Fortune now seemed to favour Cæsar. Created Duke of Romagna by Alexander, he had been enrolled a member of the Venetian nobility by that proud republic, which hoped thus to gain papal aid against the Turk. He had in his pay the best of the Italian condottiers, and the remaining cities of the Romagna were trembling. Dazzled by his rapid successes, his views expanded. He now aspired not only to complete his conquest of the Romagna, but to interfere in the affairs of Florence, if not eventually to make himself master of all Tuscany. For a time, however, his ambition was checked. Bologna and Florence were both under French protection, and Louis ordered him to stay his hand. The Pope became alarmed, and Cæsar was forced to content himself with a sum of money paid by Florence, and an agreement to take him into her service for three years. Leaving therefore his army to take Piombino, which surrendered in September, he joined the French expedition against Naples (July). In September he returned to find his sister Lucrezia betrothed to Alfonso, the son of Ercole of Este. | Lucrezia Borgia. This beautiful woman[19] whose character has been the subject of almost as much controversy as that of Mary Queen of Scots, and who has been accused, probably unjustly, of the most unmentionable crimes, seems rather to have been a person of colourless disposition who was made the puppet of the schemes of her father and brother. She had already been married twice. From her first husband, Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, she had been divorced to wed the Duke of Biseglia, an illegitimate son of Alfonso II. of Naples (August 1498). At that date the Pope desired an alliance with Naples, but two years afterwards the papal policy had changed. The second invasion of Naples by Louis XII. was about to take place, and the friendship of Naples was no longer needed. Personal antipathies widened the breach, and in August 1500, the Duke was murdered by Cæsar’s orders. Now, barely a year since the foul deed, a new husband was found for this girl of twenty-one. Alexander’s motives, as before, were political. The alliance of Ferrara was valuable. It protected the Romagna from the North, and threatened Bologna. The results were not so great as had been hoped, but the marriage was a happier one than might have been expected; and Lucrezia in her Ferrarese home found peace and a refuge from the slander which had hitherto assailed her. | Further successes of Cæsar.