the pope to
destroy all that was left of the Orsini.

This was all the easier because Louis XII, having suffered reverses in
the kingdom of Naples, had since then been much concerned with his own
affairs to disturb himself about his allies. So Caesar, doing for the
neighbourhood of the Holy See the same thing that he had done far the
Romagna, seized in succession Vicovaro, Cera, Palombera, Lanzano, and
Cervetti; when these conquests were achieved, having nothing else to do
now that he had brought the pontifical States into subjection from the
frontiers of Naples to those of Venice, he returned to Rome to concert
with his father as to the means of converting his duchy into a kingdom.

Caesar arrived at the right moment to share with Alexander the property
of Cardinal Gian Michele, who had just died, having received a poisoned
cup from the hands of the pope.

The future King of Italy found his father preoccupied with a grand
project: he had resolved, for the Feast of St. Peter's, to create nine
cardinals. What he had to gain from these nominations is as follows:

First, the cardinals elected would leave all their offices vacant; these
offices would fall into the hands of the pope, and he would sell them;

Secondly, each of them would buy his election, more or less dear
according to his fortune; the price, left to be settled at the pope's
fancy, would vary from 10,000 to 40,000 ducats;

Lastly, since as cardinals they would by law lose the right of making a
will, the pope, in order to inherit from them, had only to poison them:
this put him in the position of a butcher who, if he needs money, has
only to cut the throat of the fattest sheep in the flock.

The nomination came to pass: the new cardinals were Giovanni Castellaro
Valentine, archbishop of Trani; Francesco Remolini, ambassador from the
King of Aragon; Francesco Soderini, bishop of Volterra; Melchiore Copis,
bishop of Brissina; Nicolas Fiesque, bishop of Frejus; Francesco di
Sprate, bishop of Leome; Adriano Castellense, clerk of the chamber,
treasurer-general, and secretary of the briefs; Francesco Boris, bishop
of Elva, patriarch of Constantinople, and secretary to the pope; and
Giacomo Casanova, protonotary and private chamberlain to His Holiness.

The price of their simony paid and their vacated offices sold, the
pope made his choice of those he was to poison: the number was fixed at
three, one old and two new; the old one was Cardinal Casanova, and the