But in March of the year 1504, under the pontificate of Julius II (Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere) a subdeacon, named Asquino de Colloredo, was arrested for defaming the dead cardinal (“interfector bone memorie Cardinalis S. Angeli”).(1) What other suspicions were entertained against him, what other revelations it was hoped to extract from him, cannot be said; but Asquino was put to the question, to the usual accompaniment of the torture of the cord, and under this he confessed that he had poisoned Cardinal Michieli, constrained to it by Pope Alexander VI and the Duke of Valentinois, against his will and without reward (“verumtamen non voluisse et pecunias non habuisse”). 1 Burchard’s Diarium, March 6, 1504. Now if Asquino defamed the memory of Cardinal Michieli it seems to follow naturally that he had hated the cardinal; and, if we know that he hated him, we need not marvel that, out of that hatred, he poisoned him. But something must have been suspected as a motive for his arrest in addition to the slanders he was uttering, otherwise how came the questions put to him to be directed so as to wring from him the confession that he had poisoned the cardinal? If you choose to believe his further statement that he was constrained to it by Pope Alexander and the Duke of Valentinois, you are, of course, at liberty to do so. But you will do well first to determine precisely what degree of credit such a man might be worth when seeking to extenuate a fault admitted under pressure of the torture--and offering the extenuation likeliest to gain him the favour of the della Rovere Pope, whose life’s task--as we shall see--was the defamation of the hated Borgias. You will also do well closely to examine the last part of his confession--that he was constrained to it “against his will and without reward.” Would the deed have been so very much against the will of one who went about publishing his hatred of the dead cardinal by the slanders he emitted? Upon such evidence as that the accusation of the Pope’s murder of Cardinal Michieli has been definitely established--and it must be admitted that it is, if anything, rather more evidence than is usually forthcoming of the vampirism and atrocities alleged against him.