ost all verse of their epoch, writers ever say "the Bull" when they
mean the Borgia.

CHAPTER IV. BORGIA ALLIANCES

At the time of his father's election to the throne of St. Peter, Cesare
Borgia--now in his eighteenth year--was still at the University of Pisa.

It is a little odd, considering the great affection for his children
which was ever one of Roderigo's most conspicuous characteristics,
that he should not have ordered Cesare to Rome at once, to share in the
general rejoicings. It has been suggested that Alexander wished to avoid
giving scandal by the presence of his children at such a time. But that
again looks like a judgement formed upon modern standards, for by the
standards of his day one cannot conceive that he would have given
very much scandal; moreover, it is to be remembered that Lucrezia and
Giuffredo, at least, were in Rome at the time of their father's election
to the tiara.

However that may be, Cesare did not quit Pisa until August of that year
1492, and even then not for Rome, but for Spoleto--in accordance with
his father's orders--where he took up his residence in the castle.
Thence he wrote a letter to Piero de'Medici, which is interesting,
firstly, as showing the good relations prevailing between them;
secondly, as refuting a story in Guicciardini, wherewith that historian,
ready, as ever, to belittle the Borgias, attempts to show him cutting a
poor figure. He tells us(1) that, whilst at Pisa, Cesare had occasion
to make an appeal to Piero de'Medici in the matter of a criminal case
connected with one of his familiars; that he went to Florence and waited
several hours in vain for an audience, whereafter he returned to Pisa
"accounting himself despised and not a little injured."

1 Istoria d'Italia, tom. V.

No doubt Guicciardini is as mistaken in this as in many another matter,
for the letter written from Spoleto expresses his regret that, on
the occasion of his passage through Florence (on his way from Pisa to
Spoleto), he should not have had time to visit Piero, particularly as
there was a matter upon which he desired urgently to consult with him.
He recommends to Piero his faithful Remolino, whose ambition it is to
occupy the chair of canon law at the University of Pisa, and begs his
good offices in that connection. That Juan Vera, Cesare's preceptor
and the bearer of that letter, took back a favourable answer is highly
probable, for in Fabroni's Hist. Acad. Pisan we fin