he
men asked his name, and as he pronounced it, seeing that there was no
mistake, plunged a dagger into his breast, while a second man with a
back stroke of his sword cut off his head, which lay actually at his
feet before his body had time to fall.

The governor of Rome lodged a complaint against this assassination
with the pope; but quickly perceiving, by the way his intimation was
received, that he would have done better to say nothing, he stopped
the inquiries he had started, so that neither of the murderers was ever
arrested. But the rumour was circulated that Caesar, in the short stay
he had made at Rome, had had a rendezvous with Cerviglione's wife,
who was a Borgia by birth, and that her husband when he heard of this
infringement of conjugal duty had been angry enough to threaten her and
her lover, too: the threat had reached Caesar's ears, who, making a long
arm of Michelotto, had, himself at Forli, struck down Cerviglione in the
streets of Rome.

Another unexpected death followed so quickly on that of Don Giovanni
Cerviglione that it could not but be attributed to the same originator,
if not to the same cause. Monsignore Agnelli of Mantua, archbishop of
Cosenza, clerk of the chamber and vice-legate of Viterbo, having fallen
into disgrace with His Holiness, how it is not known, was poisoned
at his own table, at which he had passed a good part of the night in
cheerful conversation with three or four guests, the poison gliding
meanwhile through his veins; then going to bed in perfect health, he
was found dead in the morning. His possessions were at once divided
into three portions: the land and houses were given to the Duke of
Valentinois; the bishopric went to Francesco Borgia, son of Calixtus
III; and the office of clerk of the chamber was sold for 5000 ducats
to Ventura Bonnassai, a merchant of Siena, who produced this sum for
Alexander, and settled down the very same day in the Vatican.

This last death served the purpose of determining a point of law
hitherto uncertain: as Monsignore Agnelli's natural heirs had made some
difficulty about being disinherited, Alexander issued a brief; whereby
he took from every cardinal and every priest the right of making a will,
and declared that all their property should henceforth devolve upon him.

But Caesar was stopped short in the midst of his victories. Thanks to
the 200,000 ducats that yet remained in his treasury, Ludovico Sforza
had levied 500 men-at-arms from