The badness of the weather had rendered the army in Ostia utterly unserviceable. But you must understand that the forces under the command of the Lord d’Aubigny had been marched back, and he himself had no further employment there. The Italians were likewise dismissed, who had been raised in Romagna, and brought to the army by Count Rodolph of Mantua[325], the Lord Galeot de la Mirandola[326], and Fracasse[327], brother to Galeas di St. Severino; who were well paid by the king, and were in all about five hundred men. At his departure from Viterbo the king advanced to Naples[328] of which the Cardinal Ascanio was then governor. And it it is most certain that, whilst our forces were in Ostia, twenty fathoms of the wall fell down at Rome, on that side where we designed to enter. The Pope, observing this young prince advance so briskly, and with such unexpected success, consented to receive him into Rome (and to speak truth he could not help it), upon condition he would give safe conduct under his hand and seal to Don Ferrand, Duke of Calabria, and only son to Alphonso; but Ferrand marched away in the night towards Naples, and the Cardinal Ascanio conducted him to the very gate. The king entered Rome[329] in arms, as a prince who had authority to do what he pleased wherever he came. There came out to meet him several cardinals, and the governors and senators of the town, who attended him to his lodgings in the palace of St. Mark (which belonged to the Colonne, who were then his servants and friends); and the Pope himself retired to his castle of St. Angelo. CH. XIII.—How King Alphonso caused his Son Ferrand to be crowned King; his Flight into Sicily; and of the evil Life his Father (old Ferrand) and he had led during their Reigns.—1495. Could any man have imagined that so imperious a prince as Alphonso, inured all his lifetime to wars, and his son and the Ursini, who had so great a party in Rome, should have been afraid to make a stand there? Especially when they perceived the Duke of Milan and the Venetians wavering, and a secret alliance on foot, which would certainly have been concluded, had any resistance been made, either at Viterbo or Rome, that might have stopped the progress of the king’s arms, though but for three or four days. But God was willing to demonstrate to the world that all these things were beyond the contrivance and comprehension of human wisdom; and, as we said before, that above twenty fathoms of the city wall fell down, so now there fell down above fifteen fathoms of the outer wall of the castle of St. Angelo, as I have been told by several persons, and particularly by two cardinals who were there. But now we must say something of King Alphonso.