On the 26th of January, 1500, having accomplished the first half of his task, he entered Rome as a conqueror--on which occasion a representation was given of the triumph of Cæsar with the various episodes of the life of the Roman Cæsar shown in _tableaux vivants_, suggested by the painter Mantegna. Eleven allegorical cars started from the Piazza Navona, Borgia himself, crowned with laurel, representing in his own person the conqueror of the world. Before his departure for his second campaign, he had, as we have already seen, caused the assassination of Lucrezia’s second husband, Alfonso de Bisceglie, to prepare for the third marriage of his sister, who was this time to become Duchess of Ferrara, and thus secure him an alliance which would forward his projects as Duke of Romagna. On the 27th of September, 1500, he left Rome again to complete his work, but returned quickly to take part in the war which the King of France had carried into the Neapolitan kingdom, when he possessed himself of the city of Capua, thus acquitting his obligation toward his protector, Louis XII. On the 29th of November his father changed his title of Vicar of the Holy See to that of Duke of Romagna. The year 1503 proved an eventful one for him. No longer contented with his duchy, he prepared to attack Bologna and to threaten Florence. The day before he set forth on this great undertaking, on the 5th of August, he assisted, together with Alexander VI, at a banquet given in the vineyard of the Cardinal of Corneto, at the gates of Rome. On their return both were taken ill so suddenly that the cardinal was suspected of having poisoned them. The old man breathed his last on the 18th of August. Cæsar, younger and more vigorous, struggled against his malady with extraordinary energy. He wrapped himself, as in a cloak, in the still quivering carcass of a newly disemboweled mule to overcome the shiverings brought on by fever, and then was thrown, still covered with blood, into a vessel of iced water, to bring about the reaction necessary to save his life. This man of iron seemed to prevail against Nature herself. He knew that, once his father dead and himself unable to move, all his enemies would rush upon him at once to crush him. It was the decisive moment of his life. He first sent his bravo, Micheletto, to seize the pontifical treasure, thus making sure of a sum of three hundred thousand ducats, the sinews of resistance. The nine thousand men-at-arms under his orders, the one disciplined force in the city, made him master of Rome; the Sacred College set all their hopes upon this dying man, for he alone possessed sufficient authority to prevent anarchy.