[The Life of Cesare Borgia by Raphael Sabatini]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of Cesare Borgia CHAPTER XVIII 20/27
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In 1503, in Poland Now, search as you will, not only such contemporary records as diaries, chronicles, and dispatches from ambassadors in Rome during that period of eleven years but also subsequent writings compiled from them, and you shall find no breath of scandal attaching to the death of seventeen of those cardinals, no suggestion that they died other than natural deaths. Four remain: Cardinals Giovanni Borgia (Giuniore), Gianbattista Ferrari (Cardinal of Modena), Gianbattista Orsini, and Giovanni Michieli, all of whom the Pope and Cesare have, more or less persistently, been accused of poisoning. Giovanni Borgia's death at Fossombrone has been dealt with at length in its proper place, and it has been shown how utterly malicious and groundless was the accusation. Giovanni Michieli's is the case that has just been reviewed, and touching which you may form your own conclusions. Gianbattista Orsini's also has been examined.
It rests upon rumour; but even if that rumour be true, it is unfair to consider the deed in any but the light of a political execution. There remains the case of the Cardinal of Modena, a man who had amassed enormous wealth in the most questionable manner, and who was universally execrated.
The epigrams upon his death, in the form of epitaphs, dealt most terribly with "his ignominious memory"-- as Burchard has it.
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