many other officers of the Gascons and Picards, which nation lost all their glory that day among the French.  But their loss was exceeded by the death of Foix, with whom perished the very sinews and spirits of that army.  Of the vanquished that escaped out of the field of battle the greater part fled towards Cesena, whence they continued their flight to more distant places; nor did the Viceroy stop till he came to Ancona where he arrived with a very few horse.  Many were stripped and murdered in their flight; for the peasants scoured all the roads and the Duke of Urbino, who from his sending some time before Baldassare da Castiglione to the King of France, and employing some trusty persons as his agents with Foix, was supposed to have entered into a private agreement against his uncle, not only raised the country against those that fled, but sent his soldiers to intercept them in the territories of Pesaro; so that only those who took their flight through the dominions of the Florentines were by orders of the magistrates, confirmed by the republic, suffered to pass unmolested.

“The victorious army was no sooner returned to camp than the people of Ravenna sent deputies to treat of surrendering their city; but when they had agreed or were upon the point of agreement, and the inhabitants being employed in preparing provisions to be sent to the camp were negligent in guarding the walls, the German and Gascon foot entered through the breach that had been made and plundered the town in a most barbarous manner, their cruelty being exasperated not only by their natural hatred to the name of the Italians, but by a spirit of revenge for the loss they had sustained in the battle.  On the fourth day after this, Marcantonio Colonna gave up the citadel, into which he had retired, on condition of safety to their persons and effects, but obliging himself on the other hand, together with the rest of the officers, not to bear arms against the King of France nor the Pisan Council till the next festival of S. Mary Magdalen; and not many days after, Bishop Vitello, who commanded in the castle with a hundred and fifty men, agreed to surrender it on terms of safety for life and goods.  The cities of Imola, Forli, Cesena, and Rimini, and all the castles of the Romagna, except those of Forli and Imola, followed the fortune of the victory and were received by the legate in the name of the council.”

The site of this great battle is marked by a monument, a square pilaster of marble, called the Colonna dei Francesi, adorned with bas-reliefs and inscriptions, raised in 1557 by the President of the Romagna, Pier Donato Cesi, on the right bank of the Ronco, some three miles from the city.  We may recall Ariosto’s verses: 

  “Io venni dove le campagne rosse
  eran del sangue barbaro e latino
  che fiera stella dianzi a furor mosse.

  “E vidi un morto all’ altro si vicino
  che, senza premer lor, quasi il terreno
  a molte miglia non dava il cammino.