To this Giovanni now succeeded.
Cesare Borgia--now aged fifteen--had for some two years been studying his humanities in an atmosphere of Latinity at the Sapienza of Perugia.
There, if we are to believe the praises of him uttered by Pompilio, he was already revealing his unusual talents and a precocious wit.

In the preface of the Syllabica on the art of Prosody dedicated to him by Pompilio, the latter hails him as the hope and ornament of the Hous of Borgia--"Borgiae familiae spes et decus." From Perugia he was moved in 1491 to the famous University of Pisa, a college frequented by the best of Italy.

For preceptor he had Giovanni Vera of Arcilla, a Spanish gentleman who was later created a cardinal by Cesare's father.

There in Pisa Cesare maintained an establishment of a magnificence in keeping with his father's rank and with the example set him by that same father.
It was Cardinal Roderigo's wish that Cesare should follow an ecclesiastical career; and the studies of canon law which he pursued under Filippo Decis, the most rated lecturer on canon law of his day, were such as peculiarly to fit him for that end and for the highest honours the Church might have to bestow upon him later.

At the age of seventeen, while still at Pisa, he was appointed prothonotary of the Church and preconized Bishop of Pampeluna.
Sixtus IV died, as we have seen, in August 1482.