In Ferrara, the year 1506 was marked by one of those tragical expositions of naked human passion which afflict humanity in every age. Madonna Angela de Borja y Lançol, a cousin of the Duchess Lucrezia—being the daughter of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI’s sister, Doña Juana, by her marriage with Don Guillelmo de Lançol, and sister to Cardinal Juan de Borja y Lançol (detto Giovanni Seniore), Archbishop of Monreale, and Cardinal Pedro Luis de Borja y Lançol,—was a maid-of-honour attached to the suite of the Duchess of Ferrara. She was very beautiful, and is called in the chronicle “a most elegant damsel”—_damigella elegantissima_. Two younger brothers of Duke Alfonso, the athletic Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, and Don Giulio d’Este (bastard of the old Duke Ercole) fell in love with her. Madonna Angela favoured the Bastard Giulio whose lovely eyes she unreservedly admired—consequently, as the manner was, his rival the Cardinal hired four professionals to put out those eyes. Naif unpaltering straightforwardness of the Sixteenth Century! The operation failed of execution, for the Bastard Giulio, being forewarned, escaped with his eyes unharmed. But such conduct does not make for the peace of a state, brawling royalties affording disedification to the mob. The laws of Ferrara, paternal in character, ordained a scale of penances graduated to the rank of culprits: for example, a working man, who obscenely swore, would pay a fine; a swearing burgess paid a double fine and a swearing noble was mulcted of a triple fine. Therefore Duke Alfonso put the ban on his brother, the Lord Cardinal Ippolito, who retired to Rome to nurse his discontent and plan his next move against the Bastard Giulio. Madonna Angela, who was no more to be blamed than any other girl whose charms have inflamed a lusty pair of rivals to desperation, married the third, Don Alessandro Pio Estense di Savoja, Count of Sassuolo. The bandit[87] Cardinal Ippolito had not long to wait in exile. If he had been the Master of Fate, he could not have devised a neater or completer vengeance than that which came to him. It is one thing to attempt to blind a bastard brother who is a royal prince. It is another thing to compass the death of a brother who is a reigning sovereign. The robust young Cardinal was equal to the first: but above the second.