Gonzaga were realized. Soon Farnese,
through his excessive tyranny, stung them out of their apathy. The first
to feel his iron hand were the Pallavicini, whom he stripped of their
lands of Cortemaggiore, taking as hostages Girolamo Pallavicini's wife
and mother. Next he hurled his troops against the dal Verme, forcing
Romagnese to capitulate, and then seeking similarly to reduce their
other fief of Bobbio. Thence upon his all-conquering way, he marched
upon Castel San Giovanni, whence he sought to oust the Sforza, and
at the same time he committed the mistake of attempting to drive the
Gonzaga out of Soragna.

This last rashness brought down upon his head the direct personal
resentment of Ferrante Gonzaga. With the Imperial troops at his heels
the Governor of Milan not only intervened to save Soragna for his
family, but forced Pier Luigi to disgorge Bobbio and Romagnese,
restoring them to the dal Verme, and compelled him to raise the siege of
San Giovanni upon which he was at the time engaged--claiming that both
these noble houses were feudatories of the Empire.

Intimidated by that rude lesson, Pier Luigi was forced to draw in his
steely claws. To console himself, he turned his attention to the Val di
Taro, and issued an edict commanding all nobles there to disarm, disband
their troops, quit their fortresses, and go to reside in the principal
cities of their districts. Those who resisted or demurred, he crushed
at once with exile and confiscation; and even those who meekly did his
will, he stripped of all privileges as feudal lords.

Even my mother, we heard, was forced to dismiss her trivial garrison,
having been ordered to close the Citadel of Mondolfo, and take up her
residence in our palace in the city itself. But she went further than
she was bidden--she took the veil in the Convent of Santa Chiara, and so
retired from the world.

The State began to ferment in secret at so much and such harsh tyranny.
Farnese was acting in Piacenza as Tarquin of old had acted in his
garden, slicing the tallest poppies from their stems. And soon to swell
his treasury, which not even his plunder, brigandage, and extortionate
confiscations could fill sufficiently to satisfy his greed, he set
himself to look into the past lives of the nobles, and to promulgate
laws that were retroactive, so that he was enabled to levy fresh fines
and perpetrate fresh sequestrations in punishment of deeds that had been
done long years ago.

Amon