advanced and enriched for the love which He had borne to his mother. That is the only rational explanation of certain mysteries which, otherwise, remain inexplicable. The proposal of Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) had many recommendations. The lax and feeble government of the late Pope, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, had played havoc with order in the vast domain of Umbria, of the Mark of Ancona, of the Romagna, that splendid realm in north-eastern Italy verging on the Adriatic Sea. A few strong men, tyrants of petty fiefs, threw off allegiance to the Pope as their Over-Lord. Don Oliverotto da Fermo, a brigand of the worst kind, made himself Tyrant of Fermo by the simple process of assassinating his uncle, Don Giovanni Fogliani, and all the chief citizens, at a banquet. Don Vitellozzo Vitelli garrisoned Citta di Castello, Don Paolo Orsini was fortified at Sinigaglia, Madonna Caterina Sforza-Riario at Imola and Forli, the Oddi and Baglioni at Perugia, the Manfredi at Faenza, the Varani at Camerino, the Bentivogli at Bologna. Safe in their strongholds these Tyrants paid no dues, no feudal tribute to their Lord Paramount. From time to time they sallied forth with armed condottieri to replenish their stores from the pillage of towns and villages. The province was ravaged from end to end by their excesses. In the Library of San Marco at Venice may be read letters (Lat. Cl. x. 176) which report on the condition of Umbria when the Lord Alexander P.P. VI began His reign; a condition of horror unspeakable, which He was determined to abolish. To this end, He had sent Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) as Apostolic Legate into Umbria, in the summer of 1497, just a month after the murder of the Duke of Gandia. The Legate went unarmed save by his sacred office, and with too small an escort for offence. The idea was to test the moral authority of the Suzerain of Umbria, the Roman Pontiff, in a place where the civil power practically was helpless, and where a man’s life depended only on the fear which he inspired. On the day of his arrival at Narni, the sixteenth of July 1497, Cardinal Cesare already had formed an opinion which he communicated to the Pope’s Holiness in these words: “It is very necessary to provide me with an army against these kakodaimones; for they go not out by holy water.”[32] The brigand Don Bartolomeo d’Alviano seized a town belonging to the Pope in despite of the Legate, and sacked it before his face. Cardinal Cesare summoned him to keep the peace: he refused; and matters went from bad to worse. “They offend as they did at first, and will not hearken unto my commandments”;[33] he wrote to the Pope eleven days later.