ets and
scholars, all of whom were enthusiastic in singing her praise. Ariosto
and the two Strozzi were there, likewise the Cardinal Bembo--who became
a somewhat too ardent admirer--and Aldo Manuzio, and other men of
distinction. Though of commonplace origin, Lucrezia had received the
very best education possible, and she conducted herself with such
propriety and showed such ready wit that she was the real centre of her
literary coterie and gave little, if any, outward evidence of that
immoral and dissolute character with which she had been credited in her
earlier days. There can be no doubt that the corrupt influences which
surrounded her in her girlhood early destroyed her purity of mind and
led her to dissolute practices, but the legend which has grown up about
her, filled with fearful stories of poison and murder, has been much
exaggerated. A sensual woman she was, but she has had to suffer for many
crimes which were committed by her father and her brother, Caesar Borgia;
and while she was undoubtedly bad in many ways, the time has passed when
she can justly be considered as a fiend incarnate.

With the high priest of all Christendom a man whose hands were stained
with blood and whose private life was marred by every vice, it is not
surprising that in all parts of Italy the annals of this time are
tainted and polluted in every way. Apparently, all restraint was thrown
aside, the noblest families seemed to vie with each other in crime and
debauchery, and the pages of history are filled with countless awful
iniquities. Among the Medici alone, there is a record of eleven family
murders within the short space of fifty years, and seven of these were
caused by illicit love! With that lack of logic which sometimes, under
similar circumstances, characterizes the actions of men to-day, these
Italians of the sixteenth century were not willing that their sisters
and wives should debase themselves by dishonorable conduct, no matter
what they might do themselves, and when the women were found guilty
there was no punishment too severe for them. Thus, Eleanora di Toledo
was hacked to pieces by her husband Pietro de' Medici, and his sister
Isabella was strangled by her husband the Duke di Bracciano, with the
consent of her brothers.

Isabella dead, the duke was free to marry Vittoria Accoramboni,--in no
way his equal in rank, for he was an Orsini,--who was a woman totally
devoid of all moral sense--if she is to be judged by her ac