It is, however, still to be considered that, if Alfonso knew who had
attempted his life--as Capello states that he told the Pope--and knew
that he was in hourly danger of death from Valentinois, it may surely
be taken for granted that he would have imparted the information to
the Neapolitan doctor sent him by his uncle, who must have had his
confidence.

We know that, after the prince's death, the physician and his hunchback
assistant were arrested, but subsequently released. They returned
to Naples, and in Naples, if not elsewhere, the truth must have been
known--definite and authentic facts from the lips of eye-witnesses, not
mere matters of rumour, as was the case in Rome. It is to Neapolitan
writings, then, that we must turn for the truth of this affair; and
yet from Naples all that we find is a rumour--the echo of the Roman
rumour--"They say," writes the Venetian ambassador at the Court of King
Federigo, "that he was killed by the Pope's son."

A more mischievous document than Capello's Relazione can seldom have
found its way into the pages of history; it is the prime source of
several of the unsubstantiated accusations against Cesare Borgia upon
which subsequent writers have drawn--accepting without criticism--and
from which they have formed their conclusions as to the duke's
character. Even in our own times we find the learned Gregorovius
following Capello's relation step by step, and dealing out this matter
of the murder of the Duke of Biselli in his own paraphrases, as so much
substantiated, unquestionable fact. We find in his Lucrezia Borgia the
following statement: "The affair was no longer a mystery. Cesare himself
publicly declared that he had killed the duke because his life had been
attempted by the latter."

To say that Cesare "publicly declared that he had killed the duke" is to
say a very daring thing, and is dangerously to improve upon Capello. If
it is true that Cesare made this public declaration how does it happen
that no one but Capello heard him? for in all other documents there is
no more than offered us a rumour of how Alfonso died. Surely it is to
be supposed that, had Cesare made any such declaration, the letters from
the ambassadors would have rung with it. Yet they will offer you nothing
but statements of what is being rumoured!

Nor does Gregorovius confine himself to that in his sedulous following
of Capello's Relation. He serves up out of Capello the lying story of
the murder of P