Although Lorenzo had been planning Piero’s marriage to Alfonsina Orsini since the summer of 1486, he was unable to carry the plan forward until November, after the conclusion of the Barons’ War. He described it to Francesco Gonzaga the following March as a gift from Ferrante to Piero, ‘to whom it pleased him to give the daughter of the late illustrious Orsini knight’. With its huge dowry of 12,000 ducats, the marriage clearly represented a gesture of gratitude to Lorenzo for contributing to their victory in the war, in which the Orsini had played a crucial part in supporting Ferrante, not the pope. Virginio was Alfonsina’s guardian after the death of her father, Roberto, Count of Tagliacozzo and Alba, who had been a favourite condottiere of Ferrante’s. So the marriage served to confirm and consolidate the Medici’s bonds with both the Orsini and Ferrante – although initially risking the loss of his hard-won friendship with the pope.1

It was not until mid-January 1504 that Cardinal Giovanni made his first apparent reference to his brother’s death. Concerned by the fate of his commend of Montecassino, which was now in Spanish hands, he explained to Silvio Passerini on 15 January that distress over Piero, as well as ‘a certain indisposition’, had prevented him from replying fully to his letters before then.1 Nine days later, he wrote again to his ‘dearest treasurer’, mainly about Montecassino, but also expressing his amazement that Piero’s body hadn’t yet been found, which he blamed on fra Leo’s and others’ lack of diligence in searching for it: Piero should surely be found if the other bodies had been recovered, and similarly ‘that little horse of ours that Piero had’, which he wanted back at a reasonable price: ‘you know what it cost, apply yourself to the matter’.2