n Giuffredo Borgia,
Gandia's youngest brother. Here, again, a motive was not wanting.
Already has mention been made of the wanton ways of Giuffredo's
Neapolitan wife, Dona Sancia. That she was prodigal of her favours there
is no lack of evidence, and it appears that, amongst those she admitted
to them, was the dead duke. Jealousy, then, it was alleged, was the spur
that had driven Giuffredo to the deed; and that the rumour of this must
have been insistent is clear when we find the Pope publicly exonerating
his youngest son.

Thus matters stood, and thus had public opinion spoken, when in the
month of August the Pope ordered the search for the murderer to cease.
Bracci, the Florentine ambassador, explains this action of Alexander's.
He writes that his Holiness knew who were the murderers, and that he was
taking no further steps in the matter in the hope that thus, conceiving
themselves to be secure, they might more completely discover themselves.

Bracci's next letter bears out the supposition that he writes from
inference, and not from knowledge. He repeats that the investigations
have been suspended, and that to account for this some say what already
he has written, whilst others deny it; but that the truth of the matter
is known to none.

Later in the year we find the popular voice denouncing Bartolomeo
d'Alviano and the Orsini. Already in August the Ferrarese ambassador,
Manfredi, had written that the death of the Duke of Gandia was being
imputed to Bartolomeo d'Alviano, and in December we see in Sanuto a
letter from Rome which announces that it is positively stated that the
Orsini had caused the death of Giovanni Borgia.

These various rumours were hardly worth mentioning for their own values,
but they are important as showing how public opinion fastened the crime
in turn upon everybody it could think of as at all likely to have had
cause to commit it, and more important still for the purpose of refuting
what has since been written concerning the immediate connection of
Cesare Borgia with the crime in the popular mind.

Not until February of the following year was the name of Cesare ever
mentioned in connection with the deed. The first rumour of his
guilt synchronized with that of his approaching renunciation of his
ecclesiastical career, and there can be little doubt that the former
sprang from the latter. The world conceived that it had discovered on
Cesare's part a motive for the murder of his brother. That