f Guicciardini himself, when he assures us that
Cesare took these forty women for his harem!

It is a nice instance of how Borgia history has grown, and is still
growing.

If verisimilitude itself does not repudiate Guicciardini's story, there
are the Capuan chronicles to do it--particularly that of Pellegrini, who
witnessed the pillage. In those chronicles from which Guicciardini drew
the matter for this portion of his history of Italy, you will seek in
vain for any confirmation of that fiction with which the Florentine
historian--he who had a pen of gold for his friends and one of iron for
his foes--thought well to adorn his facts.

If the grotesque in history-building is of interest to you, you may turn
the pages of the Storia Civile di Capua, by F. Granata, published in
1752. This writer has carefully followed the Capuan chroniclers in their
relation of the siege; but when it comes to these details of the forty
ladies in the tower (in which those chroniclers fail him) he actually
gives Guicciardini as his authority, setting a fashion which has not
lacked for unconscious, and no less egregious, imitators.

To return from the criticism of fiction to the consideration of fact,
Fabrizio Colonna and Rinuccio da Marciano were among the many captains
of the Neapolitan army that were taken prisoners. Rinuccio was the
head of the Florentine faction which had caused the execution of Paolo
Vitelli, and Giovio has it that Vitellozzo Vitelli, who had already
taken an instalment of vengeance by putting Pietro da Marciano to death
in Tuscany, caused Rinuccio's wounds to be poisoned, so that he died two
days later.

The fall of Capua was very shortly followed by that of Gaeta, and,
within a week, by that of Naples, which was entered on August 3 by
Cesare Borgia in command of the vanguard of the army. "He who had come
as a cardinal to crown King Federigo, came now as a condottiero to
depose him."

Federigo offered to surrender to the French all the fortresses that
still held for him, on condition that he should have safe-conduct to
Ischia and liberty to remain there for six months. This was agreed, and
Federigo was further permitted to take with him his moveable possessions
and his artillery, which latter, however, he afterwards sold to the
Pope.

Thus the last member of the House of Aragon to sit upon the throne of
Naples took his departure, accompanied by the few faithful ones who
loved him well enough to follow him into