The Borgia made a majestic and imposing Pope; he was crowned August 26, 1492, with the greatest pomp and magnificence. Never before since the days of the Empire had Rome beheld such pageants. When the Pope, half dead with fatigue, reached the Lateran he fainted; and again when he took his seat on the throne, he swooned, his head falling on Riario’s shoulder. Guicciardini says Italy’s two greatest misfortunes were Lorenzo de’ Medici’s death and Rodrigo Borgia’s accession to the papacy. * * * * * The Borgias were vicious, shrewd, intellectual, and perspicacious, and possessed of indomitable will. They were endowed with the mental and physical force which wins success and often hatred. [Illustration: POPE ALEXANDER VI. _From a fresco by Pinturicchio._ To face p. 52.] Securing possession of the papal office at a time when all men were greedy for power; building up principalities and advancing the family interests and at the same time enhancing the Spanish influence in the Holy See and throughout Italy, their enemies minimised their virtues and magnified their vices. They were charged with all sorts of hideous crimes, some of which they undoubtedly committed, and some, of which they certainly were innocent. Their hostile contemporaries spread reports of their evil deeds throughout Christendom, and the charges made against them in their lifetime have been repeated by historians down to the present day. Again, the Borgias have been judged, not in connection with their age and their contemporaries, but as isolated creatures, or by modern standards of ethics. Caesar Borgia has been described as a ravening wolf among a flock of sheep, whereas, as Medin well says,[7] he was merely a wolf battling with other wolves, with this difference, that while he possessed the same greediness, ferocity, and ambition, he surpassed them all in the vastness of his projects and in the unshakable determination with which he carried them out. To judge the Borgias by present standards is manifestly unjust. The character of the Papacy has changed; Alexander VI. was merely a temporal prince with certain sacerdotal functions. He used his great office for the advancement of himself, his family, and his followers, as other Popes of his epoch did, but more consistently, more skilfully. Like other potentates of the day, he had his mistresses, whom he did not hesitate to introduce into the Vatican, and his numerous bastards, whom he publicly acknowledged.