exile; amongst these was that
poet Sanazzaro, who, to avenge the wrong suffered by the master whom he
loved, was to launch his terrible epigrams against Alexander, Cesare,
and Lucrezia, and by means of those surviving verses enable the enemies
of the House of Borgia to vilify their memories through centuries to
follow.

Federigo's captains Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna, upon being ransomed,
took their swords to Gonzalo de Cordoba, hoping for the day when they
might avenge upon the Borgia the ruin which, even in this Neapolitan
conquest they attributed to the Pope and his son.

And here, so far as Naples is concerned, closes the history of the House
of Aragon. In Italy it was extinct; and it was to become so, too, in
Spain within the century.

CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER TO SILVIO SAVELLI

By September 15 Cesare was back in Rome, the richer in renown, in French
favour, and in a matter of 40,000 ducats, which is estimated as the
total of the sums paid him by France and Spain for the support which his
condotta had afforded them.

During his absence two important events had taken place: the betrothal
of his widowed sister Lucrezia to Alfonso d'Este, son of Duke Ercole of
Ferrara, and the publication of the Bull of excommunication (of August
20) against the Savelli and Colonna in consideration of all that they
had wrought against the Holy See from the pontificate of Sixtus IV
to the present time. By virtue of that Bull the Pope ordered the
confiscation of the possessions of the excommunicated families, whilst
the Caetani suffered in like manner at the same time.

These possessions were divided into two parts, and by the Bull of
September 17 they were bestowed, one upon Lucrezia's boy Roderigo, and
with them the title of Duke of Sermoneta; the other to a child, Giovanni
Borgia (who is made something of a mystery) with the title of Duke of
Nepi and Palestrina.

The entire proceeding is undoubtedly open to grave censure, since the
distribution of the confiscated fiefs subjects to impeachment the purity
of the motives that prompted this confiscation. It was on the part
of Alexander a gross act of nepotism, a gross abuse of his pontifical
authority; but there is, at least, this to be said, that in perpetrating
it he was doing no more than in his epoch it was customary for Popes to
do. Alexander, it may be said again in this connection, was part of a
corrupt system, not the corrupter of a pure one.

Touching the boy G