to exalt and
aggrandize his children politically, he did nothing that did not at the
same time make for the greater power and glory of the Church.

His formidable Bull published in October set forth how, after trial, it
had been found that the Lords or Vicars of Rimini, Pesaro, Imola, Forli,
Camerino and Faenza, with other feudatories of the Holy See (including
the duchy of Urbino) had never paid the yearly tribute due to the
Church, wherefore he, by virtue of his apostolic authority, deprived
them of all their rights, and did declare them so deprived.

It has been said again and again that this Bull amounting to a
declaration of war, was no more than a pretext to indulge his rapacity;
but surely it bears the impress of a real grievance, and, however
blameable the results that followed out of it, for the measure itself
there were just and ample grounds.

The effect of that Bull, issued at a moment when Cesare stood at arms
with the might of France at his back, ready to enforce it, was naturally
to throw into a state of wild dismay these Romagna tyrants whose
acquaintance we shall make at closer quarters presently in the course of
following Cesare's campaign. Cesare Borgia may have been something of a
wolf; but you are not to suppose that the Romagna was a fold of lambs.

Giovanni Sforza--Cesare's sometime brother-in-law, and Lord of
Pesaro--flies in hot haste to Venice for protection. There are no
lengths to which he will not go to thwart the Borgias in their purpose,
to save his tyranny from falling into the power of this family which he
hates most rabidly, and of which he says that, having robbed him of his
honour, it would now deprive him of his possessions. He even offers to
make a gift of his dominions to the Republic.

There was much traders' blood in Venice, and, trader-like, she was avid
of possessions. You can surmise how she must have watered at the mouth
to see so fine a morsel cast thus into her lap, and yet to know that
the consumption of it might beget a woeful indigestion. Venice shook her
head regretfully. She could not afford to quarrel with her ally, King
Louis, and so she made answer--a thought contemptuously, it seems--that
Giovanni should have made his offer while he was free to do so.

The Florentines exerted themselves to save Forli from the fate that
threatened it. They urged a league of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, Piombino,
and Siena for their common safety--a proposal which came to nothing,