well have taken place. But who will believe that Lucrezia, already the
legal wife of Alfonso d'Este and on the eve of departure for Ferrara,
can have been present as a smiling spectator?"

Quite so. Gregorovius puts his finger at once upon one of the obvious
weaknesses of the story. But where there is one falsehood there are
usually others; and if we are not to believe that Lucrezia was present,
why should we be asked to believe in the presence of the Pope? If
Burchard was mistaken in the one, why might he not be mistaken in the
other? But the question is not really one of whom you will believe to
have been present at that unspeakable performance, but rather whether
you can possibly bring yourself to believe that it ever took place as it
is related in the Diarium.

Gregorovius says, you will observe, "Some orgy of that nature, or
something similar, may very well have taken place." We could credit
that Cesare held "some orgy of that nature." He had apartments in the
Vatican, and if it shock you to think that it pleased him, with his
gentlemen, to make merry by feasting a parcel of Roman harlots, you
are--if you value justice--to be shocked at the times rather than
the man. The sense of humour of the Cinquecento was primitive, and
in primitive humour prurience plays ever an important part, as is
discernible in the literature and comedies of that age. If you would
appreciate this to the full, consider Burchard's details of the masks
worn at Carnival by some merry-makers ("Venerunt ad plateam St. Petri
larvati...habentes nasos lungos et grossos in forma priaporum") and you
must realize that in Cesare's conduct in this matter there would have
been nothing so very abnormal considered from the point of view of
the Cinquecento, even though it were to approach the details given by
Burchard.

But even so, you will hesitate before you accept the story of that
saturnalia in its entirety, and before you believe that an old man of
seventy, a priest and Christ's Vicar, was present with Cesare and his
friends. Burchard does not say that he himself was a witness of what he
relates. But the matter shall presently be further considered.

Meanwhile, let us pass to the second of these entries in the diary, and
(a not unimportant detail) on the very next page of it, under the date
of November 11. In this it is related that certain peasants entered Rome
by the Viridarian Gate, driving two mares laden with timber; that, in
crossing the S