"For how long does the world overlook the inoffensive?"

Ralph Roeder, The Man of the Renaissance: Reading Notes Part XII

In his military campaign to reclaim Perugia and Bologna for the Holy See, Julius II brings virtually the entire College of Cardinals with him as part of his baggage train.

When Castiglione returns to Urbino after his mission to England, he sees the vulnerability of that kingdom of ease and joy: "it needed so little to dispell that idyllic world -- a mere breath of struggle . . . how long does the world overlook the inoffensive?"

In order to free her husband from Venetian prison, the cultured Isabelle d'Este reluctantly agrees to send her beloved 10 year-old son and heir, Federico, to live with the Pope as a sign of good faith and parole.

Isabella's husband, Duke Francesco Gonzaga is "a virile nonentity" who spends most of his time with his dogs. "His animal coarseness, his primitive vanity . . . were a perpetual provocation to the civilized woman he had married."

Isabelle's ambition for her son Federico, on the other hand, is for him to be "a humane and enlightened Prince." Federico was Isabella's "living image, with his silken hair, his innocent eyes, his tender and manly nature; at eight he was already singing Virgilian hexameters at her knee, in a thin, high childish treble." His father, Duke Francesco, had grumbled at this cultured heir, threatening ineffectually "to take the boy over and make a man of him."

In addition to the demand for parole, Isabella sees the advantage of removing sweet Federico from Duke Francisco's influence. When the Duke is released from the Venetian prison, she sends Federico to the Vatican, accompanied by "tutors, a major domo, a lutist" and a collection of holy relics.

Wittingly or not (Julian II is widely rumored to be more than fond of young boys and his obsession with Michaelangelo's art further suggests his appreciation of the male form), Isabella's dispatch of the angelic, 10 year-old Federico to Rome has the result of taming the martial Pope; Julian become Federico's (and, thus, Isabella d'Este's) "hostage" to good behavior rather than the other way around.