At the same time, while Orsino was carrying to the confederates the
treaty drawn up between him and the duke, Bentivoglio, not willing to
submit to the arbitration indicated, made an offer to Caesar of settling
their differences by a private treaty, and sent his son to arrange the
conditions: after some parleying, they were settled as follows:—
Bentivaglio should separate his fortunes from the Vitelli and Orsini;
He should furnish the Duke of Valentinois with a hundred men-at-arms and
a hundred mounted archers for eight years;
He should pay 12,000 ducats per annum to Caesar, for the support of a
hundred lances;
In return for this, his son Hannibal was to marry the sister of the
Archbishop of Enna, who was Caesar’s niece, and the pope was to
recognise his sovereignty in Bologna;
The King of France, the Duke of Ferrara, and the republic of Florence
were to be the guarantors of this treaty.
But the convention brought to the confederates by Orsino was the cause
of great difficulties on their part. Vitellozza Vitelli in particular,
who knew Caesar the best, never ceased to tell the other condottieri
that so prompt and easy a peace must needs be the cover to some trap;
but since Caesar had meanwhile collected a considerable army at Imola,
and the four hundred lances lent him by Louis XII had arrived at last,
Vitellozzo and Oliverotto decided to sign the treaty that Orsino
brought, and to let the Duke of Urbino and the lord of Camerino know of
it; they, seeing plainly that it was henceforth impossible to make a
defence unaided, had retired, the one to Citta di Castello and the other
into the kingdom of Naples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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