The Borgia Myth [pp. 1-16]

THE BORGIA MYTH.
with complaints against these rapacious barons, and the aid of the
pope, the legal sovereign of the Romagna, wvas continually in voked. The Venetians sheltered the rebel Sforzas, and protected
Pandolfo Malatesta and Astor Manfredi in their refusal to obey
Caesar, the pope's lieutenant. The Florentines, on the other
hand, to save Forli tried to form a league among Bologna, Fer rara, Forli, Piombino, and Sienna. Not being able to contend
against Valentino in the field-for he marched through the Ro magna, conquering wherever he went-his enemies tried to avenge
themselves by creating a public opinion against him by the publication of all manner of calumnies against his family. Certainly
we do not claim that any of them at that time deserved canonizationi, but a historian should be just to them.
Among those who assailed the character of the Borgias most
violently was the Venetian orator in Rome, Paolo Cappello.
He is the chief authority for the charge so often made since, and
repeated by Gregorovius, that Caesar murdered his brother-in-law,
Lucretia's husband, Don Alfonso di Biselli, of the royal family of
Naples. This unfortunate prince was found dangerously wounded on the steps of St. Peter's on the night of July I5, I5o0. On
the Igth of the same month the Venetian orator sent a despatch
home stating that Caesar had forbidden, under pain of death, any
one to appear under arms between St. Peter's and the Castle of
St. Angelo. Alfonso remained ill for thirty-three days, nursed
by his wife, Lucretia. The Venetian states in this despatch that
no one knew who were the assailers of Alfonso, but that suspicion fell on Caesar. The orator knew what would please his
government. In a subsequent despatch in September Cappello
states as a fact what he had recorded before as a mere suspicions
Yet Burchard, who was living in the Vatican at the time, does
not say that Caesar was the assassin. On the contrary, he states
that Caesar denied that he was the assailer.: The difference between Burchard's statement and that of Cappello-or rather of
Sainuto, who "doctored" Cappello's despatches-becomes more
marked when they tell of the subsequent murder of Alfonso on
August XIS, A.D. 150oo. Burchard says:
On the I8th of the month of August Don Alphonsus de Aragon, Duke
of Biselli,... was strangled in his bed.... The physicians of the dead
prince and a certain hunchback who had been caring for him were arrested
The despatches attributed to Cappello are not his, however, but the work of a Venetian
compiler, Marino Sanuto. (See Les Bvorgits, by Clement. Paris, i882.)
* This if we are to believe Sanuto's Dza,zz,; which Clement accuses of falsehood and
fcrgery (Les Borgicis, p. 53).
: Burchard, vol. ii., Thuasne's edition, p. 68.
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