ay of his departure, to celebrate the bloodless conquest of
Rimini, solemn High Mass was sung in the Cathedral, and Bishop Olivieri
received the city's oath of allegiance to the Holy See, whither very
shortly afterwards Rimini sent her ambassadors to express to the Pope
her gratitude for her release from the thraldom of Pandolfaccio.

Like Rimini, Pesaro too fell without the striking of a blow, for all
that it was by no means as readily relinquished on the part of its
ruler. Giovanni Sforza had been exerting himself desperately for the
past two months to obtain help that should enable him to hold his
tyranny against the Borgia might. But all in vain. His entreaties to the
emperor had met with no response, whilst his appeal to Francesco Gonzaga
of Mantua--whose sister, it will be remembered, had been his first
wife--had resulted in the Marquis's sending him a hundred men under an
Albanian, named Giacopo.

What Giovanni was to do with a hundred men it is difficult to conceive,
nor are the motives of Gonzaga's action clear. We know that at this time
he was eagerly seeking Cesare's friendship, sorely uneasy as to the
fate that might lie in store for his own dominions, once the Duke of
Valentinois should have disposed of the feudatories of the Church. Early
in that year 1500 he had asked Cesare to stand godfather for his child,
and Cesare had readily consented, whereby a certain bond of relationship
and good feeling had been established between them, which everything
shows Gonzaga most anxious to preserve unsevered. The only reasonable
conclusion in the matter of that condotta of a hundred men is that
Gonzaga desired to show friendliness to the Lord of Pesaro, yet was
careful not to do so to any extent that might be hurtful to Valentinois.

As for Giovanni Sforza of whom so many able pens have written so
feelingly as the constant, unfortunate victim of Borgia ambition, there
is no need to enter into analyses for the purpose of judging him here.
His own subjects did so in his own day. When a prince is beloved by all
classes of his people, it must follow that he is a good prince and a
wise ruler; when his subjects are divided into two factions, one to
oppose and the other to support him, he may be good or bad, or good
and bad; but when a prince can find none to stand by him in the hour of
peril, it is to be concluded that he has deserved little at the hands of
those whom he has ruled. The latter is the case of Giovanni Sforza