P. S. And all that I have said to you about my marrying I say for the safety of my life, for you must know that here there is no lack of most honourable matches and gentlemen of note who would be glad to have me and who are urging me to it all day long. Florentines as well as foreigners; and if I would have consented my most illustrious lady aforesaid would have given me awhile ago to one of her household, a Roman gentleman with an income of four thousand crowns, a gentleman of consequence, and distantly related to the aforesaid lady, and he never stops from following my lady all day long that he may get me, and this I only say to your Lordship that you may be well–advised of every thing, and that I do not desire to go to Venice because I lack chances of marriage here, but I only desire it in order to see my home, and for the honour of our house, and that only, for here I am courted and wished for, and there I should have to court and wish for others.
VI.—To the same.
1573, April 22.
... I was much grieved at heart by the discourse between my most noble father and your magnificent Lordship, from which I conclude that he is not at all well–disposed towards me, and that his only wish to have me back at Venice is that he might bury me in a convent, which I will by no means do, for I know for a surety that so I should be lost, soul and body, and I do not choose, as I have often told your lordship, to change from a mistress to a slave; but accepting that match of which I spoke to your lordship, I will leave everything to return to my country and my kin.
Florence, the 22 April, 1573.
Your Lordship's, &c.
Biancha Cappello.
VII.—To the same.
May 1.
... If they (her father and brother) do not make up their minds to settle me otherwise than they have yet done, I shall stay where I am, and shall hold to your magnificent Lordship's counsel, which I see comes from the heart; I only wish, my Lord and Brother, that you should see that I have not failed and fail not to do all that is possible to come home and stay with my family; but if they will not have it I can do no more. I beseech you ... to undertake my defence, &c. ... that they may not think it is my fault that I do not come, &c.