[Footnote 225: The reverse of this caricatured portrait may be found in a curious account of this unfortunate prince's romantic adventures, given by the Turkish historian, Saadeddin-effendi, and printed by Masse in his _Histoire du Pape Alexander VI._, pp. 382-408.] * * * * * It is, however, time to return from the digression into which this singular and romantic history of the Turkish Prince has tempted us. Alexander, greatly exasperated by the insults put upon his envoy, and by the loss of a most opportune remittance, threatened the Prefect with deprivation of his state; but finding his people, and the neighbouring communities prepared to stand by him, deferred his vengeance. Notwithstanding a reference of the whole affair to the French monarch, by the treaty of 1495, nearly six years elapsed ere Giovanni della Rovere was formally absolved from the daring exploit. He was not spared to witness the revival and aggrandisement of his family's fortunes by his elder brother's election to the papal throne. On the 6th of November, 1501, death found him already attired in a winding-sheet appropriate to the devotional habits of the age, the cowl formerly worn by the beatified Fra Giacomo della Marca. Two miles west from Sinigaglia, on a rising ground which overlooks the city, commanding the fertile vale of the Misa, from its Apennine rampart to the bright waves of the blue Adriatic, there stands a convent of Zoccolantine Franciscans. It was founded by the piety of the Prefect and his consort; it was the chosen retreat of their devotional hours, and was selected by them as the spot for their last repose. There he was laid, agreeably to his dying wish, in the Franciscan habit; and a plain marble slab in the pavement commemorates his titles, and her worth, "in prosperity and adversity comparable, nay preferable, to the best and noblest of her sex." There, too, was composed by Father di Francia, guardian of the convent, that brief record of the merits of his sovereign and patron from which the preceding sketch has in part been compiled. The original MS. has disappeared in the general havoc of ecclesiastical treasures; but in the adjoining church there has been marvellously preserved from the sacrilegious rapine of French invaders, from the selfish gripe of unscrupulous collectors, and from the merciless ignorance of modern restorers, an interesting memorial of the persons, piety, and artistic tastes of this princely pair. Into a small picture of the Madonna and Child are introduced, on either side, portraits of Giovanni della Rovere and his wife, their arms devoutly crossed, their dress displaying no royal gauds except her simple string of pearls, and a large crystal bead suspended from his neck by a double gold chain. Their regular and unimpassioned features are, probably, somewhat idealised by the pencil of one more happy, as well as more habituated, to embody inspirations of religious