
Giulia and Girolama Farnese, together with the lady Adriana de Mila, who
was employed as their duenna, near Capodimonte, on November 29, and
carried them to Montefiascone. The sum fixed for their ransom was 3,000
ducats. This the Pope paid, and on December 1 they were released.
Alexander met them outside Rome, attired like a layman in a black jerkin
trimmed with gold brocade, and fastened round his waist by a Spanish
girdle, from which hung his dagger. Lodovico Sforza, when he heard what
had happened, remarked that it was weak to release these ladies, who
were 'the very eyes and heart' of his Holiness, for so small a
ransom--if 50,000 ducats had been demanded, they would have been paid.
This and a few similar jokes, uttered at the Pope's expense, make us
understand to what extent the Italians were accustomed to regard their
high priest as a secular prince. Even the pageant of Alexander seated in
S. Peter's, with his daughter Lucrezia on one side of his throne and his
daughter-in-law Sancia upon the other, moved no moral indignation; nor
were the Romans astonished when Lucrezia was appointed Governor of
Spoleto, and plenipotentiary Regent of the Vatican in her father's
absence. These scandals, however, created a very different impression in
the north, and prepared the way for the Reformation.

[1] Guicciardini (_St. Fior._ cap. 27) writes: 'Fu
lussoriosissimo nell' uno e nell' altro sesso, tenendo
publicamente femine e garzoni, ma piu ancora nelle femine.' A
notion of the public disorders connected with his dissolute
life may be gained from this passage in Sanuto's Diary
(Gregorovius, _Lucrezia Borgia_, p. 88): 'Da Roma per le
lettere del orator nostro se intese et etiam de private persone
cossa assai abominevole in le chiesa di Dio, che al papa erra
nato un fiolo di una dona romana maritata, ch' el padre l'
havea rufianata, e di questa il marito invito il suocero a la
vigna e lo uccise tagliandoli el capo, ponendo quello sopra uno
legno con letere che diceva questo e il capo de mio suocero che
a rufianato sua fiola al papa, et che inteso questo il papa
fece metter el dito in exilio di Roma con taglia. Questa nova
venne per letere particular; etiam si godea con la sua spagnola
menatali per suo fiol duca di Gandia novamente li venuto.'

[2] Her brother Alexander, afterwards Paul III., owed his
promotion