spring of a Medici father, but
illegitimate. They were brought up under the immediate eye of the Pope,
indeed one of them, the younger, was said to be the son of Clement.

Ippolito, just fourteen years old, was the bastard son of Giuliano de'
Medici, Duke of Nemours. His mother was a noble lady of Urbino, Pacifica
Brandini, but she permitted her child to be exposed in the streets, in a
basket, where he was rescued, and taken into the foundling ward of the
Confraternity of Santa Maria di Piano d'Urbino. There the kindly
Religious gave him the name of "Pasqualino," indicative of the Church
season of Easter, when he entered surreptitiously upon the world's
stage.

When the child was less than two years old the nuns of Santa Maria were
removed to Rome, and they took with them, along with other unfortunates,
little Pasqualino. Upon a visit, which Pope Leo paid to the convent, he
noticed the young boy, and as he smiled and tried to get at his
Holiness, Leo was struck with his good looks and made enquiries about
his origin. In the end, Leo undertook the little fellow's education and
maintained his interest in him, and, moreover, ordered his name to be
changed to Ippolito.

Alessandro--the younger boy--twelve years old, was the son of Lorenzo
de' Medici, created Duke of Urbino in 1536, when the Pope annexed that
principality to the pontifical estates, upon the excommunication of the
rightful sovereign. His mother was a woman of colour, a Tartar
slave-girl, who passed for the wife of a _vetterale_ or courier, in the
pay of the Duke. He was a native of Colle Vecchio, near Riete, in
Umbria, and went by the name of Bizio da Collo, whilst the girl was
simply called Anna. Alessandro, later on, was made to feel the baseness
of his origin, for he was greeted contemptuously as "Alessandro da Colle
Vecchio!" His supposed father, Bizio, died in 1519, but Cardinal Giulio
de' Medici adopted him.

The two boys grew up together at the Vatican, alike in one respect
only, their mutual hatred of each other. They were, indeed, as unlike as
two boys could be. Ippolito, as the child of gentle parents, had an
aristocratic bearing. He was a clever lad and excelled especially in
classical learning, in music and poetry. In appearance he became
remarkably handsome, with polished manners and a fondness for spending
money and for ostentation.

Alessandro, on the other hand, exhibited the attributes of his low-born
mother. Physically well-made, he wa