did he fail to rejoice in this election, but also
that he did not think that any Christian could rejoice in it, seeing
that Borgia, having always been a bad man, would certainly make a bad
pope. To this he added that, even were the choice an excellent one and
such as would please everybody else, it would be none the less fatal to
the house of Aragon, although Roderigo was born her subject and owed
to her the origin and progress of his fortunes; for wherever reasons of
state come in, the ties of blood and parentage are soon forgotten, and,
'a fortiori', relations arising from the obligations of nationality.

Thus, one may see that Ferdinand judged Alexander VI with his usual
perspicacity; this, however, did not hinder him, as we shall soon
perceive, from being the first to contract an alliance with him.

The duchy of Milan belonged nominally to John Galeazzo, grandson of
Francesco Sforza, who had seized it by violence on the 26th of February,
1450, and bequeathed it to his son, Galeazzo Maria, father of the young
prince now reigning; we say nominally, because the real master of the
Milanese was at this period not the legitimate heir who was supposed to
possess it, but his uncle Ludovico, surnamed 'il Moro', because of the
mulberry tree which he bore in his arms. After being exiled with his two
brothers, Philip who died of poison in 1479, and Ascanio who became
the cardinal, he returned to Milan some days after the assassination of
Galeazzo Maria, which took place on the 26th of December 1476, in St.
Stephen's Church, and assumed the regency for the young duke, who at
that time was only eight years old. From now onward, even after his
nephew had reached the age of two-and-twenty, Ludovico continued to
rule, and according to all probabilities was destined to rule a long
time yet; for, some days after the poor young man had shown a desire to
take the reins himself, he had fallen sick, and it was said, and not
in a whisper, that he had taken one of those slow but mortal poisons of
which princes made so frequent a use at this period, that, even when a
malady was natural, a cause was always sought connected with some great
man's interests. However it may have been, Ludovico had relegated his
nephew, now too weak to busy himself henceforward with the affairs of
his duchy, to the castle of Pavia, where he lay and languished under the
eyes of his wife Isabella, daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples.

As to Ludovico, he was an am