Many were stripped and murdered in their flight; for the peasants
scoured all the roads and the Duke of Urbino, who from his sending
some time before Baldassare da Castiglione to the King of France, and
employing some trusty persons as his agents with Foix, was supposed to
have entered into a private agreement against his uncle, not only
raised the country against those that fled, but sent his soldiers to
intercept them in the territories of Pesaro; so that only those who
took their flight through the dominions of the Florentines were by
orders of the magistrates, confirmed by the republic, suffered to pass
unmolested.

"The victorious army was no sooner returned to camp than the people of
Ravenna sent deputies to treat of surrendering their city; but when
they had agreed or were upon the point of agreement, and the
inhabitants being employed in preparing provisions to be sent to the
camp were negligent in guarding the walls, the German and Gascon foot
entered through the breach that had been made and plundered the town
in a most barbarous manner, their cruelty being exasperated not only
by their natural hatred to the name of the Italians, but by a spirit
of revenge for the loss they had sustained in the battle. On the
fourth day after this, Marcantonio Colonna gave up the citadel, into
which he had retired, on condition of safety to their persons and
effects, but obliging himself on the other hand, together with the
rest of the officers, not to bear arms against the King of France nor
the Pisan Council till the next festival of S. Mary Magdalen; and not
many days after, Bishop Vitello, who commanded in the castle with a
hundred and fifty men, agreed to surrender it on terms of safety for
life and goods. The cities of Imola, Forli, Cesena, and Rimini, and
all the castles of the Romagna, except those of Forli and Imola,
followed the fortune of the victory and were received by the legate in
the name of the council."

The site of this great battle is marked by a monument, a square
pilaster of marble, called the Colonna dei Francesi, adorned with
bas-reliefs and inscriptions, raised in 1557 by the President of the
Romagna, Pier Donato Cesi, on the right bank of the Ronco, some three
miles from the city. We may recall Ariosto's verses:

"Io venni dove le campagne rosse
eran del sangue barbaro e latino
che fiera stella dianzi a furor mosse.

"E vidi un morto all' altro si vicino
che, senza premer lor, quasi