Giustiniani, writing to his Government in the spring of 1503, informs the Council of Ten that it is the Pope’s way to fatten his cardinals before disposing of them--that is to say, enriching them before poisoning them, that he may inherit their possessions. It was a wild and sweeping statement, dictated by political animus, and it has since grown to proportions more monstrous than the original. You may read usque ad nauseam of the Pope and Cesare’s constant practice of poisoning cardinals who had grown rich, for the purpose of seizing their possessions, and you are very naturally filled with horror at so much and such abominable turpitude. In this matter, assertion--coupled with whorling periods of vituperation--have ever been considered by the accusers all that was necessary to establish the accusations. It has never, for instance, been considered necessary to cite the names of the cardinals composing that regiment of victims. That, of course, would be to challenge easy refutation of the wholesale charge; and refutation is not desired by those who prefer the sensational manner. The omission may, in part at least, be repaired by giving a list of the cardinals who died during the eleven years of the pontificate of Alexander VI. Those deaths, in eleven years, number twenty-one--representing, incidentally, a percentage that compares favourably with any other eleven years of any other pontificate or pontificates. They are: Ardicino della Porta . . In 1493, at Rome Giovanni de’Conti. . . In 1493, at Rome Domenico della Rovere . . In 1494, at Rome Gonzalo de Mendoza. . . In 1495, in Spain Louis André d’Epinay . . In 1495, in France Gian Giacomo Sclafetano. . In 1496, at Rome Bernardino di Lunati . . In 1497, at Rome Paolo Fregosi. . . . In 1498, at Rome Gianbattista Savelli . . In 1498, at Rome Giovanni della Grolaye . . In 1499, at Rome Giovanni Borgia . . . In 1500, at Fossombrone Bartolomeo Martini. . . In 1500, at Rome John Morton. . . . In 1500, in England Battista Zeno. . . . In 1501, at Rome Juan Lopez . . . . In 1501, at Rome Gianbattista Ferrari . . In 1502, at Rome Hurtado de Mendoza. . . In 1502, in Spain Gianbattista Orsini. . . In 1503, at Rome Giovanni Michieli. . . In 1503, at Rome Giovanni Borgia (Seniore). . In 1503, at Rome Federico Casimir . . . In 1503, in Poland Now, search as you will, not only such contemporary records as diaries, chronicles, and dispatches from ambassadors in Rome during that period of eleven years but also subsequent writings compiled from them, and you shall find no breath of scandal attaching to the death of seventeen of those cardinals, no suggestion that they died other than natural deaths.