ifetime of Alexander VI--would not move
against Silvio Savelli in Palombara, nor Gian Giordano in Bracciano,
alleging, as his reason for the latter forbearance, that Gian Giordano,
being a knight of St. Michael like himself, he was inhibited by the
terms of that knighthood from levying war upon him. To that he adhered,
whilst disposing, however, to lay siege to Ceri, where Giulio and
Giovanni Orsini had taken refuge.

In the meantime, the Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini had breathed his last
in the Castle of Sant' Angelo.

Soderini had written ironically to Florence on February 15: "Cardinal
Orsini, in prison, shows signs of frenzy. I leave your Sublimities
to conclude, in your wisdom, the judgment that is formed of such an
illness."

It was not, however, until a week later--on February 22--that he
succumbed, when the cry of "Poison!" grew so loud and general that the
Pope ordered the cardinal's body to be carried on a bier with the face
exposed, that all the world might see its calm and the absence of such
stains as were believed usually to accompany venenation.

Nevertheless, the opinion spread that he had been poisoned--and the
poisoning of Cardinal Orsini has been included in the long list of the
Crimes of the Borgias with which we have been entertained. That the
rumour should have spread is not in the least wonderful, considering
in what bad odour were the Orsini at the Vatican just then, and--be it
remembered--what provocation they had given. Although Valentinois dubbed
Pandolfo Petrucci the "brain" of the conspiracy against him, the real
guiding spirit, there can be little doubt, was this Cardinal Orsini,
in whose stronghold at Magione the diet had met to plot Valentinois's
ruin--the ruin of the Gonfalonier of the Church, and the fresh
alienation from the Holy See of the tyrannies which it claimed for its
own, and which at great cost had been recovered to it.

Against the Pope, considered as a temporal ruler, that was treason
in the highest degree, and punishable by death; and, assuming that
Alexander did cause the death of Cardinal Orsini, the only just censure
that could fall upon him for the deed concerns the means employed. Yet
even against that it might be urged that thus was the dignity of the
purple saved the dishonouring touch of the hangman's hands.

Some six weeks later--on April 10--died Giovanni Michieli, Cardinal of
Sant' Angelo, and Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, wrote to his
Government t