ls
and a number of ladies and gentlemen of Rome, besides the ambassadors
of Ferrara, Venice, Milan, and France. There was vocal and instrumental
music, a comedy was performed, the ladies danced, and they appear to
have carried their gaieties well into the dawn. Hardly the sort of scene
for which the Vatican was the ideal stage. Yet at the time it should
have given little or no scandal. But what a scandal was there not,
shortly afterwards, in connection with it, and how that scandal was
heaped up later, by stories so revolting of the doings of that night
that one is appalled at the minds that conceived them and the credulity
that accepted them.

Infessura writes of what he heard, and he writes venomously, as he
betrays by the bitter sarcasm with which he refers to the fifty silver
cups filled with sweetmeats which the Pope tossed into the laps of
ladies present at the earlier part of the celebration. "He did it,"
says Infessura, "to the greater honour and glory of Almighty God and the
Church of Rome." Beyond that he ventures into no great detail, checking
himself betimes, however, with a suggested motive for reticence a
thousand times worse than any formal accusation. Thus: "Much else is
said, of which I do not write, because either it is not true, or, if
true, incredible."(1)

1 "Et multa alia dicta sunt; que hic non scribo, que aut non sunt; vel
si sunt, incredibilia" (Infessura, Diarium).

It is amazing that the veil which Infessura drew with those words should
have been pierced--not indeed by the cold light of fact, but by the hot
eye of prurient imagination; amazing that he should be quoted at all--he
who was not present--considering that we have the testimony of what did
take place from the pen of an eye-witness, in a letter from Gianandrea
Boccaccio, the ambassador of Ferrara, to his master.

At the end of his letter, which describes the proceedings and the
wedding-gifts and their presentation, he tells us how the night was
spent. "Afterwards the ladies danced, and, as an interlude, a worthy
comedy was performed, with much music and singing, the Pope and all the
rest of us being present throughout. What else shall I add? It would
make a long letter. The whole night was spent in this manner; let your
lordship decide whether well or ill."

Is not that sufficient to stop the foul mouth of inventive slander? What
need to suggest happenings unspeakable? Yet it is the fashion to quote
the last sentence abov