wn heirs. He
obtained from Louis XII three hundred lances wherewith to march
against them. As soon as Vitellozzo Vitelli received Caesar's letter
he perceived that he was being sacrificed to the fear that the King of
France inspired; but he was not one of those victims who suffer their
throats to be cut in the expiation of a mistake: he was a buffalo of
Romagna who opposed his horns to the knife of the butcher; besides, he
had the example of Varano and the Manfredi before him, and, death for
death, he preferred to perish in arms.

So Vitellozzo convoked at Maggione all whose lives or lands were
threatened by this new reversal of Caesar's policy. These were Paolo
Orsino, Gian Paolo Baglioni, Hermes Bentivoglio, representing his father
Gian, Antonio di Venafro, the envoy of Pandolfo Petrucci, Olivertoxo da
Fermo, and the Duke of Urbino: the first six had everything to lose, and
the last had already lost everything.

A treaty of alliance was signed between the confederates: they engaged
to resist whether he attacked them severally or all together.

Caesar learned the existence of this league by its first effects: the
Duke of Urbino, who was adored by his subjects, had come with a handful
of soldiers to the fortress of San Leone, and it had yielded at once. In
less than a week towns and fortresses followed this example, and all the
duchy was once more in the hands of the Duke of Urbino.

At the same time, each member of the confederacy openly proclaimed his
revolt against the common enemy, and took up a hostile attitude.

Caesar was at Imola, awaiting the French troops, but with scarcely any
men; so that Bentivoglio, who held part of the country, and the Duke
of Urbino, who had just reconquered the rest of it, could probably have
either taken him or forced him to fly and quit the Romagna, had they
marched against him; all the more since the two men on whom he counted,
viz., Don Ugo di Cardona, who had entered his service after Capua was
taken, and Michelotto had mistaken his intention, and were all at once
separated from him. He had really ordered them to fall back upon
Rimini, and bring 200 light horse and 500 infantry of which they had
the command; but, unaware of the urgency of his situation, at the very
moment when they were attempting to surprise La Pergola and Fossombrone,
they were surrounded by Orsino of Gravina and Vitellozzo. Ugo di Cardona
and Michelotto defended themselves like lions; but in spite of their