us. For, whilst he
urges the incest as the motive of the crime, the murderer, he tells us,
was Giovanni Sforza, the outraged husband; and he gives us the fullest
details of that murder, time and place and exactly how committed, and
all the other matters which have never been brought to light.

It is all a worthless, garbled piece of fiction, most obviously; as such
it has ever been treated; but it is as plausible as it is untrue, and,
at least, as authoritative as any available evidence assigning the guilt
to Cesare.

SANUTO we accept as a more or less careful and painstaking chronicler,
whose writings are valuable; and Sanuto on the matter of the murder
confines himself to quoting the letter of February 1498, in which the
accusation against Cesare is first mentioned, after having given other
earlier letters which accuse first Ascanio and then Orsini far more
positively than does the latter letter accuse Cesare.

On the matter of the incest there is no word in Sanuto; but there is
mention of Dona Sancia's indiscretions, and the suggestion that, through
jealousy on her account, it was rumoured that the murder had been
committed--another proof of how vague and ill-defined the rumours were.

PIETRO MARTIRE D'ANGHIERA writes from Burgos, in Spain, that he
is convinced of the fratricide. It is interesting to know of that
conviction of his; but difficult to conceive how it is to be accepted as
evidence.

If more needs to be said of him, let it be mentioned that the letter
in which he expresses that conviction is dated April 1497--two months
before the murder took place! So that even Gregorovius is forced to
doubt the authenticity of that document.

GUICCIARDINI is not a contemporary chronicler of events as they
happened, but an historian writing some thirty years later. He merely
repeats what Capello and others have said before him. It is for him
to quote authorities for what he writes, and not to be set up as an
authority. He is not reliable, and he is a notorious defamer of the
Papacy, sparing nothing that will serve his ends. He dilates with gusto
upon the accusation of incest.

Lastly, PANVINTO is in the same category as Guicciardini. He was not
born until some thirty years after these events, and his History of the
Popes was not written until some sixty years after the murder of the
Duke of Gandia. This history bristles with inaccuracies; he never
troubles to verify his facts, and as an authority he is entirely