edro Caldes. "What," he says of Cesare, to support his
view that Cesare murdered Alfonso of Aragon, "could be beyond this
terrible man who had poignarded the Spaniard Pedro Caldes...under the
Pope's very cloak, so that his blood spurted up into the Pope's face?"
This in his History of Rome. In his Lucrezia Borgia he almost improves
upon it when he says that "The Venetian ambassador, Paolo Capello,
reports how Cesare Borgia stabbed the chamberlain Perotto, etc., but
Burchard makes no mention of the fact." Of the fact of the stabbing,
Burchard certainly makes no mention; but he does mention that the man
was accidentally drowned, as has been considered. It is again--and more
flagrantly than ever--a case of proving Cesare guilty of a crime of
which there is no conclusive evidence by charging him with another,
which--in this instance--there is actually evidence that he did not
commit.

But this is by the way.

Burchard's entries in his diary relating to the assault upon Alfonso
of Aragon can no more escape the criticism of the thoughtful than can
Capello's relation. His forty horsemen, for instance, need explaining.
Apart from the fact that this employment of forty horsemen would be
an altogether amazing and incredible way to set about the murder of a
single man, it is to be considered that such a troop, drawn up in
the square before St. Peter's, must of necessity have attracted some
attention. It was the first hour of the night, remember--according to
Burchard--that is to say, at dusk. Presumably, too, those horsemen
were waiting when the prince arrived. How then, did he--and why was
he allowed--to pass them, only to be assailed in ascending the steps?
Burchard, presumably, did not himself see these horsemen; certainly
he cannot have seen them escorting the murderers to the Pertusa Gate.
Therefore he must have had the matter reported to him. Naturally enough,
had the horsemen existed, they must have been seen. How, then, does it
happen that Capello did not hear of them? nor the Florentine ambassador,
who says that the murderers were four, nor any one else apparently?

To turn for a moment to the Florentine ambassador's letters upon the
subject, we find in this other Capello--Francesco Capello was his
name--accounts which differ alike from Paolo Capello's and from
Burchard' stories. But he is careful to say that he is simply repeating
the rumours that are abroad, and cites several different versions that
are current, add