motive--of
which so very much has been made--shall presently be examined.
Meanwhile, to deal with the actual rumour, and its crystallization into
history. The Ferrarese ambassador heard it in Venice on February 12,
1498. Capello seized upon it, and repeated it two and a half years
later, stating on September 28, 1500: "etiam amazo il fratello."

And there you have the whole source of all the unbridled accusations
subsequently launched against Cesare, all of which find a prominent
place in Gregorovius's Geschichte der Stadt Rom, whilst the rumours
accusing others, which we have mentioned here, are there slurred over.

One hesitates to attack the arguments and conclusions of the very
eminent author of that mighty History of Rome in the Middle Ages, but
conscience and justice demand that his chapter upon this subject be
dealt with as it deserves.

The striking talents of Gregorovius are occasionally marred by the
egotism and pedantry sometimes characteristic of the scholars of his
nation. He is too positive; he seldom opines; he asserts with finality
the things that only God can know; occasionally his knowledge,
transcending the possible, quits the realm of the historian for that
of the romancer, as for instance--to cite one amid a thousand--when he
actually tells us what passes in Cesare Borgia's mind at the coronation
of the King of Naples. In the matter of authorities, he follows a
dangerous and insidious eclecticism, preferring those who support the
point of view which he has chosen, without a proper regard for their
intrinsic values.

He tells us definitely that, if Alexander had not positive knowledge, he
had at least moral conviction that it was Cesare who had killed the
Duke of Gandia. In that, again, you see the God-like knowledge which
he usurps; you see him clairvoyant rather than historical. Starting out
with the positive assertion that Cesare Borgia was the murderer, he sets
himself to prove it by piling up a mass of worthless evidence, whose
worthlessness it is unthinkable he should not have realized.

"According to the general opinion of the day, which in all probability
was correct, Cesare was the murderer of his brother."

Thus Gregorovius in his Lucrezia Borgia. A deliberate misstatement! For,
as we have been at pains to show, not until the crime had been fastened
upon everybody whom public opinion could conceive to be a possible
assassin, not until nearly a year after Gandia's death did rumour for