Nicholas Machiavelli (Machiavelli, Nicholas)
25 October, 1506
Imola

LETTER XXXIX.

Magnificent Signori, etc.: —

My last to your Lordships was of the 22d; by the present I have to inform you that a courier named Quattrino arrived to-night from Lombardy, and reports the advance guard of the French to have left Modena, and that the remainder of the army under Monseigneur de Chaumont is at Parma. It is supposed that in the course of the week upon which we have just entered they will be in the vicinity of Bologna.

This evening the Pope’s troops captured a Bolognese by the name of Carlo di Bianchi, son of one of the Magistracy of the Ten. This individual was going with despatches to certain small castles that have remained in the hands of the Bolognese. Your Lordships must know that the Italian troops in the service of the Pope are stationed at Castel San Piero and the neighboring villas, and that all these places surrendered as soon as the troops showed themselves before them. A very reliable person reported to me to-day that he had talked with a priest who had left Bologna two days before, and who had told him that Messer Giovanni had published the bull of excommunication, and has since then notified all the religious orders that they may either remain in Bologna or go away, as they please, and that many of them are going. This priest also reported that Messer Giovanni is throwing up bastions and earthworks, and is otherwise strengthening the weak points; and that he has ordered three thousand infantry to be levied, and that Tarlatino, Riniero della Sassetto, and Messer Piero Gambacorte were expected in Bologna. I give this information to your Lordships, not as well authenticated facts, but as things that are reported, and which may be true.

Monseigneur d’Allegri has not yet arrived, but is looked for to-morrow, as also the Duke of Ferrara. Recent letters from Venice state that, so soon as the news of the death of the Archduke became known in the Emperor’s camp, his whole army disbanded, and that thus all his projects have ended in smoke.

Benedetto Pepi wrote me yesterday from Pietramala, under date of the 23d, that Signor Marc Antonio would be on the following day with his troops at Pian Caldoli, and wished me to let him know what was to be done. I communicated the

information immediately to the Pope, who at once sent a commissary and one of his mace-bearers to Pian Caldoli to receive and conduct him to the camp of the other troops, where he ought to be this evening.

Messer Francesco Pepi writes me that he will be here to-morrow, and requests me to find lodgings for him, which has been very difficult; still, with the authority of the Pope and by putting others to inconvenience, I have succeeded in finding such as are convenient and reasonable; but it is now Sunday, and I have not yet heard further from him. I mention this to your Lordships, so that, in case he should not yet have left, you may urge him to hasten his departure, as an ambassador from Florence is greatly desired here, for the reasons which I have stated in a former letter to your Lordships.

I recommend myself to your Lordships, quæ bene valeant.

Servitor
Niccolo Machiavelli,

Secret. apud Papam.
Imola, 25 October, 1506.