urces from which the history of the House of Borgia has been
culled are not to be examined in a preface. They are too numerous,
and they require too minute and individual a consideration that their
precise value and degree of credibility may be ascertained. Abundantly
shall such examination be made in the course of this history, and in
a measure as the need arises to cite evidence for one side or for the
other shall that evidence be sifted.

Never, perhaps, has anything more true been written of the Borgias and
their history than the matter contained in the following lines of Rawdon
Brown in his Ragguagli sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Marino Sanuto: "It
seems to me that history has made use of the House of Borgia as of
a canvas upon which to depict the turpitudes of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries."

Materials for the work were very ready to the hand; and although they
do not signally differ from the materials out of which the histories
of half a dozen Popes of the same epoch might be compiled, they are far
more abundant in the case of the Borgia Pope, for the excellent reason
that the Borgia Pope detaches from the background of the Renaissance far
more than any of his compeers by virtue of his importance as a political
force.

In this was reason to spare for his being libelled and lampooned even
beyond the usual extravagant wont. Slanders concerning him and his son
Cesare were readily circulated, and they will generally be found
to spring from those States which had most cause for jealousy and
resentment of the Borgia might--Venice, Florence, and Milan, amongst
others.

No rancour is so bitter as political rancour--save, perhaps, religious
rancour, which we shall also trace; no warfare more unscrupulous or more
prone to use the insidious weapons of slander than political warfare.
Of this such striking instances abound in our own time that there can
scarce be the need to labour the point. And from the form taken by such
slanders as are circulated in our own sedate and moderate epoch may be
conceived what might be said by political opponents in a fierce age that
knew no pudency and no restraint. All this in its proper place shall be
more closely examined.

For many of the charges brought against the House of Borgia some
testimony exists; for many others--and these are the more lurid,
sensational, and appalling covering as they do rape and murder,
adultery, incest, and the sin of the Cities of the Plain--no sing