Nor is that all by any means.

There is much worse to follow--matter which we dare not translate, but must leave more or less discreetly veiled in the decadent Latin of the Caerimoniarius: "Tandem exposita dona ultima, diploides de serico, paria caligarum, bireta ed alia pro illis qui pluries dictas meretrices carnaliter agnoscerent; que fuerunt ibidem in aula publice carnaliter tractate arbitrio presentium, dona distributa victoribus." Such is the monstrous story! Gregorovius, in his defence of Lucrezia Borgia, refuses to believe that she was present; but he is reluctant to carry his incredulity any further.
"Some orgy of that nature," he writes, "or something similar may very well have taken place.

But who will believe that Lucrezia, already the legal wife of Alfonso d'Este and on the eve of departure for Ferrara, can have been present as a smiling spectator ?" Quite so.

Gregorovius puts his finger at once upon one of the obvious weaknesses of the story.

But where there is one falsehood there are usually others; and if we are not to believe that Lucrezia was present, why should we be asked to believe in the presence of the Pope?
If Burchard was mistaken in the one, why might he not be mistaken in the other?
But the question is not really one of whom you will believe to have been present at that unspeakable performance, but rather whether you can possibly bring yourself to believe that it ever took place as it is related in the Diarium.
Gregorovius says, you will observe, "Some orgy of that nature, or something similar, may very well have taken place." We could credit that Cesare held "some orgy of that nature." He had apartments in the Vatican, and if it shock you to think that it pleased him, with his gentlemen, to make merry by feasting a parcel of Roman harlots, you are--if you value justice--to be shocked at the times rather than the man.