Negotiations for the settlement of Italian affairs were proceeding without noise, but with continual progress, through this month.  The lodgings of ambassadors and lords were so arranged in the Palazzo Pubblico that they, like their Imperial and Papal masters, could confer at all times and seasons.  Every day brought some new illustrious visitor.  On the 22nd arrived Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, who took up his quarters in immediate proximity to Charles and Clement.  His business required but little management.  The house of Gonzaga was already well affected to the Spanish cause, and counted several captains in the imperial army.  Charles showed his favor by raising Mantua to the rank of a Duchy.  It was different with the Republic of Venice and the Duke of Milan.  The Emperor elect had reasons to be strongly prejudiced against them both—­against Venice as the most formidable of the French allies in the last war; against Francesco Maria Sforza, as having been implicated, though obscurely, in Morone’s conspiracy to drive the Spaniards from Italy and place the crown of Naples on Pescara’s head.  Clement took both under his protection.  He had sufficient reasons to believe that the Venetians would purchase peace by the cession of their recent acquisitions on the Adriatic coast, and he knew that the pacification of Italy could not be accomplished without their aid.  In effect, the Republic agreed to relinquish Cervia and Ravenna to the Pope, and their Apulian ports to Charles, engaging at the same time to pay a sum of 300,000 ducats and stipulating for an amnesty to all their agents and dependents.  It is not so clear why Clement warmly espoused the cause of Sforza.  That he did so is certain.  He obtained a safe-conduct for the duke, and made it a point of personal favor that he should be received into the Emperor’s grace.  This stipulation appears to have been taken into account when the affairs of Ferrara were decided at a later date against the Papal interests.

Francesco Maria Sforza appeared in Bologna on the 22nd.  This unfortunate bearer of one of the most coveted titles in Europe had lately lived a prisoner in his own Castello, while the city at his doors and the fertile country round it were being subjected to cruelest outrage and oppression from Spanish, French, Swiss, and German mercenaries.  He was a man ruined in health as well as fortune.  Six years before this date, one of his chamberlains, Bonifazio Visconti, had given him a slight wound in the shoulder with a poisoned dagger.  From this wound he never recovered; and it was pitiable to behold the broken man, unable to move or stand without support, dragging himself upon his knees to Caesar’s footstool.  Charles appears to have discerned that he had nothing to fear and much to gain, if he showed clemency to so powerless a suitor.  Franceso was the last of his line.  His health rendered it impossible that he should expect heirs; and although he subsequently married a princess