be considered what else Macchiavelli had to
say of Cesare Borgia and what to report of events that he witnessed
connected with Cesare Borgia's career.

Meanwhile, the above summary of Macchiavelli's judgement is put forward
as a justification for the writing of this book, which has for scope to
present to you the Cesare Borgia who served as the model for The Prince.

Before doing so, however, there is the rise of the House of Borgia to be
traced, and in the first two of the four books into which this history
will be divided it is Alexander VI, rather than his son, who will hold
the centre of the stage.

If the author has a mercy to crave of his critics, it is that they
will not impute it to him that he has set out with the express aim of
"whitewashing"--as the term goes--the family of Borgia. To whitewash is
to overlay, to mask the original fabric under a superadded surface. Too
much superadding has there been here already. By your leave, all
shall be stripped away. The grime shall be removed and the foulness of
inference, of surmise, of deliberate and cold-blooded malice, with which
centuries of scribblers, idle, fantastic, sensational, or venal, have
coated the substance of known facts.

But the grime shall be preserved and analysed side by side with the
actual substance, that you may judge if out of zeal to remove the former
any of the latter shall have been included in the scraping.

The author expresses his indebtedness to the following works which,
amongst others, have been studied for the purposes of the present
history:

Alvisi, Odoardo, Cesare Borgia, Duca di Romagna. Imola, 1878.
Auton, Jean d', Chroniques de Louis XII (Soc. de l'Hist. de France).
Paris, 1889.
Baldi, Bernardino, Della Vita e Fatti di Guidobaldo. Milano, 1821.
Barthelemy, Charles, Erreurs et Mensonges Historiques. Paris, 1873.
Bernardi, Andrea, Cronache Forlivese, 1476-1517. Bologna, 1897.
Bonnaffe, Edmond, Inventaire de la Duchesse de Valentinois, Paris,
1878.
Bonoli, Paolo, Istorie della Citta di Forli. Forli, 1661.
Bourdeilles, Pierre, Vie des Hommes Illustres. Leyde, 1666.
Brown, Rawdon, Ragguagli Sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Marino Sanuto.
Venezia, 1837.
Buonaccorsi, Biagio, Diario. Firenze, 1568.
Burchard, Joannes, Diarium, sive Rerum Urbanarum Commentarii.
(Edited by L. Thuasne.) Paris, 1885.
Burckhardt, Jacob, Der Cultur der Renaissance in Italien. Basel, 1860.
Castiglion