Pandolfo had now assumed the pomp and state of a petty prince. He walked through the streets and squares followed by a cortège of Noveschi and Gentiluomini, while his splendid new palace near the Duomo seemed destined to play the part in the story of Siena that the Palazzo Riccardi was doing in that of Florence. He made and unmade marriages at his pleasure. He separated Mariana Vignoli from her husband, and shut her up in a convent, while he compelled Vittoria Piccolomini, the daughter of the late Andrea, to become the wife of his own son Borghese. The sumptuary laws of Siena touching the jewels and dresses of ladies were abrogated in favour of the women of his family,[59] who are said to have taken full advantage of this dispensation. He obtained possession for himself of various castles and palaces in the contado, while by humouring the nobles, giving the public funds and offices to his friends, finding work for artisans and food for the poor, he contrived to keep all classes more or less content. "How does the Magnifico rule the Sienese?" asked one of the Popes of Antonio da Venafro. "With lies, Holy Father," answered the astute secretary. But Luzio Bellanti and Niccolò Borghesi were not alone in declining to give credit to these _bugie_, and Pandolfo is said to have murdered some sixty persons in the course of his reign. The more insignificant of these were thrown into oubliettes or disused burial vaults, and left there to starve. In 1511, Pope Julius created Pandolfo's second son Alfonso a Cardinal. In the same year peace was finally made with Florence, and a confederation established between the two Republics, Montepulciano being restored and the prepotency of the Petrucci assured. The star of France being on the wane in Italy, Pandolfo was now looking to Spain. His last political act was to intervene for harmony between the Pope and Florence. Gradually he was losing hold of things, absorbed in a vulgar, senile passion for a certain Caterina, whom the Sienese called "the two-handed sword," the young wife of an artisan in the Via di Salicotto. In February 1512, he obtained from the Balìa that his son Borghese should take his place in the Collegio, and in all other magistracies in his absence. On May 21st he died at San Quirico. All the shops were closed when his body was brought to the city; there was a state funeral in the Duomo, after which it was carried in procession to San Francesco, and thence quietly conveyed by the friars to the Osservanza. Machiavelli, who came with the condolences of the Republic of Florence, ranks Pandolfo in the second class of despots. He was undoubtedly not among the worst tyrants of the epoch. Especially after his return from his brief exile, his rule was beneficial to Siena, in that he secured for the State a comparatively long period of respite from internal factions and of external peace.