Yet victory had rarely crowned his brows with laurels.

Imitating the cautious tactics of Braccio, and emulating the fame of Fabius Cunctator, he reduced the art of war to a system of manoeuvres, and rarely risked his fortune in the field.

It was chiefly due to his dilatory movements that the disaster of the Sack of Rome was not averted.

He had been expelled by Leo X.from his duchy to make room for Lorenzo de'Medici, and report ran that a secret desire to witness the humiliation of a Medicean Pontiff caused him to withhold his forces from attacking the tumultuary troops of Bourbon.

Francesco Maria was a man of violent temper; nineteen years before, he had murdered the Pope's Legate, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, with his dagger, in the open streets of Bologna.