In return, Cesare was to relinquish the captured strongholds and undertake that the Pope should confirm Bentivogli in his ancient privileges.

On April 29 Paolo Orsini went as Cesare's plenipotentiary to Bologna to sign this treaty.
It was a crafty arrangement on Bentivogli's part, for, over and above the pacification of Cesare and the advantage of an alliance with him, he gained as a result the alliance also of those famous condottieri Vitelli and Orsini, both bitter enemies of Florence--the latter intent upon the restoration of the Medici, the former impatient to avenge upon the Signory the execution of his brother Paolo.

As an instalment, on account of that debt, Vitelli had already put to death Pietro da Marciano--the brother of Count Rinuccio da Marciano--when this gentleman fell into his hands at Medicina.
Two days before the treaty was signed, Bentivogli had seized four members of the powerful House of Marescotti.

This family was related to the exiled Malvezzi, who were in arms with Cesare, and Bentivogli feared that communications might be passing between the two to his undoing.
On that suspicion he kept them prisoners for the present, nor did be release them when the treaty was signed, nor yet when, amid public rejoicings expressing the relief of the Bolognese, it was published on May 2.
Hermes Bentivogli--Giovanni's youngest son--was on guard at the palace with several other young Bolognese patricians, and he incited these to go with him to make an end of the traitors who had sought to destroy the peace by their alleged plottings with Bentivogli's enemies in Cesare's camp.

He led his companions to the chamber where the Marescotti were confined, and there, more or less in cold blood, those four gentlemen were murdered for no better reason--ostensibly--than because it was suspected they had been in communication with their relatives in the Duke of Valentinois's army.