III


In the year 1497 Peter Martyr was designated for a diplomatic mission
that gratified his ambition and promised him an opportunity to revisit
Rome and Milan.

Ladislas II., King of Bohemia, sought to repudiate his wife Beatrice,
daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples, and widow of Matthias Corvinus,
King of Hungary. Being a princess of Aragon, the outraged lady's
appeal in her distress to her powerful kinsman in Spain found
Ferdinand of Aragon disposed to intervene in her behalf. It was to
champion her cause that Peter Martyr was chosen to go as ambassador
from the Catholic sovereigns to Bohemia, stopping on his way at Rome
to lay the case before the Pope. In the midst of his preparations for
the journey the unwelcome and disconcerting intelligence that Pope
Alexander VI. leaned rather to the side of King Ladislas reached
Spain. This gave the case a new and unexpected complexion. The Spanish
sovereigns first wavered and then reversed their decision. The
embassy was cancelled and the disappointed ambassador cheated of the
distinction and pleasure he already tasted in anticipation.

Four years later circumstances rendered an embassy to the Sultan of
Egypt imperative. Ever since the fall of Granada, which was followed
by the expulsion of Moors and Jews from Spain or their forcible
conversion to Christianity if they remained in the country, the
Mussulman world throughout Northern Africa had been kept in a ferment
by the lamentations and complaints of the arriving exiles. Islam
throbbed with sympathy for the vanquished, and thirsted for vengeance
on the oppressors. The Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, aroused to action by