n the death of Giovanni de' Medici in Lombardy, the Pope, at the advice
of Messer Jacopo Salviati, dismissed the five bands he had engaged; and
when the Constable of Bourbon knew there were no troops in Rome, he
pushed his army with the utmost energy up to the city. The whole of Rome
upon this flew to arms. I happened to be intimate with Alessandro, the
son of Piero del Bene, who, at the time when the Colonnesi entered Rome,
had requested me to guard his palace.[37] On this more serious occasion,
therefore, he prayed me to enlist fifty comrades for the protection of
the said house, appointing me their captain, as I had been when the
Colonnesi came. So I selected fifty young men of the highest courage,
and we took up quarters in his palace, with good pay and excellent
appointments.

Bourbon's army had now arrived before the walls of Rome, and Alessandro
begged me to go with him to reconnoitre. So we went with one of the
stoutest fellows in our company; and on the way a youth called Cecchino
della Casa joined himself to us. On reaching the walls by the Campo
Santo, we could see that famous army, which was making every effort to
enter the town. Upon the ramparts where we took our station, several
young men were lying, killed by the besiegers; the battle raged there
desperately, and there was the densest fog imaginable. I turned to
Alessandro and said: "Let us go home as soon as we can, for there is
nothing to be done here; you see the enemies are mounting, and our men
are in flight." Alessandro, in a panic, cried, "Would God that we had
never come here!" and turned in maddest haste to fly. I took him up
somewhat sharply with these words: "Since you have brought me here, I
must perform some action worthy of a man"; and, directing my arquebuse
where I saw the thickest and most serried troop of fighting men, I aimed
exactly at one whom I remarked to be higher than the rest: the fog
prevented me from being certain whether he was on horseback or on foot.
Then I turned to Alessandro and Cecchino, and bade them discharge their
arquebuses, showing them how to avoid being hit by the besiegers. When
we had fired two rounds apiece I crept cautiously up to the wall, and,
observing among the enemy a most extraordinary confusion, I discovered
afterward that one of our shots had killed the Constable of Bourbon;
and, from what I subsequently learned, he was the man whom I had first
noticed above the heads of the rest.[38]

Quitting our p