d that, upon being put to the question, they
confessed to the prince's intent to kill the Duke of Valentinois,
adding that a servant of the duke's was implicated. On the 23rd Capello
circumstantially confirms this matter of Alfonso's attempt upon Cesare's
life, and states that this has been confessed by the master of Alfonso's
household, "the brother of his mother, Madonna Drusa."

That is the sum of Capello's reports to the Senate, as recorded by
Sanuto. The rest, the full, lurid, richly-coloured, sensational
story, is contained in his "relation" of September 20. He prefaces the
narrative by informing the Senate that the Pope is on very bad terms
with Naples, and proceeds to relate the case of Alfonso of Aragon as
follows:

"He was wounded at the third hour of night near the palace of the Duke
of Valentinois, his brother-in-law, and the prince ran to the Pope,
saying that he had been wounded and that he knew by whom; and his wife
Lucrezia, the Pope's daughter, who was in the room, fell into anguish.
He was ill for thirty-three days, and his wife and sister, who is the
wife of the Prince of Squillace, another son of the Pope's, were with
him and cooked for him in a saucepan for fear of his being poisoned, as
the Duke of Valentinois so hated him. And the Pope had him guarded by
sixteen men for fear that the duke should kill him. And when the
Pope went to visit him Valentinois did not accompany him, save on one
occasion, when he said that what had not been done at breakfast might be
done at supper.... On August 17 he [Valentinois] entered the room where
the prince was already risen from his bed, and, driving out the wife and
sister, called in his man, named Michieli, and had the prince strangled;
and that night he was buried."

Now the following points must arise to shake the student's confidence
in this narrative, and in Capello as an authority upon any of the other
matters that he relates:

(i) "He was wounded near the palace of the Duke of Valentinois." This
looks exceedingly like an attempt to pile up evidence against Cesare,
and shows a disposition to resort to the invention of it. Whatever may
not have been known about Alfonso's death, it was known by everybody
that he was wounded on the steps of St. Peter's, and Capello himself,
in his dispatches, had said so at the time. A suspicion that Capello's
whole relation is to serve the purpose of heaping odium upon Cesare at
once arises and receives confirmation w