(18)
The silly interpretation of this afforded by later writers, that this physician attempted transfusion of blood— silly, because unthinkable in an age which knew nothing of the circulation of the blood—has already been exploded.
(19)
"...essendo concordi tutti i cardinali, quasi da contrari voti rivolti tutti in favore di uno solo, crearono lui sommo ponteflce" (Casanatense MSS). See P. Leonetti, Alessandro VI.
(20)
"Fu pubblicato il Cardinale Vice-Cancelliere in Sommo Pontefice Alessandro VI(to) nuncupato, el quale dopo una lunga contentione fu creato omnium consensum—ne ii manco un solo voto" (Valori's letter to the Otto di Pratica, August 12, 1492). See Supplement to Appendix in E. Thuasne's edition of Burchard's Diarium.
(21)
Cardinals Piccolomini, de'Medici, and Giuliano della Rovere.
(22)
Istoria d'Italia, tom. V.
(23)
Touching Lodovico Maria's by-name of "Il Moro"—which is generally translated as "The Moor," whilst in one writer we have found him mentioned as "Black Lodovico," Benedetto Varchi's explanation (in his Storia Fiorentina) may be of interest. He tells us that Lodovico was not so called on account of any swarthiness of complexion, as is supposed by Guicciardini, because, on the contrary, he was fair; nor yet on account of his device, showing a Moorish squire, who, brush in hand, dusts the gown of a young woman in regal apparel, with the motto, "Per Italia nettar d'ogni bruttura"; this device of the Moor, he tells us, was a rebus or pun upon the word "moro," which also means the mulberry, and was so meant by Lodovico. The mulberry burgeons at the end of winter and blossoms very early. Thus Lodovico symbolized his own prudence and readiness to seize opportunity betimes.
(24)
Ferdinand Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia.
(25)
See, inter alia, the letters of Alfonso d'Este and Giovanni Gonzaga on her death, quoted in Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia.
(26)
"Et multa alia dicta sunt; que hic non scribo, que aut non sunt; vel si sunt, incredibilia" (Infessura, Diarium).
(27)
La Vie de Cesar Borgia.
(28)
Thus in the matter of the fifty silver cups tossed by the Pope into the ladies' laps, "sinum" is the word employed by Infessura—a word which has too loosely been given its general translation of "bosom," ignoring that it equally means "lap" and that "lap" it obviously means in this instance. M. Yriarte, however, goes a step further, and prefers to translate it as "corsage," which at once, and unpleasantly, falsifies the picture; and he adds matter to dot the I's to an extent certainly not warranted even by Infessura.
(29)
See Corlo, Storia di Milano, and Lodovico's letter to Charles VIII, quoted therein, lib. vii.
(30)
In Mem. Storiche dei Monarchi Ottomani.
(31)
