e from Boccaccio's letter in the original--"totam
noctem comsumpsimus; judicet modo Ex(ma.) Dominatio vestra si bene
o male"--as though decency forbade its translation; and at once this
poisonous reticence does its work, and the imagination--and not only
that of the unlettered--is fired, and all manner of abominations are
speculatively conceived.

Infessura, being absent, says that the comedies performed were
licentious ("lascive"). But what comedies of that age were not? It was
an age which had not yet invented modesty, as we understand it. That
Boccaccio, who was present, saw nothing unusual in the comedy--there
was only one, according to him--is proved by his description of it as
"worthy" ("una degna commedia.")

M. Yriarte on this same subject(1) is not only petty, but grotesque.
He chooses to relate the incident from the point of view of Infessura,
whom, by the way, he translates with an amazing freedom,(2) and he makes
bold to add regarding Gianandrea Boccaccio that: "It must also be
said that the ambassador of Ferrara, either because he did not see
everything, or because he was less austere than Infessura, was not
shocked by the comedies, etc." ("soit qu'il n'ait pas tout vu, soit
qu'il ait ete moins austere qu'Infessura, n'est pas choque....")

1 La Vie de Cesar Borgia.
2 Thus in the matter of the fifty silver cups tossed by the Pope into
the ladies' laps, "sinum" is the word employed by Infessura--a word
which has too loosely been given its general translation of "bosom,"
ignoring that it equally means "lap" and that "lap" it obviously means
in this instance. M. Yriarte, however, goes a step further, and prefers
to translate it as "corsage," which at once, and unpleasantly, falsifies
the picture; and he adds matter to dot the I's to an extent certainly
not warranted even by Infessura.

M. Yriarte, you observe, does not scruple to opine that Boccaccio, who
was present, did not see everything; but he has no doubt that Infessura,
who was not present, and who wrote from "hearsay," missed nothing.

Alas! Too much of the history of the Borgias has been written in this
spirit, and the discrimination in the selection of authorities has ever
been with a view to obtaining the more sensational rather than the more
truthful narrative.

Although it is known that Cesare came to Rome in the early part of
1493--for his presence there is reported by Gianandrea Boccaccio
in March of that year--there is no mention o