They returned to Naples, and in Naples, if not elsewhere, the truth must have been known--definite and authentic facts from the lips of eye-witnesses, not mere matters of rumour, as was the case in Rome.

It is to Neapolitan writings, then, that we must turn for the truth of this affair; and yet from Naples all that we find is a rumour--the echo of the Roman rumour--"They say," writes the Venetian ambassador at the Court of King Federigo, "that he was killed by the Pope's son." A more mischievous document than Capello's Relazione can seldom have found its way into the pages of history; it is the prime source of several of the unsubstantiated accusations against Cesare Borgia upon which subsequent writers have drawn--accepting without criticism--and from which they have formed their conclusions as to the duke's character.

Even in our own times we find the learned Gregorovius following Capello's relation step by step, and dealing out this matter of the murder of the Duke of Biselli in his own paraphrases, as so much substantiated, unquestionable fact.

We find in his Lucrezia Borgia the following statement: "The affair was no longer a mystery.

Cesare himself publicly declared that he had killed the duke because his life had been attempted by the latter." To say that Cesare "publicly declared that he had killed the duke" is to say a very daring thing, and is dangerously to improve upon Capello.