As soon as his three eldest boys, Giacomo, Cristoforo, and Rocco, were
out of their tutors' hands, in order to get rid of them he sent them to
the University of Salamanca, where, out of sight, they were out of mind,
for he thought no more about them, and did not even send them the means
of subsistence. In these straits, after struggling for some months
against their wretched plight, the lads were obliged to leave Salamanca,
and beg their way home, tramping barefoot through France and Italy, till
they made their way back to Rome, where they found their father harsher
and more unkind than ever.

This happened in the early part of the reign of Clement VIII, famed for
his justice. The three youths resolved to apply to him, to grant them
an allowance out of their father's immense income. They consequently
repaired to Frascati, where the pope was building the beautiful
Aldobrandini Villa, and stated their case. The pope admitted the justice
of their claims, and ordered Francesco, to allow each of them two
thousand crowns a year. He endeavoured by every possible means to evade
this decree, but the pope's orders were too stringent to be disobeyed.

About this period he was for the third time imprisoned for infamous
crimes. His three sons then again petitioned the pope, alleging that
their father dishonoured the family name, and praying that the extreme
rigour of the law, a capital sentence, should be enforced in his case.
The pope pronounced this conduct unnatural and odious, and drove them
with ignominy from his presence. As for Francesco, he escaped, as on the
two previous occasions, by the payment of a large sum of money.

It will be readily understood that his sons' conduct on this occasion
did not improve their father's disposition towards them, but as their
independent pensions enabled them to keep out of his way, his rage