DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0366
A POPES WRATH
298
Castiglione the Pope Hew into a violent rage, and
before this most courteous and polished gentleman
could utter a word, sprang from his chair and hade the
envoy be gone from his presence, crying in jeering
tones: 'You have behaved finely, and now you may
go your own way !'^
This outburst, which scandalized the Cardinals and
Venetian envoys who were present at the interview,
is partly explained by Castiglione himself. In a letter
written from Sinigaglia eight months later, he tells his
brother-in-law, Tommaso Strozzi, that the Pope had
long suspected him of being on friendly terms with
the French King, and that this false impression was
due to the calumnies of Count Gio. Francesco della
Mirandola, who hated both himself and the Duke of
Urbino. But we find no allusion to the Pope in the
short letters which he addressed to his mother from
Mirandola. These only contained requests for furs and
clothes, as well as an intimation that he was sending
her several mules laden with baggage belonging to
Count Alessandro Trivulzio, who was now the Pope s
prisoner, and begged her to keep them for the present.
Baldassares next letters were written from Finale,
where the Papal forces remained encamped until the
end of April, and hostilities were either languidly
carried on, or else suspended for a time. The account
which he gives of his men s destitution and of the
difficulty of obtaining provisions shows the straits to
which the Papal forces were reduced during this long
and tedious campaign.
'We are in want of everything/ he wrote on
March 20, ' and we certainly ought by this time to
have taken La Bastia [a strong fortress command-
* Sanuto, xi. 773.
298
Castiglione the Pope Hew into a violent rage, and
before this most courteous and polished gentleman
could utter a word, sprang from his chair and hade the
envoy be gone from his presence, crying in jeering
tones: 'You have behaved finely, and now you may
go your own way !'^
This outburst, which scandalized the Cardinals and
Venetian envoys who were present at the interview,
is partly explained by Castiglione himself. In a letter
written from Sinigaglia eight months later, he tells his
brother-in-law, Tommaso Strozzi, that the Pope had
long suspected him of being on friendly terms with
the French King, and that this false impression was
due to the calumnies of Count Gio. Francesco della
Mirandola, who hated both himself and the Duke of
Urbino. But we find no allusion to the Pope in the
short letters which he addressed to his mother from
Mirandola. These only contained requests for furs and
clothes, as well as an intimation that he was sending
her several mules laden with baggage belonging to
Count Alessandro Trivulzio, who was now the Pope s
prisoner, and begged her to keep them for the present.
Baldassares next letters were written from Finale,
where the Papal forces remained encamped until the
end of April, and hostilities were either languidly
carried on, or else suspended for a time. The account
which he gives of his men s destitution and of the
difficulty of obtaining provisions shows the straits to
which the Papal forces were reduced during this long
and tedious campaign.
'We are in want of everything/ he wrote on
March 20, ' and we certainly ought by this time to
have taken La Bastia [a strong fortress command-
* Sanuto, xi. 773.