e new Doge, to whom he repeated the message he had
delivered a few months before to the Senate. Perceiving the headway
made by French influence, he wrote to Spain, explaining the situation
and urging the sovereigns immediately to despatch an embassy to
counteract the mischievous activity of the French. He offered, as
an alternative, to himself assume the negotiations if the requisite
instructions were sent to him. King Ferdinand ignored the proffer of
service, but, acting upon the information sent him, entrusted the
business to Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, who had been his ambassador
in Venice in 1495. Zealous for his adopted country and, possibly,
overconfident in consequence of his easy success in Egypt, Peter
Martyr did not wait for the credentials he had solicited but made the
mistake of treating affairs for which he had received no mandate. The
French envoys were quick to detect his opposition, and as prompt to
take advantage of the false position in which the diplomatic
novice had unwarily placed himself. His unaccredited presence and
officiousness in the capital of the Doges were made to appear both
offensive and ridiculous. The adherents of the French party denounced
him as an intriguer, and spread the report that he was a spy in the
pay of Spain. His position speedily became intolerable, unsafe even,
and he was forced to escape secretly from the city; nor did he stop
until he reached his native Lombardy, where he might rely upon the
protection of his kinsmen, the Marshal Trivulzio and the Borromeos, to
shield him from the consequences of his indiscretion.

He writes with emotion of the visit he paid to his native town of
Arona and the scenes of his childhood, where he renewed acquaintance
with the charms of one of the loveliest landscapes in Italy. He
yielded to early memories, and the gentle dream of one day returning
to the shores of Maggiore, there to pass his declining years, took
shape in his fancy. When peace between France and Spain was later
restored, after King Ferdinand's marriage to the Princess Germaine
de Foix, he obtained the King's intercession to procure for him the
abbacy of St. Gratian at Arona. He himself solicited the protection
of the Cardinal d'Amboise to obtain him this favour, declaring the
revenues from the abbacy were indifferent to him, as he would only use
them to restore to its pristine splendour the falling church in which
reposed the holy relics of SS. Gratian, Fidelius, and Carpop