“Yesterday I wrote to Your Sublimity by Girolamo Passamonte the courier, who arrived here. To-day I inform you that our Lord the Pope has taken medicine. The fever continually torments Him, not without danger. I am informed by a sure authority that the Bishop of Venosa, chief-physician of His Blessedness and a familiar of the Cardinal Giovantonio di Sangiorgio, (or, perhaps, the Cardinal of San Giorgio _in Velum Aureum_, Rafaele Galeotto Sansoni-Riario,) has told his steward that the sickness of the Pope is very dangerous, and that he ought to make the said cardinal hasten hither; which thing has been done.” He adds that the partisans of Duke Cesare, expecting a riot on the death of the Pope, have made secure their property and have taken precautions to prevent ill news from being bruited abroad. This was ordinary political prudence. On the eighteenth of August, the same Orator wrote, “Early this morning, our Lord the Pope, knowing of the danger of His sickness, has received His rites; and some cardinals have been admitted into the presence of His Blessedness. The Viaticum was given in secret; for His familiars try to conceal His condition as much as possible. They say, that the Bishop of Venosa, early this morning before the Communion, came from the Pope’s Chamber, weeping, and saying to one of his people that the danger was very grave, and complaining with chagrin of the inefficacy of some potions which, yesterday, he had administered.... The Duke also is very sick. It has been said to my secretary, _Sir Secretary, this is no time for ceremonies or fine words. Tell the Orator to hasten to inform the Senate of Venice that the Pope_ GRAVITER LABORAT. Also, the same informant said that the Pope cannot live much longer without a miracle.” On the eighteenth of August, Giustiniani also wrote a second dispatch to the Doge of Venice, in which he said: “To-day I sent the latest news to Your Sublimity by Lorenzo da Camerino. After he was gone, Messer Scipione, a physician from the palace, came to tell me that yesterday at the sixteenth hour (noon), the Pope, wishing to rise for a certain need, was taken with a fit of choking, and is in evil plight, going from bad to worse; and that in his opinion His Holiness will die to-night:—and, from what he says, I judge the malady to be an apoplexy. Such also is the opinion of this physician so excellent is his art.” The Orator adds that, now, Duke Cesare is neglected; and is preparing secretly to take refuge in the Mola of Hadrian. Monsignor Burchard makes the following entry in his Diarium, a work of which the original is undiscovered, and copies only accessible to the student. He was perfectly qualified to speak on this subject from personal knowledge; the demise of the Pope being a ceremonial function which he would have to arrange and superintend. He says: