19 - Piero’s Burial and Legacy

Summary

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