In January 1495, the Pope, terrified by the violence of the French troops, left his splendid painted suite in the Vatican and shut himself up in Sant' Angelo, where he remained while the French army sacked the city. Finally, a treaty was concluded by which Alexander ceded many of his possessions, and surrendered Prince Djem, while the king promised to recognise him as Pope, and to defend his rights, thus delivering him from his most imminent danger. The meeting of the Pope and king was arranged to take place, as if by accident, in the garden of the fortress. Charles knelt, and Alexander embraced him. The Pope bestowed the Cardinal's hat on Briçonnet, a favourite of the king. On January 19th a Consistory was held, at which the king kissed the hand and foot of the Vicar of Christ, and did that formal homage which he had hitherto refused to render. Alexander celebrated a solemn Mass of reconciliation in St. Peter's, and the king acted as thurifer. On January 12th, the red hat was given to another noble of France, and on the 25th, the Pope, accompanied by Prince Djem, rode with the king in a public procession through Rome, upon which Charles departed, bent on the conquest of Naples. Having accomplished this, he was back in Rome in June, upon which Alexander fled to Orvieto and Perugia, probably taking Pintoricchio in his train. Charles's policy having taken him to the north of Italy by the end of June, Alexander returned to Rome, where he now, hearing of the defeat of the French troops in Lombardy, found courage to denounce the king.
In 1497 the rooms of the upper storey of Sant' Angelo, which Alexander at this time strongly fortified, were destroyed by an explosion of powder. They were rebuilt as quickly as possible, and the time of danger being over, Pintoricchio was again called for to immortalise the events of the last two years. There is no doubt (says Gregorovius) that Pintoricchio was in Rome at the time of Charles's entry, and was an eyewitness of that and other stirring scenes.[28] Vasari says[29] that Pintoricchio painted a number of rooms in the Castel Sant' Angelo, with grotesques, but the little tower in the garden was adorned with the history of Pope Alexander, and there could be descried Isabella, the Catholic Queen, Niccolo Orsino, Count of Pitigliano, Gianiacomo Trivulzio, and many other relatives and friends of the Pope, and in particular, Cæsar Borgia, with his brother and sister, and many celebrated persons of the time. The garden tower has been pulled down, and in the upper rooms only a fragment of decoration remains, a shield supported by children in Pintoricchio's favourite manner. We are, however, indebted to Lorenzo Behaim, who for twenty-two years was the Pope's major-domo, for a list of the subjects painted in the pleasure house.[30]