Ferrante began to spy on Pier Luigi and sent reports continually to Madrid. Pier Luigi did not remain passive; on 4 June 1547 he arranged the marriage of his daughter, Vittoria, with Guidobaldo II della Rovere, the Duke of Urbino. He also continued to work hard on the fortifications of his lands. Charles, concerned about the progress of work in Parma, was persuaded to give free rein to Ferrante to organize a conspiracy against the duke. Marquis Pallavicini Cortemaggiore offered support; but Ferrante preferred to rely on his distant kinsman Louis Gonzaga, Lord of Castel Goffredo and Castiglione, and his brother Count Giovanni Anguissola, governor of Como. Anguissola was able to convince Count Agostino Landi, Marquis Giovan Luigi Confalonieri, and Girolamo Alessandro Pallavicini to join him. After Anguissola and others had stabbed him to death, the conspirators hung his body from a window of his palace in Piacenza. Charles V's vicar Ferrante Gonzaga captured the Duchy soon after, although subsequent events led to the return of the duchy to Pier-Luigi's son, Ottavio in 1551. Following the death of his son, Pope Paul met in consistory and had Ferrante accused of the murder - declaring that Ottavio would succeed his father as the new duke and the new Gonfalonier of the Church. Pier Luigi's body was brought back and buried in Piacenza; later the body was transported to Parma by his wife Gerolama Orsini and then to the family tomb on the island of Bisentina on Lake Bolsena. Marriage and family Pier Luigi Farnese had married Girolama Orsini, daughter of Luigi Orsini and wife and first cousin Giulia Conti and paternal granddaughter of the 6th Counts of Pitigliano. They had four children: Alessandro Farnese, the oldest son, bishop of Parma and Roman Catholic Cardinal Ottavio Farnese, Pier Luigi's successor as Duke of Parma Ranuccio Farnese, Roman Catholic Cardinal Vittoria Farnese, who married Guidubaldo II, Duke of Urbino He also had an illegitimate son, Orazio, who married Diane de France, illegitimate daughter of Henry II of France. Letters also exist from Pier Luigi's father, Paul III, reproaching him for taking male lovers when on an official mission to the court of the emperor; and another from the chancellor of the Florentine embassy detailing a man-hunt he had mounted in Rome to search for a youth who had refused his advances. See also Farnese Rape of Fano Notes External links Farnese family tree