Appointing His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, as Captain-General of the pontifical army, and assisted by the Majesty of Naples, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI proceeded to reduce Orsini. At the opening of the campaign, Don Virginio Orsini was captured by the Neapolitans; but when Orsini’s stronghold of Bracciano was relieved by Don Vitellozzo Vitelli of Città di Castello, the papal condottieri were forced to raise the siege. And before the end of the year the Pope lost His ally King Don Ferrandino II, who died at the age of twenty-eight “worn out with fatigue and with the pleasures of his marriage to his aunt Joanna whom he loved too passionately.” (Symonds, Renascence, I. 513.) The year 1497 began with the defeat of the papal troops by Orsini at the battle of Soviano, a reverse which was counterbalanced by the success of Don Gonsalvo de Cordova. This captain was at the head of a band of mercenaries sent by Spain in aid of the Papacy; he took the fortress of Ostia from Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, whose five years of treachery and recalcitrancy were now punished by the Holiness of the Pope, with deprivation of his benefices (which took from him the “sinews of war”) and the deposition of his brother, Don Giovanni della Rovere, from the Prefecture of Rome. As for the French Orators who made protest at this unaccountably long-delayed act of precautionary justice,—unaccountably-long-delayed, except on the hypothesis of this Pope’s singular patience, long-suffering, and dislike of proceeding to extremities,—the Supreme Pontiff contemptuously remarked that they were come from an Excommunicated King; and that it was well for them that Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) did not hear them. This, by the bye, is the first instance of the amazing influence which that young Porporato was beginning to attain, an influence which within the next few years increased by leaps and bounds until the name of Cesare (detto Borgia) stood among the most important names in Europe. Further to emphasize the slight to France by shewing His appreciation of Spain’s support, the Lord Alexander P.P. VI decorated His bastard, Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja Duke of Gandia and Prince of Teano and Tricarico, as representing the Spanish branch of His House, with the titles of Count of Chiaramonte, Lauria, and Cerignuola, Tyrant of Benevento and Tarracina, and Grand Constable of Naples. * * * * * In honour of her son’s good fortune, Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei gave a supper at her villa by San Pietro _ad Vincula_, where were present the young Duke of Gandia of the age of twenty-two years, and Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) his senior by a year. Their sister Madonna Lucrezia, who had had much unpleasantness with her husband, Don Giovanni Sforza the Tyrant of Pesaro, had left him; and was living in the Convent of San Sisto in Rome, as noble ladies do who wish to guard their reputations in delicate circumstances.