fore, sufficiently explains the part, personal and
official, which the cardinal took in the ceremony of Giulia's betrothal.

The witnesses to the marriage contract, which was drawn up by the notary
Beneimbene, were, in addition to the cardinal, Bishop Martini of
Segovia, the Spanish Canons Garcetto and Caranza, and a Roman nobleman
named Giovanni Astalli. The bride's brothers should have supported her,
but only the younger, Angiolo, was present, Alessandro remaining away.
His failure to attend such an important family function in the Borgia
palace is strange, although it may have been occasioned by some
accident. The bride's uncles, the prothonotary Giacomo, and his brother
Don Nicola Gaetani were present. Giulia's dowry consisted of three
thousand gold florins, a large amount for that time.

The civil marriage of the young couple took place the following day, May
21st, in this same palace of the Borgias. Many great nobles were
present, among whom were specially mentioned the kinsmen of the groom,
Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini and Raynaldo Orsini, Archbishop of
Florence. The young couple, as the season was charming, may have gone to
Castle Bassanello, or, if not, may have taken up their abode in the
Orsini palace on Monte Giordano.

Before her marriage Cardinal Rodrigo must have known, and often seen
Giulia Farnese in the palace of Madonna Adriana, the mother of the young
Orsini. There, likewise, Lucretia, who was several years younger, made
her acquaintance. Like Lucretia, Giulia had golden hair, and her beauty
won for her the name La Bella. It was in Adriana's house that this
tender, lovely child became ensnared in the coils of the libertine
Rodrigo. She succumbed to his seductions either shortly before or soon
after her marriage to the young Orsini. Perhaps she first aroused the
passion of the cardinal, a man at that time fifty-eight years old, when
she stood before him in his palace a bride in the full bloom of youth.
Be that as it may, it is certain that two years after her marriage
Giulia was the cardinal's acknowledged mistress. When Madonna Adriana
discovered the liason she winked at it, and was an accessory to the
shame of her daughter-in-law. By so doing she became the most powerful
and the most influential person in the house of Borgia.

Two of the three sons of the cardinal, Giovanni and Caesar, had in the
meantime reached manhood. In 1490 neither of them was in Rome; the
former was in Spain, and the latte