As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the Papal guards were waylaid and put to death- But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison.For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet.Prince Djem had taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander surrendered him to Charles VIII (1495), and at the end of their career father and son poisoned themselves with the same powder by accidentally tasting a sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal.The official epitomizer of the history of the Popes, Onofrio Panvinio, mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio and Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Cesare took into his own charge--though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to suspicions of this sort.Even tranquil scholars who had withdrawn to some provincial town were not out of reach of the merciless poison.A secret horror seemed to hang about the Pope; storms and thunderbolts, crushing in walls and chambers, had in earlier times often visited and alarmed him; in the year I 500, when these phenomena were repeated, they were held to be 'cosa diabolica.' The report of these events seems at last, through the well-attended jubilee of 1500, to have been carried far and wide throughout the countries of Europe, and the infamous traffic in indulgences did what else was needed to draw all eyes upon Rome.Besides the returning pilgrims, strange white-robed penitents came from Italy to the North, among them disguised fugitives from the Papal State, who are not likely to have been silent.
第37章 THE STATE AS A WORK OF ART(37)（1 / 2）