THE last years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well as elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief person to blame, though it was a great pity that such a gifted and superior man as the Pope should be led astray into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid of talent, hesitating before no violence, and versed only in intrigue. Sixtus could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy nephew; all Rome was full of his wickedness, though the excesses committed by the Florentines after the Pazzi conspiracy had damaged their cause and would have added to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not overstepped all bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the matter there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous nephews, Antonio Basso della Rovere, son of his sister Luchina and brother of Cardinal Girolamo Basso, had been married only a year to Caterina Marzano, daughter of the Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante, when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered. Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the latter (whether, as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium of fever, or venting long-restrained malice), instead of thanking him for his sympathy, attacked him as if he were his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently reproached him with various actions which were universally condemned, and with his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint, and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no human favour or power could enable him to escape. The sick man’s excitement was so great that those who had been intimate with him for years could no longer recognise his usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore it all patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and openly expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All we who stood round the bed blushed for shame, and several tried to leave the room.’[255]