t with
the contempt which it deserved, yet a contempt which, considering its
nature, asks a certain greatness of mind.

If the libel was true it is almost incredible that he should not have
sought to avenge it, for an ugly truth is notoriously hurtful and
provocative of resentment, far more so than is a lie. Cesare, however,
was not of a temper quite as long-suffering as his father. Enough and
more of libels and lampoons had he endured already. Early in December
a masked man--a Neapolitan of the name of Mancioni--who had been going
through Rome uttering infamies against him was seized and so dealt with
that he should in future neither speak nor write anything in any man's
defamation. His tongue was cut out and his right hand chopped off, and
the hand, with the tongue attached to its little finger, was hung in
sight of all and as a warning from a window of the Church of Holy Cross.

And towards the end of January, whilst Cesare's fury at that pamphlet
out of Germany was still unappeased, a Venetian was seized in Rome for
having translated from Greek into Latin another libel against the Pope
and his son. The Venetian ambassador intervened to save the wretch, but
his intervention was vain. The libeller was executed that same night.

Costabili--the Ferrara ambassador--who spoke to the Pope on the matter
of this execution, reported that his Holiness said that more than once
had he told the duke that Rome was a free city, in which any one was at
liberty to say or write what he pleased; that of himself, too, much evil
was being spoken, but that he paid no heed to it.

"The duke," proceeded Alexander, "is good-natured, but he has not
yet learnt to bear insult." And he added that, irritated, Cesare had
protested that, "However much Rome may be in the habit of speaking and
writing, for my own part I shall give these libellers a lesson in good
manners."

The lesson he intended was not one they should live to practise.

CHAPTER XII. LUCREZIA'S THIRD MARRIAGE

At about the same time that Burchard was making in his Diarium those
entries which reflect so grossly upon the Pope and Lucrezia, Gianluca
Pozzi, the ambassador of Ferrara at the Vatican, was writing the
following letter to his master, Duke Ercole, Lucrezia's father-in-law
elect:

"This evening, after supper, I accompanied Messer Gerardo Saraceni to
visit the Most Illustrious Madonna Lucrezia in your Excellency's name
and that of the Most Illustrious Don Alfon