Germaine de Foix, he obtained the King’s intercession to procure for him the abbacy of St. Gratian at Arona.  He himself solicited the protection of the Cardinal d’Amboise to obtain him this favour, declaring the revenues from the abbacy were indifferent to him, as he would only use them to restore to its pristine splendour the falling church in which reposed the holy relics of SS.  Gratian, Fidelius, and Carpophorus.  The peace between the two countries was too ephemeral to permit the realisation of his pious hope.

The Marshal Trivulzio accompanied his kinsman to Asti and from thence to Carmagnola where they obtained an audience of the Cardinal d’Amboise, Legate for France.  Despite his undisguised hostility to Spaniards, the Legate furnished the ambassador with a safe-conduct over the frontier into Spain.

If the Catholic monarchs felt any vexation at the excess of zeal their envoy had displayed in Venice, they betrayed none.  Peter Martyr’s reception was not wanting in cordiality, the Queen, especially, expressing her gratitude for the important service he had rendered the Christian religion, and he received another appointment[1] which augmented his income by thirty thousand maravedis yearly.  Having taken holy orders about this time and the dignity of prior of the cathedral chapter of Granada falling vacant, this benefice was also given to him, regis et reginae beneficentia.

[Note 1:  Maestro de los cabelleros de su corte en las artes liberates.  He had long exercised the functions of this office, as has been described:  the formal appointment was doubtless but a means invented for granting him an increase of revenue.]

On November 26th in the year 1504, the death of Isabella of Castile plunged the Court and people into mourning and produced a crisis in the government that threatened the arduously accomplished union of the peninsula with disruption.  None mourned the Queen’s death more sincerely than did her Italian chaplain.  He accompanied the funeral cortege on its long journey to Granada, where the body was laid in the cathedral of the city her victorious arms had restored to the bosom of Christendom.  During several months, Martyr lingered in Granada, hesitating before returning uninvited to King Ferdinand’s Court.  To a letter from the Secretary of State, Perez Almazen, summoning him to rejoin the King without delay, he somewhat coyly answered, deprecating his ability to be of further service to His Majesty, adding, however, that he asked nothing better than to obey the summons.  Elsewhere, in one of his Epistles, he states that he returned to the court at Segovia, as representative of his chapter, to secure the continuation of certain revenues paid from the royal treasury to the clergy of Granada.