where lay awaiting him the corpse of his
friend the Duke of Gandia; and there was now no more talk of the young
cardinal, high as his rank had been, than if he had never existed. Thus
in gloom and silence passed away all those who were swept to destruction
by the ambition of that terrible trio, Alexander, Lucrezia, and Caesar.

Almost at the same time Rome was terrified by another murder. Don
Giovanni Cerviglione, a gentleman by birth and a brave soldier, captain
of the pope's men-at-arms, was attacked one evening by the sbirri, as he
was on his way home from supping with Dan Elisio Pignatelli. One of the
men asked his name, and as he pronounced it, seeing that there was no
mistake, plunged a dagger into his breast, while a second man with a back
stroke of his sword cut off his head, which lay actually at his feet
before his body had time to fall.

The governor of Rome lodged a complaint against this assassination with
the pope; but quickly perceiving, by the way his intimation was received,
that he would have done better to say nothing, he stopped the inquiries
he had started, so that neither of the murderers was ever arrested. But
the rumour was circulated that Caesar, in the short stay he had made at
Rome, had had a rendezvous with Cerviglione's wife, who was a Borgia by
birth, and that her husband when he heard of this infringement of
conjugal duty had been angry enough to threaten her and her lover, too:
the threat had reached Caesar's ears, who, making a long arm of
Michelotto, had, himself at Forli, struck down Cerviglione in the streets
of Rome.

Another unexpected death followed so quickly on that of Don Giovanni
Cerviglione that it could not but be attributed to the same originator,
if not to the same cause. Monsignore Agnelli of Mantua, archbishop of
Cosenza, clerk of the chamber and vice-legate of Viterbo, having fallen
into disgrace with His Holiness, how it is not known, was poisoned at his
own table, at which he had passed a good part of the night in cheerful
conversation with three or four guests, the poison gliding meanwhile
through his veins; then going to bed in perfect health, he was found dead
in the morning. His possessions were at once divided into three
portions: the land and houses were given to the Duke of Valentinois; the
bishopric went to Francesco Borgia, son of Calixtus III; and the office
of clerk of the chamber was sold for 5000 ducats to Ventura Bonnassai, a
merchant of Siena, w