The whole of November 5 had been occupied in these ceremonies.  It was late evening when the Emperor gained his lodgings.  The few next days were ostensibly occupied in receiving visitors.  Among the first of these was the unfortunate ex-queen of Naples, Isabella, widow of Frederick of Aragon, the last king of the bastard dynasty founded by Alfonso.  She was living in poverty at Ferrara, under the protection of her relatives, the Este family, On the 13th came the Prince of Orange and Don Ferrante Gonzaga, from the camp before Florence.  The siege had begun, but had not yet been prosecuted with the strictest vigor.  During the whole time of Charles’s residence at Bologna, it must be borne in mind that the siege of Florence was being pressed.  Superfluous troops detached from garrison duty in the Lombard towns were drafted across the hills to Tuscany.  Whatever else the Emperor might decide for his Italian subjects, this at least was certain:  Florence should be restored to the Medicean tyrants, as compensation to the Pope for Roman sufferings.  The Prince of Orange came to explain the state of things at Florence, where government and people seemed prepared to resist to the death.  Gonzaga had private business of his own to conduct, touching his engagement to the Pope’s ward, Isabella, daughter and heiress of the wealthy Vespasiano Colonna.

Meanwhile, ambassadors from all the States and lordships of Italy flocked to Bologna.  Great nobles from the South—­Ascanio Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples; Alfonso d’Avalos, Marquis of Vasto; Giovanni Luigi Caraffa, Prince of Stigliano—­took up their quarters in adjacent houses, or in the upper story of the Public Palace.  The Marquis of Vasto arrests our graze for a moment.  He was nephew to the Marquis of Pescara (husband of Vittoria Colonna), who had the glory of taking Francis prisoner at Pavia, and afterwards the infamy of betraying the unfortunate Girolamo Morone and his master the Duke of Milan to the resentment of the Spanish monarch.  What part Pescara actually played in that dark passage of plot and counterplot remains obscure.  But there is no doubt that he employed treachery, single if not double, for his own advantage.  His arrogance and avowed hostility to the Italians caused his very name to be execrated; nor did his nephew, the Marquis of Vasto, differ in these respects from the more famous chief of his house.  This man was also destined to obtain an evil reputation when he succeeded in 1532 to the government of Milan.  Here too may be noticed the presence at Bologna of Girolamo Morone’s son, who had been created Bishop of Modena in 1529.  For him a remarkable fate was waiting.  Condemned to the dungeons of the Inquisition as a heretic by Paul IV., rescued by Pius IV., and taken into highest favor at that Pontiff’s Court, he successfully manipulated the closing of the Tridentine Council to the profit of the Papal See.