[51] Platina, p. 389.
[52] A manuscript, containing an account of the lives of several of the pontiffs, which is printed by Muratori, in his magnificent collection of the writers of Italian history, contains the following encomium on Alexander V.
“This pontiff, who truly deserved the name of Alexander, would have surpassed in liberality all his predecessors, to the extent of a distant period, had he not been embarrassed by the insufficiency of his revenues. But so great was his poverty, after his accession to the papal chair, that he was accustomed to say, that when he was a bishop he was rich, when he became a cardinal he was poor, and when he was elected pontiff he was a beggar.”
A little while before his death he summoned the cardinals, who were then attendant on his court, to his bed-side, and after earnestly exhorting them to adopt such measures after his decease as were likely to secure the tranquillity of the church, he took leave of them, by repeating the words of our Saviour, “Peace I give you, my peace I leave unto you.”
In a manuscript volume, which formerly belonged to the house of Este, there occurs the following epitaph on this pontiff, the two concluding lines of which are so uncouth and obscure, that we may reasonably suspect some error on the part of the transcriber.
Divus Alexander, Cretensi oriundus ab orâ
Clauditur hoc saxo, summo venerandus honore.
Antea Petrus erat, sed celsâ sede potitus
Quintus Alexander fit, ceu sol orbe coruscans,
Relligione minor, post ad sublime vocatus.