and the protocol-book of the Notary Camillus de Beneimbene, 1457 to
1505. Proceedings of k. bayr. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Muenchen,
1872. Part iv.

[72] In the Codex Hartmann Schedel in the state library of Munich.

[73] Piazza (Gerarchia Cardinalizia) states that he saw it as late as
1712.

CHAPTER XV

MISFORTUNES OF CATARINA SFORZA

The jubilee year 1500 was a fortunate one for Caesar, but an unhappy one
for Lucretia. She began it January 1st with a formal passage to the
Lateran, whither she went to make the prescribed pilgrimage to the Roman
churches. She rode upon a richly caparisoned jennet, her escort
consisting of two hundred mounted nobles, men and women. On her left was
her consort, Don Alfonso; on her right one of the ladies of her court;
and behind them came the captain of the papal guard, Rodrigo Borgia.
While she and her retinue were crossing over the Bridge of S. Angelo,
her father stood in a loggia of the castle, feasting his eyes upon his
beloved daughter.

The new year brought Alexander only good news--if we except that of the
death of the Cardinal-legate Giovanni Borgia, Bishop of Melfi and
Archbishop of Capua, who was known as the "younger," to distinguish him
from another cardinal of the same name. He died in Urbino, January 8,
1500, of a fever, according to a statement made by Elisabetta, consort
of Guidobaldo, to her brother Gonzaga, in a letter written from
Fossombrone on the same day.[74]

Caesar was in Forli when he received the news of the cardinal's death,
the very morning--January 12th--on which the stronghold surrendered to
him. He at once conveyed the information to the Duke of Ferrara in a
letter, in which he said that Giovanni Borgia had been called to Rome
by the Pope, and having set out from Forli, had died suddenly in Urbino
of a flux. The fact that he had been in Caesar's camp, and that,
according to Elisabetta's letter, he had been taken sick in Urbino, lent
some probability to the suspicion that he had been poisoned.

It is worthy of note that Caesar, in his letter to the duke, speaks of
the deceased as his brother;[75] and Ercole, in offering him his
condolences, January 18th, on the death of the cardinal, also called him
Caesar's brother. Are we thereby warranted in concluding that the younger
Giovanni Borgia was a son of Alexander VI? Further, the Ferrarese
chronicler Zambotto, speaking of the cardinal's death, uses the
expression, "son of Pope Alexander