nd of such matters as it
pleased them to believe and propagate.

That same evening Alfonso's body was borne, without pomp, to St.
Peter's, and placed in the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre. It was
accompanied by Francesco Borgia, Archbishop of Cosenza.

The doctor who had been in attendance upon the deceased and the
hunchback were seized, taken to Sant' Angelo and examined, but shortly
thereafter set at liberty.

So far we are upon what we may consider safe ground. Beyond that we
cannot go, save by treading the uncertain ways of speculation, and by
following the accounts of the various rumours circulated at the time.
Formal and absolutely positive evidence of the author of Alfonso's
murder there is none.

The Venetian ambassador, the ineffable, gossip-mongering Paolo Capello,
whom we have seen possessed of the fullest details concerning the Duke
of Gandia's death--although he did not come to Rome until two and a half
years after the crime--is again as circumstantial in this instance. You
see in this Capello the forerunner of the modern journalist of the baser
sort, the creature who prowls in quest of scraps of gossip and items of
scandal, and who, having found them, does not concern himself greatly
in the matter of their absolute truth so that they provide him with
sensational "copy." It is this same Capello, bear in mind, who gives
us the story of Cesare's murdering in the Pope's very arms that Pedro
Caldes who is elsewhere shown to have fallen into Tiber and been
drowned, down to the lurid details of the blood's spurting into the
Pope's face.

His famous Relazione to the Senate in September of 1500 is little better
than an epitome of all the scandal current in Rome during his sojourn
there as ambassador, and his resurrection of the old affair of the
murder of Gandia goes some way towards showing the spirit by which he
was actuated and his love of sensational matter. It has pleased most
writers who have dealt with the matter of the murder of Alfonso of
Aragon to follow Capello's statements; consequently these must be
examined.

He writes from Rome--as recorded by Sanuto--that on July 16 Alfonso of
Biselli was assaulted on the steps of St. Peter's, and received four
wounds, "one in the head, one in the arm, one in the shoulder, and one
in the back." That was all that was known to Capello at the time he
wrote that letter, and you will observe already the discrepancy between
his statement, penned upon hearsay,