II., Duke of Urbania and Count of Montemurlo; the Grand Duke of Tuscany
and the Venetians secretly promised assistance, but only if Robert were
able to assert his rights by main force. Little by little, one town
after the other of the Duchy went over to Robert, and Medea da Carpi
found herself surrounded in the mountain citadel of Urbania like a
scorpion surrounded by flames. (This simile is not mine, but belongs to
Raffaello Gualterio, historiographer to Robert II.) But, unlike the
scorpion, Medea refused to commit suicide. It is perfectly marvelous
how, without money or allies, she could so long keep her enemies at
bay; and Gualterio attributes this to those fatal fascinations which
had brought Pico and Stimigliano to their deaths, which had turned the
once honest Guidalfonso into a villain, and which were such that, of
all her lovers, not one but preferred dying for her, even after he had
been treated with ingratitude and ousted by a rival; a faculty which
Messer Raffaello Gualterio clearly attributed to hellish connivance.

At last the ex-Cardinal Robert succeeded, and triumphantly entered
Urbania in November 1579. His accession was marked by moderation and
clemency. Not a man was put to death, save Oliverotto da Narni, who
threw himself on the new Duke, tried to stab him as he alighted at the
palace, and who was cut down by the Duke's men, crying, "Orsini,
Orsini! Medea, Medea! Long live Duke Bartolommeo!" with his dying
breath, although it is said that the Duchess had treated him with
ignominy. The little Bartolommeo was sent to Rome to the Orsinis; the
Duchess, respectfully confined in the left wing of the palace.

It is said that she haughtily requested to see the new Duke, but that
he shook his head, and, in his priest's fashion, quoted a verse about
Ulysses and the Sirens; and it is remarkable that he persistently
refused to see her, abruptly leaving his chamber one day that she had