Florence on May 4, of an illness brought on by
his own profligacy. Only a week before his wife,
Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, had expired, after
giving birth to a daughter, who was baptized in
S. Lorenzo on April 18, and received the name of
Catherine.

The poet Ariosto, who had been sent by the Duke
of Ferrara to condole with Lorenzo on the death
of his wife, arrived on the very day of the Duke's
death, and found that grief for the Duchess was
already forgotten in the greater calamity of her
husband's decease. ¹

Thus all the Pope's schemes for the exaltation
of his family were frustrated. Both Giuliano and
Lorenzo were dead, and the only representative of
the great Lorenzo's family was a babe a few weeks
old. This event naturally created much excitement
at Mantua, and revived the hopes of the exiled ducal
family. But both Federico and his mother felt the
gravity of the situation, and Isabella was above all
anxious to retain the favour of the Pope, who looked
with suspicion on the young Marquis, as the Duke of
Urbino's brother-in-law and the friend of France.
Accordingly, they decided to send Castiglione to
Rome, to offer His Holiness Federico's condolences
on the death of Lorenzo, and see if there were any
prospect of obtaining the office of Captain of the
Church, now once more vacant. At the same time
the Count was to reconnoitre the situation and do his
best for the Duke of Urbino.

The mission was an honourable one, and if the
matters involved needed cautious handling, no one
could be better fitted for the task than M. Baldassare,

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