Another misfortune was the death of the great soldier Robert Malatesta, who survived his Velletri victory only fifteen days. He died in Rome, in all probability of fever caused by his exertions in the battle. But public rumour, as usual, spoke of poison, and attributed his death to Girolamo's jealousy of his share in the command of the forces. Such accusations are of interest only as indicative of the motives which the public mind of the time deemed with probability attributable to its great men, and of the deeds which were considered likely to have been perpetrated. He was buried in the church of St. Peter with all honour, "with sixty-four torches and many banners and many standards, of which one bore his arms and this motto: '_Veni, vidi, vici; victoriam Sixto dedi; Mors invidit gloriæ_;' and a catafalque as if he had been a pope."[104] The more mordant contemporary diarist, Infessura, in recording these funeral honours, writes that once upon a time Siena having been liberated from the Florentines by some great captain, the Sienese were at a great loss what honours and recompense to award him. Whereupon a citizen rose and said, "Let us put him to death, and then worship him as a saint, and so make him our perpetual protector;" which was accordingly done. "Now, it is said—not that I altogether believe it," honestly adds Infessura, who bitterly hated Sixtus—"that the Pope imitated these Sienese in the matter of Malatesta's death and the honours shown to his dead body." Many curious indications of the strange disorder and wretched state of Rome during these years may be gleaned from the prolix daily notices of these laborious old diarists. On the 23rd of January, 1483, died "the poor old Cardinal de Rohan, who was robbed in life and robbed in death. For just before his death, Messer Bernardo de' Massimi" (a scion of a princely house!) "broke into his dwelling through the church of St. Apollinare, and robbed it of thirty thousand ducats' worth of richly wrought plate, with which he got clear off to Venice. And when the body was being carried to his burial, the friars of St. Augustin fought with the friars of Santa Maria Maggiore for certain gold brocade with which the corpse was covered, and belaboured each other with the torches. And then there was such a row that swords were drawn, and the rings that the corpse had on its fingers and the mitre on its head were stolen." [Sidenote: ROMAN ANECDOTES.] Here is another queer little picture furnished by the same anonymous "Notary of Nantiporto:"