The French king is pleased to seize Milan duchy, but sends Cesare to hunt down duke Ludovico Sforza, who fled with Catherina Sforza's surviving son Benito. He offers trough Machiavelli to deliver the boy for a safe-conduct, but Cesare kills both, against papal instructions. From Milan, Michelotto takes Leonardo's lover-model to Rome as his own in secret, ignoring it's a stooge of Catherina's master spy Rufio, who has another secret. fatally pest-infected cardinal Costanzo confesses about the Sforza box and commits suicide while his infected palace is burnt down. In Naples, Lucrezia plots, unlike her unambitious husband, against best-placed throne pretender Federigo, who unlike his brother Raphael refuses to admit Paolo's son to court and clumsily employs poison, but may be controlled by papal enthronement privileges.
—KGF Vissers