[259] Panvinius, Epitome Pontificum, p. 359. For the attempt to poison Alexander’s successor, Julius II., see p. 363. According to Sismondi, xiii. p. 246, it was in this way that Lopez, Cardinal of Capua, for years the partner of all the Pope’s secrets, came by his end; according to Sanuto (in Ranke, Popes, i. p. 52, note), the Cardinal of Verona also. When Cardinal Orsini died, the Pope obtained a certificate of natural death from a college of physicians.
[260] Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 254; comp. Attilio Alessio, in Baluz. Miscell., iv. p. 518 sqq.
[261] And turned to the most profitable account by the Pope. Comp. Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 133, given only as a report: ‘E si giudiceva, che il Pontefice dovesse cavare assai danari di questo Giubileo, che gli tornerà molto a proposito.
[262] Anshelm, Berner Chronik, iii. pp. 146-156. Trithem. Annales Hirsaug. tom. ii. pp. 579, 584, 586.
[263] Panvin. Contin. Platinae, p. 341.
[264] Hence the splendour of the tombs of the prelates erected during their lifetime. A part of the plunder was in this way saved from the hands of the Popes.
[265] Whether Julius really hoped that Ferdinand the Catholic would be induced to restore to the throne of Naples the expelled Aragonese dynasty, remains, in spite of Giovio’s declaration (Vita Alfonsi Ducis), very doubtful.
[266] Both poems in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, iv. 257 and 297. Of his death the Cronaca di Cremona says: ‘quale fu grande danno per la Italia, perchè era homo che non voleva tramontani in Italia, ed haveva cazato Francesi, e l’animo era de cazar le altri.’ Bibl. Hist. Ital. (1876) i. 217. It is true that when Julius, in August, 1511, lay one day for hours in a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead, the more restless members of the noblest families—Pompeo Colonna and Antimo Savelli—ventured to call ‘the people’ to the Capitol, and to urge them to throw off the Papal yoke—‘a vendicarsi in libertà ... a publica ribellione,’ as Guicciardini tells us in his tenth book. See, too, Paul. Jov. in the Vita Pompeji Columnae, and Gregorovius, viii. 71-75.
[267] Septimo decretal. l. i. tit. 3, cap. 1-3.
[268] Franc. Vettori, in the Arch. Stor. vi. 297.