It was at Marino that Vittoria was born, in a rare period of most unusually prolonged peace. Her parents had selected, we are told, from among their numerous castles, that beautiful spot for the enjoyment of the short interval of tranquillity which smiled on their first years[153] of marriage. A very successful raid, in which Fabrizio and his cousin Prospero Colonna had harried the fiefs of the Orsini, and driven off a great quantity of cattle,[154] had been followed by a peace made under the auspices of Innocent VIII. on the 11th August, 1486, which seems absolutely to have lasted till 1494, when we find the two cousins at open war with the new Pope Alexander VI. Far more important contests, however, were at hand, the progress of which led to the youthful daughter of the house being treated, while yet in her fifth year, as part of the family capital, to be made use of for the advancement of the family interests, and thus fixed the destiny of her life. When Charles VIII. passed through Rome on his march against Naples at the end of 1494, the Colonna cousins sided with him; placed themselves under his banners, and contributed materially to aid his successful invasion. But on his flight from Naples in 1495, they suddenly changed sides, and took service under Ferdinand II. The fact of this change of party, which to our ideas seems to require so much explanation, probably appeared to their contemporaries a perfectly simple matter; for it is mentioned as such without any word of the motives or causes of it. Perhaps they merely sought to sever themselves from a losing game. Possibly, as we find them rewarded for their adherence to the King of Naples by the grant of a great number of fiefs previously possessed by the Orsini, who were on the other side, they were induced to change their allegiance by the hope of obtaining those possessions, and by the Colonna instinct of enmity to the Orsini race. Ferdinand, however, was naturally anxious to have some better hold over his new friends than that furnished by their own oaths of fealty; and with this view caused the infant Vittoria to be betrothed to his subject, Ferdinand d'Avalos, son of Alphonso, Marquis of Pescara, a child of about the same age as the little bride. [Sidenote: HER EARLY TRAINING.]