[237] And perhaps of certain Neapolitan feofs, for the sake of which Innocent called in the Angevins afresh against the immovable Ferrante. The conduct of the Pope in this affair and his participation in the second conspiracy of the barons, were equally foolish and dishonest. For his method of treating with foreign powers, see above p. 127, note 2.
[238] Comp. in particular Infessura, in Eccard. Scriptores, ii. passim.
[239] According to the Dispacci di Antonio Giustiniani, i. p. 60, and iii. p. 309, Seb. Pinzon was a native of Cremona.
[240] Recently by Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 2 Bände 3 Aufl., Stuttgart, 1875.
[241] Except the Bentivoglio at Bologna, and the House of Este at Ferrara. The latter was compelled to form a family relationship, Lucrezia marrying Prince Alfonso.
[242] According to Corio (fol. 479) Charles had thoughts of a Council, of deposing the Pope, and even of carrying him away to France, this upon his return from Naples. According to Benedictus, Carolus VIII. (in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1584), Charles, while in Naples, when Pope and cardinals refused to recognise his new crown, had certainly entertained the thought ‘de Italiæ imperio deque pontificis statu mutando,’ but soon after made up his mind to be satisfied with the personal humiliation of Alexander. The Pope, nevertheless, escaped him. Particulars in Pilorgerie, Campagne et Bulletins de la Grande Armée d’Italie, 1494, 1495 (Paris, 1866, 8vo.), where the degree of Alexander’s danger at different moments is discussed (pp. 111, 117, &c.). In a letter, there printed, of the Archbishop of St. Malo to Queen Anne, it is expressly stated: ‘Si nostre roy eust voulu obtemperer à la plupart des Messeigneurs les Cardinaulx, ilz eussent fait ung autre pappe en intention de refformer l’église ainsi qu’ilz disaient. Le roy désire bien la reformacion, mais il ne veult point entreprandre de sa depposicion.’
[243] Corio, fol. 450. Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 318. The rapacity of the whole family can be seen in Malipiero, among other authorities, l. c. p. 565. A ‘nipote’ was splendidly entertained in Venice as papal legate, and made an enormous sum of money by selling dispensations; his servants, when they went away, stole whatever they could lay their hands on, including a piece of embroidered cloth from the high altar of a church at Murano.
[244] This in Panvinio alone among contemporary historians (Contin. Platinæ, p. 339), ‘insidiis Cæsaris fratris interfectus ... connivente ... ad scelus patre,’ and to the same effect Jovius, Elog. Vir. Ill. p. 302. The profound emotion of Alexander looks like a sign of complicity. After the corpse was drawn out of the Tiber, Sannazaro wrote (Opera Omnia Latine Scripta 1535, fol. 41 a):
‘Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sixte, putemus
Piscaris natum retibus, ecce, tuum.’
Besides the epigram quoted there are others (fol. 36 b, 42 b, 47 b, 51 a, b—in the last passage 5) in Sannazaro on, i.e. against, Alexander. Among them is a famous one, referred to in Gregorovius i. 314, on Lucrezia Borgia: