Right well the new governante carried out the instructions of Clement, and she only relinquished her charge when the Pope commanded the young girl, just eleven years old, to Rome.  Apartments were provided for her and her suite in the Palazzo Medici, where Madonna Lucrezia, Lorenzo il Magnifico’s daughter, and wife of Giacomo de’ Salviati, was appointed her protectress.

Without a mother’s care, and tossed about here and there, Caterina grew up devoid of high principles, and became the toy of every passing pleasure and indulgence.  All the eligible princes of Europe were, in turn, supposed to be her admirers, and rivals for her hand and fortune.  And truly the last legitimate descendant, as she was, of the great Cosimo, was a prize in the matrimonial market—­if not for her beauty and her virtues, at all events for her wealth and rank.  Indeed, there was a project, seriously entertained, seeing that the elder line of the Medici had failed to produce a male heir, of acknowledging Caterina as “Domina di Firenze,” with a strong council of Regency to carry on the government in her name.

This proposal did not gain any favour outside the Papal cabinet:  in Florence it was scouted with derision.  Two violent politicians, if not more, lost their heads over the young girl’s destiny—­Battista Cei, for proposing that she should be placed in the lions’ den, and Bernardo Castiglione, for demanding that she should be put upon the streets of Florence, wearing the yellow badge of woman’s shame!

In Rome Caterina conceived at once an invincible repugnance for Alessandro—­her father’s son.  His appearance, his manner, his language appalled her; probably she was not long before she knew the story of his birth.  On no account would she speak to him, and, if he entered an apartment where she happened to be, she rushed out, crying, “Negrello—­Bastardo!”

With Ippolito, on the contrary, she was the best of friends.  She admired the good-looking boy, his talents for music, and his skill in gentlemanly exercises.  The Venetian ambassador at the Vatican remarked, in a letter to his Government:  “We have here a little Medici princess, Caterina, the only child of the late Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino.  She and Don Ippolito, the bastard son of Duke Giuliano, are inseparable companions.  The boy is very fond of his young cousin, whilst she is devoted to him.  She has confidence in nobody else, and she asks him only for everything she wants.”  Ultimately, of course, Caterina de’ Medici became Queen of France, as the consort of Henry II.

The trend of affairs in Florence gave Pope Clement grave anxiety, for, of course, his own personal control became less and less effective upon his elevation to the Papacy.  Accredited representatives of the family were required to be in residence there for the maintenance of Medici supremacy.  Alas, legitimate male heirs of the senior branch from Cosimo, “Il Padre della Patria,” were non-existent, and Giovanni delle Bande Nere and his family would not, had he been chosen as Capo della Repubblica, consent to be dependent upon Rome.