The Lord Calixtus P.P. III has no share in the evil reputation which has been cast upon His House. The worst that has been said of Him is, that He was obstinate, irritable, and inspired no affection. They were disappointed suitors who so spoke. The Pope’s Holiness used Himself ever gently to the poor and needy, who found in Him a good samaritan. His benefactions to the hospital of Santo Spirito have been recorded. In His will He left five thousand ducats to found a hospital in His cardinalitial palace of Santo Quattro Coronati. His private life was one of rigid piety, simplest habits, apostolic fervour. He left one hundred and fifty thousand ducats in the Pontifical Treasury, which He had collected for the Holy War. But the whole force of His resourceful and masterful character was concentrated upon the Crusade, and the settlement in life of His beloved nephews. On those two points He would brook no opposition. With the violent impetuosity of age, of Spanish blood, He was inflexible, overbearing, inconsiderate, on all matters connected with these projects. All the ardour, and all the zeal, which He devoted to the delivery of Christendom from the Muslim Infidel, was doomed to fail. The Muslim Infidel defiles Constantinople now. But His dealings with His nephews produced more permanent results. Yet “it must always be an honour to the Papacy that, in a great crisis of European affairs, it asserted the importance of a policy which was for the interest of Europe as a whole. Calixtus and his successor[20] deserve, as statesmen, credit which can be given to no other politicians of the time. The Papacy, by summoning Christendom to defend the limits of Christian civilisation against the assaults of heathenism, was worthily discharging the chief secular duty of the office.” (Creighton.) The Lord Calixtus P.P. III died on the sixth of August 1458, in the fourth year of His reign; and was buried by four priests in the crypt of the old Basilica of St. Peter-by-the-Vatican. * * * * * Kindling It has been said that the junior branch of the House of Borja (which originated in Don Ricardo de Borja, second son of Don Pedro, Count of Aybar, Lord of Borja, who died in 1152), emigrated to the kingdom of Naples, where it became naturalised, and softened its name into the Italian Borgia. From Don Fortunio, the son of the aforesaid Don Ricardo, descends Don Rodrigo who had two sons:— (α) Don Romano Borgia, Monk of Vall’ Ombrosa and Bishop of Venafri, A.D. 1300. (_Ricchi_.) (β) Don Ximenes Borgia, Captain in the Army of Naples, whose son, Don Antonio Borgia, married Madonna Girolama Ruffola of Naples, and had issue:— (α) Don Niccolo Borgia, familiar of King Don Alonso I, The Magnanimous, Regent of Velletri 1417, married the Noble Madonna Giovanna Lamberti of Naples, and had issue.... (β) Don Girolamo Borgia, (detto Seniore)....