other matters when I hear of the slowness and carelessness yonder.’ Madonna Clarice stayed in Rome till May 1488, when her son Piero came with Giovanni Tornabuoni to fetch her back. From a letter written to Lorenzo by their companion Poliziano, on May 2,[332] it appears that on that day Piero set out from Acquapendente to Viterbo, and that the travellers were all in good health and spirits and did not forget to celebrate the merry month of May with songs and various amusements on their journey. Piero’s expedition had also another object, he was going to bring home his own bride. On April 16 Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini:[333] ‘My Piero starts in a few days to go and fetch his wife, and also to help Clarice. If the latter is able to travel I shall be very glad.’ As well as an unknown son-in-law Lorenzo had chosen an unknown daughter-in-law; but she came of a family which had long been intimately associated with his and had many relations with the Republic, at the same time enjoying the special favour of the ruling house of Naples. Alfonsina Orsini was the daughter of a man who had preserved and displayed his loyalty to the house of Aragon when most of his own people were in the enemy’s camp. Roberto Orsini was a younger son of that Carlo from whom sprang the line of Bracciano, afterwards the principal branch of this wide-spreading race. He had fought for King Ferrante against the Angevins, and for the Florentines against Bartolommeo Colleone, and died of sickness at Siena in 1476. One of his children by his second marriage with Caterina da Sanseverino was Alfonsina, thus named in honour of Aragon. She was married by proxy at Castelnuovo towards the end of February 1487, in presence of the royal pair and other members of the reigning family. Ferrante laid aside his family mourning on this day, and after supper there was a festival and a ball. The bridegroom was represented by Bernardo Rucellai; the bride’s next of kin by her cousin Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano. Alfonsina brought a dowry of 12,000 ducats, which popular belief magnified to 30,000.[334] A whole year passed before Piero brought her home. Her entry into Florence was to have taken place on May 22, 1488, but the Medici family were in mourning for the death of the third daughter, Luigia; so, instead of coming to the city, the young couple went to Careggi. About ten days afterwards Lorenzo gave, in honour of his daughter-in-law and her suite, a grand banquet, at which the chief men of the city and the foreign ambassadors were present.[335]