negligible.

In the valuable Diarium of Burchard there is unfortunately a lacuna at
this juncture, from the day after the murder (of which he gives the full
particulars to which we have gone for our narrative of that event) until
the month of August following. And now we may see Gregorovius actually
using silence as evidence. He seizes upon that lacuna, and goes so far
as to set up the tentative explanation that Burchard "perhaps purposely
interrupted his Diary that he might avoid mentioning the fratricide."

If such were the case, it would be a strange departure from Burchard's
invariable rule, which is one of cold, relentless, uncritical
chronicling of events, no matter what their nature. Besides, any
significance with which that lacuna might be invested is discounted by
the fact that such gaps are of fairly common occurrence in the course
of Burchard's record. Finally it remains to be shown that the lacuna
in question exists in the original diaries, which have yet to be
discovered.

So much for the valuable authorities, out of which--and by means of a
selection which is not quite clearly defined--Gregorovius claims to have
proved that the murderer of the Duke of Gandia was his brother Cesare
Borgia, Cardinal of Valencia.(1)

1 It is rather odd that, in the course of casting about for a possible
murderer of Gandia, public opinion should never have fastened upon
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. He had lately been stripped of the
Patrimony of St. Peter that the governorship of this might be bestowed
upon Gandia; his resentment had been provoked by that action of the
Pope's, and the relations between himself and the Borgias were strained
in consequence. Possibly there was clear proof that he could have had no
connection with the crime.

Now to examine more closely the actual motives given by those
authorities and by later, critical writers, for attributing the guilt to
Cesare.

In September of the year 1497, the Pope had dissolved the marriage
of his daughter Lucrezia and Giovanni Sforza, and the grounds for
the dissolution were that the husband was impotens et frigidus
natura--admitted by himself.(2)

2 "El S. de Pesaro ha scripto qua de sua mano non haverla mai
cognosciuta et esser impotente, alias la sententia non se potea dare. El
prefato S. dice pero haver scripto cosi per obedire el Duca de Milano et
Aschanio" (Collenuccio's letter from Rome to the Duke of Ferrara, Dec.
25, 1497).

If you know