V.
No doubt Guicciardini is as mistaken in this as in many another matter, for the letter written from Spoleto expresses his regret that, on the occasion of his passage through Florence (on his way from Pisa to Spoleto), he should not have had time to visit Piero, particularly as there was a matter upon which he desired urgently to consult with him.
He recommends to Piero his faithful Remolino, whose ambition it is to occupy the chair of canon law at the University of Pisa, and begs his good offices in that connection.

That Juan Vera, Cesare's preceptor and the bearer of that letter, took back a favourable answer is highly probable, for in Fabroni's Hist.Acad.Pisan we find this Remolino duly established as a lecturer on canon law in the following year.
The letter is further of interest as showing Cesare's full consciousness of the importance of his position; its tone and its signature--"your brother, Cesar de Borgia, Elect of Valencia"-- being such as were usual between princes.
The two chief aims of Alexander VI, from the very beginning of his pontificate, were to re-establish the power of the Church, which was then the most despised of the temporal States of Italy, and to promote the fortune of his children.

Already on the very day of his coronation he conferred upon Cesare the bishopric of Valencia, whose revenues amounted to an annual yield of sixteen thousand ducats.

For the time being, however, he had his hands very full of other matters, and it behoved him to move slowly at first and with the extremest caution.
The clouds of war were lowering heavily over Italy when Alexander came to St.Peter's throne, and it was his first concern to find for himself a safe position against the coming of the threatening storm.

The chief menace to the general peace was Lodovico Maria Sforza, surnamed Il Moro,( 1) who sat as regent for his nephew, Duke Gian Galeazzo, upon the throne of Milan.