The daughter of a Roman pontiff must, therefore, have been the most acceptable consort the tyrant of Pesaro could have secured under the existing circumstances, especially as the popes were striving to destroy all the illegitimate powers in the States of the Church.

When Lucretia saw how small and unimportant was her little kingdom, she must have felt that she did not rank with the women of Urbino, Ferrara, and Mantua, or with those of Milan and Bologna; but she, by the authority of the Pope, her own father, had become an independent princess, and, although her territory embraced only a few square miles, to Italy it was a costly bit of ground.
Pesaro lies free and exposed in a wide valley.

A chain of green hills sweeps half around it like the seats in a theater, and the sea forms the stage.

At the ends of the semicircle are two mountains, Monte Accio and Ardizio.

The Foglia River flows through the valley.