s. Such surely is the image we
are meant to see by Guicciardini and his many hollow echoers.

Turn we now for corroboration of that noble picture to the history of
this same Ferrante. A shock awaits us. We find, in this bastard of
the great and brilliant Alfonso a cruel, greedy, covetous monster, so
treacherous and so fiendishly brutal that we are compelled to extend
him the charity of supposing him to be something less than sane. Let us
consider but one of his characteristics. He loved to have his enemies
under his own supervision, and he kept them so--the living ones caged
and guarded, the dead ones embalmed and habited as in life; and this
collection of mummies was his pride and delight. More, and worse could
we tell you of him. But--ex pede, Herculem.

This man shed tears we are told. Not another word. It is left to our
imagination to paint for us a picture of this weeping; it is left to us
to conclude that these precious tears were symbolical of the grief of
Italy herself; that the catastrophe that provoked them must have been
terrible indeed.

But now that we know what manner of man was this who wept, see how
different is the inference that we may draw from his sorrow. Can we
still imagine it--as we are desired to do--to have sprung from a lofty,
Christian piety? Let us track those tears to their very source, and we
shall find it to be compounded of rage and fear.

Ferrante saw trouble ahead of him with Lodovico Sforza, concerning a
matter which shall be considered in the next chapter, and not at all
would it suit him at such a time that such a Pope as Alexander--who, he
had every reason to suppose, would be on the side of Lodovico--should
rule in Rome.

So he had set himself, by every means in his power, to oppose Roderigo's
election. His rage at the news that all his efforts had been vain,
his fear of a man of Roderigo's mettle, and his undoubted dread of
the consequences to himself of his frustrated opposition of that man's
election, may indeed have loosened the tears of this Ferrante who had
not even wept at the death of his own children. We say "may" advisedly;
for the matter, from beginning to end, is one of speculation. If we
leave it for the realm of fact, we have to ask--Were there any tears
at all? Upon what authority rests the statement of the Florentine
historian? What, in fact, does he say?

"It is well known that the King of Naples, for all that in public he
dissembled the pain it caused him,