My lord, if I had foreseen in what a position I was to be placed I would sooner have eaten the straw under my body than have entered into such an agreement.

I cast myself in your arms.

I beg your Excellency not to desert me, but to give me help, favor, and advice how to resolve the difficulty in which I am placed, so that I may remain a good servant of your Excellency.

Preserve for me the position and the little nest which, thanks to the mercy of Milan, my ancestors left me, and I and my men of war will ever remain at the service of your Excellency.
GIOVANNI SFORZA.
ROME, _April, 1494_.
The letter plainly discloses other and deeper concerns of the writer; such, for example, as the future possession of his domain of Pesaro.

The Pope's plans to destroy all the little tyrannies and fiefs in the States of the Church had already been clearly revealed.[31] Shortly after this, April 23d, Cardinal della Rovere slipped away from Ostia and into France to urge Charles VIII to invade Italy, not to attack Naples, but to bring this simoniacal pope before a council and depose him.
At the beginning of July Ascanio Sforza, now openly at strife with Alexander, also left the city.