It was the Duke of Ferrara, who was deeply jealous of the Borgia family, and Luke. There was a certain amount of mourning for Borgia's death, but everyone from him to the Este family, with the exception of his eldest son, Alfonso, was relieved and relieved that Luke had chosen to end in this way.

Luke apparently had a very calm attitude towards his death - Alfonso. Esther came in a hurry because she sensed something bad - Lucresia's maid came to him in a hurry, saying that the mistress's cat had somehow died in her litter. Alfonso had seen the cat named Giulio with Luke more than once, it was a large gray-black striped cat with an unusually fat black striped cat, and a human name, and, at times, he even suspected that it also had human intelligence—it could understand Luke, and although it was old, it could teach those who whispered behind his back to slander him or his owner—like knocking over their plates, defecating in their hats, or tearing the lace of their clothes. Luke, on the other hand, loves him like a child of her own, sometimes sharing her food with the cat or her own bed.

It would be a lie to say that the duke's eldest son would not be jealous of this, but to say from the bottom of his heart that he was not so much in love with Luke as he was in admiration of a woman like Luke with his own thoughts and self-cultivation, and in this era, whether it was a noble or a poor, most of them were ignorant people, including his sister the Marquise de Mantua, who was said to be a prodigal and absurd, but how did they know that he did not bother to associate with these fools?

But after he tried to investigate the love enemy he had never met, out of curiosity and suspicion, Alfonso. Esther found that there might be one more person he was willing to associate with, especially since the archbishop seemed to have an unconventional understanding of arquebuses and artillery, which made him almost unable to contain his impulses—it was said that it was dangerous to let his wife meet her former lover, but Alfonso did not think so, neither Luke nor the Medici, as far as he knew, would be the kind of person with a despicable temperament and a bad morals.

But what he didn't expect was that Luke didn't choose him, and he didn't choose Julio. Medici.

She threw herself into the arms of death.

Seeing the big cat who had died of bleeding between his teeth because he had eaten poisonous fish, Alfonso. Esther immediately ran to find Luke, but it was too late. Later, while sorting through Luke's belongings, he found out from her jewel box all the arrangements she had for her holdings - before leaving for Ferrara, she managed to obtain the title deed of the land between Le Pi and Spoleette from Alexander VI, and transferred it to her brother Avery ; The dowry, worth about 300,000 yuan, was all left to her husband Alfonso. Esther; and her savings and jewels, fifty thousand gold ducats, to dismiss the Spanish servants and maids who served her; The jewels were given to her mother, Julia, the lover of Alexander VI, Juan's wife, Maria, and three vineyards and a mine to her and Juan's children.

All the gifts given to her by the people of Ferrara can be retrieved by herself, or she can choose one of the one-quarter jewels she left behind in return.

If there is any surplus, it will be changed to bread on the coming Sunday of Advent and distributed to the poor people in Ferrara.

All her works of art, paintings, statues, relics, etc., are dedicated to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. As for what they want to do, it's all up to them.

At the end of the document, she prayed to God in repentance of her sins and begged for forgiveness – and it was thanks to this text that the people of Esther, after wiping her countenance, were able to bury her in the name of a violent illness, and on the day of her burial, many people came to see her off.

And before that, Alfonso. Este Jean Giulio. The Medici quietly took one from Luke's jewels as a souvenir, but he refused.

"I know you're not going to see her off." The duke's eldest son smiled bitterly: "But don't you even want to remember her anymore?" Although she did do something unforgivable......"

"No, not for that reason," said Giulio calmly, "she has given me the best souvenir." ”

With that, he got up and left, and looking down from the height of the Duke's Palace, he could see a figure in a white cloak and a black regular dress disappearing at the end of the road without hesitation.

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Giulio's return to Rome was unusually timely, for the day after he entered the Palazzo Picromini, the cardinals arrived, and they slowly entered the Sistine Chapel, where the conclave was held, and the craftsmen were immediately busy sealing the doors and windows with masonry that might have been used for private traffic, and the noble princes of the Holy See would eat and drink painfully in the small rooms that had been specially partitioned for them in the church, until they had elected a new pope.

The Romans gathered in St. Peter's Basilica and waited anxiously, although they also knew that the pope could not be elected in a day or two, but the day after Alexander VI's death, his great seal and ring were burned in front of many cardinals, that is, until the new pope was elected, the cardinals would take on all the affairs of the Holy See and the city of Rome, but as in every previous election, there were very few cardinals who really cared about the Roman people, and most of them were busy bribing and being bribed. Threatened and threatened, and traded with each other – it was clear that the city of Rome was about to usher in another chaos.

And there were many people who wanted to profit from this chaos, the French, the Spaniards, and the Italians, the Orsini family, who had instigated the people to storm the Vatican Palace and Castel Sant'Angelo, except for the Caesars. In addition to Borgia, they also plundered all the assets that Caesar had not yet taken, and it is said that they even scraped off the gold dust paint from the portraits of the saints. And in the few days that the Pope has been elected (God willing, if he can), the city of Rome will no longer be protected by law and order, and they will become more and more wary of those who still have some assets, and before the cardinals even enter the Sistine, these thugs have already bought off their servants, glimpsed their path, and waited for night to begin their misdeeds.

But this time, the people of Rome were surprised to find that about 300 well-dressed Swiss mercenaries appeared in the streets of Rome, carrying halberds, spears, short swords and crossbows on their belts, silver-gray plate armor, helmets with bright red feathers, and under them cracked trousers with yellow and black stripes and boots of the same color, they began to patrol the streets from the perimeter of the Vatican Palace, led by two arquebusiers on tall horses.

They were like a strong stream of water, washing every street in the city of Rome, and although they were inevitably met with stubborn dirt, they were all careful to keep a distance from each other as quickly as possible, and in the arquebusier's mouth there was a piccolo whose voice was not pleasant, but extremely sharp and high-pitched—and at the first encounter of a difficult enemy, they would gather together until the bandits were defeated.

This has dashed the minds of many wicked people, who, while cursing the soldiers through gritted teeth, are not immune to asking who is doing these superfluous things - but they know that when one of Cardinal Picromini's disciples recruited these Swiss and arquebusiers to maintain the peace of Rome during the papal election, they could not help but be dumbfounded. The cost of recruiting these soldiers, and equipping them, is probably enough for a cardinal to cast his precious vote, so how can it be wasted here?

Don't talk about them, even those who are protected do not dare to believe it, they still think that the masters of these soldiers will soon come and extort money from them, but they waited night after night and waited for nothing. At last there were those who could not bear it anymore, and took wine and gold ducats to inquire about the soldiers—the soldiers had no need to hide it, and they soon received the name of the good man, and they could not help praying in their rooms: "Let this merciful Picomini be our pope." ”

Perhaps it was the sincere and pious prayers of the tens of thousands of people that after about fifty days the chimneys of the Sistine Chapel rose with white smoke, trumpets blew in the square, and small pieces of paper with the name of the new pope flew everywhere, and the result was just as one would expect—Francesco. Todheaney. Picromini was elected the new pope, and he chose the same honorific title as his uncle's, Pius III.

After the coronation ceremony, after removing the cardinal's red vestment and changing into the "white Christ's robe", Pius III will receive the triple crown, the cross and the key, and the cloak of power from the cardinal's foreman in St. Peter's Basilica, after which he will ride a white horse under a golden canopy, and in the midst of the cheers of the people, from St. Peter's Basilica to the Church of San Giovanni in the Lateran Palace, where there is a long and tedious ceremony waiting for him, all completed. He was truly on the papal throne.

"Who are those two young men holding incense for our new pope?" Every Roman who had the privilege of witnessing this process could not help but ask in their hearts or in their mouths.

One of them had a hair like the middle of the night, eyes like amber, the other hair like gold, eyes like sapphires, looked only in their twenties, with a smile on their lips, bright eyes, and looked at Pius III with admiration in his eyes, and Pius III occasionally turned his head to look at them when he prayed for the blessings of the people—like a triumphant king, watching his heir.