h one great and splendid virtue was he endowed in the eyes of the
enemies of the House of Borgia--contemporary, and subsequent down to
our times--a most profound, unchristian, and mordacious hatred of all
Borgias.

1 Burchard's successor in the office of Master of Ceremonies.

Roderigo Borgia had defeated him in the Conclave of 1492, and for twelve
years had kept him out of the coveted pontificate. You have seen how he
found expression for his furious jealousy at his rival's success. You
have seen him endeavouring to his utmost to accomplish the deposition of
the Borgia Pope, wielding to that end the lever of simony and seeking a
fulcrum for it, first in the King of France and later in Ferdinand and
Isabella; but failing hopelessly in both instances. You have seen him,
when he realized the failure of an attempt which had made Rome too
dangerous for him and compelled him to remain in exile, suddenly veering
round to fawn and flatter and win the friendship of one whom his enmity
could not touch.

This man who, as Julius II, was presently to succeed Pius III, has
been accounted a shining light of virtue amid the dark turpitude of the
Church in the Renaissance. An ignis fatuus, perhaps; a Jack-o'-lanthorn
begotten of putrescence. Surely no more than that.

Dr. Jacob Burckhardt, in that able work of his to which reference
already has been made, follows the well-worn path of unrestrained
invective against the Borgias, giving to the usual empty assertions
the place which should be assigned to evidence and argument. Like his
predecessors along that path, he causes Giuliano della Rovere to
shine heroically by contrast--a foil to throw into greater relief the
blackness of Alexander. But he carries assertion rather further than do
others when he says of Cardinal della Rovere that "He ascended the steps
of St. Peter's Chair without simony and amid general applause, and
with him ceased, at all events, the undisguised traffic in the highest
offices of the Church."

Other writers in plenty have suggested this, but none has quite so
plainly and resoundingly thrown down the gauntlet, which we will make
bold to lift.

That Dr. Burckhardt wrote in other than good faith is not to be
imputed. It must therefore follow that an entry in the Diarium of the
Caerimoniarius under date of October 29, 1503, escaped him utterly in
the course of his researches. For the Diarium informs us that on that
day, in the Apostolic Palace, Giuliano